The Need For Leadership

 "Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." Exodus 32:1

1. People need leadership. The people recognized that it was Moses who led them up out of Egypt. And in Moses' absence they sought out Aaron to be their leader. Leadership matters. Leaders not only serve the Lord, the serve the Lord's people. People left to themselves go astray. Poor leadership produces carnality. Absent leadership produces idolatry and a backslidden church.

2. Aaron did not seek to be their leader. He did not ask to lead the people. They sought him out. They asked him to lead.

3. Those who serve the leader in any group are not the same as the leader. They may be at some point, but they fail when leadership responsibility is laid upon them. Moses would not have built an idol, but Aaron did.

4. Moses was not on vacation or playing games. He was with God on the mountain. The trouble was that the people were not up there and therefore got no immediate benefit from his time on the mountain. Leaders need time away. But trouble happens in a leadership vacuum. 

Leaders not only tell us what God says and what is required of us. They also are a reference point and an example for the people to follow. Pastor Mitchell was not just a great leader. He was first a great Christian. He was a Christian man, husband, father, grandfather as well as a pastor and apostle. And it was a rare event that pastor Mitchell was not there on Sunday morning to minister to us. No matter how busy he was.