Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Valuing Church Authorities

To that end, the sermon scripture is found in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verses 12 and 13. 1 Thessalonians 5, verses 12 and 13: “And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake and be at peace among yourselves.”

I’ve noticed sometimes during this last summer when we sing that prayer to God that we just sang—that he would illuminate us to his word—which remember, by the way, we do that and we should always do that when we approach God’s word in our family worship as well. It’s not like any other book. The Holy Spirit must teach it to us, and so we ask him to do that as we approach God’s word.

In any event, I’ve noticed sometimes that the breeze will sort of pick up at that point in time and this plant down here will sort of wave around. And of course, the wind is a picture according to God’s word of the Holy Spirit. And hopefully that is a good reminder to us as we see the manifestation of wind in our midst, even at times.

Remember that we ask during the sermon time that God’s spirit would be with us—be with me to help me preach the word effectually and be with you to help you hear what’s right, to throw out what’s bad, and then to reform your lives in obedience to that word.

I was several when Chris and I first got married—after the first, I don’t know if we were married a year or two—I was in charge of a Wednesday night program called Making It Real Night at a conservative Baptist church that we were members of. And basically the idea was that the sermon on Sunday, we would then try to make application of it to the children, and they would also teach application to the parents on Wednesday night. And we were in charge of the children’s program. We had a general opening and I would do little object lessons at the beginning to get everybody’s attention—ostensibly the children, but really we always knew we were really teaching the parents more because their guards were down as they watched these object lessons.

In any event, one of the ones that I used was a stick. You know, you take a long stick and you try to balance it on the end of your finger. If you watch your finger, you cannot keep the stick balanced very well, but if you watch the top of the stick, then it’s real easy. Your hand fairly naturally just follows that top, and it’s good then you can do it.

Well, back then I used that object lesson. Object lessons are, you know, they’re presuppositionally driven. You can use object lessons in lots of different ways. And back then the use I made of that object lesson was that if we look at ourselves—our finger—we’re not going to do good in our Christian life. But if we keep our eyes heavenward and on God, then we’ll do better. And certainly there’s some truth to that.

However, I’m going to use it for a different object lesson today as I was considering, as we begin now to move into the concluding section of the epistle to the Thessalonians. What we just read are the beginnings of some fairly short exhortatory admonitions, instructions, commands that Paul gives the Thessalonians that are very much practically oriented—how they relate to their leaders in church, what we’re going to talk about today.

And then “live at peace among yourselves.” Hopefully, we’ll talk about that next week. And then he says to “admonish the unruly.” And “encourage the fainthearted.” Okay? And “support those who are weak.” A series of nice little exhortations. We’ll take at least a week with each of those. And it’s very practically oriented.

And here’s how it relates to the stick and the pole. The idea is that second tablet obedience or violations—by second tablet, I mean the second half of the Decalogue, which tells us how we should love our neighbor as ourselves. Manifestations of problems in that area are indicators to us that we have problems with our relationship to God. Frequently we can very piously think we have a great relationship with God. It’s just our relationship with people that seems to suffer. But God says that if you’re having problems loving your brother, you are not loving God.

Don’t say—we read in 1 John that you love God if you hate your brother. You haven’t seen God. You’ve seen the image of God in your brother. If you hate your brother, you hate God. And second tablet violations stem from a hatred as opposed to a love of our fellow man.

So the idea is that if we keep our eye on how we react and interact with one another in our horizontal relationship, God uses that to help us evaluate and make corrections to our finger. Looking at the top—how we’re treating people, the finger—at how our relationship to God is. He uses the external—the way we work with one another—as indicators, a feedback mechanism to help us correct whether we truly love him and his law.

And so as we go through these series of exhortations for the next few months, that’s what we’re going to be doing—seeing how these things indicate our relationship to God.

And so God uses these second tablet problems as indicators of really first tablet violations. And he says that if you have problems in these areas, you’re rejecting him. For instance, in today’s scripture we just read, it’s rather obvious. We’ll talk about a little bit more later, but it’s rather obvious that leaders are given as those who minister to us as God’s secondary means in our lives to promote growth and establishment in the Lord.

And so, if we reject the leadership of the church, the leadership of the family that’s in the Lord, etc., and say we’re doing that because of our great love for God somehow—no, no, no, it doesn’t work that way. God says that if you reject the authorities that he has placed over you, then you are rejecting essentially him, and you are evidencing that you do not love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, might, and strength.

Okay? Now, I’m not positing an unlimited obedience to authorities. You know, I don’t mean that. You know that if they teach us to violate God’s law, we must disobey them. We must try to make an appeal to a higher authority. If, for instance, an authority in a family does something that other people in the family think is contrary to the word of God, then they should very respectfully make an appeal to that authority, and then beyond that, make it known they’d like the authority to go with them and appeal it to a higher authority—church authority or civil authority.

So not unlimited obedience, but it does show us a relationship to God.

Now, so we’re going to basically go into that last section of 1 Thessalonians 5. And essentially what he does in this portion of this book is really build upon verse 11. Remember he said at the end of verse 11 of chapter 5, after giving them some instruction about the day of the Lord, “Wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another even as also ye do.” And he’s going to teach them how to edify one another now by expanding on these instructions that are going to follow.

Additionally, we do have a change in, or a notation here in the text of 1 Thessalonians, but we’re entering a new subject area. He says, “We beseech you, brethren”—remember I said that at the beginning of chapter 5:1, the inclusion of the term “brethren” there is a device that Paul frequently uses in his epistles, and certainly here in Thessalonians, to indicate markers in the text. At 4:1, he used this term “brethren” to indicate a marker in a new section. At verse 13 of chapter 4, he used the term “brethren” to introduce a new section. At verse one of chapter 5 and here in this verse as well, he indicates a change to another section.

And in a way, this throws back to what he was talking about before he got off into a discussion of eschatology. Remember, the first 12 verses of chapter 4, he was giving them practical instructions in terms of loving one another and in terms of minding their own business, working hard at their own hands, etc. And then he got off into a discussion of the return of Christ, and before that he got off into a discussion of the state of those in their bodies who had died in the body, but what would happen to them when Christ returned.

So he got off into a couple of different eschatological topics—the second half of chapter 4, first half of chapter 5—and now he gets back to discussing these really horizontal requirements that demonstrate their vertical relationship to God. So that’s where we’re at, and that’s what we’re going to be spending time on the next few months.

Now, in this particular text and its specifics, essentially, as I said, he talks here about the relationship of people to church authorities. So, I’ve entitled my sermon “Valuing Church Authorities.” I think the tape title I might have given might have been “Honoring Church Authorities,” but valuing them is a better way to put it.

And he does a couple of things out of these two verses here, a verse and a half. First, he describes who these church authorities are. And then he tells the members of the church what their obligations to those authorities are. We’ll go over those things. And then we’ll talk about implications from the text for a couple of other areas that are not obvious at first perhaps, but are very important to touch on before we leave this text. If we get it all done today, fine. If we don’t, that’s fine too. We’ll take more time for it. I think the material is important.

Now, okay. So, let’s first of all talk about the definition that he gives to church authorities.

## Church Authorities Being Described

He tells the Thessalonians to know those who do three things: that labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you. Three separate activities. But these three activities describe one group of men or one class of men—those who labor among them and are over them and admonish them. To labor, to preside, and to admonish are the three things talked about here.

Neil in his commentary said that these are the men who were working among the members, presiding over them, and maintaining discipline.

Mafet actually suggests that these three men—or that these men rather, not three separate men, but one group of men—were [perhaps] Jason, because of the reference in Acts 17:5; Secundus from Acts 24, who is described as a leader from Thessalonica; and Demas in 2 Timothy 4:10, who when he departs from Paul because of his love for the world goes back to Thessalonica. So there may actually be specific individuals mentioned in the text of scripture that were certainly at one time at least leaders in the Thessalonian church.

And so Paul says that those who toil, preside, and train you—these are the church authorities that he is describing that the members have an obligation toward.

Now it’s very important here to recognize something very simple, and yet you’ll have to sort of take my word for it in terms of the Greek grammatical structure here. The three present participles are governed by a single definite article. There’s one article and three present participles. And so this shows very clearly in the Greek that this refers to one group of people who perform all three of these separate services in the church. And that’s quite important as we shall see later.

So this is not talking about some people that labor, different ones who are over you, and different ones that admonish you. But those authorities who do all three of these things—it describes the whole class of them.

Okay? First, there are those who are engaged in self-sacrificial toil. Self-sacrificial toil. The word here for labor means to labor strenuously—labor to the point of being physically weakened by your labor, is how it’s frequently used in scripture. You know, in Luke 5, when Simon tells Jesus, he says, “We’ve been fishing all night. We’ve toiled all night. We’ve worked real hard and we haven’t caught anything.” Well, that’s the idea of this word.

It frequently is used of physical labor. The root meaning of this word means to actually cut something. And by implication or analogy, then the word came about because it meant to be, as I said, weakened physically. So the idea is that it’s not just simply work. It’s real tough, backbreaking sort of work. It is self-sacrificial toil for other people. So that is the first description of those that are leading in this congregation. They have labored strenuously.

Paul himself—we’ve looked at this term before. Remember in 1 Thessalonians 2:9, Paul said that he labored day and night. Remember, he didn’t want to impose upon them for monetary support. So he worked hard with his hands day and night. He labored, and the same word is used self-sacrificially. We made that point in chapter 2. In chapter 3:5, he says the same thing in terms of labor. In 2 Thessalonians 3:8, again, in 1 Thessalonians 3:5, he says that in that place he uses the term to indicate that he wants to be sure and visit them and build them up in the faith lest Satan tempt them and his labor—this strenuous self-sacrificial work—be in vain.

And you almost have the connotation in that verse, as well as other verses where this term is used, that the labor is to produce a product, and if it doesn’t, then it’s kind of like a still birth, analogous to a mother’s labor where she gives self-sacrificially of herself and becomes weakened physically by giving birth and helping another.

And so Paul says that’s the sort of labor he did for them. And he says that’s the sort of person who you’re to recognize as your leader in this congregation.

Again, in Philippians 2:16, this idea of birth. In that verse, we read that we’re to hold forth the word of life, “that I may rejoice in the day of Christ. Paul says to the Philippians, ‘That I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.’” And we were memorizing this text in our family about a year ago, and we were trying to do little things to help us remember, and we’d say, “I have not run in vain and or labored in vain,” and my wife reminded the kids about laboring in vain. She’d go like this: “I have not labored in vain”—you know, you pretend you’re pregnant, about ready to give birth to a child.

Well, it was a good teaching device for our kids to remember that phrase, and it’s also good to help to keep in our mind about this self-sacrificial labor that, with the grace of God, will produce fruit in the lives of people around us. That’s what church authorities are supposed to do. Work hard, self-sacrificially.

Secondly, there are those who take the point. They’re point men. And by that, I mean that I’ve never been in the army, but I’m told that platoons or squadrons, or whatever it is, groups of guys go out in a war, in a combat, a fire zone, and one fell would be at the point, and it was the most dangerous place. He’d lead everybody else. Of course, he’s got the point, but more than that, he was prone to get hit because he’s out in front. And so point men in the army, I guess, have a higher casualty rate than people who aren’t in the point.

And this term “over you in the Lord”—to preside or to stand before people, which is what the Greek implies literally—has that kind of literal connotation. They’re at the point. They’re standing before the people that they minister to. They protect them in that position. They direct them, and they serve at the head of these people. And so there is real authority. Although albeit unofficial authority frequently used or implied by this word in scripture, real authority is suggested as well as the defense of the people as well.

Hendrickson translates this term as those who preside—as superintendent, he says, or managers. Superintendent or managers. This same term is used in 1 Timothy 3, where it’s talked about in terms of the qualification for church officers—church officers, elders, and deacons. The text makes clear, must be those that rule well in their own house. And to rule well doesn’t mean, you know, to have an iron fist. It means to be the point person for your home. It means to protect them. It means to lead them, guide them, and also, in a very formal sense, direct them and oversee them, of course.

And so this is a requirement not simply of office bearers. It’s true of office bearers in terms of the church, the appointment for the church, but every head of the household, male head of household, is to be the point man also in his own family.

So that’s that term used of them. It’s also used in 1 Timothy 5:17. Remember, that’s the text that says that those that rule well are to be given honor, double honor, and especially those who labor in the word and teaching. And the word “rule” there in 1 Timothy 5:17 is this same term, although in the perfect participle sense. So the term “to rule well”—the term “ruling elder,” then, means essentially one who presides as the point man, and it’s not differentiated from teaching here, but it is it has that concept of ruling, but ruling by leading. It combines the idea of leading, protecting, and caring for people.

Believe me, as one who has been a point man for several years now, you do catch a lot of shrapnel and hits. It’s linked in that way to the self-sacrificial aspect of the first clause. And just these last few months, I could give you object lessons of taking hits specifically because of my position here in the church. I won’t bore you with those details. And sometimes you don’t even know about it, but it is important to recognize that those things do occur. And when people start taking hits for the church in which they’re ministering—from people outside the church or those who are contentious within it—it’s another good indication that those are the lead men in the congregation.

A third—these men are those who equip and challenge others in the church to obedience. So they labor self-sacrificially. They take the point, and they also equip and challenge others in the church to obedience. Specifically, the phrase used in this portion of scripture is that they admonish you. Admonish you.

This term “admonish” is only used in the Pauline epistles and in Paul’s address in Acts 20:31, where he talks about—that’s his address to the Ephesian elders—and he says that he warned them day and night. He admonished them day and night.

And I want to spend a little bit of time here on this for a couple of reasons. One, because it’s important that we get the sense of this term, and secondly, it will help you also to understand George Scipion as he comes this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to speak to our church about biblical nouthetic counseling.

Jay Adams, of course, is the man who started this form of counseling. He’s written a number of books on it. Probably the most widely published is “Competent to Counsel.” And his brand of counseling he has chosen to call nouthetic counseling. Nouthetic is essentially a transliteration of the Greek word that is here rendered “admonish.”

You know, and it’s a transliteration, like “baptism” is a transliteration of a Greek word, “baptizo.” And it’s because of various reasons why people do this, but Adams believes that it’s correct to transliterate this term instead of saying “admonish” or as some of the newer versions—the New English Bible, uses, for instance, the word “counsel.”

Another version says to put the sense to all of these things are nuances of what this particular word means. And since the word in the Greek is so rich and has so much content to it, Adams thinks it’s more correct to transliterate it. And his nouthetic counseling is based upon this very term and its various aspects. So it’s important for receiving what Mr. Scipion will be teaching this weekend as well, to understand this term.

I’ve used one of the ways, object lessons that I’ve used to help me remember what this term means. One aspect of this term means to put sense to, to call to mind, to remind somebody. So it has an intellectual or a teaching component to it very clearly. And I guess that pastors are supposed to be those who put sense to the scriptures, who remind people of the requirements of God’s word.

And the word also has the connotation in the Greek that there’s a problem that needs to be addressed. It is a corrective word given. It’s not simply an intellectual word. There are two other words that we can think of in terms of teaching, as this one can be used to teach. One is “paideia” in the Greek, which is—which is, you know, a term that’s actually used today in educational circles. Paideia means to train by acts. It’s more like to train a dog, for instance. Now you do train your children that way. I don’t want to make them sound like dogs. But the idea is that it’s non-verbal primarily. It’s more directive through their actions, etc. That’s paideia.

The other word used that means to teach essentially facts—but there’s no problem involved in the communication of those facts to a group of people. This term has the implication to it that there’s a problem that’s trying to be resolved. It’s resolved through teaching, and that teaching is accomplished through words—words are what’s used primarily to affect that teaching. And so those “to admonish you in the Lord,” those who teach you from the word of God to the end that you would be established and problems be rooted out of your lives. And that happens primarily in small group interaction, although it can be through the pulpit ministry as well, as we’ll see here in a couple of minutes.

So Adams thinks that this is a good way to remind us of these things.

I was going to mention this other—when I read this word in the Greek, I thought it may have a connection to the word “anesthesia” in English. It does not. Not. It’s okay, I’m not saying that this is a legitimate use of this term, but it’s a good picture. You know, it’s kind of the opposite of anesthetizing somebody. When you anesthetize them, you put them to sleep. You make it so nothing hurts. Now, you’re still trying to correct them supposedly, but you’re essentially putting people to sleep. And when you’re nouthetically dealing with people, instead of anesthetizing them, you’re bringing people awake to their problem—to the exhortation of God’s word—and you’re trying to get them to walk into obedience to that word.

And unfortunately, I think that if we were to take a sampling of sermons in America today, 95% are many times self-consciously anesthetizing people—to insulate them from the problems that they have in the world—as opposed to nouthetic, where they’re being challenged to convert themselves, to reform themselves in obedience to God’s word.

But this scripture says now that your elders, those who rule in the context of the local church, are to be nouthetically equipping, challenging people to obedience and to service in the ministry.

Okay. Eddie in his Greek commentary on the text says that the term implies teaching but means particularly practical counsel, suggestions, and warning—earnest pastoral instruction, unwearied tender and watchful guidance in the midst of trial, struggle, and temptation.

Morris in his comment said that while this term implies a brotherly aspect, its tone is brotherly—it is “big brotherly.” Okay, it has the idea of exhorting to a particular action.

Trench, and by the way, Adams in his book “Competent to Counsel” builds a lot upon Trench’s definition here that I’m going to read. Trench says that the term “admonish” means to train by word—by the word of encouragement when no more than this is wanted, but also by the word of remonstrance, of reproof, of blame where these may be required. So the word may be very strong. It may be administered more subtly by way of encouragement, or it could actually be a rebuke as well. And as I said, it has with it the implication that there is a problem that is being addressed.

I want us to look at a couple of scriptures, and you don’t have to necessarily turn to them, but first I want us to look at some scriptures that say that it is the job of everyone to encourage each other in the context of the body. This, while Paul’s instruction is specifically to leaders in the church, you are also all to be engaged in this in your interactions with one another. And of course, Jay Adams’s book “Competent to Counsel”—that’s the basic thesis: that all Christians are competent to counsel because God tells us we’re supposed to admonish, nouthetically counsel each other.

In Romans 15:14, Paul says, “I myself am persuaded of you, my brethren, that you are also full of goodness, filled up with all knowledge, and able also to admonish one another.”

So, there’s that relationship in the context of the body where you admonish one another. And by the way, the purpose of course of that admonishment is that people would be established.

Established. In 1 Corinthians 4:14, Paul says, “I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons, I warn you.” And that “warn” is the same word—nouthetically counsel you, in other words. And so you may sometimes—I bring this out because you may sometimes feel, and this may get in the way of your obedience to honoring those who are in authority over you. When you are the subject of being counseled and exhorted and admonished, you may sometimes feel that people are just coming down on you. Frequently, you will.

But I would say that we all should, and as Paul says here, keep in mind that when we are admonished and counseled, it is to the end that we are being loved by that leader that is coming alongside of us in that way.

Okay.

In any event, Romans 15:14 says we have responsibility toward one another this way. And again in 1 Thessalonians 5:14, “We exhort you, brethren, warn them—warn them that are unruly.” We’ll deal with that in a couple of weeks. It’s just a couple of verses away from our text. But here the direction is not given to church leaders. It’s given to each of you individually. And you all have a responsibility to warn—that is, nouthetically counsel or admonish—those people that are in your sphere of influence that are unruly in terms of the church, and we’ll get to that in a couple of weeks.

So there is a responsibility. There’s even a manner in which this is directed. In Colossians 3:16, we read, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing. And that word ‘admonishing’ is this nouthetically counseling, exhorting, admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

It is one of the tools that I bet you not too many people in the context of this church have used in the recent past to admonish one another—not by strong words, but by singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs to them.

I did this not self-consciously, but in the context of our family, there was a little problem that arose. If somebody was feeling kind of bad, I encouraged and admonished them by using a song—a series of scripture hymns that I just sort of went through to this person—and it helped. And this is one of the God-given ways in Colossians 3:16 that we nouthetically work with one another—is through the singing of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

Okay.

But so it is true that we are all to be competent to counsel, but of course Paul here is addressing a particular group of men in the church. And these men are doing, as Paul, as I said before, said he did in Acts 20:31 when he told the elders that he “ceased not to warn them, everyone night and day with tears.” And so Paul taught house to house and admonished people in terms of their sin with tears. And that was the example to the elders. They had received that instruction, that admonishment from Paul. They were to do the same thing to those under their charge.

Colossians 1:28 is important in this regard, too. We read there, talking about Jesus Christ, “whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”

Now the reason I point this verse out is that if I read this correctly, the correct way to preach has these two elements in it. Warning every man. Preaching itself involves nouthetic counseling. Part of what I’m supposed to do is encourage, exhort you to correct problems in your lives. And I do the same to myself. I just listened to a tape this last week by Herman Hoeksema, the grand old man of the Protestant Reformed Church, very old. I think he’s probably dead now. I’m not sure, but he was speaking on the ninth commandment, and he would say, “I warn you, brothers, and I warn myself not to wag the tongue.” And he’d say that about something else. “I warn you, and I warn myself.” That’s a real good practice for those of us who counsel other people to get involved with because that’s what we’re to do.

We are to encourage, warn, admonish each other, and the preaching should involve that component element. But it goes on to say, when we preach whom we preach, “warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom.” And here the word is more the communication of biblical truths and facts.

These work together. But biblical preaching involves both teaching and exhortation—counseling, nouthetic admonition.

Okay, so that’s essentially just an overview of admonishment. Kind of off the track a little bit, but I wanted to prepare you for what Mr. Scipion will be trying to equip you to do. He’s going to try to equip you to do that—to admonish each other, yourselves, and those within your household in terms of biblical obedience.

Okay? And Paul says that’s the third distinguishing element of those church officers that members have responsibilities to.

## Members’ Responsibility to the Officers

So let’s move now to the members’ responsibility to the officers that I’ve just described. The members have the responsibility to honor church officers to properly evaluate them.

He says in verse 12, “We beseech you, brethren, to know them.” And then he gives the description that we just went over. In verse 13, “And to esteem them very highly. And then he says third that esteeming and knowing them is to be in love for their work’s sake.”

So Paul says you have three essential obligations to church officers: to know them, to esteem them, and to love them as well—to do these things in love.

First, to know them. The term here for knowing them does not so much have the context as another term for “know” does in the New Testament of knowing by experience or observation. It doesn’t really talk here, although it is a good thing for you to get to know who your pastor is in the sense of what does he like, what does he not like, what kind of sermons does he preach? That’s not really what’s being talked about here.

The term implies to know by reflection based on intuition or information. It means essentially to acknowledge, to respect, to know the worth of, to appreciate the value of the leaders that God has brought into you.

The Mafet translation says that you are to respect—translating the word “to know” in its probably more implicit sense there. You are to respect church officers. It is synonymous in the text to verse 13 to esteem them very highly. They’re really—these things are linked together—to know them and to esteem them very highly. And those are the things that Paul is wrapping them up together and getting them to do toward their church officers.

Turn to Hebrews 13, and we’ll look at a couple of verses there along this regard. Hebrews 13, and you’ll remember, maybe you won’t, but I’ll remind you, hopefully you remember some other time that Hebrews 13 begins in a very parallel fashion to 1 Thessalonians 4. Remember we looked at the things that were covered in 1 Thessalonians 4, and Hebrews 13 covers some of the same basic elements.

Beginning at verse 1 and 2 in Hebrews 13, where he says, “Let brotherly love continue; entertain strangers. Remember those that are in bonds. Marriage is honorable in all.”—that’s verse 4 of Hebrews 13. “Remember, Thessalonians talks about marriage in the marriage bed.” Verse 5 in Hebrews 13: “Let your conversation be without covetousness.” Remember we drew some correlations between that portion of Hebrews 13 and 1 Thessalonians 4, the first part of it.

And now as we move to the last part of this 1 Thessalonians epistle, it correlates pretty well with what is mentioned in the concluding section of Hebrews 13.

Verse 7, Paul tells him to “remember them which have the rule over you who has spoken unto you the word of God whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation.” So he tells him to remember those who have the rule over them. Okay? Who preside over them. Same term used. To “remember” them doesn’t just mean, oh yeah, think about them occasionally. It remembers to a particular action which is talked about in terms of obedience here and following them.

Dropping down to verse 17. “Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account, that they might do it with joy and not with grief, for that’s unprofitable for you.”

So here he actually tells them in terms of this submitting, what their proper attitude is supposed to be—this esteeming them or knowing them correctly. And that is to know that the church authorities that God has in his providence placed over you in your particular congregation have the responsibility according to Hebrews 13:17 to watch over your souls as they that must give an account.

God says here that you must, when you think of your leaders realize in the church that they will give an account to God of how well they worked with you, how well they admonished you, how well they were the point man for you, leading and guiding and guarding you as well, and how well they toiled or labored self-sacrificially for you. And you’re to know that about them. You’re to bring these things to mind when you consider them. You’re supposed to value them highly because of the great charge that God has given to you—given them, for you and for your souls.

And so, Hebrews 13 helps us to understand what Paul means by knowing them here. And that is to esteem them, to bring to mind who they are.

Paul calls in the Thessalonians to acknowledge those who toil among them, care for them, and admonish them.

Again, in 1 Corinthians 16, Paul says, “I beseech you, brethren, you know the house of Stephanus, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints—that you submit yourselves unto such.”

So he says remember this guy, the household of Stephanus. They are actually addicted to ministering to the saints. You know them. I want you to keep in mind that you know them—to acknowledge that those, the leaders that God has called into the context of your church, and the basis of that, to submit yourselves unto them.

And then verse 18 of 1 Corinthians 16, “For then [they], that is these same people, have refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore acknowledge ye them that are such”—acknowledge that’s who they are, leaders in the Lord.

Secondly, in addition to knowing them, they’re supposed to esteem them very highly. And I’ve sort of run these two together somewhat. The word “esteem” means to think, to consider, to properly esteem and value them in the Lord. They are to value and respect their leaders because of their intrinsic worth. The present tense which is used here to esteem them means that this is to be a continuing attitude toward your church leaders—to value them very highly.

And the term there, “to esteem them very highly.” That term “very highly” is a very strong adverb. Finley called this adverb “a triple Pauline intensive,” meaning “beyond, exceeding, abundantly.” Wrapped up all three in that one word there—triple intensive. It means abundantly, to esteem them abundantly, out of all bounds, beyond all measure. And it calls for a degree of esteem that is quite beyond, in the words of one commentator, quite beyond all imagination.

In other words, this isn’t just making sure you think of them and you give them their proper understanding of who they are. It means to esteem them a whole bunch. Okay? Super abundant. This whole sentence is a strong plea for the leaders to be held in the absolutely highest regard of the people that they minister in the context of.

This same term is used in chapter 3:10 where Paul said that “night and day praying exceedingly might that we might see your face and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith.” Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians was the same sort of super abundant, overflowing prayer desiring very much and praying more than you would ever even imagine for their establishment.

And that’s one of the keys why they’re supposed to then esteem them very highly—for their work’s sake.

Another key is Ephesians 3:20, where we read that “now unto him—obviously God, Jesus Christ—that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us.”

And that text goes on. But the point is that Jesus—that God has described—is able to exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us to do these things. And so now what this means is that the valuation we’re supposed to put upon church officers is the same super evaluation of God’s own ability to bless us and to work in the context of our lives.

And I think this is really the key to a proper esteem for church officers. It would be, I might even say, idolatrous to say that we should have that kind of esteem for somebody in and of themselves. That esteem really is for the work of the Lord Jesus Christ through those ministers who represent him. Those ministers are extremely important in the life of the church—not because of who they are, but because of their work.

And where do they receive that ministry? They received it from God to minister in the context of the local church.

We just prayed a song after the responsive reading in the Psalter about asking for God’s blessings once more upon this land. This land is under God’s curse right now. And that curse comes to us because men have disobeyed God. And if we are going to see true reformation in this country, the return of God’s blessing, and righteousness flow, and the law of God come out of the churches and water the rest of the land, so to speak, we will have to see godly leaders that will establish us in the faith.

David, in that psalm we just read responsively, thought of the olden days and the leaders that God had used as a secondary means to bring the people his word and his sacrificial system and the correct understanding of the coming of Messiah, who would complete all that the sacrificial system pointed to. And so we need to understand that the men that God has called into church office are extremely important in the context of the dominion work the church is called to exercise and the preaching forth of his law word.

That’s the key to the proper esteeming. Not him and his person—to God. If you would esteem me in that way in my own personhood, but rather for the work that God has entrusted to me and that he is faithful to bring to pass. That is the esteem that you’re supposed to have for church officers.

The scriptures go on to say, of course, for their work, the work given by God in Christ.

Third, in addition to knowing and esteeming them, you are to love them. You are to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake.

Now, I think that if we take these things all together—to know, to esteem, and then in love—we see that there is the correct understanding, the reforming, the renewing of our minds at God’s word in terms of how we perceive church officers. In our sinful nature, we’re going to tear at them. We’re going to notice all the mistakes they make. God says, “Reform your mind, esteem them very highly, know them, and love them as well.” The estimation in your mind is to be worked out practically in your life.

Remember, we said that 1 Corinthians 13 says that love essentially can be summed up as kindness—usefulness to people—and patience. Patience with them as well, and very important when we’re dealing with fallible human leaders.

So these three things are the requirements.

I have a real good object lesson that I hope doesn’t bother anybody, but it was directed at me, and I want to let you know about anyway. I was up in Seattle last week and preached at the Seattle church. I spent four or five days there meeting with each family or single person individually, going over a series of questions about their personal lives and their relationship to the church, etc., trying to make the pastoral visit up there the one opportunity I would have and then do an evaluation to see where we’re going with the church in Seattle.

And I’m very encouraged by the way. I’m very encouraged in their growth personally and also their commitment to the faith and their growth in the word of God. I’m very encouraged the last night we were there. I had one more meeting at 8:00 that night. We’re going to have a dinner with the Spears at 5:30, so I could get out of there in time to make my meeting with the one fellow I hadn’t met with yet today.

And so we went to this. I knew Frank always likes to take us out to dinner. And so we went out to a nice place for dinner and we dropped off the kids at Frank’s house. And as we came in, into the restaurant, into the place we’re going to sit down, there were all the church people and our kids as well, had been brought there and transported there. It was like a surprise. It was the day of my birthday, by the way. It was my birthday, which was last Thursday, Friday—Wednesday. Last Wednesday was Wednesday. It’s my birthday. I hadn’t even remembered it was my birthday till about 5:00 on the drive over to Frank’s house. I’d forgotten all about it.

Well, anyway, they had a real nice birthday party for me, and they gave me a really nice gift. What they did is they bought—the Seattle church bought me a new computer. They knew that my eyes are weak and that they’re getting a little weaker lately. I’m not sure if that’s because of my lack of sleep or personal discipline with keeping them closed more often at night instead of staying up late, whatever it is. They decided I needed a nice big screen. I had a 13—just so you’ll know, all you computer people. It’s a 386 machine, 33 megahertz, very fast. It’s got a couple of drives on it. It’s got a 200 megabyte hard disk, a tape backup system. It’s got a 20-inch high-res monitor, non-interlaced, meaning no flicker, super VGA.

You is going right over your heads. But what you—this is a nice system, and I’m not going to have to have any more upgrades as far as the eye can see, as long as my eyes keep seeing. But a modem, all loaded up with all this software. You know, they don’t put all that stuff on there. PC Bible, etc. Lots of stuff.

Well, now they were trying to demonstrate to me through that gift their estimation of how God had used me in the life of that church. And it was a very humbling and embarrassing sort of a time, but was also a delight to see them attempt to do this. And they were loving me. They were properly evaluating me, and trying to give me a gift that they thought was commensurate with how I blessed them.

And they were loving me by being useful. You know, I remember love is useful. It’s a volitional act of the will to help people. And they knew my eyes were tired. So I got this big 20-inch screen now, and everything’s that much bigger. So it’s very easy to look at now.

After that, we went over to Frank’s house, and they had a sharing time of the ways that God had used me in the life of each of the people there and kind of a testimonial thing. And at the end we all gave thanks to God for the mutual encouragement we’d been to each other.

But that was a really good example, you know, of proper ways to esteem church officers. And if you want to have a party next week—no, no, that’s not the point. The point is simply that it is an object lesson. It was a demonstration of their love, and it was very humbling to me. And again, it led me to realize how much I owe to all of you and how we all are mutually encouraging each other in the faith and building each other up. And we’re to properly evaluate each other to the end that we do that and accomplish that in our lives.

## Practical Ways This Can Be Seen

Practical ways that this can be seen. I mentioned Hebrews 13, where Paul said to remember them, and then he went on to say that remember them “whose faith follow.” One of the ways to properly esteem and love leadership is to follow their example. Verse 17 said to obey them and submit yourselves unto them. He said understand who they are. They got to give an account for your souls, to the end that this is the outworking. This is the top of the stick to see if you’re really doing that correctly, to see how well you’re doing this. You see how well you are obeying them and submitting yourselves to their teaching. That’s another practical way that has worked out.

Hebrews 13:18 says, Paul went on to say, “Pray for us, for we trust if we have a good conscience in all things, willing to live honestly.” So prayer for your church leaders is a way to properly esteem them and to love them.

I mentioned 1 Corinthians 16, where Paul said—