I have never met anyone who has become a success who did not respect those who God has set over them. In any successful business, family, church or nation, there has to be an org chart – a hierarchy, a chain of command. God has actually designed authority to hold back all sorts of problems – lawlessness, poverty, chaos, confusion.
We need good authority, and we could talk for hours about how to be a good leader, but my theme for these posts is how to get to that place of success. And to get to that place – you need to learn how to respect, honour and submit to authority. It’s that simple.
Jesus was once asked – should we pay taxes to Caesar. He knew if He did that the Jewish leaders would say He was dishonouring His nation and the Jewish faith, but even though the Romans were an invading nation, He honoured and respected them. Jesus has taught us in this what our response to authority should be – even if the authority is corrupt.
This is a strange secret to success, it might be the most secret secret of them all – and this is it summed up – if Caesar asks for a coin, give Caesar a coin. Jesus gave Caesar everything He wanted except worship! That’s how we should be.
If you do not learn how to respect those who have authority, if you focus on their errors but not your attitude, then you will have problems in life and not make it as a success. Often when you want to challenge authority, God wants to challenge you and bring you to a place of greater success.
The hardest time to respect and submit to authority is when we disagree with them. No one has a problem being asked or told to do exactly what they want to do. We must be careful in our attitude when we disagree.
Now I can almost hear someone saying – hold on, what about bad leadership, what about someone asking me to do something wrong, some people in authority – in government, in the church, in business, even a husband and a parent can be corrupt. All of us have stories of encountering bad authority! Well, what you need to do is learn how to respect and submit – even if you disagree.
We need a fresh revelation of authority, especially in the Western world, like Jesus we need to acknowledge Caesar’s authority. We need to locate those who are in authority in our life and accept them as authorities – are you letting them lead or are you trying to be equal with them and reluctantly submitting? Did Jesus honour Caesar because Caesar was a great man – no, He honoured him because of his position. Who is in authority over you in your family? In your workplace? In your church? In your college? In your nation? These are questions you should know the answer to!
The only time a man amazes Jesus with his faith is a man who was a military man and his military training taught him about authority. Understanding authority is actually a key to great faith, not just understanding it from a textbook, but actually being in a place where if someone says go – you go. We need to know what it is to be under authority if we want a place of authority.
As a teenager, I was not submissive to my parents, but once I had my own children, I understood a lot more why my parents did what I did. I know people who have become pastors in Tree of Life and suddenly my decisions made a lot more sense. Until you are a manager at work, you won’t appreciate the job. But unless you learn to submit, promotion is not coming your way.
In a healthy organization, responsibility and authority should go together – if you ask one of your children to babysit another one, then the babysitter should be given authority (measured, not all of it) to go with that responsibility. If a bill is not paid in Tree of Life, the creditors come after me, not my pastors and associate pastors – so that responsibility ties with my authority. The two should tie in – the one with the responsiblity should be the one with the authority. In most churches, there is someone who wants authority but no responsibilty. They may not be like the man who told me – I want you to be the pastor and do all the work you do, but I want to preach every Sunday and run the service. That is an exceptional level of immaturity, but there are people who try and take a pastor’s authority with zero responsibility. It’s not God’s plan or will.
It is not an abuse of authority to make a demand on someone they cannot make of you.
That’s what authority is – the person who makes the decision. Trust me, there’s been a few Miriams and a few Aarons in the Tree – who are you to do all the preaching, I am also called to ministry, and God wants my voice to be heard too. These people think I am selfishly hoarding the pulpit, but that’s not true – I have the responsibility to feed the church, and so I must ensure they are fed well. God gave me the responsibility and the authority.
Authority depends on location. You might be allowed to pray for people in your Bible College, that gives you zero authority in your church. When I get on a plane, I have to listen to what the flight attendant says no matter what my job title is. When I get off the plane, and the flight attendant comes to a church service, they have to listen to me. The teacher only has authority in their classroom, the police officer cannot function in another nation. This is true because all true authority is under a higher authority. They submit and they have authority. They say I am a man under authority therefore I have authority. The manager’s authority comes from His authority, the elder’s authority comes from the pastor, the babysitter’s comes from mum and dad.
If you are in the position of delegated authority, to quote Greg Mohr from our recent leadership conference, your job is to represent your authority and work for their best interest. People who slack off when the boss is not in the office are not seeking the best interest of their company!
If you have authority, remember that delegating that authority does not mean you no longer have it. If your elders are not living for Christ, well – I made them elders is not an excuse, you have to submit to your authority, Jesus, and make something happen. I’ve seen new pastors – and managers in business – say “I asked such and such to sort this, and they didn’t do it” – it’s still on you though – your job is to ensure they do their job!
Yes, promotion is not less responsibility – it is more. That tracks with Jesus – if you want to be great, serve!
Next week – I will explain what to do when your authority utterly messes up.
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