The Lord is good, amen? And the Lord is and has been good to our church. We have the blessing this afternoon of following an age-old tradition that is established for us in the New Testament, practiced by God's people for 2,000 years, and that is the laying on of hands of an elder. The leadership of God's people is a matter that has changed over time. For millennia before Christ, God's people were led by a single human being. We can go back to Moses and see him as God's man who led his people out of Egypt. We can think of the days of the judges or of the kings, starting with David, really, the king that was after God's heart, and then his sons and the posterity who served as kings over Israel. The people of God were clearly a monarchy at one time. But even David only pointed to a future. David was, of course, a shepherd king, and he pointed to the final and only shepherd king, the Lord Jesus Christ. So today, after Christ, we as God's people are no longer under the authority of a single individual person. Jesus has become our King, and He is our Shepherd. He is the Good Shepherd, and He shepherds His one flock. Today, in this gospel age that we are in now, we live in a very unique time in the history of the world. We live between the comings of Christ, between his death and resurrection and his second coming. And in our age, the New Testament prescribes there to be human spiritual leaders who are appointed to lead and to feed the church. And so the Bible speaks to us in the New Testament of shepherds, or pastors, or elders, or overseers. The word is used interchangeably in the New Testament. So when you see pastor, or elder, or overseer, you're seeing basically the same different aspects of the very same office. And I will use them interchangeably today. I'll talk about elders. I'm speaking about pastors. When I'm talking about pastors, I'm talking about shepherds or overseers, using the word interchangeably. And specifically, it talks about a plurality that is plural, men who oversee the flock. Yes, human beings, but more than one who are called by God to keep order and lead and feed the church. Brothers and sisters, one day the assembly of God before the throne will have no distinctions. There will be no need for human leadership anymore. One day when sin is removed, our congregation will again be a pure monarchy, a perfect monarchy. And we will worship under the leadership of God Himself. But today, in our age, where the Gospel has already saved people out of the world, but not yet removed sin completely from the world, we need human leaders. Lest there be anarchy in the Church. God, in His grace, grants to His Church the gift of leaders under shepherds, in submission to the Chief Shepherd. In his word, God gives explicit instructions as to how the church are to identify these men from among their midst. Who is it that qualifies for this office? One cannot read the New Testament and come away with the idea that either one, that the church ought to be under the charge of a single person, one person, any individual alone, or that the church should be without any human leadership at all. Instead, we see in the Scripture, elders, plural, elders, plural, over each church, not ruling as tyrants did in the Old Testament. Moses and Israel are no longer the model of leadership in the New Testament, since Christ, our Moses, has already come. But now elders, plural elders, lead and guide God's people as shepherds and their leadership is necessary. It is true, authority has and continues to be abused. Whether we see it early on in the church by Popes, and I'll use that Pope with a capital P, referring to the Pope of the Catholic Church, but there are many Popish men who autocratically rule their local congregations, and they're like local Popes. Men have ruled over congregations without accountability, fleecing the flock for their own personal gain. This goes on. There's the abuse of power, the abuse of authority for sinful and selfish reasons. And as a result of that, many Christians say, we don't need authority, and they flee from the church. They adopt, perhaps, an over-realized eschatological idea that says that Christ is king, and as long as I have Christ as my king, and I have my Bible, I have everything I need. I don't need the church. I don't need to congregate. I don't need leadership over my soul. In addition, this goes hand-in-hand with the culture. We live in an anti-authority culture. Our days are not unlike the days of judges, where every man seeks to be his own authority. Social media is evidence of that. Everyone loves his own authority and loves their social media page because they rule it. Personal sovereignty is perhaps the most prolific idol of our culture. Personal sovereignty. And sadly, some of God's people have been badly affected by this idol. And they choose to do what is right in their own eyes rather than follow the means that God lays out for us in Scripture. our text for today that we're going to look at in Hebrews chapter 13. It's a command to God's people. It's an act of worship. And it calls us to do something that many in this world disdain, gnash their teeth at. It calls us to follow the leader, or better, follow the leaders. It calls us, in particular, to hated ideas. It calls us to obey and to submit. How the world hates those concepts. But as Christians, these are two concepts, obedience and submission, that are gems to us. They're our protection. We can rest in these. And if you don't love those concepts of obedience and submission, then you need to have your mind renewed, because your mind is being squeezed into the mold of this world. Let's read our text, Hebrews chapter 13, verse, I'll just read verse 17, but we'll look at verse 17 and 18 today. Hebrews 13, 17. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. give you a little context. Beginning at the end of chapter 12 of the book of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews takes up this matter of acceptable worship. And he tells us what acceptable worship is. How do you worship God acceptably in light of the fact of all that Christ has done, in light of the fact that his excellency and his superiority, and he's taken you and put you in an unshakable kingdom. In light of this, in light of this, how do we worship acceptably? There are no chapter breaks in the Bible. The chapter breaks were added by men. So what happens is, once you cross over to chapter 13, he gives us the answer. So the question, how do you worship God acceptably, is answered in chapter 13. In chapter 13, it tells us how. How do we acceptably worship Jesus Christ? How do we worship Him with our lives? How do we live out our lives in Christ? And we saw last time that acceptable worship includes the fruit of our lips. That is the offering of praise, the sacrifice of praise, and thanksgiving where we confess the name of Jesus. But then true worship also is in what we do. True worship also consists of practically loving one another, verse 1 of chapter 13. Showing hospitality, verse 2. Remembering those who are in prison, verse 3. Honoring fidelity in marriage, verse 4. Living sacrificially, verses 5 and 6. honoring and being in submission to sound spiritual leadership, verses 7 and 17. So look at verse 7. Let's be reminded of verse 7. Look back. We're commanded in verse 7, a threefold command. We did this many weeks ago, but remind you of the threefold command. Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life. and imitate their faith. Remember your leaders, consider the outcome of their life and imitate their faith. Now this idea remains in the mind of the author all the way up to verse 17 which we're in today. Now if you look at verse 17, you'll see that he's picking up on the same idea of leadership, remembering your leaders. And in verse 17, he gives us twofold imperative, or command, and that is to obey and to submit. Acceptable worship for the people of God involves obeying and submitting to the leadership of the church. Now, how do we understand this? Because certainly of all of the commands of scripture, obedience and submission have been misunderstood and misapplied, both in the church and in marriage and a lot of different situations. How are we to understand this twofold command? First, the word obey. is the Greek word pēthēste, taken from the Greek pēthō. Pēthō is used more widely in the New Testament to speak of persuasion, being persuaded, or having confidence in something. The author does not use the typical Greek word for obedience here, and that's important that we understand that. He could have, and he didn't. And he wants to make sure here that the point is that the obedience that we have to leadership in the church is not blind, and it's not merely outward. There's a persuasion of the mind of the church that's carried by the pastor, in particular, the pastor's teaching. This is in the passive voice here. So in a sense, this is something that's kind of happening to you as you hear the word preached. The author is commanding God's people not so much to actively obey, but to be persuaded by their pastors. That is, to gain confidence in their pastors. Gain confidence in their doctrine, in their teaching, and in their life. In this particular case, the NIV is the only Bible version that I know of that I think captures this idea. Verse 17 in the NIV says this, have confidence in your leaders. It's not a blind obedience of a merely outward act, merely going through the action of obeying, but rather it's a heart. It's a spirit of submission. It's less about servile subjection and more about respect. How do you come to this place? How do you come to the place of trusting? How do you gain confidence in your elders? Well, you do as you listen, as you listen to how the pastor accurately exposits the scripture, making appropriate application derived from the text of scripture. And when you find an application that's not in the scripture and you ask the pastor, where did you get that? And he said, well, we needed to hear it. It didn't come from the text, but we needed to hear it. No. Is the application being derived from the text? And as you find such a man who understands and applies the Word of God regularly, week in and week out, you start to develop trust for that person. You grow in your confidence for that person. You are persuaded, here is a man who rightly divides the Word of Truth. You prove to your own heart, in a sense, here is a man who is able to teach. We had to do that a number of weeks ago when we were examining our brother Brahim for eldership. Is he a man that is able to teach? And we, as a congregation, were persuaded that indeed he is. Paul wrote to Titus. He is able to give instruction. Talking about the elder, he is able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. As you find such a man, as you find one who is not greedy, not a lover of money, but sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, not quarrelsome, holding firm to the Word of God. And when such a man is tested and proven dependable, then, brethren, it's the most natural thing in the world to trust that person. And that's where obedience is linked to trust. It's not just outwardly going through the book. Well, I obeyed. Technically, I obeyed. No, it's a heart of trust. When a church obeys its leaders, it's saying, we trust this man to lead us in the Gospel. He's not going to be influenced by the strange teachings that are out there. That's what it means to trust your pastor. If you feel your pastor is teaching another gospel, then it is best for you to find another pastor who you can trust. However, when you do find pastors who you can be confident in, as much as in human flesh, of course, the reality that these are sinful men, pastors are sinful men, but when you can find one that you're confident in, follow them as they follow Christ and submit to their authority. Which brings us to the second command in verse 17. The first verb, patho, is a passive imperative. The second is a stronger word. It's hupeko in the active voice. And it basically means be submissive, give way, yield, heed his voice. Heed his voice over other voices. Look, we live in an age where there are so many voices that are clamoring for our attention. One of the greatest challenges, I can tell you, we often in our elders meetings talk about this, one of the greatest challenges for pastors in our day is competing with the voices that individuals, members of our church listen to during the week. We as your elders have become like that proverbial parent with their kid in public school. We get you one hour a week and they get you all the rest of the time. You go out and you're influenced. You come and you hear the word of God and then you go out and you're influenced by your favorite preacher or your favorite blogger or the internet ministry that you love or your favorite political pundit and you expose yourself to their voices even voices that might differ from your pastors. And listen, I'm not suggesting that you never expose yourself to the wealth of good teaching that is available in our day and age. We're thankful for that. But I am saying, when you have trusted elders who have proven themselves, trust them. Trust them. Look, we're not going to get 100%. And we may be wrong. And we will be wrong at times. But give the due weight of your elders' teaching and your elders' counsel when you've come to the place of trusting them. And I'm not suggesting blind submission here. Nowhere does the Scripture instruct blind submission anywhere. Whether it's subjection to the governing authorities in Romans 13, or wives' submission to their husbands in Ephesians 5, every exhortation to submission is qualified by other exhortations. And you are no more required to submit to an elder who is teaching falsely than the people of God were to submit to Nebuchadnezzar's edict to worship an image of himself. or for a wife to submit to an ungodly husband who requires his wife to do something that is against her conscience. There is no such requirement. The submission spoken of here is not absolute. Listen to the words of Calvin as he's writing on this text. He writes, the author commands first obedience and then honor to be rendered to them. These two things are necessarily required so that the people might have confidence in their pastors. But it ought at the same time to be noticed that the apostle speaks only of those who faithfully performed their office. For they have nothing but a title, nay, who use the title of pastor for the purpose of destroying the church, deserve but little reverence and less confidence. And this also is what the apostle plainly sets forth when he says, they watched over your souls, a duty that is not performed but by those who are faithful rulers and are really what they are called. And I think he gets that right. Our submission is not blind. Brethren, you are never exhorted to submit to leaders who deviate from the Gospel. We've already dealt with this back in verse 9. We saw that. He said, flee from those who are influenced by the strange teaching. Avoid them. Our attitude ought never be, I believe this because my pastor told me. My pastor said so. Then we're back in Rome. Then we're trusting an infallible pope. But rather, what this is a call to is to remember and honor and obey and submit only to the authority of those faithful leaders of your local church who uphold the true gospel. And that is true of the brethren here as well as those visiting if you're part of a church. If they are holding to the true gospel, then remember, honor, obey, and submit. And you can't ignore these commands because this is what acceptable worship is. This is a view that is challenged like no other ideology in our day. in this world that's consumed with self-autonomy and self-reliance, a world that rejects authority, speaks evil of dignitaries, a world where children rise up in pride against their parents and against their elders, a world where almost everyone considers themselves an expert on everything and they are qualified to judge. They're qualified to tell leaders, whether it be civil leaders in the government or church leaders in the church, how they ought to rule and what they ought to do. And this is a prevailing sin in the world, and that spirit is in the church as well. The idea that many Christians live by, I have Christ, I have my Bible, that's all I need, ironically ignores the very command of Scripture to assemble together. Say, all I need is Christ and my Bible, and I know I'm a Christian. Well, you're going against the Bible. You say that you need. Makes no sense, right? To ignore the commands of Scripture is sinful. And here we have two commands to obey and submit. And to not do so is to rebel. To rebel against not only the authority in your church, but Christ Himself who appointed that man to that office. But you object. You say, wait a minute, you're bringing me back to the Old Testament, Pastor. Things changed at Pentecost. Every believer, we're all kings and priests now. Are you bringing us back to a monarchy? Listen, submission to authority is found throughout the New Testament. In the early church, with all of the contributions made by the members of the church, there was still calls to honor and submit to leadership. Let me show you 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul writes in verses 12 and 13. We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. It is true, I will concede, and it is true that God gives considerable authority to the church, meaning the local congregation. We see this in the New Testament. The church, for example, determines whether a sinning member among their midst is to be disciplined. That's not the leaders. No pastor has a right to simply write a letter to someone and say, don't come here anymore. He is not given that authority. But the church has the authority to remove someone from their midst. No priest can bind and loose a person's sins in a confessional booth. It's the church as a whole in Matthew 18 that are given this authority from God as to whether or not to bind or loose a person because of their sins. True, at Pentecost, God anointed every believer in the entire church with the indwelling presence and power of the Holy Spirit. He did not limit that to leaders, but gave it to all of his people. It was also to the church that God gave a variety of gifts. And the purpose of those gifts is to minister to one another. Ministers are not the man who stands up, or not the man who gets paid, or not the man on the front of your bulletin. We are all ministers. Ministers in the New Testament are not a separate class of clergy. They are in the body of Christ. We minister to one another. We are all called and we are all equipped, if you are in Christ, to minister to one another. It's the church as a whole that's been empowered by the Spirit and given the authority to go into the world and preach the gospel. That's not just pastors. That's all believers. And we know that throughout the ages, first the Roman Catholic Church, but then there were many other expressions of Christendom as well, have usurped the authority of the church, meaning the people, and placed it into the hands of a few clergy class. And the scripture does teach of the priesthood of every believer. There is no unique priest. Every believer is a priest. We are a kingdom of priests. We believe in that, the priesthood of every believer. We believe in Congregationalism. We believe that that's the model of the New Testament. We're moving away from, we're changing from that Old Testament pattern of the Moses model and the Levite model in the Old Testament, and now in Christ we are all priests. And that priesthood is handed to every believer. However, all of that being true, it does not negate the need for sound leaders in the church. We've been studying it recently over the last couple of months, examining our brother for the qualifications of eldership. It's very specific how the New Testament describes the man who would be an elder. We find considerable teaching in much of the New Testament explaining very clearly how do you identify the men that are called to lead. Elders or pastors were appointed all the way back in the early church and in the book of Acts. Paul ordered apostolic agents to appoint elders in every church. That's the assumed model of the New Testament, that there is a church body under the leadership of a plurality of elders. So you ask, is the church a monarchy? Well, it is. Christ is our king. Not the elder, not Moses, not God's man, but Christ. We don't go back to the Old Testament model for our standard of church leadership, no. But it is a monarchy in that we submit to Christ. Is the church a democracy? Well, if you mean by that that the whole body mutually minister to one another, then yes, the church is a democracy in that way. Is the church a hierarchy? Yes, in that Christ appoints specifically chosen men to exercise a delegated authority in leading and feeding the flock. So it's all of those things. It is a monarchy. It is a democracy. It is a hierarchy, depending on how you look at it. This is the biblical model. A true pastor does not act like the civil leaders who dominate by coercion and force. He is a servant leader, and the servant of God is not quarrelsome. He does not force submission. He's a man who was crucified with Christ, and he leads in human weakness by the power of the Spirit. And to such men, God would say in 1 Peter 5, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you. Not for shameful gain, but eagerly. Not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. Such a man you can have confidence in. A leader in the church. can only lead others as much as he is relying upon the grace of God. Christ alone is the one chief shepherd. He's the good shepherd. Those who he calls to the pastorate are men, but we are only qualified as much as we are like Christ. Of the good shepherd, listen to these beautiful words written by the Apostle Paul in Philippians chapter 2. of the good shepherd," he writes these words, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, being found in the appearance as man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. That's who we follow, brothers and sisters. That's who all of us follow. That is the good shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. That's where our hope lies. Not in obedience, but in Christ's perfect obedience. So you could say, I've been sinful. I've missed the mark. I haven't submitted to my elders. I've not even been part of a church. Well, the good news is you're not going to earn your salvation by suddenly becoming obedient, but your trust in the One whose perfect obedience, even unto death on a cross, in your place, dying in your place. And this is the model that is provided for us for an elder. He perfectly fulfills it, we fall short. When it comes to submission and obedience, we are bent for rebellion on our own, in our flesh. We are bent to rebel. Every one of us are bent to rebel. But Jesus perfectly submitted to the Father even to death on a cross. And He did it in our place to pay the penalty for our rebellion. So if you would examine yourself and say, yes, I admit, I see the rebellion in my heart, I would ask you to trust a great Savior today who perfectly obeyed the Father. Today, if you will but believe on Him who carried your sin upon Himself on the cross, you will find your sin fully paid for. God's justice fully satisfied. That is the glorious good news that we preach every week. Calling sinners to repentance, but also reminding us as Christians that yes, there will be times we get convicted of our sin. but there is One who is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness." And if you find in your heart remaining rebellion, then when you confess that sin to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive you. As wonderful as that news is, I can't go on. I have to stop here and just tell you that the gospel doesn't end with the incarnation and death of Christ. The good news continues in Philippians chapter 2 in verse 9. It says, Therefore, because he was obedient unto death, therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father." So Jesus was obedient to death on the cross, but He didn't remain dead. He is the risen Shepherd that we'll look at next time. But just as a preview, look down to verse 20. of this Jesus Christ, it says in verse 20 of Hebrews 13. It says, He brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep. Christ died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. Hallelujah. You can trust Him today. Do not harden your heart. Repent and believe this good news. Back to our text. The author goes on, we're in the middle of verse 17 of chapter 13. The author gives four reasons why you can trust your leaders, why you can submit to them. The four reasons are listed in your outline. First, they watch over your soul. Second, they will give an account. Third, your submission makes their leadership a joy. And fourth, to do otherwise is to no advantage to you. Look at verse 17 again. This is where we get these four points from verse 17. For they are keeping watch over your soul as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. So the reason for the church's trust and submission lies in the special responsibility that leaders have to watch over your soul. What does that mean? Watch over. Well, literally, it means to lose sleep. Lose sleep watching over. Watching over the spiritual lives of the church. Pastors are constantly thinking of ways to support and sustain the spiritual life and growth of the church. Pastors are occupied with your well-being, if you're in a good church. Pastors are occupied with your well-being, not in growing their numbers, but in your well-being. And at times, they lie awake at night worrying about you. Yes, we do. Fathers here, let me ask you, how many times have you lost sleep worrying about your child? Well, we do. Pastors lie awake at night worrying about you. We read books. We attend meetings to be better shepherds. What better reason is there to submit and follow your leaders than to know that? Let me give you an illustration, those of you who are wives here. You will know this immediately. You know, as a wife, how difficult it is to submit to your own husband when you believe he's making a selfish decision for your family. I know this because your husbands are sinners. And we do not always act selflessly. And the reality is men are selfish. So I know you know that. It's hard to submit when you think your husband is acting selfishly. But I hope also you will know the rest and the confidence of trusting your husband's leadership when you know he is acting out of selfless love. I hope you know that. That's the idea that's being conveyed here. If your pastor is treating you like a slave, it's hard to submit, nor should you. But when you know, when you have that confidence that he's talking about, the confidence that your elders have your best interest in mind, it's the most natural thing to follow their lead. whether it be their decisions, the policies, ministry involvement in our preaching, in our counsel. If we establish ministries in the church, it's to help you. If we have a retreat or a life group or prayer meetings or youth groups or classes, that's for you. That's for your family. That is not for our health. It's for yours. And brethren, you do a disservice by ignoring that, by deciding for yourself not to heed their advice, not to attend to the ministries that are offered to you. If we recommend that you attend a life group during the week, what are we getting from that? I'm serious. Think about it. We recommend you go to a home group during the month. Try to make two. Say, I'm really busy. I can only do one. What do we gain from that? We gain nothing. If we set up a youth retreat, it's for your children. If we have a ladies' conference, that is for you ladies. What do we gain? These things are a lot of work for pastors. But we do this for you. It's our work to equip you to strengthen the hope that anchors your soul to heaven. And that's why these ministries are in place. You say, ah, but I know better. The elder must be watchful. He can be trusted based upon his accepting the responsibility for the shepherding of the souls of those that are in his care. And that's what it says secondly, as those who will give and account. As those who will give an account, the construction of the Greek sentence is a bit different, a little more nuanced than it is in English. The way it's stated in English, it almost seems like this is a frightening obligation. But more, Peter O'Brien brings this out in his commentary, where he talks about giving an account, less about necessity and obligation, but more about the voluntary dimension that's in view here. Pastors watch over the flock willingly. And you see that in 1 Peter 5 as well. Willingly, gladly. We gladly take this responsibility. We're happy for the added responsibility of the flock's health. Our attitude as elders is as the apostle who wrote, I will gladly spend and be spent for you. Your elders will give an account for our stewardship of your soul. And that both means now, today, as the members of this church, your elders are praying for you, ordering the life of the church, just as we see best, for your spiritual benefit. It also means that we're going to give a full and final account on Judgment Day. This is why 1 Timothy 4.16 exhorts us to lead and keep a close watch on ourselves and our teaching. It says, persist in this and by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. So brethren, considering the responsibility that your elders bear before you and before God as watchmen over your soul, is there any greater motive for you than your confidence, your trust, and your submission? The tedious work of shepherding is then made joyful as the atmosphere of the church is one of trust and submission. It is a heavy responsibility, yes, but that heaviness does not mean that it is not joyful. It is a joy to watch over souls that are given to our account. When a pastor sees a member of his flock, one who is given to his care, growing, changing, being conformed to the image of Christ, we have no greater joy. Again, I say, fathers, when you see spiritual fruit in your children, is there any greater joy? In contrast, leaders groan under the heavy burden of a lack of trust. Any pastor will tell you that what wears him down most is not his labors on your behalf, not his ministry, not the hard work of studying and preparing sermons, not the time given for discipling or counseling, but the frustration that comes with those who are hard-hearted and stubbornly buck against their leadership. That's what wears a pastor out. I can attest to this. I can attest to the drain that the elders felt during the time when we went through that seemingly endless season of church discipline a couple of years ago and the public rebellion that followed that. People whose souls we were given to give an account for were scattered. One member of our church handed over to Satan And it's that kind of hard-hearted disobedience that causes elders to groan. A.W. Pink correctly assesses our feelings when he writes this. He says, nothing is more disheartening and saddening to a pastor than to meet with opposition from those whose highest interests he is serving with all of his might. I picked on selfish husbands earlier. Let me illustrate this by looking at disrespectful wives, because we also know that that goes on, right? Ladies, there's nothing more disheartening to your husband than when you fight and disrespect him when he knows that he is serving your best interest. Now, he may be wrong. But when he is convinced that he is doing this for you, and you spurn that, you grieve him. And it is the same for elders. We're not going to be right all the time. Sometimes we're going to be wrong, not willfully. We're not going to willfully make a wrong decision. But we will always have, by God's grace, the earnest desire for your spiritual health, the good of the flock. You may disagree with our decision, and that's your prerogative. You can disagree. Godly elders will always allow opportunities to respectfully appeal decisions. We know that we are imperfect men. But what is not acceptable is grieving your elders with strife. Striving brings us grief, brethren. And ironically, the scripture tells us that when you strive against your authorities, you end up despising your own mercies. Verse 17 closes here. That would be unprofitable for you, he says. Meaning the grief that you bring to your authorities is unprofitable for you. It brings a leanness to your soul. Lack of trust will only keep you from receiving their instruction and their counsel. It will end up quenching your own zeal and your own vigor. Why? Because you cannot offer God acceptable worship and disobey His commands. If you cannot have respect for and submit to the elders of your church, men who have proven themselves to watch out for your souls as those who will give an account, you will instead become a source of grief to them rather than joy. And we can't think that the Lord will favor us and be in rebellion to our leadership. He is displeased by rebellion. We see this throughout the Scripture. The Lord supports and upholds the authorities He delegates. And He is displeased and He withdraws His tokens of grace to those who dishonor His messengers. And maybe, just maybe, maybe, if this hits home for someone, maybe the lukewarmness that you're feeling, maybe the lack of zeal that you once had, maybe the coldness that you feel in your heart toward Christ, or the waning of love that you have for the people of God that you're experiencing is because you have not followed your pastor's lead and decided for yourself what you believe is best for you or your family. And that's not a threat. I'm not trying to coerce obedience here. It's right out of verse 17. It says, For that would be unprofitable for you. Lack of submission to leaders is detrimental to your spiritual health and the health of the congregation. So when you have significant differences from your elders so that you can no longer submit, it's better to go and find another sound church than to upset the unity of the body and the bond of peace. Brothers and sisters, there are few things in this world that are more beautiful than the body of Christ, the bond of peace, the unity of the body, dwelling together in unity. God says He's pleased with this, when we can dwell together in unity. That is acceptable worship. you will witness few richer blessings in this life than belonging to a unified, godly, holy church that loves one another, that serves one another, where the sheep and the shepherd are dwelling together in harmony. There's no better thing in the world. That's what we see illustrated in Psalm 23. The sheep are lying down in green pastures. They're drinking of the quiet waters. Why? Because they're well-led and they're well-fed. That's a foretaste of heaven. Hallelujah. I'll close very quickly just looking at verse 18 by way of application. Verse 18. The author's concern for leadership leads him to ask this in verse 18. He says, pray for us, for we're sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. As we consider the high calling and expectation of an elder, we all the more realize our need Paul himself wrote of it, he said, who is sufficient for these things? It's no wonder, then, the author would say, pray for us. He says, we are sure that we have a clear conscience desiring to act honorably in all things. What he's saying, in essence, is in light of this authority, this duty, this responsibility that is upon the pastor, pray for us. He's saying here, we think we're doing this right. We have a clear conscience. We think we're doing this right. We desire to act honorably. We know our desire is to act honorably in all things. We believe we're serving God. We believe we're staying faithful to the Gospel. And we believe we're loving God's people. But nevertheless, we need your prayers. Brethren, pray for your elders. If you're here visiting from another church, pray for your pastors and elders. I am sure the enemy is attacking them in some way. Pray for those who might be your future elders. I'm sure the enemy is seeking to keep men from this noble hauling in the future. Satan hates the fact that God gives gifts to his church, and he will fight tooth and nail to keep that from happening. So listen, brethren, the only reason you won't pray for your elders is you don't really understand the gravity of that office, the church's need for leadership. If you underestimate the temptations and attack that a pastor comes under and his family come under, you won't pray. We're living in a time that is marked like no other by the gross sins among church leaders. And maybe it always went on, but now, with the advent of social media, we see it. And with that, the discouragement that comes in the ministry is at an all-time high. The damage that is caused by Christian leaders who are looked up to, who fall into sin, are inestimable. So we have to raise our voice in prayer to God that that would not happen to us. We need you to pray for us. Pray for the protection of your elders and leaders from spiritual attack, from the dangers, toils and snares that come from living in this dark world. God has been good to us. He has seen fit to favor us today with another elder, Brahim, who we will ordain. He, as well as I, Pastors Eli, Pastor Damian, will not make it alone. Now, yes, we pledge to serve you with a clear conscience. We desire to act honorably in all things, but we will only do so, and we will only survive as much as you pray for us. Amen.