Don't Eat With the Lying Prophet: 7 Distractions Leaders Must Avoid

Sermon outline

Leaders who want supernatural accomplishments must run a long race, stay single-minded within the vision God placed them in, and refuse every distraction that pulls them off their assignment.

1. Be specific: God is a God of specifics

   Christianity is not hit and miss; we build with strategy and an accurate mind. Praying in tongues can go on and on, but when you pray in your own language, be clear and specific, and do not pray for things you do not want, because they will come to pass. Write down what you want from God, then pray with a blueprint.

   Illustration: God did not just tell Noah to build an ark; He gave him every measurement. Moses was told exactly how to build the tabernacle. Otherwise God may look at you after half an hour of rambling and say, 'What did you ask?'

   “As clear as I speak to you, that's how clearly you should speak to the Lord.”

2. The man of God who listened to the old prophet

   He reads the account of the man of God from Judah who had a clear instruction not to eat bread or drink water in Bethel. An old prophet came after him, claimed an angel had spoken to him, and lied; the man went back, ate, and lost his life through disobedience. At the start of 2007 the Lord gave him the strategy for supernatural accomplishments: avoid distractions. If leaders do not catch this, God cannot work, because He has chosen to work through them.

   Illustration: He points out how 'spiritual' the lying prophet sounded: he did not even say God spoke to him, he said an angel did. Leaders who were drawn to a church by God's word can later be drawn away by a 'prophet' in the congregation.

   “If you as leaders don't catch, then God can't work.”

   • 1 Kings 13:11-18

3. It's a long race: pace yourself

   The Christian life is measured in decades, so a leader needs a thirty-year plan, not a thirty-day sprint. Some leaders start a cell group, draw a crowd and let pride lift them up, forgetting their source, the church and the grace they operate under. Build a strong foundation: I am attached to a vision, I belong to a church, I am under someone's grace. Ask yourself whether you are stable, dependable, loyal and trustworthy, instead of changing your vision every two days.

   Illustration: He asked his wife the date and was amazed it was already 1 November: the month had flown by, and so does a short-term plan.

   “You've got to have a 30-year plan, not a 30-day plan.”

4. Don't swallow every report: ask questions

   Leaders must not believe everything they hear about another pastor or leader. Ask basic questions: is the source authentic, has it been proven, and are there two or three witnesses? If God employed a man, God knows how to deal with him; it is not ours to judge or criticise. Some questions are too high for a leader, so when people fall away, pray for them quietly instead of asking the pastor to explain.

   Illustration: A pastor came to him repeating rumours about another pastor. He asked why, if it was true, the police had not acted, and called him a man with 'big flappy ears' who just listened. Leaders who swallow everything walk into church bloated 'like a big harpoon whale'.

   “If God employed a man, then he knows when to fire him.”

   • 1 Timothy 5:19

5. 1. Avoid the distraction from people who have not heard from God the way you have

   The Lord told you to join the church, to lead a cell and to do His work; now someone comes along prophesying something else into your life. He says he is not moved by 'airy-fairy' people; he wants to see character, people who keep going day after day whether they feel like it or not. It grieves him to see a faithful person's chair suddenly empty.

   “I want to see your character. That to me is a big thing.”

   • 1 Corinthians 15:58

6. 2. Avoid the distraction that comes by trying to compete

   Wait your turn. Do not buy a car or a suit or seek a position because someone else has. Everyone's assignment is different within the one assignment: find where you can function in the local church, submit to authority and serve there, and in time your pastor will recognise and release you. Do not let pride make shipwreck of your faith.

   Illustration: In seven years the ministry has ordained twelve pastors, while a friend who started a church in Phoenix twenty-five years ago has just ordained two. The new Phoenix church has grown to about 150 in four months after he released its pastors.

   “Fulfill your ministry within the vision.”

   • 1 Timothy 1:19

7. 3. The distraction of phone calls

   Do not throw your phone away, but screen your calls. Just as God sends you on an assignment, the devil sends people to derail you from it, and some contacts simply need to be deleted. Be wary of people who keep saying an angel stood by them or gave them a dream for you; they are trying to steal your heart.

   Illustration: He tells them to go through their phones: 'delete, delete, delete'. As their pastor he is not trying to control or own them, only to show them the pitfalls and traps Satan has set along the way.

   “The devil will also send you people to derail you from your assignment.”

8. 4. The distraction of false brethren

   You may have friends, but ask the Holy Spirit who to associate with and who to keep away from. Two people meet at the altar call, become great pals over coffee and tea, and forget the pastor, the vision and why they came. Church is a spiritual service station, not a social event, and a leader must be prepared to walk alone.

   Illustration: Church is like a service station: you come in for a wash, polish and a full tank of 95, then go out to do the work of the ministry and come back the next Sunday to be filled again. Children at a gathering look for other children to play with; leaders are grown up and come with a purpose.

   “Be careful who you hook up with. Because the very people that you hook up with will distract you.”

9. 5 and 6. Carnal leaders, and unproductive arguments and quarrels

   Step five is the distraction of carnal leaders and people who are not as committed as you are. Step six is to avoid unproductive arguments: some people are professional quarrellers, and if you stay near them you will soon be quarrelling too. When a fellow minister tried to draw him into a quarrel about another man of God, he answered with questions until the accusation fell apart.

   Illustration: That week a minister he respects phoned him, from a number he could not identify, to quarrel about another pastor's lifestyle. He turned the accusation back with a question about the man's own car, to show leaders how to ask pertinent questions.

   “See, I'm teaching you how to think as a leader, how you should ask pertinent questions to get clarification.”

   • 2 Timothy 2:23

10. Tithe and sow by faith and in love

    When leaders say their sowing is not working, he gives two reasons: they are not tithing and sowing by faith, and they are not doing it in love, but out of duty or to impress the pastor. He gives because he loves God and never sees his giving as a loss. Leaders should bring their tithe to the house where God planted them rather than handing money around to friends, and he looks for faithful tithers when he promotes leaders.

    Illustration: He asked his wife to add up a year of his giving and was shocked by the total, because he had never kept a record. He describes himself as 'a radical sower' and tells of people who blessed him generously.

    “I never saw my giving as a loss.”

    • Malachi 3:8
    • Malachi 3:11

11. 7. Avoid doing other people's jobs

    This does not mean refusing to help; it means not running around doing everything except the task given to you. Lazy people never succeed in ministry. Ask God for supernatural grace when you are tired, use your car to pick people up, and do what needs doing without waiting to be asked, because God sees it and promotes you.

    Illustration: Pastor Zubeda drove the church Kombi for about a year and a half, picking up families, while he waited at church to preach. He once fetched a bed for a lady with his trailer and Wesley's help, and a leader drove a twenty-litre bucket of water up a steep hill for a newly saved woman. He bought the church's Kombi, a van and its first instruments with his own money.

    “If you have a car, use it.”

    • 1 Timothy 4:7

12. There was a man sent from God

    John 1:6 says there was a man sent from God whose name was John; put your own name there. Every leader running a cell or serving at a campus is on assignment, so refuse to be distracted and take the place. He can tell them to tithe, serve and pick people up because he has done it himself: he cleaned toilets, swept the church and carried his pastor's bag for years. To shake Durban and take KwaZulu-Natal he needs mighty men and women who can take an instruction.

    Illustration: He reads the verse with names from the room: 'There was a man sent from God, his name was Roshan', then Wesley, Zubeda and others. If a famous American preacher said the same things, he jokes, people would rush to buy the DVD.

    “You cannot be a leader where you will take others somewhere where you have not been yourself.”

    • John 1:6
    • 2 Samuel 23:8