19 minute read
My pulpit message notes: Leaders who are upright
from TT 160
by TIMES TODAY
Leaders who are Upright
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In Psalms 78:72 a verse is given that could be perhaps the best summary of the kind of leaders that we need to pray for, that we need to raise for this nation, not only in the political realm, but in academia, military, in our families, in the medical world and in the education system.
This morning a preacher talked about this verse,
And he summarised and said, if you were at the ballot box and you need to make choices, sometimes you encounter names that you have never heard before and begin to inky, pinky, ponky, checking which one has economic, or tribal leaning towards you, checking, he said, look for these two factors; skilful hands and integrity of heart.
The series that has been prepared for us in the month of July has tried to place qualities that you and I can prepare ourselves for political action on August 9th, but for political action everyday in our homes and the institutions where we work, or study.
These medications that we have had through the month, whether it is the leader who mediates, or has courage etc have been divided neatly into two. We are looking at some aspects of what skills are necessary to be able to elect somebody who is going to take this nation / company, this church to the next level. They need to have certain skills.
David did not just lead them with skill, he shepherded them with integrity of heart. Today we look at Noah, seeking to ask ourselves, how do we gauge a leader who is upright? How do we audit ourselves to see whether we are leaders who are of integrity?
The Bible says,
Let us not lie to ourselves, in our families, institutions and nations, that skills are going to get us there alone, no. It is a bicycle that when you pedal on the right you need to pedal on the left.
When you go to the ballot paper, check, do they have skills, or not? check that one and then ask; are they men, or women of integrity? Are they upright?
Evidences of an upright leader
1: They are a product of grace
2. They are a champion of faith.
3. They are a dispenser of redemption.
These are not the qualities that I am asking when you have a ballot paper in front of you, or are in an interview panel you say, they got two-thirds of them, no. They need to have all three or they don’t deserve your vote as an upright leader.
A Product of Grace (Genesis 6:8)
- An upright leader is not one who gains that by pulling himself/herself to a position of being upright by their own bootstraps. Uprightness is a function of the grace of God. One cannot bleach, or construct themselves upright. Therefore, you and I as leaders should not parade our candidature, or qualification of leadership, with broad shoulders, or brazen faces and chest thumping.
- You and I, by the motion of shaking hands can begin shifting leaves, but we cannot cause, or sustain a whirlwind. That is the function /monopoly of God.
The story of Noah is well known to you. We are told the world was so sinful and violence, one of the outward manifestations of inward decay of people, was so manifested that it says that God was sorry with the earth and the people that He had made. Then He identifies Noah and gives him this mission to build an ark.
- But one thing I like about the story of Noah, before you give him a red shirt and draw a big S of superman on him, Genesis 6:8 says,
The Bible does not say, but Noah manufactured grace/favour. The writing in verse 8 is so clear that Noah’s act was secondary and the primary Actor was God.
If the Bible says, Noah found favour/grace with God, for Him to find it, someone must have placed it there in the first place. You can’t say, Munengi found a speaker without realising that media were the first actors to put it there for me to find it there in the first place.
You go to different places on the African continent and your are told, these Falls was discovered by David Livingstone. No. He recorded it in English for the first time. The locals had already discovered it before, but God had put it there first.
- So it’s true, Noah found favour / grace, but he had not manufactured it. God had made it and placed it and made it available and then Noah found favour.
- This righteousness that is also recorded in verse 9, ‘
is not something that he made up himself. Being upright does not begin with action. It begins with a passive receiving of the favour and the grace of God.
- An upright leader portrays that they are a product of grace by the way they talk, conduct their affairs, the way they react when things are not well. They don’t rush the clan, or social media to tribal cocoons, money-bagged friends, witchcraft etc. The Bible says,
- Audit the statements of our leaders on the political realms, in the church, society institutions, even in our residential estate committees. How many of us act like we are self-made? That is not an upright leader. An upright leader finds that which God has already placed. That upright leader, one of the first evidences is that, they are a product of grace.
All leaders will struggle with pride because leadership comes with power and the entrapments of power, but do you see a leader who regularly throws themselves to the ground on contrition in realisation, that I am a product of the grace of God. Yes, Wanjiku may have voted for me, but I am here because of the arm of God.
A Champion of Faith (Genesis 6:9b)
A recipient of righteousness shows that they are the recipient of that righteousness. It manifests in blamelessness.
One of the words in this verse shows that he was a recipient of grace, but two of those words are showing that because of being a recipient of grace, consequent to begin a product of grace, then he became a champion of faith by living a quality of life that showed that he had interacted/been marinated in the grace of God.
When I was growing up one of the detergents was new blue Omo. It is still new blue Omo, thirty/forty years later and one of their tag lines was “Inaonyesha wazi”, it shows openly, (it manifests).
- I have realised in my research, if you eat beef stew for lunch you can go for an afternoon meeting, any board meeting, but if you eat the same meat, and it wasn’t stewed and was roasted over coals / nyama coma, you cannot attend a board meeting, because roast meat, unlike stewed beef manifests. Everybody knows what you ate for lunch. The whole boardroom is full of what you ate no matter how much you wipe the oil on your lips. It manifests without any effort from you. The smell of the roasted beef just manifests.
- It is the same thing with a recipient of this grace. An upright leader is a recipient/product of the grace of God, but it manifests in him becoming a champion of faith in how when the whole world is deteriorating in sin he Noah is different.
- Realise that Noah was blameless among the people. What the Bible is taking pains to tell us is not that Noah was perfect, or sinless, but something had happened in the relationship between Noah and his God that he changed direction. He faltered/stumbled every so often, but he was facing the right direction and kept moving.
- Small wonder the summary of Scripture is that Noah was blameless in this journey that is called sanctification, a big theological word, that COVID has taught us to replace with sanitise from sin. And then the Bible says, ‘He walked faithfully with God.’
- So after God did his part, where Noah became a product of grace, Noah did his part by becoming a champion of faith.
- It is interesting to note that the Bible says, “Noah walked with God’. Abraham walked with God, Noah with God, Deborah walked with God.
But Scripture seems to isolate for emphasis two people; Enoch and Noah. There was something specific about their dedication in faith/trust in God that was different because they were recipients of His grace poured upon them that they realised the manifestation, that they worked out in their lives that we call they were blameless and they walked with God.
- So Noah is not paralysed by fear, what will people think? What if I fail? One of the good answers to, what if I fail is that I would try again, no problems, I obeyed. Maybe it will be successful on the third strike. Why? Because of this faith. Because God has said there is a welling up of trust in God that is even ridiculous.
- Please, try and enter into Noah’s shoes. Imagine the cost of swimming against the stream. Everybody is going downstream and like salmon, you are going upstream. Everybody is living this sinful life and you begin to construct this huge boat, because God has said He is going to destroy the world.
First there is ridicule. Noah who do you think you are? You think we are more sinners that you are? Imagine the mental torture of this ‘holier than thou’ thing that is being thrown at him. But being a recipient of grace makes him a champion of grace to be able to overcome the ridicule. But it is not just ridicule. Imagine the kind of opposition.
When God has said, my and your cause of death doesn’t matter when you and I are in heaven. Because of our commitment to the LORD, they will not bring it any sooner, or later, because there is a God sitting on His throne.
But we must be champions of faith like Noah. I do not know what assassinations plans there were for Noah, but imagine what people in his community thought. There is nothing in the Bible that tells us that Noah studied in ADD. That school of the built environment. We are not told that he has any civil engineering background, or that he is an architect. And here he goes into a world of strength and materials and theories of structures because God has said, and he is just following the instructions of God. A champion of faith.
- Remember there were no prototypes before. He had not seen a small model of a boat. Neither had he seen a boat there on the new port of Lamu and said, oh this is what God you want me to make, I am going to replicate it. Nothing like that. But because he was a champion of faith, because God has said, he takes the specifications God had given and puts it together.
- Again, this was not a small boat that Noah was building that he could open a small workshop and do it within the privacy of his home, no gossipers, no people to attack him, no ridicule. It was out in the open. We are told the ark was the size of one and half football fields. Can you imagine the amount of work that it took? It was not a weekend project then hand it over the next day as an assignment from school. Bible scholars tell us that around 55 or so years did it take to build this ark. And there were the on lookers.
- I kind of prefer those who attack you, than those who ridicule you. Noah may have been building with a lot of sarcasm, but he continued to build, year after year after year. Remember he was not building with scraps of timber that were just around. There was a specific special wood that he was asked to use and then cover it in a special way.
- Have you ever thought that our current manufacturers of ship, or boats and canoes cannot use those specifications, because that boat, the shape was not meant for sail. Remember it had not engine, no sails to grab the wind so that it can be able to go, no rudder to steer it. Why? Because God was piloting the whole mission and to trust God in that kind of situation was difficult.
- Think about it, Noah had never studied in upper Kabete campus to be able to know how to deal with animals, the ones of twos, or sevens. He just obeys God and he becomes an expert in fauna management.
- Perhaps most ridiculous, did you know that it had never rained before. You can imagine, when the waters rise, how their faith rose up as they were knocking the door of the ark and saying, ‘Let us in’. They became believers, but a little too late.
- Imagine what it was for Noah, when for the first time ever some little droplets, some drizzling, then showers, then torrents of rain and flood. Can you imagine when that big boat just buoyed up, when it just did the first float, then it was up. Can you imagine the reward of such faith? Of obeying the God who made you a product of His grace, but welled in you a manifestation to become a champion of faith?
- I know some of us are in situations in our companies where God has called you to leadership and nobody is willing to give you the office, or title and all your ideas look ridiculous. It’s just like Noah being told, it’ll rain? What is rain? That is what people are asking you. Perhaps in the place where you are an MCA aspirant, the big boys have already announced it is over. Those are the big boys. That is not the God who causes the big boat to float. Be a champion of faith and trust Him even when there is ridicule and opposition.
- A young man has gotten together the people in Langata and they now have a forum ‘Langata speaks’ and they have summoned all their leaders for interviews. Town hall debates to find out of these people have two qualifications, whether they have skilful hands and can shepherd with a heart of integrity.
- One of the organisers is somebody that I know, Gerald Mwangi Walterfang, and I wondered what kind of opposition did he go through. You know, who do you think you are in Langata. He is not the Langata statesman who runs for MP in Langata, 40 years ago and is now in the state that he is able to advise young aspirants and bring them to order to sit on stage and be asked questions here and there. He does not have political mileage in some of the challenging areas of Langata such as Kibra. He doesn’t have the networks.
- I happen to know the he also doesn’t have the money, the kind that you can bring people around and give sitting allowances. I know that he doesn’t have that kind of money to summon these leaders to the table. I happen to know that because he is my age mate and my age mates don’t have that kind of money. I know.
- But Langata constituency is going to vote right whenever they vote because they were given some opportunity by some young man who are organised a forum for voters to ask ‘Are you possessed with skilful hands and do you have a heart of integrity?
- This thing about an upright leader is not appointing an archbishop to the governor of Turkana, no. Do they have skilful hands? Then do they have the evidences of an upright person? Do they have those values of one who is broken knowing that they are not a self-made woman / man? Are they a champion of faith or are they licking their fingers and trying to find out where the political winds are blowing and then flowing with them? Are they able to stand for something because God has said? Are they ridiculous like Noah because they have heard from God?
A dispenser of redemption
- One of the trips that our school children go to, whether the British system or the CBC , they are always taken for a tour of Masinga Dam and the Seven Folks
hydro-electric project. They are there in Kiambeere where electricity is produce. And there you see these huge electric wires that are transmitting high voltages. And there are these things like an upright leader, these high voltage power lines. One, they produce no power. They are the kind that if you touch, you have touched forever, you die through electrocution. But they produce no electricity themselves. It is produced by the turbines.
- But they have humbled themselves, although they do not produce power, to be connected to these turbines and then they gain power, real high voltage power. That they are so powerful in themselves that they have to be separated from each other, that if they touch it is blackout for you and I for days. Then they are able to transmit this power over kilometres, then transform this power to be useful to some old lady with her makeshift kiosk with a light bulb all the way from Kiambeere.
- That is the leader God is calling you and I to become, but also to look at their names on the ballot box and choose them if they can humble themselves and not pontificate that - I have done. No. Walk in a way that is not chest thumping because they know they do not produce hydro-electric power, but they are willing to be tapped in, to be powerful to transmit, but in such a way that they are a dispenser of redemption.
The yellow bucket
In our home we did not have piped water and so to take a shower we had to use a bucket. We lived very far away from the church, mother was very religious, the rest of us were interested in the large festivities after service. So we made sure that we would get to church late, but the only way to get to church late.
We had a number of buckets because we did not have piped water and so mum had a special yellow bucket. It was the only one that she used to take a shower. A bath, but we called it a shower. You see the others were used for cleaning the floor etc, but the yellow one was only for mum to shower. So on Sunday morning it disappeared. Water was on the pot boiling ready for her to take a shower, but the yellow bucket was missing. She would not touch any of the others even if you washed with Jik and Dettol combined.
So I keep a memorial bucket in the house. Imagine with me, if I grew up in a place where we had to fetch water from the river and go up and bring it to the house. For us to be able to have enough water in the house, you had to fetch water two, or three times a day and go up. Imagine if my yellow bucket had just a small hole somewhere, not big enough to make my journey useless, but big enough that when I fetch water two or three times a day to take to my house, in years there would be a path of growth, of vegetation, because I fetched water with a bucket that was dispensing redemption.
_The third test of a leader who is upright, not only are they a product of grace, not only are they a champion of faith, and doing things that make others think, you have no chance of winning. My aim is to win, but my bigger aim is to obey God. So I will build a ridiculous ark like Noah because God has spoken, but thirdly, that they would have all these resources like that Kiambeere voltage bringing light to a mama mboga somewhere and bringing light to her in the same way like this yellow bucket, they will be leaking redemption for those on the wayside.
_ We see that in Noah’s life. First, his family is redeemed. Secondly, all the animals are redeemed. Thirdly, all mankind is redeemed. Then the issue of sin, reset, factory settings. Why? Because a man, or a woman who is upright as a leader is evidenced by what cascades from the grace they have received from God, that brings redemption / liberation to people in the society that they serve.
We have people who have been in office for years, and apart from redeeming themselves, nothing has ever leaked from the grace of God put on their lives to bring redemption to the hungry, to those who are crying. Hospitals, roads etc are not gifts they give us. We pay for them, but if they are true upright leaders then like Kiambeere they will be leaking redemption.
