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Man, the title of my sermon this morning is One Leader, One Leader. And all throughout the Bible you'll find this principle of the importance of having a leader. All the way from Genesis to Revelation there's always one person leading. In any organization, in a family, in a church, even in an endeavor within that organization there has to be one leader. Even a soul winning time needs a leader just to, you know, this regional soul winning time or this missions trip or this trip to the Indian reservation. Anything we do, anytime we have a group of people working together, living together, doing anything together, there's got to be a leader. You can't have this attitude that just everybody's in charge. It doesn't work. And it certainly isn't biblical. There's a thing out there that says that churches shouldn't have pastors. They should have a board or a committee running the church or a group of multiple elders. But there is never in my lifetime or in the lifetime of my parents ever been a church that was run that way that did anything great for God, not even one. Every single church that I've ever seen in my generation, every church of my parents' generation was always run by the pastor. And whenever there was a church that was dead or dying or lame or liberal, you know what they'd say? Oh, that's a church where the deacons run the church. That's a church where the pastor's hands are tied because he can't lead because there's the advisory board, deacon board, committee meeting that's holding it back. But let's look at some Bible this morning because this is a subject that is just throughout the Bible. I mean, we'd really have to go through the entire Bible to see this subject in its totality. But I just want to hit the highlights and show you that in every phase of human history and in every section of the Bible, God always raises up leaders and uses one leader at a time or one leader in a certain situation or in a certain institution. Look back if you would to Genesis. Let's go back to the beginnings here and let's hit the highlights of some of the great leaders. You can go ahead and turn, if you would, to Genesis chapter 18. And while you're turning to Genesis 18, I'll point out from Genesis 7, a leader that God raised up very early on, Noah. In Genesis chapter 7 verse 1, the Bible says, The Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. One person, the Noah, he said, Look, I found you righteous and Noah led eight people right onto the ark. But there was one person that was the leader that God spoke to, that God dealt with, that God used. Genesis chapter 14, we hear of Abram and it says in verse 14, When Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them. He and his servants by night had smote them and pursued them into Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. So we see that Abraham not only had his wife and children, but he had three hundred and eighteen trained servants in his house that he was the leader of. Look if you would at Genesis chapter 18 verse 17, And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham, that thing which I do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation And all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. Chapter 18 verse 19, For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he had spoken of him. And if we continue through the rest of Genesis, we see Isaac, we see Jacob, we see God raise up Joseph as a great leader. So all throughout Genesis we have these great leaders that God's using. Then the children of Israel go down into Egypt and they're captives there for four hundred years and then God raises up a leader to bring them out of the land of Egypt and that leader is Moses. Now flip over to Numbers chapter 12, Numbers chapter 12. God uses leadership to lead the people of God and to help them do great things. Moses was the leader that God raised up and there were times when people tried to usurp the authority of Moses or tried to tell Moses that he needed to give authority to other people instead of just leading the people of God as he had ordained and there are different times when those kind of rebellions happen and God sides with Moses and says no, Moses is the boss here. Look at Numbers chapter 12 verse 1, And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married for he had married an Ethiopian woman. And they said, hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath he not spoken also by us? And the Lord heard it. Now the man Moses was very meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth. So we see from verse 3, Moses didn't have a pride problem. In fact, Moses was the most meek man on the face of the earth. He was not arrogant. He didn't have any ego or pride that was motivating him, but he was the boss. God chose him. God ordained him. God lifted him up. God was using him, but then other people around him got envious, Aaron and Miriam, and they found fault with him. They didn't like the fact that he married this black woman, which there was anything wrong with that, but they didn't like that. So they start picking him apart and they say, well, didn't God speak by us too? Yeah, we remember when you were in charge, Aaron. We remember when you took care of things while Moses was up the mountain. You had everybody worshipping the golden calf. And so, you know, I guess according to these multiple elder type of people, you know, there should have been like a committee of like Moses and Aaron and Miriam, right? Well, you know, I'd rather just have Moses in charge. I don't know about you. You know, I'd rather just have Moses leading. The Bible says in verse 4, And the Lord spake suddenly unto Moses and unto Aaron and unto Miriam. Come out, ye three, unto the tabernacle of the congregation. And they three came out. And the Lord came down in the pillar of the cloud and stood in the door of the tabernacle and called Aaron and Miriam. And they both came forth. And he said, Hear now my words, if there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so who is faithful in all my house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently and not in dark speeches. And the similitude of the Lord shall he behold. Wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them and he departed. Flip over to chapter 16. Chapter 16 verse 2, something similar happens. This time it's a group of 250 people that are organized by a man named Korah. And we have Korah, Dathan and Abiram and this other just throng of people that follow them. And it says in verse 2, they rose up before Moses with certain of the children of Israel, 250 princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown. And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said unto them, we take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them. And the Lord is among them. Wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord. And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face. And of course, you know, God steps in and defends Moses and God ends up performing a miracle where he opens up the earth and these people fall down into the earth and so forth. Go to Joshua chapter 1. So after the death of Moses, the torch is passed to another leader that's going to take over and lead the people into the land of Israel. Joshua chapter 1 is that great chapter where this transition takes place. And there are a lot of other great scriptures on this in Deuteronomy chapter 31, Deuteronomy chapter 34 where we see this transition happening from Moses to Joshua. But it says in verse 1 of chapter 1, now after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Look at verse 9. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. Look at the response of the people in verse 17. According as we hearken unto Moses and all things, so will we hearken unto thee. Only the Lord thy God be with thee as he was with Moses. Whosoever he be that doth rebel against thy commandment and will not hearken unto thy words in all that thou commandest him, he shall be put to death, only be strong and of a good courage. So the Bible's pretty clear here that Moses is the boss and Joshua is the next boss. They're supposed to follow Joshua now. What happens after Joshua dies? Then the people start getting sinful, they start getting more wicked, they get backslidden. And what does God do? He raises up another leader, Othniel, the son of Kenaz. And then after Othniel, it's Ehud. Then it's Shamgar, Barak, Gideon, Tolah, Jer, Jephthah, Ibsen, Elon, Abdon, and Samson, all throughout the book of Judges. Everything rises and falls on leadership. When there's no leader, everything falls apart. God raises up a great leader. Where's the great committee that he raised up? Where's the great deacon board that was raised up? Where's the great board of elders that's raised up? It's not in the Bible. It's not in Genesis. It's not in Exodus. It's not in Numbers and Deuteronomy. We get to Joshua. It isn't there. You got one guy, Joshua, that's leading. You get to Judges. You've got person after person after person who leads, who God raises up and they are the leader. I mean, it's a story of leaders being raised up in this book. You get into 1 Samuel, nothing changes because then you have Eli, then you have Samuel, then you have Saul, then you have David, then you have Solomon, and then you have that great era of the kings of Judah that are raised up as leaders. You see, in your home, you need one leader. Oh, well, mom and dad both have equal authority, husband and wife, it's 50-50, wrong. Dad's the boss. Dad's the boss. And it's not going to work having two leaders. You've got to have one leader. Now, a lot of times, those two people, husband and wife, man and wife, mother, father, they're often going to agree on many things, but there are going to come points. And hopefully they don't come that often, but there are going to come points where they just don't agree at all and they want to go two completely different directions. Somebody's going to have to be the final vote. Somebody's going to have to be the boss there. Somebody's going to have to lay down the direction for the family and say, this is where we're going to go. This is what we're going to do. You can't just have two equal leaders that will never work. That's why there's so much divorce today. And you say, well, you know, the Christians are getting divorced just as much as the world now statistically. Well, of course they are. That's because they don't follow this principle. That's because in 99% of churches, they'll never teach that the husband is in authority. You'll never hear that in a million years. So of course they're going to have the same divorce rate because they have the same misguided view of no leader or two leaders or worse yet, putting the kids in charge. You know, you got to have one person who leads. Now, it's always possible for leadership to be abused, right? It's always possible. There could be the husband or father who doesn't love his wife, doesn't love his children. So he's just very self-centered, self-absorbed, and he's doing everything for his own benefit. And that's wicked. You know, the whole point of Moses' leadership was not to benefit himself. He's getting the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. He's to be a blessing to them. He's doing what's best for them. You know, Abraham was a blessing to his family and his servants. Noah was certainly a blessing to those people that he led to build an ark and get on that ark. He saved their lives. So all throughout the Bible we see benevolent leaders. We see strong leaders who are helping the people, not aggrandizing themselves, not being just some lavish king who has all the luxury. You know, in God's system of the judges, the leaders, they didn't have a palace. You know, they didn't multiply wives and multiply horses and multiply riches and everything like that. You know, they were supposed to be leading the people, serving the people, being in authority for the benefit of the people. And you know, that's what a godly husband does. That's what a godly father does. He makes the decision that's best for the family. He does what's best for his wife. He does what's best for his children. He does what's best for everybody. He calls the shots, but not in a self-serving or selfish way. You say, well, my husband's selfish, so I'm not going to obey him. Wrong. If your husband's selfish, congratulations on making a poor choice when you got married. Congratulations on having bad taste in men. But that's your husband, and you've got to obey him because the Bible says, wives, obey your husbands. Be obedient. The husband's the head of the wife. And so, obviously, a pastor could abuse his authority. A leader of a nation could abuse his authority. A king could abuse his authority. A judge. Any leader in any position, father, husband, the boss at work, the manager, the owner of the company, anyone could abuse their power. But to sit there and point at an abuse of power and say, well, because of this abuse of power, let's just not have a leader. Let's just not follow anyone. Let's just never obey anyone because it could be abuse. Well, you know what's even worse than having an abusive leader is having no leader. It's even worse. Just a total anarchy, that's going to lead to a much worse situation than even having a poor leader. So we don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water. You're going to have a pretty hard time arguing with the concept of one leader when you start reading your Bible in Genesis, Exodus, you keep going, and it's just there. It's there. It's there. It's there. So when we get into the era of the kings of Israel and Judah, of course, most of the kings of Israel were not right in the sight of God. A lot of the kings of Judah were right in the sight of God. Some of them weren't. But during this era, God begins to raise up some other very prominent leaders besides the government leaders. He starts to raise up great prophets. These larger than life figures like Elijah and Elisha who are great leaders, not a political leader, but one who leads through preaching the word of God and has great influence by his prophecies. So of course we have Elijah. And we don't see Elijah ruling by committee, ruled by committee, deacon board. We see Elijah having a sidekick. We see Elisha having a sidekick. We see men like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel having sidekicks. You see Jeremiah with a guy like Baruch who's his sidekick, and he's his protege, his apprentice. He's learning. He's following. And then those men go on to become great prophets after apprenticing with a man of God like an Elijah, Elisha, et cetera. Basically, leaders have lieutenants and helpers and assistants and other sub-leaders. Like you think of Moses. It was too much for him to lead on his own, so he ends up ordaining other people to rule under him. Okay? Go to the ranger that is with him. You shall not respect persons in judgment, but you shall hear the small as well as the great. You shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God's. And the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it. So what we do see here is multiple leaders, multiple rulers, of course. But at the end of the day, there's one guy who is the boss, right? So Moses makes all these other sub-leaders, and people go to them. They rule. They have authority. They make decisions. There are all throughout the Bible rulers of tens, rulers of hundreds, rulers of thousands. But at the end of the day, Moses is the one who is handling the hard cases. If it's too hard for them, they bring it to Moses. Sort of like if a court makes a decision, it could be appealed to a higher court, eventually to the Supreme Court. But even though there are multiple elders and multiple rulers, at the end of the day, Moses is the leader. There are 70 elders, and the Bible even calls them elders, 70 elders under Moses that made decisions, ruled, led. But at the end of the day, the answer to Moses, because there has to, at the end of the day, be one person that's accountable, one person that's the final leader. You know, our country is a republic. It's not a monarchy. We're not supposed to have a king that has some crazy amount of authority or pomp and circumstance and luxury and wining and dining for his own benefit. But our country does have a president because of the need for certain situations to have one leader that can make decisions and get things done and accomplish things. And there are checks and balances to that power. But at the end of the day, there aren't two presidents. There aren't five presidents. You know, there's one president of the United States. And obviously our government has a lot of problems, but even our government and other sinful governments all over the world recognize the need of having one leader. You know, how much power are they going to give that leader? That's another discussion. What jurisdiction does that leader have? What responsibilities does that leader have? That's another discussion. Obviously we're not talking about just giving supreme ultimate godlike authority to people. But what we are talking about is just having one leader, whatever that leader's responsibilities or privileges are. There's one leader. Okay. It just makes sense. It's kind of a no-brainer, in fact. You know, in business, you've got to have a leader. On the job site, you've got to have the foreman. You've got to have the supervisor. You've got to have the manager. Everywhere you go. Even on a jury, where everybody is completely equal, I mean, you have 12 people on a jury, they can all hang the jury. They can all agree or disagree. I mean, any one of those people is just as powerful as the other. But what is the first thing that happens when the jury goes to deliberate, what's the first thing they do? They pick a leader. They elect a foreman, even in a jury, which is a truly egalitarian system, where everybody ranks equally. All right. Who's the foreman? Why? Because you've got to have a leader. All throughout life, all throughout the Bible, it's very consistent. So after you go through the period of the judges, you get to the period of the kings. Saul, David, Solomon, and then the good and bad men that followed them in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Then you have the era of the great prophets, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. Then when they come back from the captivity, you again see God raising up great leaders like Ezra and Nehemiah. And you know, Nehemiah was not a milquetoast leader. Just read Nehemiah chapter 13. We don't have time, but Nehemiah chapter 13 has him cracking some serious heads, and he's not having a board meeting about it. He's not talking to the committee or the deacon board. He's just cracking some heads in Nehemiah chapter 13. Then if we fast forward to the New Testament, we get to the New Testament and we see John the Baptist come on the scene, right, who is in the tradition of the great prophets like Elijah. He's like Elijah. In fact, he's even called Elijah. You know, I'll send Elijah the prophet, and then Jesus says, hey, I was fulfilled in John the Baptist. So you have John the Baptist who is this Elijah figure, and does he have a board of supervisors kind of keeping him in check? You know, I mean, who knows what he's going to preach? Who knows what he'll eat or where he'll live or what he'll do if we don't have a board? Who knows what he'll call the Pharisees if we don't rein him in? No. No board of supervisors on him. You just have a John the Baptist who God raises up. He preaches. He leads. He turns things around. He turns the hearts of the fathers to the children, the children of the fathers. He's used mightily by God, and he's the forerunner of the one who's coming about six months later that of course is Jesus Christ. Did Jesus Christ rule by committee? Was it a democratic process? Hey, let's vote about what we're going to preach. Let's vote about what we're going to believe. Let's vote about the direction of the early church. No, Jesus Christ is the clear leader. Then Jesus Christ dies on the cross. He's buried. He rises again. He spends 40 days with the disciples, teaching them, giving them commandments by the Holy Ghost, instructing them, and then he sends them out not to all join together in one great committee of 12 guys. He tells them to go teach all nations, go into all the world. They were supposed to disperse in all directions and preach the gospel to all nations. Now, unfortunately, they disobeyed that. They didn't do that because what do we see? Fifteen years later, 20 years later, where are they? Jerusalem. Now, we don't know if they were all in Jerusalem, but we see several of them in Jerusalem. They were only told to stay in Jerusalem until they're endued with power from on high at the day of Pentecost, and at the day of Pentecost, they were supposed to take off, and they should have been heading for India. They should have been heading for Arabia. They should have been heading into the steppes of Central Asia. They should have been heading into Europe. They should have been heading down into Africa. That is what God told them to do, and it's so clear when he says, go teach all nations. Go into all the world, but then you see the committee meeting in Acts 15. You see the little board of supervisors where they're like, oh, I'm not sure. Are we supposed to get circumcised or not? I'm not sure. Are we supposed to be preaching the Mosaic law or not? Hey, that should have already been settled. We don't need a committee to tell us that. It's funny how the apostle Paul didn't need a committee to tell him that. Funny how the apostle Paul didn't need a committee when he traveled into all the nations and did the work that the 12 apostles failed to do that many of them refused to do. Now hopefully later on in life they got on the program, and we do see evidence of the 12 apostles going into places like Europe and into the Middle East and into India and so forth. We see some evidence of that, so we hope that they all eventually got on board with that program except for the one that got killed in Jerusalem. James wouldn't have got killed if he hadn't been in Jerusalem. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But we see this committee meeting in Acts 15 trying to decide what they believed. It's funny how Paul and Barnabas knew exactly what they believed. Maybe that's why the whole rest of the book of Acts is about men like Paul and Barnabas, and it's not about the 12 apostles. Why? Because they're in Jerusalem deliberating in the committee while Paul's out getting the job done. And in that committee meeting in Acts 15, they decide, you know what, we're going to go to the Jews and you guys are going to go to the Gentiles. That's not what God told them to do. God told everybody to go to the Gentiles. Everybody was supposed to go to the Gentiles. But you know, they kind of did a little division of labor there. Wrong answer. They want to hang around with their buddies in Jerusalem. No, they need to get out there on their own and go out and start the churches and do the things that the apostle Paul was doing. That's why Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, said, I labored more abundantly than they all. Why did Paul outdo the men that were personally trained by Jesus for three and a half years? Because of the fact that, number one, he obeyed the directive of going into all the world. And you know, he had a soft spot for the Jews, didn't he? But did he let that stop him from obeying and going to all nations? No, he went to all nations. And number two, he got out of the committee and he explains in Galatians, I didn't need to ask their permission. I didn't need to talk to the committee. And when I got together in conference with them, they added nothing unto me. You know, I went out and I did what Christ told me to do. And he went out and he, and look, it's not that Paul was rebellious. The disciples are being rebellious by staying home. Paul was not a rebellious man because we see him submitting to the authority of that local church in Antioch. He didn't go out and just self-ordain. What did the apostle Paul do? You know, he went and served in the church of Antioch. And you know what? Antioch church laid hands on him and sent him out to be a missionary. So it's not that he had a problem with authority, it's that he had a good attitude toward the final authority, the Lord, who told him to go into all nations. But see, authority is one thing, committee is another. Authority is one thing, board of elders is another, okay? Now I've had one person bring up to me the fact, actually I think I may have heard this in the past as well. They said, well, what about the Trinity? They said, you know, isn't that a committee meeting? Isn't that a board? You know, the whole universe is run by a board. And I had someone suggest to me that instead of having a pastor of the church, three guys should run the church. You should have a board or a committee of three guys, what would be known as a triumvirate, right? An authority by three people, mirroring the Trinity. This is what I was told. The person who brought this up to me, I just said, well, you don't understand the Trinity, you know, because that's not how the Trinity works. Go to 1 Corinthians 11 and let's see if that's how the Trinity operates. You say, oh, you know, we need to have a committee of three running the church because that's what the Trinity is doing. Well, number one, we're not to pattern ourselves after the God of the universe. It was Satan who said, I want to be like the Most High, okay? I'm not trying to pattern myself after the God of the universe because I'm not trying to be God. I'm never going to be God. God, the Father, is not really a role model I can relate to. But you know who I can relate to? Jesus, the Son of God, the man Christ Jesus. See, the Lord Jesus Christ is that part of God that I can actually follow and emulate. Why? Because he was a man on this earth. He lived. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He was tired. He left us an example that we should follow in his steps. He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet he was without sin. And so Jesus Christ is the great role model so we don't see him ruling with a triumvirate. We see him just running the church. And I'm not going to try to emulate the Trinity in the first place. What I'm going to try to emulate is Noah. I'm going to try to emulate Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Othniel, Ehud, Barak, Gideon. That's what I want to emulate. Men of God. I'm a man. I'm going to emulate great men. Not trying to be deity or God the Father or the Holy Ghost or all three. So that's kind of a weird example to say, hey, lead like the Trinity. But here's the thing. The Trinity is not a committee anyway. So even if we were to say, okay, let's follow the pattern of the Trinity. Let's use the Trinity as our example. Look down at your Bible in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 3 and the Bible reads, but I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God. Could that be any more clear? Head means authority. Husband and wife. Who's the authority? The Bible says the man's the head. Between us and Jesus Christ, who's the boss? Am I the boss or is Jesus the boss? He's the boss. Who's the head of the church? Not me. Not you. Christ is the head of the church. Okay. But who's the head of Christ? God the Father is the head of Christ. So don't tell me the Trinity is some kind of a committee or board. No, because there's one leader. Even in the Trinity, there's one leader. God the Father. Okay. Now flip over to chapter 15 if you don't believe me. Actually, even if you do believe me, flip over to chapter 15 as well. But while you're turning there, Jesus Christ said to the Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me, nevertheless not my will, but thine be done. What's he saying? My will is that the cup be removed from me. But that's not what matters, because it's more important to me than just the fact that I don't want to go through with the cross. It's more important to me to do the things that please the Father. Now people try to change this or twist this or sugar coat this or try to say, well, Jesus is just going through the motions in the Garden of Gethsemane. He really just had no qualms about going to the cross. I mean, he's just like, he jumped out of bed that morning, just ready to go, ready to be beaten, spat upon, go to the cross. No problem. Didn't flinch. Really? He's just going through the motions? So then explain why he had great sweat drops, like drops of blood, it says. He's sweating great drops of blood. Why does the Bible say he's in agony? Agonizing. Why? Because he said, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. If there's any other way, why? Because that's not appealing to go to the cross. The Bible says he despised the shame, but he was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Well, who was Jesus obedient to? How can you be obedient if there's no authority? Jesus was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Who's he obeying? The Father. Well, here's the thing. If he already wanted to go to the cross anyway, then he doesn't have to obey anything anyway. Now obviously, and don't get me wrong, obviously, yeah, Jesus wanted to die for our sins. Jesus offered himself freely. He said, nobody's taken my life from me. I offer it up freely. But you know what? On a human level, though, obviously he doesn't want to be spat on. Now does he want to save us? Yes. Of course Jesus wanted to save us. Of course Jesus said, you know, what am I going to say, deliver me from this hour? He said, you know, it's for this cause that I came into the world. So it's not that Jesus is saying, I don't want to be the savior, but I'm being forced. No, no. He chose to willingly do it. He realized that that's why he came into this world. But are you really surprised that Jesus Christ didn't want to be spat on, didn't want to have nails driven through his hands, didn't want to be whipped and thrashed and beaten to a pulp? He didn't want to be nailed. I mean, would you want to do those things? Would you want to endure that? No way. Would you want to be shamed, humiliated, embarrassed, beaten, whipped? No. Do you want to be separated from God the Father? Do you want God's wrath on you for all the sins of the whole world? No way. So we have to understand the conflict here of Jesus, who obviously doesn't want to go through pain, suffering, torture, sorrows, et cetera. But then on the other hand, he says, you know what? I always do those things which please him. I'm going to be obedient. I obey the Father. Not my will, but thine be done. Not my will, not just my own self-serving. No, because Jesus said I didn't come to serve myself. I didn't come to minister unto myself. I didn't come to be ministered unto. I came to minister and to give my life a ransom for many. And so we see that the Lord Jesus Christ, although obviously his body had cravings for food, he said, no, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. There are times when he skipped sleep that he wanted. There are times when he skipped food that he wanted. And when I say wanted, I mean that there's a natural desire there to avoid getting beaten to a pulp or a natural desire to be fed or to drink water or to go to sleep. You know, there are times when he endured things. Why? In obedience to the Father. Why? Because his mission was more important. His serving the Father was more important. Obeying was more important. So you don't want to try to just strip this down and just say, oh yeah, I mean Jesus just, you know, he's just pretending in the Garden of Gethsemane. He really has no qualms about going, that's just not true. Or what these lying modalists will do is try to say, well, his will was just identical to the Father because they're both the same person. Really? And why did Jesus say, not my will, but thy be done. You know what it reminds me of? The idiotic view that says, oh, well faith and works, I mean, they're both pretty much the same thing. I mean, faith includes works and works includes faith. Don't people say that? Here's the problem with that. How would you debunk that? You'd debunk that by showing them by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves is the gift of God. Not of works. So you say, if it says it's by faith and it's not of works, then they can't both be the same, right? Okay, well let's take that same logic. If it's not my will, but thy will being done, then how can they be the same will? I the Father and the Son don't have separate wills. You're polytheistic. No, you're an idiot is what you are. If you think that not my will, but thy be done is the same will, that's just as silly as saying, oh, faith and works is the same, even though it says not one, but the other. If I said, hey, it's not going to be Brother Dustin, but it's going to be Brother Gregory, you know, but they're both the same person. We're not, you know, we're not having Mexican food, we're having Italian food. Well, it turns out Mexican food is Italian food. No, it isn't. And don't bring up Mexican pizzas from Taco Bell, okay? That's an abomination to Mexico. Taco Bell is an abomination to anyone who enjoys real Mexican food. You know what I mean? Look, if I say, hey, you know, we're not having Mexican food, we're having Italian food. They must not be the same thing. It's got to be something different, right? Now, there are some foods that are pretty, you know, if I said, hey, we're not having Greek food, we're having Turkish food, it's both a gyro, it's both K-Bob, it's both, you know, a lot of the same stuff, and it's like, okay, well, there's some crossover there. But you know what? You can't say it's not this and it's this, but it's both, unless you're just nuts, okay? So don't give me this junk that says, oh, there's no difference in will, Jesus, you know, is just pretending to not want to go to the cross, so you can kind of be an example for us when we don't want to do stuff. So he's pretending to do stuff he doesn't want to do so that when we're in that wrong, no, because when you're pretending, you don't squeeze out great sweat drops like blood. And when you're pretending, you're not in agony. And Jesus isn't some pretender. You know, here's another word for pretender, hypocrite. Jesus isn't a pretender or a hypocrite, he's the real thing. What you see is what you get. Of course, the Bible says in John 14, 28, you have heard how I said unto you, I go away and come again unto you. If you loved me, you would rejoice because I said I go into the Father, for my Father is greater than I. He said, I do always those things which please him. The head of Christ is God. Look at 1 Corinthians 15, verse 23. It says, but every man in his own order, Christ the first fruits, afterward they that are Christ that is coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death, for he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it's manifest, meaning, come on, it's obvious that he has accepted which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. Here's another way of saying that, so that we can have one leader, that there might be one leader, that God the Father might be the final one leader. Now this doesn't take away from the deity of Christ. In fact, this passage itself is another confirmation of the deity of Christ because it says in verse 24, then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father. You see, if God the Father is the only one who's God, you wouldn't have to specify. You wouldn't have to say, hey, he's delivered up to God, even the Father. Why? Because there's also God the Son, and there's also God the Holy Spirit. That's why we even need a term like God the Father. What is the purpose of the term God the Father? To distinguish him from the Son, who is also God. He said unto the Son, he saith thy throne, oh God, is forever and ever. From the Holy Spirit, who's also God, right? Because God consists of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That's the Trinity, three persons, one God. But these three persons, even though they're equally God and coexist as God, there's an authority structure there. I don't care what the shack says or any other bogus Christian literature. God the Father is the boss, and you know, it's pretty easy to prove that. Let's go to Hebrews 13, I'm almost done, Hebrews chapter 13. You say, wow, the Bible mentions multiple elders, you know, the Bible mentions multiple leaders. Look, I'm all for multiple leaders. I'm all for having leaders of 10, leaders of hundreds, and leaders of thousands. But at the end of the day, in any institution, there's got to be one guy who is the leader. And even in any endeavor, there has to be one guy who is the leader, okay? One leader is a principle throughout the entire Bible. Hebrews chapter 13 says, in verse number 7, remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. You say, see, it says them. Well, first of all, this letter is not being written to one church. This letter is being written to the Hebrews. So of course, it's a them, because there's Pastor Anderson, Pastor Jimenez, Pastor Burns, and of course, that wasn't their names back then, but I'm just saying, you know, there's Pastor McMurtry, Pastor Romero, you know, there's all these different pastors. So it's like, hey, he's writing to all Christians that are Hebrew, he's saying, hey, remember them which have the rule over you, who've spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow. Verse 17, obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy and not with grief, for that is unprofitable for you. Verse 24, salute all them that have the rule over you and all the saints. Why the them? Why the plural? Well, number one, because there's multiple churches, but number two, even in a single church, of course, there could be multiple leaders. Why? Because everybody who's running a soul winning time is a leader. You're leading that soul winning time. And when you get into a big church, you're going to have multiple pastors. You're going to, I mean, look, I went to a church that had like 5,000 people in it before, and they had all, you know, this assistant pastor, that assistant pastor, this assistant pastor, but at the end of the day, guess what? There's one guy who's the senior pastor. Well, you know, who does he think he is? Well, I don't know, maybe Noah? Well, who does he think he is? Well, I don't know, Abraham, maybe? Who's he trying to be? I don't know. Maybe he's trying to be like Moses. I mean, who does he think he is? I don't know. Maybe he thinks he's Joshua. I mean, what gives him the right? What does he think he is? Othniel? I don't know. Maybe he thinks he's Elijah. Maybe he thinks he's Elisha. Maybe he thinks he's like every great man of God who ever existed in the pages of scripture from Genesis to Revelation, who didn't rule by committee, but actually just said, come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. Let's get it done. Let's go. Let's do it. You need a decisive leader. You know, when I pick leaders to handle different things, like for example, you know, when we go out and do a soul-winning marathon in a distant city and there are maybe 100 people who show up to go soul-winning or 150 people who show up to go soul-winning, you know, that's too much for one person to organize, especially because a lot of these people that are showing up, we've never met them before. So pairing people up, we don't know who's a talker, who's silent. We don't know their situation. They all got their ride and, oh, I got to ride with this person and I'm in this vehicle and this is my brother and this is my cousin and we need, you know, it's a lot to organize, right? It's just not possible. So, you know, the first thing that I do when I get to one of these soul-winning marathons is I ordain leadership to run the thing. So I walk in and I say, all right, looks like we got about 100 people here. You know, I like to keep the teams at about 15 people max. So looks like we're going to need about seven leaders, right? So I go around and I pick seven guys, right? And these seven guys that I pick, I tell them, hey, here's a pen, here's a piece of paper, make a list of talkers that you can recruit to your team, make a list of silent partners to recruit to your team. Who's been a leader on one of my soul-winning marathons and done that task? Put up your hand. Yeah, several people, but one, two, three, four, five, six, seven people here today. And they went around and they said, all right, are you a talker? Hey, are you on a team yet? Get on my team. Are you a talker? Are you silent? Okay, so they could build a balanced team of talkers, silent partners. They get it all organized. But here's the thing. When I'm giving these guys instructions, because I'm putting them in a leadership role, you know, you're the leader of team one. You're the leader of team two. You're the leader of team three. Here's the instruction I always give. I tell them, look, here's the most important thing about being the leader, is to make sure that you lead decisively, that you can make decisions. So therefore, what you, and I always tell them, look, this is what you don't want. You don't want everybody getting there and everybody scratching their head and nobody knows what to do and a bunch of time gets wasted. So I always tell people, you know, you need to just get in there and let's say there's one person who's running a little late or they're trying to unfold the double stroller and get everything loaded up with the toddlers and everything, because, you know, we have people like that participate, which is great. We love it when, you know, people bring their kids and participate and stuff like that. But I tell them, hey, you know, while that's going on, get these young single dudes that are just raring at the bit there, chomping at the bit, you know, get them out the door. Be a leader. Get in there and say, all right, you two, you ready to roll? All right, down that street. All right, you guys ready to go? Let's have you go here. Not like, well, I don't know, I mean, I'm not sure, how are we going to do this, guys? How should we divide this up? What are we going to do? That's not leadership, is it? Leadership is when you say, all right, here's the plan, let's have you two guys go over there. All right, you guys go over here, you know. And one guy's kind of just running the thing, right, for that group of 14, 15 people. All right, here's what we're going to do, we're going to be back at this time. You know, you need that leadership. The opposite of that is a guy like Aaron. Moses is a great leader. Aaron was a poor leader. Aaron, the people are coming to him and telling him what the program is. Hey, make us gods, Aaron. Oh, well, give me your earrings, whatever, let's do it. And then what does he do when Moses calls him out on the carpet? Like why did you fail to lead, Aaron? He says, oh, well, the people. It was the team that you assigned me, Pastor Anderson. You know, hey, why didn't team seven get any soul-winning done? Why did you guys waste so much time? Why did you completely fail to even knock doors or whatever? Well, you know, it was just the people. We just couldn't get organized. We couldn't get that stroller figured out. We just couldn't. It's like, what in the world? You know, leadership is taking, and look, you husbands and fathers, hopefully you like it when you come to church and the pastor says, hey, men, lead their home, you know. Hopefully you're like, amen, yeah, you know, sounds good. Hopefully. Because if you're not, I'm worried about you. You know. Why? Because it's a natural desire for the man to lead his home. Just like it's a natural desire for the wife to be led by her husband. You know, the natural, well-adjusted, healthy woman wants her husband to lead. She wants to have a strong leader in the home. That's how she's wired. That's how he's wired. That's how it's supposed to work. So men, when you hear that preaching, hopefully you like that preaching. I know the women like that preaching. If I preach hard on marriage, I usually get more women saying that they like the sermon than men. You know, why? Because they have that same inclination. Hopefully as a man, when you hear that the husband, the father is supposed to be the leader, hopefully you like that kind of preaching, right? But here's the responsibility that comes with that privilege, is that you gotta be decisive. You can't be sitting there and putting every decision onto your wife. You know, yeah, I'm the leader, I'm the boss, right? It's like, I don't know, where do you want to go out to eat? You know, you can't even decide that. You can't even decide, well, I don't know, I mean, what are we going to do? You know, I don't know. Now look, obviously it's great to get suggestions from your wife. It's great to get advice from your wife. Your wife might have an area of expertise that she could counsel or guide you in. Moses had people counseling and guiding him, did not prevent him from being a great leader. But you know what? You better have a plan. You better not just be like having no clue what to do if your wife doesn't tell you, right? You know, have a lunch plan. And then if your wife wants to do something else, you might adjust the plan and accommodate her sensitive taste buds or whatever she wants, you know what I mean? But you shouldn't just be like, well, I just don't even know what to do. I just don't even have a clue. You know, and I know that's kind of a silly example about eating out, but you know, when it comes to things like buying a house, buying a vehicle, where are we going to live, what are we going to do, how are we going to raise our children, what church are we going to go to, you know, man, you've got to step up to the plate and provide some clear leadership. A lot of wives would love to submit to their husband, they're just not getting any clear signals from him. They would love to obey their husband. He never tells them anything. He never tells them what he wants. He's just mad that they're not doing what he wants, but he doesn't tell them what he wants. Part of being a leader is that you give clear directives. You know, what if I showed up to a soul-winning marathon, 150 people show up, and I, hey everybody, just want everybody to know, I'm leading this event, everybody, I'm leading the event, everybody, and then I just sit down, eat my food, never give any instructions. Come on, guys, do what I want. Make this happen, people. I mean, I'm going to have to give some instructions, right? Here's a piece of paper. Here's a pen. Here's where you write this down. Here's where we're going to go. We're meeting at this time. We're going to be done at this time. Here's the phone number to call. Here's the address to meet, right? That's what leadership, you've got to give some instructions. You know, and we as men, when we go to a job and our boss doesn't give us clear instructions, we don't like that. We want the boss to tell us what to do, right? I mean, we want to go to work, and we want the manager or the foreman or the superintendent to give us a clear directive, not give us something vague, and then we don't know, are we doing it right, or is this what we're supposed to be doing? What are we, I mean, who's ever stood around in a school classroom or on a work job site and said, like, what are we supposed to be doing right now? Yeah, I mean, right? I mean, there are times like that. Now, no leader's perfect, but a leader is supposed to do what? Answer that question and lead. So we need one leader in any given situation, in any given institution, and no, we're not going to be changing the way that our church runs, and nobody in our church suggested this, but it was suggested to me by someone when I was visiting somewhere, you know, hey, change the form of church governance. Why? So it can be like the Presbyterians? Boy, they're really tearing it up for the kingdom of God. They're really, the Presbyterians are really turning the world upside down, aren't they? You know what Presbyterian means? Rule by elders. Look, what does the Bible say? The laying on of the hands of the presbytery, right? That's the Greek word for elder, presviteros, hey, it's, that's what it means, Presbyterian. We aren't Presbyterian. You know what we are? Baptists. Show me the Presbyterian church that's tearing it up, turning the world upside down, that we, show me the Presbyterian church that we want to be like. I'll show you a whole bunch of independent Baptist churches from our generation and from the previous generation that I want to be like. They're all run by the pastor and the deacon-run church is the one that's on its way to death. It's the first church of the deep freeze. Okay. So we need to stick with God's principle of leadership, one leader and all God's people said, amen. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word and we thank you for the great examples of men of God and Lord, I pray that you'd help me to be a good leader of the church and help me to follow the example of men in the Bible that excelled and Lord, I pray that every husband here would be a good leader in his home and I pray that every businessman here would be a good leader on the job and lead in the workplace and Lord, just in all areas of life and Lord, I pray that you would bless our soul-winning leaders and help them to be a good leader and be decisive and action-driven and Lord God, I pray that many leaders would be raised up out of this church that would go out and start churches elsewhere or to lead within our church, Lord, so that we would never have a void of leadership and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.