Packer calls propitiation “the heart of the Christian gospel.” Our God does not ask us for a sacrifice to appease His holy wrath. Instead of demanding our child, like Artemis, He offers His Son. Jesus is our propitiation. He is the perfect once and for all sacrifice, and the fulfillment of all the sacrifices offered in the temple. On the cross, He absorbed the wrath of God in our place so that our sins may be removed from us. His sacrifice is all-sufficient.

During the mythical Trojan War, the goddess Artemis punished Agamemnon, the Greek general, for evil deeds his soldiers committed. On their way to the war, Artemis caused the winds to stir and their ships were knocked violently into one another. Agamemnon learned that the only way to appease the wrath of Artemis was to sacrifice his daughter to her, so he sent for his daughter and sacrificed her to the goddess. With the anger of the goddess quenched, the ships reached Troy without any more difficulty. The Trojan War legend was written about 1000 years before Christ was born, and it shows that people throughout history, even those who believed in multiple gods, had a sense that their sins must be dealt with, that the wrath of the gods must be satisfied.
Unlike the gods depicted in Greek mythology, our God alone rules and reigns. There is no deficiency in His character, no need for another god. He is the Lord, and He will share His glory with no one. Because He is holy and righteous, His wrath burns against sin. His wrath must be quenched, must be satisfied.
The word used in the New Testament to capture God’s wrath being satisfied is “propitiation.” In Jesus’ story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, the tax collector uses the word, which is often translated “be merciful to me” or “turn your wrath from me” as he recognizes his sinfulness and pleads for mercy (Luke 18:13). The Pharisee thanks God that he is not like others, even the tax collector, and rejoices in his own goodness, the things he does for God. Jesus says that the tax collector, not the Pharisee, goes home justified.
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Caring about your team’s character begins with the ongoing process of building and assembling the team, but it does not end there. Care for their souls. Pray for them. Remind them of the grace of God. If you sense a lapse in character, if the Holy Spirit brings something to your mind, don’t bury it. Behind closed doors, have an open and honest conversation.

When the apostle Paul challenged Timothy to reproduce himself in others, to broaden the number of leaders, and to hand ministry over to more people, he emphasized character over competence. He didn’t diminish competence, but he started with character. Notice the order of the language of this often-quoted leadership development verse:
The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others [2 Timothy 2:2].
The verse does not read, “Entrust to able men who will be faithful.” Paul is not saying:

Go find some great leaders and try to make them faithful.
Make a list of high-capacity leaders and work to turn them into faithful followers.
Find the best, most talented people and put them through a character boot camp.

To the contrary, Paul essentially says, “Entrust all the important things to the faithful, and in time, they will be able.”

Find those whose hearts are His and coach them on their competence.
Invest in people who love the Lord and develop their skills.
Pour yourself into people who have devoted themselves to Him.

No doubt you have seen the devastating effects of character implosion in ministry leaders, whether prominent leaders of major ministries or individuals in smaller roles. When the role and responsibility outpace the leader’s character, disaster is inevitable. And more people than the leader suffer. Competence is important in ministry, but character must be first in these two realms:
1) Character First in Your Life
While the apostle Paul was far from perfect, he was faithful. He was able to say, “Do what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:9). Paul’s life was a sermon to those he served. The lives of great leaders are lessons to those they serve.
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We are sheep and Satan wants to destroy us, so we are wise to be shepherded by godly leaders who care for our souls (Peter’s emphasis in the first five verses of 1 Peter chapter 5). We are wise to be in community. The posture of “I will love Jesus but not the church” is absent in Scripture. We need community because of the suffering in this world and because of Satan’s prowling. We need encouragement, prayer, support, and love from the community of faith.

Our dog Roscoe sometimes wanders away from home, but thankfully he is smart enough to come back home or even smarter to go to Brian and Marianna’s home – friends of ours who live on the next street. Roscoe likely prefers their home to ours because when they watch him for sometimes, they feed him bison as opposed to the boring dog food we feed him. Dogs are smart. When we compare ourselves to animals, we sometimes compare ourselves to dogs because we like to think of ourselves as smart. More than a dozen division one universities have bulldogs as their mascots. We even call ourselves dogs (What’s up dawg? Where my dawgs at?) We don’t affectionally call each other sheep and there are no universities with the fighting sheep as their mascot. Yet the Bible compares us to sheep. The Bible calls us sheep not to devalue us, but to remind us that we cannot get back home on our own. We need Jesus, the Chief Shepherd, to bring us back to the Father.
As the apostle Peter closes his first letter, he reminds us that we are sheep in the flock of God. And because we are sheep we should resist the devil and run to being shepherded, in being cared for in community. While the Scripture encourages us to resist Satan and run to being shepherded, in our foolishness we are prone to the opposite – to resist shepherding and run to evil.
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