Leadership in Lockdown

In R.Kent Hughes excellent commentary on Genesis, he tells the story of Robert Dick Wilson one of the great professors of Princeton Theological Seminary.  One of Professor Wilson's students came back to Miller Chapel to preach 12 years after graduating.  The old professor, having listened intently to his former student, came forward after the service and held his hand out:

"If you come back again, I will not come to hear you preach.  I only come once.  I am glad to see that you are a big-godder.  When my boys come back, I come to see if they are big-godders or little godders, and then I know what their ministry will be."  His former student asked him to explain, and he replied, " Well, some men have a little god, and they are always in trouble with him.  He can't do any miracles.  He can't take care of the inspiration and transmission of the Scripture to us.  He doesn't intervene on behalf of his people.  They have a little god and I call them little-godders.  Then, there are those who have a great God.  He speaks and it is done. He commands and it stands fast.  He knows how to show himself strong on behalf of them that fear him.  You have a  great God; and he will bless your ministry." He paused a moment, smiled, said, "God bless you," and turned and walked out.

The last year has tested the best of us. Who hasn't struggled for energy and wisdom during lockdown? Recently I heard of a death every day for a week of people close to me. Social media has become a place of fear, discouragement and the home of every conspiracy theory imaginable. As Michael Reeves says in his new book 'Rejoice and Tremble': 'With society having lost God as the proper object of healthy fear, our culture is necessarily becoming ever more neurotic, ever more anxious about the unknown - indeed more anxious about anything and everything...In ousting God from our culture, other concerns - from personal health to the health of the planet - have assumed a divine ultimacy in our minds. Good things have become cruel and pitiless idols. And thus we feel helplessly fragile. No longer anchored, society fills with free-floating anxieties.'

So how do we respond?  Some Christian leaders seem paralysed by inertia.  It is largely business as usual.  There is no special call to prayer, there is no special love for the people in their care, they can't reach out because they seem immune to people's pain.  There is little empathy, little love and little connection.  Others have risen to the challenge.  They have found new and creative ways to express pastoral care and love.  Many people have rediscovered letter writing and many of us have found the power of a well timed text or email.   Thankfully the gospel is not in lockdown and genuine love will always find a way to express itself.  God's word has been heard and downloaded more over the last year than ever before.  Rather than the gospel being preached to dozens we are seeing millions being reached through online services and new and innovative ways of evangelism. God is at work in surprising and amazing ways.  We all hate lockdown but leadership needs to adapt in such unprecedented times. 

One of the great examples of leadership in very tough times is Joseph in the book of Genesis.  Despite being his fathers favourite son, Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and sold in to slavery in Egypt.  Little did Joseph know that this would be the start of 13 years of setbacks and discouragements.  But God was preparing Joseph for greatness.  The route to the palace was through the prison.  Joseph didn't rail against his enforced lockdown, he didn't seek to appeal against his false accusation, he accepted that God was at work and as we see in Genesis 41-50 Joseph was just as faithful in times of prosperity and power as he was in poverty and prison.

In Genesis 41 we read that Joseph is finally exalted. In this remarkable chapter we see Joseph plucked from prison and finds himself shaved and perfumed and thrust before Pharaoh to interpret his strange dreams. We see this solitary Hebrew man standing before this Egyptian deity at the zenith of his power. How does he respond? How does he show leadership in a strange and pagan land? Does he appeal to the law? Does he complain about how badly he has been treated and appeal for better human rights? No, he points to the greatness of God regardless of the consequences. Joseph gives us an example of great leadership in a pagan country during testing times. What lessons can we learn?

1. He was foundationally God-centred.

Pharaoh flatters Joseph in chapter 41 v 15 as the great interpreter of dreams.  He is dangling greatness and power in front of a powerless slave.  Who wouldn't take the bait?  Joseph responds with one word.  In our translation it reads 'I am not able to' but in the Hebrew it is one word 'not I'.  Literally it means that 'the answer lies outside of me'.  Joseph is saying 'I can't interpret your dream but the true and living God can'. The stakes are very high.  One wrong word and Joseph's head will be separated from his torso.  Who wouldn't have buckled before such raw power?  

As he stands before this Egyptian deity, Joseph points to ha Elohim - the God.  Through one word of explosive self deprecation Joseph confesses the true and living God at the epicentre of pagan power.  The arrogant, self assured teenager was gone and a more mature, deeper Joseph stands before the most powerful man on earth without fear.  Thirteen years of suffering had made him God centred instead of self centred.  As Hughes says 'Through Joseph, God was advertising and asserting himself in Egypt.'  Christians so often think they need power to exert power and influence.  What we need is trust in a great God.

2. He was fearlessly honest. 

Joseph could have softened his answer to Pharaoh but he didn't.  The prospect of power and favour didn't change Joseph.  He was the same with his fellow prisoners as he was with the most powerful leader in the world.   As Hughes says 'Joseph had not changed one whit in his trip from the pit to the palace.  This thirteen years of preparation were now paying huge dividends.'  Through setbacks and disappointments Joseph had learned a steeliness and fearless honesty all too rare in most leaders.  Most seek position and comfort but not Joseph.  He was like Daniels three friends about to be thrown in to the fiery furnace in Daniel 3 v 16-18.  The true Christian leader does the right thing and leaves the consequences to God.  

But honesty also involves vulnerability.  One of the best things I have heard in recent months was from Jonathan Lamb at Crieff who said; 'the opposite of fear is not courage, but trust'.  Many of us wake up on Monday mornings (or for preachers Sunday) and we don't feel very brave.  We often feel empty and weak.  But so often this is when God will do great things.  God emptied Joseph of himself so he could fill him with the Holy Spirit.  Isn't this what we see time and time again?  In Geneses 39 v 21 - 23 we read that 'the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him.'  Its not talent and bravery we need during a national pandemic but more trust in the living God.  This is what will give us fearless honesty. 

3.  He learned to listen

When we go back to Genesis 37 we read about Joseph telling his brothers about his dreams.  There is no mention of God and we read the word 'me' and 'I' over and over again.  The great sign of immaturity is that we talk a lot about ourselves.  Our opinions are all that matter.  This is seen on social media, the most frequent contributors are often the most immature.  Everything is simple and black and white.  People post without thinking, without praying, without considering.  

As we grow and mature and go through adversity we see that life is painful, complex and often there are no easy answers.  We learn to listen more and talk less.  This is what Joseph had learned.  He lets Pharaoh speak.  He doesn't interrupt him. Pharaoh pours out his dreams from verses 17-24 of chapter 41.  Great leaders are great listeners.  They take an interest in what their team or their congregation think.  They take advice easily, they are easily entreated.  They are constantly learning and reflecting, they are enthusiastic learners.  They read widely but discerningly, they like to have their thinking challenged.  Great leaders are nearly always team players and good delegators.  They hold power lightly because it is a gift from God.

4. He was given Godly understanding 

True wisdom comes from the fear of the Lord.  It was because Joseph truly feared the Lord that he had no fear of Pharaoh and was able to interpret his dreams.  The fear of God is not a popular subject today even in Christian circles.  The Puritan William Bates said 'there is nothing more fearful than an ingenious love, and nothing more loving than a filial fear.' It is only as we fear God in a fatherly way that we are given understanding of things often hidden to the world.  Joseph's interpretation of the Pharaoh's dream was devastatingly simple but it was kept from the magicians and revealed to Joseph.  This is what we see in great leaders. God gives them supernatural understanding not because they are gifted or talented but because they are dependent on God.  They are men and women saturated in the word, humble, prayerful and filled with a spirit of worship.  We are to call out to insight and lift our voice to understanding, to seek for it like silver and search for it like hidden treasure (Proverbs 2 v 3,4).

5. He was given confidence and wise advice

Isn't it amazing after Joseph interprets Pharaoh's dream that this pagan deity recognises the spirit of God in Joseph (Genesis 41 v 38)?  Isn't that an encouragement for those of us who lead in secular environments to stand tall for God?  People may not like our Christianity but they see us as people with integrity and wisdom.

Pharaoh now turns to Joseph for wise advice.  Joseph shows one of the great traits of a great leader and encourages Pharaoh to make some very tough decisions.  One of these is to put taxes up by 20% over the next 7 years of abundance.  His other pieces of advice were to appoint a national overseer, appoint regional governors and build more storage facilities to store food in the years of plenty.  What an amazing business plan!  Save up while you can so that when famine and recession come you will have enough to feed society.  Leaders often come up with the most incredible responses to situations of crisis.  People wonder where they get their wisdom from.  How can they come up with solutions so quickly?  As Daniel would say many years later '...the people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits' (Daniel 11 v 32).  Joseph was a type of Christ who was prepared and sent to bring redemption to a starving people.  Joseph was a forerunner of the great bread of life who would come in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

We are in a new and uncertain landscape. It needs a new kind of leadership. Not the leadership of grievance and conspiracy, but the joy filled leadership that points to a great-God who is always working even in the midst of setbacks and disappointments. Most of all Joseph reminds us that God keeps his promises as we see all of Egypt bowing down to him in Genesis 41 v 43. They cried out with the word 'abreka' which means 'kneel'. Genesis 37 is fulfilled in Genesis 41 and again in Genesis 42 as his brothers kneel before him.

God is able to bring great good out of immense evil and suffering.  Joseph points us to the greater Joseph who died on a cross and accomplished the most incredible act of redemption the world has ever seen.  He too brought great good out of evil and could say with Joseph 'But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.' (Genesis 50 v 20).  

Joseph remained humble because he believed in a big God.  When God called him to lead in extraordinary times he was ready.  He remained God focussed, humble, prayerful and free from bitterness.  We see this in the names of his children: Manasseh (God has made me forget my hardship) and Ephraim (God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction).  God is calling us to lead in extraordinary times.  Leadership in lockdown has been and is very tough.  We need other leaders around us, supporting us and praying with us.  We need to be 'big-godders' like Joseph.  Lets remian faithful in tough times and rather than trying to be brave, lets trust in the God of Joseph who is doing all things well.  

For further study I have particularly enjoyed David C Searle's 'Joseph - His Arms Were Made Strong' by the Banner of Truth.  Also David Kingdon's Mysterious Ways is very helpful.  Joel Beeke's sermon series is invaluable as is Sinclair Fergusons sermons.  

Homeland

I've been thinking a lot recently about identity, authenticity and roots.  This is partly after being on holiday in Sutherland and partly after reading Tim Keller's The Prodigal Prophet which I highly recommend.  I had never really noticed before but there is a lot in Jonah about identity and roots.  When the sailors ask Jonah in chapter 1 v 8: Then they said to him, "Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us.  What is your occupation?  And where do you come from?  What is your country?  And of what people are you?  And he said to them I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and dry land."  The sailors were asking Jonah's purpose (or mission), his place (or homeland) and his race (or people). Their primary reason was to identify his God so they could appease him and be delivered from the storm.

Of course Jonah is caught up with religious and racial superiority, which is why he is running from his mission of mercy towards the heathen Ninevites.  He wasn't the first or the last disciple who saw himself as superior to others because of his identity and theology.  Jesus spent much of his ministry challenging the scribes and pharisees for their pride and superiority.  This pride is invariably fuelled by anger which we see so clearly in Jonah chapter 4.  He answers the sailors that he is a Hebrew first before saying that he is part of the covenant people of God.  This highlights his problem which is unfolded in the book of Jonah.  He was a Hebrew first and a Yahweh follower second.  Jonah's overwhelming identity was racial and this coloured everything else.  Our identity is so critical to how we live.  As Keller says:  The sailors knew that identity is always rooted in the things we look toward to save us, the things to which we give allegiance.  To ask, "Who are you" is to ask, "Whose are you?" To know who you are is to know what you have given yourself to, what controls you, what you most fundamentally trust (The Prodigal Prophet, Tim Keller, p 49).  I'm always amazed how few people seem to genuinely ask the question 'who am I?' until it is too late

Reading The Prodigal Prophet challenged me about my own identity, purpose and people.  We all have a 'homeland' that we identify with and mine is definitely the Highlands.  I love Argyll, the Hebrides but I always feel the west of Sutherland is something like a spiritual homeland for me. Where we come from shapes us and moulds us in ways we are hardly aware of.  My Dad has been ill recently and every time I visit him we start to talk about his own upbringing and journey through life.  So many of these discussions revolve around my fathers family home outside Dornoch called Lonemore.  I love Dornoch but there is something about the west of Sutherland that keeps drawing me back.  It refreshes me in ways that I can't really put in to words.

Loch Shin, Lairg with my lovely wife.

It is only relatively recently that I've discovered that my Great, Great Grandparents came from a farm called Dalchork just outside Lairg which may explain my emotional connection with the area.  Of course my father's great hero, Prof John Murray comes from Badbea near Bonar Bridge and every time I am in Lairg I re-read the Life of Prof John Murray by Iain H Murray which is one of my favourite books.  You can order it here.  I always find it incredible that one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century comes from a tiny wee place called Badbea on the shores of the beautiful Loch Migdale.  Many of the roads in the area were originally built by Prof John Murray's father Alexander or 'Sandy Level' as he was known in the area. He worked for Andrew Carnegie when he returned to Scotland in 1898 and began a huge rebuilding programme on Skibo Caste and the surrounding area.  My own Grandfather would go on to work on the Skibo estate some years after Alexander Murray.

My third oldest son David at the second hole of the Ardgay and Bonar Bridge Golf Course with Badbea in the background where Prof John Murray was born and raised.

The family home at Lonemore, Dornoch, which was at the eastern side of the Skibo estate, is looking a bit sad after being a busy croft for most of its life.  Large hunks of farm machinery lie rusting as monuments to more productive times.  My uncle continues to live there despite his ongoing frailty.  He has never married and eschews most of the comforts everyone else takes for granted.  There are few 83 year olds still cycling and fewer purchasing 'bowman saws' at the local ironmongers so he can continue to cut wood!  But my uncle has never found happiness in the comforts of this world.

I have a tremendous  respect for my uncle and for his adherence to the reformed faith which has remained unchanged for his whole life.  He has seen young (and not so young) ministers come and go, changes, fads and fashions introduced but he has remained fixed in his convictions.  He is reluctant to criticise and only gives his view reluctantly when asked.  Whenever I bring up the subject of the latest innovation in theology or worship he always shakes his head and says 'will they never learn from history?'  He is steeped in the rich history of the Free Church particularly in Sutherland and has spent his life helping others appreciate the past.

Often when I have felt my uncle was lonely over the years I was reminded that he has surrounded himself with godly writers and preachers of a bygone era.  They are stacked high on every table, chair and ledge as well as being surrounded by every conceivable reformed periodical from around the world.  Nobody leaves Lonemore without a good book, a booklet or a magazine.  It took me a wee while to really appreciate these books but now that I do I love going to my uncles and looking through his incredible selection of books.  I truly believe the faith that my Dad and uncle have fought for over the last 50-60 years will stand the test of time because it has been the fight for Biblical Christianity embodied in the reformed creeds and confessions.  But they would be the first to admit that they stand on the shoulders of giants who have gone before them and made Sutherland famous for godliness and a love for solid Biblical truth and doctrine.  

My uncle Willie and I outside his cottage in April 2019.

Sutherland, and particularly the west of Sutherland, has been greatly blessed over the years with the power of the gospel.  My uncle has re-published 'Men of Sutherland' (which has completely sold out) about some of the Godly ministers and elders of Sutherland.  Another book which is still in print is 'Records of Grace in Sutherland' by Donald Munro and is available from the Scottish Reformation Society.  When I was up in Lairg recently I read the life of Gustavus Aird who was the minister in Creich Free Church from 1843 - 1898 (yes, he was minister that long).  It was wonderful to read of so much spiritual life in Highland glens and villages which now seem so spiritually dead.  While we must be careful about reading history with rose tinted spectacles one of the things that strikes me about the Christian history of Sutherland is that the people feared God and this led to deep respect for His word and particularly the Lord's day.

In his 1955 Peyton Lectures Prof John Murray spoke about the eclipse of the fear of God.  He said we have become reluctant to distinguish the earnest and consistent believer as God fearing. Prof John Murray radiated this deep reverence and respect for God both as a preacher and lecturer.  Students recalled his memorable lectures at Westminster Theological Seminary from 1930-1966 as being punctuated by deep reverence and respect for God and His word.  As Walt Chantry recounts: Fear of God dominated Prof Murray's classroom.  Each period began with prayer from the Professors lips which brought all into the presence of an awesome God.  Each subject was handled in a dignified and solemn manner that conveyed a deep reverence for the Almighty.  Professor Murray breathed the attitude that all things in his lectures were holy and majestic.  Not a study of the fear of God, but the professors visible and audible manifestation of that fear, became a main lesson for his young disciples (Life of Prof John Murray, 2007 edition, p 121).  Prof Murray did not encourage questions during his lectures such was his flow of thought and earnestness of delivery.

As I get older I think more and more about legacy.  So much of the rich history of Sutherland leaves us with a fragrant and rich Christian heritage.  When Prof John Murray's father died in January 1943 he wrote a most moving letter to David Freeman about his father which moves me every time I read it:

The news of his [Prof John Murray's father] passing brings a peculiar feeling of sorrow, but I am also filled with a deep sense of gratitude and joy.  He was a dear and eminently worthy father, so faithful, so loving.  It is an inexpressible privilege to know that he is now with the Lord and Saviour whom he loved and served for so long.  Every indication points in the direction that the work of saving grace was wrought in him at a very early age, and with impeachable integrity and perseverance he witnessed to the Lord to the ripe age of 90.  His interest was lively and his faculties unimpaired, until, just a few weeks ago, his interest in the things of this world seemed largely to disappear.  \in the last letter I had from my sister she told me that, for the two days preceding, he was in the 51st Psalm and repeated it again and again from the beginning to the end in Gaelic, his mother tongue, of course.  Though he was my father I may say that there were few men in the Highlands of Scotland whose life and memory were surrounded by such fragrance, and whose life of consistent godliness claimed such veneration and respect.  To be his son is a great privilege but also a tremendous responsibility.  I wish I could have been home to pay the last rites of respect and love.

I feel my 'homeland' has handed down to me a rich legacy of God fearing men and women for which I have a deep and lasting respect.  Many people possibly look at my uncle, as they did of Prof John Murray's father, as a 'simple crofter', but his life testifies to a deep love and fear of the Lord.  There were (and still are) many Highland crofters that know more theology than many divinity students.  They fear God which the Bible tells us is the beginning of wisdom. I could listen to my uncle praying all day.  He always approaches God with the same phrase We approach thee O God in the all prevailing name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  His deep humility and unworthiness are not fake but flow out of a lifetime of scripture reading and memorisation.  He quotes the metrical Psalms with ease and 'claims the promises.'  He loves being amongst the people of God on the Lord's Day.  He is a man who knows his mission, people and homeland and has prioritised principle over pragmatism despite how much it has cost him.  Like Prof John Murray it has been a great privilege to be brought up by my father and to have been influenced by my uncle and with it comes great responsibility.  In a day when truth is despised and the fear of God is seen as old fashioned I am thankful that my Sutherland heritage has helped me to see a big God, a beautiful Saviour and glorious heritage.