Hebrews: Spiritual Leaders and Spiritual People

Well, this is an interesting passage to preach on, partially because it feels like I'm preaching about myself in some way, right?

This is a whole bunch about like spiritual leaders, and um that is what I do is I spiritual lead.

So that's sort of odd, but at the same time, it's not odd.

I think it's actually really healthy because I have spiritual leaders over me, and then as well, um I will not always be your pastor, and perhaps I'm not even your pastor now, because you'll probably end up going to some other church at some other point of your life.

And so it's good for you to sort of have this chat, even if I'm the one delivering it, um, it's sort of like a DTR.

Like if you're dating and you have that define the relationship, talk, uh like what is what is this relationship?

Like, what is this thing we do?

And then uh like what is it I how how do I relate with you, and then how do you relate with me?

And so it's good.

So let's dive in.

There's a whole bunch to cover.

We're not gonna cover all of it.

Um, you heard the reading, you're like, we're gonna do all that in one morning.

No, we're not.

Um I promise we'll be under 25 minutes, and so it's gonna be a brush through this large passage.

Uh, Hebrews 13, verse 7.

Hebrews 13:7

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.

So, point number one is this we call to mind our spiritual leaders as to be encouraged by their life and faith.

Now, as soon as I say that, that kind of that makes me very, very nervous, right?

Like that you would do that toward me.

Like I'm comfortable doing that toward like my mentor and our elders.

Like, I'm comfortable, like, is that part of my faith?

Like, but then like if you would do that toward me, that makes me very uncomfortable and nervous.

But the refuge for any leader is the context of Hebrews, that we don't just show up in Hebrews 13.

We have Hebrews 1 through 12.

And Hebrews 1 through 12, as we've seen, is just long, one long encouragement and argument of our need, any person's need for Jesus, for God's grace to them.

And that they are imperfect, and leaders are imperfect because leaders are people and they need Jesus.

And so a leader's on a journey of coming more alive to the grace of Christ and love of Christ for them.

So, because of that, hopefully, big hopefully, hopefully, confession is quicker as years go by, and hopefully, there's more kindness than defensiveness.

Now, as soon as I say that, I know I need to confess quicker that I don't confess quick enough, and also that I know there's not enough kindness in my life.

But hopefully there's the trajectory of that.

So, in that way, a pastor is a spiritual leader and not a CEO and not a celebrity.

Um yet, as a spiritual leader, I can't I can't heal you.

I can't save you.

I can't heal your wounds and like your shame and your guilt.

I can't I can't do that.

I I can't solve your issues.

I can't solve your discontentment.

I can't do that.

But what I can do, and any pastor that you have, what they can do is support you, listen to you, pray for you, guide you, and teach you.

That's what the calling is.

I had a great conversation with a really dear church member a few weeks ago.

We were talking through some things in the church that she was concerned about, and as well as some things in her life that she was frustrated with.

In the middle of the conversation, it was so such a freeing statement, at least for me, it was very, very freeing.

She just looked at me and she said, and it was like she stopped.

She said, Maybe I'm expecting too much of you.

Maybe you're just a guy in a plaid shirt.

Was that on a plaid shirt?

Like, maybe you're just a guy in a plaid shirt.

It's like, like, yes, like that I am.

I'm just a guy in a plaid shirt, like, I have a bum foot.

Like I've been crawling into the shower for two weeks.

Like, that's not, that is nothing to idolize, right?

Like, so there should be some like normalization of pastors, right?

Like, take them out of the celebrity context and just like just a guy in a plaid shirt.

And it was a great moment for us in that regard.

And yet, even in that normalization, there is a clear calling for spiritual leaders to be shepherding voices of truth and grace.

And what I believe is to be almost priest-like toward you.

And that is to be a calm, loving, non-anxious presence for you.

But no pastor.

Myself included, no matter how inspirational or gifted they are, they cannot really give you what you want.

It'll never work.

That is the consumer flash and consumer culture.

And that's where this passage is driving us.

You're gonna see it when we get into it in verse 8 specifically.

Another church member sent me this quote this week.

This is from Theodore Kyler, 19th century minister and writer.

I don't know why the member sent it to me, but here we go.

God never intended that this world should be saved by pulpit geniuses, or else he would create more of them.

Like, I don't know.

What's he saying about me?

I don't know.

Here's what I do know.

I can count on one hand, one hand, the amount of pulpit geniuses in our entire country.

So, if any of us are looking for a pulpit genius, we will always miss out on a good local pastor for you.

So here's what a local pastor does.

Verse 7.

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

So point number two is this true spiritual leadership is repeating what is already true about God and you.

I love cold play.

I've talked about cold play before.

I will talk about cold play again, right?

Like I that will be on repeat here because I love them.

Seven Grammys, 35 nominations.

When I heard yellow, I was undone.

Anybody else?

You just have to stop, nobody talk, everybody shut down.

We just have to take in this song.

And then a rush of blood to the head came, and we got clocks and scientists and in my place.

X and Y came after that.

Didn't love it, didn't love it, but we got fix you off that album, and I love that song.

Then Viva La Vida came, right?

Here's my point.

Every album progressed.

They sounded a little different, but you always know it's cold play.

Like you know, as soon as you that's Chris Martin, and that is cold play.

And you have your band.

Maybe you've never heard of Coldplay song, you don't even know what I'm talking about, but you have your band, you have your musician, and you know you can work your way through their albums.

There has been progression and a refreshing of the sound, and yet you know it when you know it, and when you hear it, it is always the same.

That's the point.

A good pastor, a good pastor is just refreshing the gospel to you.

It's the same powerful musical notes every single week.

Just refreshed.

See, true spiritual leadership isn't looking to invent new spiritual truths for you.

No, no, no.

It's always the same thing.

We don't have our acts together.

We need God's grace to break through into our hearts and into our lives.

And the cross is enough for us, where our sin is put upon the cross and Jesus' righteousness is given to us.

That's called imputation, and we are forever beloved in his sight.

Man, that's where this text takes us into that truth.

That, and it's what the old Adam hates, by the way.

The flesh hates that the gospel is all we need, that we don't grow beyond the gospel.

We're always going to look for something else to perform unto some new teaching, some new things, something to, you know, some new book.

Like we always want to do that.

But the gospel, we never grow beyond the gospel, we only grow deeper into it, learning to apply the gospel and to new areas of our hearts and lives.

That's where the text takes us.

Verse 8.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So this is a verse talking about the stage of saying, like the greatness of Jesus as the Christ from the beginning to the end.

Point number three is this a good pastor attempts to draw attention away from himself and propel you toward Jesus.

The church I worked at before this was a large church with a global reach around the entire world.

And so our senior pastor is globally known.

And he was not always accessible to people in our church or to me.

And that that would frustrate me.

Because he was imperfect, like me.

Like he was imperfect like I like I am.

So that would that could get frustrating to me.

Right?

Like you know how you have three or four 15 things you wish I did better, right?

And you can think of them.

Like if you've been around here long enough, you know your things about what you wish I did better.

I know you know those.

I had three or four things on him, and you know, like people around you have three or four things on you, right?

It's just how it is.

But I'll say this about Dr.

Michael Youssef.

When he stands in the pulpit, he talks about Jesus.

And when we walked into a meeting and sat around a table every single week, he talked about Jesus.

And here's what I learned, and so good for our church, is that focusing on Jesus makes up for a whole bunch of minor theological issues and administrative issues that can paralyze a church.

And so we focus on Jesus.

The text keeps going.

Verse 9 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.

Now, this isn't about why Jinny's ice cream still has not fulfilled you, even though you keep eating more and more of it.

That's not what this is.

This is the context about why the Jewish law, obey enough and then be accepted.

That covenant of law, it does not work.

We have to live under the new covenant of grace that we are already accepted, like Brian said.

We're already accepted.

Therefore, our life of honoring God comes out of that acceptance that's already given to us.

So we get point number four.

A good church strengthens your soul by grace, not by putting you to work.

There's all sorts of doctrines and teachings, and there's going to be new books forever.

There's going to be religious law and religious moralism, there'll be self-help, there'll be new age, it's all going to crisscross and bleed over.

For me, I sort it out pretty easily with just two questions.

First question is this Is this putting me to work in the world or in religion as to no worth and acceptance?

And we could tag on to that.

Like, do I have to perform to feel more loved by God or more forgiven or more righteous?

Is it putting me to work?

Or is this placing me at rest in what God has already done for me in Christ Jesus?

So me not needing to add anything unto the grace of God, but live in response to it.

I mean, this verse is urging us to live in an established and growing heart in grace.

I love that imagery.

I called a friend of mine this week and said, What are you doing?

He said, I just planted my lettuce plants for the spring.

I don't know anything about gardening and lettuce.

What's the deal there?

Oh, it's really easy.

Just go, you, you know, I have this little area of taking care of the soil.

I go and I plant the lettuce plants, they do their own thing.

I don't really have to do that much.

So once the lettuce is there, he doesn't go and uproot it once it starts growing to plant it somewhere else.

That's not how it works, right?

A plant will grow where it's planted with healthy soil.

It roots deeper and it bears fruit.

That's the story of our lives, of our faith walk.

It's not that we get uprooted out of grace to become something more, it's that we root deeper into the grace of God.

Listen to what theologian A.

W.

Pink writes about this verse.

The word grace is vastly comprehensive and has various meanings in its scripture usage.

Its grand, original, fundamental signification is to express the free, eternal, and sovereign layout of God toward his people, for that is the spring and source of all the gifts, benefits, and blessings we receive from him.

So Pete goes on to lay out a couple verses for us to understand what it means to be established in grace.

So let's nerd out just for a minute, 2 Timothy 1.9.

This is speaking of God, verse 9, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages begun.

So, so, from this infinite fountain of uncaused favor toward us, we are wooed to God and declared his children before the ages begun.

Okay, now it has taken me 20 years to understand that God's sovereign grace is not an equation to understand, but a divine mystery to be invited into.

I'll save you a lot of mental gymnastics if you just embrace that.

This is divine mystery and relationship to be invited into.

It will never be an equation that you understand.

Ephesians 1, 3 and 4.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

So, this infinite fountain of uncaused favor and welcome and acceptance toward us, we are his not by our work or our performance, but by his grace, and by his grace, not performance.

We receive spiritual blessings from him, and by his grace we are called to honorable lives.

So grace doesn't excuse us, it transforms us and fuels us.

Because good growth is growth in grace.

That's where Hebrews 13 takes us if we read 14 through 16.

That's where it takes us about our lives as a sacrifice of praise.

Here's how A.W.P.

he comments on how the Holy Spirit works in our hearts and lives.

The operations, breathings, and influences of the Holy Spirit in quickening, enlightening, revealing, and applying Christ to us so that we are put into actual enjoyment of him, and his salvation are the outworkings of the everlasting covenant of grace.

Therefore, it is all of grace.

Okay, one more thing that Hebrews has to say to us, verse 17.

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, not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Point number five is this submission is about whether we are working against someone or with someone.

Biblical submission is never subjugation.

So if you were in a church and maybe you were, and there was oppression of you or a certain group of people, there was inequality in terms of dignity or worth, that's not biblical submission.

That's subjugation.

That is not what the Bible teaches.

Biblical submission is not a power thing or a lesser-than thing.

Any call to submission in the scriptures, in this arc of the redemptive story of God, of the scriptures, any call of submission, wife to husband, a parishioner to the pastor, any of that pastor to his elders, any of that, any of that is within the context of gospel dignity and worth and Ephesians 5.21, submit to one another.

So here's the question for all of us, including me.

Question for me as well.

Am I, by my support, actions, and words, working against or working with the leaders of my church?

And that would be for the joy, that would be for the joy of the leaders, and for your advantage.

Am I working against or am I working with?

And all of that is in the context of healthy relationships, of serving each other and living in a humility and servanthood to each other.

Now, as a leader, I'm incredibly thankful to serve in a church where I serve under elders because I'm not the boss.

I'm under elders, they can fire me if they choose to, and I'm under those elders who are healthy elders, then I can look to and I can happily submit to them.

And for us, it always goes back to gospel.

Right?

Like it's much easier to exist in peace if we all have a starting point of gospel.

That's why we say every single week what we say every single week.

We're more broken than originally thought, but we're more loved by God than we dare to dream.

If that's our starting point, what it means that within any conflict, it means I may not be 100% correct.

I could be seeing this wrong.

And I may need to listen to you.

And I certainly need to come into the conflict with humility and generosity.

To end our several months in Hebrews, I want to simply read the benediction over you.

It's the benediction at the end of this book.

It's a blessing, is what it is.

And so as I read it, I welcome you.

You can either you can read on the screens along with me to prayerfully read with me, or you may just want to close your eyes and open your hands and receive it as a blessing over you.

But what I want you to hear is I want you to hear it as the wealth of grace, the lyric of the gospel being sung over you, just showering you with the sufficiency and the welcome that you have in Jesus of being called out of that covenant of law, of performing off, into the new covenant of grace, a grace-fueled life, the sufficiency of Jesus for you.

Hebrews 13, 20 and 21.

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant equip you with everything good that you may do his will.

Working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to him be glory.

To whom be glory.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we are so thankful that you do not call us and then not equip us.

That you do not call us in grace and then leave us to work it out on our own.

How amazing this passage is is to hear that we should be established and growing in your grace.

Would you help continue to call us out of all the performance methods that we live in our lives?

And to rest back in how sufficient you are for us for our acceptance, our worth, our value, our forgiveness, our righteousness.

Help us to rest again and even more deeply in you, Jesus, our Savior.

Amen.