Transcription

You don’t stick to a man at the expense of Christ. We stick to men because they are sticking to Christ. And we follow them because they are following the fundamental principles.

And we are following in building relationships, particularly in Christ. The person you come to know is not your pastor, it’s not your teacher, it’s him. It’s Christ.

Interviewer: ‘Okay, so you follow any man as long as he is following Christ.’ Gbille: ‘That’s all right. The rule is imitate me as I imitate Christ, isn’t it? So if you follow that as a principle, what it means is that as long as a leader continues to mirror Christ to me, continue to help me see Christ’s life and is pointing me to Christ, I’ll follow him.

But if I follow a leader, I’ve been following him, then we came to a junction and he branched off. But he has told me where we are going. And I’ve seen the road, but he has branched off now and he’s going to the dungeon.

Is it right for me to follow him to the dungeon? No, it’s not that I’m not loyal to him. I’m loyal to him to the extent that he’s loyal to Christ. So your loyalty to a man must be regulated by his own loyalty to Christ.

So if his loyalty to Christ is compromised and consistently, even after you have entreated him, there’s a space where you can talk to your leader, you can share with him. They rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father. There are some leaders that will go, I’ll prostrate for them.

I say, sir, I’ve been following you. You have been a great example to us. But this thing you are doing, do you know it is destroying all that you stood for for years? Please, I beg you, don’t do that again.

There are people like that that we went secretly. We begged them, please don’t go this way. Because we did it with humility.

Some of them listened and they said, Kai, God has used you to help me. There are those that we went and spoke to. They said to her, all right, if a man is going to hell, must I follow him to hell? Particularly when he is not the author and finisher of my faith.

So the first thing to say is loyalty to men is a subset of your loyalty to Christ. And because it’s a subset, it doesn’t stand on its own. You don’t stick to a man at the expense of Christ.

We stick to men because they are sticking to Christ. And we follow them because they are following the Lord. And we are following them in order to follow the Lord.

You understand? So that’s what the Bible says. And that principle is what must govern our relationships. It’s what must determine our relationship.

Now, but the other thing I must add to it is that commitment. Commitment to the word of God. Commitment to Christ’s life.

Commitment to principles is the first thing we must achieve in relating with leaders. See, don’t commit yourself to something that is faulty. If a teacher has been teaching me, and I went to sing the Bible, and I saw that this teaching is not congruent with the Bible, not because I’m anxious, not because I’m ambitious, not because I want to go.

I don’t want to go. I want to be with you. But I’m with you because you are with Christ. So that commitment is what we should look for.’

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.