Imitate and Obey

Our Old Testament reading is Ezekiel 34, 1 through 10.

Please stand for the reading of the word.

If you'd like to follow along in a few Bible, it's page 722.

The word of the Lord came to me, son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of

Israel.

Prophesy and say to them, even to the shepherds, thus says the Lord God.

Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves, should not shepherds feed the sheep?

You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.

The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, and the injured you have not

bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought,

and with force and harshness you have ruled them, so they were scattered because there

was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beast.

My sheep were scattered.

They wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill.

My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.

Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord, as I live, declares the Lord God.

Surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beast,

since there was no shepherd,

since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep,

forgive me, I'm gonna go back.

Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord, as I live, declares the Lord God.

Surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beast, since there was no

shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves and have not

fed my sheep.

Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord.

This says the Lord God, behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a

stop to their feeding of the sheep, feeding the sheep.

No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves.

I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.

Please remain standing.

Today's New Testament reading is 1 Peter 5.

One through five, that's on page 1016 in your P Bible.

So I exhort the elders among you, as fellow elder and witness of the sufferings

of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed,

shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under

compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain,

but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being

examples to the flock.

And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading

crown of glory.

Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders, clothe

yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but

gives grace to the humble.

Please remain standing.

I invite you to take your Bibles now and turn with me to Hebrews chapter 13.

Hebrews chapter 13.

You follow as I read this section, verses seven through 17.

Hebrews 13, verses seven through 17.

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.

Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by

grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them.

We have an altar from which those who serve that tend to have no right to eat.

For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a

sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp.

So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people

through his own blood.

Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.

For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the

fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as

those who will have to give an account.

Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage

to you.

Let's pray.

Father, now open your word to us.

This is your voice in the texts of scripture, not mine.

I pray, Lord, that we would have hearts that would be listening and

willing to change.

I pray, Father, that you would guide us in our thinking as we hear your voice.

Help us now, Lord, to be attentive to you.

In Jesus' name, amen.

I've always kind of dreaded the day I would preach on two verses in this section, verse 7 and 17.

You say, why?

Well, they're difficult because I realized that preaching on those two verses invites you

to examine Greg, Dan, Andrew, and me because these verses are about the shepherds that

lead this flock.

They also tell you that you have a duty to obey and submit to our biblical authority.

That's not a comfortable thing to do, it just isn't.

I'm gonna tell you now you gotta obey us.

I'm gonna tell you now these things, but you know what, here we are.

We're in this exposition of the book of Hebrews.

You can't get around it, so here it is.

These two verses that I've dreaded, so maybe I won't dread them from now on after today.

I don't know, we'll see.

Now, of course, you remember we've entered into the epilogue the very last chapter of this book,

and it appears to us to be a series of short commands that catch our attention.

They just seem to be a number of random, a random collection of short commands,

but it connects us to the rest of this book as a series of distinctives

that should distinguish us from all others.

It also provides for us, again, connected to the theme of this book, the means that

we use to continue to persevere in the faith, to not give up and not give

in, to not abandon Jesus.

It gives us the means by which we can find the strength to remain

faithful to Jesus, even in the midst of persecution.

We saw last week in verses one through six that brotherly love and hospitality will encourage

others to remain loyal.

We saw that identifying with those who suffer for the faith will encourage perseverance on their

part and in our part.

We saw last week that marital and sexual fidelity will keep you from the immorality that so

easily entices you away from Jesus.

And finally, God uses freedom from greed and the love of money to promote

perseverance so that when we lose our livelihood for the faith, we will not be

shaken.

Now the writer turns your attention to your leaders as a means of encouraging that endurance.

He turns your attention to your leaders.

Notice in verse seven, he opens this section by encouraging you to remember your former

leaders.

And then in verse 17, he exhorts you to remember your present leaders.

Those are the two groups that he deals with.

And that is why I chose to examine these two verses together.

We're gonna look at verse 17 this morning.

We'll get all this stuff in between next week.

So then, God uses your leaders to foster endurance,

but how?

How?

Here's the first thing he says in verse seven.

Imitate your leaders.

Imitate your leaders.

Well, I should more accurately say imitate your pastors.

Imitate your pastors.

Why pastors, do you say?

It says leaders.

Why pastors?

These are the ones who spoke the word of God to you.

That is the shorthand description of what elders, shepherds, pastors do.

That's the very description of the shepherds who watch over you.

These are the ones who shepherd you by ministering the word of God to you.

Publicly, from the pulpit, in public venues, they minister the word of God to you, and

privately, as they meet with you, one -on -one, face -to -face ministry, where we minister the

word of God to you in private settings, whether it's counseling or

visiting with you, or in fellowship.

It's the ones who shepherd you by ministering God's word to you publicly and privately.

He says, remember those men.

I believe that he's talking about a generation of leaders who are past, who are gone, who have

died.

He says, remember the outcome of their way of life, as if they reach the end of their lives

now, and you see the outcome of it all.

So I think he's talking about leaders in the past.

He says, don't just remember their words, but remember their lives.

Don't just remember their words, remember their lives.

He says, remember the lives exhibited in their outcome and in their faith,

all right?

Remember their lives in their outcome and in their faith.

Outcome, what does he mean by outcome?

The results, the record of a faithful life, the details of how they lived life in

obedience.

So here's a couple of family members, a brother and a sister, and they're having coffee

together, and they're talking, and one of them says, remember how Pastor showed up when Jannie

died?

Remember how he came alongside?

Do you remember how we spent two days in the hospital with us when we couldn't figure out what was going on

with Mom?

And the hours he spent with Joey during his difficult years, do you remember how much time he

invested in him?

You think back, and you look back, and you say, that's the outcome of his life.

That's what it looked like.

That was the result of it.

And then he says, remember a life lived believing the promises of God.

Look at their faith.

How did they trust God?

How did it happen?

And so these two are still talking, and they say, you know, I'll never forget those two years in the 90s when the church

seemed to be just falling apart.

You remember that?

You remember how Pastor just kept saying, you know what, Jesus says he'll build his church.

This isn't my church, this isn't your church, this is Jesus' church.

He's gonna deal with us as he sees fit.

We may be small, but God's still here.

I'm just gonna keep preaching.

You remember how he just kept ministering the word of God?

That's the kind of faith our pastor had.

But he says, don't just remember that.

What does he say?

What's the operative term here in this verse?

It's imitate.

Imitate their lives.

Imitate their faith.

Don't just remember, but imitate that kind of life.

Now I know some of you are saying, how can that be?

Doesn't that encourage pride?

I mean, aren't we just supposed to follow the word of God?

I mean, let's face it, I've been told endless times, never

follow people they'll disappoint you every time.

You know what I say about that?

That's wrong.

That's not what the Bible says.

You know what the Bible says?

Here's one from 1 Corinthians chapter four.

1 Corinthians chapter four, verses 14 through 18.

You hear what the apostle Paul says?

Here's what he says.

I am writing this not to shame you, but to warn you as my dear children.

Even if you had 10 ,000 guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in

Christ Jesus, I became your father through the gospel.

Therefore, I urge you to imitate me.

For this reason, I've sent to you Timothy, my son, whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord.

He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with

what I teach everywhere in every church.

Four times in the New Testament, Paul says that.

Imitate me, follow me, do what I do.

Imitate.

You say, what's that all about?

It's what you call discipleship.

You know what discipleship is?

It's learning by show and tell.

So here's your shorthanded way of remembering discipleship.

It's show and tell.

It's not just telling, it's showing.

It's not just saying, here's what God says to do.

It's also, and this is how you do it.

Look, watch how it can happen.

You see?

That's what discipleship is.

It's learning by show and tell.

And what the apostle Paul is doing and what the writer to the Hebrews is doing here is simply saying,

imitate those kinds of lives.

They're worth imitating.

Of course, now Paul adds an important qualifier, right?

Imitate me as I imitate Christ.

That's important to see.

But again, it's just discipleship.

One of the guys who really taught me biblical counseling and a man I will forever

respect and hold dear is Pastor Bill Good.

And he made this point, I remember.

No one ever learns, no one ever changes in the abstract.

They change in the concrete.

No one ever changes in the abstract.

They change in the concrete.

And so we can talk about what God says.

But in the concrete, what does it look like?

What does it look like?

And so he says, imitate those.

Imitate those.

You know what?

When I read this verse, I think of one person.

I remember my own dad who was

an example of faithful ministry of the word.

I can look back on his ministry in little churches, smaller than this one,

little churches, faithful minister of the gospel.

I can look back at my generation in that little church.

We had a youth group in that little church.

He had an incredible influence.

Almost all those kids today, kids, you know, we're 68 to 71 now.

But all those kids, most of them, most of them are following Jesus.

You know, since I graduated from high school, we've had two youth group reunions.

We grew close together, we grew in the Lord.

I think it was because of my dad's influence.

I saw a man who had an influence on pastors, other pastors who recognized his wisdom.

I saw a pastor who loved his congregation well.

But you know what?

There are no monuments to Jerry Pasma.

No special acts of the Wisconsin legislature ever took note of his faithful service.

You'll find no buildings named after him on some Christian college campus.

You won't.

But you will find an outcome of life and a deep faith that's worth imitating.

If you do not want to give in, if you do not want to give up, then imitate those leaders who have a

proven record of faithful following of Jesus.

Imitate them.

Now that also says a great deal to your shepherds, Greg and

Dan and Andrew and me.

It says to us that we do not exhaust the responsibility of

shepherds by merely teaching the word of God publicly and privately.

We have to live lives that are worthy of imitation.

Not as if we're gonna walk around saying, okay, is this gonna be worth imitating?

It's just being faithful to Jesus, being faithful to him so that there's a

record, there's something that you can say, I know what Jesus wants me to do.

I know what he's told me to do.

I saw how they did it.

That has to be part of our responsibility.

So he says, imitate your pastors.

If you don't want to give in, you don't want to give up on Jesus, imitate your pastors.

Now verse 17.

Verse 17, he says, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping

watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account.

Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of

no advantage to you.

What does he say the next thing to do is?

Obey your pastors.

Now, it's clear that pastors exercise authority because you can't get away from those

words, submit and obey.

They're very clear.

There's no getting around that.

Question is, why in the world should you submit to your pastors?

Why would you do that?

Well, here's the first reason.

He gives us two.

Here's the first.

For they are keeping watch over your souls.

They have the responsibility of keeping watch over your souls.

Now, the idea of the word translated keeping watch is that of vigilance through

tireless efforts, self -discipline, great care and concern, even sleepless nights.

That's what it means.

That's the kind of vigilance.

We have the responsibility of keeping watch over your souls.

Okay, you know, there is, let me tell you what the tendency of pastors are.

Okay, here's the tendency of pastors is to not be joyful, but to walk around like this,

man, you just don't know hard it is, how hard it is to be a pastor.

Oh, right, there's that tendency.

And you could turn this verse into that easily.

You know, they keep watch over their souls, your souls.

They're sleepless nights, do you know it?

We're not gonna go there.

But it does require those sorts of things.

It requires that.

Well, why is such care necessary?

Why is that necessary?

Well, what have we seen already in this book?

Why is that necessary?

What do we see in this book to help you understand and handle hardship, to walk you through

hardship, to say, this is the discipline of the Lord.

Take heart, God's at work in your life.

It's to help you live in peace.

Chapter 12, verse 14, right?

Live in peace with everyone.

We're to help you live in peace, to help you be holy, to help you deal with bitterness if

necessary, to help you be pure sexually.

That's our job.

That's what we're supposed to do.

We're supposed to come alongside and help you.

Not come along as a top sergeant, but come alongside to help.

Not to demand obedience from you, but to come alongside.

And they have to keep watch over your soul so that you will not give in and you will not give up.

What are we supposed to do when we see you heading for the exit?

What are we supposed to do when we see you saying, I don't know if Jesus is worth it?

We're supposed to enter the picture and say, no, no.

We're in this together.

Where is your struggle?

How can we help?

Now, how do they do that?

They do that by the public and private ministry of God's word.

You know what my theme verse is?

The verse that I've adopted as my pastoral theme verse is Colossians chapter one, verse 28.

If you want to look at it, Colossians chapter one, verse 28.

Him we proclaim.

Who's him?

Jesus.

We proclaim Jesus.

Warning.

That's the next word.

Now that word warning is an interesting word.

It's the word nuthetao.

It's the closest word we have to our concept of counseling.

It's the private ministry of the word.

It means face -to -face ministry.

It means helping some person personally to avoid a certain path and go down another,

all right?

So we could translate this.

Him we proclaim, counseling everyone and teaching everyone with

all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Whenever I enter this pulpit, I have this verse in mind.

My job in preaching the word is to help you change.

Every time I get up here to minister the word of God or when Greg gets up here or when

Dan gets up here or Andrew gets up or whenever we minister the word of God, it is that you will be

able to give a good account of yourself to Jesus on the day he returns.

I am well aware of the fact that whenever I preach, I've got to preach to help you mature

in Christ so that you can give a good account of yourself.

I'm not up here to impart facts.

I'm not up here to give you a good Bible story.

I'm not even here to make it so that's really interesting to come to church.

It's to help you change so that you are what Jesus wants you to be.

That's what our job is.

We want to minister God's word so that you become like Christ.

And that requires tireless effort, sleeveless nights, much prayer, and faithfulness in

bringing to you God's word.

Bringing to you God's word or bringing you to God's word.

Both, public and private.

So that's the first reason.

Why should you submit?

Because those who are in the office of shepherd keep watch over your souls.

Here's the second reason.

Because they are those who will have to give an account.

We will have to give an account.

Each one of your elders, these four that you have right now and any

that will come on in the future, everyone will someday give an account for

how they shepherded you.

Frankly, that alone is enough to give me sleepless nights.

To think that someday I'm gonna have to answer for the way

I, along with my colleagues, have shepherded you.

You have to understand, you're not our sheep.

You are not our sheep.

You don't belong to us.

Jesus is the one who bought you with his blood and you

are his sheep.

And he's left the shepherds in charge to take care

of his property.

I don't know about you, but that kind of tells me something about the

responsibility we have.

We're taking care of Jesus' sheep, not ours.

So we can't tell you what we want you to do.

We have to tell you what your shepherd wants you to do.

Acts 20, 28 are some awesome words.

Acts 20, verse 28.

In Acts 20, the apostle Paul is talking to the elders, or that is, the

shepherds of the church of Ephesus.

And here's what he says to them in the 28th verse of Acts 20.

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has

made you overseers.

Be shepherds of the church of God which he bought with his

own blood.

Be shepherds of the flock which God bought with his own blood.

Someday before the judgment seat of Christ, the elders of LaRue Baptist Church will have to give an account to Jesus, the

great shepherd, and the Lord of this church.

What did you do to preserve the faith and the obedience of the members of LaRue Baptist Church?

What did you teach?

How did you live?

What steps did you take in the case of the straying sheep?

How did you handle rebellious sheep?

What did you do for my grieving and suffering sheep?

How did you care for the perplexed, the lonely, the aged, the teenagers,

and the children?

What did you do for all those people?

And most of all, how did you help those who were ready to give in and give up?

What did you do then?

Did you go after them?

Did you come alongside?

So, because your pastors keep watch over your souls, because they'll have to give an account someday,

you must obey.

That's what he says.

Now, that just rankles us as Americans because we have this rugged individualism that says, no

one and nobody is gonna tell me what to do, right?

Submission is for weak babies, not for me.

I'm a man of my own making, or a woman of my own making.

I don't have to submit to anybody.

What business is it of yours?

It's between me and God.

You know how many times I've heard that one?

What business is it of yours?

It's between me and God.

That's not what the Bible says.

God commands you to submit to and obey your elders who have given themselves to keeping watch

over your souls.

Now, listen, that doesn't mean that you have to check in with us and say, I'm gonna buy a new car,

what should I buy?

You have to buy a Honda, because that's where everybody works, and my salary

depends on Honda, right?

It doesn't mean that.

What does it mean?

Let me give you some examples.

So Joe goes to the hospital, and the doctor finds that he has cancer, and it's terminal, and he only

has six months to live, but he says to you, to your family, don't tell him.

Don't tell him, that'll dishearten him, right?

That'll dishearten him.

I remember sitting with a family and their doctor, as he talked about cancer, and I was just

jotting down some notes, right?

Okay, I need to remember this so I can help this family, and he very clearly made it clear to me, stop

that.

I don't want anybody taking notes here.

But let's say that the doctor says, you can't tell Joe, he's got a short time to live, don't do that.

So the family goes along with the doctor.

Guess what?

The elders, at least one of them, has a responsibility to them and says, God says lying is

wrong, and besides that, you're keeping Joe from dealing with some relationships he needs to deal with before he

dies, and you're not giving him the opportunity to get things squared away before he leaves this life.

You have to tell Joe.

What are you gonna do?

You have to tell Joe.

What that elder has done is simply minister the word of God and say, what you're doing is wrong.

It's contrary to God's will.

This is what you must do, submit, obey.

Or marriage problems are detected.

There's a couple thinking of separating, and if you're a good shepherd, you're gonna

take them aside and say, look, we need to talk.

We need to spend some time together.

You need help.

God doesn't give you the option of separating.

God doesn't give you the option of calling it off.

Doesn't give you that option.

You need to come and we need to talk about that.

Guess what you need to do?

You need to submit, and as you're sitting there and he says to you, listen, we'll call him Joe,

different Joe.

Joe, listen, you gotta love your wife.

You're not loving your wife.

I'll tell you right now, from what I've heard, it's not happening, and you have an

obligation to love her.

It doesn't matter how difficult you think she is.

You gotta love that woman, and here's how you can love her, and

I start lining out some very practical things.

This is how you can love your wife.

This is how you can love her.

Do this and this and this.

You know what he has a responsibility to do?

He has a responsibility to submit.

Why?

Because that's what God calls him to do, and the elder, the pastor is just the

conduit of that.

Submit.

You've not been in church for some time, and your pastor elder comes knocking on your door and

saying, brother, we haven't seen you in church for months.

Are you gonna get mad about that?

When he says, you're cutting yourself off from life -giving grace.

You need to be there.

Are you gonna be angry about that, or are you going to submit?

You see what I'm saying here.

The submission is submitting to the word of God that they minister to you, but submit you must

because they will give an account.

I remember Pastor Good also saying one time, there are some people who I won't have to give an account for.

They didn't let me be their shepherd.

Submit and obey is the word of God.

Submit to them willingly, it says.

Submit to them willingly.

Don't make it hard for them.

Do not submit grudgingly.

You know how it is.

Isn't it fun to be a parent when you say to your daughter, look,

you need to clean your room,.

And she responds with, hey, I'm not the only one.

Who sleeps in this room.

Why are you always asking me to do it?

What do you think I am?

All right, I'll do it.

Isn't it fun to be a parent right then?

Isn't that great?

She's actually cleaning her room.

Yeah, she's actually cleaning her room, but she's not happy about it.

That does not make your job any easier,.

And it's not to her advantage, is it?

She obeys, but she does it grudgingly.

The Bible says, do it willingly.

If you submit grudgingly or you refuse to submit, the task of shepherding becomes

a burden, and that's of no advantage to you.

Some of you, again, may refuse to submit.

Well, I won't have to give an account for you then.

Well, I will in terms of how I handled your rebellion or how we handled your rebellion.

That's true, but listen, submit willingly.

It's of no advantage to you.

If you submit willingly to your pastors, to your elders, that will be of

great advantage to you.

Now, think of this.

He did this in chapter four.

Do you remember chapter three and chapter four of this epistle?

He told you about the people of Israel.

They're standing on the banks of the Jordan.

They're ready to cross over, but what happens?

They refuse, they refuse.

They say, no, we can't conquer the land.

You remember Moses and Aaron and Joshua and Caleb pleading with them

and saying to them, we must go.

God has promised us that, and they refuse to submit.

What happened?

They missed the rest.

Remember the rest that God had for them?

They missed it. They missed it.

Because of their grumbling and because of their rebellion, the whole congregation of God's

people suffered for a generation in the desert.

Is that not right?

Why?

It was no advantage to them to grumble and to be rebellious against their leaders.

It was no advantage to them at all.

They ended up, what, a whole generation dying in the desert because they

refused to submit.

And today when God's people are proud and stubborn and disobedient to the leaders in Christ's church, there's little

peace or joy or progress in the congregation.

And in fact, like the children of Israel, when you refuse to submit, you are in danger

of missing the goal.

You're in danger of making it to glory.

You're in danger of giving up and giving in.

You know what?

Me in nearly 40 years of ministry, I can think of a

number of people who did not submit and who walked away with Jesus.

It's not theoretical for me.

I can put names on those cases, if you will.

They did not submit and it was of no advantage, none.

So submit for your advantage.

There's great spiritual advantage to you if you submit and obey.

So how do we keep from giving in and giving up?

Imitate those in the past so you can look back, those who've had a proven record of following Jesus.

Imitate those lives.

Find their ways of learning.

Look and see how did they follow Jesus?

How did they follow Jesus and walk that same path?

And obey those whom God has set over you.

Obey them, submit to them, because they will give an account and they do watch over your soul.

How do we keep from giving in and giving up?

If we imitate and obey.

That's one way.

Father, thank you for your word.

Father, my prayer as I close is twofold.

First of all, that this congregation would imitate and would

obey the leaders you set over them.

But my prayer also is that the leaders of this

church, past and present, particularly present, would be worthy of

imitation and would not see the responsibility of demanding obedience

but the spiritual responsibility of keeping watch.

God, help us all as we walk this pilgrim way to glory.

Help us to do it well.

Help us to do it through the means you have given.

And we will thank you in Jesus' name.