[0:00] 1 Peter 5, I'll read the first five verses. To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ's sufferings, and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed.
[0:21] Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers, not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be, not greedy for money, but eager to serve, not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.
[0:49] And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away. Young men, in the same way, be submissive to those who are older.
[1:04] Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
[1:16] Let's hear God's word. I ask you to please open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 13. If you're visiting with us, we're right in the midst of a study on what the Bible teaches about submission.
[1:32] And for the past month or so, we've been looking at the family, the most basic building block of all society, instituted by God right from creation for the good of everyone in society and the family and the church.
[1:45] And we've seen that God has given, that is, He has delegated His own authority to some within the family to lead on His behalf, and He has called others in the family to submit to that authority.
[2:00] So we've seen the command to wives to submit to their husbands, children to their parents, and slaves to their masters, since slaves indeed were part of the family structure in the Roman Empire of the first century.
[2:13] And we saw last week that since that is not the case today, that the workforce is made up of slaves, that many of those principles that were applied in the Scriptures to slaves apply to the present-day workforce, which is employees.
[2:31] And we saw what submission employees owe to their employers. Now, today we're shifting gears then from our families to God's family, the church of Jesus Christ, all who have been born again by the Spirit of God and who by repentance and faith have been joined to Jesus Christ.
[2:55] And what we find is the same structure found in His family as is found in our families, structure of authority and of submission to that authority.
[3:08] So we're listening this morning to what God says about submission to the leaders of the local church. And our key text is Hebrews 13 and verse 17, where we are told, obey your leaders and submit to their authority.
[3:28] They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.
[3:44] Now, I want to break down this one verse this morning into four points. And the first is this. Christ has given authority to the elders of each local church to rule for Him.
[3:57] Christ has given authority to elders in each local church to rule for Him. So Jesus Christ is the head of the church universal.
[4:10] He's also the head of this church and every local church. In that passage that was read for us in 1 Peter chapter 5, He was called the chief shepherd.
[4:24] The chief shepherd. And as the chief shepherd, He Himself has appointed under-shepherds. Shepherds who are under Him and over the flock.
[4:40] And He's given those under-shepherds authority to rule in His place. 1 Peter 5. Peter is writing to the elders among you and He tells them in verse 2, we just had it read, be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care.
[5:01] Serving as overseers. So you be shepherds to those who are under your care. Serving as overseers. And there we see that the leaders in the churches are called by several different names.
[5:16] They're called leaders. They're called elders. They're called shepherds. They're called overseers. By the way, pastors is just the Latin for shepherds. But they all refer to one and the same office of leadership in the local church.
[5:32] These are not separate offices. They are just separate names for the one spiritual leadership office in the local church. Scripture reveals the necessary qualifications for those who serve in this office of elder.
[5:47] Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3 make it clear that the elders of the church must be men and not women. Male pronouns are used throughout. And in the church, a woman has many ways to exercise her gifts and serve, but she's not permitted to be an authority over a man.
[6:08] 1 Timothy 2.12 puts it in those very terms. So, as Paul and Barnabas went around planting local churches, before they returned home from their first missionary journey, the Bible says in Acts 14.23 that they ordained elders in every church.
[6:31] Now, these elders are not self-appointed men. They didn't just wake up one day and say, I want to be an elder, and so therefore, I'm an elder. No, Christ appoints them by His Holy Spirit and through the church recognizing the qualifications as being met in them.
[6:49] Acts 20 and verse 28, Paul says to the elders in the local church at Ephesus, keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.
[7:03] Be shepherds of the church of God, which He has bought with His own blood. In that one verse again, we see they're called elders, they're called overseers, they're called shepherds.
[7:14] But it's one office of the spiritual leaders in the church at Ephesus. And they're made overseers by the Holy Spirit sent from Christ.
[7:29] Not overseers over everybody, everywhere. No, it's the Holy Spirit who has made you overseers over all the flock that He has given you to oversee.
[7:41] Each local church, then, has its own overseers. And it's real authority from Christ given to these leaders. Titus 2.15, Paul instructs Titus how he's to lead in the churches of God.
[7:55] And he says, these then are the things you're to teach. encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.
[8:07] He tells him earlier in the letter that there are even some who needed to be rebuked sharply. And so there are occasions when a pastor must assert his authority and especially when it's being despised and treated as if there is no authority, really, given by Christ to the leadership.
[8:25] But it's not a good situation if a pastor has to be constantly playing the authority card. It shouldn't be the general atmosphere of a local church where the pastor's always reminding the people that he's the one in authority.
[8:44] Any more than a husband in the home should be constantly reminding his good wife, now don't forget, I'm the head of this home. Yes, dear, you just told me this morning.
[8:56] That's not the kind of atmosphere that authority is to be used in the home or in the church, but there are times when such needs to be said.
[9:06] So that's our first point. Christ has given authority to the elders of each local church to rule for him. Now, that's the key to all submission, isn't it?
[9:18] Wives are to submit to their husbands recognizing that Christ has made them head. Children are to submit to their parents, recognizing that Christ has made them head over them in the home.
[9:30] Slaves to masters, employees to employers. It's seeing Christ behind the human authority. It comes from him. Well, secondly, if that's true, then secondly, it follows that members of each local church are to obey their leaders and to submit to their authority.
[9:49] authority. That's the text before us in Hebrews 13, 17. Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. If leaders are called to lead, then sheep are called to follow their lead.
[10:08] Doesn't that make sense? If shepherds are given authority, then sheep are called to submit to their authority. And those are the very commands that the chief shepherd is giving us here.
[10:21] Obey. We know what that means. Children, obey your parents. We know what obey means. Submit to their authority. Now here, the word is not the familiar word we're used to of hupotasso, which means to place under.
[10:36] It's a similar word. It's a word that we would call a synonym. It's a different word with the same meaning. And this Greek word means to yield under.
[10:48] So hupotasso, to place under. This word means to yield under. There's really not a nickel difference in the definition. That's why they're both translated submit. Submit to their authority.
[11:04] And furthermore, this submission is to be marked by respect. And that is something that we have found universally through all submission that wives are to respect their husbands, Ephesians 5.32.
[11:16] Children are to honor their father and mother, Ephesians 6.2. And slaves were to honor and treat with respect their masters, Ephesians 6.5. And so now we see it applied as well to the church leaders.
[11:31] 1 Thessalonians 5.12.13, we ask you brothers to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord, over you by His appointment and over you according to His qualifications, to respect them who admonish you, that is, who put you in mind of your duty, and to hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work.
[12:00] So respect them because they're over you in the Lord and respect them because of their work. Remember, they're working for you. They're working for your everlasting good.
[12:15] They want to see you safely home to heaven. So respect them. So that's the duty of church members to obey and submit to their church leaders with respect.
[12:26] it is the will of Christ then, the great shepherd of the sheep, He's bought with His blood, that all of His sheep be gathered into local churches where they put themselves under the oversight of spiritual leaders in that church.
[12:49] I want to repeat that. It is the will of Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep, that all of His sheep be gathered and joined into local churches where they put themselves under, that is the word submit, putting themselves under the oversight of the spiritual leaders of that church that He has ordained.
[13:15] So, just what is the pastor's legitimate authority in the local church to which you're being commanded to submit to?
[13:28] Let's start with A, his preaching of the word of God. Indeed, in this very chapter, Hebrews 13, if you look back to verse 8, these same people were told to remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you.
[13:44] You see, that's their main work, to speak to you the word of God. Now, you're not required to give to your leaders a blind obedience to every single thing that they tell you to do, but only to submit insofar as it lines up with God's word.
[14:07] That sets the limit, you see, of your submission to their preaching. And so, Paul's charge to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 2 is our charge as pastors and elders of the church.
[14:21] It is preach the word. Preach the word. We're not free to preach our own ideas. We come on the king's official business to announce the very words of the king.
[14:35] Now, the most common word for preach in the New Testament is kerux. It's the word for herald. Herald the word.
[14:48] A herald was the king's messenger. He would ride into the city center, perhaps flanked by soldiers of the king and perhaps with a trumpet fanfare calling the townspeople to gather.
[15:03] Hear ye, hear ye, the word of your king would be the call. And farmers would leave their fields and the blacksmith his anvil and fire and bakers his ovens and the housewife her laundry.
[15:18] And they showed their submission to the king first by their attendance and gathering when he had something to say to them. But secondly, they showed their submission to their king by their obedience to the word that he gave them.
[15:35] What they did with the herald's word is what they were doing with the king himself whose word it was the herald brought. So that submission to the preached word of God in the local church is submission to the God whose word it is.
[15:56] So each Lord's Day is a sacred assembly of Christ's gathered church in this locality, in this place to hear the word of our exalted king and Lord Jesus Christ from his heralds, his messengers, his shepherds, his preachers.
[16:17] Now if I as your preacher am under Christ's authority to preach his word, then you are under his authority to hear his word preached and to obey it because here the risen Christ is addressing you personally.
[16:38] It's simply coming through me, his messenger, his shepherd, his herald. Paul could say to the first Thessalonians 4, we read it recently, you know that what instructions we gave you by the authority of Jesus Christ.
[17:02] They weren't our own words, Paul's saying, we're just passing on to you the words that we receive with authority from the Lord Jesus himself. So it's all here in a book called the Bible and you've got copies of it so you can check and make sure that it's coming from the word of God.
[17:20] And as it is, you're called upon to submit to our leadership as we preach it to you. So when the Lord Jesus sent men out to preach his word, he told them in Luke 10, 16, he who hears you, hears me.
[17:34] And he who rejects you, rejects me. And he who rejects me, rejects the one who sent me, the Father in heaven. That's the way it works.
[17:45] It's delegated authority. So that's the first thing that you are required to obey and submit to. It's the leader's preaching of the word.
[17:56] But there's more. You're to submit to their watch care over the flock, their oversight of the flock. Because elders are called to watch over and to be overseers of the flock.
[18:15] Now that's true of all aspects of church life and ministry. To set the direction and course of the church, it falls upon the spiritual leaders of every local church.
[18:26] But they are especially charged with overseeing the spiritual care of the sheep, the individual saints, the members of that church.
[18:38] And they're watching over them in the Lord. Look at it here in our text, Hebrews 13, 17, obey your leaders and submit to their authority for they keep watch over you.
[18:51] That's their job from Jesus, to keep watch over you. In Acts 20 and verse 28, the charge for the Ephesian elders was keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.
[19:07] Now all the flock means each one in the flock. each individual sheep. It's the language that's used of those shepherds outside of Bethlehem on that eventful night.
[19:21] What were they doing? As Mary was in labor with the eternal Son of God. Well, the shepherds were on the fields keeping watch over their flock by night.
[19:34] That's it. That's the word. And why keeping watch over them? Well, because there are dangers. There are wild animals. There are bears and lions and wolves that might come in and destroy one of the sheep or take it away.
[19:53] There to keep watch. Lest they wander off into the darkness during the night. Get lost. Fall into some pit. Some danger. Eat some poisonous plant.
[20:05] Bring themselves into harm's way. So the shepherds are watching over their flocks by night and by day. It's a tender picture of a shepherd who loves his sheep and is keeping them in his loving care.
[20:30] The wise man instructs shepherds in Proverbs 27, 23. be diligent to know the condition of your flocks.
[20:41] Give careful attention to your herds. Sadly, we don't have any shepherds here this morning. Used to be a lot of farmers and perhaps even some sheep keepers and we could apply to them and ask them why is it important for you to know the condition of your flock?
[20:58] To know those that are sick? To know those that are needing special attention. Some of them may be injured and need some oil applied.
[21:11] Some might be parched and in need of water. Others hungry, need of food. Some might have gotten out of the pan and need to be brought back in. And if that's true of shepherds of woolly sheep, how much more true is it of shepherds of Christ's precious blood bought sheep to watch over them from all the dangers that would destroy them.
[21:34] To be diligent to know their spiritual condition of each individual sheep. The spiritual diseases of their soul, the scriptural remedies for them to bind up their wounds, to pour in the oil of the gospel, to rebuke, to correct, to train in righteousness, to admonish, to put you in mind of your duties, to recover the strain, comfort the grieving, encourage the weak, and restore the fallen.
[22:05] You see, our charge is not just to preach the word of God to you like I'm doing this morning, but it's to watch over you. Individual sheep. And to see that you are submitting yourselves to Christ's word preached.
[22:23] You know, it's interesting to, and I think something that I read over far too quickly in the Great Commission, and that charge that comes to the whole church, but especially to its leaders, is that we are to teach you, we're to baptize you who are made disciples of Jesus, but then we are to teach you to obey all that Christ commands.
[22:49] It doesn't say, teach them what Christ commands. Teach them everything that Christ commands. It doesn't say that, and I think I read it that way, and thought of it that way.
[22:59] No, it says, teach them to obey all that I command. You see, that's a step further than just preaching. This is the will of God. This is the word of God.
[23:10] No, I also have the responsibility to teach you to obey that, to put yourself under it, and to live it out in your Christian life.
[23:22] And that too is legitimate authority that Christ gives the elders of the church. And if I see you straying from the path, I'm to call you back to the way. Now, we Americans are a people in love with our independence.
[23:39] And it's not just we Americans, but it is, I think, in a special way, we of the West. And there's this autonomy that I am my own boss.
[23:50] And we don't want people sticking their noses in our business. And all of that is not wrong. There is a micromanaging that is clearly an abuse of authority. But it is surely wrong if a teenage young lady says to her parents, I don't want you overseeing me.
[24:05] I don't want you sticking your nose into my business. Something is clearly wrong. Because that is their business, right, as parents? And something is surely wrong if a church member says that to one of their elders.
[24:19] Mind your own business. Friends, that is our business. We are men under authority and our chief shepherd has told us to watch over you, to be sure to guide you safely home to heaven.
[24:36] Yes, to preach to you, but to go beyond that and helping you follow after the Lord Jesus. So if he's commanded me to keep watch over you, he's commanded you to submit to my watch care over you.
[24:51] Not to throw it off, not to tell me to mind my own business, but to welcome it and to put yourself under it. Now, the reality is that you may not like me watching over you.
[25:10] And that I may not like watching over you. You see, there's enough flesh in both of us for that to be true. So we need some help, don't we?
[25:22] We need some help from above to help you welcome my oversight and to help me to give that to you. And we have both of them in our text. Something to help motivate us, to motivate me in watching over you and to motivate you to put yourself under my oversight.
[25:41] It's a reason given to both of us to do this. And it's signaled by the word for. And sadly, the NIV doesn't have it. It's in the Greek. It's the little word gar. So watch for it as I read Hebrews 13, 17.
[25:56] Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. For they keep watch over you as men who must give an account. And so that leads us to our third point this morning.
[26:08] Your pastor must give an account one day to the chief shepherd. These sheep do not belong to the pastor. It's not the pastor's church.
[26:20] They're his sheep. It's Christ's church. church. And you believers are his. From heaven he came and sought you to be his holy bride.
[26:32] With his own blood he bought you. And for your life he died. And in dying for you, in laying down his life as the good shepherd does for his sheep, he purchased you for himself.
[26:46] You're his. eyes. And you are precious to him. You are the apple of his eye. And he's gone back into heaven.
[27:00] And he's come to these elders. And he said, now you watch over those sheep, John. I shed my blood for them. You watch over them while I'm gone.
[27:12] And when I come back, we'll have a talk, you and I, about how you cared for my sheep. One of the most sobering thoughts that can pass through the mind of any human being is that one day each of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account of our lives, one on one, you and him, for what you did with what he gave you to do.
[27:47] you will meet your maker and be judged by him, and so will I. And part of my account will be that I must give in that day an account of you.
[28:02] John, what did you do with the sheep I gave you to take care of? for I watch over you as one who must give an account to the chief shepherd.
[28:17] For my preaching, for my watch care. And I'll be honest with you, it strikes a proper fear in my heart to consider that, sometimes overwhelmingly so.
[28:31] there are times I need that fear more than others to motivate me to be faithful in my charge to you. There's a word in Ezekiel 34 where the Lord cries out, woe to the shepherds who do not care for the flock.
[28:48] You know what woe means? It's a word of judgment. Woe to the shepherds who do not care for the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured.
[29:00] You've not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You've ruled harshly and brutally over them. Woe, woe to you. The same in Jeremiah 23. Instead of hearing such a withering word in that accounting that I must give for you, I want to hear those warm words of well done, good and faithful servant.
[29:26] You preached my word. You shepherded my sheep. I want to hear what Peter says to the faithful shepherds. That when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.
[29:45] Can you see how that affects me? How that word there, they watch over you as those who must give an account, how that helps me to shepherd you?
[29:56] But there's something more here because my giving account to Christ is a double edged sword. It's meant to motivate me but it's also put here primarily to motivate you. Motivate you to obey and submit to my preaching and shepherding.
[30:12] Because look what he says further in our text. This whole verse by the way is written to you. There are other passages where it speaks and perhaps next week we need to deal with it. What does he say to those in authority?
[30:23] But this is a word for those who are under the authority and must submit. The whole verse is to you. Obey your leaders and submit to their authority for they keep watch over you as men who must give an account.
[30:35] Obey them so that their work will be a joy not a burden for that would be of no advantage to you. If I have to turn a bad report in on you in the day of judgment it will be no advantage to you.
[30:52] That is a great understatement found in Hebrews 13 17. If I must report Lord I gave them your word but they didn't they didn't heed it. They didn't want it.
[31:04] I warned and I urged. They walked away and neglected it. That would not be to your advantage for me to have to give such a report.
[31:15] No that would be to your great disadvantage. And that is why this is mentioned to you that it might motivate you to obey and to submit to the authority over you that there might be a good report given.
[31:31] And so that leads us to the fourth lesson and last lesson in our verse on submission. And I almost blush to say it. But I must because I'm called to preach the whole counsel of God to you and here it is right in our text.
[31:49] And this is the fourth point. You are responsible to make your elders work a joy and not a burden.
[32:04] It's your duty. It's your command. You're responsible to make your elders work a joy and not a burden. You see obey them so that their work will be a joy not a burden for that would be of no advantage to you.
[32:18] I promise you I didn't write that. That's the word of Christ to you concerning me. And this is nothing new.
[32:31] You know how the book of Proverbs teaches that children hold the potential of being either a joy or a grief to their parents. A wise son makes a happy father.
[32:47] son is a grief to his mother. We're aware of that.
[32:59] We live it. You live it. I live it. And this text is saying that the same thing is true of you and your elders. That you carry around with you the potential to make your elders work either a joy or a grief.
[33:13] faith. And beyond that potential you are actually commanded to obey your pastor's preaching and leadership in such a way that will make their joy, their work a joy and not a burden.
[33:25] And you're reminded that it would be no advantage to you to have a pastor laboring under a burden, a grievous heart because of what he sees in you. No, you'll find him far more beneficial to you when he labors with the joy of the Lord that is his strength.
[33:47] Could I share with you what makes your pastor's work a joy instead of a burden? Was to see you here week by week, attentive on the word of the king, hungry and thirsty for the word of God.
[34:05] There is nothing like that to send me back to the study to make sure I bring you something from the word.
[34:15] Why? Because I know you want God's word. That's such a joy to me and it makes the labor in the word a joy. To see you prioritizing and guarding these times of sacred assembly to hear the word of the king.
[34:36] A joy. To see you receive the truth in the love of it. To embrace it. Not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God.
[34:49] 1 Thessalonians 2.13. And maybe that's why Paul could be so happy as he writes to those Thessalonians. He was laboring with joy in that congregation because they received the word from him as it was in truth, the word of God.
[35:03] And their faith was growing more and more and their love for each other was increasing. Yes, that's such a joy to a pastor, to an elder.
[35:14] To see you singing the word, fellowshipping around the word of God. To see you witnessing the word, memorizing the word, meditating on the word, praying it in, living it out, applying it, submitting to it, ordering your steps according to it.
[35:36] What makes an elder's ministry a joy? It's seeing God's word renewing your minds and transforming your lives, transforming your marriage, your family life, your work life, your church life.
[35:51] Seeing you grow in holiness. Seeing you be weaned, weaned from the world and longing for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[36:04] To see you putting your shoulder to the task and everyone working together. Oh, what joy to see that happening. To see Christ formed in you.
[36:15] To see the fruit of the Spirit blossoming from your life. To see you zealous for the glory of God, reverencing His presence with us, with a compassion for the lost.
[36:28] You see, I get to have a front row seat as I oversee you in seeing what God is doing in your hearts. And that's such a joy. It's also a joy knowing that you love me, that you're for me, that you esteem me, that you follow my leadership, that you're patient with me, you're trusting me.
[36:51] Some of the peculiar joys of the ministry that just encourage me. The adrenaline for my soul to keep on keeping on. And I can say with the Apostle John who said it of those under his charge, I have no greater joy than to know that my children are walking in the truth.
[37:13] That makes your ministers happy. Not all shepherds have such a joyous experience. You know, Jeremiah was called a weeping prophet.
[37:24] And he weeped out his account to the Lord. Lord, they're stubborn. They will not obey. Isaiah, Ezekiel, they had to come before the Lord with a burden.
[37:46] The word here, that it would make your minister's work a joy and not a burden. It's really that it would make it a joy and not grievous and not groaning.
[37:56] It's the same word for the Romans 8, that the whole creation is groaning, waiting for the coming of Christ. sometimes these pastors have to groan out their complaint to the Lord.
[38:09] The spiritual blindness and hardness of even our Savior, the great shepherd himself, as he rides into Jerusalem on that last day. That last day is found weeping over Jerusalem.
[38:27] Oh, Father, they did not know the peace that was visiting them as I came on a mission of peace. And he wept. This is the great shepherd.
[38:40] Every shepherd knows something of this. There are these regular weekling accountings that we give to the Lord and we labor and we come back to him and there's some of the saints that were like Paul who says, every time I think of you and pray for you, it's with thanksgiving and joy.
[38:59] And then there's some that we come back weeping, Father, you know, you know the situation. And every pastor has his mix and the Lord knows how to pour into each pastor's cup.
[39:14] just the right mix of joy and sorrow. But you, you have the responsibility of making your elders work a joy and not a grief.
[39:36] So that in the final day they might have, they might give an account of you with joy which would be for your great advantage, 1 Thessalonians 2.19, for what is our hope, our joy?
[39:49] What is my joy, my crown of rejoicing in the presence of the Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you to see you there holy and without blemish?
[40:01] Having seen Christ and been made like him? What is my joy, my reward is to see you there rejoicing in the Lord Jesus and to see the Lord Jesus rejoicing in having you there with him.
[40:19] That is my joy. So will you meet me on the right hand of Christ in that day? That will be my joy and we will give thanks together because it's all because of the chief shepherd who laid down his life for us, his sheep.
[40:42] Here's something really marvelous. This good shepherd is also the sheep, the lamb of God who by his sacrifice takes away sin.
[40:56] For Christ died for sins once for all time, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring us to God. Have you come just as you are unrighteous to the righteous one and confessed your sin and renounced it and come and trusted in him to save you?
[41:18] That's the only way anyone will make it there. It's the work of this great shepherd, Jesus Christ. If you've not renounced your sin and trusted in the Savior, then I've got a message for you from the good shepherd.
[41:34] I stand before you as Christ's ambassador, as his herald, his messenger. And I tell you that the God of peace has provided a way for his enemies to be at peace with God.
[41:47] You might have come as an enemy of God, clinging to your own sinful way, turning your back on. God has provided a way for you to be at peace with God. For God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that we, through him, might be made the righteousness of God.
[42:07] How? By him not counting our sins against us, but having counted them to Christ who paid the punishment in full. And so I can gladly come to you from this chief shepherd and tell you on his behalf that the way of peace has been provided.
[42:23] The way of reconciliation for you to be reconciled to God forever and ever. It's done. The work is finished. There's nothing to add to it.
[42:34] God has accomplished it in Christ. And now he has committed to me and others this message of reconciliation to come to you and to call you to accept God's offer of peace, to throw down your weapons and your rebellion against him and to put up the white flag of a full surrender, unconditional surrender to the Lord Jesus.
[43:00] And so is Christ's ambassador as though God himself were making his appeal through me. I implore you.
[43:11] I beg you. I beseech you. I urge you. On behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
[43:23] Go home his friend. Receive him. And in him receive peace with God. Well, that's his word to us.
[43:35] That's a heavy load for you to bear. And so, in this last hymn that will make our response to him, it's number 278.
[43:48] We're going to speak to our great shepherd. You know he's alive. Though he died, his father raised him from the dead and he now reigns over all things for the good of his church.
[44:02] church. And so, in our closing hymn, we're going to call on him to help us to fulfill these duties and commands that he has given us in Hebrews 13, 17.
[44:20] 278. Let's stand. We pray. Jesus, with thy church abide. Come and help us to be the church that is a glory to you. Let's sing the first six verses.
[44:32] Jesus, with thy church abide, be her Savior Lord and I.
[44:55] While on earth her faith is bright, He beseechs me near us.
[45:06] Keep her life and love to pure, grant her gracious to endure.
[45:18] Trust me in thy promise sure, He beseechs me near us.
[45:29] May she God in God and me God in truth and charity may he all to wait in thee be beseechs me near us.
[45:51] May she guide the for and seek the lost until she dine and the world can lie to why He beseechs me near us.
[46:14] Save her love from from before, make her watchers strong and hope.
[46:25] And serve her love by peaceful hope, we be ceasing near us.
[46:37] May her lamp of truth be bright, with her air above his side, through the realms of free and heart fear ceasing near us.
[47:01] And now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead, our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will and work in us to do what is pleasing to him through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.
[47:27] Amen. Amen.