The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, March 19th, 2000, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now will you turn again tonight, as we did this morning, to 1 Peter chapter 5. God willing, next weekend, I shall be ministering out in Nevada. We say Nevada, but people from the area say Nevada, about 15 miles south of Reno, where our brother Brian Borgman labors in the gospel. And you will be having the guest preacher from Your Lady's Retreat ministering here, Pastor Alan Dunn. And in the light of that, I wanted to complete what I did not complete this morning, so there would not be a two-week break in the train of thought And so I read again in your hearing 1 Peter chapter 5 verses 1 through 5a. The elders, therefore, among you, I exhort, who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, who am also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Tend or shepherd the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according to the will of God, nor yet for filthy lucre or base gain, but of a ready mind, neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall be manifested, you shall receive the crown of glory that fades not away. Likewise, you younger be subject unto the elder. Our consideration of verse 5a tonight is in reality, as I've already hinted, the last half of this morning's sermon. And in the light of this, I will bypass my normal pattern of seeking to give an introduction that hopefully grabs your ears and awakens your interest. And furthermore, Since the vast majority of you were here this morning, I will bypass the normal measure of review of the context and the previous material. Suffice it to say that having expounded verses 1 through 4, in which the duties, the disposition, and the reward of elders are set before us, we have come to verse 5a, in which the duty of church members to their elders is set before us in these words, likewise you younger be subject unto the elder. Now, the heart of this apostolic directive is found in the words, be submissive, be subject to. And in seeking to open up the meaning of those words, I have underscored what they do not mean, what they never have meant, nor ever should mean in your life and in my life in church fellowship. And then I proceeded to attempt to open up what these words do mean. And the essence of that positive exposition is the simple principle that whatever is involved in the elders fulfilling the divine mandate to shepherd the flock of God, exercising oversight, whatever that involves, its counterpart in the sheep, in the flock of God, is to be the understood duty and responsibility of the sheep of the flock of God. And those specifics we've underscored in exposition and review, and I will not pass over them, or I will not articulate them again, but pass over them. Then we began to consider this morning what must be present in our hearts and in our understanding if we are, by the grace of God, to manifest a pattern of joyful embrace of this directive, you younger, be subject to the elder in the context Church members, live out a pattern of joyful submission to those whom God has placed over you as his under-shepherds and his overseers. What are the prerequisites to the child of God if indeed this directive is to be lived out, not perfectly, but as a pattern of life? Well, we had time this morning to cover the first two prerequisites. Number one, you must experience a genuine work of God's regenerating and converting grace. In summary, I would say, by way of brief review, that it's only those who've experienced 1 Peter 2.25 that will find any joy and delight in complying with 1 Peter 5.5a. In 1 Peter 2.25, Peter can say, of all these to whom he speaks in chapter 5 and verse 5, you were going astray like sheep. but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop or overseer of your souls. You can never rightly relate to God's under-shepherds until you are rightly related to the chief shepherd, the Lord Jesus. You will do nothing but either outwardly conform with reluctance, or openly rebel against the voice of Christ coming through the under-shepherd, if you have not heeded the voice of the chief shepherd calling you to himself in repentance and in faith. And then secondly, the second prerequisite of a pattern of compliance with this duty, you must have a biblically grounded, spirit-imparted conviction concerning the divine authority of church order. And in briefly reviewing that heading, I can do no better than read my friend John Brown. Christ has bestowed on churches those who are given the responsibility of leading, ruling, and governing. The pastors or bishops or elders of the primitive church had no arbitrary power over their brethren. The command of our Lord to the primitive rulers of his church was, do not be called masters. And his command equally to the pastors and the flock was, call no man master on earth. The princes of the Gentiles said, our one master in heaven, exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them, but it shall not be so with you. But though they had no arbitrary power yet, they bear rule. Chosen by their brethren, they presided in their assemblies, they declared the will and executed the laws of the supreme and sole King of the Church. They reproved, they rebuked, they exhorted with all authority. They charged believers to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded them. They reproved them when they neglected or violated his laws, and when any individual was obstinate and impenitent in transgression, They recommended to the congregations that they be excluded from the communion of the faithful. In all of this, they exercised no legislative authority. They had no power to enjoin new laws, to institute new ordinances, or to invent new terms of communion. Their authority was entirely subordinate to the authority of Christ. Yet, within the limits he prescribed to them, they were rulers. And it was the duty of the brethren who had chosen these pastors to be over them in the Lord, to obey them and submit themselves to them. There never has been any change introduced by him who alone has the power of alteration in such a case into the constitution of his church. And it is of equal importance that the office bearers, the elders, the pastors in a church should not aspire to a higher degree of authority and should not be content with a lower degree of authority than that which their master has assigned them, and that the members of a church should equally guard against basely submitting to a tyranny which Christ has never instituted, and lawlessly rebelling against a government which he has appointed. He has stated in those several paragraphs the essence of what I was seeking to convey this morning, that if we are to know joyful embrace of this directive, we must have a biblically grounded, Spirit-imparted conviction concerning the divine authority of church order. Now we come to the third and to the fourth prerequisites for complying with this simple but basic directive, Younger ones, be subject to the elders. That is, church members, be in submission to your overseers. Here's the third prerequisite. You must thankfully receive biblically qualified and biblically functioning elders as a gracious gift from Christ himself. You must thankfully receive biblically qualified and biblically functioning elders as a gracious gift from Christ himself. When we turn to the pages of the New Testament asking the question, has the head of the church instituted any government in his church? The answer that emerges is that which John Brown highlights in the quote that I just set before you, that Christ, the head of the church, has placed these inferior magistrates among his people. and they are in Christ's name by the rule of Christ's Word and with Christ's authority to govern, to guide, to shepherd the flock of God." Now, if we trace this arrangement back to its ultimate source, where will we find ourselves? Well, turn please to Ephesians chapter 4 for the very clear answer. Ephesians chapter 4. In this passage, Paul is issuing an exhortation to the Ephesian believers to strive for the maintenance of unity and peace. He has laid out the basis of that unity. It is all the things that the people of God have in common. But the things they have in common, they have in the midst of a God-ordained diversity. Verse 7. But unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore, he said, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Now this he ascended. What is it but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same that ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. And He, that is, the resurrected, ascended, exalted Christ, He, and He that descended, ascended, it is He that gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of service. How can we rightly relate to those who are over us in the Lord? I answer only if we have in our hearts this recognition that biblically qualified and biblically functioning elders are nothing less, nothing more than a gracious gift from Christ himself. He gave some pastors and teachers. And notice, he doesn't simply give office, he gives people in the office. He gave some apostles. That is, real-life apostles. Some were 5'2", maybe some 5'7", maybe some 6'4". Real-life men with distinct physiology, with distinct personal identity, with distinct individual temperaments, But Christ gave them. And when you read through the New Testament, you see none of them is a clone of the other. There is doubting Thomas. There is impetuous Peter. There are the sons of thunder, one of whom becomes the great apostle of love. Their distinct personalities are very clearly stamped upon the biblical record, yet each one is to be looked upon as a gift of Christ. He gave some apostles, and some New Testament prophets, and Agabus, and others who are mentioned in the Book of Acts. and he gives pastors and teachers, that is, real live men with distinct individual physiology, some tall, some short, some a little skinny, some a little wide, some with high voices, some with mid-range voices, some with low voices, some who talk very quietly in their intensity, some who thunder and roar, some whose faces get red and their veins stand out in their neck, These are the kinds of pastors and teachers He gives. With all of the reality of their diversity of humanity, Christ gives them if He has equipped them and if He constrains them to take the task upon themselves with the motives that Peter has outlined. Christ is the one who gives them. The very Christ spoken of in chapter 5 of Ephesians, who loved the church and gave himself up for the church. Ephesians 5 and verse 25. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, gave himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it. And then he goes on to say in verse 29, no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. Now notice, even as Christ also the church, He loved and gave. That's a once-for-all act accomplished upon Golgotha. But his nourishing and cherishing is an ongoing ministry of Christ to his bride. Now, Ephesians 4 says part of that ongoing ministry of Christ nourishing and cherishing his bride, he continues to give what? Pastors and teachers. He continues to nourish and cherish his church by equipping men with the necessary graces and gifts by constraining them to take on the awesome responsibility of shepherding the flock of God, to do it out of right motives, not constrained by external pressure, but by internal conviction, not for base gain, but of a willingness to give themselves for the well-being of the flock. not with a desire to throw their weight around and oppress the people, but in Christlike servanthood to lead them in their own exemplary lives. It is Christ who furnishes them with the necessary gifts and graces, constrains them to take on the responsibility, constrains the people of God to recognize in them those gifts and graces that are requisite. 1 Timothy 3, 1-7. Titus 1, 5-9. And when the Spirit of God equips the man whom Christ is to give, And the same Spirit, working by and with the same Word of God, constrains a people, thinking biblically, in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, to say, yes, this man is a gift of Christ to us. Then, according to Acts 20, 28, it is the Holy Spirit who has made them shepherds and overseers. Paul could say to the elders of Ephesus in Acts 20, 28, take heed to yourselves and to all of the flock of God in the which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. That's how the Holy Spirit makes overseers. He doesn't do it in some mystical, indescribable way. He does it by the very process that I have mentioned. The Holy Spirit, who is the executor on earth of the will of Christ enthroned in heaven, When Christ the Lord, by the Spirit, in conjunction with the Word, with and by the standards of the Word, brings a man equipped in gifts and graces into the presence of a congregation, thinking biblically, in dependence upon the Spirit, in obedience to the Word, they see the gift. The man is constrained to give himself to the task. The Holy Spirit has made him an overseer. And in so doing, Christ has stretched down his hand and given another gift to his church. Now, what I'm saying is this. If you and I are to take 1 Peter 5, 5a seriously as a pattern of life, we are prepared as those who are members of an assembly to render proper obedience and submission to those who are over us in the Lord. we must thankfully receive such biblically qualified and biblically functioning elders as a gracious gift from Christ himself, the Christ who saved and called them, the Christ who is furnished and equipped them, the Christ who has constrained them. We are to look upon them for what they really are, Christ's gift to us. Now again, because the spirit of the age is what it is, there are people who think the way of blessedness is to be utterly free from any man-made authority or human constituted authority in terms of the one who exercises that authority. But that's not thinking biblically. According to the Scriptures, for a group of people who profess to be the followers of Christ, who profess to be serious about the state of their souls, to be without shepherds, is regarded as a tragic thing. According to Scripture. Remember Matthew chapter 9? As Jesus looks out upon the multitude, how does he see them? Matthew 9 in verse 36, but when he saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them. Why? Because they were distressed and scattered as sheep, not having a shepherd. You see, the Lord doesn't look upon them with delight and say, there's a people truly free. They've got no human authority. They're right simply for my authority. No. He looks upon them with pity and compassion, for they are scattered and distressed as sheep, not having a shepherd. Then he says, pray by mixing the metaphors and the images. Pray, the Lord of the harvest. Well, you don't harvest sheep unless you're raising sheep for mutton. And for leg of lamb, the Lord mixes the metaphors. He sees them now, these distressed and scattered ones, sheep without a shepherd, as a vast field that needs to be reaped. And he says, pray, the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest. He's the one who must make the laborer. He's the one who must commission the laborer. He's the one who must send him into the harvest. In Numbers 27, Moses recognized this principle for God's people, even though God had spoken directly from heaven, given them his holy law, had given him his will, embodied in statutes and in ordinances, had revealed the way of acceptable approach to him in the whole Levitical system. Moses is about to die, and he's deeply concerned. And this is what he says. Numbers 27, 15. Moses spoke unto the Lord, saying, Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation, who may go out before them, and who may come in before them, and who may lead them out, and who may bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd. Moses has told him, God has told Moses, you're going to die, Moses. And Moses is deeply concerned for these whom he has led. And he says, Oh God, raise up a man, a man who may go before them, who may come in, who may lead them out, who may bring them in, that they not be as sheep which have no shepherd. And how did the Lord respond? Did he say, shame on you, Moses? Don't you know I'm the only shepherd that Israel needs? Don't you know that they need no human shepherd? It is unspiritual of you, Moses. You've become filled with this overblown notion of the importance of a leader. You've been a leader for 40 years, and now you want to impose on me your notions of how to handle my people. No, thank you. I'll take care of it myself. Is that how God responded? No. Notice how God responded. And the Lord said unto Moses, Take Joshua, the son of none, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay your hand upon him, and set him before Eliezer the priest, and before all the congregation, and give him a charge in their sight. And you shall put of your honor upon him that all the congregation of the children of Israel may obey. And then we read Moses' obedience. God gives a shepherd to his people, a frail, sinful, human instrument. Yet it's God's way of leading his people. So that while the nation is being led in the conquest of Canaan under Joshua, they should see Joshua as the gift of Jehovah to them, as he takes Moses from them. It's a tragic thing for sheep to be without a shepherd. It's perhaps more tragic to have shepherds who are not qualified with the gifts and graces to be true shepherds. And it's perhaps even more tragic still to have those who have the name of shepherd, but they don't function according to the standard of the word. They either drift into tyranny or into wimpishness. They either lord it over the flock, or they are intimidated by the faces of the flock. Tragic indeed. But when there are godly shepherds, equipped and furnished by Christ, sustained and upheld by Christ, and they function according to the Word and the Spirit of Christ, And you have a congregation who from the heart recognize them as the gift of Christ given to them for their own well-being. There you have that which brings glory to God and helps people safely through this world on their way to heaven. Yes, if you are to obey the simple injunction, young ones be subject to older ones. For any who are just visiting with us, I spent a whole morning to try to demonstrate why I believe that speaking to church members in submission to their elders, you and I must thankfully receive biblically qualified, biblical functioning elders as a gracious gift from Christ himself. Now, this has a flip side that's very serious. The scripture speaks in terms that are almost frightening. if true gifts of Christ are not received by those who profess to be the people of Christ. I want you to look at two texts with me. John chapter 13 and verse 20. I touched on this very, very briefly, almost in passing last week, but I want to park on it for a few minutes tonight. John 13 and verse 20. Whenever our Lord precedes a statement with the verily, verily, or the truly, truly, these are called the magisterial sayings of our Lord. He who is truth incarnate is taking his own bright yellow felt-tip pen, and he's striking through his own words, saying, pay careful attention to what I say. Truly, truly, I say unto you, He that receives whomsoever I send receives me, and he that receives me receives him that sent me. Now do you see this unbreakable chain? Here is the human instrument, the one Christ sends. Verily, verily, I say to you, he that receives whomsoever I send You have the human instrument that Christ sends. When that human instrument sent by Christ is received for what he is, a messenger of Christ, Christ says you're receiving the one who sent him. That's Christ himself, the divine Savior. And he says when you receive the divine Savior by receiving the one the divine Savior sends, you're receiving the living God himself. Receive the one I send. You receive me. Receive me in the context is, receive me as I come to you in my appointed messenger. That's the context. You see that? You see it with your own eyes in your Bible. It's not receiving Christ in the act of saving faith. No, that's another reception of Christ. As many as received Him, to them have ye the right. No, in the context. Receiving Him is in terms of receiving the one He has sent. He that receives, whomsoever I send, receives me, and thus receiving me. You receive my Father who sent me. It's an unbreakable chain of reception. Sitting here tonight, if from your heart you embrace as Christ's gift All that He has given to you, you're embracing Christ who gave Him, and embracing Christ, you're embracing the Father who sent the Son. Now, there's a reverse to that. John 10 in verse 16. I mean, Luke 10 in verse 17. Luke 10, verse 16. Here our Lord speaking in a similar vein, gives us the flip side of John 13 20. He that hears you, hears me. And in the context, he is commissioning 70 to go forth in his name to speak on his behalf. He gives them power to heal. He gives them power to an authority to preach. He sends them forth and sending them forth. He says, he that hears you, hears me. In other words, when your message in my name is pronounced and it is embraced in faith and obedience, they're hearing my voice. I may be dozens of miles away, but they're hearing me. And he that hears me, I'm sorry, he that hears you, hears me. And he that rejects you, rejects me. And he that rejects me, rejects him that sent me. There's the unbreakable chain again. When the messenger comes sent by Christ, and his message and the messenger are received, Christ is received, and in Christ being received, the Father is received, but now he says, when your message is rejected, I am rejected, and when I am thus rejected in your rejection, the Father is rejected. So you see, this idea that I can have a hunky-dory, sweet, loving relationship with the Father, and with a loving, snuggling relationship to Jesus the Savior. But from my heart, I do not embrace as Christ gifts to me those whom He sends to me. That is nonsense that is not supported by the Word of God. It is sheer deception. Do you see that with your own eyes, in your own Bible? It's an inseparable chain of relationships. So then, Here's someone sitting in the church tonight and the Lord Jesus says do you trust me and love me and the person? Oh, yes, Lord And he says, now, in what sense do you trust me and love me? Well, Lord Jesus, I trust you and I love you because I see you stretch out your right hand and I see the marks from your being impaled upon a cross. And it reminds me that you loved me and you gave yourself for me. Lord Jesus, I do love you. I do receive you in your once for all love that moved you to give yourself on my behalf. And the Lord Jesus says, yes, but what about the thing in my left hand? And you look, and there in the left hand are Christ's gifts to his people. And he says, in my nourishing and cherishing love, I give you pastors and teachers for the perfecting of you, the saints, unto works of service. I give them, I send them in my name. Here they are. Will you receive them?" And this person said, Oh, no, Lord. I've just got no stomach for this business of being answerable to any human authority. I've got no stomach for this. Lord Jesus, I'll cling to your right hand. You gave yourself once for all upon the cross, but I'll slap your left hand when you try to give anyone to be over me. in your name. I ask you, how does the Lord Jesus to respond to such treatment? If you're truly embracing the significance of his right hand pierced for sinners, you will embrace the activity of his left hand in giving pastors and teachers to the end that the purpose for which he died might be greatly advanced in your life. See that? Will you take him in his dying love, but not take him in his nurturing and cherishing love, in which he himself gives, pastors and teachers? May God help us to think biblically on these issues and cut through all the smoke and all the woolly thinking and all the self-deception that says I can be rightly related to Jesus whereas my relationship to those whom Jesus sends and those who are over me in the Lord is of secondary importance. It isn't. You cannot separate what Christ has joined. Then we come to the fourth and the final prerequisite. If we're going to find in our hearts, by God's grace, joy in being submissive to those who are our overseers. And it's this. I'm going to state it this way and then we'll turn to a pivotal text. You must maintain a disposition of esteem and love for those who are your shepherds. You must maintain a disposition of esteem and love for those who are your shepherds. Now think with me as I try to explain how crucial this is. You kids, let me ask you. Is it difficult to obey mom and dad? Not easy at times, is it? It's kind of hard at times, isn't it? You want to do something, mom and dad said it, it's kind of hard to obey them. Obedience to mom and dad sometimes doesn't come easy. But suppose you have no love for mom and dad, and you can't esteem them. Their lives are such that you can't respect them. That make it easier or harder to obey them? Makes it harder, doesn't it? At least if you respect mom and dad, it helps to make it a little easier to obey them. All right? Same true with the civil authority. When the scripture tells us that we are to honor and submit to those who are over us in civil authority, it's never easy to our flesh. We think we know better, we can make better judgments. But if there's some measure of love and esteem for those in authority, it makes it a little easier. But what about when those in authority are such that we have no love and we have no esteem for them? It makes submission. Much more difficult, but still possible. But when it comes to spiritual leadership, if you don't love and don't esteem those that are over you, it's impossible to obey them. Because you're touching the most vital issues of your own existence, your own never-dying soul. And again, John Brown is most perceptive when having established that we must recognize the divine authority standing behind biblically qualified, biblically functioning elders. He says, inferior in importance to this matter, but only inferior to it, is the second prerequisite to the right discharge of the duty of submission of obedience to one's elders. A personal respect for the individuals invested with office. To discharge the duties of civil obedience without this is difficult. Without this, to discharge the duties of ecclesiastical obedience, it is impossible. No man, no woman, ought to become a member of a church where the office bearers as a body do not command his respect for their personal qualifications. He sports with his own edification if he does so, nor ought he to continue a member of a church where, as a body, these leaders forfeit their claims on his respect. This is obvious, for how in this case can he even have Christian fellowship with them? You see, this is why the primary requirements for anyone aspiring to the eldership have to do with character, not with gift. 1 Timothy 3, verses 1 to 7, only two hints with reference to gift. An apt teacher, one word in the Greek, and then one who rules well his own house, for if a man knows not how to rule his house, how shall he take care of the church of God? All the rest are the specifics of a balanced, mature, blameless, not sinless, not faultless, but blameless Christian character. The same is true in Titus 1, verses 5 to 9. Why that emphasis? For the simple reason. that in spiritual leadership, one must have the esteem of those whom he leads, and lest be one whom they can love without forfeiting their sense of moral and ethical uprightness. So the pivotal text, and some of you have already anticipated it, is 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. We're seeking to ask and answer the question, what must be present in my heart if I'm going to obey 1 Peter 5, 5a, to be submissive to those over me in the Lord? And I'm saying the fourth prerequisite is a disposition of esteem and love for those who are your shepherds. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 12. But we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work's sake." Now here is a clear apostolic entreaty given to the saints of God at Thessalonica, and Paul here identifies their spiritual leaders in terms of three participants. Again, for you Greek students, you have one article before the first participle, and the article's not repeated. So you don't have three different classes of leaders, some who were over them, some who labored among them, and some who admonished them. No, they are to know them, that is, the ones who are characterized by these three continuous activities, present participles. He says your spiritual leaders are those who labor among you. They're not playing preacher. They're not playing cleric. They're not playing parson. They are laboring. They give themselves to their task. They give themselves arduously and sedulously to the labor that God has set before them. They labor among you. They are over you. They are presiding over you. They are leading you. Those are the various ways that Greek word is translated in the New Testament. And they are admonishing you. Newthateo. That means they are pointing out areas that need to be adjusted to the Word of God. They are giving instruction where necessary rebuke and reproof. This is how they're described, not in terms of their dress, a turned collar, not in terms of their title, a reverend, but in terms of what they do. They labor, they lead, and they admonish. That's a description of biblically functioning elders. Assuming they came into that place, Through the grid of a biblical standard, Paul now says to all the members, we beseech you, brethren, no matter what your temperament is, no matter what your individual personality is, no matter what your background is, know them. Have an intelligent comprehension and accurate awareness of these that are over you in the Lord, and esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work's sake. esteem them highly. It's hard to find a precise translation of the verb to esteem. But when he says highly, it's a fascinating word. It's a bunch of prepositions thrown together. We say he's hyper. It's hyper this or hyper that. You have hupere. That means hyper. Above and beyond. And then you have ek, out of. And then perisos, abundance, an overflow. And this word is a word that is packed full of significance. Esteem them exceedingly. Esteem them very highly. Esteem them beyond a mere modicum of respect and esteem. Esteem them very highly, and be sure you do it in a context of love. Now, when Paul uses the word love, he is light years away from what immediately comes to the mind of the American, the average American in our day. Love is a gush you feel. Love is a twitch you experience. Love is a gush that overcomes you. Not according to the Word of God and to the Apostle. When he says love, read 1 Corinthians 13 into that word. Paul says, you want to know what love is? Watch how it acts. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not puff itself up, does not behave in an unseemly way. Love is kind, takes no account of evil, doesn't keep a record of faults. Love bears all things. Love believes all things. Love hopes all things. Esteem them exceeding highly in a context of biblical love. has nothing to do with whether your personalities click. It has nothing to do with whether you do or don't like the way they dress and the cut of their suit. It has nothing to do with this mushy, gushy, unprincipled stuff we call love. It has nothing to do with that. Esteem them highly in a context of biblical love on what account? Not on account of their title, not on account of anything that is external, but on account of their work. And what is their work? He's just described it. It is a labor among you, a labor to attempt to get you safely to heaven. It is a leading you by example and by instruction and by precept and by admonition and by gospel motivations. It is a work of admonishing you, pointing out your sins, not because they're meanies, but because they know that sin, if undealt with, is going to hinder your communion with Christ. And knowing the sweetness of communion with Christ, they want you to know it. They know that sin is going to mar your testimony, and they want you, along with your brothers and sisters, to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, to shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Esteem them highly in love, for their work's sake, have an intelligent appreciation of what their work is, and instead of sitting in the wings, waiting to pounce on every indication of flawed humanity, to pounce upon every indication that maybe they're something less than perfect, you have the love that covers a multitude of piddling faults and sins, that bears all things, believes all things, the love that is operative in biblical ways, God says, you must maintain a disposition of esteem and love for those who are your shepherds. Now I want to expand on something I alluded to earlier. This does not mean that you necessarily feel the kind of chemistry and personality meshing that would be present if you were choosing your closest friend. You don't have to feel that toward anyone or all of your elders to be obeying this. You see, the chemistry that makes people choose their closest friends has all kinds of things that have nothing to do with their work on our behalf. It may have to do with their interest. It may have to do with what they like in their musical taste, what they like to do for avocations and recreations, their secondary interests. There may be a hundred different things that make us select our closest friends when we have a choice to do it. It doesn't mean that you must think of your elders, well, if they could not be conceived of as my closest, dearest, most intimate friend, then I can't give them that esteem and love. No, no, you're in the wrong ballpark. It doesn't mean that if you were the only woman or man left, say woman, because we're not having female elders here. Let me get my gender straight. If you were the only woman and that elder or the elders were the only men, you'd say, Lord, I'd rather be single the rest of my life than be married to that guy. That's perfectly all right. That's perfectly all right. So long as you esteem him very highly and love for his work's sake. Has nothing to do with whether or not you'd be willing to be married to him. It has nothing to do whether or not you choose him to be your favorite uncle or your favorite grandpa. It has nothing to do with that. It's totally removed from all of those many variables that are operative in interpersonal relationships and that are as innocent as the difference in the shape of your nose from my nose. You want me to prove my nose shape is better than yours? I can't do it. I can't even try to do it. You've got your shape of nose, I've got mine. That was settled in our mama's womb. Maybe a plastic surgeon has helped somebody along the way. I don't know. But you see, it has nothing to do with those variables. They have a lot to do with the choice of our closest friends, the people that we could wish were our uncle or wish were our grandpa. But that has nothing to do with this thing that we're dealing with here. When Peter says, Younger ones, be in submission to the elders. He is saying regardless of your personality and regardless of theirs, regardless of your intangible secondary likes and dislikes and their intangible secondary likes, you younger, be subject to the elder. Church members, embrace from the heart your role of biblical submission to your overseer. And that means you must maintain a disposition of esteem and love for those who are your shepherds. Now that does mean if you see them doing something, if you hear something from them that would erode your esteem and would tend to shrivel your love, the onus is on you to go to that altar and say, So and so, I may be all wrong, I may be putting the wrong construction, but this is what I saw, this is what I heard from you, that has caused me a problem. Can you help me with it?" And there's not a person here who can say that kind of approach was ever dealt with, with harshness. No. But for you to take offense at what you think is something wrong, or what you've heard from third parties, is to be guilty of high-handed wickedness. Yes, high-handed wickedness. Because God says, even if there is an accusation, it is not even to be heard and received, except at the mouth of two or three witnesses. Dear people, I'm not here trying to feather my own bed. You who sat here through the expositions of verses one to four, did I spare myself and my fellow elders in expounding what those words mean? Shepherd, oversee, not but, not but, not but. Did I faithfully exhort myself and my fellow elders to be what God says we're to be? Then I want to be just as faithful. to expound and apply what God says you ought to be in relationship to your elders. There's something far bigger than my feelings and your feelings. It's Christ Jesus Church. in which he desires to show forth the glory and the wisdom of his own gracious direction of his people, to have an arrangement where the chief shepherd gives to his people under-shepherds, and where those under-shepherds get their directives from the Word of God, and look to Christ that they might fulfill it in the strength of Christ and in the Spirit of Christ. And when there are sheep who conduct themselves as sheep ought to in the light of the Word of God, out of motives to please Christ and to honor Christ, the Church of Christ then becomes this marvelous counterculture in which the glory of Christ's redemptive power is manifested as they live and work together for the advancement of Christ's kingdom in their generation. So we've come around full circle to the four prerequisites for maintaining godly submission to our overseers. A genuine experience of regenerating and converting grace. Secondly, a biblically grounded, spirit imparted conviction concerning the divine authority of church order. Thankfully receiving biblically qualified and biblically functioning elders as gifts from Christ himself. and then cultivating and maintaining by God's grace a spirit of esteem in love for their work's sake. Now all of us have a tendency to fall into the trap of the pendulum swing. Someone said to me years ago, and I've never forgotten it, the pendulum moves swiftest through the center of its arc, and it's stationary at both extremes. You sit and watch a clock that's got a pendulum, and there's a millisecond when it stops. It stops, starts back the other way, gains momentum, moves swiftest through the center of its arc. And that's true in spiritual experience, it's true in church history, it's true in the life of individual churches. If people have been under a leadership that has been authoritative in the wrong sense, it has been oppressive, it has not cultivated a critical mind in its members. People were told to take things upon the authority of the preacher. They were not exhorted again and again, believe nothing, do nothing unless you see it with your own eyes in your own Bible. People are encouraged to question in a gracious, godly manner decisions, policies, etc. People have been under an oppressive, restrictive rule. And when they break out of that and begin to taste something of the rarefied air of being treated like intelligent human beings indwelt by the Spirit with a Bible that they can read and great parts of it they can understand, the tendency is to swing clean through to the other extreme of a spirit of anarchy and crass individualism and egalitarianism. And to think that they are as competent to know the mind of God as anyone else. I've got God and my Bible and the Holy Ghost. I need nothing else. And the pendulum swings, and then in reaction against it, because they find they can't function that way. You can't function that way in God's world. He didn't make us to function that way. And they swing back, and then the pendulum's over here. Can we not plead with God that by the grace of God, we would be a people? whose life is marked by a tenacious submission to what God has said. Elders are to be and to do what they are not to be and what they are not to do, and in which the people of God embrace from the heart that which God requires of them in relationship to their overseers. And when that relationship is operative, it is a beautiful thing. I close again by quoting my patron saint, John Brown. who's speaking on this last point of the necessity of the maintenance of affection and esteem between the people of God and their overseers. He says, it's obviously of equal interest of ministers and people that a cordial attachment should subsist between them, and that on both sides, everything should be avoided that has a tendency to diminish and to alienate mutual affection. It's very difficult for a minister to do his duty in a right spirit to a people when he has reason to think they have little or no attachment to him. And it is all but impossible for a people to derive spiritual advantage from a minister whom they do not respect and they do not love. Happy, happy is that Christian society when the minister loves his people and the people love their elders for the truth's sake. And when they manifest their mutual affection, not by warm protestations alone. I love you, brother. I love you, sister. I love you, pastor. I love you, sheep. Not by warm protestations alone, but by his honestly and affectionately performing every pastoral duty and by their walking in all Christian commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. That's what's said of Zachariah and Elizabeth. And dear people, in great measure, we know that in our life together. What I have been preaching today has not been primarily corrective, and I bless God it has not been corrective. It has been, I trust, confirming in terms of what you have known in your own experience. And as you sat there today, said, Lord, I never thought of it in those terms. But Lord, that is true. When you brought me under the rule of the chief shepherd, I wanted under shepherds. I instinctively knew I'm not called upon to make it on my own. And then you say, oh, I see now why God took that basic spirit of I can get it on my own, do it on my own, be it on my own. God, you cut that out of me and you gave me a heart to follow you. Lord, I see that clearly now. And then as we've worked our way through, you've said, yes, Lord, that's true. Lord, make it increasingly so. I believe with all of my heart for the vast majority of you, this has not been corrective. It's simply been confirming. And for others of you, you know that I'm hoping it is going to be immunizing. It's going to be immunizing because of the pressures that will increasingly be brought to bear upon this rising generation unless God visits our proud, arrogant nation with a mighty visitation of the Spirit of God. And I trust that having spent the time to open these things up, you will pray them in and say, Lord, make them Holy Spirit-wrought convictions. in my heart. Convictions that will not be blown away by the winds of current fads and fashions that creep out of the world and into the church. You see, some people would call us just wretched traditionalists because I don't appear here to preach to you with a sports shirt and an open collar. There are many churches that do that. They say, well, that's just a matter of style. No, it's making a message. It's saying there's nothing special about meeting with God. You are not what your clothes make you, but your clothing often is a revelation of where you're at. Not always, but often. And the whole idea that ministers come up and they want nothing that appears, quote, stiff and formal. So they stand up and say, Hi, folks, it's good to have you here today. Lovely day, isn't it today? Come on now, look out, isn't it a beautiful day? Now we're just going to talk to the Lord. Oh Lord, you never know when they're talking to you, talking to God. They don't want anything to even remotely approach that which is awe-inspiring, breathtaking, wonder, amazement. No. This generation doesn't want that. That's stuffy. When God ceases to be God, then we'll change our view of how we approach Him. You're going to face this. You, the younger generation. I faced it. I'm an old man. I faced it. I felt the pressure. When you cry out, God, how are we going to reach our own Jerusalem? We've got people who don't have a clue of what preaching is. The very idea of somebody standing up here above the people, that's horrendous. That's heresy. I should be right down there, just buddy-buddy rubbing shoulders, talking together. The whole idea that somebody stands up there and talks like he knows something that you may not know. That's offensive. and talks about truth as though things other than truth are untruth, and is unashamed of that antithesis between truth and error, right and wrong. That's offensive to this generation, and it will be even increasingly offensive. And bound up in all of that is Christ's unchangeable order for His church, in which that church will have elders who seek to shepherd the flock of God among them. exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, not for base gain, but of a ready mind, not lording it over God's heritage, but making themselves examples to the flock. And a church that when it reads, you younger be subject to the elder, says, yes, Lord Jesus, by your grace we shall. There's a church that will go forward under the blessing of God to see Christ's glory extended in our generation. Let's pray. Our father, we're so thankful that in your presence we can speak of our mutual awareness of all that your grace has wrought in our hearts, that you have given us great measures of love one for another. You have put into the hearts of your under shepherds genuine love for the sheep in this place. We confess, O Lord, at times we have not been willing to pay the price of love when we have not prayed for your sheep as we ought. We've not been willing to run the risk of temporary alienation by being more faithful to their souls. Forgive us who are shepherds for our sins and for our shortcomings. We thank you. We thank you. that by your grace you've wrought in us a climate of desire to serve you together, that we might be helpers of each other's faith and strengtheners of each other's joy. We pray, O Lord, if there are any sitting among us who find their hearts rising up against your simple command, younger ones be subject to the elders. Father, you know why there is that rising up, and we pray that out of your perfect knowledge, You would identify it, deal with it, bring it, we pray, to the cross of your Son, and there slay it by the power of your Spirit. We ask, O God, especially for the rising generation, that the things we have heard and considered today will be written upon their hearts, and that they may have the moral courage to insist that Christ's rule will be loved and obeyed in Christ's Church in the days to come. Seal your word to our hearts. Have mercy upon any who come to the end of the Lord's day again, knowing nothing of the sweetness of what it has been to worship you, to praise you, to seek your face, to look into the faces of our brothers and sisters. Oh, Lord, make them jealous, we pray. Give them no rest till they know the sweetness of resting in Jesus. Dismiss us with your blessing and accept our thanks for this day in your courts. We plead in Jesus name. Amen.