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In the secular world, leadership is about power and influence. In contrast, Christian leadership begins with stewardship and serving. Who does God call to leadership? And in what ways is Christian leadership different? Reverend Daniel shares his sermon on leadership as stewardship today.

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Church, today we will be continuing the sermon series on the theme of Christian stewardship and leadership. We'll be looking at selected portions of 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 1 to 21 together and explore what it means for leaders in three areas. One, what does it mean for a leader to be entrusted with the mysteries of God? Secondly, what does it mean for leaders to be aligned to align our lives to the gospel, which will involve suffering? And thirdly, what does it mean for leaders to imitate godly examples that reveal the way of the cross? So the focus is on leadership, but I think it applies to all of us in areas of influence, wherever the Lord has placed us, notably in the church, but also in other contexts, in our workplaces, in our families, to the men out there who are in some way leading the family with the support of your spouse. May the Lord help us to understand the depth of his word today. So the first point I'd like to share with us is leadership. Any kind of leadership in a Christian way means we are called to be servants and stewards of the mysteries of God. And I indicated which is the gospel. So Christian leaders are servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. This is what uh not what I say, but this is a direct quotation from 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 1, which says this is how one should regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. The significance of being a steward brings to mind in the time of Paul's writing, the household steward. In Paul's day, the household steward held a position of trust. In a hierarchical society, the position of a steward was commonly occupied by servants or even slaves. The trust that is given to a steward during the time of Paul is that they may function as they ought to, as servants and slaves. So Paul draws the analogy of a servant and steward in the context of a household steward and applies it then to the believers at Corinth. He reminds them that as servants and stewards, they are entrusted with the mysteries of God. So in the context of Paul and in 1 Corinthians, the mysteries of God is not some unknown mystery, like how we will read the word uh uh when we think about mystery. A lot of times we think about uh some mystery novel or some puzzle we have to solve, but that is not the idea in Paul's time, uh, and it's certainly not the idea in 1 Corinthians. So the mysteries of God in 1 Corinthians are related to wisdom, they are related to God's secret and hidden wisdom found in 1 Corinthians 2 7. So 1 Corinthians 2, 7 uh talks about the secret and hidden wisdom of God. So this is the mystery Paul says that now through the gospel it is being revealed. And this mystery, this secret hidden wisdom of God, is summed up by Paul in a sentence. It is Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 2, chapter 2, verse 2, it says, For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. So the content of this mystery is at the heart of it is actually the gospel. It's about Jesus Christ and him crucified. And Paul uh describes earlier that uh Jesus Christ is to us wisdom from God in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30. And we need to unpack this a bit more by understanding, you know, why did Paul, if you look at 1 Corinthians, the first two chapters, the word wisdom appears many, many times. You can uh uh highlight it or just make uh a notation on on that. You realize that the word wisdom in the first two chapters of 1 Corinthians occurs time and time again. Because in first century Corinthians, wisdom was a loaded word and it's a well and wisdom is understood as a well-articulated worldview that makes sense of life and ordered the choices, values, and priorities of those who adopted it. The wise man in the time of Paul in Corinth is one that is able to make sense out of life and death and the universe. And there were very there were many itinerant uh preachers, charismatic preachers, uh Sophists and philosophers that were apply their trait and show off their wisdom, their knowledge, their understanding, their well-ordered life. However, when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, they were he was addressing an issue in the church where they have become overly concerned with the wisdom of the world, such that they fail to understand the wisdom that comes from the cross. It's a bit like us Christians today. Uh, we come to church on Sunday, but a lot of times in the rest of the week we live by the wisdom of the world or the wisdom of our own mind. You know, so there's a fine line between wisdom from God and wisdom from ourselves. So we need to be able to differentiate and try to understand what it means to embody the wisdom of God. And I'd like to suggest to us that the text before us today shows us what the wisdom of God actually looks like. So Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 18 to 25 speaks of the relationship of the cross and Christ crucified, comparing it with the wisdom of the age. And he says this, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 18, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Reading on from verse 20, where is the one who is wise? Where's the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom. Paul goes on to the heart of it. He says, But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than man. What Paul is saying that during the time of when he wrote uh 1 Corinthians, no wisdom from the world, from the Greeks, even from the Jews, had developed a system of thinking where the cross stands at the very center of life. No wise man, no scribe, no debater had anticipated good news would come through a crucified Christ. So God has, in the words of 1 Corinthians 1 20, made foolish the wisdom of the world. Paul then illustrates this further in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 26 to 29 by revealing the nature of the gospel when it first came to the believers in Corinthians, and perhaps to many of us as we hear the text being read, we can reflect about our own calling when we first encountered Christ and the gospel. This is what Paul says the nature of the gospel, the essence of how we receive the gospel in the words of 1 Corinthians 1, verse 26 to 29. Paul says, For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. The three words being described here by Paul about the nature of the gospel. The nature of the saving gospel is this, which we may not like to hear this because it's somehow not very congruent to our thinking. That when we first encountered the gospel, God actually chose the foolish, not the wise. God chose the weak, not the strong. He chose the low and despised, not those who are strong and powerful. So the system of the cross, I would I would say also goes against the system of the world we live in today, especially in a first world context like Singapore, where a lot of times we measure ourselves according to our performance, our KPI, or our own ability to live out the Christian life or follow Jesus. That's why sometimes we don't feel adequate, we don't feel that we are good enough to serve the Lord, we don't feel that we are of the right caliber. But if you think about it, think about your own story. Think about the gospel. When it first came to you, were you powerful? Were you did you have it all together? Uh uh did you score uh uh perfect grades uh before God accepted you? Uh or did you accumulate enough wealth before God allowed you into the kingdom of God? So the gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified is about God in Christ confounding human wisdom and revealing what is true wisdom found in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Let me move on to my main point in this first point, which is uh leadership means being servants and stewards of the mysteries of God. So this is my main point. The word of the cross and the gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified comes to us precisely when we were foolish, when we were weak, when we were low and despised. But the irony of it all is that when we embrace it in weakness, in so-called our human foolishness, when we have nothing to offer God, when we embrace it, we experience the power of the gospel in our life to effect change and transform our lives. That is why in the time of weakness we experience God's power. In a time of lack, we see God's sufficiency in our lives. And the pattern of this is not set by me or any of the pastors in the world, but it's set by Jesus Himself. Because 2 Corinthians 13 verse 4 tells us Jesus Christ Himself was crucified in weakness. He was crucified in weakness. The cross shows weakness to its extremities because Jesus, we we just had ended Good Friday, was crucified as a rebel and as a cursed slave. So what has what wisdom is there according to the eyes of the world that we worship a God that has been crucified as a rebel? Um during the time of the Roman Empire, only rebels or thieves or slaves get crucified. Even the Romans uh elite, the Roman elite do not face such death penalty that is so shaming, so disgraceful. So Jesus Christ, in full view of the world on Good Friday, was crucified in weakness as a rebel and as a cursed slave, as Deuteronomy reminds us, curse is the one that is crucified on the tree, on the cross. Yet 2 Corinthians 13 4 tells us, yet he lives by God's power. Right? If you can notice that, you go and refer to it and reflect further on it after the service. 2 Corinthians 13:4. Christ himself was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God's power. That is the dynamism of the gospel we are talking about. My first encounter with the gospel actually caught me unaware. You know, I didn't have a very dramatic uh uh conversion story like Paul or Saul on his road to Damascus. I'm sure some of us have, and I'm I'm very glad to one day to uh have coffee with you or tea with you and to hear your story because God works in various ways, and a lot of times He sometimes He will catch us unaware. The gospel sometimes comes to us when we are not even aware of it. We experience it, right? And we thank God for it. So my first encounter was some of you may know, so I will not belabor the point and share my whole conversion story, but just snippets of it. I was 17 years old, and what attracted me was to the faith was actually firstly wasn't it wasn't for me an intellectual kind of apprehension that I had all my points and realized that I can prove that Jesus did rise from the dead, therefore I believe in him. It wasn't that because I was 17 years old, and what drew me was the warm fellowship with fellow believers. There's a certain uh draw in the close fellowship that makes you just want to come and support and love uh one another in that close community. And during that time we were just a small youth fellowship, right? And then we experienced the warmness of fellowship, and not only that, there's also a genuine sharing of testimonies that drew me to the Christian faith. So after uh an experience of a camp uh where there was close fellowship and genuine testimonies shared, uh I realized I was there was a visible change in my life. I don't know how it happened, when it happened, but it probably happened after that. Right? So uh my character and disposition changed, and God gave me a fresh hunger for him and for spiritual realities that has not uh stopped until today. Uh a fresh hunger for God and for his word, his truth. And yeah, did I have a dramatic story? Probably not. It's just so normal. You just go for camp, you you know, you you like the fellowship, you you tasted the goodness of God through testimony shared, and then that's it. You know, you experience his uh transforming grace, sanctifying grace, like what we prayed earlier. Subsequently, in my own life journey, I've experienced many times God's enabling power in the face of human weakness. And I see that as the gospel. It's good news because the gospel is God coming to us in human weakness and lifting us up from the Mari clay and showing his power, his transformative power in our lives. So that is the gospel that leaders are called to embody in their ministry and in their lives. So there are many ways, uh, there are many circumstances that I have uh experienced God's uh enabling strength uh through human weakness. So uh some of us, some of you who know me better uh may know that I I don't enjoy subjects that has a lot of computation, like mathematics. Neither am I someone who is very artistic, art, uh technical, it's it's not something that I particularly enjoy. In fact, uh my most uh the subject I most disliked was math and art while I was in secondary school. And these were the subjects that I didn't kind of make it to uh kind of repeat my maths. But however, I didn't rethink my art. I continue to say that I'm in some way uh hopeless at drawing. So don't get me to draw. I probably can't draw anything uh beautiful for you. Right? So, yeah, so I went through that in in uh secondary school and and then I realized I the Singapore system kind of forces you to progress, right? So I ended up in an engineering course in uh poly for three years. So that was a struggle because that's a combination of math and technical work, right? Practical work. So by God's grace, I made it through. Uh uh I didn't age through, but I made it through. I graduated with a uh polytechnic diploma, and and after that, I thought that was over. I said, God, that is done and dusted. Uh I'm not called to be an engineer, I will not be an engineer. So I I thought that was the end of it. So I enrolled myself to the army, like every good uh boy would do. So uh because of uh some medical conditions, uh I was uh uh downgraded. So I have in terms of vocation, I'm yeah, I'm supposed to be in a sedentary, meaning that I thought I'll be a clerk in the maybe in the HQ office or RO clerk, you know, or just you know, wear number three and just uh go through life that way. So lo and behold, I realized that wow, my posting was interesting. I was being posted to be uh a dental orderly, right? So I I was a dental uh medic in the army. So again, I I I don't really, again, as I said, enjoy practical work. But in the three years, uh two and a half years in the army, I've day and night that's what I was doing, you know, uh casting impressions, uh assisting the dentist, mixing cements, uh getting all practical for two and a half years. And so it's God's way of leading me through. And today, uh up to today, I can, you know, if you put me in a dental clinic, uh I can still remember what to do. Yeah, two and a half years of just going through that motion, you know, setting up the tray, uh, preparing the cement, uh, casting impressions and so on. So we are we just do it mindlessly after a while. Right? So, yeah, so the Lord brought me through all that, and I I thank God that it's it's yeah, it's a way of God molding me and shaping me, I believe. So, even in my calling to full-time ministry, there were many challenges, both without and within. Uh, so in terms of without, there were people that were uh uh that spoke to me and said, you want to go full-time, you should maybe spend a few years working in the outside world because of your personality. So I, of course, those were came in as probably discouragement, but it's something that I have to take as wisdom to pray through, right? So uh, especially if it comes from an elder or pastor, which it came from, right? So something I had to grabble with and pray through, Lord, are you really calling me uh to full-time ministry? And of course, the challenge within is the grappling with the call and grappling with your own personal weakness and coming to terms with uh uh God's call, which is for another day. Right? So, what I want to say is that it's a dynamism in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And Him crucified, that as we embrace the foolishness of the cross and of Jesus Christ crucified, we experience his power at work in our lives. Right? So even though we experience human weakness, yet the gospel is such that at the point of weakness, God lifts us. God lifts us up beyond our human weakness and gives us strength. So I'd like us to consider how, my first point, how did the gospel first take root in your life? How did the gospel first take root in your life? And how did you respond to it? The gospel came, must have come to us at some point of weakness in our life. When we were weak, when we needed help, needed God's intervention. And God lifts us up, He raised us up, He gave us a boost so that we begin to soar and experience divine power in our life. So that is the dynamism of the gospel, the dynamism of Paul's life, you know, and the life of Jesus Himself. Crucified in weakness, yet living by God's power. So secondly, as leaders, we need to align our lives to the gospel, which is the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And this will involve suffering, suffering in our lives. So the challenge again for the church in Corinth is they never considered that the gospel will involve suffering. And I'd like to bring you to uh 1 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 8, which says, Already you have all you want, already you have become rich. Without us, you have become kings. And would that you did reign so that we might share the rule with you? What is Paul talking about? He seems to be uh speaking of words uh in irony, you know, in a sense of rhetoric. What does he mean when he says already you have what you want, already you have become rich. Without us you have become kings. Is he trying to be cynical? Uh I think he is. You know, he was trying to use uh cynical language to make it bring his point across. So what happened to the believers in Corinth is that instead of embodying the gospel of God's weakness so that they experience God's power in their lives, instead of embodying the weakness, they thought they have already arrived. They thought they they are already kings, they are already reigning. So they have become smart, uh self-satisfied, comfortable, and proud. Paul says, already you have all you want, with the result that they do not hunger for what they already have not yet have. Already you have become rich, they do not seek spiritual treasures in heaven. Not only that, the believers in Corinth felt that they had already begun to reign. They are already reigning in life, they already have the final victory, and the kingdom of God has already come such that they are on probably cloud nine, and they are so confident of themselves. They were reigning in the kingdom in all its fullness. In contrast to this, Paul writes of what being leaders and apostles in his day looked like. So Paul says this for I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. So again, he's speaking uh uh using uh being cynical, using irony. He says, We are fools for Christ. But you believers, you are so wise, we are weak, but you are so strong, you are so able to figure out your own life. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. And he goes on to speak about his apostolic ministry, about how hunger, hunger and thirst, being homeless, laboring with with his hands and so on, and all the suffering that comes, and he uh he ends it by using very strong words. We have become and are still the scum of the world, the refuge, the refuse of all things. So Paul is saying that him, he and his fellow apostles are still suffering up to this moment, even though the kingdom of God has been inaugurated by Christ. In other words, the gospel, as I said earlier, involves human weakness and divine power. And this is what Paul is saying. We are still experiencing weakness as Christians today. We are not perfected yet like what you think you are. So, as leaders, part of what it takes to lead is to bear up under the weight of ministry from within and without, which would involve suffering. Yet uh in as a yet uh it's uh is ironic because it's only in suffering that we attest to the gospel. Again, the heart of it is the mystery of Christ, which is the gospel, uh, the message of Jesus Christ and him crucified. There's a dynamism working again that in the gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, as we embrace suffering for the sake of the gospel, we experience God's power at work. So, Christian ministry, Christian leadership is about again weakness and power. Weakness in the stress and suffering we go through, but power in the fact that it is an indestructible faith. That's why Paul says we are more than conquerors in Romans chapter 8. We are hyper-conquerors. We are not just conquerors, we are greater than conquerors in Christ. And again in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 8 to 9, he speaks of his ministry that we are hard-pressed in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed. So Paul is emphatic here. He's saying we are heart-pressed, we are experiencing suffering, but we are by no means crushed. There is a power in the gospel. There's power when we experience weakness, when we come to God in our need, we experience his power in our lives. There is a gospel dynamic. So the implications is if we come today full of confidence in our own self, our own spirituality, our own ability, then we will never experience what the gospel is. We may be religious, moral people that keep uh the Ten Commandments to the in the in its minuscule, exacting detail, but we may not know what the gospel is about. So it's possible that we are in church for decades, yet we have not experienced the power of the gospel because we have not experienced the power of being weak before God, of experiencing a lack in our lives. And and we all know, even in uh movements where the gospel has spread, a lot of times begins with a hunger, a desire, uh, a longing for God in their lives, and and and God often comes in those situations. So there's certain invisibility even in the midst of our suffering. So for those of us who are still good are going through life where you feel hard-pressed, you feel perplexed, you feel feel persecuted or struck down, Paul says we are certainly not crushed, certainly not despairing, certainly not forsaken, certainly not destroyed because of the gospel at work in our lives. So there's power, but power in weakness, not power like the world understands it, uh not power to uh dictate to God uh when or we should have our prayers answered, but his power is experienced, Paul says, in the context of human weakness. That's where the gospel is most powerful and most certainly revealed. Lastly, thirdly, which is lastly, as leaders, we need to imitate godly examples that reveal the way of the cross. Despite the biting irony that Paul deployed earlier, he now uh speaks more from a fatherly tone. He says, I'm not writing this to shame you, but to warn you as my dear children. In 1 Corinthians 4.14. He reminds them that he is the father of their faith. He is the one who had led them to the Lord in the first place. We read in 1 Corinthians 4.15, for though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I become your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Paul tells the Corinthians that even if they had countless guides in Christ, they have only one father. What does countless guide mean? Uh it was a common term in first century uh Corinth, where the guardian or the guide in a household was again usually a trusted slave who was put in charge of the child to bring the child to and from school, supervising his or her conduct. So such guardians exercise authority over the child. But the authority of a guardian would never equal that of a father, right? So Paul Paul is precisely making this point. Though you have many guardians in Christ for everything, but they do not share that authority as a father would. A father as in the one that first introduced the gospel to the believers there. So because God, sorry, because Paul first introduced the gospel to them, he became their father in a certain sense. So Paul then used uh uh family terms to remind them in 1 Corinthians 4 16 imitate him, imitate his way of life. Again, in first century understanding, sons were expected to imitate their fathers. Vocationally, if your father was a tradesman, the son would be one too. Because uh Jesus himself was a carpenter because his father, he probably came from that line, uh tradesman, uh family. So not only the son was supposed to take on the vocation of the father during uh the time of Jesus and Paul, but the son was expected to carry on the family values, family heritage, and the family name. So again, when Paul says imitate me, he's not bringing a new concept that's unknown during that time, but a very familiar concept because it's a family concept. We are called to imitate our fathers, to learn a trait from them, to pick up values and to imitate their life. So, what Paul wants the Corinthians to do is to imitate his passion and to live life in light of the cross, meaning that he's telling them embrace the gospel, the mystery of the gospel, live in such a way that even as you embrace human weakness, you will live by God's power. So, uh, because he's writing a letter to them, he can't be too comprehensive. So in 1 Corinthians 4 17, he says, I will send to you Timothy, uh, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church. So, was there a specific person that led you to Christ? Or was there someone in whose faith and values you emulated as you grew in the Lord? As I shared uh last week, uh the Christian faith discipleship is not a program, it's not a material we use, it's not uh something that comes down externally. But discipleship always happens when it's life on life. And uh look back at your own life. I always believe there's always someone that made the difference in our life. All of us are here today because of someone. Whether we are in touch with the someone is is immaterial for now for our discussion. But it it is really that someone who took the effort to say, come to church, believe in Jesus. You know, uh I will connect you to someone, right? And that's how we grow, right? And the person kind of gives us a lift, uh uplift into the community of God. So it's really life on life. That's why Paul always talks about imitating his faith, imitating his life. And towards the end of his ministry in 2 Timothy 3, verse 10 to 15, Paul's so-called last will and testament to his disciples and Timothy, who is uh in particular a very dear brother to Paul, a dear disciple, he's much younger, and Paul was uh his father, Paul was his uh, in some way, co-worker and someone that mentored him. And he said this in 2 Timothy 3, verse 10 to 15. You, however, have followed my teaching. Okay, it's a personal possessive language here. My teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness. And something we not like to hear, he says, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and Lystra, which persecutions I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Goes on to say, uh, indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men, evil people and imposters go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. His final charge to Timothy as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you have learned it. Again, relational connection to someone whom Timothy has learned. And from childhood, the scriptures, the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. So, as shared with us last week, I find one way the Lord is leading me uh in terms of direction for the church is really for us to grow as an intergenerational family church. Um it's not beating the old versus the young, but we need to grow together mutually. There's so much we can tap on in the intergenerational context, uh, so much we can learn from one another across the generations. So I hope somewhere in the middle of next year and all the way to 2026 and beyond, that we can really look at this issue of how we can grow in terms of mentoring across the generations, meaning that we got to start to support one another. Uh, and and we do have that capacity. Some of us have retired, some of us have, our children have grown up. Uh, we are mothers, we are fathers. But now we have seen like this morning, we have seen uh so many uh children being dedicated to the Lord. So, so many young parents, and certainly uh there could be some chemistry forming uh between those of us who have older and seen that, done that, and those who are younger and need some kind of support and and uplifting in their lives. This is just one example. There are many other areas uh that we can learn so much from one another across the generations. So we hope to have it in a more concerted way uh to involve us uh in the in next year and the years to come. Um so the hope is through this process of uh mutual mentoring across the generations, we can identify godly examples of men and women in YCCA whom you may not know, whom you know from afar, that maybe you will know uh in the coming years. You never knew that the person had this or that faith journey, but now you will know as you begin to interact across the generations. So my prayer and hope that is we will be mutually encouraged by each other's faith and we will grow to be an encouragement to one another. That together we will grow as a family of God that uh support one another across the generations.

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We pray that you've been ministered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Eastern Christian Church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.