OBEY YOUR LEADERS - (Hebrews 13:17-19)

1. OBEY YOUR LEADERS

1.1 Be response to your Pastoral Leaders (Hebrews 13:17-19)

Hebrews 13

English Standard Version (ESV)

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+13&version=ESV

¹⁷Obey 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.

¹⁸ Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. ¹⁹I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner.

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I. Obey Your Joyful Leaders, Part 1

Hebrews 13:17-19

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. 18 Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things. 19 And I urge you all the more to do this, so that I may be restored to you the sooner.

Turning the People's Attention to their Leaders

The letter to the Hebrews is almost at an end. The writer is not sure he will ever see them again. He asks them in verses 18-19 to pray for him and his team so that they might, if God wills, be restored to this church for ongoing fellowship. But that may not happen. Where then will the people look for spiritual leadership? The answer is that they will look to their leaders in the church.

So it's not surprising that in this last chapter the writer refers to the leaders of the church three times (and not till now in the letter). Verse 7: "Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith." Verse 24: "Greet all of your leaders and all the saints. Those from Italy greet you." And our text, verse 17: "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you."

So we may take as a given that this church had leaders. And we may also assume that this writer of Scripture approved of that fact and wanted to strengthen the relationship between the people and their leaders. He is almost finished with his influence through the letter, and so he begins to turn the people's attention in this last chapter to their leaders. When he is finished, the leaders will still be there and will carry on the work of being teachers and examples to the people.

Even Baptists and Americans Are Given Leaders by God

This is very important for us to see. We are Baptists by conviction and Americans (most of us) by the providence of God. Americans (as most humans) have a love affair with individualism and do not like being told to submit to anyone. And Baptists believe in the Biblical doctrine of the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 5:9). So we Baptist Americans are prone to be very wary about leadership and the call for submission. Therefore it is important that we be checked by these passages. The New Testament is unmistakable in its teaching that the local church should have leaders.

The way this teaching relates to all that has gone before in this letter is simply this: When the book has been read in the congregation, leaders live it and teach it and apply it to the lives of the people; and people watch them do this and imitate them and become responsive and compliant to their leadership. In other words, the Biblical truths - about Christ and his saving work and the power of faith in future grace - that we have been savoring for the last two years are meant to be embodied in the leaders of this church so that you see them lived out, and hear them taught, and have God-centered models to imitate and God-centered teachings to follow.

Now let's develop this by opening verse 17 in more detail. I see three points: the aim of leadership, the means of leadership, and the response to leadership.

What Is the Aim of Leadership According to Verse 17?

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

Two phrases in the verse point to the aim of leadership. One is, "that would be unprofitable for you." And the other is, "they keep watch over your souls" (or literally: they keep watch on behalf of your souls). So I conclude that the aim of leadership in this verse is the "profit" or the "benefit" of the people. The leadership and the response to the leadership should not be "unprofitable for you," but rather "profitable for you." That's the aim - the benefit or profit of the people.

And when it says that the leaders are watching, or staying on the alert, "on behalf of your souls," it means the same thing: it is for the good of your souls that leaders are vigilant and awake and watchful. So in both phrases - the one at the end, "that would not be profitable for you," and the one in the earlier part of the verse, "they keep watch on behalf of your souls" - the point is the same: the aim of leadership is the profit or the good of the people, especially the good of their souls.

We may ask, What sort of profit or good does he have in mind? The answer is plain from the entire book, but let's take a specific verse to see it. Consider Hebrews 10:39, "We are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul." The aim of this book is to help people not shrink back from faith and have their soul destroyed, but rather to persevere in faith to the end and preserve their soul. The book of Hebrews is about perseverance. Over and over, it calls us to be vigilant concerning our souls and to endure to the end in faith and obedience (2:1; 3:6,12; 4:1,11,16; 6:1,11-12,18; 10:14,22-31,35-39; 12:1-2,12-17,28; 13:13).

So the aim of spiritual leadership in the church is mainly the salvation of the soul. And that salvation is not seen in the book of Hebrews as a one-time event of decision, but a life-long battle against temptation and unbelief. The job of the elders of this church primarily is to help you persevere in faith and be saved. In other words, since perseverance is at stake day after day, the aim of leadership is not simply to get decisions for Jesus at the front end of Christian life, but to so teach and so live and so admonish that professing Christians in the church "not shrink back to destruction, but . . . have faith to the preserving of the soul" (10:39).

This is one thing that makes the ministry so serious to me. I believe what Jesus said inMark 13:13, "The one who endures to the end will be saved." This is the message of Hebrews. And it means that all messages and all meetings are salvation meetings. Not because they only aim at the first decision for Christ, but because our final salvation comes to us through persevering faith, not just a one-time decision. Salvation of the soul is the ongoing work of God month after month to preserve us safe in Jesus by preserving our faith. And that happens through the teaching and modeling and admonishing and correcting by faithful leaders in the church.

Let me say it again from Hebrews 10:39, "We are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul." That is the aim of leadership: the preserving of the soul for eternity in the presence of God for everlasting righteousness and joy.

How Shall the Souls of the People Be Preserved in Faith and not Destroyed?

Let's turn now to the second point, the means of leadership. I see three answers in verse 17: their first is watchfulness, the second is joyfulness, and the third is seriousness.

First, leaders preserve the souls of the people by watchfulness "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls" (or: they keep watch on behalf of your souls). The spiritual leaders of a congregation are the watchers, the wakeful ones, the ones who above all others are alert and vigilant in spiritual matters. The word "over" (in "keep watch over your souls") does not mean that leaders just watch the souls of their people. The word (huper) means "on behalf of" or "for the sake of." So the watching is "on behalf of" your souls or "for the sake of" your souls.

What do leaders watch so that the people's souls will be preserved and not destroyed?

I would suggest four things from this book.

1. Spiritual leaders watch the word of God. They must ever be alert to the accurate meaning and the preciousness and the truthfulness and the power of God's word. Verse 7: "Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you." This is the main function of leaders: they lead by the word of God, not their own word. They are men under authority, not just with authority. This is why the people are called to obey them and submit to them.

The main issue in perseverance is whether we drift away from the word or keep hearing it, believing it, loving it and obeying it. Hebrews 2:1 said, "We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard (the word of God), so that we do not drift away from it." The job of leaders is to help a congregation pay close attention to that word and so not drift away from it and so persevere in faith in it and so be saved.

2. Spiritual leaders watch Christ. Christ is what the word is about. Hebrews 1:2: "In these last days [God] has spoken to us in His Son." The Son is the word we need to hear most of all. Hebrews 3:1: "Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus." That's what leaders say over and over again: consider Jesus. To do that, leaders must watch Jesus, and be alert to Jesus, and know Jesus and love Jesus above everything. Hebrews 12:2, "Fix [your] eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith." If it is the aim of leaders to preserve faith, and if Jesus is the author and perfecter of faith, then leaders must relentlessly say with their mouth and their lives: Fix your eyes on Jesus!

3. Spiritual leaders watch their own conduct. Hebrews 13:7: "Remember those who led you . . . considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith." The people are called to consider the leaders' conduct and imitate their faith. This means that leaders are more accountable to God for their behavior than other Christians and must watch it! All Christians should be godly and set good examples, but on top of that, God himself instructs the church to look at the lives of its leaders and follow. That is why there should be higher standards for leadership in the church than for membership in the church. This is also why failures in leaders are worse than failures in members. And why restoration to leadership should be much more difficult than restoration to membership.

Paul says something similar in 1 Timothy 4:16, "Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you." So again, the salvation of our hearers depends in some measure on the faithfulness of leaders to be watchful over themselves - their conduct as well as their doctrine.

4. Spiritual leaders watch the people. Hebrews 10:25 says, "Let us consider one another for stirring up to love and good deeds" (literal translation). If the people are to watch each other for the sake of stirring each other up to love, how much more the leaders. In fact, in view of this word in Hebrews 10:25, it is plain that the watching over the flock is a shared effort among leaders and people. This is one of the reasons we believe so deeply in the small group ministry at our church. The elders cannot know all of you with the depth that one needs to know you to give you the kind of personal care and exhortation you should have. That is why we give a lot of energy to creating a system of cells where you can watch each other and strengthen each other's faith, and stir each other up to love, and call each other to account.

So watchfulness is the first means of leadership: watchfulness of the word, Christ, ourselves and the people.

Next, We Will Consider the Leaders' Joyfulness and Seriousness

Here is where we will have to stop this week. We will pick it up here next week. Perhaps we have seen enough this morning at least to set you to praying for us as leaders. Our responsibility, as you can see, is immense. We do not think of the work in terms of rights of authority as much as responsibility for spiritual leadership. Next week I will try to show you how you can help us and how you can respond Biblically to this charge that we have.

and

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II. Obey Your Joyful Leaders, Part 2

Hebrews 13:17

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

I said last week that I see three points in verse 17: the aim of leadership in the church, the means of leadership and the response to leadership.

The Aim of Leadership

The aim of leadership I saw was in two phrases: "that would be unprofitable for you" - which means that the aim of leadership is the profit of the people - that they would be benefited. The other phrase was, "keep watch over your souls" - which means that the benefit that matters most to leaders in the church should be the benefit of the soul. And I argued that we exist to save the souls of the saints. Not just to get people converted to Christ, but to help you persevere to the end, because Hebrews 10:36 says, "You have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised." Endurance is not icing on the cake of saving faith. It is the proof that your faith is real. Therefore every message is a salvation message, every small group is a salvation small group, etc. Your perseverance is our main concern, because your soul hangs on it. That is the main aim of leadership - the profit of your soul, namely, its eternal salvation through persevering faith.

The Means of Leadership

The second point was the means of leadership in the church. How are leaders to lead so that saints persevere in faith and are saved? We saw three things mentioned in the verse, and we got through one of them: watchfulness, joyfulness and seriousness.

1. Watchfulness considered in Part One, last week.

We saw "watchfulness" in the words: "they keep watch over your souls." I said that a literal translation was that leaders "keep watch on behalf of your souls or for the sake of your souls." And to do that for your souls, they watch four things, not just one thing. They watch the word of God; they watch Christ; they watch their conduct; and they watch the people. In other words leaders are vigilant to be Biblical, Christ-centered, morally exemplary, and caring for the people. They are "watchful" - that's the first means of leadership.

And that is where we stopped last week.

2. Joyfulness of leaders.

Now the second means of leadership is that leaders be joyful in their leading. First, watchfulness. Second, joyfulness. You see this at the end of Hebrews 13:17: "Let them [the leaders] do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you." The profitableness of spiritual leadership for the people comes through the leaders' joy.

The implications of this are profound. It means that a leader who is indifferent to his joy in God is also indifferent to the benefit of his people. Do you see that? If we do our work begrudgingly and with complaining and groaning and sadness, "this will be unprofitable for you." Our loving you depends on our delighting in the ministry.

That is not hard to see. If God is not the satisfying portion of those who give their whole lives to knowing his word and living it, why should anyone in the church believe this God is real? And if you do not believe he is real, your faith will fall and not persevere. So the joy of leadership is not optional. It is essential. Which is why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 1:24, "Not that we lord it over your faith, but we are workers with you for your joy." Joy is not something you can take for granted. It takes work to maintain joy in God. It is very much against our fallen nature that finds joy in all but God. We must be directed back to his all-satisfying greatness over and over. That is what we leaders must do for each other, and what we must do for our people. And it is so important that even the people are commanded to help us do our work with joy: "Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you."

3. Seriousness of leaders.

Which leads to the third means of leadership, seriousness. Watchfulness, joyfulness, seriousness.

I find this in the verse 17 in the phrase, "as those who will give an account." There it stands in the middle of the verse: "They keep watch on behalf of your souls as those who will give an account." This means that when the elders of Bethlehem stand before the judgment seat of Christ, he is going to say something like, "What did you do to preserve the faith and obedience of the members of Bethlehem? What did you teach? How did you live? What steps did you take in the case of the disobedient, the rebellious, the suffering, the grieving, the perplexed, the lonely, the aged, the teenagers, the children?" And we will have to give an account.

This is unbelievably serious business. So the joyfulness is not a flippant or trivial or shallow thing. It is immensely weighty. Not sad. Not burdensome (1 John 5:3). Not depressing. One of our answers at the judgment must be: I sought to maintain a happiness in you and to lead the people into a joy that could not be destroyed by cancer or calamity, or criticism.

Watchfulness, joyfulness and seriousness - these are the means of leadership in the church.

The Response to Leadership

Now we come to the third point in the verse, the response to leadership. First, we looked at the aim of leadership, then the means of leadership, and finally the response to leadership.

The response God appoints is given in the beginning of Hebrews 13:17: "Obey your leaders and submit to them." I said to a group of pastors gathered on Wednesday that I was not especially eager to preach on this phrase. There are cultural reasons and Biblical reasons that make it difficult. Culturally, the defining spirit in America today is self-determination, not submission to the will of another. The ultimate value in America is the unencumbered self. Anything that enhances my individual liberty to do as I please is good. And anything that encumbers me and limits my ability to do as I please is bad. Self is king. And autonomy is the highest law. That makes this text culturally outrageous: "Obey your leaders and submit to them.

Another part of our culture that makes this text difficult is that authority and power have been so often abused that there are legitimate misgivings about making obedience and submission the norm. There are books today on "spiritual abuse" and "churches that abuse." And what they have in mind in part is the abuse of power to manipulate and coerce and use people to enhance the leader's status and stroke the leader's ego and sometimes line the leader's pocket. So preaching on this text in this atmosphere is like standing up the Sunday after 60 million people have watched police beat up Rodney King and preaching on submission to your law enforcement officers.

But there are more important Biblical reasons for why this text is difficult to preach on - that is, why it is not easy to know exactly what this obedience should look like in actual practice. Let me mention four Biblical facts about church leadership that feed into how we hear the command to obey church leaders.

1. The Bible teaches that elders sometimes go bad and teach wrong things and do wrong things. For example, in Acts 20:30 Paul is speaking to the elders of Ephesus and warns them, "From among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them." The clear implication here is that some elders will turn bad and will try to lead disciples away, and that these should not be obeyed. We have seen this too often in the news. And I am in the midst of dealing with a church's leadership outside our state where a leader is resisting discipline and trying to lead a group out of the church with him. It is tragic and Paul warns that it will happen. This means the command to obey elders is not absolute.

2. This is confirmed in Galatians 1:8. Paul says that the gospel is so sacred that you should not obey anyone who comes with another message, not even an angel: "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!" The truth of God is the litmus paper of all true leadership. If I don't preach God's truth, don't believe what I preach. That is what the apostle says in Galatians 1:8. Neither I nor the other elders at Bethlehem have final authority, the gospel does. Christ does.

3. In 1 Timothy 5:19-20, Paul instructs Timothy what to do if an elder is found to be in sin. He says, "Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses. Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning." In other words, individual elders are not perfect and a procedure must be in place for correcting and disciplining them. We are not above error and mistake. There will be times when we must repent and make public apology.

4. In 1 Peter 5:2-3, Peter tells us that elders should be good examples to the flock and not use their office for sordid gain, or for the pleasures of power. "Shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight . . . not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock." This is a very important word to how the relationship of leader-follower is to work in the church. There is real leadership, and real authority, but there should not be what Peter calls "lording it over" the flock.

This is probably the closest phrase in the New Testament to the modern "spiritual abuse." I think "lording it over" (katakurieu) means using power without a servant heart, and trying to sway people without setting an example for them, and exerting influence for the enhancement of one's own status and ego - not for the glory of Christ and the good of the people. That's what "lording it over" a people means. And that is not what elders are to do when they hear the command for the church to obey them. This command should make them tremble with the weight of spiritual responsibility, rather than gloat over the right to rule. Thinking in terms of rights of official power rather than responsibilities of spiritual leadership is one root of "lording it over" the flock.

Now none of this nullifies Hebrews 13:17: "Obey your leaders and submit to them." But it does shape it and give it a certain spirit and put limits on it and show both groups (leaders and people) a beautiful kind of dynamic that can exist when all is working as it should.

Safeguards Around the Exercise of Leadership at Bethlehem

One of the things these texts do is cause us to put safeguards around the exercise of leadership at Bethlehem. Let me mention some of them. Some are explicitly Biblical; others are matters of wisdom that have grown out of years of spiritual experience.

1. There is a plurality of leadership at Bethlehem, not just one person with authority. This is Biblical. All churches that we know of in the New Testament were led by a plurality of elders, not just one elder, or pastor (terms referring to the same person in the New Testament). Hebrews 13:17 does not say, "Obey your leader", but "Obey your leaders." Bethlehem has 18 elders, and when they speak in concert, the church should be very slow to reject their direction.

2. All the elders have equal authority. I get one vote just as the other 17 do.

3. The congregation approves the elders by secret ballot and can call them to account. The council is not autonomous, but accountable to the congregation.

4. The council must consist of twice as many lay elders as vocational elders. This is not prescribed in the Bible. It is just another check on the potential abuse of power by those of us who have a lot of influence by virtue of our teaching roles.

5. All the elders except the vocational elders may serve only two consecutive three-year terms before having to take a year off the council. This allows for a lot of valuable longevity for gifted elders with sabbaticals every 7th year. But it also encourages healthy growth as newer men are called to spiritual leadership.

6. We are constitutionally regulated, and the constitution is ratified by the congregation. The elders operate with a lot of leeway, but within the limits of a constitution that captures what we believe is Biblical church order.

7. We submit as a congregation - leaders and people - to a church covenant. This is what we agree will govern our way of life together. The elders cannot decide to make something a matter of church discipline that would contradict the covenant we took when we joined the church. If the covenant is changed, it is changed by the vote of the congregation.

All of these and others are way that we have tried to express our Biblical conviction that the authority of church leaders is not absolute or above limit or correction.

What's Left of Obedience and Submission?

Now that leaves the question: Well, what's left for obedience and submission to mean? Have we been so fearful of authority that we have stripped verse 17 of any significant meaning at all? I think that is a very legitimate question. So let me try to answer it. And I admit freely that we are very much influenced by our culture here. If we lived in an authoritarian culture, we would probably not be nearly so vigilant over the abuses of leadership.

What then does "Obey your leaders and submit to them" mean? The word for "obey" (peith) is a very broad word and means "be persuaded by" (Hebrews 6:9), "trust" (Hebrews 2:13), "rely on" (Luke 11:22), and comes to mean "obey" because that is what you do when you trust somebody. So you might say it is a "soft" word for obey. It encourages a good relationship of trust, but still calls for the people to be swayed by leaders.

The word for "submit" (hupeik) occurs only here in the New Testament. It's the more narrow word, and means "make room for by retiring from a seat," or "yield to" or "submit to."

So with all this background, what I would try to distill as the meaning would be something like this: Hebrews 13:17 means that a church should have a bent toward trusting its leaders; you should have a disposition to be supportive in your attitudes and actions toward their goals and directions; you should want to imitate their faith; and you should have a happy inclination to comply with their instructions.

Now you can hear that these are all soft expressions: "a bent toward trusting," "a disposition to support," "a wanting to imitate," "an inclination to comply." What those phrases are meant to do is capture both sides of the Biblical truth, namely, 1) that elders are fallible and should not lord it over the flock, and 2) the flock should follow good leadership.

Where these two truths are working, it is a beautiful thing. We have tasted it and we should pray with all our hearts that God preserve it and deepen it among us for the good of the people and the glory of his name in this city and around the world.

and

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