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About the Book
"The Leader Who Had No Title" by Robin Sharma is a motivational business fable about a young man named Blake who learns valuable leadership lessons from a janitor named Tommy. With Tommy's guidance, Blake discovers the importance of adopting a leadership mindset and taking ownership of his life and career. The book emphasizes the idea that anyone can be a leader, regardless of their title or position, by focusing on personal growth, passion, and influence.
William Carey
"Expect great things; attempt great things."
At a meeting of Baptist leaders in the late 1700s, a newly ordained minister stood to argue for the value of overseas missions. He was abruptly interrupted by an older minister who said, "Young man, sit down! You are an enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he'll do it without consulting you or me."
That such an attitude is inconceivable today is largely due to the subsequent efforts of that young man, William Carey.
Plodder Carey was raised in the obscure, rural village of Paulerpury, in the middle of England. He apprenticed in a local cobbler's shop, where the nominal Anglican was converted. He enthusiastically took up the faith, and though little educated, the young convert borrowed a Greek grammar and proceeded to teach himself New Testament Greek.
When his master died, he took up shoemaking in nearby Hackleton, where he met and married Dorothy Plackett, who soon gave birth to a daughter. But the apprentice cobbler's life was hard—the child died at age 2—and his pay was insufficient. Carey's family sunk into poverty and stayed there even after he took over the business.
"I can plod," he wrote later, "I can persevere to any definite pursuit." All the while, he continued his language studies, adding Hebrew and Latin, and became a preacher with the Particular Baptists. He also continued pursuing his lifelong interest in international affairs, especially the religious life of other cultures.
Carey was impressed with early Moravian missionaries and was increasingly dismayed at his fellow Protestants' lack of missions interest. In response, he penned An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. He argued that Jesus' Great Commission applied to all Christians of all times, and he castigated fellow believers of his day for ignoring it: "Multitudes sit at ease and give themselves no concern about the far greater part of their fellow sinners, who to this day, are lost in ignorance and idolatry."
Carey didn't stop there: in 1792 he organized a missionary society, and at its inaugural meeting preached a sermon with the call, "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God!" Within a year, Carey, John Thomas (a former surgeon), and Carey's family (which now included three boys, and another child on the way) were on a ship headed for India.
Stranger in a strange land
Thomas and Carey had grossly underestimated what it would cost to live in India, and Carey's early years there were miserable. When Thomas deserted the enterprise, Carey was forced to move his family repeatedly as he sought employment that could sustain them. Illness racked the family, and loneliness and regret set it: "I am in a strange land," he wrote, "no Christian friend, a large family, and nothing to supply their wants." But he also retained hope: "Well, I have God, and his word is sure."
He learned Bengali with the help of a pundit, and in a few weeks began translating the Bible into Bengali and preaching to small gatherings.
When Carey himself contracted malaria, and then his 5-year-old Peter died of dysentery, it became too much for his wife, Dorothy, whose mental health deteriorated rapidly. She suffered delusions, accusing Carey of adultery and threatening him with a knife. She eventually had to be confined to a room and physically restrained.
"This is indeed the valley of the shadow of death to me," Carey wrote, though characteristically added, "But I rejoice that I am here notwithstanding; and God is here."
Gift of tongues
In October 1799, things finally turned. He was invited to locate in a Danish settlement in Serampore, near Calcutta. He was now under the protection of the Danes, who permitted him to preach legally (in the British-controlled areas of India, all of Carey's missionary work had been illegal).
Carey was joined by William Ward, a printer, and Joshua and Hanna Marshman, teachers. Mission finances increased considerably as Ward began securing government printing contracts, the Marshmans opened schools for children, and Carey began teaching at Fort William College in Calcutta.
In December 1800, after seven years of missionary labor, Carey baptized his first convert, Krishna Pal, and two months later, he published his first Bengali New Testament. With this and subsequent editions, Carey and his colleagues laid the foundation for the study of modern Bengali, which up to this time had been an "unsettled dialect."
Carey continued to expect great things; over the next 28 years, he and his pundits translated the entire Bible into India's major languages: Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Hindi, Assamese, and Sanskrit and parts of 209 other languages and dialects.
He also sought social reform in India, including the abolition of infanticide, widow burning (sati), and assisted suicide. He and the Marshmans founded Serampore College in 1818, a divinity school for Indians, which today offers theological and liberal arts education for some 2,500 students.
By the time Carey died, he had spent 41 years in India without a furlough. His mission could count only some 700 converts in a nation of millions, but he had laid an impressive foundation of Bible translations, education, and social reform.
His greatest legacy was in the worldwide missionary movement of the nineteenth century that he inspired. Missionaries like Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, and David Livingstone, among thousands of others, were impressed not only by Carey's example, but by his words "Expect great things; attempt great things." The history of nineteenth-century Protestant missions is in many ways an extended commentary on the phrase.
A Great Marriage-Wrecking Lie
I met my aunt Margaret for the first time when I was ten. She was in a wheelchair in the middle of the front room, drooling uncontrollably, unaware of my presence, incontinent, and unable to take care of herself. And yet my uncle Gale cared for her, and he did so tenderly. They were high school sweethearts, but now she was dying of brain cancer after only fifteen years together. My uncle didn’t abandon her. He didn’t get a mistress. No, he had publicly vowed, “in sickness and in health, till death do us part” — and he was faithful to his word. A few years later, she died. This is a biblical picture of marriage: joy through servanthood, faithfulness, and self-denial. But times have changed. Our societal expectations for marriage have gone through a radical transformation, and those changes have affected many in the church. Changing Expectations One commentator describes the transformation this way: “The old attitude was that one must work for the marriage. The new attitude is that the marriage had better work for me” (Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West, 267). My uncle worked for his marriage. He was willing to forgo short-term pleasure for the sake of his wife, his children, and the glory of God. He believed that keeping his marriage vows would enhance his joy in this life and in the world to come. But those who expect marriage to “work for me” often assume that “God just wants me to be happy” in the thin and predictable ways. Their focus is on me and my immediate needs. They will most likely bail when any significant, protracted marital trouble comes. Here is how University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox sums up our new marital expectations: Prior to the late 1960s, Americans were more likely to look at marriage and family through the prisms of duty, obligation, and sacrifice. . . . But the psychological revolution’s focus on individual fulfillment and personal growth changed all that. Increasingly, marriage was seen as a vehicle for a self-oriented ethic of romance, intimacy, and fulfillment. In this new psychological approach to married life, one’s primary obligation was not to one’s family but to oneself; hence, marital success was defined not by successfully meeting obligations to one’s spouse and children but by a strong sense of subjective happiness in marriage — usually to be found in and through an intense, emotional relationship with one’s spouse. The 1970s marked the period when, for many Americans, a more institutional model of marriage gave way to the “soul-mate model” of marriage. Professor Wilcox’s “soul-mate model” is a fruit of expressive individualism. The assumptions behind this model are a moral solvent, dissolving the covenant bond of marriage. At its center is a potent, marriage-wrecking lie: God just wants me to be happy — and that is “happiness” as I choose to define it. Couples have used this lie to justify abortion, divorce, adultery, abandonment, and all kinds of selfishness. “God wants couples to pursue a greater long-term marital happiness through Christlike self-denial.” The problem with this lie is that it twists an important truth. God does want us to be happy, but he defines the terms, and immediate happiness is not God’s primary goal. God wants couples to pursue a greater long-term marital happiness through Christlike self-denial. God expects us to deny self — to defer immediate marital gratification — in order to experience greater long-term happiness. There are times in marriage when such self-denial takes great faith. Beneath the Lie This lie is a deeply rooted cultural assumption, and assumptions can be difficult to address because they are often subconscious. They seep into us through television, movies, literature, media, music, and our educational system. For instance, one way they rise to the surface and become visible is through consumer advertising. Ad agencies get paid to identify the assumptions that motivate us. Here are some examples — each, if internalized a certain way, could be devastating to a marriage: Outback Steakhouse invites us to eat at their restaurants because there are “No rules. Just right.” McDonalds tells us to buy French fries because “You deserve a break today.” Reebok urges us to buy their running shoes “Because you’re worth it.” And Nike, throwing all restraint to the wind, urges us to “Just do it!” The assumptions expressed by the mind of Christ, however, are strikingly different. Do we “deserve a break today”? Are we really “worth it”? And above all, should we give into sinful passion and “just do it”? No, we live by a deeper logic that counters the selfishness and presumption of the world around us: the logic of the cross. We deserved eternal death, but Christ humbled himself and died so that we might experience the full and abundant life. “Jesus found joy through self-denial, and so will husbands and wives.” The deepest marital happiness comes through self-denial, humility, unselfishness, patience, kindness, and the crucifixion of our me mentality. Ultimately, the wise Christian couple pursuing a happy, God-glorifying union will model their marriage on Christ and him crucified. Jesus found joy through self-denial (Hebrews 12:2), and so will husbands and wives. Deny Yourself for Her Again and again, Scripture gives us glimpses into the mind of Christ. After predicting his death and resurrection, Jesus turns to his disciples and says, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:24–25) “Take up a cross? Are you kidding?” The cross was an instrument of torture, death, suffering, and shame. But Jesus urges us to save our lives by doing just that — taking up our cross. We save our marriages through denying ourselves — making our spouse’s happiness as important as our own. We apply the principle of the cross. We do this with the conviction that happiness deferred in patient obedience to God is much greater than happiness immediately gratified. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:26–28) Happy, fruitful marriages do not think mainly in terms of rights. They think from the mind of Christ. Jesus died to his rights to give us ours before God. Husbands and wives who follow him do the same. Do nothing from selfishness or vain conceit, but in humility consider others more significant [or important] than yourself. (Philippians 2:3) The closest “other” in your life is your spouse — the person that sleeps with you, eats with you, worships with you, and raises your children with you. Applying this principle gets really practical. The Lie’s Fruit As the lie proliferates in North America and beyond, the fruits are painfully obvious. Self-denial is an indispensable part of the glue that makes the marital covenant work. Without a willingness to deny self, people are less willing to marry, or they don’t stay married. In 1970, about 70 percent of Americans over age 18 were married. Today, for the first time in U.S. history, that number is 50 percent and falling. “Marriage isn’t changing,” notes sociologist Mark Regnerus. “It’s receding. In an era of increasing options, technology, gender equality, ‘cheap’ sex, and secularization, fewer people — including fewer practicing Christians — actually want what marriage is. That’s the bottom line.” Collapsing marriage also means collapsing fertility. We are not producing enough children to replace ourselves. Were it not for immigration, the population in North America would be shrinking. Thankfully, fertility rates in the evangelical church are better than the national average. Rejecting the Lie What can we do to reject the lie? We can start with the assumption that we don’t deserve to be happy. As we have already noted, the cross shows each of us what we deserve — death, and that is the bottom line. Therefore, no matter how bad our marital circumstances, we are always getting better than we deserve. Those who believe this can continually thank God for his kindness, in spite of their marital problems. We can also reject the lie by believing that holy people are happy people, and marriage is one of God’s primary tools to produce personal holiness. “To be holy as he is holy,” notes Bruce Milne, “is the prescription for true and endless happiness. To be holy is to be happy . . . there is no joy like that of holiness” (The Message of Heaven and Hell, 52). I have found it helpful to think of marriage as a spiritual gymnasium in which I strengthen personal holiness. Marriage toughens the muscle of forgiveness. It strengthens the willingness to love an enemy. It enhances the ability to humble myself and receive criticism. Marriage also teaches the crucial words, “I’m sorry. Would you please forgive me?” In the marital gym, I also strengthen the crucial muscle of perseverance. Most marriages face a moment when the couple would like to call it quits but, if they persevere, almost always later admit that would have been a mistake. Focus on the Family once did a study of couples who persevered through the desire to divorce, only to find that five years later, most of those who persevered now described themselves as happy in their marriage. Persevering when the going gets tough requires self-denial, but it often solves many lesser problems. Two Slaves Become One Ambrose Bierce, a nineteenth-century short-story writer, not known for being a Christian, nevertheless summed up marriage with these insightful words: “Marriage is a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, one person.” My insightful wife sums up the mind of Christ in marriage this way: “Every fruitful, happy marriage begins with two funerals.” This is how the mind of Christ thinks. It thinks like my uncle Gale. Reject the lie that immediate happiness is the goal. Yes, God does want us to be happy, but the deepest, most lasting happiness comes only to those who deny themselves and take up their cross daily. They serve unselfishly, consider their spouse more significant than themselves, persevere through marital troubles, practice forgiveness, and grow in humility. These are the marriages that maximize long-term happiness, and in such a way that God gets the glory. Article by William Farley
