You’re Not The Boss Of Me
Hebrews 13: 17&18
Intro: There was a pastor sitting with his board of deacons and they were discussing the budget for the next year. The subject of the pastors salary came up and there was a discussion about his compensation for the next year. One of the deacons spoke up and said “pastor I don’t see why we should give you a raise for preaching just one average sermon per week” The pastor looked at the board and told them that he would preach the Gospel for free. What they were paying him for was to attend meetings such as the one he was in and for that, he was woefully underpaid.
. A preacher once took out the towel dispensers in the bathrooms at the church and replaced them with those electric dryers that we all hate. One Sunday morning he went into the restroom and there was a note on the dryer. It said,”please press button for a preview of the pastors sermon.”
. Play follow the leader with the leadership team for a minute.
. Today’sermon is on leadership.
. Who is the Boss.
. As seen in the previous illustration, leadership can be good when we are all going in the same direction and bad when we get people going in all different directions.
. God has designed His church in such a way as to lay out the leadership model.
. We see this in our scripture this morning.
. I have not looked forward to this message but we are here in Hebrews and I cannot and will not pick and choose the scripture that I like .
. I bring this message with the fear that some will take this message as self serving.
. Anytime the pastor preaches on pastoral responsibility and leadership it is with the certain knowledge that some will think that the sermon is self promoting.
. It’s been said that the church on its best day is the gathering of imperfect people. If you’ve been in the church long enough you’ve probably been hurt by Pastor or a leader in the church. Maybe they didn’t mean to hurt you, but they did and the hurt is real. Maybe you’ve seen a church blow up. Maybe you have bitterness towards a past Pastor. Maybe you got asked to leave your church. Many of us have been let down by someone. So the question is how could we ever trust a Pastoral leader again?
. The truth is that this is a difficult time to be a pastor in America. Every pastor is constantly compared to the greatest Preachers in our country. Because of Christian radio and podcasts, every Christian in this country has the opportunity to listen to a top handful of Christian preachers and teachers giving their best stuff, edited and packaged with artistically interspersed background music. As Kent Hughes points out, “When they come to church on Sunday they find the fare to be …dull in comparison.
. On Wednesday night we were in Bible study and someone was telling me how they had heard a great sermon by Tony Evans on the subject we were talking about. I jokingly told him that I sometimes felt inadequate because of the teaching and sermons of some of these great teachers and men of God.
. Like it or not, you are stuck with me until such time as God is finished with me here at the Creek.
. As we look at our scripture this morning we will see some responsibilities in leadership for the pastor/elder and some responsibilities for those that are being led.
. Lets read our scripture, Hebrews 13:17&18:
. 17Obey your spiritual leaders, and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls, and they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this with joy and not with sorrow. That would certainly not be for your benefit.
18Pray for us, for our conscience is clear and we want to live honorably in everything we do.
. The first thing we see here a word that we all dislike don’t we.
. Obey
. We can talk about obedience to God and get away with that but when we talk about obedience to another human being well that’s just a little much for us.
. My wife is in children’s church this morning so I can talk about her.
. 31 years ago when we were putting together our wedding ceremony,(although in essence it was her and her mother because I was just along for the ride) we reviewed our vows. Now she wanted us to write our own and didn’t want to do that. Believe it or not, I won that round. I savor that memory because I haven’t won one since. I digress.
. Anyway, she did agree to the traditional vows with just one caveat. She would promise to love honor cherish till death do us part but she did not want the obey part in the vows.
. She is and was no different than most of us. We don’t want to obey anyone. We want to work alongside of people, not be obedient. That’s our makeup isn’t it?
. So what does God mean here when He says that we are to obey our spiritual leaders, after all, my job description plainly says that I am the spiritual leader of the church.
. In order to understand this term, we must look at the original language for a moment.
. There are two words in the Greek that can be translated obey.
. One is hupakouo pronounced (hoo-pa-Koo-oh ) meaning to be under something or someone. We see this word when the Bible is talking about being obedient to God.
. The other is peitho, pronounced (pe-ith-O)
. This word means “to be won over” or “persuaded by” or “to place confidence in.”
. This verse could be read as follows:
. Be persuaded by and place confidence in your spiritual leaders and do what they say.
. Christians are to place their confidence in their spiritual leaders and listen to what they say in spiritual matters.
. Are they to give us advice on what stock to buy, what car to drive, NO; Pastors are spiritual leaders of the church.
. Do we have opinions and experience in leading the church in other matters, absolutely but our primary job is to lead the congregation spiritually.
. We must act and teach in such a way that the congregation places their trust in the pastor / elder as he leads them in their spiritual journey.
. As the congregation is persuaded by and they place confidence their pastor, he is deemed the leader of the church in spiritual matters.
. That’s the responsibility of the congregation.
. To place their confidence in their pastor as their leader.
. Are pastors infallible, No. They can disqualify themselves as the spiritual leader of a congregation but until they do, they are the leader of the church in All things spiritual and you are to follow them.
. That’s your job. To allow me to be your spiritual leader.
. The pastor’s job is to watch over your souls.
. Look at verse 17 again:
. 17Obey your spiritual leaders, and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls, and they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this with joy and not with sorrow. That would certainly not be for your benefit.
. The Pastor’s primary job is to watch over your souls.
. The pastor’s job description is found in Ephesians 4:11-13:
. 11Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.
12Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.
13This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
.Pastors are to watch over your souls they do this by first and foremost by bringing leading you into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through the revelation of his word.
. Pastors watch over your souls by equipping you to do the work that God has laid out for you. Sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. We are all called to do this.
. Pastors watch over your souls by bringing you closer to God as you walk through this world.
. That is the task of the pastor.
. While many think that the pastor answer to the deacon board or leadership team or elders, the writer of Hebrews makes it very plain to whom they are responsible.
. Look at verse 17 one more time.
17Obey your spiritual leaders, and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls, and they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this with joy and not with sorrow. That would certainly not be for your benefit.
. Folks, the pastor is accountable to God for how they watch over your souls.
. A pastor should tremble in fear every time they think about that.
. The pastor is answerable to God for the way they watch over your souls.
. Instead of worrying about what the people in the church think about them and their spiritual leadership, they had better realize that they are answerable to God for how they lead a church spiritually.
. While I value your opinions and input, inevitably, I am answerable to God and He is the one I want to say well done my good and faithful servant. Not man.
. You are to place your confidence in me as your leader and follow me in spiritual matters. While you may not agree with me on all things spiritual, I am the overseer that God has placed here and in the end, He is the one to whom I answer.
. There is also one more thing that our scripture says that you as a congregation need to do.
. Look at verse 18 again:
. 18Pray for us, for our conscience is clear and we want to live honorably in everything we do.
. Pray for your pastor.
. Pray that he will seek God’s face in leading you.
. Pray that he will live an honorable life; not bringing shame to himself or the church.
. Pray for your pastor daily.
. They need it. I need it. I covet your prayers.
. A missionary on furlough told this true story while visiting his home church in Michigan, "While serving at a small field hospital in Africa, every two weeks I traveled by bicycle through the jungle to a nearby city for supplies. It was a journey of two days and required camping overnight at the halfway point. On one of these journeys, I arrived in the city where I planned to collect money from a bank, purchase medicine and supplies, and begin my two day journey back to the hospital.
Upon arriving at the city, two men were fighting, and one was seriously injured. I treated his injuries and told him about Jesus Christ. I then traveled two days, camped overnight, and arrived back home without incident. Two weeks later I repeated my journey. When I arrived back at the city, I was approached by the young man I had treated. He told me he knew I carried money and medicines. He said "Some friends and I followed you into the jungle, knowing you would camp overnight. We planned to kill you and take your money and drugs. But just as we were about to jump your camp, we saw that you were surrounded by 26 armed guards!"
At this I laughed and said that I certainly was all alone out in that jungle campsite. But the young man pressed the point, saying, "No Sir, I was not the only person to see the guards. My five friends also saw them, and we all counted them. It was because of those 26 armed guards that we were afraid and left you alone."
At this point in his message, a man in the audience jumped to his feet and interrupted the missionary and asked the exact day that incident happened. The missionary told him - and the man excitedly told THIS story - "On the night of your incident in Africa, it was morning here, and I was preparing to play golf. I was about to tee off when I felt the urge to pray for you. In fact, the urging of the Holy Spirit was SO STRONG, I called men to meet me here to pray for you. "If you were here with me that day to pray please stand up?" The men who met together to pray stood up. The missionary wasn’t really concerned with who they were - but he wept as he counted their number -You guessed it - there were 26!
. Your spiritual leaders need your prayers folks.
. The writer of Hebrews tells us to obey or place confidence in our spiritual leaders because they watch over our souls.
. Pray for them that they will be ever faithful in the task that God has placed before them.
. This spiritual leader asks you this morning, do you know Jesus, I so very much desire to help you and watch over your soul this morning.
Invitation
Sources: The Holy Bible, NLT
Illustrations from sermon central
