Insight for Living

Bill Meyer: What if everything you thought about leadership was backwards? Most leaders measure success by how many followers they attract. But in 1 Thessalonians, Paul reveals a stunning alternative. True leadership isn't about building your reputation or your organization. It's about helping people walk worthy of God. The best leaders actually work themselves out of a job.

Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll unpacks a proven model for church leadership that replaces manipulation with authenticity, people-pleasing with integrity, and self-promotion with servant-hearted influence. And stay with us to learn more about helpful Bible study tools that will deepen your understanding of 1 Thessalonians.

Chuck Swindoll: The sign over the building reads "Al's Place: the best burgers in town." Now in your mind flashes an image of a juicy beef patty on a thick bun, garnished with crisp lettuce and a hearty slice of tomato, maybe a little onion as well. Licking your lips, you walk right in.

However, no host or hostess greets you, not even a sign inviting you to take a seat. And after a few minutes, you've seated yourself at the counter and you continue to wait. Eventually, a waitress emerges slowly from the kitchen, mashing the remainder of her break-time cigarette on the floor. She fishes through the pocket in her apron for a stained order pad.

"Well, what'll you have?" she yawns, pulling a pencil from her hair. "Well, may I see a menu?" "We don't have any menus," she says. "Oh, well, I'll just have a hamburger." Without a word, she leaves for the kitchen. You're considering about now heading for the front door, but the sign did say the best, the best burgers.

So, still hopeful, you wait. After 20 minutes or so, she walks back in. "Al says he forgot to order meat this week, but we got a little tuna left over. Can I slap some on the bun for you? I'll do that if you want it." Doesn't take long to spot a poorly managed restaurant, does it?

From the food to the service, a restaurant reflects one thing: its leadership or lack of it. You know the same is true for businesses, sports teams, churches, and even families. Good leadership is never optional. It's essential. In our message today, we'll be examining effective leadership traits as modeled by the apostle Paul.

In preparation for our studying Paul's example, let's turn in our Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. I'll be reading for you the first 12 verses of 1 Thessalonians 2. For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain, but after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition.

For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, who examines our hearts. For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness—nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ, we might have asserted our authority.

But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us. For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship: how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers, just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

If there is one ingredient that is essential to the success of an organization, it is leadership. Peter Drucker, the famous authority on the subject of management, puts it another way: "If an enterprise fails to perform, we rightly hire not different workers, but a new president." Whether it's business or religion or industry or athletics, whether it's the military or the home, the secret of success, the secret of progress rests with those in charge. It rests with the leaders.

During the prosperous 1960s, Dun & Bradstreet shocked us with a report that an average of 13,000 private businesses failed every year. According to their analysis, the lion's share of these casualties was due to managerial deficiency—some 92% according to their records.

Who hasn't gone into a restaurant that had been for years noted as the place to eat? Delectable, delicious food served very well by efficient waitresses and waiters. Excellent, excellent place to bring a friend or a business associate. Only to come back in a few years and find how far downhill the place had come.

You knew when you left, if in fact you stayed, that the problem was not with some poor waiter or the personality of the person on the cash register or necessarily a bad cook. The problem was with the management. Those of us who follow ball teams have seen some topple from the top to the bottom.

It's not a need for that team to have another split end to catch a pass or another guard to bring the ball down the court. The need is for someone else to coach the team or someone else to be a leader within the team itself. When Chrysler Corporation decided no longer to be one of the bottom end of the scale of the auto industry but to move toward the top, they didn't simply change their body style.

They didn't simply put a new coat of paint on the front of all their dealerships across the country. They went right to the top, and that man's leadership is now notorious as it makes double-page spreads in the average periodical across our country today. Now let me define leadership. It's hard to do.

It's easier to give a job description, isn't it? We all know what leaders do or should do, but we don't understand what leaders are. There is something elusive about it. As someone said, it's kind of like nailing a poached egg to a tree. You can't get a handle on it, and when you do, it runs away from you.

It's something about defining it that helps. So allow me to address in one word what leadership is: it's influence. If you gave me two words, I would add "inspiring influence." There's something remarkable about a person who can inspire a group of people to follow even when they didn't think they wanted to.

There's something inspiring about a military officer who can in a few weeks' time turn a retreating group into a devastating force. There is an inspiration about that influence of the individual that you can't deny. Companies turn the corner because of the appointment of the right leader at the top.

But let me clarify it, lest we all have in mind that leaders are identical. If you've been under leaders long enough, you know that nothing could be further from the truth. Some people lead with a dynamic force, and they are the prima donna aloof kind of leaders, and that's one style. And then there is another style where the leader gets dirty with the troops and rolls up his or her sleeves and says, "We're in this together," and has a hands-on style of leadership, and that's another style.

Some never raise their voice above a conversational tone. Others are like the head cheerleader at the ballgame and they are shouting and motivating with a great finesse. Some are excellent communicators and others on the contrary are rather mild and people of few words. So the clarification I want to make is that leaders come in all different temperaments.

You will find them with all different styles of approach, and yet if they are those right kind of leaders, they get the job done. So there is an ingredient that's true of all of them: they're able to get along with people. I've never met a successful leader who didn't like to get along with people.

I've never seen a leader that got the job done that all of those who followed hated. There's something about the leader that is winsome with those with whom he or she is working. John D. Rockefeller, the great entrepreneur, once said, "I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than any other ability under the sun."

According to a report by the American Management Association, an overwhelming majority of the 200 managers who participated in this survey stated that the single most valuable ingredient, the skill that was paramount among leaders, was the ability to get along with people. They rated this above intelligence, decisiveness, knowledge of the job, or technical skills. The ability to get along with people.

I want to take a little bit of your time and mine to find from this second chapter of Thessalonians some excellent guidelines for all leader types. I don't care what your personality is. I don't really even care if you don't think you're a leader. It doesn't bother me if your IQ isn't as high as the average IQ or if you're still in the mix of finding your way to where you want to be in life.

There are some things in these first 12 verses of 1 Thessalonians 2 that you'll find help from. Trust me, you'll benefit from the time we spend in these few verses. Let me give a little background to start with. He begins the chapter by referring back to something that has happened.

The writer, as you know, is a man named Paul. The people who got the letter were individuals with whom he had spent not more than five or six weeks. Rather remarkable. Not even two months' time, and yet when he leaves, they go right on successfully carrying out their mission. He refers to something they will remember.

Notice how often he does that. Verse 1: "You yourselves know." Verse 2: "After we had suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know." Verse 5: "We never came with flattering speech, as you know." Verse 9: "For you recall, brethren." Verse 10: "You are witnesses." Verse 11: "Just as you know." See, all the way through these verses, he's looking back over his shoulder into yesterday.

And he's saying, "Do you remember? Can you recall when?" What is it that he wants them to remember? Among other things, he wants them to remember where he was coming from. Verse 1: "You remember, you know, brethren, our coming was not in vain." By the way, that's not a term that means fruitless or unproductive.

It's a word that means hollow, empty. "You remember, Thessalonians, back a year or so ago when I was with you, it wasn't a hollow, empty experience. It had purpose and meaning. There was substance to it." Verse 2 goes further: "You remember that we suffered and had been mistreated in Philippi, as you know."

And you Christians who hear these words today, you know that too. That's where he was with Silas, flogged. That means he was stripped to his buttocks and the skin was stripped off his back with a scourge. And he was outrageously mistreated and dumped into prison. You remember that. When I got to you, I had the scars of a prison experience.

You recall how I had been mistreated. It's a word for outrageous mistreatment translated here "suffered." "And we had the boldness in our God while we were there in Philippi to speak to you the same gospel that we spoke there amid much opposition." Now I camp on these two verses because it is our great temptation to think leaders somehow pop out of heaven unscared, sort of given to mankind, almost angelic.

That's not true. The best leaders come from a scarred past. They understand suffering. They understand mistreatment. They've earned the right to be respected because they have labored against much opposition. I have a phrase that I frequently tell myself: disabilities need not disqualify. So you come from a background of a crippling disease.

That disability need not disqualify. So you are a victim of incest. As tragic and as shocking and as scandalous and horrible as that may be, you can still be a leader. So you are from a broken home. So you have a prison experience in your past. So you have not always been a person of integrity. So? So you qualify.

You have been mistreated. You have suffered. You have come amid much opposition to where you are today. You understand what hope is all about. And if I understand leadership and the statement I read this past week, you qualify. Someone said, "A prime function of the leader is to keep hope alive."

You understand the value of that because there was a time in your life when you didn't have any hope. And you've come back. For whatever reason, you've come back. You may not even know it, but God was in it. He was in the prison. He was in the brokenness. He was in the misery. He was in the disease.

He was in the disaster. He was in the calamity. He was in the bankruptcy. He was in the failures of your Philippi. He was there. He's never left you. And He's used that to prepare you. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn said after coming to Christ on that rotting prison straw, "Praise you, prison, for having been in my life."

This man can say with all boldness, "I spoke to you because I had been seasoned by disability." Now there are some things that you don't want to have as a leader. In verses 3 through 6, you will find those negatives, and there are four of them I find here. And then verses 7 through 11, you'll find four positives that you do want to have.

And if you like the idea of leadership and if this kind of thing rings your bell, take note of these four things you don't want and the four things you should desire to have. First: deception. Verse 3: "Our exhortation"—it's a word for appeal. We would use the general word leadership. "Our leadership, our style of exhorting, our approach, our ministry does not come from error or impurity"—it has reference to a faulty motive—"or by way of deceit."

Before you run on to the next verse, spend a moment or two with this one. This is a picture of being absolutely sincere. Not double-tongued, no hidden agenda. This is not a manipulative individual. On the contrary, this is a simple heart. This is a pure mind. This is a person who was what he appeared to be.

You didn't leave his presence thinking, "I really wonder what Paul is really like. I wonder what his real motive is." Paul says, "I didn't have any deception." As he says in the second Corinthian letter, chapter 4, verses 1 through 7, he says, "We didn't come adulterating the Word of God. We didn't have craftiness or deceit or any such thing. We came just simple-minded people. We came as we were."

The late President Dwight Eisenhower has said, "In order to be a leader, one must have followers, and to have followers, one must have their confidence. Hence the supreme quality for a leader is unquestionable integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it's a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office. If one's associates find him or her guilty of phoniness, if they find that the individual lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other."

The first great need, therefore, is integrity. Frank Goble, in a superb book called *Excellence in Leadership*, writes: "Year after year, businessmen study college records, screen applicants, and offer special inducement to proven people. What are they really looking for? What are they after? Brains? Energy? Know-how? Well, these things are desirable, sure. But they will carry a man so far.

If he is to move to the top, if he is to be entrusted with command decisions, there must be a plus factor. Something that takes mere ability and doubles or trebles its effectiveness. To describe this magic characteristic, there's only one word: integrity." And that's what Paul states in verse 3. He states it in the negative: "We didn't come lacking integrity. We didn't come with deception."

Verse 4 is the second negative characteristic: flattery, or as he puts it, being a people-pleaser. Let me read it for you: "But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak," now the negative, "not as pleasing men." Before I go further, take a moment and stare at those words, especially if you tend to be a people-pleaser.

It is a quality of insecurity. You know that. I know that. It's a known fact among all of us. Insecure people struggle to be people-pleasers. They want to sit on the fence and they want to be liked by both sides, and they try to maintain this balance as they hesitate to put their feet down on one side or the other, and so it is a forever merry-go-round.

How is it possible to get off the fence and take a stand? Keep reading. It's right here. "We have been approved by God, entrusted with the gospel, and so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, who examines our hearts." So good. When you come to the place where the Word of God, the goals of God, the principles of God are the single most important ingredient of your mission, you begin to stop pleasing people.

And that's tough because most leaders I know like to be liked. After all, it's that liking quality that causes people to follow. However, no one respects a people-pleaser, not even the pleaser himself. There's a great verse in Galatians 1:10 that you should take the time to read. Talk—well, let's do that. What am I saying, take the time to read? That's why we're here. Great Scott, look at Galatians chapter 1, verse 10.

I found this verse at a particular juncture in my life that really, it was my salvation, and I have thought of it often since then. Just shared it with my older daughter this past week—the whole encounter she knew nothing of as a little girl where we were at that time as a family. And I said to her, "You can't believe the peace I got from Galatians 1:10. Am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ."

I mean, is that a great verse? Now if you're abrasive, that'll be your favorite verse in life, and you will use it to justify all kinds of things said against certain people, and you're going to be independent if nothing else. And that's not that kind of verse. It is a verse that'll get you off the fence, however.

You can't be a slave of people and a slave of Christ at the same time. Doesn't mean you have to be abrasive, but it does mean your ultimate goal is to please the living God, not the most powerful and influential person on the board, not the most significant person in your congregation, not the person with the most money in the outfit, not the biggest account, but God.

Bill Meyer: Well, place a bookmark right here in 1 Thessalonians because there's much more that Chuck Swindoll wants to show us. Today he's talking about a leadership style that works, guaranteed. This is Insight for Living. You're listening to message number two in a 12-part series called *Contagious Christianity.*

It's our tradition to prepare a Bible study workbook for each series that you hear on Insight for Living, and we have the *Searching the Scriptures* workbook for *Contagious Christianity* available right now. You can purchase one by calling us at 800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org/offer.

If you're an audio learner, you'll find the complete collection of 12 messages online at insight.org/series, or you can listen to Chuck's sermons on the convenient Insight mobile app. Have you heard about Chuck's classic book called *Laugh Again: Experience Outrageous Joy*? Well, we've selected that book for you because it dovetails so naturally with this current teaching series.

I'm sure you've heard Chuck laugh on this program. The joy you hear is real and it's available to you too. *Laugh Again* isn't just a book title; it's an invitation. In his book, Chuck walks you through Philippians, showing you how Paul discovered joy in spite of the very difficult circumstances he was going through.

Whether you're facing uncertainty, disappointment, or just the daily grind, this book will lift your spirits and remind you you have every reason to laugh again. You can request a copy of the book *Laugh Again* when you give a gift to support the ministry of Insight for Living. You can write to us at Insight for Living, Post Office Box 5000, Frisco, Texas, 75034.

Your donation will make an impact on someone who desperately needs to laugh again. Our address again is Post Office Box 5000, Frisco, Texas, 75034. You can also call us at 800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/offer. I'm Bill Meyer. Join us when Chuck Swindoll describes what he calls a guaranteed leadership style that really works, Friday on Insight for Living.

The preceding message, "A Leadership Style That Works, Guaranteed," was copyrighted in 1984, 1985, 1993, 2003, and 2026, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2024 by Charles R. Swindoll, Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.