Today we will continue on our series: On Becoming A Servant Leader and the Lord has also given us something to consider and I am sure that we will be blessed by it. The title of our focus today is: Rise To The Task Beyond Your Title. The first time we looked at the series on becoming a servant leader, we saw that it is important for you as a leader to discover or to rediscover your 3Ps. And so, last week, we looked at The Three Strategic Question of Your Purpose. So, today we are looking at Rise To The Task Beyond Your Title, and I want us to very quickly look at the book of Nehemiah chapter 3 and I will read verse 1.
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"Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brethren the priests and built the Sheep Gate; they consecrated it and hung its doors. They built as far as the Tower of the Hundred, and consecrated it, then as far as the Tower of Hananel."
Nehemiah 3:1
Now if you read from that verse 2-32, what you will see is how different people who have responsibilities, who have perhaps, influence, decides to take responsibilities, decided actually to rise to the occasion to fulfill the task at hand, not merely carrying titles around. Instead of us reading the entire chapter, since every verse is filled with instances, and even illustrations and examples of people that rose up to the occasion to fulfill the task beyond titles, I just decided to read verse 1 for us and perhaps to save some time.
So, we are considering Rise To The Task Beyond Your Title and in that Nehemiah 3:1, the book of Nehemiah illustrated and actually showed us how a particular man called Eliashib who have the title of being the High Priest. As at the moment of this account, he was the High Priest and I am sure you are familiar with the responsibilities of the High Priest. They don't actually build things, what they do is to offer sacrifices and to intercede between God and men. Now, Eliashib decided to rise up. And if you note closely, he actually became a leader that served the people and because he was willing to serve, his influence went beyond his own action.
Because the Bible says in verse 1 "Then Eliashib the high priest rose up." Now, you know that you don't rise up with a team, you rise up as an individual. Now, if others consider what you have done a worthy action for them to imitate, then they will follow you. When they follow you in such actions, then it means they are influenced by you and you are leading them. Now, what we are seeing now is that a man decided to serve. His action of rising up was act of service. Now, haven rise up or haven made the decision to rise, other priests decided to take a cue from him, imitate him and also rose up with him. So, he became a leader via service and that is very important for us to understand.
Many of us want to become leaders, we have titles and yet we are saying "how come no one really wants to imitate me? How come nobody wants to follow me?" Now, the question you should ask is: Have you been serving actually the people that you are trying to influence? The quickest and the easiest way to influence anybody is to serve such people. Now, this high priest decided to rise up. Not rise up to pray, but rise up to build. And because he decided on his own to do this, others found example to emulate from his life and his leadership. So, he became a leader via service and anyone who becomes a leader by serving is who we call a servant leader.
Jesus said it very clearly, He said "I am one among you as one who serves." So, because I am among you as one who serves, I therefore become a leader that serves you and so, I become your servant leader. So, it is important we know that going forward in our emergence as leaders, the necessity for service is not a matter for debate. It is actually something that you cannot do without. Your service isn't a luxury, but a necessity. You must serve if you want to have influence and this Eliashib the high priest gave us an example. Perhaps he has been serving as high priest just leading prayers and leading sacrifices, and people have been listening to him and following him in that order, but the moment he decided to become a servant beyond the pulpit, a servant beyond the altar, he became a leader also beyond the altar.
So, how can you and I extend the frontiers of our leadership? I think it is by us extending the frontiers of our service. You have been leading thus far on the areas that you have been serving. If you want to serve beyond, if you want to lead beyond your current sphere of leadership, then you must spread the net of your service. Increase your capacity to serve, take every opportunity you have to serve as an opportunity that you have to lead. Every time you serve, you are indirectly leading.
Now one of the things that I noted while meditating on this is that our generation, and actually generations of humans have actually never been in need of leaders or they’ve never lacked leaders. We don’t lack leaders, especially the ones with titles. What is missing in our generations, in fact over the course of history are leaders with tasks. When you find leaders, you find them always with their titles. "Oh! I am the this, I am the that." That’s the title. We go about parading our titles. But what is missing are leaders with tasks. Leaders, who you know are leading simply because you find them doing something. We don’t always find leaders like that, we find leaders showcasing titles. Check your twitter handle and the twitter handles of the people around you, the Facebook handle, what do you see? Titles! But what we are in need of is leaders that have a responsibility and are carrying it out.
Now, when I looked up the word ‘task’ from the dictionary, I found something that we could learn from. "A task is a piece of work that somebody has to do especially a hard or unpleasant one." A piece of work! Now, the responsibility of rebuilding the wall was a piece of work. It could be done only when a man or a woman decides to do it. Now, supposing anyone decides to go about showcasing himself or herself as the one who is the high priest, as the one who is the this or that, the work will still remain undone.
The reason why we have so much underdevelopment in Africa and in Nigeria is because people in positions of authority go about showcasing their positions not carrying out the details and the spirit of their responsibilities. Somebody is a Perm. Sec. Perm. Sec. for what? Perm. Sec. for a responsibility. Somebody is a Director. Somebody is expected to direct something. Somebody is an Executive Director. Somebody is the Managing Director, somebody is the Group Executive Director. Somebody is something. You are a Minister, you are a President, you are a Governor. You are Senator. There is a task.
But we would rather go about saying I am your Excellency, we go about showcasing those things. "Your Excellency Sir!" "Your honorable minister!" Is it the honorable minister that we really need as a people or a man who is ministering because a minister is a servant. He is one who serves. So are you a serving minister or a minister who is simply just having fun?
Walls will remain un-built, dams will remain un-built, electricity projects will remain undone, if all we do is to go about carrying titles. Titles don’t change situations. Titles don’t fix the problems, it is only fulfilling the task that really gets things done. Imagine a man who is sick and is taken to the hospital and then somebody walks up and says "Hi, I am the chief medical director here. How are you?" And he says "I am fine." "Oh! you see as the chief medical director, I have done a lot of things you see, as a chief medical director, ah! I have spent so many years here", and the medical director decides to just commit his time to discussing with this young man. Will the young man be healed of his sickness? No!
The young man is not there to listen to the story or to be told how the chief medical director became a chief medical director. No! He will only have a change of experience if only the chief medical director decides to carry out the task of saving the life of the young man. What will save generations is not our titles, it is our task, our commitment to our task. Let’s go about fulfilling our task.
And I also note something and I also want to say this, as I am concluding. After all is said and done, only the few that said some things and did a few things will be spoken and written about by successive generations. Now, if you read that Nehemiah chapter 3 from verse 1 to 33, you will notice that many names were mentioned and all these people were mentioned simply because they did certain things, they rose up to carry out the tasks beyond their titles. And so, we have the opportunity to read about them today simply because they were not going about, gallivanting, showcasing their titles but fulfilling the task of their assignment.
That what’s has been laid in my heart On Becoming A Servant Leader. Servant leaders are not men that showcase their titles; they are men that carry out the task. They are men that are not afraid to “get their hands dirty”, they are not afraid to really get busy. They are not afraid to really be in the task, be buried in the task. They don’t mind it, they want to get the job done. Driven to get results. They are driven to save lives, to help lives. These are the men that we are waiting for. I believe you desire to become servant leader in your generation, its important you note that while you must rediscover your 3ps’ and you must answer the 3 strategic questions of your purpose, it’s important that you rise up beyond your title and you fulfill your task because until you do that, your influence does not actually extend or does not get established with or over any people.
I hope to connect with you again next week Wednesday. Stay leading, Stay serving.
God bless you!
