{"id":22417,"date":"2023-05-06T15:23:56","date_gmt":"2023-05-06T20:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/sermon\/first-thessalonians-025-submission-to-godly-leadership\/"},"modified":"2023-08-09T10:17:30","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T15:17:30","slug":"first-thessalonians-025-submission-to-godly-leadership","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/first-thessalonians-025-submission-to-godly-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"First Thessalonians 025 – Submission to Godly Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[97],"series_event":[546],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-22417","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-1-thessalonians","series_event-first-thessalonians","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"First Thessalonians 025 - Submission to Godly Leadership","sermon_date":"20230507","sermon_month":"05","sermon_year":"2023","sermon_notes":22415,"sermon_slides":22425,"sermon_mp3":22429,"sermon_id":"572324547717","series_or_event":546,"service_type":[473],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":97,"chapter_and_verse":"5:12-13","sermon_transcript":"

First Thessalonians 025 \u2013 Submission to Godly Leadership<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 \u2022 Dr. Andy Woods \u2022 May 7, 2023<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

PRAYER<\/h4>\r\nLet's go ahead and open with a word of prayer and we'll get started.\u00a0 Father, we're grateful for today, a little bit of a wet day, but we're thankful for all the people that You brought today to Sunday School and the main service.\u00a0 This is a special day in our church as we commemorate the first Sunday of the month where we take the Lord's Supper together, and we enjoy the fellowship meal together.\u00a0 And so I just pray for a touch of the Holy Spirit today that we desperately need.\u00a0 That the Holy Spirit could be involved in our fellowship, edification, remembrance, and teaching.\u00a0 I just pray that anything the Holy Spirit seeks to accomplish today in Your church would be accomplished.\u00a0 And so in preparation for that role, we are going to take a few moments of silence just to do personal business with You, not to restore position, but to restore fellowship, if need be, so that we can just receive all that You have for us today at Sugar Land Bible Church.\r\n\r\nWe're thankful, Lord, for the promise of 1 John 1:9[1]<\/a>.\u00a0 We're thankful for the illuminating ministry of the Spirit that promises to guide us into all truth.\u00a0 And just be with us today as we celebrate our Christianity.\u00a0 We'll be careful to give You all of the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus' name, God's people said amen.\r\n

REVIEW<\/h4>\r\nWell, if we could take our Bibles this morning and open them to the book of 1 Thessalonians 5:12.\u00a0 We are continuing our verse-by-verse look through 1 Thessalonians.\u00a0 Having already dealt with Paul's personal experiences as he was looking backward to the Thessalonians and his experiences with them and the church that he founded there in Thessalonica, and he has to do that to sort of get them to remember who he was.\u00a0 Because one of the things that had happened to him as we have studied is what happens, unfortunately, to many, many people in ministry is people don't like what you're saying about this or that.\u00a0 So they kind of go on a seek and destroy mission and they try to drag someone's reputation through the mud.\r\n\r\nThat's why you'll have commands in the pastoral letters like 1 Timothy 5, it talks about don't entertain an accusation against an elder unless you have two to three witnesses.\u00a0 So we're kind of living in this social media world where you can circulate rumors all over the world with the click of a button.\u00a0 Hey, did you hear about so-and-so?\u00a0 Can you believe they did this?\u00a0 My response is, well, if it's a Christian leader, do you have your two to three witnesses?\u00a0 So the two to three witnesses' requirement protects the elder.\u00a0 It doesn't make the elder above criticism, but it does provide some protection.\r\n\r\nSo Paul wrote that having his own reputation dragged through the mud, and that's why he's had to spend the first three chapters of 1 Thessalonians rehabilitating his reputation.\u00a0 Once he does that, he's now in a position to correct the Thessalonians.\u00a0 It's hard to correct somebody if you don't have any credibility.\r\n\r\nBeginning in 1 Thessalonians 4:1 through the end of the book, now he's basically providing correction.\u00a0 And you can see why he has to rehabilitate himself in terms of his reputation before he corrects them because he immediately goes for the juggler.\u00a0 I mean, who wants to hear this?\r\n\r\nNumber one, sexual immorality is a problem (1 Thess 4; 1-8).\u00a0 Number two, laziness is a problem (1 Thess 4:9-12).\u00a0 Then they had understood his end times beliefs, but they had had some false ideas about it that he was not there to correct.\u00a0 Beginning in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 all the way through 5:11 he's corrected their eschatological imbalances.\u00a0 He's dealt with the rapture of the church (1Thess 4:13-18) and then as you move into 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 he's dealt with the time period that will exist upon the earth called the Day of the Lord subsequent to the rapture of the church.\r\n\r\nAnd that really is the section of Thessalonians that most people are most aware of.\u00a0 It's kind of interesting about this book.\u00a0 They know almost nothing about the rest of it, but they know a little bit about this rapture stuff.\u00a0 Probably because that's the clearest articulation we have of the rapture found anywhere in Scripture.\r\n\r\nSo a lot of people, once you get to verse 12 of chapter 5 through the end of the book, verse 28, they kind of mentally check out because there's really nothing here for us to learn.\u00a0 He's just saying goodbye, right?\u00a0 But let's remember what the Lord Jesus said, \"... \u2018Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.\u2019\u00a0\u201d (Matt 4:4)\u00a0 Every word of Scripture is there by divine design.\u00a0 God allowed that.\r\n\r\nSo there are even things, tremendous things as I was trying to study this out this week, but tremendous things to learn for us here at this conclusion of the letter.\u00a0 So I would really encourage you to stay focused, particularly when Paul earlier in the book says, \"When I speak, God is speaking.\u00a0 When I write, God is writing.\"\u00a0 Which he as an apostle had the authority to say.\r\n\r\nSo obviously that continues on.\u00a0 And God didn't stop speaking in Verse 11.\u00a0 Does your Bible end Thessalonians with verse 11?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 There's a Verse 12 there, and it goes all the way through Verse 28.\u00a0 And what God says in those latter verses is just as authoritative as what He has said in the heart of the letter.\r\n\r\nThis is one of the reasons why we teach here at Sugar Land Bible Church verse by verse.\u00a0 Because of what Jesus said.\u00a0 \u2018Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.\u2019\u00a0\u201d\r\n

MINISTRY IMBALANCES (1 Thess 5:12-15)<\/h4>\r\nSo having said all that, He gets now into the subject of ministry imbalances.\u00a0 From what we can tell, it looks like there were some people in the church there at Thessalonica who basically did not want to submit to their leaders.\u00a0 I'm glad that never happens in church life today.\u00a0 Kind of some rebellious sheep, so to speak.\r\n\r\nHere Paul restores the concept of submitting not to just any leader, but to leaders that are following God's blueprint for the church.\u00a0 So what kind of leaders do you submit to?\u00a0 What kind of churches do you select?\u00a0 Because once you join a church, the injunction is you're supposed to submit to the leadership of the church.\r\n\r\nCan leaders, are they untouchable?\u00a0 Can they just do anything and say anything?\u00a0 What if a leader goes astray?\u00a0 Are you supposed to still submit to them?\u00a0 Those kind of questions are dealt with here in 1 Thessalonians 5:12-15 through what we would call ministry imbalances.\u00a0 We have a proper attitude towards church leaders, Verses 12-13, and then ministry towards one another, Verses 14-15.\r\n\r\nSo let's pick it up here in 1 Thessalonians 5:12, \"But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction, \"\u00a0 So here he says, Verse 12, I'm making a request.\r\n\r\nYou'll notice the word \"brethren\" there.\u00a0 Paul is not here leading unsaved people to Christ.\u00a0 John's Gospel is primarily written for that.\u00a0 Here he's exhorting Christians on how to basically behave in a local church relative to leadership, and the word \"brethren\" there is your clue.\u00a0 Although the word \"brethren\" can be used of fellow Jews in Scripture, that's not how it's being used here because Paul is not writing to fellow Jews.\r\n\r\nAs we've talked about, the primary group that he is addressing are Gentile Christians.\u00a0 So he's using \"brethren\" the way our Lord used that expression in Matthew 12:46-50[2]<\/a> when Jesus was asked or was told, \"Your mother and your brothers are waiting for you.\"\u00a0 And He said, \"Who is my mother?\u00a0 Who is my brother?\u00a0 Who is my sister?\u00a0 Are not they the ones that do the will of My Father who is in heaven?\"\r\n\r\nSo here the Apostle Paul is using \"brethren\" that way.\u00a0 Christians within the church.\u00a0 So he's not really dealing with a birth truth here.\u00a0 He's dealing with a growth truth.\u00a0 Paul basically says here in 1 Thessalonians 5:12, \"But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate [look at that] those who diligently labor among you, ....\"\r\n\r\nIn other words, the proper attitude towards a God-ordained Christian leader is not sort of grudging submission.\u00a0 Yeah, I'll submit to him, and I'll submit to these elders, but just wait until the next chance we get to vote on elders.\u00a0 We're going to make sure he's removed, and we're going to get our guy in there, and then I'll be happy.\r\n\r\nWell, I mean, that's really not what the Bible says.\u00a0 You notice that it starts with a hard attitude.\u00a0 You should look at a God-ordained Christian leader, someone you think that the Lord has put into that position, you should basically have an attitude of appreciation towards them.\r\n\r\nNow, you'll notice that Paul doesn't say \"submit\" no matter what.\u00a0 There's a lot of pastors, unfortunately, that become sort of \"tin-pot dictators[3]<\/a>.\"\u00a0 They'll say, \"Well, this church is a theocracy, and my name is Theo, by the way.\u00a0 So everything I say here is a law.\"\r\n\r\nWell, you'll notice that the Bible is very balanced on this.\u00a0 It doesn't just say leaders just do whatever you want.\u00a0 It gives the criteria for what godly leadership looks like.\r\n

Criteria for Godly Leadership is Diligence and Spiritual Consistency (1 Thess 5:12)<\/h4>\r\nYou'll notice the first thing that he mentions here for godly leadership is diligence.\u00a0 \"... who diligently labor among you, ...\"\u00a0 A true spiritual leader is one that is spiritually consistent.\u00a0 I'll show up and teach when I feel like it kind of mindset is not what godly leadership is.\r\n\r\nThe Holy Spirit is working their life where they're willing to do their duties.\u00a0 As the Apostle Paul would later say in 2 Timothy 4:2, \"... in season and out of season; ...\".\u00a0 You do it when it's popular and you do it when it's unpopular.\r\n\r\nAnd as far as I can tell, in the current climate today in the United States of America, the style of ministry that we do here at Sugar Land Bible Church I think is pretty unpopular.\u00a0 It's a style of ministry that wants to teach the whole counsel of God's Word.\u00a0 It's a style of ministry that is not always trying to gather a crowd around the latest topic of the day, but to teach through the Bible and let the Bible speak.\r\n\r\nA lot of churches are not interested in this philosophy of ministry on the grounds that this philosophy of ministry is not conducive to church growth.\u00a0 So what they do is they go out, and this whole mindset, as far as I can tell, really started in New York with a guy named Norman Vincent Peale.\u00a0 You know that name.\u00a0 All you have to know about Norman Vincent Peale is what the late Walter Martin said about Norman Vincent Peale.\u00a0 Walter Martin said, \"Paul is appealing.\u00a0 That Peale's theology is appalling.\"\u00a0 In other words, way back then, Walter Martin recognized this guy for what he was, more of a motivational speaker.\u00a0 Toss in a few verses, maybe to sort of Christianize it, and he discovered, \"Wow, people will fill up the church if you do that.\"\r\n\r\nThis sort of became popular in Southern California, where I grew up under a man named Robert Schuller.\u00a0 Robert Schuller became a mentor of a man named Rick Warren, who further popularized the idea in the early 1980s.\u00a0 I was actually involved in a church that had totally succumbed over the course of time to Rick Warren's sort of philosophy.\u00a0 That you teach the Bible very selectively.\u00a0 You only teach the parts of it that appeal to people's felt needs.\r\n\r\nHere we are in Houston.\u00a0 We have one of the biggest seeker-friendly type churches in the world.\u00a0 Most people, when they watch TV and they figure out I live in Houston, they want to know, you know, do you go to that church?\u00a0 And I don't mean to be overly rough about it, but my reaction is that's not a church.\u00a0 That isn't a church.\u00a0 And here I'm speaking of Joel Osteen.\u00a0 That isn't a church.\u00a0 That's a motivational talk to a crowd of folks, some are saved, some are not.\u00a0 That doesn't fit the biblical model of what a church is.\r\n\r\nJoel Osteen, what he basically is, is a younger version of Norman Vincent Peale.\u00a0 If you were to take Norman Vincent Peale and put him in a younger body, that's basically what you have with Joel Osteen.\u00a0 I'm not saying the guy is not saved.\u00a0 I'm not saying he's not a nice person.\u00a0 I'm not saying anything like that.\u00a0 I'm just saying he is pursuing an ecclesiological model that is very popular that we don't necessarily see as taught here in the pages of God's Word.\r\n\r\nSo this is the type of leaders that we should be submitting to, people that are diligent in doing the hard things, not necessarily the popular things<\/strong>.\r\n

Submit to Leaders Who Diligently What?\u00a0 Labor (1 Thess 5:12)<\/h4>\r\nYou should also submit to leaders that want to get their hands dirty.\u00a0 Because what does he say here in 1 Thessalonians 5:12?\u00a0 \"But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor<\/strong> among you, ...\"\r\n\r\nMake no mistake about it, ministry is hard.\u00a0 \"Hey, gee, pastor, I'd love to have your gig.\u00a0 All you do is show up and work an hour a week or two hours a week and you're done, right?\" Well, people that say that kind of thing shows me that they've never actually been in ministry because what you start to see very fast is it's a lot of hard work.\u00a0 And the truth of the matter is I am pulled in so many different directions that if we didn't have diligent elders here, diligent deacons, diligent staff members, very little would be accomplished.\r\n\r\nIn fact, some of you might be aware that we had our Christian perspectives play done on this stage last night.\u00a0 I was sitting right there watching the whole thing, partly because my daughter was in it.\u00a0 And this whole place was filled up with people, some from our church, some from around the community.\u00a0 And at the end of that whole thing, it was about 9 at night, I said, \"I wonder how they're going to get everything ready for church tomorrow.\"\u00a0 Because this was a play up here, different lights, different everything.\r\n\r\nI think Casey could sort of see the worry in my eyes, she says, \"You guys just go home, you and Ann and Sarah, and we'll take care of it.\"\u00a0 So I woke up this morning and here we are.\u00a0 It's like nothing had ever happened.\u00a0 Diligence in the staff, diligence amongst the elders, diligence amongst the deacons.\u00a0 I mean this is like a full-time job.\u00a0 And I'm also grateful to be in a church that actually allows me time to study the Word.\r\n\r\nThere are so many churches where the pastor really has no time to study and teach, which is really his primary calling.\u00a0 Because he's yanked around in every other direction.\u00a0 And you actually have scripture on that in Acts 6.\u00a0 We're studying the Book of Acts on Wednesday night.\u00a0 And we may be getting to Acts 6 at some point.\u00a0 We're in Acts 3.\u00a0 Hopefully get there before the rapture.\u00a0 And who knows, if the Lord tarries, we may even finish the Book of Genesis.\r\n\r\nAnd we might actually get into the Book of Exodus.\u00a0 We're going to get to Exodus 18, where you see the same issue, where everybody is running to the leadership saying, solve this problem.\u00a0 Solve that problem.\u00a0 And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, says you need to appoint lower court judges, and don't just appoint anybody.\u00a0 Make sure that their character is of a godly character, and then you handle the more major Supreme Court type issues.\u00a0 Because if you keep going the way you're going, Moses, doing everything yourself \u2013 and we think that there was about 1.5 million people, if biblical numbers are true, which I think they are, where Moses was trying to do everything.\u00a0 And Jethro, his father-in-law (by the way, you can get some good advice from your father-in-law).\u00a0 He says, what you're doing is not good.\u00a0 You're going to wear yourself out.\r\n\r\nAnd it's the exact same issue in Acts 6.\u00a0 There was a distribution of food issue.\u00a0 Everybody ran to the apostles, solve the problem.\u00a0 Solve the problem.\u00a0 And the apostles said, we need to appoint deacons to do this so we can give our attention to prayer and the Word.\u00a0 And had the early church not made that move, it would have been derailed.\u00a0 It would have been neutralized.\u00a0 That's why the book of Acts Chapter 6 concludes with \u201cThe word of God kept on spreading; ... and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.\u201d (Acts 6:7) \u00a0And even some of the priests were coming to faith.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because the apostles were given the freedom to fulfill their ultimate calling, which was the Word of God in prayer.\r\n\r\nAnd so I'm very fortunate to be in a church that basically allows me to do that.\u00a0 But the truth of the matter is I do it three times a week.\u00a0 We do a new show called Pastors Point of View.\u00a0 We typically record it on Thursday.\u00a0 Should you ever want to be part of our live studio audience, that'd be kind of neat.\u00a0 We have a Pastors Point of View up here and a bunch of empty chairs.\u00a0 So if anybody wants to come and fill those empty chairs, don't worry.\u00a0 We won't put up signs that say clap now and all that kind of stuff.\u00a0 Just kind of a vision that I have.\u00a0 You can come and do that.\u00a0 So we do three Bible teachings a week.\r\n\r\nWe do a new show related to Bible prophecy once a week.\u00a0 And the truth of the matter is it takes a lot of work to do it.\u00a0 I mean, this is like a team job to pull it off.\u00a0 We have three, four, five people working on Pastors Point of View when we do it.\u00a0 And if it wasn't for them, we couldn't do it.\u00a0 And if it wasn't for the folks up there and the deacons and the elders who came in and set everything up, we couldn't do this ministry.\u00a0 But even though I have all of this help, it's still hard work.\u00a0 I mean, it is just arduous work.\u00a0 It's focused work, but it's work, nonetheless.\r\n\r\n1 Timothy 5:17 says, \"The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.\" \u00a0\u00a0Notice that preaching and teaching is hard work, because you've seen those memes floating around social media of the iceberg.\u00a0 What's the part of the iceberg that's above the water is basically the sermons or the teachings that you see, but the bulk of the iceberg that's below the water, which sunk the Titanic, right?\u00a0 That's all of the labor, all of the work you have to go through to put together just a simple sermon or a simple Bible study.\u00a0 And so it is hard work to do this.\u00a0 It requires diligence.\r\n\r\nAnd if you find a spiritual leader that wants to do that, because a lot of them don't.\u00a0 The ministry is a tremendous hiding place for lazy people.\u00a0 I'll just be honest with you.\u00a0 If your basic character is lazy, you can actually hide in the ministry for a long time without people figuring it out.\u00a0 And that's not the type of leader you want to submit to.\u00a0 The type of leader you want to submit to is a leader that is working hard at his calling of preaching and teaching God's Word.\r\n\r\nPaul in 2 Timothy 2:15 says, \"Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman<\/strong> who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.\"\r\n

Submit to Leaders Who Diligently Labor Where?\u00a0 Among You (1 Thess 5:12)<\/h4>\r\nSo who do you submit to?\u00a0 You submit to leaders that are diligent.\u00a0 You submit to leaders that are laboring.\u00a0 And what else does it say there in 1 Thessalonians 5:12?\u00a0 You submit to leaders who are diligently laboring among you<\/strong>.\r\n\r\nI don't know how it's possible to be a pastor without being with the sheep.\u00a0 Show me a pastor that's not with a sheep, and I'll show you a pastor that probably is not very effective.\u00a0 And there's a lot of ministry models that basically separate the laity from the clergy.\u00a0 The clergy are sort of untouchable.\u00a0 You have a social event.\u00a0 The only people that show up are the sheep.\u00a0 You never see the pastor.\u00a0 You never see the pastoral staff.\u00a0 You never see the elders.\u00a0 You never see the deacons.\u00a0 And that's not biblical either.\r\n\r\nA pastor has to be among the people<\/strong>.\u00a0 It's not some kind of thing where you show up behind a pulpit.\u00a0 And then once the sermon is over, you push a button, and some kind of trap door opens, and you kind of escape to your office or wherever.\u00a0 A lot of churches are run that way.\u00a0 The pastor is untouchable.\u00a0 I've heard people say, I've never talked to my pastor.\u00a0 Well, he's not really a pastor.\u00a0 I mean, he's not really a shepherd.\r\n\r\nAnd obviously, as the church grows, the pastor starts getting pulled.\u00a0 But that's why here at Sugar Land Bible Church, each of our elders has a shepherd's list.\u00a0 Or if you can't get to the pastor, then your primary point of contact is your elder.\u00a0 And if the situation merits it, then the staff can be involved.\u00a0 The pastor can be involved.\u00a0 But we do our best here to make sure that the shepherds are with the sheep.\r\n\r\nI, for one, am not really interested in putting elders on our elder board who are really good at hiding in a boardroom somewhere and quoting the Church Constitution or the policy manual, but never have any interaction with God's people.\u00a0 I mean, that's not what a shepherd is.\u00a0 A shepherd has to be among the people<\/strong>.\r\n\r\nSo Paul here is really laying out what should be obvious, the type of people that you should appreciate and submit to.\u00a0 They diligently labor among you<\/strong>.\r\n

Submit to Leaders Who Diligently Labor Among You Who What? Have Charge Over You In The Lord (1 Thess 5:12)<\/h4>\r\nAnd you'll notice also that 1 Thessalonians 5:12 says, \"... and have charge over you in the Lord ....\"\u00a0 Have charge over you in the Lord.\u00a0 The type of leader you want to submit to is a leader that didn't get just voted in, but someone that you actually believe God put there.\r\n\r\nOver in the book of Acts 20:28, Paul, as a shepherd, is speaking to shepherds at the church at Ephesus towards the end of his third missionary journey in a port city called Miletus, which is very close to Ephesus.\u00a0 And Paul says this to shepherds, \"\u201cBe on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.\"\r\n\r\nNotice he does not say there, Acts 20:28, be on your guard for yourselves and for all of the flock among which the board has made you overseers.\u00a0 Which the policy manual has made you overseers.\u00a0 Which the church constitution has made you overseers.\r\n\r\nPaul is very clear here that you should be in your position because the Holy Spirit made you an overseer<\/strong>.\r\n\r\nAnd so when we select leaders at Sugar Land Bible Church, what we try to do, and you guys can help us with this, with nominations, because we're sort of going through this process right now as we speak, the results will be given at our congregational meeting coming up, I think in a week or two, something like that.\u00a0 The 21st, right?\u00a0 May 21st.\u00a0 Is that right?\r\n\r\nWe try to select people where we believe that the Lord is already at work in their lives using them as a shepherd.\u00a0 We don't say, \"Hey, such and such is a nice person,\" and they part their hair on the correct side of their head, and they're successful in the business world, and they would fit in with us really well.\u00a0 Let's make them an elder.\u00a0 No, that's not how you select leaders in the church.\u00a0 You lay hands on those that God has already laid hands on.\r\n\r\nSo if someone is called to be an elder, if someone is called to be a deacon, it's already obvious that God is using them in that capacity, perhaps in an informal way, an unofficial way, and we say, \"Aha, that's the person we want to lay hands on,\" because if you don't do it that way, what happens is, what 1 Timothy 5:22 says, you lay hands too hastily.\r\n\r\nThe nation of Israel wanted a king really, really bad.\u00a0 And they got a guy named Saul.\u00a0 And they laid hands on that guy way too fast.\u00a0 And they should have known better, because Saul came from the wrong tribe, Benjamin.\u00a0 Tribes are supposed to come from Judah.\u00a0 And Saul was a complete and total disaster as a king, the first king of the United Kingdom.\u00a0 And if the nation of Israel at that time had just waited on the Lord, yeah, but we've got our schedule.\u00a0 We've got to fill these slots.\u00a0 No?\u00a0 The Bible says wait on the Lord.\u00a0 \u201cYet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.\u201d (Isaiah 40:31)\r\n\r\nYou know the Eric Little verse.\u00a0 I'm probably not doing it very good justice because I'm paraphrasing it.\u00a0 But there's a lot in scripture about waiting upon the Lord[4]<\/a>, waiting for God's timing.\r\n\r\nHad the nation of Israel waited on the Lord, they could have bypassed Saul.\u00a0 Saul reigned for 40 years.\u00a0 That's a long time.\u00a0 Would you want the current president to be in office 40 years?\u00a0 I'm sorry to be political, but just an analogy.\u00a0 If they had waited upon the Lord, they could have had David, but they didn't want to wait.\u00a0 We've got our schedule.\u00a0 And the result was a disaster.\r\n\r\nSo it's God that installs leaders, the Holy Spirit that installs leaders.\u00a0 The function of other leaders is to recognize whom the Lord has placed His seal of approval on in terms of a leader.\u00a0 And generally, you can tell it by how is God using them now.\u00a0 Because if they're not among the sheep ministering now, you can't expect all of a sudden them to do it once they get on the elder board.\u00a0 You have to look at how God is using people currently<\/strong>.\u00a0 Say, \"Oh, so-and-so is really being used by God.\"\u00a0 So-and-so is a blessing to so many people.\u00a0 Let's pursue them as an elder.\u00a0 You know, let's pursue them as a deacon.\u00a0 Let's pursue them as a ministry leader.\r\n

Submit to Leaders Who Diligently Labor Among You Who Have Charge Over You In The Lord and Do What?\u00a0 Give you Instruction.\u00a0 (1 Thess 5:12)<\/h4>\r\nSo who do you submit to as a Christian?\u00a0 Those that diligently labor among you in the Lord.\u00a0 What else does it say here?\u00a0 \"And give you instruction<\/strong>.\"\u00a0 There's no getting around this, that one of the great functions of the church is instruction.\r\n\r\n2 Timothy 3:16-17<\/strong> says, \u201cAll Scripture is inspired by God [theopneustos<\/em>] and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.\u201d\r\n\r\nSo a spiritual leader is called to be in some form or substance a teacher of the Word of God<\/strong>.\r\n\r\n2 Timothy 4:2<\/strong> says, \"preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.\"\r\n\r\n1 Timothy 4:13<\/strong> (Paul writing to Timothy) says, \"Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching.\"\r\n\r\nIn fact, as we're here in 1 Thessalonians, look at 5:27.\u00a0 Paul is signing off.\u00a0 He says, \"I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren.\"\r\n\r\nNow, later in Timothy, he says, \"Read and teach.\u00a0 Read and exhort.\u00a0 Read and proclaim.\"\u00a0 So it's not just standing up and reading it.\u00a0 It's giving the explanation as to what the letter is about, which is what expository teaching is.\r\n\r\nAnd that's who we are at Sugarland Bible Church.\u00a0 We are a teaching church.\u00a0 This class, Adult Sunday School, you'll be taught the Word of God.\u00a0 The main service that follows, you'll be taught the Word of God.\u00a0 All of our children that are meeting during those two hours are being taught the Word of God.\u00a0 When we live stream the teaching time in Sunday School and the main service in the overfill room, the Word of God is being taught.\u00a0 When our home groups are meeting and there's a schedule of when they meet in the bulletin, I think, the Word of God is being taught based on what the elders have approved should be taught.\r\n\r\nAnd this allows us to keep out of the life of the church a lot of monkey business and funny business about your best life now and sort of talks that are half biblical and half psychological.\u00a0 My wife and I met at this church that eventually moved into a Rick Warren model and they became very open to so-called Christian psychology.\u00a0 And they would routinely have speakers come into the pulpit who would say things like this, \"You know, if someone has offended you, you really don't have to forgive them right away.\"\u00a0 Well, why not?\u00a0 Well, because it took God 4,000 years between Adam and Jesus, roughly 4,000 years between Adam and Jesus.\u00a0 It took God 4,000 years to kind of get over it, to kind of get over what Adam had done for him.\u00a0 And so even God had to sort of work through the process of emotional healing.\u00a0 And so if you don't forgive someone right away that's offended you, that's okay.\u00a0 God didn't forgive everybody right away.\r\n\r\nAnd you're listening to something like that, and you're saying, \"Who is controlling the interpretation of the Bible here?\u00a0 Is it the Bible or is it modern day psychology?\" Because my Bible says, and you know the verse in Ephesians, \u201c... do not let the sun go down on your anger,\u201d (Ephesians 4:26)\r\n\r\nIt talks about being a person of forgiveness.\u00a0 And that doesn't mean let's move to Alaska as fast as we can so we can be angry longer.\u00a0 I mean, if you're not going to be a forgiving person, it's just like taking poison and drinking it.\u00a0 You don't hurt the person that injured you.\u00a0 You know, you hurt yourself.\r\n\r\nAnd so when we are not people of forgiveness, the book of Ephesians tells us we give Satan a foothold.\u00a0 So I start to bottle up all of this resentment.\u00a0 And then suddenly it spills over onto an innocent party that never hurt me at all.\u00a0 It spills over to my wife, spills over to my family, spills over into my children.\u00a0 And there have been many times where I'm verbalizing things in a house in an angry way, and my wife will just say, \"Well, wait a minute.\u00a0 Hold the phone here.\u00a0 What's really bothering you?\" And generally speaking, it is I didn't forgive somebody, and so I've got all of this anger inside of me, and it's kind of spilling out on innocent people.\r\n\r\nAnd as I heard that talk, as God is my witness, the people left that building gleeful, because it was a sermon that appealed to their sin nature.\u00a0 And they said, \"Oh, I don't have to forgive right away.\u00a0 It took God 4,000 years to get over Adam's sin.\"\u00a0 Well, what people heard, it was masquerading as a biblical sermon, but it was pure psychology, or the Bible was kind of used as a footnote.\u00a0 The tail was wagging the dog.\r\n\r\nAnd so when you listen to teaching, listen to sermons, the content of the sermon should come from the scripture.\u00a0 That's why Paul says you submit to leaders who are diligent among you and giving you instruction<\/strong>.\u00a0 I mean, what kind of instruction?\u00a0 Instruction from the Word of God.\u00a0 I mean, if a spiritual leader so-called is not used to or interested in giving you spiritual instruction from the Word of God, then it's time to find somewhere else to fellowship.\r\n\r\nWhich is what my wife and I had to do on that particular occasion because we just couldn't submit to the leadership anymore based on the direction that they were going.\u00a0 So rather than sit there and try to change the church from within, which is a losing proposition, it's like betting against the house, it's time to find another church.\r\n\r\nAnd a lot of people say, \"Well, I can't find a church.\"\u00a0 Okay, well then start a home group.\u00a0 Start a cell group.\u00a0 Yeah, but we don't have any preachers and teachers for our cell group.\u00a0 Well, that's why we put all of our stuff on the internet.\u00a0 You're free to take all of our stuff and use it in your cell group any way you want until God, in His sovereignty, raises up somebody within your group that would have the gift of teaching.\r\n\r\nSo you probably didn't realize 1 Thessalonians 5:12 had so much application, did you?\u00a0 \"But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction,\"\r\n

Response to Those Who Diligently Labor Among You and Give Instruction:\u00a0 Esteem Them Highly in Love (1 Thess 5:13)<\/h4>\r\nAnd then you go down to 1 Thessalonians 5:13 and it says, \"and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another. \"\r\n\r\nSo notice these expressions.\u00a0 It doesn't just say esteem them.\u00a0 It says esteem them highly.\u00a0 Esteem them in the love of the Lord.\u00a0 Treat them the way the Lord would treat you, in other words.\u00a0 Love them unconditionally.\u00a0 It doesn't say love them until you disagree with some minor point.\u00a0 You take a spiritual leader that's called by God, that's diligently laboring, doing all the right things, and although his character, because he's a flawed human being, is not 100% perfect.\r\n\r\nBy the way, if you find a perfect church, please don't join it.\u00a0 Because you'll end up ruining the perfect church, right?\u00a0 There is no such thing as a perfect church.\u00a0 I mean, we're all growing together.\u00a0 We're all learning, hopefully, to say no more frequently to our sin nature, and yes to the things of God.\u00a0 And that process, there's kind of ups and downs, so don't look for churches that are perfect.\u00a0 There's no such thing.\r\n\r\nThe purpose of the church is to bring God's people to maturity<\/strong>.\u00a0 But if you see that maturity process, and generally things are going in the right direction, then that's the type of leader that you are to love.\u00a0 And it doesn't just say esteem.\u00a0 It says you esteem them highly.\r\n\r\nSo these are all attitudinal aspects of being a healthy, vibrant church member<\/strong>.\u00a0 You just have to sort of guard yourself against the critical spirit.\u00a0 It's so easy to come into any church environment and criticize.\u00a0 Some people think their spiritual gift is criticism.\u00a0 Criticize this, criticize that.\u00a0 I've fallen prey to that in the environments I've been in, and that's not what our calling is.\u00a0 We're not called into hyper-criticism.\r\n\r\nWe're called into finding places that are generally moving in the right direction in terms of progressive sanctification.\u00a0 We're called to love leadership that are moving in that direction, and not just to esteem them, but to esteem them highly.\r\n\r\nNow the book of Hebrews 13:17 says, \"Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account ...\".\u00a0 Now notice that a spiritual leader is not in some untouchable position because he must give an account unto the Lord.\u00a0 \"... Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.\"\r\n\r\nI don't have the exact statistic.\u00a0 Dennis Rokser, the last time I heard of this, has the statistic.\u00a0 But he quotes the number of pastors that are quitting the ministry.\u00a0 It's just like a number that's just staggering.\u00a0 It's astounding.\u00a0 We get the notifications constantly at Chafer Seminary, \"This pulpit is vacant, that pulpit is vacant.\"\u00a0 Well, what happened to the former pastor?\u00a0 Did he retire?\u00a0 No, he just quit.\u00a0 It just got to be too much for him.\r\n\r\nAnd part of the problem is the sheep can become unruly against the pastor.\u00a0 In fact, Dennis Rokser was talking about a story where someone came to his house to sell life insurance.\u00a0 And he allowed the person to come in just to kind of hear their spiel.\u00a0 And the person selling the life insurance wanted to make sure that Dennis was not in some kind of high-risk category, which is what a good insurance person, salesman, would try to do.\u00a0 So we started asking Pastor Dennis a series of questions.\u00a0 \"Do you jump out of airplanes?\u00a0 Are you a skydiver?\" That was the first question he asked.\u00a0 You know what the number two question was?\u00a0 \"Are you a pastor?\" In other words, if you're a pastor, the insurance guy is saying you're in a high-risk category.\u00a0 Because pastors get frustrated, pastors get burnt out.\r\n\r\nI don't know if you know this, we had a suicide from a pastor in this area a few years back.\u00a0 It's a very sad thing to behold.\u00a0 You look at a situation like that, you don't know exactly what the issues were.\u00a0 But it's a very sad thing to behold.\u00a0 I think a lot of that could be avoided if we would simply submit to the authority of pastors and not become unruly and make life difficult for them.\r\n\r\n\u201cObey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.\u201d (Hebrews 13:17)\r\n\r\nHow is it really going to help the sheep if the pastor is suicidal?\u00a0 Or if the pastor is quitting?\u00a0 Or if the pastor is being burnt out?\u00a0 Well gee Andy, you must have a lot of unresolved grievances here at Sugar Land Bible Church to talk about all this stuff.\u00a0 No, not really.\u00a0 Sugar Land Bible Church has been pretty good to me.\u00a0 I don't have any major laundry list of I wish they had done this, and I wish they had done that.\u00a0 I'm just trying to teach the Bible, and when you teach the Bible, you talk about things that the Bible talks about.\u00a0 And so that's what we're talking about here.\r\n\r\nThe kinds of leaders that should exist in God's church.\u00a0 The kinds of leaders that we, collectively, should submit to.\u00a0 And it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:13 \"and that you esteem them very highly in love [notice this] because of their work ...\"\r\n\r\nYou find a shepherd who is faithful amongst the sheep, and you should respect that person because it's not their work.\u00a0 It's God's work.\u00a0 God is the one that ordained for the shepherds to tend to the sheep.\u00a0 You go back to Peter's restoration, as given in John 21:15-17, where the Lord asks Peter, \"Do you love me?\" Not once, not twice, but three times.\u00a0 Why three times?\u00a0 Because Peter had denied the Lord three times.\u00a0 And so now Peter's threefold denial is leading to the grace of God, where Peter is not getting his salvation back or something like that.\u00a0 He's being restored to his place of leadership.\r\n\r\nSo you know the verses very well, John 21:15-17 \"So when they had finished breakfast, ...\"\u00a0 so interesting Jesus is eating breakfast in his resurrected body.\u00a0 Check out our Easter or Resurrection Day sermon.\u00a0 We talked about that.\r\n\r\n\u201cSo when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, \u201cSimon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?\u201d \u00a0We're not sure who the \"these\" are.\u00a0 Some think that these could be the fish, literal fish.\u00a0 Because Peter, his occupation was a fisherman, and when he got despondent, he went back to fishing.\r\n\r\nSo Jesus says I want to make you fishers of men (Mark 1:17; Matt 4:19)\u00a0 I've called you into something more than just being a literal fisherman.\u00a0 I want you to be fishers of souls.\u00a0 So when Jesus says, \"Do you love me more than these?\" He could be, it's not something we're starting a new church over per se, but he could be referencing the literal sheep, Peter's career in other words.\r\n\r\n\u201cSo when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, \u201cSimon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?\u201d He said to Him, \u201cYes, Lord; You know that I love You.\u201d He said to him, \u201cTend My lambs.\u201d He said to him again a second time, \u201cSimon, son of John, do you love Me?\u201d He said to Him, \u201cYes, Lord; You know that I love You.\u201d He said to him, \u201cShepherd My sheep.\u201d He said to him the third time, \u201cSimon, son of John, do you love Me?\u201d Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, \u201cDo you love Me?\u201d And he said to Him, \u201cLord, You know all things; You know that I love You.\u201d Jesus said to him, \u201cTend My sheep.\u201d (John 21:15\u201317)\r\n\r\nSo when you read this in the King James Version, it will say, \"Tend my sheep.\u00a0 Shepherd my sheep.\u00a0 Feed my sheep.\"\u00a0 So you come to a church, and you see spiritual leaders doing those three things:\u00a0 tending God's sheep, shepherding God's sheep, and feeding God's sheep.\u00a0 Obviously, you feed them with the Word of God because \" ... \u2018Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.\u2019\u201d (Matthew 4:4)\r\n\r\nThe goal of Sugar Land Bible Church is right out of Ephesians 4[5]<\/a>, we want to edify God's people in God's Word so that they're equipped for their life wherever they are.\u00a0 They have to be fed; they have to be nourished.\r\n\r\nI don't think you can do it adequately with three points in a poem.\u00a0 One of the things to understand is the modern evangelical church, very sadly, is not set up to teach.\u00a0 Because there is such a, dare I say, kind of a dog and pony show on the stage.\u00a0 Where all these things are being promoted and all these things are being said and then they bring in a skit and then they \u2013 sometimes like Tinkerbell at Disneyland, Tinkerbell comes gliding in.\r\n\r\nAll of these things are going on and there's so much of the service spent in singing, singing is important.\u00a0 But sometimes it can get disproportionate.\u00a0 That you actually look at how much time is actually spent in actual teaching.\u00a0 And the answer will shock you, it's 20 minutes.\u00a0 In fact, when I graduated from Dallas Seminary, there was a church at the time that was interested in hiring me and that was into the 20-minute sermons.\u00a0 And I said to the elders at the time, I said, \"Can we expand the teaching time to 30 minutes?\" And you guys should be laughing because that's like half of what we do here, less than half I guess in some cases.\u00a0 And they were just in shock that anybody that's a pastor would ask to do something like that.\u00a0 There's no way that people could sit through that.\u00a0 And so I was sort of quickly, easily dispensed on the list of pastoral candidates.\u00a0 That's how I ended up here by the way.\u00a0 God had something better.\u00a0 God says, \"I'm going to put you in an environment where you can teach two hours.\u00a0 How's that?\"\r\n\r\nSo when we talk about feeding the sheep, I mean most churches when you look at how they're designed and how they design the worship service, they're not really set up to teach much because of the amount of time given to teaching.\u00a0 You can tell how much a church values teaching from the word based on how much of its worship service is allocated towards teaching.\r\n\r\nSo most congregations unfortunately have fallen sway to modern psychological theory, marketing theory, which says people's attention spans are very short and you're going to lose people.\u00a0 Well, let me let you in on a great secret.\u00a0 People will develop an appetite for what you feed them.\u00a0 If you feed them over and over again, 20 minutes, 3 points in a poem, that's what they're going to get used to and going to expect.\r\n\r\nIf you actually get into the full counsel of God's Word, the breadth of God's Word, as well as the depth of God's Word, and you're dealing no longer with subjects related to milk, but you're dealing with subjects related to meat, people will develop an appetite for that type of teaching.\r\n\r\nSo when I came here to Sugar Land Bible Church, the current leadership at the time, not so much the elders, but the folks on the stage doing the music, most of which are not here anymore, they had this sort of airtight schedule about how long the pastor was allowed to teach, and they had in there 35 minutes.\u00a0 And so once they called me here as the elder, I started to bust the clock.\u00a0 And I extended the teaching service down to 12:30.\r\n\r\nNow, you would have thought that I had just called for World War III, doing something like that, because the people at the time were not used to that style of teaching.\u00a0 Now, I've been here over 10 years.\u00a0 I started here in 2010.\u00a0 It's now what, 2023.\u00a0 In a recent sermon, I ended it at about 45 minutes, and people's phones started to light up.\u00a0 What's wrong with Andy?\u00a0 Why did he end it so quick?\u00a0 When I first came here and extended the teaching service, everybody's phones was lighting up.\u00a0 What is wrong with Andy?\u00a0 Because what has happened over time, and I obviously credit God completely for it, but people will actually start to develop an appetite for what you're feeding them regularly.\u00a0 So a pastor need not submit to a man-made kind of agenda.\r\n

Response to Those Who Diligently Labor Among You and Give Instruction:\u00a0 Esteem Them Highly in Love and Live In Peace With One Another (1 Thess 5:13)<\/h4>\r\nSo you should honor these ministers because of their work, and then let's just cap it off here.\u00a0 At the end of 1 Thessalonians 5:13 it says, \"Live in peace with one another.\"\u00a0 Now a lot of people look at that and say, \"Peace amongst God's people.\"\u00a0 That's really not what it's talking about because he's dealing with leadership and sheep.\u00a0 Shepherds, sheep.\r\n\r\nIf you highly esteem God-ordained leaders, and God-ordained leaders are basically doing what God wants them to do, then there should not be this constant hostility between the shepherds and the sheep.\u00a0 There should be harmony.\u00a0 We should be on the same page.\r\n\r\nThe truth of the matter is if someone is very, very disgruntled here, you try to work with the person, but at the end of the day, if it's some kind of philosophical issue, we have a saying that we like to use around here, \"The exits are clearly marked.\u00a0 The door swings both ways.\"\u00a0 I mean, if someone is dissatisfied with our style of ministry, do you know how many dozens and dozens of churches you could go to just in this area?\r\n\r\nSo we do that because, not to be mean to the person, but we want people that are coming here to actually be at peace with the leadership, to feel right about it.\u00a0 And if someone really doesn't feel right about it, at the end of the day, then the Lord bless you.\u00a0 Maybe the Lord has something else for you.\u00a0 But there are lots of other places a person can go to get a different kind of style of ministry.\u00a0 We're not really interested in constantly accommodating our style of ministry based on the preferences of whoever comes in the door.\r\n\r\nWe're interested in doing what the Lord has called us to do.\u00a0 If you're on board with it, praise the Lord.\u00a0 If you're not on board with it, we would just kindly say perhaps there's another place that God has for you.\u00a0 I'm assuming you guys are on board with it or you probably wouldn't be here this morning.\u00a0 I noticed nobody just violently got up and left as I was talking.\u00a0 Now they did that a couple times when I first came here, but not you guys.\u00a0 You guys have been here too long.\r\n\r\nSo some fascinating verses, would you not agree?\u00a0 And we will pick it up right there in Verse 14 next time.\u00a0 Father, we're grateful for these little words at the end of an epistle that just give us so much insight on how to function in a church and what You expect of a church.\u00a0 Help us to walk these truths out this week.\u00a0 Bless us as we partake of the Lord's table together and teach some things out of Genesis 30.\u00a0 We'll be careful to give You all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 we ask these things in Jesus' name, God's people said amen.\r\n\r\n[1]<\/a> \"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.\" (1 John 1:9)\u00a0 All Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. 1995. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, unless otherwise noted.\r\n\r\n[2]<\/a> \u201cWhile He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him. Someone said to Him, \u201cBehold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.\u201d But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, \u201cWho is My mother and who are My brothers?\u201d And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, \u201cBehold My mother and My brothers! \u201cFor whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.\u201d\u201d (Matthew 12:46\u201350)\r\n\r\n[3]<\/a> An autocratic ruler with little political credibility, but with self-delusions of grandeur. (https:\/\/www.yourdictionary.com\/tin-pot-dictator)\r\n\r\n[4]<\/a> Wait for the Lord (Ps 27:14, Ps 130:5-6, Ps 37:7, Ps 62:5, Ps 39:7, Ps 33:20 , Ps 25:21 and many more)\r\n\r\n[5]<\/a> \u201cfor the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.\u201d (Ephesians 4:12\u201313)\r\n\r\n ","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t