And good morning church. It's great seeing all of you here today and greetings to those of you who are worshiping in the great room.

And if you're a new, Welcome. My name is Michael. I am the lead pastor here. And hopefully I'll have a chance to meet you soon. Perhaps today it'd be great to talk to you after the service. And if you're new, you may also not know that we are actually in the process of relocating our church about 10 minutes away to Northern Kentucky.

We're in the process of purchasing a new church building. Thomas. And to that end, we've been raising money. We had a goal of 1 million to raise for the down payment. And we see here, I can give you an update. Can you see that? This is where we are currently between pledges and donations received. We have 901, 000.

So that's 90. 1%. Yes, that's exciting. We're close. And we have 9. 9 percent remaining. As of this morning, 99, 895 remaining to raise. Many people have given very generously, sacrificially, and for those of you who have done so, thank you so much, praise the Lord. Just in case you didn't know the ask was two times your annual tithe given to this building fund.

And many people have done that, and we're very thankful for that. So, if you'd like to be a part you can do so by going to this link right here, and you can make a contribution there. And keep praying, please, keep praying. That we will be able to raise the full amount by the time we go to closing.

Also, as we prepare to move into our new church home, we're reviewing a handful of topics and we're calling these church essentials. And each topic in this series is a foundational aspect of church life at Christ the King Church. And it's important for the culture of our church as we bring new people in, there's a culture that is already established that they can be assimilated into.

So, we started off this series with the two offices, the ongoing offices that are recognized by scripture, and that is deacons and elders. Two weeks ago, we talked about deacons. Deacons have a very broad job description, which is to assist the elders in addressing the physical needs of the church.

Elders have a more broad, or excuse me, a more narrow job description, and they are responsible for addressing the spiritual needs of the church. There was a Barna survey that I read this week. A few things that were pretty interesting. It says a lot of pastors are now reporting decreased confidence in their ministry and even are questioning their calling.

The weightiness of their calling evidently was the main reason why a lot of pastors are even considering leaving the ministry. Here's some of the stats. It found that 30, 33 percent of pastors. have considered quitting the ministry that were in their survey. 60 percent significantly doubted their calling.

25 percent said they had seriously doubted their faith. 18 percent had even contemplated self-harm or suicide in the past year. Only 14 percent of pastors reported excellent mental or emotional wellbeing. Only 19 percent reported having what they would call true friends. And finally, only 7 percent said that they feel respected from their communities.

Those are not great numbers. Just so you know, I love what I do. I'm not, I don't want to quit. I love being here. I feel respected, great emotional and mental health. Marriage is great. So, this is, I read that in my heart goes out to people who do feel that way, even though I'm very thankful for the fact that I don't.

But I know that I'm, it seems like this is a trend. So, as they've tracked this over time, this is a trend that seems to be getting worse and worse. So, we have good pastor parishioner relationships here and that makes the ministry here a joy. And I'm super thankful for that. And so, as we're going to see this morning, it's more important than you might think that we maintain a good, healthy relationship between the parishioners and the pastors.

Let's dig in here, and we're gonna, we're gonna drill way down on one verse. And I wanna give you, after, I'll read this verse, and I'll give you five principles for how pastors and parishioners can relate to one another. Now, before we move on, I just wanna say one other thing. And that is, we don't really have time to, there's a lot of things we don't have time to address this morning.

I'm not gonna talk about all the bad elders out there. And all the problems that you're probably thinking of abuse or other things like that. We just don't have time to address all those things. But what we will address this morning is our local church. So that's the elders at Christ the King church that we have here in our context.

So, let's read the text here. Hebrews chapter 13. And we'll start, we're going to read verse 17 and then I want to show you the same verse. Organized differently and the, all the points, all five points I'm going to make are directly drawn from this text. Okay. Hebrews 13 verse 17 says this, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account.

But let them do this with joy and not with groaning. For that would be of no advantage to you. This is God's word. Now breaking these down so you can see my points straight out of the text. Here's point number one. God's people are commanded to obey and submit to their leaders. Leaders would mean elders in this case.

So, you have two words, obey and submit. Now they don't mean different things. Rather, the doubling is for intensification. It is a way of putting a highlighter pin on this text and saying, hey, make sure you notice this, obey and submit. It's a doubling for intensification. Now, what does that mean? There's a lot of things that could mean.

So let me just make this very simple and I'll give you four things that this means. Four ways that at Christ the King church, we ask, the members to obey and submit to their elders. Number one, submit to the system of doctrine at our church, our system of doctrine. So, we are a reformed Baptist church. And so, the elders of our church, we are all from that tradition.

And that is the tradition we uphold, and we operate within that. And so that is something that we all submit to. And the elders will also determine any, where the boundary lines are and where the exceptions are, where people who have different views can participate and be full members in good standing in our church.

Second, second one is submit to the vision and direction of our church. Lots of things can go in here. But we would say generally a philosophy of ministry or even a style of ministry, the way that we do things. The elders oversee things like this, like our member classes, personnel, who we hire, staffing, our policies, procedures, events that we do, outreaches, the way that we approach evangelism.

The elders oversee our worship, Lord's Day worship. So, our type of liturgy. Our style of preaching, our style of music that we do. These are things that the elders are responsible for. And you may not like some of those things, and that's okay. You don't have to like it. We just ask that you don't make a big deal about the fact.

Other things such as ministry emphases. The biblical sexuality is a, is an important priority for us. And there's reasons for that. So, we would also say household discipleship. We want to help families be strong and for multiple generations. Household discipleship is important. The way that we would approach cultural discernment.

We're not afraid to see issues in our culture and call out cultural sins. We confront them as needed, and that's part of our ministry philosophy. We think that is good and right to do, and you may not like that, and we just ask you, you don't have to like it, just to submit to it, because that's, the elders are responsible for those decisions.

Here's a third one. Pastoral counsel. Pastoral counsel. This will include some of the interpersonal things that we do in the way that we try to shape disciples in our church. For example, we do pre-engagement counseling and premarital counseling. That's so it's a way that we serve our people by helping people get prepared for marriage.

Personal discipleship also is under this. So that could be just pastoral care. How do we value addressing sin. calling people to repentance, pointing them to the gospel. Occasionally, an elder might be more direct than what somebody is comfortable with. That's not usual, but on occasion, there's, there may be some necessity to be more direct.

So, we might say something like, you must repent of this sin, and that is something that you should obey and submit to, as Hebrews 13, 17 says. We might say something like, you are under church discipline now, and so you are not welcome to come to the Lord's table. The elders would make that kind of decision.

It might be even more, be more something that you would consider subjective. So, it might say, the actions that you've had towards this individual and your small group, your city group have been harmful. And so, you can't go to that group anymore. We need to give you all some distance. Something like that could just be a practical pastoral decision.

It could be something like, I'd like to, I'd like you to meet with an elder meet with me or one of the other elders a couple, three times. There's some growth areas we'd like to talk to you about and hopefully help you see some repentance. What we won't do is we don't have individual elders going around randomly giving commands and telling you submit to that.

It's not it's not a, that would be. Unnecessary and heavy handed. And so that's not the way we operate. We operate in within the boundaries of our calling in our office. So, it's like it's pastoral care and that's, we ask, I'm specifying this here. These are the sorts of things where we asked the church to submit number four, the last one.

Submit to the decisions of the session by session. The elder board (we call it a session) decisions of the session, and we make decisions all the times about any number of things. So, these are official decisions that we make and how we're going to approach or handle different things in church life.

For example, the session decided earlier this year to explore relocation options for our church. And that we deliberated about that, and we prayed about it for a long time and ultimately the session itself decided that this would be good for us to do. And fortunately, there's been a lot of unity and support behind that, but that was a decision of the session.

The session decided to not do two different services this fall. We've done that in the past. And when we did it in the past, we, elder, or the elders decided to do it, and people submitted to it. And we decided after the summer, whenever we combined, we don't want to do that again. And there's a good reason for that, that I won't get into here, but we decided it would be better for our church to ask, a group of people to overflow room downstairs for the sake of being able to all gather at one time.

And that is a decision that the session made. Whenever there's a particularly challenging pastoral care situation, the elders will talk these things over and be like, how should we handle this? A lot of pastoral care situations are very complicated. It's not so simple as, Frank sinned in this way, call him to repent, we're done.

It's usually not that simple. If your name is Frank, I know there's a Frank here. I'm not talking about anybody in particular. Frank is just my go to name. I also have Fred. That's another go to name. But that is a, these are things that we have to get involved in things that can be very complicated and we're trying to see through murky situations, and we'll make decisions, and we'll talk about it.

The, I asked just to give you an example, I asked the session, for input on the four points I'm giving you right now. I sent a message in our little group text, and I said I'm asking, I want to talk about these four areas where we ask the church to submit to the elders. What do you think?

Any input? Would you change anything? And we got input and here's these points. The point that I'm making here is that we're always in communication. We're talking all the time, disagreeing, debating, challenging about what best honors God, what best accords with scripture, what's best for the people of our church.

That's the first point. God's people are commanded to obey and submit to their elders. Second point, God appoints elders to keep watch over the souls of his people. So, I want you to notice this word here for that word means something. So, the first. The first verse has commands, obey your leaders and submit to them for, here is a purpose, the reason why God requires you to obey them and submit to them is for they are keeping watch over your souls.

They have a duty to fulfill, and this is the way that the relationship is structured.

Everybody has a duty to perform. The duty of elders is to keep watch. The duty of members is to submit to their leadership. Do you see that? Everybody's got a duty. Members have a duty. Elders have a duty. And those churches where everybody is faithfully performing their duty in the fear of the Lord, those will be the healthiest and the strongest churches because everybody is doing what the scripture requires them to do.

And they're doing so with the fear of God in mind. For this to work well, there needs to be a relationship of trust and grace between the elders and the members. Why is that? Should be obvious. Because everyone is sinful. Everyone has fallen short of God's glory. Everyone is finite. Nobody is perfect.

And so there needs to be some order for us to be able to function. If you have a high trust environment, then the social reward, rewards of the church that will promote things like godliness and humility and holiness, that's what we're after. If you have a low trust environment at a church, the dominant motif becomes suspicion and distrust.

And whenever you have that, your social cohesion breaks down because everybody's side glancing one another thinking, I don't trust your decision. I don't trust your motives. I don't trust what you're doing is right. And that causes social cohesion to break apart. What we want at Christ the King Church is a high trust environment.

Now, that takes time, but it can be done and it, we have that, I do believe that's what we have in our church, but it is accomplished through a number of different commitments like transparency, communication, intentionality trying to be open and forthright with how we do things. These things contribute to a high trust environment.

And this is important because the church is not just another nonprofit organization. It's not merely a 501c3. The church is a family, and families are about people. There is a business side, we don't deny that. Churches have to, there are legalities or things like this that we have to comply with. There are policies, there's finances, there's employees and personnel.

Those things are important, but they are secondary to the ultimate or higher purpose of the church. The primary business of any church is the souls of every man, woman, and child. The business of our church is relational, and it is spiritual ultimately. And so just about everything we talk about amongst the elders and the staff and any, these sort of decision-making environments, we're talking about them and deciding them through the lens of the spiritual impact it has on our people here.

Why is that? It's because we're shepherds. And what do shepherds do? Shepherds keep watch. It's in the Christmas carol. And the shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night. These are things that shepherds do. It's part of the calling. So, we think about the spiritual impact on people.

So, we're asking questions that other nonprofit organizations may not ask. We're asking who's here, who's not here. Is there anyone missing? How are they doing? I haven't talked to them in a while. Have you heard from them? How are they? We're always checking on things like, how's their marriage? Do you have any, do you know how they're doing?

How are their kids doing? Do you know if he got the job that he was praying for? What's going on in their life? Let's pray for his surgery that was scheduled for today. Those children aren't respecting their mother. We should look into that. It's meddling, you might say. But it's because we are keeping watch for the sake of the spiritual health and well-being of the people that God has placed under our care.

So, this is not just an institution, it's not just a nonprofit, we are concerned for the lives of the people in this church. That includes their desires, their suffering, what's motivating them, what do they want, their temptations, their sins. Because that's what it means to keep watch over a flock.

So, we do whatever we can to make sure that the sheep of this flock are healthy and strong and protected. Third point, number three. God holds elders accountable for their work. God holds elders accountable for their work. Obey your leaders and submit to them. Four, they're keeping watch over your souls, it's a spiritual work, and they're doing so as those who will have to give an account.

To whom? God. That's to whom.

Quite frankly, this is one of the most terrifying verses in the Bible for me. And for good reason, and I think that's why. God included it. It's one of the many reasons. A babysitter knows that she will give an account to mom and dad whenever they get home. How'd you take care of my kids? Would you feed them?

Are they safe? Are they in bed? Did you read them a story? She will give an account. There's a report that she will give to how she took care of the kids that night. Likewise, elders will give an account to our master. Ultimately, it is to God that we are accountable. And so, elders in this church should realize that God has entrusted the souls of his people whom he sent his son to die for into their care. That's huge. Elders were answered to God for things like, did they feed God's people a doctrinally sound spiritual diet? Elders were answered to God for, were they patient with God's people? Did they warn them about things that could endanger their souls?

Did they exploit anyone for their own advantage? Did they lead them in a domineering way? Were they patient? Were they loving? And the best elders, no matter what they do, will do their work in the fear of God, knowing God is to whom they are ultimately accountable. Now let's talk about something that you might be thinking.

What should you do when you think the elders are wrong about something? According to several recent studies, they've shown that elders aren't perfect. Scientifically proven. I'm just reporting the news. Elders will make mistakes. We'll get things wrong. Now, obviously I'm not talking about, this happens too, but I'm not addressing your gross theological errors or gross moral failings, not talking about heresies.

I'm talking about ordinary stuff in church life that you disagree with or that you don't like. What do you do about then? And since elders are fallen, finite men, and we will get things wrong once or twice a year on average a lot more than that probably. Do you just submit to that? Do you just go along with something that's wrong?

How do you handle it when you think they're wrong or even if you think they're way wrong and out of line? Three things. First, be gracious with them. If God wanted perfect elders, he could have appointed angels to watch over us, but he didn't. He appointed elders and knowing that these elders are fallen and finite, he commanded his people to obey them and submit to them.

So, it's baked into the model that elders are going to make mistakes and people in the church will have to go along with it. Number two, don't expect elders to be experts. Don't expect elders to be experts. That's not the calling. Expertise is not the calling. The calling is fatherhood. Elders are called to be spiritual fathers in the church.

Experts don't keep watch over your souls. Experts don't protect you. Experts don't care about you and your life and your marriage, your wife, your husband, your children. That's not what we count on experts for. We count on experts for one thing, and that is to be right in the area of their expertise. With fathers, there is a wide margin of error that is to be expected, so we don't expect them to be experts.

Let me give you a text about this. First Corinthians 4, verses 15 and 16, Paul uses the word guide here for what I'm calling expert, but it's the same idea. For though you have countless guides in Christ. You do not have many fathers. He's being critical of them, the Corinthian church for looking out at all these, what he calls super apostles, people that were very flashy and impressive.

And he's like, all these guys, you think they're great. We've got a lot of guides. You don't have many fathers. And then he says, I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I'm a father to you, not these other guides out there. I urge you then be imitators of me.

Elders are not called to be experts. They're called to be fathers. So, what's the difference between a guide or expert and a father? So, guide is like a guru, somebody who is through their training and experience, we can count on them to get whatever it is that they're an expert in, get that thing right.

Most of the time, a father is different because a father is somebody who has taken responsibility for you before God. And we've already seen that definition of eldership is here within the text itself. A father is somebody who has taken responsibility to care for a group of people and to, and he will answer to God for them.

And that's why there is a greater margin of error to be expected with fathers. They're going to get things wrong. Sometimes you think of it this way. Some of you have, whenever your kids grow up, would you want your daughter, would you require your daughter to only marry a marriage expert?

No, you expect that she's probably going to marry some doofus that you're going to have to help and you're going to correct this guy and you're going to help him grow up. But you say, what are you looking for? It's does he love her? Does he care for her? Is he willing to take responsibility for her and look out for her?

I can live with a lot of things that he doesn't do well if he's got those commitments locked in. Or would you say I only want my wife to get pregnant once she completes her mothering degree in college. No, it's like you don't expect expertise. The love is what you look for. The commitment to the individual person, that's what you look for.

So, at Christ the King, we do require elders to be able to teach. It's not as though they have no knowledge or training or skill. But what is the primary thing we're looking for? The primary thing we're looking for is fatherhood. I have the most utmost respect for my father. I love my dad.

And whenever I was a kid, there was a lot of things where I thought the old man is wrong. He's wrong about that. Now, as I've, in retrospect, I can see it a little bit more clearly because now I have four kids that probably are thinking all the time, the old man is wrong about that. So, I'm a lot more patient with them.

But here's the thing, like I knew even then I would rather live with his wrong than some other man's right. Because he's my father. He's responsible for me. And he's not just, he's not just this caretaker. He's not just a parent. He is somebody that I know is looking out for my best interests. He's committed to me.

He loves me and he's taking care of me. That is why I honor him. So, I don't honor him based on how often he's right, I honor him because of the relationship that we have. I honor him because he is my father. Now in these modern times, we have forgotten how to honor our fathers, and we are no better off for it.

Third, if you think the elders are wrong, call them up and talk about it. It's okay. We know that we're not perfect. Now I can assure you of one thing. Those members who are in the habit of regularly treating the elders with respect and honor, they're going to have our ear. They will receive a friendly audience.

And this happens not infrequently. Where somebody tells me, I don't think that's a good idea. And we welcome that. We welcome the feedback and the input because we're not, we know we're not omniscient. And so, we solicit that and desire it, but we desire to be communicated in such a way that is that shows the honor for the office.

So, I just, in case you're new and you're, and it's not clear yet, let me just make one thing clear to you. Okay. Your elders at this church will let you down. Your elders at this church will disappoint you. I promise. In fact, we can make that part of our, membership material. We'll just make it a commitment.

Membership commitment. They're going to let me down. I know it. We will let you down. We will get things wrong. And not only should you know it, God knows this. And God anticipated this. And that did not deter God from ordering the church in such a way that he has that we're discussing this morning.

So, whenever you're thinking about elders or even future elders in our church, we should not think, who's the most impressive? Who do we think will be right most often and let's make them elders? Rather, the church should think, whose mistakes can we live with? Who do we think will fail most faithfully and make them your elders?

You want the elders to be men who are going before God and saying, I will, I am willing Lord to do a duty to take responsibility for people to know and love these sheep that you've died for and to do my best to watch out for them the best of my ability fallen and finite as I am. And in your power, I want to deliver them safely home, at the end of their life or end of my life that faithfully discharged that duty.

So, in God's wisdom and providence, the way he's ordered the church. And this may seem counterintuitive. But the mistakes of a faithful elder are better for you than the perfections of an expert. And in a healthy church with good elders, you want to be able to say, he's not perfect, but I can live with his mistakes.

And really, that's why qualifications matter. The qualifications matter, not because those who are the most qualified are more likely to get things right more often. That's not really it. It's like when they fail, It's the kind of failure that is faithful and humble and obedient to the Lord. That's what we're looking for.

Number four, new slide here. Number four, God's people should be a joy to lead. God's people should be a joy to lead. So let them, he's talking about your leaders, let them do this. Do what? Do their work of keeping watch. Let them, the elders, do their work of keeping watch over your souls with joy and not with groaning.

Now, it says let, but it has the force of a command. So, what he's saying here is God's people can make the work of their elders either more joyful or more burdensome. It can either be more of a joy or more of a groaning for the elders to go about their work of keeping watch over the souls of God's people.

And so, the apostle commands them, do what you can to ensure that the elders’ shepherding work is joyful and not a burden. How will you, how do you do this? We're here in Hebrews 13, 17. Let's rewind 10 verses and look at Hebrews 13 verse seven. Hebrews 13, seven says, remember your leaders. Again, he's talking about elders here.

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. So, there's another clear, we're talking about elders here. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Remember your leaders consider their outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. So, you have, you might say two broad commands here.

One is to remember them and to imitate them. So, one at a time, remember them. What does that mean? Remember them. It doesn't mean you forgot. It's Alex Costa, who is that guy? Remember means honor them. It is a way of saying, bring it to mind intentionally for the sake of honoring.

Remember them. Another way you could say it is to defend their reputations. Let me show you a text from first Timothy five that gives us a couple of further instructions about this. So now Paul he's being very explicit, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.

Typically, the way this is interpreted is you have honor the office of elder, all of them, but those who are paid staff, some might say that's a, you want to give them, make sure you're there. They're well paid. That's often how people will interpret this. But regardless. The office of elder is worthy of honor.

And then two verses later, do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. So here is a positive command to honor them and then a negative command to not admit a charge against them unless you have sufficient warrant for doing so. So just to break this down even more simply, be quick to honor elders and be slow to accuse elders.

It could be a simple way to think of it. Be quick to honor them, be slow to accuse them, or to put it differently, give them the benefit of the doubt and show respect in how you talk about them and how you talk to them. Remember them, honor them and how you talk about them to other people and how you talk to them.

So even if a pastor is wrong on a particular matter, some Christians are pretty eager to dishonor the office in their criticism of it. I'll give you an example. I saw some of you have followed, there's a controversy that's played out in our little corner of the Christian world the last month or so on Twitter and other places like this.

And I'm not going to weigh in on that. I don't really care. It's not that important to me. But one thing that has stood out that is very important to me, and that is how people who are lurkers online are paying attention to this, how easily they dishonor the office and the men who are trying to resolve a dispute.

Now, I have my view on who's right and who's wrong in that dispute. Like I said, I don't care. But I do think everybody involved in the dispute as far as I can tell are trying to be faithful to their office. Sinful, fallen, mistaken. Yes. But they're trying to be faithful to their office. Now I will notice comments from people on social media saying things like this man is disqualified himself for the ministry.

This man is a liar. This man is a slanderer. I'm like, you ought to be very careful. And saying things like that, because you're not just speaking to a man, you're speaking to the office he holds, and you're dis you're dishonoring that office. There's a saying in the military, at least I'm told it's in the military according to TV shows I've watched.

But there's a saying in the military of you salute the rank, not the man. So, you might not like an individual officer. You salute the rank. You salute the uniform because he holds a particular title, a responsibility, and he's answering to people above him for things that you don't know about. So even if you don't like the guy, even if you think he's wrong, you can still salute the uniform in a good conscience.

So, let's set aside all the bad elders that you might think of out there in the Christian world and just think for a moment about the elders here at our church. Let me ask you a few questions to consider. Do you highly esteem the office of elder in our church? Are you quick to honor the elders here? Are you quick to show them respect?

How easily do you criticize the elders of our church? How critical are you of the, of sermons or comments that you hear you might disagree with, or ministry decisions or choices that we make, or our philosophy or style of ministry? or the songs we do or the way we do liturgy or anything else. Are you, how quick are you to criticize those things?

Are you quick to find fault? Are you quick to join in? Are you quick to pile on when other people are critical and you just hit, hear it? Here's the thing, the more unnecessary criticism that pastors face, the more burdened and the less joyful they will be in their work. The more unnecessary is key here.

The more unnecessary criticism pastors face, the more burdened and less joyful they will be in their work. And going back to the illustrations I gave you at the beginning about just the surveys, this is surely a major factor in the shrinking pool of men going into the ministry now. We might think it's not a problem now.

very much. Listen, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, the conversation in the church world will be, we've got faithful churches, and we can't find any faithful pastors. Nobody wants the job. And it might be we've made the job too hard for them. So that's the first way to be a joy. The other one is to imitate their faith.

The highest and best way to honor an elder is to follow their example. Imitate their faith. Now, I want to read to a quote from Thomas Watson. That I've got two lengthy quotes I want to read to you. As we finish out here, the first one here is from Thomas Watson. You'll forgive the British you in the word honor, but that's okay.

We can read we can read this. Honor your leaders by conforming to their doctrine. This is the greatest honor you can put upon your spiritual fathers by believing and obeying their doctrine. He is an honorer of the ministry who is not only a hearer but a follower of the Word. As disobedience reproacheth the ministry, so obedience honoreth it.

A thriving people are a minister's crown. When there is a metamorphosis, a change wrought, when people come to the word proud but go away humble, they come earthly, but they go away heavenly, this is an honor to the ministry. You cannot honor your spiritual fathers more than by thriving under their ministry and living upon those sermons which they preach.

Great word from Thomas Watson there about their ministry being a joy. Lastly, last point here, going back to this. Here, last point. Four, here's another four. That would be of no advantage to you. So just, let's just follow the train of thought here. Commands, obey and submit to your leaders for they have a duty.

They're keeping watch over your souls. As those who will have to give an account, they're not just doing it for their own sake or for the paycheck. They're doing it to, as those who will answer to God for the work they do. It's a very weighty responsibility, right? Next part, let them do this work with joy and not with groaning for again, here's a reason purpose.

Why? For that would be of no advantage to you.

Elders are part of the spiritual growth matrix for God's people. Whenever people talk about, what do you need to grow? What do you need to grow in Christ? We'll probably say things like read your Bible, pray, go to church, sing the songs. But very rarely do we talk about the how important it is to have godly shepherds over you as part of the growth matrix for every Christian.

But clearly it is. And here's the thing that connects to the previous point. The spiritual benefit that you receive from the elders is directly proportional to the joy or grief they experience in providing it.

The spiritual benefit that you receive, the advantage that you receive is directly proportional to the degree of joy or grief they experience in providing it. I can't improve upon the way John Calvin talked about this in his commentary on this text. Three slides worth of quote. Just give you a heads up, but I want to, I want you to hear this.

John Calvin, the heavier the burden they bear, the more honor they deserve. For the more labor anyone undertakes for our sake. And the more difficulty and danger he incurs for us, the greater are our obligations to him. And such is the office of elders. He said bishop in the original quote, but elders, that it involves the greatest labor and the greatest danger.

If then we wish to be grateful, we can hardly render to them that which is due. And especially as they are to give an account of us to God, it would be disgraceful for us to make no account of them. He also bids us to be teachable and ready to obey, that what pastors do in consequence of what their office demands, they may also willingly and joyfully do.

For if they have their minds restrained by grief or weariness. Though they may be sincere and faithful, they will yet become disheartened and careless, for vigor and acting will fail at the same time with their cheerfulness. One more. Hence, the apostle declares that it would be unprofitable to the people to cause sorrow and mourning to their pastors by their ingratitude.

And He did this that He might intimate to us that we cannot be troublesome or disobedient to our pastors without hazarding our own salvation. As hardly one in ten considers this. It was true in his day. I think it's still true now. Hardly one in ten people even thinks along these lines, and there's a reason for it.

It's awkward to preach about. As hardly 1 in 10 considers this, it is hence evident how great generally is the neglect of salvation. Meaning neglect of people's own salvation because they neglect this particular duty. Nor is it a wonder how few at this day are found who strenuously watch over the church of God.

Meaning it's hard to find faithful shepherds. Let us then remember that we are suffering the punishment of our own perverseness. Whenever the pastors grow cold in their duty or are less diligent than they ought to be. To put this in crayon, what Calvin is saying here, when God's people dishonor or burden their elders, they do so as they hazard their own souls.

They do so at their own peril. And that's why I'm preaching this sermon. And it, it's funny, but it is a little awkward to preach about, honestly. It's awkward to preach something that would sound self-serving. And I'm very sensitive to that. And honestly, I've probably failed to preach this faithfully over the years for that very reason.

I don't like preaching things that sound like I am the primary beneficiary of the application of that sermon, but I'm comforted here by what the scripture says. It's like what the author of Hebrews is saying, and Calvin is agreeing with. And then actually, he's not going, it's Hey, make sure your pastors feel good because they're thin skinned and weak.

That's not what he's saying. He says, no, build up your pastors because when they are cheerful and joyful and delighting in the work, that is what will provide you with the maximal spiritual benefit. And that's what the apostle is pointing at. He's I want these people to be healthy and strong.

And that requires healthy shepherding over them. And that means the work of elders can be most profitable when it is most joyful.

If my own personal benefit were the only reason I would. I would rather not preach this because I would rather not be the kind of man that cares about being honored among men. In fact, Jesus says, look out for people that are so fixated on being honored among other men. I, and sincerely, I don't care about that.

It's not merely about just I want to be treated better, but I'm treated great in this church. You guys are awesome. I don't, I, I feel very much honored and respected and loved in this church. However, we're about to move and. We could see significant growth in our church, and the people that are going to be coming are going to be bringing whatever their previous experiences of church or not with them.

And maybe they're in the habit of being very dishonoring and disrespectful to elders, and so we need some kind of a culture, because I don't want to have to preach this every so often. I want to preach it when it comes up, and then I want, there, there can be a culture reinforcing effect when the people of the church know this is what we do.

That we want to respect and honor the spiritual fathers that God has placed over us because that is how we grow that helps us to grow more faithful in Christ whenever we honor our spiritual fathers and That's why I'm preaching this message It is for your sake is for the sake of your growth in Christ in every soul of man woman in every child in this church It is for our benefit to do this Joyful elders will be more faithful and vigorous in their work period So I'll conclude with this.

I'm speaking on behalf of all the elders. There's three of us, Lord willing, there'll be more in the days to come, years to come. But here's a commitment that I know we're all on board with. One, we fear God. So, we strive to fear God above all else. And that means we fear God more than you, and that's good.

Because you don't want us to fear man, you want us to fear God and to do our work We fear God most of all knowing we give an account to Him for your souls. And I promise you that is no small matter to any of us. Second, we will strive to proclaim God's word. As long as I'm in this pulpit or music stand or whatever this thing is, as long as I am in this pulpit, we will proclaim God's word as truthful and faithful as we know how.

We may get it wrong sometimes, but as faithfully and truthfully as we know how, we will proclaim God's word. And number three, we will strive to live exemplary lives that are worthy of emulation in the power of the Holy Spirit by God's grace. To give you an example to follow. Similarly, we ask every member of Christ the King, or everybody just says, this is my home if you're not officially a member, we ask the same thing.

Based on our text today, we ask you that you submit and obey. The leadership of our church in the ways that I've described already in the sermon. Second, we ask that you follow our manner of life. We're setting an example and it's worthy of emulation, so pay attention to that. Or as our mission statement says, we exist to help people know, love, and obey Jesus as Lord over all of life.

As we try to do that, we hopefully can set an example for you to do that as well. And finally, number three, we ask that you, as you have already done, that you continue to honor the office of elder for your sakes and for the sake of every other soul in this church. Okay? I'll just say as I conclude here it truly is a joy.

I love you guys. And we'll pray. Thank you, Father, for these saints that you love.

Help us, Lord, to be faithful. For all the elders and all the members here to be faithful in our calling, the duties that you've put before us, that we will obey you and we will live lives that are worthy of the gospel. Lord, protect us from sin and temptation. We have an enemy that wants to take us out.

We have an enemy that is opposed to us. And we have our own flesh and temptation from within that we struggle with because of indwelling sin. We ask you God that you protect us from all manner of sin or temptation or attack from the devil. Pray for unity in our church. Thank you that we do have that. We do enjoy that.

I pray that you will continue to unite us. I pray Lord that as we seek to move and it appears, Lord willing, that that will indeed be the case, and it'll all work out. We ask you, God, that for anybody who's coming to the church that they will be able to smell a spirit of honor within our church body, and that will be something that will perpetuate long into the future.

As we move into this new church home, Lord, we do trust you that for the next hundred years that we will be. A faithful church, a hundred years and beyond many generations that we will always, because of a culture that we're establishing now, I pray that this will always be the case. So, help us God.

Thank you, God, for all the ways that you've shown us grace and you've been merciful to us as a church body. Lord forgive us for all the ways we've been ungrateful to you for all your blessings, but we are thankful. And We humbly ask you God that you will have your way in our church body. Help us Lord to be obedient, faithful sheep under our chief shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We praise you and we give all honor and thanks to you alone. Lord, we ask all these things in the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.