Leading from the Trash

God look at the Good Deeds I've done God look at what I've achieved God look at all the success in my life and God's like where do you think all that came from who put the money in your checking account to go buy that stuff who gave you the talent who built into you everything you have so that you can have an ounce of that success he's like I am not removed from this picture but the only reason this picture even exists God says is because of [Music] me hey if you have your Bible to 1 Corinthians chap 4 and as you're flipping there uh we've been in this series living in Corinth studying through the book of 1 Corinthians and as we've gone through this we've kind of talked about when we look at our culture our culture is fractured it is broken and what the book of Corinthian calls us to is how do we be a church that is focused on the right things how do we be a church that's faithful to the right God and and as Paul is kind of taking us on this journey of the first three chapters we've seen that a focused and faithful church has some cultural characteristics it is one that is spiritually hungry that's saying how can I get closer to Jesus how can I get deeper in my relationship it is one that is radically humble when we talk about raising money for Camp is how do we live lives open-handed seeing less of stuff of ours and more as God's and is one that is uncomfortably Hospital we've been challenging you in our church to invite people into our lives invite people into our homes but as we've gone through this here's what Paul as he kind of shifts to chapter 4 he says says what do these what do these cultural traits this hungry this humble hospitable what does it look like when it applies to leadership and I don't know about you uh I I kind of when you look at leadership there's a lot the world has to say about it and there's a million things out there of this is what a leader looks like that's what a leader and today Paul's going to challenge us a little bit about it might not be as black and white or as simple as our world makes out to be I I grew up and I lived in the valley of Phoenix my entire life and and I love it here give me 120° over 20° every day okay right you don't shovel sunshine you just get AC C all right um in a pool but but I love it here and I've been here my whole life and and I would say as a resident of Phoenix My First Love Before I became a Christian um before I met my wife and this is now my third love it's a distant third behind Jesus and my wife okay uh she's in the service so I I said that in first service too I just wanted little record we so but my third love is the Phoenix Suns and that's cool all of you as well all right one person laughed what does that even mean like right you're just laughing that I'm depressing to be a Suns fan in every Arizona Sports U but that that that love kind of went to ASU into the Cardinals into the Diamondbacks and coyotes it didn't and they're already gone so it's great um but in that then that love also Sparks a despisement or hate for some other teams like those like that team down south that calls itself a university but it really isn't UA um Seahawks the Dodgers like all these just dirty words of teams you don't like right but let me tell you my most disliked team is the Los Angeles Lakers I just have a special darkness in my heart for that team last night I woke up had to go to the bathroom at 12:00 think I'm a little young for that but it just happened anyway okay I made a mistake of looking at my phone that was on silent and I had about 10 15 text messages Twitter was blowing up I look in the Los Angeles Lakers traded for Luca donic who I also don't like 25 years old a superstar in the NBA and it was the most ridiculous crazy trade I've ever seen in my life okay and and here's why why you're like why you talking about this like is it because you've been thinking about that for the last 10 hours well yes okay but as I'm scrolling through I'm like why in the world would the Mavericks do this trade their general manager released a statement and said we just didn't think he was the future guy to build our organization around we didn't think he was the right fit he wasn't the right leader he wasn't the right person to take us forward you see our world has a whole lot to say about leadership of what should it look like how do we measure in success of how do we kind of quantify it but when we come to God's word in First Corinthians chapter 4 Paul is going to give us a master class on leadership but one that we really don't expect I love this as you kind of in the verse we'll use to kind of launch out of this just to give a preview of what we're going to be diving into in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and the very end of verse 13 listen how Paul describes himself as an apostle how he describes Church leadership at that time who was starting the movement that would forever change the world and this is how Paul describes himself in the apostles he says even now we are like the scum of the earth like everyone's garbage that's a super encouraging message to read right there right hey you want to be a Christian leader hey you want to be a pastor you want to be an elder I picture this like Peter brought his son to like take your kid to workday and he introduces him to Paul and the kid starts asking Paul questions he's like dude hey what's it like to be an apostle an elder a pastor what's it like to lead a small group what's it like to be a leader inside a church and Paul's like you're pretty much human trash right and literally that's what Paul says in this message and as we kind of dissect this and as we're going to talk about how do we flip our definition of leadership on its head how do we see things through the eyes of the Bible and Through The Eyes Of God instead of the measurements we have in our our world because you look at our world today it's not quite seeing leaders as trash but it's as valuing them in a different scenario and that's exactly actually what we're going to talk about today and we're seeing this in kind of our leadership lesson is that hungry humble inhospitable leaders are often despised not celebrated by our worlds as Paul shows us this that it's not something to strive for to be like I want to do this but he's like we are the lowest of the lows he's like he's like when we see this and it's funny when we try to think about this through our world today in a world that is full of Instagram influencers and Tik Tock celebrities and successful and Innovative CEOs and controversial politicians and talented athletes Paul challenges us that leadership is not what we expect at all and it's kind of funny as I was thinking through this this last week this kind of memory popped up in my head cuz I was like well how can we learn from Paul talking about the fact that he's as good as trash like is there anything that's really good to take out of the trash can the first time me and my wife we moved our homes we had our first home in North Peoria and we're moving to North Phoenix to be closer to our Phoenix campus and moved a little mile from there it is as we were cleaning up for showings and stuff and getting ready uh we used to have an envelope full of cash okay and it used to be in our nightstand it's it's not there anymore if you want to rob me okay um and I think there's like $10 in it cuz that was three kids ago all right so we have a little less money in that but in that envelope we like it was gone it wasn't there and my wife's like well where did you put it I'm like well I just I didn't put it anywhere it just got lost and she's like did you throw it away I'm like why would I throw away an envelope full of cash so then I'm like I'm going to find it so I'm looking all over she's like can you just look in the trash can outside I'm like it's not going to be in there I go in there and like move two things and I an envelope full of cash so I take it I put it in my pocket go to like slide it back into the nightstand she's like did you find it I'm like huh she's like did you find the envelope I'm like yeah yeah yeah I found it she's like where was it I was like you know it was just around she's like it was in the trash wasn't I was like yeah it was and today Paul's going to say and he's going to show us what are some Leadership Lessons lessons that we can learn from the trash sheep and he starts Us in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 of how do we find the goldenness how do we find the envelope full of cash inside this idea of leaders being trash and he starts in verse one here and he says this a person a person should think of us in this way as Servants of Christ and managers of the mysteries of God file that away we'll come back to that in this regard it is required that managers be found faithful it is of little importance to me that I should be judged by you or by any any human Court in fact I don't even judge myself for I'm not conscious of anything against myself but I'm not justified by this it is the Lord who judges me so don't judge anything prematurely before the Lord comes who will both bring to light what is hidden in darkness and reveal the intentions of the hearts and then praise will come to each one from God here's our first lesson we're going to see from Paul's words here in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 is that God God's leaders are servants and stewards not Masters and makers notice how Paul kind of dives into this and he starts to describe himself and other church leaders at this time is these are the guys who started the church these are the guy who are starting more churches he's describing himself and Peter and apollis who he's going to reference in a second and these were big deals but he doesn't describe himself as a CEO as a a Visionary coming up with this great idea he doesn't say he's an influencer instead he calls himself a servant of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God you you this kind of reminds me of in my family U my kids have been doing this recently where two of our kids are in elementary school and and they're on this kick lately where they come home and then they play school I'm like bro you just left school and we're trying to get you to play homework and you don't want to play that but then they want to play school right so they like dump out all their toys they're like making desks and they're like doing all this crazy stuff and then what here's Nev is my oldest daughter Arya she becomes the teacher and and I don't know if she teaches as much as just point fingers and boss people around okay she's like get in line that's that's 2 minutes all right off your recess and I'm like this is like harsh right now right and as she's like bossing people around it's like adorable and it's cute when I see my kids do it but here's the thing I think as adults too often I think we want to be teachers we want to be bosses we want to be those people pointing out and think leadership looks more like making the decisions calling the shots and telling people what to do instead of what Paul describes here and Paul here says that true Christian leadership isn't about being powerful and influential he said it's about being a servant and a steward now let's break apart those two words first the the first is a servant and it's important to know that a servant doesn't own anything a servant is not rich a servant is not powerful a servant isn't even making their own decisions they are just Faithfully carrying out what the master asks of them but then he goes on and not only are they a servant but they're a steward and and you see a steward it doesn't create or make the resources it doesn't bring in the money instead a steward is carefully managing what has been entrusted to them and this points to verse 5 where Paul even says we're not even the ones to judge how well we're doing at being a servant and a Steward which is actually kind of good news he says we don't judge that the world doesn't judge that but that judgment belongs to Christ Alone it should actually be incredibly freeing as we look at this we don't have to prove ourselves to others we don't have to prove ourselves to ourself by a measure of success but when we come before God he sees how we're doing but he starts to build on this in verse six keep going he says now brothers and sisters I have applied these things to myself in aace for your benefit I love this like I'm not telling you to do something I haven't done already he says I've done this so that you would know and and listen the second half of that he says so that you may learn from us the meaning and the saying nothing beyond what is written the purpose is that none of you will be arrogant favoring one person over another for you make who for who makes you so Superior what do you have that you didn't receive if in fact you did receive it why do you boast as if you hadn't received it here's our second thing we learned from Paul is that God's leaders are dependently humble not independently arrogant Paul ask a pretty piercing question here he says this in verse 7 he says who do he's like what I'm sorry do you have that you did not receive now think about that for a moment what Paul is telling us is that every gift we have every Talent we have every opportunity we have it's not of our doing our making our building up instead it's all all from God you know as I said before it's it turned over to February and it seemed like the temperature went up with it but but now that it's February here's what this means for kind of me personally and my family is we're one month away from March and March is a fun month for us okay and let me tell you why March is my wife's birthday and you're like okay that's a pretty big deal right you better know your wife's birthday it's also my mom's birthday it's also my mother-in-law's birthday it's also my anniversary it's also my youngest daughter's birthday it's also my oldest son's birthday it's also a few other relatives birthdays that I don't even remember anymore because they're not as important as all those others I listed and it's my birthday yeah near the end of March nobody cares by that point right U we're like we're poor we've thrown 10 parties it doesn't matter anymore but my kids are getting to the age where they do like to give me gifts at Christmas and my birthday and like when they give me a gift they're so excited when they give it to me and I'm like rapping and I'm like oh yeah right like 863 in newborn like they ain't making money okay so when I'm opening that gift in my head I'm like I paid for this whatever it is and as I open it I'm like yep would have bought myself that gift right but they're just so excited and they get to just give to their dad even though the resources came from Dad I think that's a perfect example of what we often do with our God like God look at the Good Deeds I've done God look at what I've achieved God look at all the success in my life and God's like where do you think all that came from who put the money in your checking account to go buy that stuff who gave you the talents who built into you everything you have so that you can have an ounce of that success he's like I am not removed from this picture but the only reason this picture even exists God says is because of me and you think everything we have as Leaders our abilities our platform our influence it all comes from God and this is why when you kind of reflect on this when we are arrogant in our leadership it's especially when we talk about in Christian circles it's a straight absurd because it's literally like being proud of your height being proud of your eye color you had nothing to do with that it's just what you were given and you see true Christian leadership recognizes our complete dependence on God but it even gets more count countercultural as we continue in verse 8 and Paul picks up and continues down this road he says you are already full he says you are already rich you have begun to reign as kings without us and I wish you did Reign so that we could also reign with you he says for I think God has displayed us the apostles in last place like condemned men to die we have become a spectacle to the world both to angels and to people a little kind of like side note here and we we won't get to mind some of the depths of of this but here's why writing to the Corinthian Church was different than writing to some of the other churches is this is probably of all churches the most wealthy economic church and most wealthy area that there was a church in that time and and their issues these were suburb people these were upper middle class people where a lot of Christianity was started in the poorest parts and the poorest Nations but here Corinth made a lot of money like we said it was ancient Day Las Vegas the problem is they had a morality problem and Paul is telling them like hey you you guys got money but let me tell you where you have some po some poverty in your spirit and he's like let me tell you that the apostles let me show you how low we get for Christ in verse 10 he says this we are fools for Christ but you are wise in Christ we are weak but you are strong you are distinguished but we are Dishonored up to the present hour we are both hungry and thirsty we are poorly clothed we are roughly treated and we are homeless he's talking about himself and the apostles the the leaders of the church verse 12 he says we labor working with our own hands when we are reviled we blessed when we are persecuted we endure it when we are slandered we respond graciously is that famous verse we opened with even now we are like the scum of the earth like everyone's garbage here's our third point that we see from the life of Paul and the leadership that he lays out here in this chapter is that God's leaders are are called to suffer not to prosper you see I think this might be the hardest pill to swallow for us today because if we're honest and we look at our culture we have a Prosperity obsessed we have a successed obsessed culture and I think it's even infiltrated into the church is right and and there's some good parts of that is you want to work as hard as you can to be as successful as possible you want to build stuff up and be able to put a roof over your family's head so you're not dependent on other people but we've almost taken that too far down of a path where our identity comes from how perceived successful we are in worldly things and Paul as he's talking to a culture very similar to ours he paints a pretty Grim picture of a Christian leader here he says they're hungry he says they're thirsty he says they're poorly dressed clearly wasn't talking to me about that right yeah got this off my grandma's uh kind of tablecloth see that's what it looks like all right he says they're brutally treated he says they're homeless and here's the thing he says they're treated like the scum of the world like everyone's garbage you you break that down a little bit more into the context of this day in in ancient Corinth these words the scum or Garbage some translations will say the refuse it referred to criminals and slaves who were thrown into the arena as fodder to be eaten by beasts or to kill each other for the entertainment of the Worlds in other words he says you're disposable I don't know about you but that that's not like that's not a good message I don't want to hear as a leader you are disposable God's like at any moment I could take you out put a monkey in there and my Kingdom's still going to go forward when I when I was doing my undergrad I I went to ASU um which again did not end well last night or yesterday we played a day game at like 12:00 against UFA and it's basketball so nobody cares cuz we already one in football but anyway that's nearly here or there but I got my degree in business management and from there I went into the corporate world and as I got that job some of the things I was coached on and some of the things I focus on is how can I make sure I am Irreplaceable how can I cement myself in this role how can I make sure that people love me that I do so maybe I need to hold some passwords back in case they ever try to fire me that I get a better Severance right it's like how do I make sure I'm insulated in my role to be Irreplaceable and then Paul comes in 1 Corinthians 4 he's like hey dude if you're not going to do it we'll get someone else to do it he's like if I'm not here I can be trash thrown in and someone else will start this church and now Paul isn't devaluing the leaders but he's more valuing what God does that this is for God's glory this is for God's greatness that is God who works through us as leaders and we need to see that humility in our life because too often in our world we want our leaders to be successful prosperous living their best life now but Paul says no true Christian leadership often leads to hardship to suffering not success you see I think when we read this we need to reflect and ask ourselves it's like when was the last time you really suffered because if we're honest it can be easy not to suffer in our American Suburbia it can be nice to be comfortable to have a routine to have a little bit of stress but suffering that's on a whole another level whenever you suffered so bad that you were brought to your knees it seems like life kicked you in the face that you prayed angry prayers to God of why is this happening and here's what's so cool is when I hear stories like that that HP and when I feel stories like that in my personal life and hear that from others when you're removed from the suffering you never regret it because that's when the character is refined that's when God brings us to dependence on himself and we stop depending on ourselves for all this success and we start instead depending on God for his glory and here's a little side note on this is I just kind of when we talk about this from a theological perspective is is God doesn't cause our suffering I I would say God doesn't even encourage suffering but when that suffering happens he does use it and often in our suffering it chips away the idols of our life that we put before Jesus so we can depend more fully on him finally as Paul kind of wraps up this section and we're going to read verse 14 through the end and there's a ton in here but we're just going to pull out a few things kind of the thematically of what Paul is getting at here but he continues on this thread in verse 14 he says I'm not writing this to shame you I I love that because there there's been a lot of Silence there's been a lot of processing because I think the first 13 verses of saying we're worthless we replaceable where human garbage is a little bit of a heavy message right and Paul's been like beating this over our head like dude like get your life in order you're after all the wrong things like this is terrible but Paul writes in verse 14 he's like I'm not writing this a shame you we're not writing God's words not here to make us feel bad about ourselves to make sure look to make it feel like we're failing but he says this but I want to warn you as my dear children verse 15 he says for you may have countless instructors in Christ but you don't have many fathers for I became your father in Christ Jesus Through The Gospel therefore I urge you to imitate me this is why I have sent Timothy to you he is my dearly loved and faithful child in the Lord he will remind you about my ways in Christ Jesus just as I teach everywhere in every church now some are arrogant as though I were not coming to you but I will come soon to you if the Lord wills and I will find out not the talk but the power of those who are arrogant verse 20 for the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power in verse 21 he says what do you want should I come to you with a rod or or with a rod or in love and a spirit of gentleness here's our final thing that we see in our final kind of leadership lesson we get from the trash heap of what Paul pulls out this gold is that God's leaders are not powerful influencers but caring parents you see I love in this second half of this chapter of Paul's tone totally shifts he kind of moves from this harsh reality of like saying like hey guys get your stuff together to all of a sudden like this tender and caring parent and he says he's not writing to shame them he's to warn them and he calls them his beloved children and here what's so important is this is the heart of Christian leadership it's not about building a platform it's not about growing your influence but it's about caring for people like a parent cares for their children I think about how I parent my own kids and and and some sometimes I have to be firm sometimes I have to be gentle sometimes I correct sometimes I encourage but everything is motivated by love and a desire to see them grow that's what Christian leadership should look like but here's the problem in our human condition and what I think we strive for and we we strive uh incorrectly for so much in 2025 is we strive to lead from a platform rather than leading from a dinner table what do I mean by this is is I think our world is obsessed with how do we have power and influence and stuff in order to then get our message out like right how do I be more successful so that I can reach more people on social media or whatever it is so I have a louder voice how can I climb the ladder within my job so I have more employees who report to me so I have more things that so then I can kind of then I can give my vision and I can go top down what you think about that in your family is all of a sudden if you have this h huge uh following on social media you show a kid that who's 5 years old and be like look how many people I'm influencing on Tik Tok they'd be like cool like when's dinner now right and it was funny actually yesterday um as I was yelling at my six-year-old trying to teach him how to ride a bike in Grass um I was thinking about I was like I could show him YouTube videos and bro like hey this is how you ride a bike figured it out like did you did you watch the film now go put the film into practice but what he needed was his dad holding the back of his bike screaming at him to Pedal faster right into balance and then after I I was like all right now I told my daughter she's she can ride a bike she's eight I was like now you get a shift AR you I'm going to sit on the hill and I'm going to watch you guys and see it from but like he needed his dad to be in that moment he didn't we didn't succeed yesterday okay so pray for riding a bike coming in this time but too often we want to lead from just a top down approach lead from a platform going out then leading in a way that is loving that is hospitable that is building relationships and investment that endures you see this model is not crazy we actually get this from Jesus himself we hear that the son of man came eating and drinking we talked about that in this kind of this uh cultural initiative over this year of we're going to host people in our homes we're going to host people for meals and we're going to put pingpong balls and fill up that big glass jar out there right but here's why we do that as you think about Jesus's life Jesus was in front of all of Rome as he's getting crucified and and as he's going he keps on asking like give a defense for yourself he could have been like man I'm the Son of God I'm going to come I'm going to burn you guys all right now but even like when he's asked are you the are you the king of the Jews he's like you said it bro he's like I'm not he's not even giving a defense for himself but where Jesus really gives his closing words before his death was at the Last Supper of what we remember today in communion as as he built into the 12 disciples would be 11 Apostles that come from as he invested in them as he loved them as he cared for them like a father and a figure and I think two often in the church we get this wrong where we're looking to parent we're looking to lead in the wrong way instead of doing it in the trenches in love and servanthood and you see this all kind of leads as we wrap this area wrap this chapter up and how do we apply this in our life this leads to our bottom line today is that Christian leadership I say worldly leadership but Christian leadership cares more about faithful service than finite success you see the world measures things by metrics all the time how many followers you have how much influence you have how much money do you have in your bank account how much money do you have in your retirement how much how many projects have you checked off how much fill-in the blank have you done because see the Bible more asks and God measures by faithful are we serving well are we stewarding what he's giving us are we caring for his people think about this when we see this verse in scripture at the end of time when we get up to heaven God's not going to ask about the finite stuff we achieved he's going to say hey how successful were you in your business H how much money did you raise over your life how how how big of a TV did you buy how much did you enjoy that boat and that stuff in your life he's going to say and he's not going to say Well done CEO well done worker well done achiever well done influencer he's going to say Well done good and faithful servants and as we flip this idea of leadership on its head Are we more focused on serving our worlds on stewarding well the resources God has given us and are we focused on that rather than chasing the definition our world gives us trying to lead from a platform trying to give orders like a boss trying to fit into the mole that our world has painted for us instead of falling on our knees and humility for God to break us and mold us into the image he has given us to lead like Paul who led like Jesus who leads like the Christians he calls us to throughout history how will you lead in your workplace and your families and your community is it going to look more like the Jesus way or like the world's way and church if if you call yourself a Believer that's the question I want you to wrestle with this week that's a question that keeps me up at night more than a Luca Don tra I promise that's the question that stirs inside my soul that calls me to something am I on the right track am I leading like Jesus or am I leading like my world [Music]