Transcription
God always walks through the headship principle. I discovered this from the Bible. I'm still quoting him from his book. I discovered this from the Bible and preached on it often because a lack of understanding in the church about this principle has caused many problems, not the least of which is a multitude of church splits.
Another area where lack of understanding this principle has caused problems is in church government. It is important to have deacons and elders. Both are certainly scriptural. However, their functions are not the same, although their qualifications are basically the same. But God never at any time or any place called a board to run a local church. They may assist, but God always calls a pastor to head a local church. He always follows the headship principle.
The New Testament pattern also includes the foundational offices of apostle and prophet. Study especially Acts chapter 13. Another good example of the headship principle can be found in the Old Testament examples of Moses and Joshua. God chose Moses to lead the Old Testament type of the church, Israel, out of Egypt and bondage. And when the time came for Moses to leave the scene, a successor had already been chosen, that is Joshua. Yet God never spoke to Joshua until after the death of Moses. Then God spoke to Joshua and said, "Moses my servant is dead." (Joshua chapter 1, verse 2).
God is a good manager. It is a well-known, although often unfollowed, management principle that you do not go around a boss to deal with subordinates. And a good manager does not allow a subordinate to go around their boss to the senior manager. Unfortunately, this principle is violated every day in the business world, causing loss of productivity and employee behavioral problems. But God does not operate that way. He walks through hardship and the headship principle. The headship over a local church is normally the pastor. God never went around Moses and said, "Okay, Joshua, you will be the next leader. I am going to let Moses die, and then you will take over." No, it never happened that way. It was only after Moses died that God spoke to Joshua.
If we first understood this headship principle, we would not be as susceptible to attack as we have been by the rulers of darkness. We will not allow ministers to rise up in the church and split the church, taking half the congregation with them. God never walks that way. Why have we allowed the devil to divide and conquer? Whenever we ordain the kings, elders, and pastors, we always discuss this principle with them. We also discuss the absolute spirit which always rises up in a church. We emphasize Acts chapter 20, verses 17 to 31.
All of this was taken from his book, "Secrets of the Dark Kingdom."
What are the attributes of a spiritual father? He is, most of the time, the head of a ministry or denomination. He is the carrier of the grace and vision of the ministry. He does not have to be older than you in age, or older in Christ, or older in ministry. Your spiritual father can be younger than you in age. The role of a spiritual father is not exclusively reserved only for male ministers. A woman can also be the spiritual leader or senior pastor of a ministry or denomination.
Now, in the same dimension, there are some of our fathers that are classified as fathers in the faith, fathers in the field. Who are they? This refers to senior ministers of God who have proven themselves as role models and true ministers of God.
They include:
1. The senior pastor of a ministry you once belonged to, as long as that ministry is a genuine ministry. That senior pastor remains a father in the faith to you.
2. The spiritual father of your spiritual father. He is not your spiritual father; he is a father in the faith to you.
3. National leaders of the Christian community in your nation or location. I believe this still goes a bit, not just at the national level, but even at the state level. For instance, by position, by reason of the office, whoever is the pastor that is at the point in time the chairman or president of the Christian community, Pentecostal community in a state, is by that office regarded as a father in the faith.
4. Fathers in the faith includes other ministers of God that are serving as spiritual fathers to many other Christians. For instance, senior pastors of credible mega ministries.
Still talking about your spiritual father, take note that your spiritual father may not necessarily be the best preacher in the congregation, but he is the person that God has put there. For instance, Moses was not the best preacher in his time.
Also, your spiritual father may not necessarily be the best teacher in the congregation, but he is the person that God has put there.
Your spiritual father is not necessarily the best intercessor in the congregation, but he is the person that God has put there. Other members of the church or ministers in the church or ministry may even pray more than him, fast more than him, but that doesn't change anything about who is supposed to be your spiritual father. Unlike Apostle Paul, your spiritual father could have been a chief sinner before conversion to Christ.
Fatherhood is a responsibility. Fathering is about functions. A father is the one who impacts something onto his children. And so, I show you about ten rules and responsibilities of a spiritual father.
Ten rules and responsibilities of a spiritual father:
1. He should reproduce Christ-like sons and daughters. He should reproduce Christ-like sons and daughters, and take note that the focus is Christ, the goal is Christ-centered, around Christ, not primarily reproducing sons like himself, but sons and daughters that are Christ-like, and for which he is serving as an example and role model, but the focus is Christ.
2. A spiritual father should teach and train his spiritual sons and daughters in the way of the Lord. You should teach them in the way of the Lord. It should train them in the way of the Lord. And that is why you are going to observe that most spiritual fathers will not be comfortable teaching or preaching a message from the Lord, a vital message on the subject and the things of the faith or the spiritual. You are listening, but you are not writing. And that is why some go to the extent of making it compulsory that especially on the Sunday service, anyone seated must have a pen, must have a sermon note, and must have a Bible. More importantly, that everyone listening is recording or is writing his message. Very, very important. And training them in the way of the Lord now goes into the realm of building character, building character, emphasizing the right attitude of a true believer, the fruit of the Spirit.
3. A spiritual father should mold their character and attitude. Should mold the character and attitude of his members through preaching, through teaching, and sometimes through general or private counseling and correction. In Genesis chapter 18, verse 19, God could vouch for Abraham. God was so confident about Abraham in terms of his competence, and capability, and ability to impact unto his children the ways of the Lord. A spiritual father should inculcate the right habits, the right manners, the right attitude into the lives of his members: good manners, the virtue of humility, self-control, submission, personal discipline, decent dressing, especially in a time like this where, you know, under the cover of modern trends, nakedness is being glorified, and Christians, believers, supposed believers are embracing it. Decent dressing, love, kindness.
4. A spiritual father should consistently show love to his sons and daughters. That is, if you care for them to the best of his ability. He should share with them. The spiritual father should desire the best in life for every member of his congregation. You should be patient with them. You should show understanding with them at different times and seasons. If you forgive them, it should also help to restore them.
5. He should consistently pray and intercede for them. A spiritual father should consistently pray and intercede for them. By so doing, it provides a spiritual covering and protection for them. It provides a spiritual covering and protection for them. This is very, very critical in the spiritual. The prayer of your spiritual father on your behalf neutralizes a lot of spiritual attacks on a daily basis. It should bless their lives and future. They should prophesy over their lives and future. It should impact the intangible upon their lives. That is what is expected primarily from a spiritual father, the intangible, not the tangible. The primary role of a spiritual father is not for is not to give money. Peter, leading the early church, says, "Silver and gold have I none, but that which I have I give unto you." And what was it going to? And what was going to follow? There was an impartation of the grace of God upon him, an impartation of the grace, the gift of God upon him.
6. He should counsel and guide them to make the right decisions. However, this role should be advisory in nature and not forceful or by compulsion. Spiritual fathers should be bold, should be frank, and objective in telling his spiritual sons and daughters the truth, irrespective of their level of success, their level of wealth, power, influence, or position.
7. He should motivate and encourage his members. He encourages them as they take steady steps forward in different realms of life. He impacts unto them. He believes in them. He expresses these in his actions. He expresses these in his comments. A spiritual father that does not believe that young men and women should have opportunity in leadership will either consciously or unconsciously expose himself from time to time by his comments and his utterances and his actions. So, a spiritual father should motivate his members to attain greater heights and realize their full potential.
8. He should help them to discover and attain their destinies and optimum potentials. Spiritual fathers should help his sons and daughters to discover their destinies and fulfill their destinies, fulfill God's purpose for their lives and their full potentials. It should help them through teachings, very detailed teachings, counseling sessions, programs that are relevant to these. It should help them to discover their divine talents, their divine gifting, their areas of special abilities, and areas of strength. A spiritual father should train his sons and daughters to be productive. He should train his sons and daughters to be productive. He should train his sons and daughters to be useful, to build up, develop themselves, to become useful and relevant, starting from the home front. Teenagers must be taught, even the children must be taught from the home front at an early age to be supportive to their parents. The young adults must be taught to become self-dependent as early in the day as possible.
9. He should groom his sons and daughters for leadership. The spiritual father should groom his sons and daughters for leadership, not just leadership in the church and in core ministry, in the marketplace, in politics and governance, in different spheres of life, because members of the church are called, gifted by God, destined by God to serve and operate in some of these areas and feats of life. So, he should delegate duties to them as part of this process, intentionally, systematically, structurally. These things are put in place. He gives them access to platforms that will enhance their development. It helps them to attain maturity and to become self-dependent.
10. He corrects and disciplines them when necessary. It corrects them and disciplines them when necessary.
Now, still talking about the concept, the subject of the spiritual father, there are some vital lessons that you must also have in mind. You must take note of:
1. Your destiny and future is connected to your spiritual father. Your destiny is connected to your spiritual father. Take note, your spiritual father, and not necessarily a prominent minister of God, is by divine design.
2. There is a difference between a mentor and a father. A mentor guides you in the way, while a father takes responsibility for you knowing the way. A mentor guides you in the way, while a father takes responsibility for you knowing the way.
3. There is a difference also between a teacher and a father. Because in the process of time and life, the journey of your life, you will also encounter men and women that are sent to play a role in the capacity of a mentor, some in the capacity of a teacher. And from time to time, a lot of the things that is the role also the role of a spiritual father would actually also be played out by a mentor or a teacher. But there's a difference between a teacher and a father. A teacher instructs for a period of time, while a father imparts over a very long time. A teacher instructs, but a father impacts over a very long time.
4. There is a difference in God's vision and assignment for different ministries. There is a difference in God's vision and assignment for different ministries. This is very important. So you must find out once you are sure that this is where God wants you to be, stay and support the ministry. Stay and support the ministry. Some things that are not being done today will be done in the future when the time comes.
5. This is also very important: accessibility to your spiritual father. Take note, some ministers of God have been ordained and positioned by God as a spiritual father to millions, to millions of members, to millions of spiritual sons and daughters. Some have been positioned by God to be a spiritual father to thousands, hundreds, or tens, as the case may be. Now, Jesus had his own model and levels of accessibility. There was a multitude, then they had Jesus had the 70 disciples, which you want to call like the workers, the church workers. Then he had the 12 ministers, the 12 apostles. Then he had, by personal choice, by personal choice, he had the inner cycle of three. Because that has to be done, your inner cycle has to be done by personal discretion. And that is why a Judas, someone in the nature of a Judas, is not supposed to be in your inner cycle. The closest a Judas can come to you, can get to you, would be the capacity of him or her occupying a position or office or appointment, just like Judas was an apostle in the ministry of our Lord Jesus. Now, if you observe these four sets of people: the multitude, the 70 disciples, the 12 apostles, and then the inner cycle of three, Peter, James, and John had different levels of accessibility to our Lord Jesus Christ. The three were the ones that had more access to Him, then the 12 apostles, followed by the 70 disciples, and then the larger multitude. This is the same thing that applies with the spiritual father. If a ministry is really growing in numbers, we are going to have a situation where he can now only relate. You know, we have some ministries with thousands and thousands of pastors. So, in such a ministry, the spiritual father of the ministry cannot personally have the time to interact with all the pastors one-on-one because they are in thousands. But there will be a system, there will be a structure in place that ensures that everyone's need, including counseling, prayers of agreement, are attended to and are turned into on time. For instance, the father of a very large biological family. We have a few of them, we read about from time to time. See, some have a man has more than a hundred children, so many wives, and some far above a hundred. Now, in such cases, the father, such a biological father, would not be able to spend as much time with all his children compared to the father of a few children, two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, even up to twenty. In fact, when they get up to the number of a hundred, he may sometimes not remember the name and just it would identify them by their mother, but the mother's name, but the mother of the son or the daughter, sometimes he will mix up their names. So, however, this situation would not now justify you advising the son of such a man to go and adopt another father. You are not going to tell the son of a man that had a hundred, has a hundred children, to adopt another father simply because, you know, he's not able to relate frequently with his father like his friends that have, you know, that are just less than 10 children in the family.
6. You must be considerate and understanding with your spiritual father. God is expecting this from you. From Acts chapter 6, verses 1 to 4, you will discover that their primary mandate is to pray, to intercede, and to preach. The primary mandate that God has given your spiritual father is to pray for you, intercede privately in the closet, and then pray for you in the open, and then also to study the word, wait in God's presence to receive God's message for every time and season, and teach and preach to members of the congregation and family of God. This is your principal mandate: praying, interceding, and sharing the word. Your spiritual father cannot do certain things for every member of, especially a large congregation. And you, if you observe, you see people from time to time will complain, "My pastor has never," "My pastor has not," "My pastor, you know." And if you reason with what we are sharing now, it's clear to you that that is not practically possible. If it was to attempt that, you are going to wear him out so quick, and that could affect his health in the long run. They cannot give the same quality or measure of gifts or assistance to every member of the church. So, a spiritual father cannot give the same quality or measure of gifts or assistance to every member of the church, to every worker in the church, to every staff in the church, to every minister in the church of the ministry. And take note of this: they cannot invite every member of the ministry to their personal or family functions. Ah, the pastor's daughter is getting married. Ideally, a committed member of the ministry should be invited, but the ministry can be blessed, and in the realm of increase, numerical increase, and it grows to a particular number that that is certainly not going to be possible. It's certainly not going to be possible because of the large numerical strength of that ministry. So, you must not get offended that pastor had this, they had this, and some members were obviously invited, some ministers or workers were invited, but I was not invited. And you know, this is the same reason that many of the men deliberately, intentionally choose to have a very small biological family to avoid the situation where what you could do for two or three of the children, you could not now do for the rest of the children. But there is no spiritual father that is going to limit the number of spiritual sons or daughters that he, that God will bring his way. So, may God give everyone grace to show more understanding with your spiritual father in the name of Jesus.
7. Avoid having multiple spiritual fathers. Very important. Avoid having multiple spiritual fathers. You read the account of Reverend T. Whitemans. The Holy Spirit told him, "Before God starts a ministry, he first of all makes the man or the woman before the ministry." Who is that man? He's not referring to the parish pastor; he's one man. It's not referring to a district pastor in the denomination; it's referring to one man, just one man. And that is the head of the ministry. And he also said that the devil, the Holy Spirit revealed to him that the devil will first of all destroy the man or the woman before he can destroy. Is there in the scriptures? "Strike the shepherd and the sheep will what? Scatter." Strike the pastor, not a pastor, the pastor, and the pastor. Now, that pastor is referring to the senior pastor, the set man. In 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 15, in the Easy-to-Read version of the Bible, it says, "You may have 10,000 teachers in Christ, but you don't have many fathers." You may have ten thousand teachers in Christ, no problem, but you don't have many fathers. Because, among other things, there are things you should do for your spiritual father. There are some obligations that, you know, God expects you to extend to your spiritual father, and it's going to be too much for any man or woman or family to attempt to be doing that to so many spiritual fathers. "So through the good news, I became your father in Christ Jesus." God does not create two heads in the family. God does not create two heads in the family. You can have many spiritual mentors, you can have many teachers, many preachers, many ministers, many pastors, but you should have just one spiritual father within your ministry. Have one spiritual father outside the ministry. Have. And that is why we made it clear today that there are what we call fathers in the faith, fathers in the field. Baba Adeboye is a father in the faith. Bishop is a father in the faith. Reverend Kumuyi is the father in the faith. Reverend Mbude is the father in the faith. By position, whoever is a CAN or PFN chairman at the national or state level is a father in the faith. Some ministers are called to be an Aaron and not a Moses. Some are called to play some other role other than the headship of a ministry.
Models of good sons:
1. Joshua to Moses. Can we all please give a loud clap offering for brother Joshua? Yes, Joshua was a very good model of a good spiritual son. He was a good model of a good spiritual son. He related excellently well with Moses.
2. Elijah to Elisha. Shall we clap for our brother and prophet Elijah? I know you can't do better than that for Prophet Elijah. Yes, he had his own business, he was very successful, and suddenly one man that he's not even relating with, but he recognizes as his true prophet of God, shows up and chose the mantle of call or to ministry on him. And Elijah didn't waste time, answered the call to ministry, and humbly started serving under Prophet Elijah. Served him so well to the extent that at the close of the walk of ministry, before God took up Elijah, Elijah supernaturally, Elijah told Elisha he was going first to Beth-el, Jericho, and then Jordan. And to each of these locations, he was ready to go alone. But Elijah, as a faithful, committed, loving son that he was, insisted personally that he would not allow his father to go alone. He was in so many ways a true son, a true son.
3. And then the third model of a good son was Peter to our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's put our hands together for Apostle, Apostle Peter. You know, I was studying a book sometime a long time ago, and it was then I realized that Peter was in his 60s. He was in his 60s when Jesus called him to follow Him. Peter was senior to our Lord Jesus Christ with over 30 years. And it was only till I read that account that I readjusted my reasoning to start looking at how the same man who was 30 years plus senior to Jesus was relating to Him in the scriptural accounts. You will find it hard to comprehend that Peter was even senior to Jesus, and senior to Him with over 30 years. Our Lord Jesus began ministry by age 30 and it was done by 33 and a half. Peter was a true son, and that was why he found he was among the inner cycle of three, the inner cycle of three. He was loyal, he was faithful, he was committed, he was sincere, he was not a pretender. There was nothing like eye service in all the conduct and acts of Peter. There was even a time, you remember, Jesus rebuked him, said he will be killed and crucified, and Peter got angry, said, "No, that will never happen." And our Lord Jesus Christ instantly, knowing that it was not him speaking, but the enemies trying to speak through him, rebuked that spirit that made that utterance. Now, ordinarily, that day would have been Peter's last day in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, because apart from what Jesus said to him, the tone and the exact word spoken, people would have analyzed, would have amplified the fact that, "Can, and if you know the age difference between the two of them, that would have been his last day following Jesus." But the following day, Peter was with Jesus again. And that was why at the end of the day, at the end of the day, there was no trap, no trap that the enemy was now going to set for Peter that would make God change His mind about the reward and the honor that God was going to give to him in becoming the spiritual father of the early church on the transition, on the accession of our Lord Jesus. I pray also for you that any trap, any trap that the enemy will bring your way to deny you of your great reward, I pray that such traps will be exposed by God, and those traps will fail. The best that your good deeds should bring you in life, you will receive it in full, in the name of Jesus.