(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen, all right, we're in Acts chapter 24, and I kind of, some chapters I've been kind of going one by one, but I like to slow down sometimes, and especially if something really jumps out at me, and really kind of zero in on what's being said, and Sunday nights, usually a night where the church family's here, but like I said, tonight it's a little different because we have more people here than we did in our first service, so at least I think that's the case. Did anybody get an account? 85, yeah, so yeah, we do. I mean, there was a good number this morning too, but normally I try to preach through a book, and kind of try to zero in on things of the family, but anyway, so I want to preach about biblical leadership tonight, and I'm gonna use the first couple verses here to kind of springboard. I do want to cover other stuff in here, but I'm gonna finish the chapter next Sunday, but I want to preach about biblical leadership, and it's not just leadership within the church, but leadership outside of the church, in our homes, and stuff like that, so let's look at verse number one where the Bible reads, and he said unto Moses, come up unto the Lord, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel, and worship ye afar off. And Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come nigh, neither shall the people go up with him. So here we have, and this is just kind of my first point, I only have really two points of this sermon, and really I'm gonna cover how leadership works, and you have the leaders of the children of Israel here pictured with, they're the ones that are allowed to go up. It says that the people are not supposed to go up with them. Now obviously things are different structure-wise in the New Testament when it comes to leadership, but God still hasn't changed how he has people lead. There's someone that was in charge. Who was the main person that was in charge of the children of Israel? It was Moses, and Moses didn't have to ask for permission from people on how he led the children of Israel, because God, through his word, spoke to Moses. Moses was a prophet, and he was also, I mean, God set up the system of judges, so really wouldn't Moses be the judge? Didn't he sit there from the morning till the evening to judge the children of Israel? And so really he kinda was the first judge. He's the one that God, he was supposed to be God-ward toward the Egyptians, and Aaron was supposed to be like that prophet. And so Aaron was his brother, of course, and they are the priesthood. Aaron's family is where the priesthood comes from, and they, yeah, and then, so the family of Moses is the Levites. So Levi from the book of Genesis, that family was the, so there's the priest, and there's the Levites. Now, all priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests. So some of the divisions, they were the ones that carried the things from the tabernacle, but at this point, this hasn't even happened yet. So remember, they're out of Egypt, they're at the mount, and God has shared the Ten Commandments with them, and said what he expects, they heard that, and then Moses went up and got the rest of the commandments from God. And now God, in this chapter, is really confirming the covenant that he's already made. They've already agreed to it, but in this chapter, they've agreed to it twice again. And here, he has the leadership of the children of Israel come up onto the mount, and it kinda says them in order, doesn't it? Moses, okay, he's the boss. Aaron, he's kinda the boss of the things that go on inside the tabernacle when that's gonna get set up, and only he is allowed to do certain things. Only the priests are allowed to offer the offerings, and nobody else is supposed to come. So remember when Korah tried to rebel against Moses, what did he want? He wanted to do the things that the priests did, and that's why he said, you want the priesthood also? Because they were the ones that carried the sacred things, like the furniture, and all that kinda stuff, to the tabernacle. They had that certain job. There was a certain division that had the job of carrying the ark. There was certain people that set up the poles, and set up the skins, and all the tents, and all that kinda stuff. And so everybody in that priestly line, so to speak, or in that Levitical line, was supposed to work full-time for God. And so, but not all, just because they were a Levite didn't mean that they were in charge necessarily, but they were in charge of certain things, all under the encompassing leadership of Moses. And then, of course, with the children of Israel, you see, like in the book of Kings, where you see Uzziah come and try to offer an offering, and the priests stand against him, and don't allow him to do that. So there are checks and balances within the church and the government of the children of Israel, because there were laws, and there were spiritual things. And obviously, all God's law is spiritual, but there was a difference between who the ruler of the people was sometimes, and who the priests were. In Samuel's day, though, Samuel was a priest, a prophet, and a judge at the same time, and he was a good one. But if they were not in the line of Aaron, they were not to offer anything, and so when someone would try to do that, it was against the rules, and they were supposed to be put to death for that. So anyway, so we have Moses, we have Aaron, and Nadab and Abihu are the sons of Aaron, who also were priests. And then you have the 70 elders of Israel. So when Moses was overrun with duties, he's leading millions of people at this time, and he was trying to just do too much, and his father-in-law came and told him, he said, you're gonna wear away, what are you doing? You need to fix this and make some divisions. And so the spirit of Moses was put upon these 70 elders, and they were supposed to help judge the smaller matters, and then the big matters were brought to Moses. This is how government works in general anyway. Even in our country, there's a lot of similarities to how this works. You have smaller courts, and then you have the courts get bigger and have more authority, and then of course what's the big authority in the judging system in this country? It's the Supreme Court. They make the final judgment, and things can start in a small court, and if they're appealed and brought to a higher court and the judge grants those appeals, eventually they can go to the Supreme Court. Obviously our system isn't perfect here. There's a lot of corruption in it, but when you put unsaved people in positions of high authority, there's gonna be corruption. But under God's law, they were not allowed to take gifts and take bribes, and the leaders in our country, they can do insider trading and not even get in trouble for it. They can know what's coming on the stock market, and they can play those stock markets, and they can make decisions. Who'd they put in jail? They put some famous lady in jail. Martha Stewart. They threw Martha Stewart in prison, and meanwhile, they're doing it and have immunity for it. So I mean, there's corruption, but power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So that's a saying. But obviously if you have the right type of people in leadership, then you're not gonna have those issues. But notice that Moses alone was only allowed to go and speak to the Lord. Now obviously, Jesus Christ is our go-between, so Moses does picture Jesus in a lot of ways, but he's the mediator of the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, and Jesus Christ is the mediator of the New Covenant. And the law came through Moses, but mercy and grace came through the Lord Jesus Christ. But Moses does picture Christ in a lot of ways, and even in this chapter, he pictures the Lord Jesus Christ, wherein Moses was only able to speak with God. And the children of Israel, the people could not just go to God and then go talk to him. We have a privilege being New Testament believers that we can talk to the Father, which is not something they could do at this time, through Christ. Now obviously, people can inquire of the Lord, but it just was different in the Old Testament in a lot of different ways. But leadership was still important. Leadership is still important today, and sometimes we lose track of how God's biblical system has been set up, and we forget ourselves. And there's churches all over this country that use a democratic voting system to vote for things in their churches. And that is not biblical. That is not what the Bible teaches. There's no time in the Bible that you can see when a leader's picked where they're picking based upon what the people, who the people like. It has nothing to do, did the people like Moses and then pick him? No, God thought Moses was the right person for the job, and God picked him. But in America, we just kind of get this brainwashed, this idea in our heads that we have to be just like America with all of our politics and all of our polity inside church, and even in families, people probably do it. Well, hey kids, what do you want for dinner? It's like, and obviously, that's not really the biggest deal in the world. But what if dad just says, you know what, we're not having that, we're having meatloaf tonight. Is that okay for him to do? Yes, it is, because he's the man. He's the man of the house, and if he wants meatloaf, then that's what they're having. That's the biblical leadership, right? It's not what the kids are voting, because their kids are gonna vote for macaroni and cheese every single time. And what else? Hot dogs, I mean, just junk. Yeah, chicken tendies. McDonald's Happy Meals or whatever, you know? I mean, it's not like in any sphere of authority in our lives, there has to be someone that's in charge. And just like we have lower courts and lower rulers, well, it's the same thing with families. Each family has their ruler in their family. And each government has the highest portion of government, and each church has the highest portion of government in that church. So we don't believe in a universal church. We believe in individual churches that are the body of Christ. This is the body of Christ in Vancouver, Washington. And there might be other churches that are legitimately the body of Christ in Vancouver, Washington, but when you meet together, see, the congregation in the Old Testament was huge, but you don't really, it's not like that today. And in the time of Israel, they had synagogues where different people, you know, because you had local, they were like the local assemblies of their days, and they had people that ruled over them. But where were they supposed to go? All males were supposed to appear before the Lord three times in a year. And there was seven feasts where you could go to Jerusalem and partake in different feasts that the Lord had set up. See, the Lord had holy days, or we call them holidays now, but he had times where people don't work. You know, it's time to take a break. And in society, we have the same type of things. You know, we have sabbaticals, and we have holidays, we have three-day weekends, and everybody loves that. And God knows that. It's time to take a little bit of a break, right? But in biblical leadership, you know, it's how God institutes the leadership is how it should be run. Now, I understand that today, we're not living in Old Testament Israel and following God's rules for Old Testament Israel in the sense that our country doesn't run this, our leadership does not run the country the way God would run it. Because things would be a lot different right now. But we still have to follow the leadership of the place that we're born in, except they go against what God says, right? So, the leadership structure was, you know, was able to be closer to God, but not talk to God here. And there was a clear distinction in the leadership. Not everyone is equal in power and responsibility. Aaron, again, was the high priest. His sons were the priests, and the 70 elders were the judges of the people. The people are led, not leading. So that's the opposite of what our country is like now. They're like, democracy. But that's not really how our country was set up. It's not set up as a democracy, but that's what people always say. It's a constitutional republic. And really, the Constitution is supposed to be the highest thing in the land, what the founding fathers set up in the beginning. And of course, there's amendments that have been made to the Constitution, and so on and so forth. But that is really our highest, the highest thing that we go by in this country. And then, of course, you have people that will interpret the Constitution in all kinds of weird and strange ways, and now it's gotten so strange that we have queers getting married and queers adopting children. That kind of stuff just never went on. This is a new thing in our country. So just the fact that drag queens are allowed to just exist and do these dances in front of kids in public places is just, I never thought I'd see the day when that kind of stuff is happening. But we're living in this world, and we kind of have to get along in the leadership that we have put in place, but we don't have to obey if it goes against what God says. So there's a lot of civil disobedience going on today in this world, and people are, there's talk about insurrections, but the real insurrections, they don't do anything about. But there's all these different types of civil disobedience. Well, our civil disobedience, as Christians, would be when they tell us to do something that the Bible forbids, to commit, like to kill your own children, that you have to do that, or to take a vaccination, that you have to do that, or to violate your religion in any way. If they're saying we can't go to church on Sundays anymore, that's not gonna happen. We're gonna fight against that. We're gonna civilly disobey when it comes to things like that. And yeah, they might kill us or whatever for things like that, but it's better to face God on judgment day and Him being happy with how we lived our lives and how we chose to be under the authority that God's given us, or to just totally fold because you're afraid of what the government's gonna do to you. We shouldn't be afraid with the government or the devil or all these wicked people are gonna do to us. We should be afraid when we break God's commandments and don't live the way that He wants us to. So there's three spheres of authority, and really, there's kind of four. So the fourth sphere, I would say, is just God Himself. God is the one that gives the authority for any kind of leadership or any kind of authority in this world. And He's the one that gave government. He's the one that set up government. He's the one that set up the family unit, the home, and He's the one that set up the authority within the churches. And so really, everything's under the umbrella of what God has already set forth. And He's the ultimate authority, and the government, even though they don't really think that they are, are under the authority of God. And so everything that they do with that authority, God is gonna judge them for the things that they do in those offices that they have, whatever kind of setup it is. If they're wicked and vile and going against the things of God, then God is gonna come down on them like a ton of bricks. They're not gonna escape. They're not gonna get away with what they do. But we as Christians should also learn to not be just against everything that the government does because sometimes things do roll our way. The fact that we get to have church right now and we're not in communist China or we're not in North Korea or one of these other countries that hate God so much that they're not even allowed to have a Bible or church and they're tortured and killed and things like that, we have it pretty good compared to some places. Obviously, our freedoms are being taken away, but the spheres of authority are the three main things that God has given authority to and given leadership. Under that umbrella, you have the church, you have the home, and you have human government. And none of them should really, obviously there's checks and balances and everything. Like me as a pastor, I'm the pastor of this church. I'm the ruler of this church, but my authority only goes so far. I'm not allowed to just go over to your house and tell you I don't like your dishes and you need to get those corral lead dishes out of your kitchen and break them all and destroy them or whatever. That's not my job. It's not my job to look at your DVDs or your CDs and come over to your house and do a white glove inspection on how clean it is or just how you're running things. That's not my job. That job is the home. That's a different sphere of authority and the husband is in charge of that sphere in that home. And of course, the mom is in charge of the children, but there's an umbrella of authority in the home. It's dad, mom, and then children. That's the way it works. And once you leave and cleave, once you leave and marry your spouse, then your parents are no longer your authority. They can't tell you what to do and how to live your life. Obviously they might have some really good things to help you with and to say and good advice. Believe it or not, all my kids are raised and they're all grown and they all lived. I mean, if you entrusted me, if my kids entrusted me with my grandchildren, they should expect that they're gonna come home alive because I've done this before. I'm just saying that we do still have some, even though we're old boomers or whatever, according to kids nowadays, we still have some things that we can add to the table. Now, obviously they've come up with scientific things about how this baby food is bad and whatever. I get that, okay? But don't get so crunchy that you just forget all of your parents' wisdom when it comes to, again, you're still alive and we helped you make it there, you know? We took care of you, we fed you, somehow you're still here. But it's not my responsibility as my kid's dad to rule the homes that they live in. I don't do that, I won't do that, and I try really hard not to bite my lip. Even if something was that I disagreed with, I might just ask, is it okay to tell you something? Can I tell you something? But if they say, oh, I don't really wanna hear it or whatever, then I just need to shut up, you know? We just, we have to, parents, you gotta let go. You can't just control your kids' lives afterwards. Leave and cleave, it's a chopping effect. Don't try to run your kids' home, don't get into their marriage. And then, of course, kids don't get into your parents' marriage. Don't take sides in the fights. You know, and parents don't fight in front of your children if you can help it. Obviously, there should be some order within the home, but my point is, my job as a pastor, I don't get into your personal lives unless you ask me to, and then if you ask me to, I still am uncomfortable in certain situations, but my job is to help you and guide you spiritually. That's my job as the pastor, to watch over you, to make sure nothing wicked comes into this church, to make sure the wicked goes out of this church, to preach the word of God, to pray for your souls, to pray for your needs, and to rule this house, and make sure it's done decently and in order. This isn't just a free-for-all where we have no order of service, we don't know who's playing songs, we don't know who's leading songs, we don't know, we have an order that's in a structured order for a reason. And then, you know, if I ask somebody for advice on something, that's me asking, but it doesn't mean I have to do what their advice says. Or if someone suggests something to me, I ultimately don't have to do what you say. I can just say, yeah, you know, it's a good idea, but I don't like it and I'm not doing it. And then you should just be satisfied with that, regardless of how you feel about it. It doesn't matter how you feel about it. You know, it's easy to be the Monday morning quarterback and say all the things that the pastor should have done, or this is what the pastor should have preached about, or this is what the pastor, this is how the pastor should do this or that. You know, it's easy to do that when you don't have to make the decisions. When you have to make the decisions, it's a little bit different, you gotta think about the aspects of what, how is that gonna affect everybody else? Because I just don't have you to think about, I have other people. And so I think sometimes people just don't realize that when they're bringing something up, how negatively it could affect everybody else. I'll just make an example. A Christmas tree. I don't have anything against Christmas trees, but it's not something that God commanded us to put into the house of the Lord. So I'm not gonna put one in because I don't wanna offend people. You know, if someone's against Christmas trees or whatever, then that's fine. If you're against it being, it's like if I put a nativity scene in the front of the church during Christmas, which I've been to a church that does that, they literally have graven images. You know how they have those do this in remembrance of me tables at most Baptist churches that sits right there? They had a nativity scene there for the whole holiday season. And I went to the pastor, respectfully, and I just said, hey, those are graven images, bro. No. No. And he disagreed with me. And you know what I had to do? I just had to shut my mouth. What did I want to do? I wanted to jump up on that table and smash it into a million pieces and break and stamp the images into pieces and make them drink it. You want this, you drink it. That's what Moses did, right? But that was not my position of authority in the church. Now, some people are against them and some people aren't. Whatever. But to make a graven image of Jesus, if you think that that's cool, whatever, but not at this church, it's not gonna happen. We're not gonna have a nativity scene. We're not gonna have a Catholic little nativity scene for you guys to look at. And obviously, I've never seen anybody worship a nativity scene before. But really, the fact that someone would fight so hard to keep it in tells me that they do have some attachment to it, right? Well, that's just a nativity scene. It doesn't show their faces. Well, some of them are pretty detailed. Some of them are really detailed. And does it really matter if they're detailed or not? What are they representing? You know, we're not supposed to make images of God and Jesus is God. So anyway, but my point is is that I'm not gonna just put a Christmas tree in this church because I don't want to offend people. And why would I just want to make 99% people happy and then one person's super offended about it and leaves our church? Why don't we just not have it here and then nobody's offended? You know what I mean? We're not supposed to put stumbling blocks. I was talking about that this morning about people literally putting stumbling blocks. Well, what about putting a stumbling block in somebody that's weaker in the faith in a certain area, you know? We're not supposed to do that. So let's look at some verses here. Let's look at Luke chapter eight. Now the Bible likens people that are in leadership and it doesn't matter what type of leadership it is, a lot of times it'll call them rulers, okay? And people, you know, in our modern times, they don't like that. They don't like that term. They don't like the term boss. They don't like the term ruler because it's the spirit of this nation sometimes to just buck against authority. It's in our families. It's in our churches. And it's in our government. And we should not be bucking against the God-given authority that's been put in our life. And it doesn't matter how you feel. It matters what the Bible says. Look at Luke chapter eight, verse 41. The Bible says, and behold, there came a man named Jairus and he was a ruler of the synagogue. So in the Old Testament, when they couldn't make it, you know, it was too far to walk to Jerusalem, they had synagogues. And those synagogues were like the local church. And it says he was a ruler of the synagogue. And he fell down at Jesus' feet and besought him that he would come into his house. So you have an example of a ruler there. Look at Luke 13. Here's the example of a ruler. So that guy was a good guy though. He was a good ruler of the synagogue. But my point is just to tell you that like, there were rulers. It wasn't just free-for-all synagogue either. There was someone that ruled that synagogue and said this is what's gonna happen here and this is what's not gonna happen. And it's kinda like the modern pastor in that way. I don't know if they had some kind of spiritual authority. I would guess that they were probably supposed to be Levites that were teaching, you know, teaching Levites and things like that. So look at Luke 13, 14, it says, and the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day and said unto the people, there are six days in which men ought to work and then before come and be healed and not on the Sabbath day. So this guy's a joke. He's a clown and he's upset that Jesus would heal somebody on the Sabbath day. Like that's a weird kind of way to, that's a weird way to interpret how God's law works. You know, love your neighbor as yourself. You know, they were supposed to help people pull their animals that fell into ditches out on the Sabbath day so it's not okay to heal somebody on the Sabbath day. Just bizarre. But again, the point is that he was a ruler. Turn to Hebrews 13. I've gone to these verses before. I think I went to this verse, one of these verses today but let's just look at a few verses in Hebrews 13. So the church authority was different in the Old Testament. We see the picture of Moses. We see the high priest. We see his sons, the priest, then the 70 elders, okay? And the 70 elders, think about this. There were 70 elders in the Old Testament. There were 70 apostles that Christ ordained who had authority, right? And then think about the transfiguration. Think about where Moses and all of them are being told to go up to. They're told to go up to a mount and then only the face, the only person that's gonna go to God is Moses. But how many people were on the mount when Jesus was transfigured? Because remember he went to the, it's called the mount of transfiguration where he was glorified in front of who? Peter, John, and James, just three guys. So just interesting parallels that I kinda thought were interesting because the 70 weren't able to go up with the rest of them, so. And that just shows you that Christ had an inner circle. You know, the 12 were his inner circle but there was three that were his other circle that he trusted more than everybody else and that was John, Peter, and James. And so sometimes that's just the way it works and the people that were the closest to the Lord, he picked those people for a reason. Obviously one of them was a devil and that was intentional also. But in the New Testament, there's still a ruler in the house of God. Look what it says in Hebrews 13, seven. It says, 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. So I kinda talked about this a little bit in this morning's sermon about how we should highly esteem leadership for their work's sake. Not for how much you like them, not for how good their preaching is, but for their work's sake. And it says here to remember those people that have the rule over you. Well, when you remember something like this do in remembrance of me, we're remembering Jesus, right? I'm not saying you should remember a pastor like you remember Jesus. I'm just saying that it's, you know, think about them. Pray for them. Those types of things. And it says, who have the rule over you. And it's very specific here. It says, who have spoken unto you the word of God. Who do you think that's talking about? It's obviously talking about the pastor. And then verse 17 says, obey them that have the rule over you. So you're supposed to remember them. You're supposed to obey them that have the rule over you. And submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they must give an account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for this is unprofitable for you. So it talks about how your attitude should be towards the spiritual leadership in the church, towards the pastor of the church. And this is something that's lacking a lot in today's churches. Even churches like ours, I'll hear about things that people say to other pastors. I'm just like, I just would not let someone talk to me like that. I just wouldn't. But you guys don't do that to me so I really appreciate that. I mean, obviously, if you have questions you can come up and ask me. I don't think I've ripped anybody's head off in here that I can think of that asks me a question. But I don't always agree with you and I don't always have to agree with you. But people can bring to me questions and I'm fine with that. I don't get mad about it. Now, if someone got disrespectful towards me about it then I might. Because sometimes we just want to be right and we can't see anything but how right we are. And, but really that's not, I mean, you can still feel that way and be right in your own mind because that's what individual soul liberty is all about. See, we have the right to, it doesn't matter what I believe or what I think, if you believe that I'm wrong about something in the scriptures, then you, as the individual, can disagree with that. Now, if you're talking about salvation or some kind of other thing like eternal security, then just leave. Because if you believe that, then I don't want you here anyway. So, unless you're on the road to salvation or something. But anyway, so let's look at verse 24. The Bible says in verse 24, salute all them that have the rule over you and all the saints, they of Italy, salute you. So, salute them that have the rule over you. And, you know, it's, obviously it's not, we think of salute like in the military. Like, I don't want people walking up to me and going, hey pastor, and waiting for me to do it too. Don't do that. But what I think is, this is, you know, obviously saluting someone is to say something nice to them or, you know, I just think it's really, this is just about having respect, you know? Don't ignore me because you're mad about something I preached about last week. You know, just say hi, you know? Be normal. And, you know, if you are mad about something, you can wait to say hi to me for a couple weeks, but then say hi again, you know? But my point is, is that with leadership, they're not, leaders are not better than anybody else, but they are leaders, so respect them as such. And that's what the Bible says, and that's what we should, that's what our attitude should be. Turn to Ephesians chapter four, verse 11. Ephesians chapter four, verse 11. The Bible says, and he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body. Now, God's gift to the church is a pastor, is an apostle, and obviously the apostles are all, have all passed away, and there's no more apostles today, but you still have evangelists and pastors, and what's not listed here is deacons, but deacons are still some sort of leadership in the church also. Now, of course, again, all this is an umbrella type of situation. If I ordain an evangelist, that evangelist is underneath my authority, because I ordain them and they work in my church, or in a capacity of a church plant, or whatever it is, they're out planting, a lot of times it's used for church planting for the evangelist, but then if I ever was to ordain a deacon, they're under the authority of me. But what do you see today? You see the opposite of that in almost every single church setting. There's a deacon board of all the financial gurus that go to the church, the money that backs that church, this is how, I don't know if they're trained to do this, it seems like this probably is part of the training that they receive in Bible college. Get your best financial guys and make them the deacons, but here's the problem with that, is that then you're giving authority to the deacons that they were not supposed to have. And you have deacons firing pastors because they have some agenda to get them out and get somebody that they want in there. But that's not how the church works. Joshua went up with Moses to this mount, but Joshua, what did it say that Joshua was? He's the servant of Moses. When it was Elisha, he ordained Elisha, Elijah ordained Elisha, and what did he do? Poured water on Elijah's hands. So he was his servant also. I'm sure that's not the only thing he did. Come here, let me get some of that hand sanitizer. It wasn't just that, but that's how the Bible explains it because until he becomes the man of God, until he places the mantle upon him, he's not the authority. He wasn't the authority, the prophet that was in authority until Elijah went up to heaven. So, and the same with Moses. When Moses was about to die, he ordains Joshua in front of all the people. God picked Joshua and Moses picked Joshua. It wasn't the people that picked him. And why did he do that? Because Joshua was Moses' guy. He trained him up, and Joshua behaved himself wisely in front of the congregation. He was one of the 12 spies that went, and Caleb, he had loyal people. He had her and other guys that were very loyal to him, but there was also people that weren't. And there was people that really, they complained to Moses, and they complained to the leadership, and how did God feel about that? Was God okay with just them talking to Moses however they wanted? No, God was not okay with that. He actually really took it out on them, and at one point, he was so mad, he said, you know what? I'm just gonna kill all of them, and then I'll make a great nation out of you. And then Moses steps in like Christ would step in and say, no, let me intercede for them. So, Moses was a great leader, and even though people were barking against him and just talking back to him all the time, he still took that, because Moses was the meekest man on the face of the earth, and he was very meek. So look at, and so my point is here, is that God gives the gift of spiritual leadership to the church, and you're like, well, you're saying what you're God's gift, you know? Yeah, that's what the Bible teaches. Isn't that what it says? He gave some. Did he give his only begotten son? I mean, God gave us these things, and not everybody has this. There's a lot of people that would like to have a church just like this church in the town that they live in, and we've started a lot of churches, and people, you know, they're blessed to have the churches in the places where we've started them. Some of them are in big cities, and some of them are not, and I mean, my goal is to set, you know, have big churches and big cities, but that's not always gonna be the case sometimes, just other things are gonna come up, but we haven't like put anything in like Podunk Hall or anything. I mean, I'm not gonna send some guy that I trained for three years or more to a town of 500. It's just not happening, so if you want that, then go to Okidoke Baptist Church or whatever, and they'll probably be glad to send you there, but I mean, obviously those places need pastors too. Those places need leaders too, but you know, we need to reach the masses. That's the goal of this church, so anyway, so it's for the work of the ministry, so you have the church leadership, and as it is today, you have the pastor as the ruler of the church, or bishop, or elder as they're also called, the overseer, the shepherd, whatever you wanna call it, and then you have evangelists and deacons, and the deacons were hired, basically they were ordained to take the pressure off the pastor because he's waiting on tables, and they said, is it reason to leave off the things, the preaching and all these other things, to wait on tables? And there's nothing wrong with waiting on tables. It's not like the pastors are, they're above waiting on tables, but it just, so the work got so much that it's interfering with their ability to pray, and it's interfering with their ability to write sermons and preach the word of God, which is two of the main things that pastors are supposed to do, so church is not to be run as a democracy, and just get that brainwashing out of your head. I don't think anybody in this church has a problem with that, but that's just the way it is. We're not gonna run our church like the world. We're not gonna run our church like in an unbiblical fashion. They're like, well, that means you have all the power. I don't have all the power. If I screw up big time, I'll step down. I would step down. I'm not gonna just stay here and just make it difficult for our people. If I did something that would disqualify me, I would step down, and so that doesn't mean I have ultimate power. You know, it would either be that or everybody would leave. Just think about this. If I committed adultery on my wife, would you guys still want me to be your pastor? I hope not. I hope you'd say no. I hope you get that fixed, but have a nice life, Pastor Thompson, and you deal with the ramifications of that. I'm just saying that, and if I said no, I'm holding onto my power. Like, what power? At that point, you don't have the power. God has the power. The Bible has the power, but the congregation could leave, and of course I wouldn't want that to happen. So, and I'm just giving you an example, but, you know, people think that like, oh, he just wants it his way or the highway, and that's true to a certain degree, but I'm supposed to lead like that. I'm supposed to lead in an authoritative way because if I was Captain Milk Toast, you wouldn't want me as the pastor either. Oh, well, just anything goes. Oh, come on up, play a song. Hey, you wanna preach today? Yo, it's just like, you gotta have order, you gotta have authority, and you gotta, you know, you have to be bold in the way that you lead. You can't just be willy-nilly about stuff. So, anyway, let's see. And when it comes to, like in the Old Testament, where you'd see people would stand up to the king. Like, I think about Naboth. So, Naboth, you know, Ahab wanted Naboth's vineyard, but the law of the Lord said, this is your inheritance, and whether they were the king or not, they couldn't just come in and say, you know, I'm gonna take this over because I wanna build a highway through here. No, that's their property. So, when Naboth said no, then Ahab was crying because he wanted to have the garden because it was close to his house or whatever, but he did not have the authority to do that. So, the spheres don't necessarily always, just because you have one sphere of authority doesn't mean you have a sphere of authority in everybody else's lives. So, at that point, the government's trying to, what do you call that the government takes over somebody's property and takes it from them? Huh? No? Imminent domain. Imminent domain is where the government can come in and say, well, we need this property, and then they seize your land, and then just give you nothing for it. They might pay you for the land, but they're not gonna pay you what it might be really worth. If you refuse to sell, then they'll just, imminent domain, and just take it. That's all the people, where the 205 freeway was, there was a lot of houses that were around there, and those people got imminent domain so they could build a freeway, that they should have built it bigger. But anyway, but they didn't have the right to do that, so the king did not have the right to just take whatever he wanted. So, like even in the case of King James, the one thing I think that he was wrong about in his ruling was that he was called the head of the church. He was the protector of the church, protector of the realm, and all that stuff, but I don't believe that he had the authority to rule the church in the way that they do things. So, and I don't know how much he was like that, but Henry VIII declared himself basically the ruler of the new religion of, you know, it was basically Catholic light, the Church of England. But then, you know, King James came along, and he was the head of the church, basically. But see, that's where things get out of balance. And when you're commanding people to go to church, I think that's kind of, I mean, I would probably vote for that. But then, what do you have happening? You have a bunch of people that are not saved coming into the congregations. And like, and then if Catholicism was banned, which, amen, I like that, but then you got all those Catholics being forced to go to those churches in England, and then you have corruption heading in. I'd rather just have a congregation of saved people that want to be here, and just preach fire about being in church more often. I mean, that's what God wants. He doesn't want us to control every aspect of everything. And so, that's one area that I would disagree with the way that King James, you know, ruled, but other than that, he was pretty good. So, I guess he liked to spend a lot of money, too. But anyway, so, turn to 1 Timothy 3, verse 11. And I'm just gonna use it. This is the qualifications of a bishop, but I want to use this to prove another point. The other point that I want to prove is that men are supposed to rule their own houses. Okay, look at 1 Timothy 3, 11, it says, even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things. So, the pastor's wife is supposed to be those things. And then it says, let the deacons be, let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own house as well. So, deacons have qualifications to be a deacon, and one of those qualifications is ruling their children and their own house as well. See how it says ruling, though? So, who's the ruler? Does it say the wife is supposed to be the ruler of the home? No, it says the man, the husband, is supposed to be the ruler of the home. That doesn't give women the excuse to live or act however they want either, though. But it says, for they that have used the office of a deacon, so it's an office. It's something that God's ordained. You get hands laid on you. You have to meet qualifications to do it. Those that have used the offices of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. So, in the home structure of government, it's the man that's supposed to rule the house, and obviously, we all know that. Wives are supposed to obey their husbands. The husbands are supposed to love their wives like Christ loved the church, but there's a lot of spillover in some of this, and sometimes I think that people just try to buck authority and use really dumb and weird ways to do it. Look, the Bible says that the husband is the head of the wife. Just believe that. That's what it says, you know? And when you're not home, Dad, then Mom is the head of the house, but the overall authority of the home is who? It's Dad, and so whatever Dad rules, like whatever, it's just like God gives us the commandments, right? And it's our job is to obey what God says, but it's the same thing with the husband. Hey, this is how I want things done, because the wife is supposed to marry, bear children, guide the house. That's what the Bible says, right? And so, but that guiding is under the guide of the husband and of the Bible. Now obviously, we're supposed to obey God, and then a wife is supposed to obey her husband. Now, but when it comes to, say the husband says, I command you to not go to church anymore. What are you supposed to do? Because there's differences of opinion on this, but here's what I believe. That we're supposed to obey in the Lord. God commands us to go to church. So if your husband commands you to not go to church, then he's wrong and God's right. That's what I believe. And you can rule your house, you can disagree with me, that's kind of what this sermon's about. You can disagree with me about that, but you know, then we'd both be wrong. So, you know, but you still can disagree with me even though you're wrong. But you know, look, we're not changing with the times. I talked about this this morning. This church, we preach and we believe that men are the leaders of the homes, they're the leaders in the church, and really should be the leaders in government. I will never vote for a woman in a political office. And look, it's nothing against you. I love women, you're like, that's misogynistic, that's blah, blah, blah. You just proved to me that the brainwashing is working. Okay? If we just ran this world the way God intended for it to be run, this world would be a better place. But instead we got people just bucking out of their authority. Ah, ah, I don't want to do that. It's like, do what the Bible says. Your home will be better. The church will be better. Our government will be better if we just do what God says and do it the way he said to do it. And yeah, we're not living in the Old Testament Israel, but we still should obey the government as much as they're doing right, right? And they're there for the punishment of evil-doers, and even though they're not really even doing that anymore in this country, we just have to go with what we have. Jesus was in the Roman government when he was on this earth. God chose the time for Jesus to come. It was the time of the Romans. And not everything that the Romans did was wicked. Now it got to the point where it was, but the Romans probably had some good things going for them. They definitely had sewer systems, great roads. I mean, they did have infrastructure. They did protect the people that they conquered, to a certain extent. And they had citizenship. People could have their citizenship in certain ways. There was good things about it, but there was also bad things about it. There was corruptness, and it became so bad that the Caesars were like these weird perverts in the end, but God destroys things like that. And God's not gonna just let this government continue the way it's going right now, but that's not our job to overthrow it. See, that's not my sphere. I can preach against it, and I will, but it's not my job or the job of any Christian to overthrow the government in any way, shape, or form. It's just not. It's not our place, and it's not something that's in the sphere or realm of our authority. We're kind of, we were born here, or if you weren't born here, you got here somehow, and this is where we live, and this is what we gotta deal with. And so, go ahead and turn to Romans chapter 13. Romans chapter 13. While you're turning there, I'm gonna read a couple more verses in 1 Timothy. In 1 Timothy 3, 4 it says, As one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection, for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? So this is, again, dealing with church government, but it's also talking about the home of that person when it deals with their family, and the man is supposed to rule their house. And they're supposed to rule it well. But as far as government goes, look what Romans 13 says. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. It's not talking about you're gonna go to hell if you resist the government. It's talking about damnation in like a physical punishment style way, or maybe just prison, whatever. But look what it says in verse three. For, what does it say there? Rulers are not a terror to good works. They're not supposed to be. I mean, they kind of are in these days, but the way they're supposed to be, this is what God's ordained, and we should just get in what God says to do, and it says he's the minister of God to thee for good. Obviously, we're living in twisted times, but this is the intention of human government, they're supposed to praise those people that do right, and punish those people that do evil, and when it becomes something that it's not supposed to be, the time has begun ticking on that government being shut down by God himself. But again, not our job. It's not the family's job to run the church, it's not the church's job to run the family, but everything kind of has interactions with each other. But God is the one that gave the authority, you got the church, you got the home, you got the government, but the government's not supposed to tell us what to do in our homes either. Obviously, if we're doing evil, that's one thing, but if you're just serving God, listening to hymns, homeschooling your family, sewing dresses, listening to preaching, they're not supposed to interfere with that, and they're really not supposed to tell us how to dress, what medicines to take, or anything like that. They're out of the realm of their authority at that point, but they are infringing upon that, and that's why, the world is messed up because the church can't get their politics right, or they can't get their leadership right, the government can't get their leadership right, and the home has lost its way. And that's, when you have all the spheres of authority in disarray, and disrupted, and messed up, which is the plan of the devil, by the way, then it's gonna be tough on us. Now, saying all that, we also, as leaders, here's the other thing about men being leaders, you're not supposed to just serve yourself. It's not like we're supposed to be these tyrants that rule with an iron fist, and I'd rather have your respect and your love, that kind of mentality. We're supposed to nurture our children in the admonition of the Lord, okay? Men. So children are supposed to obey, but we're supposed to love our children also. It shouldn't be just discipline. We should love our children also. And the same thing with the wives. Wives love your husbands. Don't undermine them. Don't talk bad about them behind their backs. Don't talk bad about them to your parents. And the husband's the same way. This is how families just like implode, is like you have the in-laws of each fighting for their supremacy over kids that left their home, and they just can't let go. They can't just, you know, you had your chance, you had your time to implement everything, and now they're on their own. Let them be on their own. Guide them where you can, and help them where you're able to, but you gotta let it go. And the same thing with the dad. Quit being a mama's boy. Quit asking your mom for all the advice. Be a man and make the decision for yourself. The time for mommy's input is over. Rule your home, man. Don't let your wives rule your home, and don't let your wives' mother or dad rule your home. Take control of the situation. And wives, you should be submissive to your husbands. And when they say, hey, we're not going over to that family member's house anymore, I don't care how much you love them, your husband has the rule. And don't be mad at your husband because he made a decision that's best for your home. I mean, if you're going over to somebody's house and they're always just trying to get in your kid's head about how church is so bad, and church is so wicked, and you know, when you're 18, you can do whatever you want, and all this other stuff, look, why would you want your kids around that? You love them, but keep them at bay. If you know they're doing that to you, while you're around, what do you think they're doing when you let them stay the night at their houses? I mean, don't be mad at me for saying it either. Go back to the sermon from earlier. But don't despise the preaching because it's something that we need to know today because you're like, well, pastor, how do you know that? Because I see it happen all the time. I'm a pastor, I watch it happen, I see it happen. And look, in my own life, things have been tough. You know what the biggest fight can be in a new marriage? Whose house are we going to for Thanksgiving this year? Well, your parents' food sucks. This, our food over there is better. So does that mean that we're gonna go to your house? I mean, these decisions, that's why we say wait a year and get married. Get to know the people that you're gonna get married to because there's a lot of things that they can believe or think that you're gonna have a tough time dealing with. And once you say I do and you kiss the bride and you consummate the marriage, that's the end of it. You are married to them and you better make the best of it and don't get divorced because God hateth the pudding away. Find a way to work it out. And I've seen some marriages go through some really big strains. But in the end, they're still intact and I'm glad. But we should always be working to be the best husbands, the best wives that we can be. And you know, I don't wanna leave the children out. So be the best children you can be. Don't pit mom and dad against each other. Don't ask one for one thing and then go ask the other for the other thing and then have this kind of fight that, and then you're like just sitting back like, I made that happen. That's wicked, kids, don't do that. You know what you're doing. You know how you're manipulating. Some people are easier to manipulate than the others, but we shouldn't be fighting about things involving child rearing. We just shouldn't be. Well, I think you spanked them too hard. Well, I don't think you spanked them at all. So let's meet in the middle. But our leadership, men, should be a servant leadership. But really, any leadership should be that way. A servant leadership, what is that? Well, Jesus got down and girt himself with a towel and washed the disciples' feet. That's something that a slave would do. That's something a servant would do. And he did that as an example of how we should be with each other. So, but that includes your family or whatever sphere of leadership that you have, whether it's on the job site. If you wanna be a leader on the job site, be a servant leader. Don't be sitting with your feet kicked up on the dash while all your guys are doing all the work. That's not, do you think people are gonna respect you if that's how you are? They're all gonna be talking crap about you, trust me. Because there's nothing more, you know, it just makes men lose instant respect when you won't do the work, when you refuse. So, and you know, if your job is to lead in any way, shape, or form, or even if you're not a leader, you can still serve, and that shows leadership. You don't have to have a title or a position to be a leader. And serving others, not just yourselves. So not just the people in your family, but serving others around you. You know, Jesus died serving others. He wasn't thinking about himself, he was thinking about other people. And that's the way he wants us to be also. So when it comes to leadership, we need to have this thought in our minds that hey, God's ordained leadership. He's given out the authority to the different spheres of leadership. The church, the family, and the government. So we can't control other people's fears, right? But we can control how we respond to leadership. And obviously, if someone's a bad leader, they're gonna end up just fizzling out at some point. You can't fake it for too long. You know, these people that come, they have their boss, they're their boss's pet, or whatever, and then they just, I've had this happen at places I've worked lots of times where the boss likes some person that came on better than you, and even though you outworked them, they still hire that other person. That had happened to me, I've seen it done. And they usually just can't cut the mustard. And then people, you know, the work fails, and they fail, and they can't hack it, and then they end up quitting. Or they end up just being a really bad leader that nobody respects, and nobody wants that. So the three spheres of leadership, we need to keep those things in mind. Hey, as Christians, we gotta just put things in perspective of how God sees them, and in any sphere of our lives of leadership, we need to look at how God sees things, and implement those things into our lives. In whatever authority we have, we should do it with the idea of wanting to serve others, and even if you're a leader, Christ served others. He worked harder than everybody else. The disciples are wanting a day off, and Jesus is up in the morning before it gets daylight out, praying on some mountain by himself. He outworked them all with less sleep, and he's our example that we should look to for how we live our lives in our leadership, in our homes, in our churches, and how we view the leadership in our government. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this great church. I pray, Lord, that you'd help us to keep things in perspective of how you want them done. Lord, I pray that our people would just rightly rightly be under the leadership that you put us under, Lord, and it's your word, Lord, that gives this power. I pray that you would just bless the families in our churches, Lord, that you'd help them to run the way that you want them to run. Lord, help us to not buck the system, and buck the leadership that we're under, including myself, Lord, and anybody that's in leadership in our churches. I pray that we'd always keep the perspective that we're supposed to serve, and not just be leaders, but serve as leaders. Pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.