In this article, I want to share with us what has been titled: The Thin Line Between Leadership and Discipleship, notice the word ‘thin’ and not a thick line. So, there is a thin line between leadership and discipleship. So, we are going to be looking at a Scripture to justify what we will be sharing with ourselves. But before we look at the text, let me just explain the two major words that are in this title that is the focus of our consideration tonight. The first one is leadership, and the second one is discipleship.

So, let's start from leadership. What exactly is leadership? When you hear the word ‘leadership’, what exactly comes to your mind? You see, leadership talks about the power or ability to lead other people. Leadership talks about the power, or the ability to lead other people. And so, when you look at leadership in this manner, it means that at the forefront of leading is a man or a woman that is called a leader. So, who is a leader? A leader is someone who takes charge or responsibilities for a particular assignment or task to be done. So, when you look at leadership, it talks about something to be done, it talks about, you know a task to be accomplished. And that task will not accomplish itself, that assignment will not carry out itself.

You know, when Jesus was about living, He said to His disciples, go therefore, and make disciples of all nations. If it was possible for that assignment to be done spiritually, so to say like, it will not require the effort of anyone, Jesus wouldn't have commissioned His disciples. So, when we talk about leadership, the first thing that comes to your mind is that there is a task, there is an assignment, there is a goal ahead, or something we are looking at. And that thing we are looking at or that goal, we are aiming at, we are not just going to sleep and wake up and see ourselves there. There must be a man or a woman who has been commissioned, who has been given the ability and the wherewithal to make sure that all of us, we reach that goal.

So that is what leadership talks about. And when we talk about a leader, we are talking about that man, or that woman who has been saddled with that responsibility of making that goal or vision, a reality. So, at the earth of every purpose of God, or assignment of God, is a man or a woman who will see to the point that that goal or purpose is fulfilled, or is established. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. There are men and women, that God has positioned, that He has called and commissioned, who would see to the fulfillment of the will of God being done on earth. If that responsibility will be done by the angels, then there will not be need for you and I. If angels were to disciple nations, there will not be need for you and I.

So, for God to have commissioned us and called us into this assignment, it is a leadership assignment. It is a leadership task. He says take charge, go into all the nations and make disciples of all nations. Now there is something I want to show us in Isaiah chapter six, verse eight, still talking about leadership. Now in Isaiah chapter six, verse eight, Isaiah said, “I heard the voice of the Lord saying…” Now, this has always been the heart-cry of God, the Father, and Isaiah was able to capture it when he was documenting this prophecy. It says: “I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send?” When God was talking about this, there were angels, innumerable number of angels around Him. He was not lacking in any when it comes to sending angels on errand.

But Isaiah said he had the Lord saying, whom shall I send? And who will go for us? Then Isaiah said he responded, here am I, send me. So, what can we pick from mhere? Isaiah said, I heard the heart-cry of the Lord, the same way you and I, we've heard something the same way you and I, we've surrendered to the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and then, we heard our calling, we heard about what God wants to do on earth. And then we said, Lord, I am available send me. In other words, we are saying, God, this responsibility, you can put it on me, this responsibility, this task, you can make me one of the people that you will put in charge. So, Isaiah said he did not allow the voice of God to slide down and pretend like or as if he did not hear. It says: I said, here I am, send me!

So, Isaiah undertook that assignment. So, when we're talking about leadership, it means there is a grand agenda. Most of the time this agenda is bigger than us, most of the time this goal is not something we can accomplish by ourself. It requires an ability, and that is why we have the Holy Spirit. He is our supernatural ability to lead in the capacity that God wants us to lead. Now let's leave leadership.

What is discipleship? You see, a disciple is a dedicated follower of a leader. Now there is a sequence here and I want to point it out to us. You see, the best leaders are leaders that have a leader over them. Do we understand? If you want to be the best leader, if you want to succeed in your assignment as a leader, it means that you yourself must have a leader that is leading you. Now in this context, the leader over you is God because God is the one who has commissioned you, who has called you into the assignment that you are doing. So, God is your leader. Never you assume that God is just a god, a deity up there who is doing nothing.

God is supervising you and I, each one of us, in order to see to the execution of His will. So, if you are going to succeed as a leader, the first understanding you must have is that you submit to the leadership of God over your life. Now, a disciple is a dedicated follower of a leader. Now that tells you that if you are going to be an effective disciple, now listen to this. If you are going to be an effective disciple, it means you must follow dedicatedly. As a matter of fact, you can’t call yourself a disciple if you are not following. Now look at it, that best followers end up becoming the best leaders. You can never see a leader who is succeeding, and at one point or the other as never followed, or he himself, is not following. So, the link between leadership and discipleship is this: That number one, you as the leader, you have a leader over your head, which in this context is God, and you as a disciple, a dedicated follower of a leader, would end up becoming an effective leader. Now, why will you become an effective leader because you have dedicatedly followed.

Now let's go to our text and let us see an example or a case study. John 21, we are going to read a number of verses there to see what I'm trying to explain to us in passing. John 21 from verse 1. The Bible says:

“After these things, Jesus showed himself again, to the disciples are the Sea of Tiberias...” You see, this Sea of Tiberias, you know, was the same place where Jesus fed 5000 men in John chapter six. So, the Bible says Jesus showed up to His disciples again, in this place. “After these things Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, and in this way, He showed Himself…” So, there is a way that Jesus showed Himself at this point in time. Now, don't forget, Jesus had died, He had been buried, and He had resurrected in this place. This was the period of 40 days that He was on earth, you know, before His final ascension. If you read further in this chapter, you will discover that this was the third time that Jesus was appearing to His disciples after His resurrection.

Let us read further: “Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of His disciples were together. ³ Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” Now, if this had been the end of what Peter said, maybe there would not have been any reason to raise any eyebrow. But look at what followed afterwards: “They said to him, “We are going with you also.” It was Peter who suggested that he was going fishing, it was his personal decision. But others said to him: we are going with you also. Now what does that tell us? Peter is a leader. What makes you a leader? When you do things, and people are willing to follow or do same, then that that makes you a leader.

You are doing things and there are people behind you who are saying, well, exactly your step is what we will take, what you tell us to do is what we will do, how you want us to do it is how we will do it, then that makes you a leader over those people. This was exactly what happened. You know, nobody needed to announce Peter, so to say, on national television, that is he the leader of the disciples, Jesus didn't have to do that. But if you look at the event, and certain things that happened when Jesus was with them on earth, you will know that Peter was naturally the leader. But this will buttress it. It says: “they said to him…” he did not coerce them, “we are going with you also.” The Bible says further: They went out and ^[a]immediately got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing.

You know, while I was meditating on this, I was just thinking about it. Why will Peter say he is going fishing? Of all the impartation that he had received from Christ Jesus, of all the things that Jesus had said to him physically. As a matter of fact, when Jesus called them, Jesus didn't call them to continue fishing. Jesus called them and told them immediately, now you will fish for men. But immediately Jesus left Peter, the same man who had betrayed Christ before now said: I am going fishing. In other words, I am going back to my business. And that decision he made was not just for himself, that decision had influence on others. And so, all of them, the Bible says, they left and then they went fishing.

Let's go to verse four: “But when the morning had now come, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. ⁵ Then Jesus said to them, “Children, have you any food?” Now, I was thinking, why would Jesus call full grown men, married men, children? It was not a compliment. Now while I was thinking about that, look at what came to me. Now, if you look at certain characteristics of children, number one, they can easily change their minds. This is so common with children. For example, you beat a child right now for something that is wrong. And the child cried so much. And the next few minutes, he or she is coming back to play with you. So, what happened in that instance, he or she has forgotten that you beat him or her some few minutes ago.

In other words, there is no memory of certain things in children. They just do what they want to do and move on. So, Jesus called them children. Why? Because it seems they have forgotten so fast the things they said they will do. It was not a compliment. And I believe it was bot an abuse, it was just the word that befitted that circumstance. For example, a child would cry and say, Daddy, this particular toy is what I want to play with. And then you are refusing to give the child and the child will continue to cry and cry and cry. And then you hand them the toys for you to look back and see in the next few seconds they dropped the toy and went to do another thing. That's how children behave.

Did we see that? So, Jesus said, children, not men, not disciples, not brethren, children, have you any food? So, when we are not doing the things that God has committed into our hands, we are children. Even though it looks so simple, what it means is that is that you are forgetting so soon. Look at what they say. They answered him, all of them and said: there is no food. And He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So, they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish. Now, they had toiled all night. You see, when you are not found in the place of your business, you will struggle. When you are not found doing the things that God has committed into your hands to do, you will struggle because this exactly was not what Christ called them to. So, they struggled all night. They didn't catch any fish because they were supposed to be catching men, not fish. And so, they struggled on it.

“Therefore, that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” This man that is speaking to us is not an ordinary man, he is not one of our neighbourhood friends, it is the Lord. “Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment (for he had removed it), and plunged into the sea.” Why? He was the only one that plunged into the sea. Why? Because he was disappointing Christ the second time. This was the same Peter that Christ had restored. He said I had prayed for you when you return strengthen your brethren. The first time he betrayed Christ was when he lied that he didn't know Him. So, he was so ashamed of himself that I am betraying this man for the second time, so he could not stand Christ. So, he plunged into the sea, like, let me first of all disappear, and then reappear. So, he plunged into the sea.

“But the other disciples came in the little boat (for they were not far from land, but about two hundred cubits), dragging the net with fish. ⁹ Then, as soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread.” In other words, what you people are struggling for, the provision has been made. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness”, all these things that you are running after, all these things that you think are taking your time, it says they already provided. they are looking for fish to eat, but a table had been made even at the shore. Are we following on?

Why not focus on the assignment? Why not focus on your goal, the goal that God had set before you rather than struggle. It says: Do not struggle. God is telling us I have called you a disciple and a discipler for one thing: preach to nations. And let me ‘struggle’ for the things you ordinary would’ve struggled for. So, he says: seek first the kingdom, let kingdom be our focus and I will supply. That passage says: they saw a fire of coal on the shore, and fish laid on it, and bread. Maybe a bread seller had been in that place. But no, Jesus is the bread of life. He had provided fish, and bread was there.

“Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish which you have just caught.” ¹¹ Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land, full of large fish, one hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not broken. ¹² Jesus said to them, “Come and eat breakfast.” In other words, you toiled all night that peradventure when you see a couple of fishes to catch, you will sell them and then you will have food to eat. But Jesus said: see, come and eat. The provision had been made.

“Yet none of the disciples dared ask Him, “Who are You?”—knowing that it was the Lord. ¹³ Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to them, and likewise the fish. ¹⁴ This is now the third time Jesus showed Himself to His disciples after He was raised from the dead. ¹⁵ So when they had eaten breakfast…” They had eaten and are full now. Now, you know, there are certain conversations that won't enter your ear if you are hungry, you know, the Yoruba people would say: you cannot be hungry and then another thing we enter your ear. The first thing you want to satisfy is your hunger, and afterwards, you would say: please let's come and talk now.

So, Jesus allowed them to eat, He fed them with bread and fish. So, when they had eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon… Now, notice James and John was in that gathering. Nathaniel, Thomas, all of them were present, but look at who Jesus turned to: leadership. When there is a problem in any setting, the leader is always called to answer. I think it was Maxwell that said: everything rises and falls on leadership. If there is a problem in your assignment, you see, God will not face the followers, God will point to you. If there is trouble in your marriage, God will look at the leader.

“So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of ^[b]Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” do you love me more than the business? Do you love me more than any other thing? Now, in our own context, it may not be fishing business, it may not be anything close to what the disciples were doing. But God is asking you: do you love me more than what you think can help you? As a matter of fact, can we even fend for ourselves more than God who created us? Can you take care of yourself more than God would? So, whatever it is you think has been your preoccupation, that has been pushing you away, farther away from your assignment; God is asking you tonight Do you love me more than this? Do you love me more than evangelism? Do you love me more than winning souls?

“He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Feed My lambs.” ¹⁶ He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My sheep.” Because it is about them. This is why I have raised you; this is why I have called you. It is about my lamb. It is about my sheep. It is about the people that I'm leaving behind for you people to disciple.

“He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, you know all things; You know that I love You.” Peter responded: Lord you know all things, you know my heart. Even though we have agreed to fish for men, but you disappeared so soon. It is not as if I have forgotten the assignment, but you know my heart. “Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep. ¹⁸ Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.”

In other words, Jesus was telling them: you have the time to do it right now. What exactly has preoccupied you so far? What exactly has been hindering you from fulfilling the assignment of God on your life? Jesus said to him to focus on the assignment that He has given to him. Focus on the work that is at hand, don’t be distracted. The Bible says if your eye is single then your whole body will be full of light. There is so much distraction in the world and it is taking us away from the things that God has committed into our hands. As a disciple and discipler, this is a wakeup call for us. It is time to focus once again.

So, God has an assignment on earth. God wants a job to be done. And so, He calls a man, He calls a woman. So, he calls, He sends. And haven been called and sent, you become a leader. And your responsibility is to make disciples of all nation. And look at it, the first thing he does is that he calls you. That is a process that marks the beginning of your own discipleship. Hitherto, you have been living your life as an average believer, an average Christian. You've been living your life; you've been having fun. You've been thinking you are just like every other person. But suddenly, He calls you. So, there is a sense of God awareness. God, being aware of you and you being aware of God, so you are God conscious.

You know you can't do just everything. The things everyone is involved in, does not have to become your own practice. You have God this time around, you are not among those without God in this world. You have a hope, there is an expectation of God hanging on your life. And so, that begins a process of discipleship for you. You walk with God, you walk with vessels that God has instituted for you in order to become an effective disciple. But the goal is not that you should just become a disciple, the goal is that you should become a discipler, you become a leader.

Because the ultimate responsibility is that you make disciples, but you cannot make disciples if you are not a disciple. And so, you must be subjected to a process that makes you, Jesus said follow me and I will make you. It takes time. And haven began following Jesus, you can then have the privilege to have certain men, certain people following you. Apostle Paul said something in 1 Corinthians 11:1, he said imitate me as I imitate Christ. And so, I follow Christ, you follow me. And so, my leadership, therefore becomes the foundation for my discipleship. I am discipling to the degree of my following of Christ. And so, as I follow Christ, I'm followed. If I have a problem following Christ, men will have problem following me except they want to follow a man and not Christ. And so, it's important we understand that even though we are finding the thin line, they are connected together.

There is discipleship in leadership, there is leadership in discipleship. You know, we said a disciple is one who follows a leader. So, a leader is one who is a leader, somebody follows him or other people following him. And so that's it. Now going back to where we were coming from John 21 from verse 10.

“Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish which you have just caught.” ¹¹ Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land, full of large fish, one hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not broken. ¹² Jesus said to them, “Come and eat breakfast.” Before this time the disciples had toiled, they have done so much. But the Bible says they caught nothing. Meaning that they have labored but they had little or nothing to show for it. They have been in the work, but there was no joy, no fulfillment. You see, when Jesus said, do you have any food? He is asking them Do you have any fulfillment, love and joy in these things. There was a reason for your calling, you have began following the Lord, are you fulfilled at this point of your life? And they said, we are not fulfilled.

So, you cannot find fulfillment outside of Christ. Bible says for the joy that was set ahead of Jesus, He endured. So, there must be a sense of joy before you are ready or you're inspired or motivated to continue your discipleship. But you see, the joy has a place you can find it, you can’t find the joy everywhere. So, you can't just choose a path and then find joy in it. It must be a path that has been given to you by your master the Lord. And so, Jesus said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men and here we saw that they were doing something different from what they had been called for.

So, they couldn't pursue that and find joy at the same time. But Jesus said let me help you people to find your joy, so that you will find the real joy. And so, <
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