How Do I Obey and Submit to My Leaders?
00:00:00.000 | A regular listener named Steve from the great city of Omaha, Nebraska, asked this,
00:00:09.240 | "Pastor John, what does it mean to submit to and obey your leaders in Hebrews 13, 17?"
00:00:15.000 | Yeah, the text says, "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls.
00:00:22.000 | As those who will have to give an account, let them do this with joy and not with groaning,
00:00:29.000 | for that would be of no advantage to you."
00:00:32.000 | And culturally, Tony, the defining spirit of America today is the opposite of that, isn't it?
00:00:40.000 | It's self-determination, not submission to the will of another.
00:00:45.000 | Anything that enhances my individual liberty to do as I please is good,
00:00:51.000 | and anything that encumbers me and limits my ability to do as I please is bad.
00:00:57.000 | That's just the way—that's the spirit we breathe in America.
00:01:02.000 | And that makes this text culturally outrageous.
00:01:05.000 | "Obey your leaders and submit to them."
00:01:10.000 | And we know from the side of leaders that power corrupts.
00:01:14.000 | So the emphasis must always fall for leadership on servanthood, not lording it over.
00:01:21.000 | Paul said, "Not that we lord it over your faith, but we are workers with you for your joy."
00:01:27.000 | That's the kind of leaders we're supposed to submit to.
00:01:30.000 | They come alongside, and they work for our joy.
00:01:34.000 | And the New Testament itself says leaders can go wrong.
00:01:40.000 | They can go bad and disqualify themselves from being obeyed or submitted to.
00:01:45.000 | Acts 20, verse 30, Paul is speaking to the elders, and he says, "From among your own selves,
00:01:52.000 | men will arise and speak perverse things and draw away the disciples after them."
00:01:57.000 | So there you have people submitting to elders who are taking them to destruction.
00:02:02.000 | And Paul wants to warn the church, "Don't let that happen."
00:02:07.000 | Same thing in 1 Timothy 5, 19, Paul instructs what to do if an elder is found to be in sin.
00:02:12.000 | He should be disciplined and publicly removed from office if necessary so that the people will not be hurt by that.
00:02:20.000 | Same thing in 1 Peter 5, he tells the elders, "Shepherd the flock of God, exercising oversight,
00:02:26.000 | not for sordid gain and not lording it over those in your charge."
00:02:31.000 | So the New Testament is not naive about the abuses of leadership.
00:02:38.000 | And nevertheless, here we have Hebrews 13, 17, "Obey them, submit to them."
00:02:45.000 | Now, what would that mean? Here's my best shot at how it would look.
00:02:51.000 | There's a certain spirit and a certain limit and a certain shape that leadership has
00:03:00.000 | and that the people have in response to this verse.
00:03:06.000 | The word "obey" is a very broad word that means "be persuaded by, trust, rely on."
00:03:14.000 | It comes to mean "obey" because that's what you do when you trust somebody.
00:03:18.000 | So you might say it's a soft word for "obey."
00:03:21.000 | It encourages a good relationship of trust but still calls for the people to be swayed by leaders.
00:03:28.000 | So be a swayable person. Be a person ready to learn, ready to be taught, ready to be led.
00:03:35.000 | Not eager to kick and rebel against anybody that calls you to do something at church.
00:03:43.000 | In other words, "submit" occurs only here in the New Testament, this particular form of "submit," "hupeko."
00:03:50.000 | It's more narrow than the other one and means "make room for by retiring from a seat or yield to or submit to."
00:04:01.000 | So with all that, I would try to distill the meaning of Hebrews 13, 17, something like this.
00:04:08.000 | A church should have a people, I, should have a bent toward trusting its leaders.
00:04:16.000 | Be bent that way. Don't be a distrustful people.
00:04:19.000 | Second, I should have a disposition to be supportive in my attitudes and actions toward the goals and the directions of the leaders
00:04:30.000 | if they craft a vision and they set some goals, be supportive. Go with them.
00:04:36.000 | I think it means we should want to imitate their faith, and I think it means we should have a happy inclination to comply with their instructions.
00:04:47.000 | And if you listen carefully at those several paraphrases of what I think this means,
00:04:53.000 | I've used phrases like "a bent towards trusting" and "disposition towards support" and "wanting to imitate" and "inclination to comply."
00:05:05.000 | The reason for that kind of phraseology is to capture both sides of the biblical truth, namely,
00:05:13.000 | "Elders are fallible and should not lord it over the flock and are not absolute." God is absolute.
00:05:20.000 | Yet, the flock should follow good leadership. Our hearts should be bent and our disposition should be that way
00:05:29.000 | and our wants should be that way and our inclination should be that way.
00:05:33.000 | And where those two truths are working, it's a beautiful thing in a church.
00:05:37.000 | In fact, as I look back, Tony, over the 33 years I enjoyed at Bethlehem,
00:05:41.000 | it was a wonderful thing to have an eldership and a people who, while not being naive, unbiblical, "Yes, men, I don't think we've produced a cult,"
00:05:53.000 | there was a sweet experience of, if I tried to rally them for something, they were basically ready and eager to be rallied for biblical things.
00:06:04.000 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:06:07.000 | For more on the topic, see Pastor John's two-part sermon series titled "Obey Your Joyful Leaders, Part 1 and 2," which was recorded back in October of 1997.
00:06:17.000 | You can find those messages and thousands of books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper all free of charge at DesiringGod.org.
00:06:24.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.
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00:06:28.000 | DesiringGod.org
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