Jesus, the Great Shepherd

might get. So some people may think of radical acts, things like selling everything you own to move to some obscure part of the world to help people who have little to nothing. And even as Brian prayed, maybe those radical acts may take a darker form of things like terrorism and suicide. Maybe you think of a sense of inner peace, this calm that makes you unshakable through the storms of life. Maybe you think of solemn devotion, the things you do as religious duties, daily readings and prayers, weekly and annual commitments that you make. Maybe it's a little less structural, so it's just random acts of kindness, a lifestyle of paying it forward and leaving things better than you found them. Or maybe for some it could be shaking loose the restraints of morality and conscience to finally eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. That is also a form of worship. Any of these things could be outcomes of various systems of worship. But what about for Christians? For Christians here in this room, what is the fruit of your worship? The book of Hebrews is all about Christian worship. If you're new to the church, we welcome you with us this morning. We believe the Bible is God's word. So if you don't have a copy of the Bible, please take the one in the rack in front of you as our gift to you. Read it. It is God's word. It is the word of life. And today, as has already been mentioned, we're concluding a series through the book of Hebrews. So Hebrews is a written sermon to Jewish Christians in the first century, just a few decades after Jesus was raised. We don't know who wrote Hebrews, but we do know the author is writing to instruct these Christians about worship and encouraging them to persevere in their faith in Jesus and not to turn back to their former ways of Judaism and the old covenant. He's reminded them already that Jesus is the final word from God. He's everything that we need to know in order to relate to God. Jesus is also the risen king of the new humanity who's already reigning over his people even in the age to come. Now and in the age to come, he reigns as king. And he's also the great eternal priest who made the once for all sacrifice to God to remove our sin, to usher his people into the very presence of God. So all worship is to Jesus and through Jesus. And the author is warning his readers and us by extension not to drift away from Jesus because of apathy, not to be led away from Jesus by unbelief, not to fall away from Jesus because of immaturity, not to throw away our confidence by giving up, and not to refuse God by ignoring his word. He's telling us that eternal life is at stake. And it's true for us this morning. Eternal life is at stake and it all hinges on how we respond to Jesus. At the end of chapter 12, the last sermon a few weeks ago, he left them and left us standing at the base of Mount Zion. So he was drawing a comparison. When Israel received the word of God at the base of Mount Sinai, it was terrifying. The earth shook, they were left trembling in fear, begging that no further word be spoken to them and that Moses go on their behalf on the mountain to God. But on Mount Zion, we have a very different experience. We see that Jesus has gone into the very presence of God in heaven. And he's purified his people so that we can go there with him, not in fear, but in confidence. And a final shaking of God's judgment is going to come. It will remove all the things on the earth that can be shaken so that everything that's eternal will remain. And so Christians are promised an eternal kingdom that has already endured God's judgment. Only what cannot be shaken, only what is eternal will remain. And that is good news for us. And so the author is encouraging, spurring his readers and us on to offer acceptable worship, to respond to God with gratefulness, with reverence, with awe. And then he turns in this last chapter 13 to describe what this looks like. This is the last word for this audience, and we've just heard it read. So with everything that he said, with all the grandeur of what's been described and what Jesus has accomplished, the letter culminates in two major commands. Love brothers and obey leaders. Now, that sounds almost anticlimactic, doesn't it? Seems like we missed something, we missed a chapter. Is this really all that he has to say? For all the grandeur, all the spectacular things he said about Jesus, does he really only leave us with these two simple, maybe even mundane commands? Now, maybe I'm the only one, but if you're like me and you're tempted to feel that way, I think it exposes something in our hearts. It betrays our failure to appreciate the nature of our new identity as God's people. It shows that we don't appreciate the role of authority in our lives. And I think it shows that we don't understand the temporary nature of this life set against the backdrop of all eternity. So what I hope for us to see this morning is that the church, the local church, is God's ordained means of glorifying himself and preserving his people. The local church is God's ordained means for glorifying himself and preserving his people. So these Hebrew Christians, and maybe some of us even this morning, were losing sight of who they are. They were looking for comfort and identity and security in this life, and they risked losing everything that Jesus had won for them. And so the author wants to leave them and us with this charge to consider our relationships in the church as the primary way in which we respond to God with acceptable worship as he reigns over us in his eternal kingdom now. And so as I said, we'll see this in two parts. Love your brothers in verses 1 to 6 and obey your leaders in verses 7 through 19. So let's look at the first point. Love your brothers and sisters, 1 to 6. So we see that in this section, the overarching command is let brotherly love continue. And this tells us so much about our relationships in the church, doesn't it? Brotherly love means that we love each other as brothers and sisters, as siblings. So the Bible teaches us that those who are united with Jesus by faith are actually adopted into God's family as his children. And we know that adoption means that it's taken something that's not natural and made it as if natural, made it legal as if natural and biological. And so God, through faith in Jesus, actually becomes our Heavenly Father. And that's not just a metaphor, it's not just a way to think about God. Our earthly fathers, our earthly families, are structured around this eternal identity. And so regardless of how good or bad your earthly father is, he is a shadow and a dim reflection of the eternal Heavenly Father, who is perfect. And so if we are adopted into the same family, that means that we as Christians are brothers and sisters, literally. It's not just friendly language that we use. It means we are bound together in family. This is our fundamental identity as we relate to each other. It shows that our status has changed. And though apart from Christ we may have been complete strangers, we may have had nothing in common, in Christ we are bound to one another. And we will be this way for all of eternity. So get used to each other. This means that we are more connected with each other than our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends, those who share common goals and interests, those in the same groups or clubs in the community, even our own biological families apart from Christ, right? It doesn't end any of those relationships of necessity, but it does give us a priority to our relationships with one another that reflects an eternal familial bond that we have with no one else. And we display that in the local church. And so we see this relationship played out in the verses that follow. It's not just a feeling of love. Brotherly affection isn't just a feeling that you have toward other people. It's a tangible expression of love. That love moves in certain directions. And so the author gives us four specific manifestations, four ways we should see that love directed. So first we see it towards strangers in verse two. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. Now already this makes us cringe a little bit, doesn't it? In the first century, hospitality was something that was essential for travel. Hotels were expensive and they were often unsafe or questionable places to stay. And so Christians depended upon the hospitality of other Christians as they traveled to spread the gospel to other places or to flee from persecution. And this was a vulnerable place to be in, isn't it? It requires the extension of trust, not just in a superficial way. To bring someone into your home is to invite them, in a lot of ways, into the very center of your life. And we know that in places this was taken advantage of. False teachers used the name of Jesus to take advantage of people and to live off the hospitality of Christians. There are warnings about this in other letters in the New Testament. But that doesn't negate the command, does it? Because of your common bond in Christ, he says, open your home, open your life to those with whom you have nothing else in common. When you have Christ in common, that's all that matters. So this is a commitment to act in light of what is eternally true and not temporarily convenient. Now, hotels have changed a lot since the first century. They're relatively affordable for us. They're relatively safe for us. But I think we can still take these instructions and apply them to our lives. And I've been encouraged, just in the time that I've been at Jefferson Park, how many of you have done this exact thing, who have let strangers stay in your home? You've either invited missionaries, hosted missionaries in town, and let them use your houses. You've had families who have sick kids at UVA stay with you. I've heard of things like that happening here. That's really, really encouraging. And I want to commend this morning David and Diana Morris, who've just been exemplary in this. And in fact, I understand as of this week, there may be a new need in this area. So if you're inclined to want to act on this and show hospitality, talk to David or Diana after the service. I trust that many of us in this church have a posture that's welcoming and not hostile to those who look different than us or have different backgrounds from us. I hope that we as a church are growing in our willingness to receive strangers to us, risking our comfort and becoming more vulnerable because they come to us in Jesus's name. And I hope we're also pursuing people in that same vein, going to people who are strangers to us in Jesus's name. Now, regarding the angels, I think the best explanation for this is simply just an allusion to Abraham in Genesis 18. And the point that the author is making there, and maybe in other instances, is that the willingness to extend hospitality to strangers resulted in a greater blessing for the one giving the hospitality than the one receiving it. That's my best explanation. The second way our love should express itself is toward the persecuted. So verse three, remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them and those who are mistreated since you also are in the body. Seems that the thing that both of these have in common is that they're being persecuted for their faith. And we already heard a little bit about this in chapter 10. The author referenced persecution in the form of being publicly mocked in the form of imprisonment and having property plundered while or because of visiting those who are in prison. And so here he seems to have in view those who haven't yet experienced that kind of persecution. And so he tells them to remember the others. And it's a special kind of remembering, right? It's personal remembering, as though in prison with them, since you also are in the body. In other words, it's not just a casual kind of recollection. When a part of your body hurts, you hurt, right? If someone says, how are you doing? It makes perfect sense to respond, I have back pain. We don't respond to that. I didn't ask about your back. I asked about you. It makes perfect sense. The body is parts that are interdependent. So if one part hurts, it affects the rest of the body. Now by God's grace, no members of Jefferson Park are in prison this morning, at least that I'm aware of. And by God's grace, as far as we know, none of us are under the threat of being imprisoned or losing our jobs or homes because of our discipleship and faithfulness to Christ. And we should thank God for that, brothers and sisters, because as Brian prayed, that is not the case for many Christians throughout history and throughout the world today. But we should also hear in these words the kind of community that we should be known for. It's so easy for us to think of church membership as just the names on the piece of paper or in the app. But let's remember that the word member literally means member of a body, part of a body. And so it seems that the author of Hebrews is referring to membership in the local church, saying that those who are mistreated are members, part of the same body that we are a part of. And so a sign of health in our community is that we begin to feel the needs of others as if they are our own needs. So when there's a death in the family, we do more than just extend sympathy. We acknowledge the relational void that's happened in the life of this brother or sister. We seek to come alongside and comfort and fill and help heal. When someone has a financial need, we feel it as if it were our own. We sacrifice for the good of that other person. When there's a practical need, we seek to meet it to the best of our ability as if it were our own. Brothers and sisters, do you have any relationships like that in this church? This kind of life and vision for church membership forces us out of these pews and chairs on Sunday morning and into the mess of each other's lives through the rest of this week. It's a life of self-denial and sacrifice following the one who denied himself and sacrificed himself for our salvation. And this text is also just a wake-up call to us who are comfortable and safe on a Sunday morning that there are brothers and sisters around the world who are suffering for the name of Jesus. And we in this position of security and wealth should leverage those gifts for their relief. Number three, we see that brotherly love affects our attitude towards sex. So verse four, let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and the adulterous. Now to be clear, this warning is against sexual immorality and adultery, is a warning against all sexual behavior outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. Okay, this is a comprehensive claim. All sexual behavior outside of marriage is sinful. Okay, God has given us a husband and wife relationship, very clearly defined relationship. Husband, wife, we know who those people are, right? Apart from that, everyone else in your life is a brother or sister or a neighbor. And we are clearly commanded with respect to brothers and sisters and neighbors to treat them with purity, honor, and respect. So let me just say, in my limited experience on this earth, blurring the lines by creating a new category like girlfriend or fiance or a virtual experience does not bear good fruit in people's lives. Friends, let's not forget that sex is God's invention. Right? You expect on a Sunday morning to come and hear the preacher talking about sexual immorality and God's judgment, and it certainly is true. God will judge those who live in unrepentant sexual immorality, just as he will judge every other kind of sinner. Okay? That is true. But let's not lose sight of the fact that if God invented sex, it's possible that he actually knows more about it than we do, and that these warnings that he's giving us are not to restrict us, but actually for our good. And so he commands us to let the marriage bed be undefiled. God has given us insects, something that's powerful and precious, right? It's designed to unite two otherwise unrelated people as one new unit so that we become more closely connected to each other than even our own parents. And we must keep the marriage bed undefiled because we are protecting God's good gift to us. And then he says that we must hold marriage itself in honor. So the sexual union in marriage is to be a reflection of a whole life union of two people. It isn't just that the man and woman are joined together physically, but that their whole lives are now bound together as one unit. And so the whole life union, we're told in Ephesians, is to be a reflection of the relationship between Jesus and his church. And so we, as God's people, have to honor God's institution of marriage in order to honor his gospel. We receive it as his gift and we don't redefine it. We don't mess with it ourselves. But beyond that, this is where Christians can preach a better gospel than the sexual revolutionaries of our culture. In a sexually perverse culture that we live in, where the message is freedom, but the fruit is often very rotten, we have the opportunity as a church to hold out for people the sweetness of God's good and glorious design. So husbands get to honor God in marriage by sacrificially loving imperfect and sometimes unlovely wives. And wives get to honor God in marriage by submitting to the leadership of imperfect and sometimes wrong husbands. So that in our words and our actions, we glorify God and we show that His ways are better. We hold out in marriage something beautiful and desirable to the world around us. And we also position ourselves when we do that to receive with compassion those refugees of the sexual revolution who have been sold a bill of goods and discovered that it's empty. So let us strive as a church to be a place where God and his institution of marriage is held in honor for his glory and for the advance of his gospel. Fourth, we see that brotherly love affects our attitude towards money. So verse 5, keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Let's be clear, the love of money is not a rich person's problem. Now it certainly could be a wealthy person's problem, but you can just as easily be obsessed with the money you don't have as the money you do have. Right, and that works its way all the way up. You can have no money and want some, you can have some money and want more. And the author grounds this command in God's promise, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And then in Psalm 118, quoted in verse six, so we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me? So he's saying that the love of money is actually a God replacement. If you love money, you're looking for money to provide the things that only God can provide. And money is really good at doing that in the short term. Right? Money is powerful. You can buy a great deal of comfort and pleasure and security in this life. But the author is reminding us again, as he has throughout the letter, that there is more than just this life. And our earthly treasure can be stolen or destroyed. We can't finally rely on money because it is temporary and so are we. And so he calls us to rest in our relationship with God, to be content with the fact that God has promised never to leave us and never to forsake us. That's the only check, friends, that the bank of heaven will cash. And so what can man do to you? The worst that man can do to you is kill your body, but guess what? God can raise up your body. And so he's urging them and he's urging us not to give in to the lie that money offers us anything lasting. Be content with what you have and don't pursue this worthless quest for that which will amount to nothing. If you love money, it will enslave you. Every decision you make will be based on the bottom line and you can see how that will render you ineffective, completely ineffective in brotherly love. So if you love money, you're not going to be generous. You're not going to meet the material needs of those in the body. You're certainly not going to give to the needs of strangers. If you love the security that money can buy you, you're not going to expose yourself to the risk of strangers. You're not going to identify with those who are persecuted. If you love the pleasure that money can buy, you're going to make the world about you. And guess what? When you think that way, the gift of sex, it just becomes another way to satisfy your own desires. And so we can see that all of these issues are rooted in our idolatry. It's our effort to worship something other than God and to control our experience in this life. It says money or sex or my principles are my helper because they give me the security, the pleasure, the influence that I must have. But when we truly believe that the Lord is our helper and we truly rest in that fact, we are free to move into life with a selfless brotherly love, sacrificing our money and our comfort and our security because we know that what we have is eternal. And that's more than we can ever imagine. And so this reality then frees us to love with a sort of reckless abandon, not frantic for our love to be reciprocated. We can be content in Christ and we can love freely because we've been freely loved by God in Jesus Christ. And then we can demonstrate that freedom in our sacrificial love for each other to the glory of God. That's what a church is supposed to look like, friends. And it's out of that fullness, out of that love of God displayed to others that we then look to the second command in this text. Follow your leaders in verses 7 to 19. So we see in this section that in the context of the local church, God is glorified through leaders who reflect his character and members who submit to his designated authority. So we're going to look at this in two parts under this heading. So under follow your leaders, two parts. Who the leaders are supposed to be, what the leaders are supposed to do, and then second, how we respond to them. So first, let's look at what the leaders do. And let me say first, we often use the terms leader, elder, pastor. I'm going to use all those terms interchangeably. They mean the same thing in the New Testament. So let's look at what leaders do. First, leaders set an example. Verses seven to eight, remember your leaders, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Now church, I want us to just take a moment and breathe in those words like oxygen for our souls. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Jesus Christ does not change. Jesus Christ does not fail. He is utterly and unshakably faithful. He is the solid rock on which we stand. We depend upon Him. And in the context of a local church, leaders, elders, are supposed to point to Him. And here I think the author is referring to specifically the first leaders maybe of this congregation who have already died and joined the great cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 11. Their lives served as very tangible examples for this particular church. That's why he's talking about the outcome of their lives. They've completed the course. Certainly elders are not perfect, but we do build our lives, we are called to build our lives on the rock of Jesus Christ. We are called to be faithful with his word and to practice what we preach. So as church members, as you look into the lives of your elders, you should see lives that are being lived to the glory of Jesus Christ. You should see that following your elders will help you to grow in your relationship with Christ. To be more like your elders would be to be more like Jesus. Second, elders are to teach. So we see that the leaders he refers to in verse seven are those who spoke to you the word of God. Elders are responsible for teaching, just as Jesus commanded Peter, feed my sheep. And then the author goes on to instruct the church about the content of the teaching. Because Jesus is the same, teaching about him should always be the same. So in verse 9, he warns them, do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings. For it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. So the church is being warned not to be led away by strange and diverse and strange teachings. So the burden is on pastors to teach faithfully, but the burden is also on the sheep to feed on the right things and not on the wrong things. And he draws a contrast here to the Old Testament sacrificial system that's been the focus of a lot of the book, especially in chapters nine and 10. So verse 10, we have an altar, we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. So we have another altar, another sacrifice. Christians have a different system with an entirely different effect. So as we've seen in our study, the Old Covenant worship was performed first and foremost by the priests. That's who he's talking about, those who serve the tent, the tabernacle. They were responsible for overseeing the whole sacrificial system. And as part of that system, they had the privilege of eating certain portions of certain sacrifices. Those were reserved for the priests as the holy food. And that's what I think he's talking about is the different kinds of food that can strengthen the heart versus the body. But as he said, that whole system, it didn't benefit those who were devoted to it. It didn't actually deal with sin. It only handled external purification and the reminder of this ongoing need of forgiveness year after year after year. Their sacrifices did not bring them eternal and soul-sustaining grace. But our altar and the once for all sacrifice of Jesus is the source of eternal grace. And those apart from Christ, even those leaders under the old covenant have no right to eat of it. Only those who come to Jesus by faith have a right, have access to this altar. I'm not pointing to this table, that's different. The altar, the once for all sacrifice of Jesus. These Christians are wrestling with the temptation of going back to the familiarity of the old system of worship and leaving Jesus to return to that sacrificial system. And the author is showing them that looking back to the Old Testament, this is important, looking back to the Old Testament without seeing its fulfillment in Jesus is following diverse and strange teaching. The Old Testament as a standalone is diverse and strange teaching. It has to have its fulfillment in Jesus. That's the point of it. It all looks forward to him. So verses 11 and 12, for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Now brothers and sisters, that is an amazing claim. Under the old covenant sacrifices, holy blood was sprinkled in a holy place, and the unclean body was burned to ash in an unclean place, and there was no spiritual change. But Jesus, the Holy One, spilled His holy blood in an unholy, unclean place, and He made unholy sinners holy to the glory of God. Outside of the camp represents everything shameful and dirty and unclean. It's where the trash went. It's where sinners belong. And Jesus went there, went outside the camp to suffer and die a sinner's death in order to forgive and cleanse sinners for himself. As 2 Corinthians 5 says, He became sin who knew no sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. And friends, this is the gospel message. Jesus, God's son, came to live the life of perfect obedience that we owe to God, to die the death that our sin deserves. He was raised from the dead because his work was complete and death could no longer hold him. And he ascended into the throne of heaven. He will one day return to judge. And the hope of the gospel is that everyone who turns away from sin, who repents and turns to Jesus in faith, believes in him, can be forgiven and cleansed to be one of God's people forever. So please don't leave here without talking to me or someone else in this room about this truth, if you don't know Jesus that way. Verses 13 and 14. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. So the natural response for us to this message is to run to Jesus, to the one who endured shame and hostility for us, despite whatever shame and hostility it's gonna cost us. Not only did he endure the shame and the scorn of sinners, he endured the shame of our sin before God. He removed that shame from us so that we never have to feel it. And so we go to him outside the camp. For these Jewish Christians in the first century, it meant turning their back on everything familiar and comfortable and safe to them about Jerusalem and about the temple and everything that those things represented and embracing this identity as an outcast. For us, I think He's certainly urging us to let family and co-workers and neighbors and friends know that we belong to Jesus, that we are His people. It's a move from the temporary security to exposure. It's embracing the shame and the risk it may cost us in this life because, brothers and sisters, we know that this life is not all there is. We take hold of God's promise that He's establishing for us an eternal city where He will dwell with everyone identified with Jesus through faith. And that's what this book has been about the last few chapters, 10 and 11 and 12, this call to run with endurance, this call to persevere by faith, they're all with that eternal city in view. So 15, through him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Our atoning sacrifice was once for all, one sacrifice that removes sin. And then through Jesus, our great high priest, we offer sacrifices not of animals, no more blood is required. We offer up our words, praising God together in the assembly of the saints, testifying to God in an unbelieving world. And so this gospel message is the message that elders must proclaim and must teach. Okay, the third thing elders do is keep watch over souls. So down to verse 17. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. So to keep watch is literally to stay awake. It's to go sleepless. And applied to souls, it involves a tireless commitment to the spiritual well-being of the church. He says that leaders will have to give an account to Jesus. Brothers and sisters, that is a serious charge. This acknowledges that Jesus is the one in charge. He's the ultimate authority. He's the chief shepherd. Pastors and elders are temporary under shepherds. We have limited authority for a limited time, and we'll answer to Christ for how we use it. So now let's go back through this passage and think about how we as a church are to respond to our leaders. And I say we, because even we as elders are responsible for each other's souls. We are sheep before we are elders, right? God has given us a specific charge, but even before that we are sheep and we are accountable to each other. We have the same obligations to those who lead us. So first, as we think about how we interact with our elders, we're called to remember those who teach. And I think this means we're to follow the teaching of our elders. We're to meditate on the truth that the elders share with us. Now, this is an expression of our trust, first and foremost, in God and his providence, right? That the men God has placed over us are laboring for our souls. They are finally accountable to God. So we should be expecting God to use our elders to teach us God's truth. In this day and age, we have access to a virtually endless supply of world-class teaching, and that's a wonderful blessing. But let me encourage you not to overlook, and even stronger than that, to prioritize the regular teaching in your local church. Your pastors, if they're faithful, the pastors here, are giving considerable prayer and thought into the oversight of these souls. And not only that, but we have a natural pathway as we respond to God's word. Simply, this is a natural pathway to fellowship by simply talking to people about the sermon that we all heard together, the word that we fed on together as his people. So trust God by prioritizing the teaching of your local church. Read the passage in advance, pray, expect God's work, worship together around his word as we are gathered as his people. That's how God works. Second, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. So imitate your elders. Now, as I said a few minutes ago, the church members should be able to look at their elders and see examples of faith to imitate. That doesn't mean that we're not sinners. If you look for flaws, you will certainly find them. But if you look for examples of faith, I think you'll find them as well. And this is one of the benefits of having a plurality of elders, right? We each have different personalities and strengths and giftings and situations in life. So you may look to one elder for help in spiritual disciplines, another for marriage counseling, another for parenting advice, another with a theological question. And even if you can't yet see the outcome of our lives, because we're still breathing, you can look at the fruit, you can look at the trajectory, and you can imitate our faith. Okay, not us, not everything about us necessarily, but our faith should be something that you can imitate. What you should see in all of us is men who are committed to the charge that Christ has given us. And church, I just want to encourage you as somebody who has an inside perspective on what's going on with the elders, how thankful I am for the elders that God has placed in authority in this church, and that my soul and the souls of my family are entrusted to their care. I wouldn't be here if I didn't have confidence in that. So I just want to commend these men and thank God for their service. Three, do good and share. So verse 16, do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. So we've already been charged as a church to keep our lives free from the love of money. And here we see another very practical way that we can demonstrate and cultivate that freedom, which is by giving to support the work of ministry in the local church. So just think about that. One of the ways that we can worship God, the God of the universe, our loving Heavenly Father, is by giving our money to support the work of the gospel in our own local church. Church budgets, and therefore church budget meetings, can please God. It's important that we understand this relationship that he's describing very carefully. Because usually when we give money to someone, we feel ownership of that. We feel like we are the ones in charge. We're paying somebody for a service and we're expecting certain things in return that they answer to us. But that's not what's going on here. This is not paying for services. This experience is more like a co-op. So God has blessed all of his people. And the point is that whatever we've been given, whatever God has given us, the purpose of that blessing is to share it with other people. And so many churches, including ours, take some of their material blessings and gifts that God has given them and use that money to set aside a man or men to use their spiritual blessing, their spiritual gift of teaching for the good of the whole. so that those men don't have to work outside the home and spend a lot of their time doing something else other than using the gift God has given them. So we share what God has given us materially, financially, and they share with us what God has given them spiritually. That's the relationship. It's mutual sharing. Now, this is awkward for me to talk about because I'm one of the paid pastors. I'm on staff here. So let me first thank you as a church. It's humbling to serve in this role. Being an elder is a weighty responsibility and not having the burden of having to provide for my family is a great blessing and a gift and I thank you for it. I want to steward this well. But let me now stand with you as a member and say what a joy it is for me to give to the work of this church. What a joy it is to take some of what God has blessed me with through your generosity and turn and give that to the work of this church. So I love Keith and Ben, and I'm thrilled to share with them materially so that they can share with me what God has blessed them with spiritually. That's a great blessing. I love Nate and the hard work that he does to assist us in practical matters to keep things going around here. I love the gospel ministries of this church and I'm thankful for the facility that God has blessed us with as a tool to use for ministry. I love the missions work and the like-minded partnerships we have with those who are laboring in the same gospel in places around the world. It's great, right? So it's tempting to think of a budget as a very stale thing. But I think we need to see it as an opportunity to glorify God through the gifts he's given us. To store up for ourselves treasure in heaven. So think about that. We get to invest in eternity. To trade our temporary, our stealable, our rusting and rotting money for eternal possessions that will never fade away. Friends, you can't get a better return than that. Right? And so, as elders and deacons, we work hard. We think strategically about our budget. We try to make it something that's as pleasing to God as we can. So let me encourage you as a church to give generously. Now, I'm not saying that selfishly. There's no incentives for us as a staff if we make budget at the end of the year. There's nothing like that. But think about church. Think about sacrifices that please God. Think about sharing what God has so graciously given to you. Think about being free from the love of money. Think about storing up for yourself treasure in heaven and give. Fourth, we're called to obey and submit to our leaders. So verse 17, obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. And my guess is no one drank this morning out of their Hebrews 13, 17 coffee cup. At the outset of this section, it's important for us to remember that in any relationship of leading and following, the burden is finally on the one who's gonna follow, right? No matter how gifted a leader is, no one can lead someone who refuses to follow. And the Bible consistently puts the burden on the wife to submit to the husband, on the slave to submit to the master, on the governed, the citizen to submit to the government, and here, the church member to the elder. And this requires an extension of trust from the one under authority to the one in authority. As we think about obedience and submission, it's essential that we understand that they do not depend upon prior agreement. So in other words, we don't submit saying, I'll submit to you as long as I agree with you, right? That's not what submission is. At the same time though, submission is not blind or mindless. Submission, listen carefully, submission is being mindful of God as you follow someone else where you may not have chosen to go. Okay, submission is a response of faith in God's sovereignty and placing that person in authority over you. And just as we would say in marriage or in work, the command to submit assumes God's ultimate authority. So we never disobey God in the name of submitting to a lesser authority. But just as the case for marriage or work, most of our challenges in submission stem from disagreements that aren't that clear, that aren't a matter of obeying or disobeying God. And brothers and sisters, that's one of the reasons that God has ordained authority. It's why he has it there. It's God's good gift to us to expose our hard hearts that tend toward autonomy and self-justification. Our desire to rebel against earthly authorities is just an aftershock of the great earthquake that was Adam and Eve's first rebellion against God's authority in the garden. In other words, you should be very careful before you declare yourself right and go your own way over and against the elders. The church, in our context at least, feels like it has a lower bar of commitment than marriage and work. So most people understand the seriousness of marriage, take it seriously. There's a weight to that commitment. We have to pay our bills so we don't just walk out on our jobs. But the church has become the kind of place where it feels like any pressure from authority feels like a reason to call foul. And friends, don't you see that that should not be the case? God has ordained elders for our good. So isn't it possible? Isn't it even likely that our negative reaction to the authority in the church is our own sinful pride? Of course, there are elders who have and will abuse their authority. And that's why there are qualifications for these men. And that's why there are biblical processes for removing elders who need to be removed. We should remove bad elders. But we should also be wary of our own hearts and our tendency to mistrust those whom God has given to help us. Again, this is one of the benefits we have of having more than one elder, right? We have to submit to each other. So brothers and sisters, let me encourage you. If you're having trouble with the authority of your elders, please come to us. Don't sit there in this kind of inner turmoil. Certainly don't slander us to other people. Come to us. Maybe there's sin in our lives that we need to see. Maybe there's sin in our leadership that we need to see. Maybe there's something going on in your life that we can help walk with you through. Maybe we need to work to entrust the care of your soul to other faithful men in this town. That's okay. As we think about this very sensitive subject, I want us to go back to something that we looked at earlier in the text. The elders are those who will give account. It's easy to forget that, isn't it? It's easy to get caught up in a situation and feel like the person in authority over you, wherever it is, is making a bad decision and it's affecting you or it's affecting people you love. And certainly in the context of the church, you should feel the freedom to come to your elders, to express concerns to them. Hopefully we as elders are being wise and seeking feedback and hearing feedback from the congregation as we're trying to lead faithfully. But at the end of the day, church, Isn't it a relief to know that you are not finally accountable for many of the decisions we as elders make? You're not accountable for how we lead. That should take a lot of pressure off of you. However, what you are responsible for is how you respond to the leadership of your elders. This becomes an expression of your confidence in God, ultimately, and not your elders. At the same time, brother elders, this is a helpful reminder to us because just because we're being followed doesn't mean that we're right. There's a burden of responsibility on us to humbly depend upon God through prayer as we seek to lead his people to Christ. The measure of our success is not how well we're being followed. The measure of our success is Christ's commendation on the last day, well done, good and faithful servant. Now an implied command here is to make our elders work joyful and not burdensome. And this is something that each of us should ask ourselves and we should ask it, right? It's not a natural question we ask ourselves because most of us assume that we're pretty easy to love, right? But the author says it's in your interest to make our watch over your souls an experience of joy and not groaning. And let's just say there can be a little bit of both. So here are a few characteristics of sheep that are a joy to shepherd. Sheep that are encouraged by the word. So if you think about your home and your kitchen, it's really fun to feed hungry people, isn't it? When people come in and they've, for whatever reason, there's something satisfying about making a meal and hearing how much someone enjoyed it. And for us, preaching and teaching the word is a lot like that. So I want to be clear, we're not preaching and teaching to hear you tell us how great we are or how smart we are or anything like that. But it is a great joy for us when we hear how God is at work through the ministry of the word here at this church. So when you tell us what was specifically convicting or encouraging or helpful to you, that's wonderful. When you come to this church prayerful and expectant, God does not disappoint. We are humbled to participate in the work of feeding and seeing his sheep grow. So sheep are encouraged by the word, sheep who seek shepherding. So there are sheep who come to us for prayer and counsel. They volunteer what's going on in their lives so that we are aware of that. They answer hard questions even before we can ask them. They show their humility before God in coming to elders who may be younger and have less life experience than they do. That's really encouraging. Third sheep who serve faithfully. So there are sheep who understand the ministry of presence. They attend, they arrive on time, sometimes even early to fulfill the commitments that they make. They schedule their time away around prioritizing being here on Sundays. Some people who are away actually proactively reach out to let us know why and when they're out, assuming that they're going to be missed and they want to have excused absences. I love that. That's such a helpful thing. It communicates a level of commitment to the church, a commitment to the gathering that's important. Another characteristic, shock absorbers. This is hard work in the life of the local church, right? Relationally, these people have gospel filters that assume the best about what others say and do. They encourage other people to do the same thing. They shut down gossip and slander. They put out fires. They try to meet needs themselves. In service, they step up to fill gaps that need to be filled. They work hard to keep problems from happening. That's such a joy to watch. And friends, I could keep going, but I want to commend many of you, even here this morning, who have been such a joy to Shepherd, whom God has used to spur us on in faithfulness. Last, he tells us to pray. to pray for us, 18 and 19. Pray that we as elders would be what Christ calls us to be, that we would teach what Christ has revealed to us, that we would use our authority for his glory and your good. Pray that we would have joy in our work. Happy shepherds are good for the sheep. That's what the author tells us. As you can see in this text, a healthy relationship of authority and submission in the church flows out of the same family culture that we looked at in the first point. It's a gospel culture of love and trust rather than suspicion. So what's set before us in this passage is this beautiful ideal, like a family we would all want to be a part of, right? There are roles, there are differences, but there is a genuine love and commitment to each other, a concern for the good of the whole rather than the good of the individual. And again, this reflects God's good order and it glorifies him. In the closing section of the part that we're really tempted to skip when we read this, 22 to 25, I just want you to notice how we see this tiny glimpse of this culture in action. We see concern for those who are in prison. We see greetings to leaders and saints. We see grace to all. That's what we're striving for as a church. But let's look at the benediction, 20 and 21. Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. as a family, that is what unites us, right? Jesus is our great shepherd. We are sealed with his blood in an internal covenant. God's resurrection power is at work in us to produce what pleases him and we will glorify him forever. And one of the ways we get to do that is in our relationships in the local church. This is our acceptable worship. And friends, we get to commemorate that truth this morning in the Lord's Supper, where we are reminded of Jesus' once-for-all sacrifice for sin, our ongoing dependence upon Him, and our hope of being united with Him forever. This is our family meal, where we proclaim His death until He comes. So let's pray together.