Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript
## Reformation Covenant Church | Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Some of you, a few of you were probably tempted to sing, “Thy holy ones may learn the wonder of thy grace.” That was our modification we made to the song we just sang years ago. A few of us here remember that we sang that song nearly every Lord’s Day as the prayer for illumination, a sung prayer for illumination. And we changed it a little bit and had to change it because that song is an ordination hymn and the idea is that it’s the ordained ministers of the church who are singing it.

We’ll see in today’s sermon text, Hebrews 13:7-17, where these thoughts come from. This is a song we just sang that resonates with the truths of today’s sermon text, and we’re preaching on this sermon text today because we are going to ordain another elder in the church of Jesus Christ and install him in this church as an elder at RCC.

And so this song seemed particularly appropriate. And as we’ll notice later, it’s appropriate that all of us sing it, not just the ministers, because ultimately they represent us and prepare us to take God’s word into our lives and in our communities as well. So today’s sermon text is preparation for the ordination of Flynn A. as elder and minister of the word. It’s in Hebrews 13 beginning at verse 7. And if you have the outline for today, you can follow along the text on the front of that outline.

If not, follow along in your scriptures or just put your Bible down and listen with open ears to what God tells us in this very important text to help us to understand the relationship of ministry and ministers and congregants in the church of Jesus Christ. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Hebrews 13, beginning at verse 7.

Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods, which have not profited those who have been occupied with them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin and are burned outside the camp.

Therefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to him out outside the camp bearing his reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. Therefore, by him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. But do not forget to do good and to share.

For with such sacrifices, God is well pleased. Obey those who rule over you. Be submissive, for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable to you.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your holy word. We thank you, Father, that you are the great sovereign of all history, the controller of all things for the purpose of your glory and the manifestation of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, established with his death and resurrection 2,000 years ago and ongoing.

We thank you for your plow, Lord God in our lives and we thank you for your planting and we thank you for your sewing and reaping as well. Thank you for Flynn and for the work you’ve done in his life. Help us, Father, as we prepare to ordain and install him in this church to understand afresh what the relationship is between ministers and congregants that we might see that the great result of all of this is the sanctification of the world.

Bless us by your Holy Spirit. Illumine our understanding Lord God. Brighten our hearts with the knowledge of your scriptures and transform our lives by the power of your spirit in Jesus name we ask it and for the sake of his kingdom not ours. Amen. Please be seated.

There are a couple of contemporary events ongoing that form a bit of a context to what we’re going to do today. One of course is another astonishing marvelous wonder by God. And Isaiah, his marvelous wonder was making leaders stupid and we have this marvelous wonder today that he has decided in his providence on the Lord’s day while other churches people and Christians are worshiping around the world our elected officials are not worshiping God they’re worshiping the ability of man apart from God to bring in health, education, and welfare to all humanity.

Now, the imagery couldn’t be starker. The big letters in the sky, “Dorothy, go home,” are pretty big and bold, that the country is headed in the wrong direction, as those polls like to say. The direction isn’t right or left. The direction is a godward direction is the only right direction. Our country has abandoned that for some time. And because of that, our civil rulers also abandoned it. But it starts here as we saw in Isaiah 28.

The first section dealt with judgments to the prophets and to the priests. And the matching section at the last half of chapter 28 dealt with civil rulers. And somebody I think in Q&A time mentioned there’s kind of a relationship. And I don’t know about Isaiah, but there certainly is. Judgment begins with the house of God. And until the church undergoes reformation, revival, and renewal today, we cannot expect more than that. We do not want Washington DC to change.

The worst thing in the world is to have good results from bad activity. And if the preaching of false gospels, which regularly goes on in this country, produce good results, we wouldn’t like that. We’re sort of like other people who have said it’s good when chickens come home to roost. So what we want is reformation, revival, and renewal in the church of Jesus Christ. And what we expect is that the downstream result of that will be manifestations of change in our culture.

Now, I was writing another Sunday school lesson from Isaiah this week that complained about the complacent women. And we don’t want to be a complacent church, a complacent bride. I’m not advocating some kind of pacifism or some kind of, you know, whistling past the graveyard of what the horrendous things going on in the context of our government with bribery, etc. are happening. We don’t want to just ignore that.

We want to be active in our primaries. We want to be active in our elections. But know that God is plowing in this field. The plow is to our backs. It’s going to hurt what we’re going through. It’s going to hurt for a good number of years to come. That’s in all likelihood what will be the result of today’s vote. In fact, one way or the other, it’s going to be that increased polarization, increased uh tensions between groups of people in the culture.

But God is plowing with a purpose. It’s to bring this country and the whole world back to reformation, revival. And what we do here today, ordaining a minister for the gospel of Jesus Christ is far more significant than the vote that will be taken. Much more important for reformation, revival, and renewal that godly men occupy the pulpits of God’s church once more and preach the gospel as it relates to our culture and society as well as our personal lives.

That’s the only thing that ultimately will change the future. The church has been established as the conduit of God’s voice. The church of Jesus Christ comes together and worship God. We hear from his heavenly perspective and we transform the world as we go into the world. So the church is important and what we’re doing here has significance.

There’s a second contemporary event I want to touch on before we get to the text. That’s what’s going on in our church right now as a result of the planning that has gone on the last 6 months. We’re embarking in a new reorganization of ministries here. As most of you know, it’s kind of slow and ramping things up. Slow and steady sure. It’s really working well. What we’re doing is we’re organizing four or five teams. We’re getting lay leaders for those, most of those teams. We’re organizing sub teams or committees underneath them to do the work, the ministry of the church.

It’s a good thing. All kinds of people are starting to get involved in what’s going on at Reformation Covenant that weren’t involved before that were somewhat, you know, on the edges and they’re being brought in because of the establishment of these lay teams and committees and sub teams that will do most of the work. It’s a great thing. But it’s a hard thing. This is not an easy thing to do. There will be many bumps on the road and there already have been bumps, you know, difficulties.

Even this morning, we’ve got the AV equipment for the auxiliary seating for the worship service installed this last week. And do we turn it on? Do we not turn it on? Well, no. The elders decided, you know, we’re going to have a group of people come together, think through what that alternative worship seating looks like before we formalize that and start the AV feed and all that stuff. So, we’re planning it carefully.

But there was a little miscommunication. That’s okay. As we all are trying to do things, that’s what’s going to happen. And what we are hearing about in today’s text in Hebrews 13—this proper relationship between rulers and lead and followers, between pastors and ministers and congregants—is absolutely vital for making sure that these bumps don’t become these little, you know, molehills of bumps don’t become mountains and end up dividing the work of the church and hurting the ministry of the church. We don’t want that to happen. I don’t think it will happen. But just be ready for stresses to relationships and not knowing who’s doing what. I know. I thought I was supposed to be doing that. No, somebody else. Well, that’s okay. Let’s all get on board. Let’s try to organize what we’re doing together. Let’s not worry about turf battles and stuff.

Let’s just get the work done and organize the people of God. Now, that’s why we’re ordaining Flynn, too. That’s what ministers do is they organize the ministry of the church. They help the lay people get involved in doing the work of the church and doing all kinds of neat stuff that we never would have thought of before. So that setting is a renewed it gives us a renewed sense of importance for looking at the relationship between those that lead in the congregation and those that follow and we see how that’ll work out and the blessings of it.

You know what we’re trying to do today is reset, right? So the Lord’s day is really sort of a weekly reset time. We go to heaven to worship God. He has a little chat with us in the living room from his word. He gives us a heavenly perspective on our earthly work and then we go back and do it better. So we mature week by week and we’re kind of being reset and retuned and the things being tuned correctly through the word of God and the preaching of the word and Christ ministering through his spirit and we come together that way.

I found out this last week what a cataract was. I didn’t know what they were. I thought they were just a little film that grew over the eye. No, your lens that cover up the hole in your eye light goes through. Those lenses get a little old and there’s several different kinds of cataracts. They can get a little milky. They can get little lines coming in from the side or they can turn a little yellowish. My right eye is golden.

Sounds like a good thing. I got golden right eye. It’s not a good thing. It’s why color is so horrible to see in this eye and why I’m not seeing so good. So, we’re going to have cataract surgery in a few months and my vision will improve substantially.

Well, you know, it’s a great illustration again of what we’re trying to do. Our lenses get cloudy through the week. We start to see things a little weird. And God brings us back here to kind of pull out the lens, put in a heavenly lens again, clean it up, tune us up, help us to remember what’s supposed to be going on in the context of the body or the world or whatever it is. He cleans us, gives that lens, buffs it up, or whatever you want to think about it as. He replaces that thing that we are looking through.

You know, there’s an old saying to the effect die. Everything is yellow. Jaundice produces yellowness. And if you’ve got jaundice, you know, you got these glasses you can’t take off that have this yellowish hue to them. And so everything looks yellow. It’s not. So as we going about doing the ministry of the church and organizing for that ministry, you know, you got to be careful your presuppositions that you’re looking at things through.

What we’re trying to do today is put a proper perspective of relationship between leaders and congregants in the context of the church. And that will produce blessing to us as we move ahead. We are a value added product here. I used to be a purchasing agent. Value added product. So we’re a value added church. We’re adding value to the church of Jesus Christ today by ordaining Flynn. And the purpose of that is to add value to the church by helping you get better at your involvement in the church or helping you get involved to begin with in the church.

You’re to be a value adding factor in the ministry of Reformation Covenant Church, every one of you. And so what we’re doing today is adding value through selection of an officer ordination installation. But that’s to the end that you might be a value adding person yourself in the context of the ministry here.

Okay. So that’s where we’re going. That’s what we’re trying to accomplish in light of our historical setting right now.

And now let’s look at the text. First, an overview. And again, if you’ve got the handout, great. If you don’t, it’s going to be a little more difficult to follow. But suffice it to say, first of all, that we’re in the sixth section of seven sections of Hebrews. Hebrews, you know, it’s written to a small struggling church in a large metropolitan area. And they’re having problems, big problems. And yet, to this small, struggling church, he writes this very, well-organized, probably not really an epistle so much. And it has very specific organizational factors to it that make it clear that there are seven very distinct sections.

And at the head of your outline today, I give you those seven sections just to put a context for what we’re talking about here. And the context for what we’re talking about here is we’re in the sixth section of Hebrews. We’re in the sixth of seven sections. And when we see seven sections, we think about, you know, the days of creation and how those things move and how the spirit moves.

The sixth day is when God created man, gave him dominion over the earth. And in the sixth section of Hebrews, we’re learning how to live heavenly realities out in the context of the earth, you know, new Adam. And it matches up with the second day chiasmatically. The second day is firmament and the waters above, the firmamental waters below. And we’re trying to have this heavenly perspective on earth, the reunion of heaven and earth, so to speak.

And so this sixth section of Hebrews is filled with what we would call practical instructions. Of course, the whole book’s practical, but the point is it tells you how to live in heavenly community here on earth. Now, that’s important. The final scripture reading today will be another one that shows the relationship of a proper attitude toward leaders and the well-being of congregational relationships one to the other as well.

The scriptures say the way to have a good godly community here is to have proper relationship between leaders and congregants both ways. And the end result of that will be like heaven on earth. And when we mess those things up, it’s going to be the opposite on earth. It’s going to be very difficult for us and no fun. So that’s kind of where we’re at. Hebrews has seven sections. We’re in section six. Section six teaches us how to live heavenly lives on earth.

Okay. Few brief notes before we get to the list of duties we could say for leaders and congregants. First, an overview of the section itself. So, you know, again, this is a section and as it’s laid out in your outline, it’s got a word obey referring to your rulers up at the beginning and it’s got those same rulers being talked about at the end in verses 7 and 17. There are bookends. Those are pericope identifiers, big word, but a section identifier.

I don’t like bookends that say this is a discrete section of the text of Hebrews and within this section, it’s going to have a structure to it. And not just the bookmarks, but the very center tells us the same thing. If you look at the center of this portion of scripture, you’ve got a threefold reference to outside—outside the camp, outside the gate, outside the camp. So, there’s this doubling or even tripling with a center at the middle of it that also shows us there’s this structure going on.

And when we look at that structure, we start to meditate on relationships between the parts. And the big thing I want to point out here is just that the middle of this is the outflowing of sanctification. Jesus goes outside the camp as a sin offering, a purification offering. And the Jews, they want to stay inside the city, but that city contemporaneously to the Hebrews is going to be destroyed in AD 70.

The Hebrews are tempted to go back to the past. Jesus says through the spirit, you got to move to the future. They want to live in the city. He says, “No, the waters got to flow into all the earth.” And that’s those waters are sanctifying waters at the center. Jesus produces sanctifying influence on the people that follow him outside the camp. Holiness is going to flow out of the city. That’s what the middle of this section talks about.

Holiness and sanctification is going outside of the city. It’s going to cleanse the whole world through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And God gives leaders to the church for that purpose. It’s not just to have this relationship. It’s to the center end that sanctification might influence the whole world. So that future-oriented holiness-oriented movement is what elders are ordained to assist and develop.

And alternatively, if we’ve got bad leaders in the church, we’re not going to have a sanctifying influence in Washington DC. And that’s what’s going on. The churches of Christ need to be filled again, and they’re not, with people that understand the application of the word to our culture and thunder that word forth from the pulpit. It’s not about making us feel good while the world falls apart. It’s about us transforming the world through being strong dominion men and women through the Lord Jesus Christ to sanctify the world.

One of the glasses I like to put on sometimes I did this morning is I think about the Teutonic Knights and some of these castles I saw in Poland when I was over there and to imagine what it must have been like for a knight in that day and age and then I listen to the music of today and I know it’s a generational thing I’m sure but it’s hard to imagine Teutonic Knights singing the sort of self-doubt, angst-ridden, me-me songs of today.

Now, I’ve probably just made some people, including members of my family, upset with me. I’m sure I don’t understand the music that well, but from my perspective, I’ve lived for, you know, 30 years in the church of Jesus Christ seeing too much of that in churches of the handholding and poor me and golly, it’s tough and oh, Obama and this and that. Uh-uh. We’re the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to sanctify the world.

That’s who we are. Man up, put on glasses, see yourself as a knight, a queen, a princess, power. That’s who we are. And God says that’s the purpose for what we’re doing in the church today. It’s not so that, you know, we have elders that’ll hold your hand, make everything okay. Now, there is that. Compassion is important. David, you know, was certainly needed strengthening from the spirit, and we do that.

But it’s to the end that the world might have the sanctifying influences of the Lord Jesus Christ flowing out into all of it. So, an overview of the text shows us those kind of things. There’s other relationships as well. There’s kind of an interesting pairing of the elders leading and sacrificial praising of God, the fruit of our lips contrasted with other sorts of food. So, there’s other things we can meditate on.

We don’t have the time today. We do need to move on and actually look at the specific specifics of the text itself. But that structure is I think correct at least from one perspective and it is significant for understanding what we’re doing today.

Another thing to point out in the text is it has two focal points right at the beginning of it. It’s got this strange little thing thrown in: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever. Well, I think he’s probably encouraging them to remember the leaders of the past. Now, it has an application for present leaders, but he’s going to the past. Jesus Christ in the present. And then don’t be taken astray by false doctrines in the future. So the point is there’s a focal point right at the beginning of the section on Jesus and of course the overall focal point of the text is Jesus going outside of the gate.

So, Jesus Christ is the focal point of everything that we’re doing here and is at this text as well. And either end of the text are our duties to elders, elders of the church. It starts with past rulers and moves to present rulers. And between these is verse 8 which as I said talks about Jesus. So whether it’s the past, the present or the future that Jesus is the center of that the heart of the ruler’s duties is the Lord’s supper.

That we’ll talk about that more in a few minutes. But clearly there’s a reference here to partaking at an altar. An altar is a table where food is administered. And so the elders serve at the altar. They lead at celebration. And so there are other things here in the text that we could talk about but we want to talk about more specific things now.

Okay. The Jews wanted to stick to the past. We have to move forward. Holiness is now flowing into all the world. This is question number nine for the outline for those who are little or trying to stay awake. Question number 10. Pastors are a very important part of this and we should pray for them. But this is true everything I’ve said so far that ultimately the kind of pastors that are ordained and that occupy the pulpit are determinative of whether your kids are going to have freedom to engage in trans financial transactions that improve their health rather than being overseen by a health care system that may be detrimental to them.

If we’re going to have homes that don’t have the kind of mandatory visits that the homeschool legal defense association told us about yesterday in alerts that are in this bill. If we’re going to have sons and daughters who have businesses that can afford to stay in business in spite of the massive amount of tax increases that are being passed by our legislators today. If all of that’s going to happen as a result of ordaining good men in office here, then it’s obvious we should be praying for those leaders.

Once they’re ordained, we want to pray that they do what’s right. They do what’s good and profitable for changing the culture. So prayer.

Two more general comments about elders. First of all, there are multiple elders assumed here. The terms used in terms of rulers are plural. So normally churches have a plurality of elders. Secondly, ruling and teaching functions are combined. There’s not two different kind of elders being discussed here, right?

So we got this central text that shows us how to sanctify the world, how things work in the institutional church. And it really talks about those who rule by means of the word. So ruling and teaching elders are brought together in this text. And that’s how it is at our church. Not all churches agree with this. They’ve got good reason for what they say. But that’s why we believe this is because it seems to us that to separate ruling and teaching elders separates rule away from potentially away from the teaching of the word.

Whereas what we see in Hebrews is they rule by means of the teaching of the word. So ruling and teaching elders are combined in this text.

Brief statement I wanted to make: and the third one I don’t have it on the outline but you know this is instruction primarily to the lay right he doesn’t say elders do this We can infer certain things, but this is a long, complicated sermon given to a small church struggling in a major metropolitan area.

It’s got heavy doctrine in it. It’s dense. It’s thick. It’s hard to understand first reading through. And it’s given to lay people. I think that’s very significant. Okay. That’s very significant.

All right. So, now let’s talk about the implications for the office of elders themselves, the duties of elders.

First of all, they engage in servant rule by the word. So now we’re actually going verse by verse through the text. We’re at verse 7. And so the command is to the congregation, but the implied duty of rule of elders. Remember those who rule over you who have spoken the word of God to you. Now this word for rule is the same word that’s used down in verse 17. It’s doubled up. It’s really the bracket for the section. It’s significant.

Another words, what’s significant about it is it’s not the normal word for rule of people in a hierarchical relationship to others. It’s not that. There’s a word for rule. You know, you got civil magistrates who rule this or these guys that rule this. This is not that word. This is a word that is more generally it’s got the implication of rule. The translation is good. Elders do rule, but it’s the sort of rule that isn’t, you know, authoritarian or based on a structure. A high hierarchy primarily. It’s based upon their ability to lead through the word and example and all that stuff.

It’s servant leadership implied by the very use of this term that’s translated rule twice in the text for us to describe what elders are supposed to do. So they engage in leadership, but it’s not the same kind of leadership that you would think of as just, you know, yes, sir, giving orders and that’s it. No, it’s servant-based leadership and that’s what elders are supposed to engage in.

Secondly, it’s service-based leadership that results from the preaching of Christ’s word. So they have a responsibility to rule by means of servant-based leadership, but it’s a rule that’s directly related to the authority of Christ’s word. And this obviously this implies the need under B on your outline to speak Christ’s word. Remember those who rule over you and in parallel who have spoken the word of God to you. Okay, so there’s a parallel. They rule by speaking the word of God.

I have no authority in and of myself. The authority I have is speaking the word of God to you. It’s the preaching of God’s word. Now, this means that elders have to be really good students of God’s word. They got to know what it says. They got to be able to figure this stuff out. It’s not easy. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of study. You want them doing that work. You want them in their studies. You want them studying the word of God, what it actually means.

Okay? And then how does that meaning relate to the context of the world in which we live? That’s what they have to do. That’s what you should pray for Flynn to get better and better and all your elders to get better and better at doing that. All of us. Because that’s the basis for the rule in the church of the elders is speaking Christ’s word. Not our word, not our opinions, not the spirit of the age. Not what evangelicalism thinks today, but we want to speak Christ’s words to you.

And that’s the basis of elders authority. That’s why they’re ordained office. That’s job one is servant-based leadership through the word of God, preaching, speaking Christ’s word, not what seems good to us or pleasing to you. You know, Paul warned, I think it was Titus, the time will come when they don’t want to hear a good doctrine. There are times the churches don’t want to hear. There are times they just say, “Give us easy words. Don’t make us, you know, uncomfortable.”

Most churches, I remember reading the most influential books in my early movement into reformed theology and stuff talked about how in most churches, evangelical churches, there’s this kind of unspoken arrangement. You know, the congregation will provide the pastor a good job. He’ll be there as long as he wants to be there. Everything will be cool. They’ll they’ll be nice to him and everything. And he just won’t rattle their world too much. He’ll preach stuff that, yeah, it’s important. Be like Jesus. Yeah, it’s good to hear, but he won’t ever get more specific than that. Or not much more than that. The unspoken arrangement is don’t shake us up. Make it soft words. Yeah, a little bit of, you know, challenge sometimes, but nothing real big. Don’t talk to us about politics. Don’t talk to us about education.

Don’t talk to us about what God’s word says about healthcare or anything else. That’s controversial. Now, see, that’s what’s got to change. When the spirit of God moves with reformation revival in this country, the preachers of God’s word will speak the word of God as it applies to the setting in which we live and we’ll challenge each other to be more faithful. We’ll challenge each other, you know, to be these kind of strong, courageous warriors for the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, we’re supposed to do that. Paul told Titus, “Speak these things, exhort, rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.” So they have real authority, but that authority is linked to speaking the things of Christ. That’s the basis for their for the authority of the elders.

Third, they’re to have exemplary faith/conduct. Okay? So they rule over you. They’ve spoken the word of God to you whose faith follow considering the outcome of their conduct. Again, a double thing. You follow their faith. What does that mean? You look at their conduct. Faith in the Bible is tied to works. There’s no distinction here. You’re to look at your elders and follow their faith slash conduct, how they live. Now, what that means for the elders is we have to live lives that are exemplary, that are capable of being imitated. Okay? We see this over and over and over again in the scriptures.

Paul says, you know, be imitators of me, imitate your elders. Imitation is good. It’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t mean you’re not being authentic. There is no you in the sense that the modern world thinks of you. There really isn’t any you. You were born from two people with their genetic structure and you look a lot like them. You sound a lot like them. You act a lot like them whether you like it or not. That’s just the way it is.

Everybody that’s born is born connected to two other people. And then there’s people that grow up in your life and you act just like them for the most part. You act like who you hang out with. Nothing wrong with that. Don’t strive for authenticity to be some kind of individual apart from people. It’s not there. We’re to be understanding. Paul says, “Imitate, act like me, be an impersonator.” Okay? It’s what he says.

Look at my faith, my conduct as an example to you. And so, I’ll just have to do that. And it’s perfectly fine. In fact, it’s inevitable that you’re going to do that one way or the other. That’s why the Bible says, “Don’t hang out with angry guys because you’ll get angry like them. Don’t hang out with sinful people. The evil crowd, the troublemaking crowd because you’re, you know what, sooner or later you’re going to get into trouble.”

Now, you know, there’s always the idea of evangelism, but in general, you know, elders have to live lives of faithfulness, and that faithfulness have to be reflected in their conduct. And they’re supposed to live lives that are exemplary. They’re supposed to be inspirational to the congregation, okay? Not just, you know, okay, like everybody else, but there’s a sense in which we’re to have exemplary conduct.

You’re supposed to take on tasks, blaze trails, have exemplary, inspirational lives that other people can follow. That’s what elders are supposed to do here. You’re supposed to give an example to people who follow your faith by looking and observing your conduct.

Fourth, this means you got to die good. You have to die well. Considering the outcome of their faith, their outcome of their conduct means the end of their lives. The story’s not written totally until you die.

You know, Flynn’s going to come up here. We’re going to lay hands on him. Now, at RCC, we do that a little differently. We’ll ordain him as an elder in the Church of Jesus Christ, and that will be by the hands of presbyters. The elders will do that with Flynn. Okay? Then we’ll install him as an elder at RCC. And for that, all the men members 20 and older will come up and lay hands on Flynn as we pray for him in his installation in this church.

We do that because in Numbers, it says that when they ordained the Levites, special officers of the Old Testament church, all the congregation laid hands on the Levites. Okay? You’ve got a role in this. You’re identified with Flynn, and he’s supposed to be helping you to add your value to this church. And that’s pictured symbolically with that form of ordination.

Now, I bring it up because Numbers also says that before the Levites had hands laid upon them, they were shaved with all their hair. They were washed and then they had hands laid on them. You know what’s washed and then has hands laid on it in the Old Testament system. It’s something that’s going to die. You know, I’m representative of the session prepared to die. Flynn’s, that’s what happens when you lay hands on somebody. It’s really preparation to die in a way. And it’s an encouragement to us as elders to have lives that have goal of dying well and you should want to die well right not just get you know tweaked out somehow but to die well and so elders have the same obligation I think to try very self-consciously to have a life a conduct of life that’s based upon faith again in the word of Christ it’s all based on the scriptures that is exemplary to other people that provides them inspiration and an example and that this inspiration and example continues not just while you’re to your you know middle age or to your time to retire, but continues on as some sort of example to the day you die.

You’re supposed to die well.

Next, and I’m rearranging the order a bit here, but verse 9 then tells us by implication that the elders have to be those who protect the church from doctrine, false doctrine rather. So, we’re to protect the church guarding the flock. Verse 9, don’t be carried about with various and strange doctrines. It’s good that the heart be established by grace, not with food. He’s talking about Judaism, of course, here.

But the point is that he is providing elders to protect the church, to guard the flock. And elders have an obligation to look for difficulties, whether it’s individuals, doctrines, false doctrines, whatever it is, and to guard the flock. And Flynn has that obligation in his ordination and installation here.

Next is administering the sacrament of nurture. So he says, our heart is to be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them. That’s an important verse for several reasons. One, we have all this occupation with foods today and you know it helps a little not much. Don’t be occupied with them by terms of application. You know what you eat isn’t all that important. Okay, that’s what he’s saying here. Now directly what he’s saying of course is the Judaistic system that had the distinctive food laws, no pork, etc. And what he’s saying is that, you know, what they actually were teaching was that this kosher food, this clean food could establish us in grace mechanistically.

And he’s warning us that, you know, what we partake of here, food doesn’t establish us in grace, establish us in the faith rather, but the grace of God does. The elements are nothing in and of themselves. It’s the grace of God that flows through that. And so he’s pointing here to the obligation of elders to specifically to administer at this other table. And that’s what he goes on to talk about in the next verse.

We have an altar. An altar is a table from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. You know, if you’re a member of the body of Christ, you have a right to eat here. If you’re not and rejected Christ, you have no right to eat at this altar. This altar is representation of the heavenly altar and it’s this heavenly altar on earth how to live in heavenly community and so the elders have an obligation to minister in the context of the Lord’s supper and that’s what these verses are talking about okay administering the sacrament of nurture so this is how we’re nurtured and built up the sacrament of grace leading in celebratory praise is down in verse 15 at the middle section here we have the verses about the purpose of all of this and then we read in verse 15 therefore by him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of our lips.

So matching the administration of the supper the proper fruit of our lips is the sacrificial praise that elders are responsible to lead the congregation in is all the context of the duties of the officers of the church.

And then finally to be intent on giving an account of the congregation’s souls. So at the last verse we read verse 17, obey those who rule over you. So we’re back to that and be submissive for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account.

Okay, so what this means is that elders have an obligation to assume that when they die and go to heaven, God’s going to ask them about every person that was a member of the congregation in which they served. They’re going to have to give an account for what they do pastoring you to God in eternity. Now you know so they elders have an obligation to put on a mindset to insert the right lenses in place of the wrong lenses that says I have an obligation to these people.

I just can’t say the word of God to them and they take it or leave it and do whatever they want to do. Now we’ve got obligations. Parents have obligations to kids until they leave home or become adults. You don’t want you can’t walk away if you want to. Elders can’t walk away from responsibility over congregants whether we want to and frequently you know it’s difficult to fulfill that part of the responsibility to warn people about what they’re doing but it’s an obligation that elders have expect that from us we have to give account for your souls.

All right. One of the obligations of congregants to rulers or to authorities well first of all it’s to remember them back to verse 7 remember those who rule over you now he’s probably talking about past rulers, giving them an inspiration for their present obligations and future fulfillment and all that stuff.

But still, Paul asks to be remembered by the people that he wrote to. To be remembered, you’re to think about them. You’re to remember us. And probably the easiest way for you to fulfill that obligation is to pray for us regularly in your family worship. Pray for Pastor Tuuri and Pastor Wilson and Pastor Hayes and Pastor Shaw and Pastor Ayers. Now, okay, remember us. Think about us, pray for us.

Secondly, imitate us. So again, this is what I said earlier. We’re to leave exemplary lives to the end that you might actually imitate the pastors that God has brought into your particular life. You think in a situation, what would Flynn do? What would Pastor Tuuri, how would his response be to this? How did he handle it when I saw him go through this particular difficulty? You have an obligation to know your pastors and to then imitate their faith.

Faithful conduct, not their sinfulness, of course, but when their conduct is an evidence of their faith in Christ and his word, you have an obligation to imitate that kind of conduct. You should desire to live like your pastors, live like them.

Third, it’s to obey. There is a obligation to obey your rulers. Now, remember, it’s not because we’re your rulers. It’s because we’re speaking the word of Christ. Your obedience is bounded by that word of Christ and the authority of Christ’s word, but it’s a real deal where in the churches, you know, they’re not. I remember the old movie, The Mission, you know, at one point one of the priests says, you know, that we’re not a democracy, we’re an order. The church is not a democracy ultimately where everything’s voted on by the people. It’s an order. And God has set up these officers to the end that they might be obeyed as they exercise their God-given functions and as they speak Christ’s word to you.

You don’t always obey us. You shouldn’t because sometimes we’re going to do things wrong. But you should always want to obey us. You should have a heart that desires to obey the pastors of your church. When the kerfuffle happens over some of these teams and sub teams and who’s doing what and who’s, you know, doing what and who’s responsible for what, you know, if you keep that in mind, you should want to desire to follow us, to obey us, then you won’t trip so hard at some of the things that happen along the way.

And on the other hand, if you don’t have that desire, if you’re always testing your leaders, should I obey him or should I not obey him? You know, if you’re neutral as you approach the thing, you’re in big trouble. You should want to obey them. You should have a heart to do that.

And then fourth, you should be submissive to them. Verse 17 says obey, but it also says submit to them. I wanted to mention something here that uh Rich Bledsoe talked about in a recent BH post they were talking about the change in the role of men and women this side of the cross right and it’s been an interesting thread but one of the things that Rich said was in terms of husband wife relationships and I hope he’ll flesh this out for us at camp he’s one of our camp speakers of course him and James B. Jordan he addressed this idea of submission what it looks like and what it doesn’t look like and he said that theologically thinking right We have God and then we have his people.

And that relationship is a relationship that helps us to understand the relationship of husband and wife, right? And rulers and followers, right? I mean, explicitly that’s we’re told that in Ephesians that marriage is kind of a image of this. And so we have this relationship that helps us to understand what biblical submission in marriage or in churches should look like. And we can look at the kind of submission that God expects from his people generally.

And Rich contrasted the God of the scriptures, the true God, the only God with the God of Islam. Islam, one of the central tenets is submissiveness. You have to submit. But the kind of God in Islam is unitarian, right? He’s not three people existing in community. If he loves, he only loves himself or he had need for love before he created things. There’s problems with the unitarian God. And one of the problems is he’s kind of slavishly ruling over people.

And the kind of submission that Islam calls for leads to the sort of thing like forced conversion at the point of a sword, lopping people’s heads off. If you don’t submit in Islam, God crushes you. Allah is powerful and mighty and he will crush you. So, you’re always sort of fearful and that’s the basis for your obedience.

Now, in Christianity, we don’t want to get rid of submission and the need to obey God, but look at the sorts of things God talks about in the Bible. And Rich pointed out Look at Jacob and his relationship to God. As Jacob comes back into the promised land after, you know, being running away and going living with Laban and all that stuff, he goes across the river Peniel and at night and something starts wrestling with him as he’s starting to go across the river Peniel. And we find out that the one who wrestles with him all night long is actually God.

And God isn’t ticked off at Jacob. God is testing Jacob. Jacob wrestles with God and God says, “You wrestled well.” Now, he touches Jacob’s socket to remind him who’s boss and who isn’t. He’s going to limp the rest of his life. And then he limps into a sunrise. It happened all night. We’re delivered into the sun. We have future optimism, hope. That’s what we’ve got. But, but the point here is that the kind of submission the scriptures give us in this exemplary saint Jacob is the kind of submission that wrestles with God, that wrestles with the difficulties that doesn’t whistle past the graveyard who in his old age tells Pharaoh that I’ve had a really tough life.

It’s been hard. He doesn’t say it’s been anything other than that. But he struggles with God. He wrestles with God. In the New Testament, we have the Canaanite widow who wants something from Jesus. He says, “No,” she keeps asking him. We have the imagery of the important widow at the judge. Keep asking, keep asking, keep asking. God says to us to keep petitioning, petitioning intentionally. The kind of submission we have is a different sort of submission than Islam and as a result it’s good for husbands and wives to wrestle. I mean to see who’s awake. I don’t mean physically wrestle. That may be good too but what I’m talking about is it’s good that in biblical submission is not some kind of yes sir whatever thou says master I will do whatever you want me to do and you know have a brain.

That’s not submission. Biblical submission is people wrestling, getting through discussions of that. You know, you got to have a structure and an order to the thing. The wife should desire to be submissive. And it’s the same thing in the church. We’re not saying the elders are your rulers. Obey everything we do. Salute whenever we look at you or we’re going to, you know, do this or that to you. Wrestle with us a bit.

We like wrestling. It’s okay. The end of the day, we’re going to make some decisions, right? But we want the wrestling. We want the involvement. We want the input. In fact, we know we need it. We know that this text is not about how elders can change the world. It’s addressed to lay. It’s addressed to the congregation. How they will change the world. How they’ll be going outside of the city, going into the future, sanctifying the world with holiness.

And so, it’s not ultimately the ordination of Flynn is ultimately a call on us. Us to serve you so that you might do this work. And if we don’t have this kind of attitude of submission toward you, we’re going to be in deep problems.

Now, the next thing it says is to seek our joy. That’s the best part of this verse. You’re supposed to make us joyful. Let them do so with joy, not with grief. Make us joyful. That should really be your goal. You should husbands, you know, their children and their wives should want to make them happy. And congregants should want to make their elders happy. That’s a good thing to do. But of course, it’s not. What kind of joy are we supposed to have? We’re supposed to have the same kind of sense of joy as John had in the third epistle of John where he says the greatest joy he can have is to see that his children walk in the faith.

You want to make us happy, you be holy and happy. You do. You live a Christian life continually. You walk in the faith and that will make us very happy. It’s the greatest joy John said he had. It’s the greatest joy we can have is to see the congregation not drifting off, not be falling into the world, not drifting away into a minimalistic Christianity, but to be faithfully walking in the context of Jesus Christ.

You should want to make us happy. And what’s going to make us happy is if you self-consciously try to follow the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Don’t give us grief. That’s the next thing it says. Make it so that they can do this with joy, not with grief. Don’t make us unhappy. And again, what makes us unhappy is when people sin, they don’t hear our rebukes or admonitions or exhortations which we’re supposed to give them, and they make us very grievous over our care for them.

So don’t make us unhappy, please. In the sense of your walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, you’re the purpose for God giving elders to his church to walk in the faith faithfully. You should try hard to listen to the sermon. You should try pray for your pastors. You should try hard to apply the sermon in the context of your life. And you should see in the context of all of this that ultimately again, it’s not the authority of the elders that’s being played out here.

It’s the ministry and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. It would be unprofitable for you, not us. No skin off our nose so to speak. But it’s unprofitable for you to fail to give us the joy of you walking in the context of faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ.

So we’re going to have an ordination and installation service. Remember all these things. Take this outline home. Teach your children. Teach your wife. Teach your husband. These are the obligations we have to our rulers. This is what our obligations today become relative to Flynn. A lot of them are general to everyone, but this is the result of what we do now is these things are Flynn’s obligations to you. These things are articulations of your obligations to him. And this text is the great reminder that the end result of this is that what we do here will produce the sort of future that votes in Washington DC can never affect one way or the other.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for Flynn. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the community of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you father that you give us leaders to make us more profitable servants of Christ to know his word better to follow it more astutely. We thank you for the examples that they give us with the preaching of the word and also in their own lives. Bless us Lord God as we rejoice in the ordination and installation of Flynn.

In Jesus name we ask it. Amen. Amen.