Leadership in Community

In this message from Hebrews 13:17, David Platt urges the church to view its leadership through the lens of Scripture. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Hebrews 13:17
• 3:11 Biblical Offices: Elders and Deacons
• 8:16 Rethinking Submission in the Church
• 13:40 Leaders Serve the Body
• 24:12 The Body Submits to Leaders
• 32:10 The Joy of Pastoral Leadership

Transcript

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You are listening to David Platt Messages, a weekly podcast with sermons and messages from pastor, author, and teacher David Platt.

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And so that's what we're going to dive into. Hebrews chapter 13, verse 17. And we're going to look at a couple other places here in Hebrews 13, where we're going to camp out mostly in this verse right here. So follow along, let's read it together. Hebrews 13, 17 says, Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you. Now, this right here is one of three different times that leaders are mentioned in Hebrews chapter 13. You might circle them. Go back up to Hebrews 13, 7. Let's read that verse. First mention of leaders in the book of Hebrews, and particularly here in Hebrews chapter 13, remember your leaders. You might circle it there. Leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So there's verse 7, remember your leaders. Verse 17, obey your leaders. Circle it there, and then you get to the end of the chapter, verse 24, greet all your leaders. So you've got this picture of remembering leaders, greeting leaders, obeying leaders, submitting to leaders. These are strong words. And let's just go ahead and get this out on the table. This word submit is probably not the most comfortable word for all of us. When we hear the word submit, all kinds of images come into our mind, especially when it comes to submission to leadership in the church. Because the reality is across this room, I know that there are a variety of different experiences that you have had when it comes to leaders in the church. Some of you have had very positive experiences with leadership in the church. Some of you have had negative experiences. Some of you have seen church leadership as an abuse of power, as a power struggle. Some of you have seen a lot of different negative facets of church leadership. And our challenge tonight is with all of our diversity of experiences represented around this room, to put aside as best as we can those subjective experiences and to look at the objective truth of what Scripture is teaching about church leadership and then consider okay, how does that affect my life as a follower of Christ? How does that affect this church? And how can we put Hebrews 13, 17 into practice in this faith family? We talked about the two primary offices or positions of leadership in the church that are identified in the New Testament. First is elders who are servant leaders. This is Acts chapter 20, really different places in Acts, but Acts 20, Titus 1, 1 Timothy 3, 1 Peter 5. All talk about how the church is led or the church is overseen by elders. Sometimes the term is pastor, sometimes the term is overseer. These are interchangeable terms in the New Testament: elder, pastor, overseer. But the picture is in the New Testament, in the churches that are being planted, there is a designated, defined group of men who have responsibility for overall leadership in the church. Elder, pastor, overseer, who are servant leaders. And what we have studied before is there are four primary functions that we see of elders in the church. Elders lead under the authority of Christ. This is why we talk about servant leaders, because elders are servants of Christ and servants of the church. Elders care for the body of Christ. That's a whole picture of a pastor. A pastor is a shepherd who cares for the body of Christ. Elders teach the word of Christ, as we're going to see in a minute. That's the primary function. One of the primary functions of an elder is to teach. One of the primary qualifications. If a man is not able to teach the word, then he cannot be an elder. He must be able to teach. 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 2. And then elders model the character of Christ. You look at 1 Timothy 3, verse 1 through 7, and you see a picture of character for qualifications for an elder. Now, right after that in 1 Timothy 3, you see the second position of leadership, the second office in New Testament church leadership, and that is deacons. Elders who are servant leaders, then deacons who are leading servants. The difference here is deacons do not provide overall leadership in the church like elders do. Instead, deacons, and this is really pictured for us in Acts chapter 6, when the church appoints leaders to help address certain needs. Deacons meet needs according to the word. Deacons look at God's word, look at needs in the church, and fill in the gaps for how to meet those needs according to God's word. Deacons support the ministry of the Word. The whole picture there in Acts chapter 6 is they do this so that the elders can devote themselves to prayer and ministry of the Word. So the apostles could do that in Acts chapter 6. And then deacons unite the body around the Word. Deacons are a unifying body in the church based on a mission mindset in them and the Christ-like character that 1 Timothy 3, 8-13 talks about. So you've got these two pictures, elders and deacons. So when you come to Hebrews 13, 17, it doesn't say obey your elders, it doesn't say obey your deacons, it says obey your leaders. And so the picture is overall church leadership. Now I think the primary implication of Hebrews 13, 17 is for elders, because when it says they keep watch over you as men who must give an account, that's really the picture we have of elders in Acts 20, 1 Peter chapter 5. It's men who give an account for the people that God has entrusted to them. And so what I want us to do is I want us to dive in and see how this picture of obedience and submission to leaders in the church, and particularly elders in the church, what does that mean? We've already said that word submission is uh brings a little discomfort in us. And I think there's a variety of reasons behind that. I put some in your notes. When we think about submission in our culture, all kinds of thoughts come into our mind. In some senses, we think about submission as absolute obedience to authoritarian leadership. The key there being absolute. You've got an authoritarian, almost totalitarian leader who says, This is what you do. Now do it because I said so, because this is the way it is. So do it. And that's that's maybe what we have is a picture of leadership in the church. And submission is implied in that. It's what I saw in Cuba this last week. Obviously, a totalitarian regime that has said, this is the way it is, and you operate under this, for better or for worse, and you are you're stuck doing that. Sometimes when we think of submission, that might be what comes to our mind. We might think of submission as the result of an abuse in power. We oftentimes think of submission as a bad thing. It has negative connotations. And we think that for good reason in our culture. We have seen abuse of power in and abuse of authority in our culture. We've seen abuse of authority in the church. It's no surprise that we would have some discomfort when it comes to submitting to leaders. Some say the church has taken a fatal hit because of all the sex scandals and financial impropriety and prideful egotism that has marked church leadership. One pastor said, preaching on Hebrews 13, 17 in this culture 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. There's a challenge when we think about submission and church leadership in our culture today. So some think abuse of power. Others, when we think of the word submission, we think of an acknowledgement of inequality. The way we think, submission implies inequality. That if you are submitting to someone, that means that you're not on an equal plane with them. That's why when you come to Ephesians 5 and Paul talks about wives submit to your husbands. Many people in our culture walk away from that and say, well, the Bible teaches that women and men are not equal, that women are subservient to men and less than men. And that's what we think sometimes. We think of submission. We think, well, that means one person is inferior, and one person is superior to the others. And so this is yet another place in Scripture where we have our thinking that is dictated and affected in many ways by our culture. And we come to Scripture, and Scripture challenges us to think completely differently. We are self-made men and women who live in an individualistic culture and the thought of accountability to others, much less authority to, but under others, that seems completely foreign to us. And so when we come to this picture of submission in Scripture, we've got to really think through how do our minds need to be reprogrammed by God's word in the picture we have here. Because submission according to Christ, submission in Scripture is an extremely good thing. It is a great thing. It is not these thoughts that we've listed here, submission according to our culture. It is completely different. It's why when you get to the picture of the family, and we talked about this last year, the gospel in our families, Ephesians 5 and 6. Wives, submit to your husbands. And the picture is a good thing. In the same way Ephesians 6 says, children, submit to and obey your parents. Parents is submission. Is a child's submission to you and your authority? Is that a good thing? Is that a good thing? Yes, look, yeah, like I've only been a parent for a couple years. I know the answer to that one. Like, that's a good thing. Maybe we're maybe we're hesitant to answer that one because maybe it's not always as common a thing as we would like for it to be. But the reality is, a parent who loves a child and is disciplining a child, it is good for that child to learn to submit to that parent's love for them. So when we come to submission in Scripture, it is an extremely good thing. And I hope that tonight we will see an incredible picture of submission in the church when it comes to leadership. Something that undercuts all of our false, culturally created assumptions about submission and just redefines this word for us according to Scripture. What I want us to do is I want us to see two truths, two fundamental, basic, simple, incredible truths that come together to help us understand submission in the church. And we're gonna we're gonna look at one truth from the perspective of leaders in the church, and then another truth from the perspective of members in the church, of the body of Christ. So we'll start with the first from the perspective of leaders. You've got this in your notes. Truth number one leaders serve the body. Leaders serve the body. This is submission in the church according to Christ. Here's the reality. In the Gospels, Jesus modeled and mandated servant leadership. He defined leadership by service. We don't have time to turn to all these places, but Matthew chapter 23, verses 10 through 12. Nor are you to be called teacher, for there is only one teacher, the Lord, the Christ, and the greatest among you must be your what? Greatest among you must be your servant. Mark chapter 9, verse 35. If anyone wants to be the first, he must be the what? Must be the last. He's redefining this picture. Mark chapter 10, verses 43 through 45. You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles, lorded over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them, not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant. He says, This is what I came to do. I came not to be served, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. Leadership in the kingdom of God. Authority in the kingdom of God is a servant authority. It's why in 1 Peter chapter 5, when leaders and elders in the church are addressed, Peter says, Do not lord your leadership, your authority over the church. It does not bring honor to Christ. It goes against the picture we have in Christ. Leaders do not lord themselves over people, because there is one Lord, to use Jesus' words from Matthew 23. There's one Lord to whom leadership points. Now, this is key right here. When it comes to leadership in the church, I want you to see two foundational realities that must be present in any leader in the church, particularly in an elder in the church, a pastor in the church. First, and hang with me here because this is foundational to thinking about submission. First, their authority, a leader's authority, leader's authority is conditional. Their authority is conditional. This is contrary to absolute authority, unconditional authority. A leader's authority in the church is not absolute. It is not unconditional. Jesus' authority, now Jesus' authority in the church is absolute. Jesus' authority in the church is unconditional. If we have a problem with submission, then we need to check our relationship with Christ because the Christian life is entirely about submission. To him as Lord and King, and He has absolute, determinative authority over our lives, unconditionally. But not so with the pastor, leader in the church. Instead, the leader in the church has authority that is conditioned on two factors. Number one, they must teach the word accurately. This is so key. Conditioned on two factors. They must teach the word accurately. Look back up at Hebrews 13, 7. Listen to what the author said there. How he started this introduction, the picture of leaders here in Hebrews 13. He said, Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Spoke the word of God to you. And this is what we see all throughout the New Testament. This is why an elder must be able to teach, because a leader in the church has authority only in so much as that leader is teaching the word of Christ. If a leader is teaching his own ideas, his own thoughts, his own opinions, he has no authority to stand on in the church. None. A leader's authority in the church is tied to the word. This is why Paul in Acts chapter 20, when he's talking to the Ephesian elders, told them, There are some that are among you that will rise from among you that will teach other things and pull people away from Christ. He said, guard against them, because the reality is your leadership in the church is based completely on teaching the word of Christ accurately. So a leader must teach the word accurately. And second, they must live the word faithfully. Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Now, this is the same picture like we hear Paul saying in 1 Corinthians 11 1 when he says, Follow me as I follow Christ. Imitate me as I am imitating Christ. And the picture is a leader, we must hear the word from a leader's mouth, and we must see the word in a leader's life. This is why 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 1 through 7, Titus chapter 1, verses 5 through 9, the character qualifications of a leader, an elder in the church are high, and they must be high, and they must not be compromised. Because the church is intended to look at a leader and see faith and life that is worthy of imitation. This is why when a leader falls, there is a process in scripture. There's a picture in scripture of how that leader, an elder, is to be rebuked publicly. Because the picture of Christ in that leader's life is extremely important. This is why the church must be extremely cautious when restoring a man to leadership and in the church after he has fallen, because this is so huge. Now, I want you to catch this. You put this picture of conditional authority, teaching the word accurately, living the word faithfully, and think about how this affects how we understand submission. Submit to leaders, what's that about? Well, here's the deal. To Christ. And so now we begin to see that submission in the church is not ultimately to a leader, it's ultimately to Christ, and God has put leaders in the church to point us to Christ, to point us to submission to Christ. In the same way that following a leader, imitating their faith. If a man's faith is focused on Christ and his life is pursuing Christ, then in following that leader, you are following who? You're following Christ. So it's not about the authority of a man or the life of a man, it's about the authority of Christ and the life of Christ that you're following and submitting yourselves to. That's the picture in the church. Does that make sense? Now this starts to come alive here. This is the whole point of the book of Hebrews, up to this point, has been the author spends ten chapters telling us that we don't need somebody else to get to God. Christ has already made way for us. Every follower of Christ in this room has direct, unlimited access to God through Jesus Christ. We do not need a priest or other church leader to help us get there. Christ has taken care of that. So then why do we need another leader? Well, what God is doing is He's giving leaders to the church to point them to Christ. Consider your leaders. Remember them who spoke the word to you, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. So authority in the church, in church leadership, is conditioned upon teaching the word and living the word. Their authority is conditional, and second, their accountability is serious. Come back down to verse 17, and it says, They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. This is where fear, and I hope, I don't think it's an ungodly fear, but a reverent, awe and overwhelming weight in a sense, rises up in me when I read Hebrews 13, 17 as a pastor, as a leader in the church, because the reality is there is coming a day according to Hebrews 13, 17, when I will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and will give an account. How did you shepherd the souls entrusted to you in the church of your kills? How did you get you to teach them my word? How did you care for them, provide for them, serve them, and lead them to my glory? I and the elders of this church must give an account. Talk about serious business. They must serve carefully. Keep. And sheep following after a shepherd. Now, sheep don't follow a shepherd because they read a document on how they're supposed to submit to shepherds and do what they say. Sheep follow a shepherd. Why? Because they know that a shepherd loves them and cares for them and serves them and is willing to lay down his life for them to protect them. That's what causes sheep to follow a shepherd. And the picture here is it's not a blind, absolute, okay, whatever you say, we will do. One writer put it this way: sheep do not blindly follow and check their own minds in the process. If the shepherd decides in a moment of despondency to leap off from a cliff, the sheep may look at one another in startled bewilderment, but they are unlikely to plunge after the shepherd. The picture here is there's a shepherd who's looking after sheep, and in the way he looks after the sheep, he leads the sheep and guides the sheep and cares for the sheep. They serve must serve carefully, they serve responsibly as men who will give an account, responsibility for the people that God has entrusted to them, and they serve joyfully, which we'll talk about more in a minute. But uh I just I want to pause for a second here, this first truth, and I want us to think about this. When I first looked at the preaching, Hebrews 13, 7, I thought, how do I preach that verse? As a leader in the church, how do I preach that verse and not seem totally self-serving? Like, obey me. Submit to my authority. That's what the Bible says. Now do it. Like, it just doesn't seem to go well. It doesn't seem right. Doesn't so how do you how do you get preached? That's what I was asking. How the how will I do this? And then it didn't take long studying this verse to realize that this verse is most humbling and it is most penetrating, not for members in the church, but for leaders in the church. Because the weight here, so to speak, by the grace of Christ, it takes the weight. But the weight here, so to speak, is on leaders who have a conditional authority, who need to be reminded at every moment that their authority is not based on anything they bring to the table, based on the word of Christ and the life of Christ and them. An accountability that is serious, that has eternal ramifications. And and now it makes sense to me why verse 18, the author says very next, after this verse, he says, pray for us. And so that's what I would ask of you, that you would pray for me and you'd pray for other leaders in this church, because the emphasis here really is on the responsibility of leadership. Leaders serve the body. Second truth. The body submits to leaders. Now, think about this. Now it begins to make sense. When leaders are teaching the word of Christ and living out the character of Christ, when they are accountable and know that and treat it with seriousness, that they're shepherding and caring for and serving and laying their lives down for people, then submission is not forced, it's natural, it makes sense. In the same way, when we looked at the gospel in families last year, and we talked about this in Ephesians chapter 5. I have never met a wife whose husband loved her and served her and cared for her and laid down his life for her on a moment-by-moment basis. I've never met a wife whose husband loved her like that who was not gladly willing to submit to her husband's leadership. Just makes sense. That's not a forced submission. That's a glad submission. So, what does that submission mean? It means exactly what we just talked about then. Then the body obeys the word that leaders teach. The body submits to leaders in the church by obeying the word of Christ. And here's the reality. To the extent with which I am speaking as a pastor in this church, to the extent with which I'm speaking the word of Christ, you have a responsibility to submit to that teaching and to obey that teaching. And this is where we realize yes, there's a huge picture on the leaders in this church, but there's also an authority and accountability picture in the church because the body is under the authority of Christ. Remind us tonight, as great as democracy is in the United States of America, the church is not a democracy. The church does not operate based on the will of the people. The church operates based on the will of Christ. Christ determines the direction of the church, not majority rule. This is why Paul said there will be all kinds of men who want to hear all kinds of stuff. What their tickling ears want to hear. You preach the word. You give them the word of Christ. 2 Timothy 4, 1 through 5. So the body is under the authority of Christ. And then the body is ultimately accountable to Christ. This is what we've seen over the past few months. Remember some of the situations where we've seen the accountability in the church? We have seen that the church is accountable to Christ in matters of dispute. Acts chapter 6, verse 1 through 5, when there was dispute and disunity in the church, the apostles provided leadership there, but it was the church that was accountable for appointing leaders to address those needs and to resolve that dispute. Matters of dispute and matters of doctrine. Galatians chapter 1, verse 8 and 9. When the gospel is not being preached in the church, who's accountable? Yes, in one sense the leader is, but Galatians chapter 1 says, if the gospel's not being preached in the church, the church is accountable for not rising up and addressing that. You are accountable. If I'm not teaching that which is the word of Christ, then you are accountable for addressing that according to Scripture. In matters of dispute, doctrine, and in matters of discipline. That's what we've studied for three weeks on church discipline. Matthew chapter 18, final step. Tell it to the elders? No. Tell it to a small group of leaders? No. Tell it to the what? To the church. 1 Corinthians chapter 5. It is the church that is responsible for removing that brother, an unrepentant brother, from membership. It's the church that is accountable for all of those things. So the body obeys the word that leaders teach. That's what submission means in Hebrews 13, 17. Second, the body imitates the faith that leaders have. Imitate their faith. It's a command there in verse 7. That's so, again, it's just so humbling. I know, I have so far to go. I want my faith. And I speak on behalf of other elders. I want my faith, my life, my faith. Be worthy of imitation. But that's the picture. And then the body maximizes the joy that leaders experience. This is the end of Hebrews 13, 17. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you. I love this picture. When you look at some of Paul's letters, like his letter to the Philippians, he says, I thank my God every time I remember you, and I all my prayers for you always pray with joy. And then you get to Philippians 4 1. He says, You are the ones I love and I long for. You are my joy and my crown. It's the way he writes to the Thessalonians. He says the same thing, you are my joy. And then he says it at one point in chapter 3, he says, My heart overflows. I thank God because my heart overflows with joy whenever I think about you. And this is another one of those parts of this verse that I thought, well, how? How do I better preach that? You are commanded to make me happy. If you say anything to me that does not put a smile on my face, then you are disobedient. So don't even get close to it. Is that what this is saying? I don't I don't think it is. I today marks three years uh for me by God's grace as leading um this church's pastor, and I have got a lot to learn about about pastoring, and a long way to go. But this I have learned. I have learned that the pastor's joy is found in people's obedience to Christ. Greatest joy as a pastor is not not really in the kind things that some would say to me. Sometimes that just fuels my flesh and my ego, which is not a good thing. So but what gives me the greatest joy as a pastor is when I see or hear or have a conversation or receive an email about how the word is being carried out in your lives. When I when I hear how you have led someone to Christ work that joy just rises up. When I see hunger for the word, joy just rises up when I see individuals and small groups all across this faith family who are in the inner city and in their neighborhoods doing all kinds of different creative ministries to the glory of God. When I have a meeting with a family a couple of weeks ago who wife and husband with kids who are packing their bags and they're moving overseas because they want to make the glory of Christ known in all nations. When you take radical risks to follow the word of God to the glory of God, this is great joy. And obviously, obviously, you do not do those things to make me happy or to increase my joy. You do these things because you're submissive to Christ, but that's where joy in the pastorate is found. And so I want to thank you for the joy that you bring to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you for contributing, maximizing the joy that I experience by your obedience to Christ. Thank you for that. This is this is a beautiful picture. When leaders serve the body and the body submits to the leaders, the effect is when Hebrews 13, 17 is happening, two things. The church is edified. This is what he said at the end. That would be of no advantage to you. Church leadership is designed to be of advantage. Think about it. Is this an advantage? Is it an advantage for the people of God to have leaders who are speaking the word of Christ, who are showing what the life of Christ looks like in action, while they care for, provide for, lay their lives down in service for you. Is that a good thing in the community of faith? Absolutely. It's a great thing. Obviously, there are potential abuses along the way. We have to guard against. We try to even build in some guards in the context of this faith family against those abuses. We don't have just one elder, pastor, overseer, leader, that everything is contingent on. We've got a plurality of leadership, multiple elders, and have a God, I hope, a God-honoring accountability built into the very leadership structure of a church so that other men balance one another's weaknesses and spur one another on toward Christ. And the Holy Spirit uses plurality of leadership in that picture. We have a rotation picture, even among many of our elders, so that we are constantly encouraging growth and leadership and new leadership in the body of Christ, which is a great thing. But the reality is, and Scripture talks about it, there are times when elders fall. God forbid that it would happen here. An elder falls, but the reality is scripture teaches here's what to do when this happens, and it implies it may happen. But the picture is when it does happen, Scripture says address it this way. But we must be careful. If that happens, not to throw out the picture of church leadership altogether. But to say, we need to address this like Scripture does, and then we need to work to honor the picture of church leadership that is here because it is a good thing. It is for our edification. And when this happens, I realize this kind of relationship between leaders serving the body and a body submitting to leaders, that doesn't happen overnight. There's a trust that takes time and doesn't just happen automatically. But when that happens, when it doesn't happen, when it's not there, a church cannot move forward. Because the whole picture we've seen is a leadership in the church, submission to leadership is ultimately submission to Christ. And so when there's not submission to leadership, this healthy picture, there's a lack of submission to Christ in the church. A church can't move forward without these two truths coming together. But when they come together, the sky is the limit. A church following his authority through leaders who are trusting and linked with his authority, that kind of church can shake the nations for the glory of Christ. That kind of church is edified and Christ is glorified. And this is the ultimate goal of leadership in the church. That submission to leaders would be a picture ultimately of submission to Christ.

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