Dear congregation, let's continue to worship our God this morning by considering his word. And I would ask you this morning to take your copy of God's word and turn to 1 Peter 5. And this morning, as we continue our exposition of the book of 1 Peter, I will read in your hearing verses 1 through 5, though the majority of our time is going to be given to verse 5a. So, if you're following along on a pew Bible, you could find our passage this morning on 1016. 1016. Let's give our attention to the reading of God's word. 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 1 through 5. The Apostle Peter says, So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed, 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. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another. For God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Thus far the reading of God's word, the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our Lord stands forever, and we are thankful for it. Join me, congregation, as we ask the Lord to illumine our hearts in preparation for the preaching of God's word. Let's pray. Father God, we come this morning after having sung, after having read your word, after having heard your word, after soaring in worship, Father, and now we continue to worship. We worship Father as we listen to your word, and I pray that you would cause this people this morning to have hearts that have fertile soil, to receive the seed of the word, and that your spirit would germinate it, Father, and cause it to have its intended effect in all of our hearts. Father, may the words of my heart and the meditations of my soul be pleasing to you as I seek to exposit this word. And more importantly than anything, Father, may your Son be clearly seen and may we hear His voice through the preached word. We ask these things in your Son's name. Amen. Well, for three weeks, we have considered the multifaceted role and obligations and demeanor which pastors owe to their congregation. We saw that in a number of sermons dedicated to verses 1 through 4. We also saw in that passage what the reward is that a pastor can anticipate and hope for on the day, the last day. And then last week, we began to unpack verse 5. And what I submitted to you last week was that what verse 5 tells us, at least verse 5a, is what the congregation owes to her elders. And Peter admittedly gives less space to what congregation owes to their elders than he does to what pastors owe to their congregations. And yet the gravity of what is expected of the congregation is serious and clear enough. According to 1 Peter 5a, the younger ones are to submit to the elders. And as I showed in the exposition of the Word last week, it is true that Peter, for reasons that we don't totally understand but we can possibly surmise, was isolating the younger ones in the congregation and exhorting them to submit to their elders. Why? Perhaps, as I said last week, because it was the younger ones in those congregations in modern-day Turkey, Asia Minor, who were more prone not to submit to their elders, who maybe had issues with authority. But Peter, as I said last week, was by no means saying, that this charge of submission to the elders in the context of the local church is limited to younger ones. As we said last week, old people can be just as cantankerous and ornery as young people. And if we were still not convinced, we went to Hebrews 13, 17, where the author to the Hebrews tells all the congregation to obey and submit to their leaders. And, you know, when I came to 1 Peter 3 some months ago and sought to unpack the command for wives to submit to their husbands, you'll recall that I spent about two weeks saying what it did and did not mean. And the reason why is because there are, as I've said, many abuses of the headship of the husband in the context of the marriage. And especially in pastoral ministry, as I have not only been in the counseling room when men and women have been counseled, and also myself have counseled men and women through marital strife, I've seen a number of cases where men have abused the authority of headship and turned it into something that it should not be. And so on the one hand, we want to be sensitive to that. And on the other hand, as I said, we don't want to jettison the principle that the Bible itself gives us. And so last week, you'll recall that I gave the example of a woman who all of her life had had an abusive father and then get saved. and comes to church for the first time and hears a sermon that God is her Father. What is she to do? Well, she is to let her own experience, which is the experience of a negative father, be reinterpreted and recategorized by the Word of God. She needs to let the Word of God inform to her what fatherhood is, what it should be, and most importantly, how God Himself is a perfect Father to her. Well, in the same way, when we come to this issue of the congregation submitting to pastors, we need to sort through the weeds and make clear what that does and does not mean. Peter's function here in this text is basically this. He wants the congregation to understand what their role to pastors are and what the pastor's obligation to the congregation is so that, as I said some weeks ago, we can avoid as much as possible even the whiff of pastoral abuse on the one hand or congregational abuse on the other. That's the function of this text. And how do we accomplish that? How do we avoid even the whiff of either side? by understanding what our roles are in the context of the local church, seeking to flesh them out respectively, pastor and congregation, and, here's the key, holding one another accountable to be what the Lord, through His word, calls us to be to one another. So what I'd like to do this morning is I'd like to give you three things that submission to pastors is not. Put another way, three things that submission does not mean, and then Lord willing, next week we'll come to the Lord's table and I'll give a meditation on the cross, and then the following week we'll come back to this issue and say positively what submission does mean. So let me just give to you this morning three things that submission to pastors in the context of a local congregation does not mean. Number one. Submission does not mean that you give the elders absolute authority over your consciences and wills. I repeat, submission does not mean that you give to the elders absolute authority over your consciences and wills. It was on the anvil of the debates between the Roman Catholic Church and Protestants that the Protestants, our Reformational Fathers, pounded out confessions. And one of the confessional statements that were pounded out in the anvil of history was one of the statements that we have in our 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith in chapter 21, paragraph 2, which reads this. God alone is Lord of the conscience and he has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, listen, which are in any way contrary to his word or not contained in it. So that to believe such doctrines or obey such commands out of conscience is to betray true liberty of conscience. And the requiring of an implicit faith and absolute and blind obedience is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also. Our Reformed forefathers gave us this very important principle that is to guide how ministers are to shepherd the flock of God. The principle thing that shepherds are to do is to guard your consciences. And the only thing that we are to bind your consciences with, defiably and biblically, is what God has said. Now you need to understand that they came out of a context where the Roman Catholic Church was trying to bind the consciences of their people with things God had not said. And in fact, the Roman Catholic Church even said, we don't expect you to understand everything that we say. We don't expect you to understand every jot and tittle of our Roman Catholic Church's catechism, which is nothing like our catechism. It's like 300 pages long. But we do require, this is what they said, an implicit faith, which is what is addressed in our confession. You know what they meant by that? Just assume that whatever we're saying is right and trusted. Well, that's dangerous. It's very dangerous. And what drove the Roman Catholic Church in making that proclamation? Because Scripture was here, and tradition was at the same level. So they took it that their interpretation of the Word was just as infallible as the Word itself. So you just had to have implicit faith. And the Reformers pushed back and said, here's the problem. What Scripture says and what your tradition says in some issues, not all issues, are contradictory. And so we've got to choose one or the other, and we're going to choose Scripture. And from that came one of the solas of the Reformation, sola scriptura, Scripture alone. So everyone, listen, everyone, whether you're a believer or an unbeliever, you have a default authority for what is a master over your conscience. For the unbeliever, his default authority is his own reason and his own will and his own tastes. But for the believer, To the believer, our default authority is what God has said in two books. The book of nature and the book of special revelation. It is in these two books that we bow the knee in our conscience to God and we do what He has called us to do. Now, let me give you an example, then, in the life of the local church of what that doesn't mean. Let's say I'm counseling a man who is having some marital strife, okay? And let's just say, for sake of argument, that he is having a hard time doing what Peter says in 1 Peter 3, living with his wife in an understanding way, okay? None of you struggle with that, right? But this guy is struggling with it. Now, I happen to know, because I'm a shepherd and I wanna get to know my people, I happen to know that this man's wife, loves flowers, I mean she just loves flowers, right? And so if that's her love language, if that's one of the ways in which she receives love from her husband, I might suggest to the man who is having a hard time with living with his wife in an understanding way, hey buddy, hey, why don't you just randomly, not on Valentine's Day, okay, the holiday that Hallmark invented, but just on a random day, get your wife some flowers, okay? She's gonna love that, right? Can I, as a pastor, listen, here's the key, can I bind his conscience with that? Can I say, you must do this, this is exactly for you what living with your wife in an understanding way means, and to the degree that you don't do it, we're gonna bring you up on charges. No, I can't do that. It may be wise, it may be prudent, but I can't tell him that he must do it. That's an example of where a pastor cannot be the ultimate authority of your conscience and will. And you know what? Every pastor who's worth his salt, he doesn't want you to make him the default authority over your consciences and wills. He wants you to make the Lord the default authority over your consciences and wills. So number one, submission does not mean that you give the elders absolute authority over your consciences and wills. But then number two, Submission to elders does not mean that you regard your elders as infallible in their interpretation and application of Scripture. Submission does not mean that you are to regard your elders as infallible in their interpretation and application of Scripture. As I said, this is what the Roman Catholic Church says, even to this day. The Roman Catholic Church says that God has given an infallible interpreter to the world, an infallible interpreter of the scriptures, and that is the Roman Catholic Church. The crazy thing about that is, even within the Roman Catholic Church, they can't even agree on things. They don't have an inspired commentary on every book of the Bible, because they realize in-house that there's so much infighting amongst them, they can't even figure out what they believe. But we don't believe that there is an infallible interpreter. We do believe that the Bible itself is infallible, and we believe that God has given us an infallible guide, that is, in His Spirit, so that when the Spirit comes together with a reading and hearing and understanding of the Word of God, they join together in this supernatural cyclone of supernatural activity to bring us illumination. We do believe that. But we do not believe that God has given us an infallible interpreter. And so, for example, we are to test what is heard in 1 Thessalonians 5, 20 and 21. You don't need to turn there. But Paul exhorts the Thessalonians, do not despise prophecies. Now listen. In his time, the gifts were still in practice. So this could have been, and very well may have been, referring to foretelling prophecy, where you tell the future. But you need to understand that the word in the Greek for prophesy also includes foretelling. Fourth telling is when a minister or a man of God stands up in the pulpit and takes the word of God and tells it forth. So he's taking God's message and forth telling it. And Paul says, do not despise prophecies, but what? Verse 21, test everything, hold fast to what is good. And is this not the reason for which Paul commended the Bereans in Acts chapter 17? He says that these Jews from Berea were more noble-minded in Thessalonica because they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. I remember my brother and I, when we were young, we had just gotten saved. We were only saved for about six months, and we carried around our Bibles wherever we went. We were just in that, you know, cage phase season of Christianity, loved the word, wanted to talk about it, wanted to share the gospel. And I think we went to my grandfather's funeral at a Roman Catholic church, and we took our Bibles, and we noticed that we were the only ones there that had our Bibles. Nobody else had Bibles. And we were talking to somebody afterwards and we're like, don't you want to bring your Bible to see if what your priest is saying is actually in the Word of God? I mean, did it ever cross your mind that he could be telling you something that's contrary to the Word of God? As Protestants, we bring our Bibles to church because we want to follow along in the Word of God and whatever the minister is saying, we want it to coincide and harmonize with what the Word of God is saying. So God has not given us, as I said, infallible interpreters. Okay, so while we want to say on the one hand that it is possible to know what the Word of God teaches on any given issue, and we want to say that we believe that our confession set forth what the best way to interpret and understand the Bible is on a number of different issues, on the other hand, we are not prepared to say, nor do we say, that any time a minister steps in the pulpit to exposit the Word of God, that his particular interpretation is infallible. Now, having established that principle, let's be careful not to fall into two pitfalls. So let me give you two pitfalls that you could fall into having embraced this truth that yes, the Word of God is infallible and inspired, but my minister's interpretation of it isn't necessarily infallible. There's two pitfalls that we could fall into. Number one, we could say, Well, if the church is not infallible in her interpretation of the Bible, that means that nobody can really know what the Bible says. You know what that's called? That's called agnosticism. Not with respect to does God exist. Agnosticism in Greek simply means without knowledge. So we don't have knowledge. We don't know what the word of God says. Listen, there is a branch of philosophy called epistemology. Just follow me, okay? Listen. And epistemology is the study of whether or not we can know things. So they ask questions like this, like, when we perceive reality, is this table really here? Or is my brain in a vat somewhere, in some laboratory, and there's these electrodes that are connected to it that are sending these messages to my brain saying, oh, there's a table here, and there's people in front of you, and there's a hamburger going into your mouth right now. Is this reality and can we know that's the whole branch of philosophy known as epistemology? Do you know that the Bible assumes an epistemology? The Bible assumes not only that you can know, but listen, you are without excuse if you don't embrace what you should know. God has given us two books, general revelation and special revelation, and Paul tells us in Romans one, 19 to 20, listen, For what can be known, there's your epistemological grist for the mill, what can be known about God is plain to them, that is humanity, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. What does he say after that? So they are without excuse. God assumes an epistemology. You know what God says? The beginning of knowledge and wisdom is the what? The fear of the Lord. That's where knowledge starts. And God says, if you don't get that, and you reject me, and you say, well, not enough proof, God, I don't believe in the Bible, I don't believe in Christianity, on the day of judgment, not gonna pass muster. You will be judged because you are without excuse. But then secondly, in the book of Revelation, not the last book of the Bible, but this Bible, the book of Revelation, the revelation that God has given us, He likewise tells us that we can know from what has been written what is true. John says in 1 John 5, verses 12 and 13, whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. And then he says in verse 13, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. What is John saying? He's saying not only can you know, you are responsible to know. So the first pitfall we could fall into when we think about the minister standing up and exposing the word of God is, well, nobody can really know. And you know what, there's some debated text on what their interpretation is, so I'm just gonna be agnostic. You can't afford to be agnostic. If God has spoken in this Word, we are all responsible to know what He has said. And we should be joyful and encouraged to flesh out what He has said after we figure out what He has said. And so the Bible assumes in epistemology that what God has said can be understood. So we need to avoid this first pitfall of saying, well, because the minister's not infallible, we can't really know what it's saying. The second pitfall, and this is important, the second pitfall we could fall into, is to say this, well, everyone in the congregation is equally competent to understand what the Bible says. One of the Reformation principles is the priesthood of all believers. Do you know that? Do you know that you don't need to go through a human priest to get to God? You can go directly through the God-man, Jesus Christ, and have direct access to God. All of us, in that sense, in our union with Christ, are priests. But the Reformers never meant that doctrine to mean that you don't need teachers. One of the blessings of the new covenant is the Spirit teaches us, that's true, but the Spirit of God, listen to me, the Spirit of God who is in you, uses the raw materials of the Word of God to bring you through sanctification. He uses the raw materials of the Word of God, whether that is the read word or the preached word or the memorized word, to sanctify you and bring you to be put into the likeness and form of Jesus Christ. And so we should not say, well, everyone is equally competent to interpret the Word of God. You know, there's a reason why when a congregation decides to look for a new pastor, they ask really specific questions. Like, how long have you been a Christian? Like, have you been formally trained? Can you read your Greek Bible? Can you read your Hebrew Bible? You know a little something of philosophy, a little something of systematic theology, historical theology, counseling. Do you understand these things and are you, listen, competent? competent to open up the word of God and say, this is what it means. There's a reason why you take your candidate pastors through that rigorous process because you're going to have to sit under their ministry. You don't want somebody who just says, well, I'm just gonna be led by the spirit to figure out what this means. No, get in your study and open your books and look at your Greek and Hebrew lexicon and figure out what the text is saying. Now the question is, is everyone in the congregation equally competent to do that? No! They're not! Now, this illustration will be lost on a handful of you, but I'm going to run the risk and use it anyway, okay? When I go to the doctor, And the doctor looks at my blood panel, and he asks me, what have I been eating? How often have you been exercising? Are you doing this? Are you doing that? And he goes through his whole litany of questions. And then he gets down and he says, OK, here's the deal. Your cardiovascular system looks horrible. Your eating is horrible. And you're at that point in life where if you don't start doing something, you're going to drop dead, not see your grandchildren graduate high school. When he tells me that, I take it very seriously. Is it possible that he's wrong? Well, of course it is. What do you call doctor's offices? You call them medical practices. They're practicing medicine. But does that mean that if I go on Billy Bob's medical website and find an article that it completely undoes the whole medical community and what they've done and studied over the last 400 years? Of course not. And I should not think that armed with one article and a handful of essential oils, I know better than a doctor. I'm not as competent as a doctor. I reserve the right to disagree with him, but I'm going to take what he has to say into deep consideration. And so it is with your minister. If you listen to me, if you don't think that your minister is competent, you need to get out of that church. and you need to find a church where you could put yourself under competent ministers of the word who know their Bible, who love Jesus, are filled with the Spirit, and have a moral character that you can follow as an example. And so we should give the benefit of the doubt to our ministers because they are competent to interpret the word of God. Now, let's look thirdly at what submission does not mean. Submission does not mean that members must agree with their elders in matters of judgment and wisdom which are not explicitly addressed in Scripture. Now, let me make a distinction here before I go any further, okay? I am not talking about the plain and clear issues in Scripture. Like, if a minister came up and said, Okay, this morning we're going to worship Satan. Okay, get out of there, alright? That's as clear as the noonday sun. I'm not talking about explicitly clear scriptural issues. I'm talking about the day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year decisions behind the scenes that elders, and in many cases deacons, are making for the life of the church. They're making all kinds of judgment calls, some of which you'll never know of, but many of which you do know of. And I want to give you two examples this morning, OK? I want you to think with me. Well, first off, let me say this, and this is good. Please listen. We say in this place that we are elder led, congregationally ruled and deacon served. Now, let's come to that middle one for a second. Congregationally ruled. What does that mean? We believe that that means that in a handful of decisions, the congregation has the final voice of authority on those matters. What are those issues? Four things. Any decision to excommunicate a professing believer, we believe that the congregation as a whole, the majority of the congregation, must make that call. Elders can't do that by themselves. They don't have that authority. Secondly, the selection of officers, whether that is a deacon or an elder or a trustee. That must be ultimately decided by the congregation. The elders are going to be the ones that are going to put men before you, but you are going to be the ones that make that ultimate decision. Thirdly, the annual budget. Elders, not even the deacons, and elders together, make that decision. You have to approve of the annual budget. And fourthly, any decision which requires legal matters, a change to the Constitution, bylaws, etc., etc. I know, wake back up, I'm sorry, it's boring. But you make that decision. Those are four things that the congregation rules in. But now, everything else, the day-to-day issues, the judgment calls, the counseling, the putting together of the liturgy, how often we're going to meet in worship, what time we're going to meet in worship, all those things are decided by the elders. So I want you to think with me for a moment of public worship. Our Reformed forefathers were very wise in thinking through how we should think about public worship. And again, getting back to London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter 21, paragraph 2, that talks about only the Lord is Lord of our consciences, we especially believe that when it comes to public worship. We especially are intentional in making sure that anything that we do as a people on Sunday morning and Sunday evening, on the Lord's Day, as the Kingdom of Heaven descends and comes among us in our worship, does not violate your conscience in any scripturally explicit manner. We're very careful about that. So when you look around, I mean, we've got plain walls. We don't have pictures of our Lord breaking the second commandment anywhere. Okay. We don't have smells and bells. We don't have any of those things. Why? Because the reformers following the Bible came up with a principle of worship called the regulative principle of worship. You know what the regulative principle of worship says? We only do in our public and private worship what God has explicitly commanded. as opposed to the normative principle of worship says, you can do whatever you want unless God says don't do it. So you want to come up and instead of a sermon like juggle with a painted face, that's fine. We say, no, no, no, no. We do what God has explicitly commanded us. But here's the irony. Listen to me very carefully. Don't take that principle to mean that every single detail and circumstance of our public worship must be explicitly stated. Do you know that we are commanded to worship, but if you took this approach, the wooden approach that said, I'm only going to do what the scriptures explicitly tell me, you know that ironically you could never actually worship with the people of God? Because the word of God doesn't tell you what time to worship. The word of God doesn't tell you in what church to worship. The word of God doesn't tell you on the Lord's day how many times to worship. And so the reformer said, we need to distinguish between elements, the necessary things that must be in a worship service, like the word, singing, giving, confession, assurance of pardon, all these things. These are the elements, you must have them. And if you don't have them, you're not worshiping. The sacraments is another one. But the circumstances are up to the leaders in the individual church. So the scripture doesn't tell us what time to meet. But we say, well, we meet at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Scripture doesn't tell us how often to meet on the Lord's Day. We say we're going to meet twice. Scriptures tell us preach the word. Do they say have a pulpit? Don't say have a pulpit. They tell us we can't have a pulpit. No, scriptures say we can't have a pulpit. So this is a circumstance. We we choose in our liberty to have a pulpit, even though the word of God doesn't explicitly. The Word of God tells us to sing. Does it tell us what songs to sing? No. Okay. It does tell us that they should be theologically robust and they should be theologically accurate. Tell us that we can't use instruments? No. So we use instruments. Those are a circumstance of worship. Does it tell us which instruments to use? No, it doesn't tell us. Who makes all these judgment calls? The elders. The elders make those judgment calls. Now, here's my point. Are you always going to agree with every decision that the elders make on those circumstances of worship? No, you're not. You're not always going to agree. You may say, I think for the response of reading, we should have read the Song of Solomon. and you guys read Romans 8, okay, that's fine, you can have that opinion, but at the end of the day, this is what the elders have decided to do, so that's where you're called to submit, okay? These are circumstances, these are not things that violate your conscience to do them. Now, on the other hand, if we came in with a big picture of Jesus crucified on the cross, and we put it on the wall, violating the second commandment, some of you would rightly come up to us and say, I have a problem with that. We are not to make an image of our Lord, and that's an image of our Lord. I understand that. We don't want to violate your consciences. So in all these areas, this is what I'm talking about when Peter says younger ones submit to the elders. Now, let me give you one more example just to invite you a little bit into my world, okay? I met with an old retired pastor a few weeks ago. We met for lunch, and he told me about a situation he had in his church in the 80s. Check this out. He said, you know, it was the 1980s, middle of the 1980s, and the whole phenomenon of AIDS was a new thing to everybody. Nobody really understood it. There were different theories about where it came from, and everybody was very anxious and disturbed by, can I get AIDS? You know, does it come through sneezing? Does it come through touch? Like, nobody really knew. It was just new, and people were scared. And at the same time, A man came to their church and became a member who had AIDS. And furthermore, he wanted to serve in the nursery. And so he served in the nursery and guess what? Some people in the church were like, they came to the pastor and said, you know what, we're really uncomfortable with this man serving in the nursery. What if he cuts himself and his blood is all over and somehow our children get infected with AIDS? Is that a real problem? Is that a real concern? You want to be a pastor? So you know what he did? He consulted with his elders and they worked through it and it was very difficult and he decided to come to the man and they just said, look, we're so grateful you're here. We're so grateful that you're serving in the nursery, but at the same time, there are some concerns from people in our church about you serving in the nursery, and we just think it's the better part of wisdom that you're not serving. We'll find another thing for you to do. Maybe we can mow the church lawn, okay, or something else, but we would rather you not serve in the nursery. Well, of course, what happened? He got mad and puffy, he took his marbles, and he went home. He left the church, okay? Does that decision need to be made in the life of the church? Absolutely. Do you want to make it? No, I hope you don't. But the elders have to make those calls. Those are hard judgment calls. And guess what? There are always going to be critics. There are always going to be people that disagree. And what this text is telling us is in those matters, the congregation is called to submit to their elders. I want you to remember two things about this, okay? And this is really important, please listen to me very carefully. Because some of you have had disagreements with us, and you've respectfully, I'm so grateful, Pastor Ken, Pastor Gemini, are so grateful for the gracious and deferential manner in which many of you have come to us and expressed some concerns. And we not only welcome it, we exhort you to keep doing it, because that's how this interaction between congregation and pastors is supposed to flesh itself out. But some of you have come with some disagreements, and we sit down, we talk about it. And there are two things that we always tell people that have disagreements, okay? Here's the first thing. When the elders have to make a difficult decision, we do not make it willy-nilly. We spend time in prayer on our faces before God. We talk about it extensively. There are times when, you know, it's not like we assign this role out, but one of the elders is playing the devil's advocate. He's like, well, what if brother so-and-so comes along and says this? How are we going to respond to that? We're like, yeah, that's a real concern. We need to think about that. And together, we put our hearts and our minds together and we say, let me look at this thing from every single angle to try to think of every conceivable way in which somebody will think about this and have an answer. The second thing is this. We've had people come to us with disagreements, real legitimate disagreements that we've, I hope, graciously and humbly worked through. But you know, there's something that everybody needs to remember, and it's this. There are some reasons that we make decisions that are privileged information. We can't share them with you. And that makes it difficult for us because we want to be able to tell you, oh man, if we told you why we're doing this, you'd probably say, okay, I get it. Some of you'd still be like, I still disagree. That's fine, okay? But there's privileged information that we have, that we have obtained through our shepherding efforts, our counseling efforts, that affect, listen, decisions that we make at the macro level in this church. And we can't always share them with you. And so there's a level of trust there, isn't there? There's a level of trust that like, okay, there must be a good reason why the pastors are making this decision. And unless again, they're calling me to worship Satan, I'm gonna submit to them. So remember those two things. But now finally, listen very carefully. If you do have disagreement, and it's gonna happen, we're gonna disagree with one another, okay? And we're gonna hopefully work through it lovingly. But if you are going to have disagreement with your elders, I want us all, in the spirit of what Paul says in Ephesians 4, one through three, to be eager, listen, eager to maintain the unity of spirit and the bond of peace. The congregation has a right to disagree with the elders on these matters, but they are called to submit. Yes, and they don't have the right in their disagreement to disrupt the peace, the unity, and the harmony of Grace Covenant Church. when you consider whether or not you are going to go to war with the elders on something, before you do that, please, in the context of a worship service, you look to your right and you look to your left and you behold the precious faces of your brothers and sisters, and you behold the fact that just even this morning, we have thanked God for the unity and harmony that we have in this place, and you ask yourself this question, do I wanna disrupt that? Do I want to bring discord and dissension and strife over a minor matter? And I hope, beloved, I hope that as you think and pray through that, the answer is no. I hope that as you think and pray through that, you decide what's an issue that is a hill that you should die on and what's not, and be sanctified by that. When we first planted a Reformed Baptist church in California, We named it Berean Reformed Baptist Church. And the doors are closed now. But after about two years, the two elders said, we would like to take the name Reformed out. And I was a deacon at the time, and I was very involved in the life of the church. And I completely disagreed with that decision. And so I proceeded to write them a seven-page, single-spaced letter laying out 15 reasons why we should not take the word reformed out. And in the first page, you know what I did? I commended them. You want to know why? Because in our congregation, we had a family member that attended with us who, my family member, he was an alcoholic. And my wife and I, following Matthew 18, sought to confront him with the goal of restoration, and this man refused to repent. And we were at a wit's end, because our family members were telling us we were being pharisaical, legalistic, et cetera, et cetera. And you know what those two pastors did? They stepped in like shepherds. They took the bull by the horns, and they confronted him. And guess what? He repented. I was exceedingly grateful for these shepherds. So for the first page, I'm like, thank you for your shepherding efforts. Thank you for not sugarcoating things. Thank you for being men of conviction and shepherding us with gravitas and solemnity. But now here's 14 reasons why I think that we shouldn't take this reformed out of the title. You know what? They read the whole thing. They met with me afterwards, said thank you, and we had a meeting. They said, we're going to go ahead and take it out. You know what I said? Not a hill to die on. I'm not going to disrupt this 20-member church that's meeting in a cafeteria of a school because we took the name Reformed out. It's just not worth it. You know what's more precious than our little minor squabbles? Unity. Unity. We should be eager to maintain unity. So finally then, look at the rest of verse 5. I want you to see this. After Peter tells the congregation to submit to their elders, It's so important. He says, "...clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another. For God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Jesus Christ was clothed with humility throughout His whole life. Throughout the Gospels, we constantly read this refrain about Jesus. You know what He's always saying? He's always coming back to this. I came to do my Father's will. Not my own will. And did he not yet in his humanity grapple with that? Oh, yes, he did. Come back tonight and I'll talk more about it. Father, if this cup can pass from me, let it be. But nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. Jesus came to fulfill the will of the Father, and so it should be with us. Jesus is our example. We should seek to do the will of the Father. And one of the dimensions of God's will in the context of the local church is that shepherds lead and shepherd and feed and oversee in the way that God has called them to do it and that the congregation is to submit. And brethren, I'm not afraid to use that word. I'm not afraid. I don't care what people say on Twitter and Facebook and everything else. I follow the word of God. My conscience is bound to the word of God and I'm not going to be afraid of what God has said. So the congregation is to submit, yes, just as Jesus submitted to the will of the Father. But you know what? Jesus was much more than our example. He was much more than our example. He is the very reason why we were called into the fellowship of the Spirit and the church in the first place. Through what Christ did, you have a place at the table. Through what Christ did, you have an eternal inheritance reserved in heaven for you. Because of what Christ did, you are able to call the brother and sister to your right and to your left, brother and sister, because of what Christ did. Jesus came to unite a people into a body called the church, and we are one local outpost of that universal church. This precious body is the place where Christ's glory is put on display. So we herald the gospel here, and the gospel is not only what we herald, it's what keeps us tight and sticky as a congregation. It's what allows us to overlook, as Paul says in Romans chapter 14, those doubtful disputations, and not argue with somebody on the basis of those doubtful disputations, but receive them in love and unity and in faith. Unbelievers, this morning, do you wish to have something of this? Do you wish to have this eternal inheritance that God has given through His Son, Jesus Christ? Do you wish to have a forgiveness of your sins and a positive righteousness imputed to your account that will allow you on the final day to stand before the Father? Then Jesus comes through his word this morning and he bids you come. Come to him. How shall I come to him? By turning from your sins and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. And as the scriptures say, if you do that, you shall be saved. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for the roles that you have given The roles you've given from citizen to state, from husband to wife, from wife to husband, slave to slave, master, and church to congregation, and church to elders. And Father, we pray that you would make us in this place a portrait of grace, a portrait of humility, a portrait of men and women who are determined and resolved to be eager to maintain the spirit of unity and the bond of peace. Father, give us that, we pray. Do not take away this unity that you have given, but continue to perpetuate it until the day that you send your Son from heaven to retrieve your church. And until then, Father, we will continue to say, Maranatha. Come, Lord, quickly. For it is in your name we pray. Amen. Let's stand and sing the doxology this morning.