Humble Submission & Service

Chapter 5, what 1 Peter chapter 5 starts to do is starts to inform how the church should live in relationship to one another.

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

So when we looked at last week, we started to understand that we would face trials and suffering as Christians.

And Peter was trying to help us understand how do we live in light of that reality?

That should be expected, that it's providentially sovereign by God's hand, and that it's for a purpose.

Then he helped us understand that though we not all trials and sufferings that we face will be because of our faith in Jesus.

Sometimes they'll actually experience trials and sufferings because we are living anti-Jesus lifestyles.

And so we have to try to navigate why are we encountering this trial?

Why are we encountering this suffering?

And what is the purpose in it?

And then he goes on to say that judgment has come.

And so we looked at the reality of how judgment, God's judgment, is past, present, future.

So it's past in that at the cross, judgment was inflicted.

That is a the gospel is a testimony that provides judgment from God.

And so for those of whom Christ died, they are acquitted.

They are justified.

They are made right with God through that judgment because Christ bore that judgment in their place.

For those whom Christ did not die, they still suffer that judgment.

It's still an indictment on who they are as sinful people.

Then we face a present judgment, God's active sanctification of his church, but also God's active discipline on us and active judgment on the world.

They're both with different purposes and outcomes.

And then thirdly, we see a future judgment.

That's the last judgment, the final judgment, the Bible calls that, which we're awaiting.

And so he said that the judgment that's present active would start first in the house of God.

And what Peter's doing is he's borrowing language in the closing of chapter four and into the beginning of chapter five, he's borrowing language from Ezekiel.

But before we jump into that, what I would try to do is work through this passage by really it's kind of one thought until the last verse in chapter five.

It's still a continuous strain of thinking, but it starts to redirect its attention in verse five.

So if I was going to take verses one through four, well, the way I would summarize that passage is this that judgment starts at the leaders and it should inform their conduct.

Judgment starts at the leaders and it should inform their conduct.

So here's where Peter left us in chapter four.

In 17A, Peter says this, for it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God.

So 17A he says, for it's time for judgment to begin at the household of God.

This statement is borrowed language from Ezekiel, and he's trying to apply it to the church scattered throughout Asia Minor, of which he's writing this letter to.

But where is that judgment going to start?

It's going to start at the elders.

So judgment starts at the leaders, even though it starts at the household of God.

Once we get there, it's going to start at the leaders first.

And so Peter's directing his attention to the elders of the churches, plural, of whom he's writing to, because his letter represents a multiple churches spread throughout that region of Asia Minor.

So, if judgment starts with the house of God, it'll begin at the elders once it arrives.

This is why Peter is addressing them directly in the outflow of his previous exhortation.

So Peter turns his direction toward the elders of these churches, not as an apostle, but as a fellow elder and co-laborer in the gospel.

You see, Peter had an apostle authority.

And it's one that he actually wrote a lot of this letter under that authority when he was giving instruction.

In other places in the New Testament, Peter asserts himself in an authoritative position as an apostle.

So he understood his calling by Jesus.

He understood the mandate of which his ministry was to fulfill.

However, at this section, in an empathetic posture, Peter humbles himself down to the elders.

And in turning his direction, he wants to communicate empathy and understanding to their position.

You see, they have taken residence in an office of immense responsibility, but also one of critical and unique judgment.

So as he approaches the elders, he understands the immense responsibility of the office, but he also is communicating empathy toward the unique judgment and critical reality of the office they hold.

We see this in James 3:1, when it talks about those who would be elders, those who would dare to teach God's word, which is a primary function of the office of elder, how they will have a greater judgment.

James 3:1

It says, Not many of you, James chapter 3, verse 1, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

James 3:1

And so there's a critical and unique judgment upon these brothers who Peter's addressing.

He's a fellow elder who has directly witnessed Jesus's literal sufferings and has a assurance of his future glory with Jesus.

Peter fully knows redemption, as he was redeemed from his abandonment of Jesus into the glory of Jesus.

And so as he's communicating to these elders where judgment is coming upon them for the purpose of sanctification in empathy, he's communicating, even if you are caught in sin, even if you are fallen to the sin in your life, there is redemption.

And I, Peter, am going to work with you as a fellow elder, one who has known the falling away, but has also tasted of the beautiful redemption in bringing in being brought back to Christ.

So Peter instructs these elders, and the first thing that he instructs them with the thing that builds the framework of his instruction is this command shepherd the flock.

Peter tells these elders, shepherd the flock.

Now these are very familiar words with Peter.

Because after Christ's resurrection, Peter finds himself on this beach having breakfast with the risen, resurrected Lord.

It's a, it's this, it's this scene that it can, you know, you have to read it for yourself in the scriptures to understand that the that Jesus is now physically, literally resurrected, having breakfast with Peter on a beach, and he's quizzing him.

He's quizzing him with one question three times.

Do you love me?

John 21, 17 says this.

He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me?

Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, Do you love me?

And he said to him, Lord, you know everything, and you know that I love you.

Jesus said to him, Feed my sheep.

Shepherd the flock, feed the sheep is the ultimate summary of the role of an elder.

Every instruction in qualification for the office of elder works interdependently to accomplish this task.

What are we as elders called to do?

What are the elders in a local church responsible and called to do?

Ultimately, it is summarized in feed the sheep, shepherd the flock.

And so every command, every instruction, every qualification that is placed upon the men who seek to fulfill that office works interdependently to accomplish that task.

And then as Peter works out, he goes into verses two and three, and what we see a series of three knots.

Three knots.

And this is informing their behavior as elders within the church.

Understanding that judgment's going to start with the leadership.

There's now three knots that inform the life of which they should live in response to that.

The first one is this not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you.

Not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you.

And so elders have to live in this kind of uh juxtaposition.

They have to kind of live in this tension of two realities.

Enslaved to Christ, but joyfully in service to the office.

Enslaved to Christ, but joyfully in service to the office.

The compulsion should not come from obligation, but from an inescapable joy in duty.

We should not do this out of obligation.

We should not do this for any other motivation, but an inescapable joy in the duty.

And the duty is to shepherd the flock.

The second knot that Peter gives them is not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not for shameful gain, but eagerly.

Again, there's a call to address motivation.

One should never step into the office for personal, shameful gain.

It is far too easy in the church world to build tiny kingdoms of self-glory.

When we look at the church and we look at the landscape of it, we have to realize this possible pitfall to build tiny kingdoms of self-glory.

What other position, what other occupation could you find yourself with the average church in America, the dominant number of people in churches in America per church is less than a hundred people.

That's the vast, vast majority.

And what is so easy inside the church world to build is a tiny kingdom of less than a hundred people who want to know everything you have to think and opinion about certain things, who want to have you over all the time to be at their house.

They want to hear how they should spend their money from you, they want to hear how they should uh discipline their children from you.

They want to that and they want to know.

And it's so easy to build tiny kingdoms of self-glory.

Motivation should not be in the building of our kingdom, but the motivation should be rooted in seeing the kingdom of God expanse through the feeding of the sheep.

You see, this is something that is a pitfall in the church, and we have to work toward overcoming that.

That's one of the reasons why I love the model, biblical model, of a plurality of elders.

It's not a senior pastor.

If you ask in our membership class who is the senior pastor of Sacred Mission Church, the answer is not me.

The answer is Jesus.

He is the chief shepherd.

We are co-laboring under shepherds beneath Jesus, working together to feed the sheep.

The third knot that he gives is this not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.

Leadership always begins with an exemplary life.

It always begins.

And what we have in the church too often is men who do not live exemplary lives, but they want everything that comes with the office.

This is that tiny kingdom of self-glory.

They want a stage, a platform, a voice, but they don't want to sacrifice the life that should be exemplary for the flock to model.

Too often we create a do as I say, not as I do culture in the church.

And there we have to realize this as leaders, not just elders, as leaders in our homes, as leaders in our workplaces, but specifically in the church, there is not one aspect that is not impacted by top-down influence.

Everything about sacred mission, from uh the culture that we have inside the church, our the ministries that we have, what happens on a Sunday morning, how we engage with culture, all of those things are impacted in one way or another from a top-down influence.

The leaders must strive to live exemplary lives, not domineering those in our charge, but being examples to the flock.

Verse 4, he says, And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

Jesus is the chief shepherd.

Local elders are the under-shepherds.

Jesus is the chief shepherd.

This is his church.

And so we are to be stewards of his church.

Even in the office of elder, while we might have sheep within the congregation, we have to remember two things.

One, we are one of his sheep as well.

And two, these are his sheep, not ours.

And so as shepherds, we come in as stewards of the flock that Jesus is the chief shepherd of.

Jesus died to feed his sheep through his body and through his blood.

As under-shepherds with oversight of the flock, we are charged to not feed them of ourselves, but to call them to feast on Jesus.

You see, this is a reality of what we have to strive to be faithful toward.

Too many times we can call the church to feed on us, feed on our opinions, our thoughts, our perspectives, our uh uh dogma that we have created, our tradition that we reside within, and what we have to work to fight against and to overcome in our leading is to call them to not feast on us, but to call the sheep to feast on Jesus.

Faithful to this end, we will be crowned in glory.

That's a Peter says here in this letter that faithful to that end, you will be crowned with the unfading crown of glory.

Verse five, as we start to kind of transition to a new direction, I would summarize verse five by saying, we should live in the family of God through humility toward one another.

We should live in the family of God toward in humility toward one another.

So Peter now, he's addressed the elders, and in the same thought, but in redirection, he addresses those who are younger.

He directly addresses those who are younger.

I wonder why Peter would do such a thing.

You see, Peter's not trying to create some type of uh separation within the church through age.

He's not saying younger and then elder meaning older people.

No, he's specifically talking about an office, uh, the role of elder, not those who are elderly in age.

He directs his attention to the younger, quite possibly, I would submit, because they have historically struggled with submission to authority.

So if you have children or younger people, you can probably say, Yes, I understand that.

He directs his attention specifically to them, calling them to submit, but then turning to the rest of the congregation to understand, help them understand that they are also to submit in humility to one another.

So we see here an established authority structure within the church.

Jesus, elders, members.

Jesus, elders, members.

So the elders are men appointed, recognized, and identifiable within the body of Christ.

And so you know who you are supposed to submit to because you are submitting to men who hold the office because they've been identified and recognized by the body of Christ.

And Peter is instructing the entire church now to submit to them, but also submitting to one another in all humility.

We are all to clothe ourselves in humility as we pursue service and submission to one another.

Elders, though carrying an authoritative office, are not exempt from such standards and expectations.

In fact, no one in the body is.

That's what Peter's trying to communicate clearly.

And we have to see that this call to clothe ourselves literally means for us to wrap ourselves, bind ourselves in humility.

And so Peter's trying to address the posture of which we live life inside of the church.

And so if we're to bind ourselves or wrap ourselves in humility, I think there's two primary implications that we have to look at what that means.

Number one is that if we're clothed or wrapped in humility, it is humbleness, is the first thing people see when we engage with them.

It's not this hidden thing that is covered by the clothing.

No, it is the outer clothing itself of which we conduct our lives.

And so as we engage with people inside of the church, inside of our workplace, inside of the city, we they they should first and foremost see humbleness upon us.

So one, it should be the first thing that people see.

Two, the fact that we should be bound up or wrapped in humility means that humility binds up the rest of our conduct in our lives.

So not only is it the first thing people should see when we engage with them, but humility should bind up every other character and attribute of who we are as people of God.

And that even constitutes in the way that we bring discipline to a brother.

In fact, we're charged to judge, we're charged to correct and rebuke even brothers and sisters within the church.

You know how we do that?

Bound in humility.

In the way that we serve, in the way that we love, in the way that we practice hospitality, all of that should be bound in humility.

Why should we clothe ourselves with this heavenly attribute?

Peter says this, because God is in direct opposition to those who are proud.

God is in direct opposition to those who are proud.

I don't know about you, but God is not a guy that I want to be in opposition to.

In fact, we were in opposition to him when we were not in Christ.

We were his enemy, and he opposed us with the fullness of his wrath.

In Christ, we don't have to be opposed by him anymore.

We're adopted by him now through the finished work of his son Jesus.

We become co-heirs with him.

The enmity is put to death, and we live to God the Father.

And so we are no longer in opposition in Christ.

However, a prideful posture places us back in opposition in an active present judgment, even to those who are saved.

Not a judgment unto eternal condemnation and death, but it is still an opposition you don't want to invite into your life.

I love the way that C.S.

Lewis in his book Mere Christianity talks about.

The sin of pride.

He says this, according to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil is pride.

Unchasteity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that are mere flea bites in comparison.

It was through pride that the devil became the devil.

Pride leads to every other vice.

It is the complete anti-God state of mind.

It is pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.

And we still deal with pride in our life, in our culture.

Many of us deal with pride in our everyday lives.

Pride is this, the desire to lift up and exalt ourselves beyond our place.

Pride is the desire to lift up and exalt ourselves beyond our place.

Think of the ways that we do that.

Think of the ways that we do that in conversation.

Right?

I am, I, on paper, I'm dumb.

I have barely made a high school graduation.

And there's so many times I find myself in circles and at tables where I've got to use words that I'm praying to God actually mean what I'm hoping they're saying in the midst of this conversation, just so that I can appear, I can exalt myself above my actual place among other people.

There are decisions that we make with our finances so that we can keep up with the Joneses, so that we can appear to be above our actual place.

We do this in our careers, we do this in our social life.

We are prideful beings because we don't like where we are, and we always want to appear greater than we truly are.

I think that's why social media was created.

So that we can exercise so freely our desire to be proud.

C.S.

Lewis in his book, Continuing Mere Christianity, says this true humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.

You see, we often think humility equals apathy.

Or we think humility equals the degrading of oneself.

And this has even plagued the church because we have diminished or deconstructed the fullness of the work of Christ in our life, claiming that that's humbleness.

What does Christ say about us?

Christ says that we have been purchased by his blood.

Christ says that we have been exalted to the right hand, seated with him on high.

Christ says we are beloved, adopted.

We are made righteous and justified.

Christ says we are co-heirs.

We are family, adopted by his blood.

Christ says these things of us, and we want to diminish or deconstruct or dismiss those things in the name of humility, in the name of false humbleness.

I'm just a worm.

I'm just uh insert whatever type of descriptive phrase you would like to.

And Christ says, No, you're not.

You're the treasure in the field that I sold everything for to be able to have.

You're the coin that was lost in the house that I flipped over table and couch to try and discover.

You are the sheep that got away from the other 99 that I gave up everything for to hunt down and find.

You are the apple of my eye.

You are the treasure that I was willing to give up glory in heaven for.

So we need to not think less of ourselves.

We need to think of ourselves rightly into the finished work of Christ Jesus on our behalf.

However, we should bring ourselves to think of ourselves less, to think of others more.

This is the posture of Christ for his church, that he would abandon glory and clothe and rain to share the flesh of his image-bearers.

The Bible tells us that Christ did not come to be served, though he could demand rightfully all service and all creation to bow to him.

But he came to serve.

And it was worth every cost.

So in true humility, we should work to not think of ourselves less, or we should not think to think less of ourselves, but to think of ourselves less.

The main idea this morning is this elders and members love one another in humility, practicing submission and service.

Elders and members love one another in humility, practicing submission and service.

While the elders are charged to lead, that leadership is to be one of an exemplary life for the rest of the church to follow.

And if the church is called to clothe themselves in humility toward one another, then how much more is this expected from those who hold the office of elder?

The church should be this: a mutually benefiting, ebb and flow of submission and service draped in the garment of humbleness.

Let me say that again.

The family of God, the church, in our conduct and action should be a mutually benefiting, ebb and flow of submission and service cloaked in humbleness.

We should be here for one another.

These are the commands of the scriptures.

To be for one another, one another's needs, spiritually, physically, to be a counterculture to the world of which we find ourselves in.

But too many times we are so me focused that we forget to lift up our gaze to be able to see the people that are around us.

We're like a basketball player who's just learning how to dribble.

You got to tell them constantly, pick up your head because there's a whole team out here that you can pass to.

But what does every beginning basketball person do?

Head down, eyes to the floor, and they just go, not looking around, not looking at where there's help, where there's other people to support them in their effort for the same common goal.

It's not until they mature and understand that if they pick up their gaze, there's a cloud of people around them to help them accomplish what they've set forth to do together.

This is the one anothering of the church, picking up our gaze so we see the others and not just our own feet.

You see, there's an unspoken assumption to the thrust of this text.

That is, we must be members of the church, known and identifiable to be able to fulfill these charges.

Fundamentally, we cannot obey this word and remain cut off or dismembered from Christ's body.

If we look throughout a lot of the commands of the scriptures in the New Testament, they demand this reality: that you are known and identifiable to the church so that you can submit to the elders, so that you can submit to one another.

Too often we want to try and live a life disconnected and dismembered from Christ's body because we believed in a lie that we can just live our personal faith and relationship with Jesus.

But try to just fulfill this last section of text that we worked through, cut off and dismembered from the body of Christ.

You will be unable to submit your life to the explicit prescriptive commands of God for us as believers in Jesus.

It's like cutting off your legs and trying to fulfill his commands.

You can't do it.

You can't do it.

And we live this life so often of uh when it talks about submit, therefore, to the elders of the church.

How are you gonna do that if you're not a member of a local church?

If you have not submitted, made yourself known and identifiable to a local body of believers?

Are you supposed to just walk around Kenwood Mall and go up to you?

Hey, are you a are you a Christian?

You're not?

Cool, I don't have to submit to you.

Okay, cool.

Next.

Hey, are you a Christian?

Yeah, you are?

Okay, I'm gonna, how can I submit to you?

I want to be able to do that because the Bible commands me to.

Like, no one's doing that.

That just seems ridiculous to even try and go do.

So, how do we fulfill a vast majority of the commands that we have from God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to apply to our Christian life?

Well, we're known and identifiable amongst the local body.

But many of us, we fail to be known among the body.

We fail to be known among the body.

We cripple, in doing this, we cripple people from being able to serve us.

So we don't allow space for the church to use their gifts or fulfill God's commands in serving you because you failed to make yourself known among the body, and we cripple our ability to submit as the Bible calls us to.

And here's my here's my theory on this.

We do this because we'd rather hide from the clear commands of scripture at worst, or at best have a quick and accessible escape route when things don't go our way.

So at worst, we want to hide from the clear, explicit commands of God in the scripture at worst, or at best, we want to have a safe and accessible escape route when things don't go our way.

You see, a lot of times when we're failing to be known among the body, it is rooted in self-service.

I don't want to be held accountable.

I don't want to be, I don't want to have anybody be able to say or speak into my life authoritatively.

I don't want to have to submit to other people.

I don't trust them.

I've been hurt before.

You can label any type of excuse as why you're doing it, and some even to the measure of, I know I won't ever be happy with how this church exists.

Guess what?

I'm not either.

But that doesn't give us an excuse to keep an escape plan, to avoid the clear and explicit commands of God that He gives for us to live as Christians.

Other of us, though, we fail to know the body.

And this is how I would say this is that there's many of us who will become members of a church, we'll give, we'll go through the steps and the motions, and we'll become a member, and we'll serve in a ministry and we'll do all these things, but we won't be, we won't put forth effort to know the body.

It is more of a country club than a countercultural life.

And we cripple ourselves from being able to serve others.

We may commit to the local church, but we do not commit to the people who make it.

And those are two very, very different things.

You might be able to think or persuade yourself that you can commit to a local church, but if you fail to commit to the people who make it, you have not committed in the way that the Bible calls us to.

We have an obligation to one another that demands this knowledge and intimacy of persons.

We have an obligation to one another that demands knowledge and intimacy of persons, to know the body equips us to identify where our gifts can be at service, to know the body equips us to be able to fulfill the commands of one another, to know the body equips us to be able to submit to one another, serve one another, be benevolent to one another.

The beauty of the gospel is this: that Jesus is our chief shepherd and great servant, giving us his victory when we fail to submit and serve one another.

What strength, what assurance, what confidence should we have that Jesus is our chief shepherd?

We are his sheep.

This is his flock, and nothing can jeopardize that in all of creation.

And see, we're called to follow him as Jesus fully submitted his life to the will of the Father, even to the point of death.

We are called to model that in submission to one another.

And Jesus came to serve, he laid down his life, and right before his death, he demonstrated for us the posture of which we should have to one another, especially those who are leaders, and that he at his uh at the last meal, he he clothed himself, wrapped himself with a towel, bent down to his disciples' feet, began to wash them and serve them.

What humility, what demonstration of service.

Imagine, imagine how hopeless we would be if Christ came to serve himself rather than to serve us.

Imagine how hopeless we would be if Christ was self-seeking, and he said the cross wasn't worth it, the people that the cross is for aren't worth it.

But the beauty is that he submitted perfectly, he served perfectly, and when we fail to do so, his victory is ours.

So if we were to trust this, if we were to actually try to obey this in the way that we live our life as Christians, how would this look?

I think there's three points that I'd put out.

Number one is be known among community.

Be known among community.

We have to be known.

The beauty of the gospel, one of the most blessed things God does for us is he brings ourselves and our sins out of darkness and into the light.

We actually have a promise in the Bible that that is God's blessing on people.

In fact, his condemnation and damnation will be to allow you to remain in the darkness with your sin.

And so there's this exposing that has to take place as a part of God's blessedness on his people.

And when we're brought into the light, we can be known by one another.

You see, our effort should be going back to Eden, where before one another we can be naked and unashamed, vulnerable, known, exposed in the light to be known for who we really are.

And our sin comes with us into that light.

And when we're known in community, that sin is put to death in a collective effort.

Man, how blessed can we be to not have to fight in isolation?

To fight the sin that continues to try and oppress us, to fight the sin that we allow to continue to reign in our flesh.

How blessed is it that we don't have to fight that in isolation?

That being known allows us to be able to put it to death in a collective effort.

But it's not just the fighting of sin, it's the help that we need, the benevolence that we need, the support that we need, the encouragement that we need, all of this we so desperately need.

At Sacred Mission, the most tangible way that we do that is through our mission groups.

There's other churches that have other ways to be known in community, but as we grow larger at Sacred Mission, our desire is to continually stay smaller through our mission groups where we can have pockets of this intimacy and knowledge of one another so that we can be known in community and so that we can fulfill the one-anoting commands of the scriptures tangibly, practically.

Number two, we would submit to the local church.

Submit to the local church.

Now, we can talk all day about this phrase.

And there are volumes of work on how a Christian should live amongst the church.

What is the church?

How do we define it?

What we have though is this.

Throughout the scriptures, we have this reality that there are people called elders, men who hold an office.

And those men are identified, appointed, recognized people in positions of authority and leadership for the sake of the church.

They're not just randoms.

They're not just these people that we don't really know who they are.

They're identified, appointed, recognized by the body.

The Bible's very clear on that.

And there's commands to those people who hold those offices to submit, to serve, even in those offices, to shepherd the flock.

And then there's commands to submit to one another.

And that's again, identifiable, recognizable people who make up a local church.

Throughout the New Testament, we see letters written to church or churches.

In fact, the letter of Galatians starts off with to the churches, plural, in Galatia, singular region.

And so we see the reality of multiple churches, even in a singular area.

Common instruction, common uh commands, but distinct.

And so we are to submit to the local church so that we can fully be equipped to obey the commands of which God has given us through his spirit by his word.

If we choose to not do that, we are setting ourselves apart and attempting to remove ourselves not just from the body of which he died, but from the ability to fully obey that which he has commanded us to.

Number three, be ready to lead, knowing its judgment and reward.

Now this goes for um primarily those who would pursue the office of elder.

And it says that those who pursue the office and the qualifications pursue a good thing.

It's a good thing to desire to be in this office, but it's not without the sobriety of the judgment or the assurance of the reward.

And at Sacred Mission, we want to have a plurality of elders, and we're working toward that end.

And as we grow, we want to continue to see men step up into that office of elder, to shepherd God's flock in this plurality of overseers and under-shepherds.

And so we need men who are willing to take on the immense responsibility, understanding that it incures upon them a unique and distinct judgment.

Yet laboring together, arm in arm, to be faithful to the end of having uh given upon us the unfading crown of glory.

So that's why I love plurality.

Because I'm not fighting myself or by myself, but arm in arm, linked together, we move forward.

And the reality of leaders and leadership is that we have to have a more dominant uh perspective of where we are taking the front line of the charge of the church.

Too many times inside the church, it's swept in and it's sweeping into uh or it's in our society, such a common staple is that we put on the front line the expendables to protect the leader who stays back.

That's not the model of the church.

That's not the model Jesus gave us.

That's not the model that we see of the biblical kings who are exalted among Israel.

They went first into battle.

They saw themselves first as expendable because they saw themselves first as servants of God's people.

So we need men.

Men who will step up and be ready to lead with sobriety of the judgment that they bring upon themselves, but assurance of the reward if they stay faithful.