Last week we looked at God coming to Elijah, as Elijah was hiding in a cave on Mount Sinai, and God spoke to him and gave Elijah three tasks to do. And this is Elijah accomplishing his first task. That is anointing Elijah as prophet to succeed him to speak to the rebellious northern kingdom of Israel. So here we are with 1 Kings chapter 19, beginning in verse 15. This is God's word, eternally true. The Lord said to him, go back the way you came, and go to the desert of Damascus, sorry, that's verse 15, I said 19, didn't I, verse 15, I'll start again. The Lord said to him, go back the way you came, and go to the desert of Damascus. When you get there, anointe hazyel, king over erum. So anointe Jehu, son of Nimshi, king over Israel. And anointe Elijah, son of Shafat, from able mahala to succeed you as prophet, or to succeed you as prophet. Jehu will begin to, will put to death any who escaped the sword of hazyel, and Elijah will put to death any who escaped the sword of Jehu. But yet I reserve 7,000 in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed down to Bale, and all whose mails have not kissed him. So Elijah went from there and found Elijah's son of Shafat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. Elijah then left his oxen, and ran after Elijah. He kissed my father and mother goodbye, he said, and then I will come with you. Go back, Elijah replied, what have I done to you? So Elijah left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and become his attendant. Here is our reading, give a response of thankfulness that is printed for you in your bulletin or up here. The word of the Lord. Thanks indeed. Thanks indeed. Let's pray. As we look at this, this passage is funny, and looking at this passage, if you have a study Bible, you will see quickly that people will not say much about this passage, because they do not know what to do with it. For instance, just to get out of the way, because I will probably forget, it does not mean anything. Look at the right end of verse 20, look down the end of your Bible. Elijah says, go back, what have I done to you? And nobody knows what is going on there. What have I done to you? There is probably some expression that is just like, sure, go do that. Go ahead. If we look at the text in the context, we see it seems to be what is being said there, and a lot of times there are expressions that are funny. If we said I am down with that, somebody 200 years ago would not know what we meant. So there are some expressions in scripture that we just say, I have got to derive this from the context around here. And so we see Elijah Glad for the new calling on his life. He runs after Elijah, and he says, let me just shore up things here. So I can follow you with nothing to hinder me. And so it goes back, because there is this mother and father, goodbye, burns his plowing equipment and cuts up the oxen, gives everybody a feast, and then he is off. So nothing really funny going on there, except that this is some expression that we do not know. But funny things that we see here, and text that we do not usually see a lot of comments on. I looked over many commentaries on this too, and nobody says anything because they do not know what is going on. But you can see what is happening if you consider who the writer of kings is writing to, and what their issues were as they said in exile. And one of the issues for them, and one of the issues for us, especially as American citizens, is that we love independence, and we hate authority. When George III is the enemy, for those of you who did not learn history, that was the king in England during the time of the American Revolution, and we love our independence, and we celebrate our independence day on July 4th. We love the expression, take this job and shove it, and you are not the boss of me, but these are subbiblical ways of being. And we come to understand biblical structure and biblical authority. We can come to see that the problems on the earth are largely solved by people recognizing and submitting to their authorities, whereas they promote something that is not evil. And for authorities acting like authorities and doing what is good for the people underneath them. And when that is not the case, there is unrest and gossip, gossip is a way to get at authorities, and all kinds of what wars come from, and breakups and divorces and companies splitting and all that kind of thing. And so as we look at this text, this is a text about authority in Scripture. This is a text where the original readers of this were to see the reason you are in exiles because you weren't listening to your authorities. I sent you God says through this text prophet, after prophet, after prophet, to remind you of my law, and you didn't listen, and that is why you are sitting in Babylon in exile right now, not sovereign over your own destiny, captive in a captivity in Babylon right now, and weeping on the banks of the river Euphrates, instead of being by the Jordan and then Jerusalem as a sovereign nation, just simply following the Lord. And so as we go through this text, I am going to essentially make the main point, and we will hit qualifications later, and sometimes in the midst of it, but I want to tell you just in a mindset, allow me to make the main point. I want you to hear the main point as I've indicated to us already. We are resistant to the main point because we are Americans. And we as Christians want to be Christians first, not Americans first. We don't want to object to the Bible and say, well, that's not American. Now we would never voice that, but that's kind of within our souls from growing up, unless you didn't grow up in the United States. Some countries it's less that way. So just know this about yourself and know that this is something I really need to listen to, and when you feel a little worried, I want you to feel a little worried. And know that I'll make appropriate exceptions and qualifications, but here's the deal. In the United States and in our sin natures, in life with anything, there's always 14% exceptions. I just pulled that number out of here. 18% exceptions in 86% is by the rule, but what we do, which is the work of foolishness and of fools, is we say, well, that's not always true, and we name the 14%. And then we live our lives wrong, 86% of the time, and that is foolish, brothers and sisters. And I see this all the time online, and I see it's among conversation among friends and different people. They say, well, that's not always true, as if that means it's 0% of the time true, and therefore, I can live as if that's never true, because there are 14% in which qualifications mediate the truth that would be 100% true if we were in the New Heavens and New Earth. But there's only 86% of the time true now. And so what I'm saying to you here is as you listen to this, I want you to grasp the 86% and to say, this is how I am going to live my life, and then I'll make appropriate qualifications for those 14% of times that there's an exception based on something quirky that's been brought up because there's sin in the world. Okay. So number one, to get into it here, God ordained human authorities for His people. God ordained human authorities for His people. We see this in verse 16 and verse 19. So look there in your Bibles there, verse 16, also anoint Jehud, son of Nimshi, king over Israel. So right there, we have, you've got ordained kings to be over us. We can see that even today with people who aren't kings over covenant people with 1st Peter 2 and Romans 13, all authorities, God ordained, puts in place over us. But especially over God's people, anoint Jehud, son of Nimshi, king over Israel, and anoint Elisha, son of Shafat, as to succeed you as prophet. Okay. So human authorities, so what we're saying here is God doesn't just speak to you directly, not even an Old Testament times that He speaks to His people directly. And you may remember the time in Mount Sinai when God is speaking to all the people when they first get there at Mount Sinai, and it's too overwhelming for the people. And they yell to Moses, don't let God do that again. Let God speak to you, and then you speak to us. This is too overwhelming for us. The mountains shaking, and there's smoke, and there's fire, and there's thunder. And so in Old Testament, one error, especially among American evangelicals, is to say, God will speak directly to me. How do you know this? Well God spoke to my heart. That is God spoke directly to me. And if you say that, I'm being sarcastic, if you say God spoke to my heart, then you can do anything you want and God approves of it. Shame on you, okay? That is not a ticket to do anything you want. I know you guys aren't doing that. But get that, get that. God spoke to your heart, the question then is, okay, what did God speak to your heart? What's he reminding you of a scriptural command that you need to apply now? Okay, good. Now look at your circumstances. Is it appropriate for you to apply that? Are you in the right circumstances to apply that? Okay, good. Looks like you are. Go for it. So if that's what you mean by God spoke to my heart, that I'm in these certain circumstances and it seems like I need to apply this, okay, so submit, honor your mother and father, okay? Is this your mother and father? Is yelling at them, honoring them, no. Did God speak to your heart and tell you to not yell at your father? Yes. Okay. God spoke to your heart. He reminded you of the fifth commandment, okay? God speaks to us indirectly through the Bible, okay, that's not God's audible voice. That's not God saying, you know what, person's in this place on the soccer field right now, he shouldn't trip that guy, okay? But if person thinks I shouldn't trip that guy because that's against the rules and God tells us to be, you know, good citizens and to obey the rules to respect the authority, see the authority said, you can't trip a guy, then boom, don't trip the guy, okay? And so we think in America that God hears us and that's the foundation of charismatic churches, isn't it? God spoke to me and he said, and then what happens to the Bibles in those churches? Not the door in the garbage can. If you have charismatic friends, you know that's true. They're doing all kinds of stuff, now there are brothers and sisters in Christ, it'll not be nice to them, okay? But they're doing all kinds of stuff that is contradicting this. They're believing all kinds of stuff that is not supported by this. Because if you're, and here's why you're especially gracious to them, they've been taught that. We've had authorities over them who have taught them that and they're trying to be faithful, okay? So be gracious to them. But what happens to people in Kyrznan church environments, where the pastor says, God spoke to me last night, or God spoke to me this week, why do you need the Bible? Why not just wait for Sunday, they're what God's saying today, he's got a specific message for me today, why learn the Bible, that's hard, this book is big, that's hard to learn all this, and to try to apply it to my particular circumstances, it's easy if my pastor just says, you need to quit your job and pick up and move and we're going to start a new church in Salt Lake City, okay? You know, so that happens. And so God speaks us indirectly through the Scriptures, He ordains human authorities for His people, and God's people in exile, receiving first things, had not respected their human authorities, they hadn't respected Elijah, they didn't respect Elijah after him, they didn't respect any of the prophets we have that are writing prophets and the books of the prophets in the Bible, and they probably, we suspect, weren't respecting a liturgyl who was in exile with them preaching. And this is a message that God sends human authorities, listen to those human authorities in so far, here's an exception or not non-exception, here's a qualification in so far as they support what they're saying with the Bible, and that's what Ezekiel was doing, all the prophets are just taking the books of Moses and proclaiming them to their particular circumstances, okay, and that's what I do, I just take this book here, and proclaim it to us in our particular circumstances. What has God said in this book that applies to us today, some of those things are general, like you need to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, that's general. Some things are specific, you know, if you need to pay your taxes to the state of North Carolina, because Romans 13, that's why we pay our taxes, and we pay them. Jesus paid his taxes, Peter did, right, they pulled that coin out of the fish's mouth and paid the taxes. Jesus was asked, should we pay our taxes to Caesar, and Jesus says, yes you should, whose image is on this coin, it's Caesar's, render Caesar's, what's Caesar's, so we do that, but if you're in the state of Florida, don't pay your taxes to the state, there's no state taxes in Florida, just sale tax, no income tax down there. So particular things, so if I were preaching in Florida, I would not say pay your state income taxes, right. So human authorities are there, it's not just me and Jesus, it's not just me and my Bible. I'll interpret it for myself, but now we can as we're guided along by human authorities, so God gives us, but God provides human authorities for us people. Elijah, Elijah, for Samuel 16 there, as you're looking at your outline, that's David, he anoints David to be king over his people through the prophet Samuel, first Samuel 184 and 235 through 8, you see anointing there, selecting people, human authorities, to be over, to be over God's people, that in 1 Samuel 18, Jonathan, son of Saul, gives David his cloak. Sound familiar? A symbol of authority, and then he proclaims to David that I will follow you. You will rule over Israel, Jonathan, heir to the throne, presumably son of Saul says, you will take the throne and I will follow you, David. Just promise to me that you'll be kind to me and to my descendants. And so David is, made with like Methuselah and so forth, so what's that? Methuselah? Yeah, thank you, Methuselah. Wrong, wrong, M name there. But we see this in Ephesians 4 as well, that there are people who are dating in the church to be over us. Jesus, Luke 2, 67 through 76, is Zechariah, John the Baptist's father, and he indicates that his son John the Baptist would anoint the new king, the new son of David, to be the authority over God's people. And in fact, in that second Luke passage there, that's what John the Baptist does. It gives us a true human who's also truly God, Jesus, to be over us. So in Scripture, we see this ordaining of two leadership authorities for God's people, whether it's David or the priests or prophets who are over us. So A, then you're outlined, A. God ordains, he ordains authorities for his people through those he previously ordained. God ordains authorities for his people through those he previously ordained. So we see this in this passage here. How's God ordain that who's going to take over the word of God, the proclamation of Moses, to God's people after Elijah is gone? And it's because Elijah anoints this new prophet, Elijah. Moses designates Joshua at God's command. There's this anointing of those who go after him. David has Solomon anointed in Jerusalem, and we get the whole Palm Sunday picture comes from that. David puts Solomon on his own mule, and it comes up from Guy Hunt Valley, where the garden of Guest Simony is, rides up into Jerusalem and is anointed as king before the people there, and takes his throne. So that's why the people say to Jesus. Hosanna to the Son of David, because Jesus is just on the same thing. But Jesus himself has been anointed by human authority. We see this in Acts chapter 6 as well. Deacons, that's your reference there. Deacons are anointed by the apostles there to serve in the church. We read, Jim read for us, Acts 1423. What do Paul and Barnabas do after they've planted all these new churches? They go back to each city and appoint elders. In each church, elders plural, in each church, to take over spiritual leadership in each of those churches. That's Acts 1423. And 2 Timothy 1-6. Paul says he's laid his hands on Timothy. He had ordained Timothy, and now Timothy was a pastor. Titus 1-5. Paul writes the Titus. He's left Titus back on the island of Crete, and says, Titus, the reason I left you behind on Crete was that you might appoint elders there for the churches. And so leadership for the church comes through. Ordination for leaders for the church comes from those who have been ordained. And we see that here in this passage with Elijah placing his cloak. This symbol of authority on Elijah. Elijah places his cloak on Elijah, just as Jonathan had done on David. So now we say something that's very relevant to our life now. There are his next line and your outline there. No self-proclaimed authorities. No self-proclaimed authorities. Hebrews 1, verses 1 and 2, says that in the Old Testament time God spoke to us in a different way. In many ways, in many fashions, dreams and prophets and visions and that kind of thing. But in this day he spoke to us in his son. And then in another and the next chapter, the writer of Hebrews, says, and his son spoke to us and his apostles have repeated his words to us. And those are the words we have now in the New Testament. Now the words of the apostles recorded for us in the New Testament. So beware of somebody who by himself says, God has called me to be a pastor. God has called me to be a leader. I once heard somebody say, I know for a fact that God has called me to be an elder in this church, when the elders had just said, no, he hasn't. And so it's no self-proclaimed authorities. And you'll see that on Christian TV, a whole bunch. God called me. It's what Joseph Smith did when he started the Mormon church. No one ordained him to ministry. He said, I had a vision and that an angel, which you don't know his name, you can't see him. And he gave me these golden tablets which I read. And I'll tell you what they said, but you can't find them. Joseph Smith self-proclaimed himself to be a leader and said literally, the Baptist, the Methodist and the Presbyterians have it all wrong. And so he introduces New doctrine. So be aware of that as you're taking on leadership or listening to someone speak. If anybody who said God said to me, if he's not one that current leaders of the church who've been ordained and examined and found meeting qualifications of church leadership that we find in Titus I and for Timothy III, if they have said somebody is worthy and somebody meets these qualifications to lead God's people, then we say, okay, great. But if that hasn't happened, we want to say, I'll treat you like my brother's sister in church. If what you're saying matches with Scripture, okay. But it's just not the same thing as an ordained authority that God has given to the church. Now, be, be. In the church today, the authorities God ordains for us people are elders. That's the, there are two offices in the church, elders and deacons. And the elders are those who are the authorities or the leaders. The deacons are the servants. And so the elders take on that noble role like David had nobles from the various tribes. Elders, the elders of Israel, like Moses had, and they have this authority over the people under the chief authority, the king, and elders in the church have this, have this, have this authority under the chief authority, Jesus. Peter in referencing himself as an elder in the church says in the next verse that we didn't read, verse 4, that Jesus is the chief shepherd. He's the chief elder. He's the one that really directs things. And that elders in the church are just carrying out his will, proclaiming his truth and not inventing that for themselves or coming up with new things. So in the church today, the authorities God ordains for us people are elders and your blanks there are two kinds of elders in the church, which we saw in 1 Timothy 517. There are ruling and teaching elders, as we call them in shorthand or sometimes we can refer to this as shepherding or teaching elders. Really all elders are ruling and shepherding. They're doing that work, but some, Paul says, are especially devoted to teaching. That's what he says in 1 Timothy 517. And so we call teaching elders, pastors, to send in them for that, which we see in scripture like in places like Ephesians 4. There are pastors in the church who are teachers or teaching elders. And so this is what the New Testament shows us. It's not a mystery. Paul goes around Acts 14 and he ordains, he in Barnabas ordain elders to the church. Titus 1, he tells Titus, I left you behind on the island of Crete that you might ordain elders to the churches there on Crete. He tells Timothy, he's probably an Ephesus. Timothy, here are the qualifications for elders of the church. And in that qualification he says they must be good leaders of their families and their children or how will they be a manager and a leader of the church if they haven't managed and led their families well. So elders are those who add this leadership, this authority in directing the affairs of the church. As again, as Paul says in 1 Timothy 517, they were to give an honor to those who direct the affairs of the church and then especially those whose work is teaching and preaching. So ruling in teachers, teaching elders, some churches don't understand this. They're not trying to be evil. They just haven't given adequate attention to this. That scripture you have multiple elders in each church and Acts 14, 23. They go to each city and appoint elders for each church plural. These elders are divided into teaching elders and ruling elders 1 Timothy 517. And that's an essential thing for a church to have. Paul plants the churches, gets on elsewhere, but goes back to those churches and then says, okay, who's kind of being acknowledged here? Who do we see is the most mature here in each of them churches that we can then appoint the office of being an elder of the church and to take the spiritual care and the shepherding of this church here. So why does God have next? Why does God have and ordained authorities for you? See, see, this is why God has and ordained authorities for you. God ordained elders in the church to lovingly oversee, to lovingly oversee your life. See, this is where we kind of get off, especially as Americans because we, you know, if you're thinking of our independence as a nation, you're thinking of, you know, King George III and his parliament there and taxation without representation and Boston Tea Party and we're like, how dare you tax us too much? Right? And so I'm reading in Genesis right now, Joseph proposed and succeeded in giving a 20% tax to Egypt. God's tax is 10%, but so he's more in line with Steve Forbes in 1996, I guess, the flat tax. But God ordained elders in the church to lovingly oversee your life and we think Britain was not lovingly overseeing us and so we're going to rebel. But in the church, while secular rulers may try to, as Jesus said, lord it over you, say your declaration of the gospel this morning, the rulers of the Gentiles, lord it over them, of the nations, it's the same word. In the nations out there in civil authority, the authorities lord it over people. And those authorities who are lording it over the people have greater authorities who are lording it over them, exercising authority over them. But then Jesus has been not so with you apostles, leaders in the church, you as great authorities in the church are to be the slave of all who are in the church. And so we, God has authorities in the church, elders in the church to lovingly oversee us, not to lord it over us, not to use their authority to extract from us to the member of the church to their own gain and glory and ease, but rather to exercise their authority in a loving way. As they oversee your life for your good. So, Acts 20, 28, Acts 20, 17, Peter has landed on the coastal town of my leaders on the western coast of Greece. And Ephesus was about a half hour inland. And so he calls for the elders, that's the word elders, represspitors from which we get Presbyterian, that's the great word for elders, Presbyter. He calls for the presbyter as the elders of the Ephesian church to come to him and meet him in my leadus there on the coast. So all the elders plural come to Paul and the coast there in my leadus. And then as he talks to them, they come to him, he calls them overseers, which is where we get the term bishop. It's Episcopus. So, Episcopalian church is a church that has bishops. Okay, they get that. It's etha, which means over and scope, which means look overseas. That's the word. Episcopus means overseeing church. So, Episcopalian church is an overseeing church, but it's an error to think that bishops are different categories and elders, because Paul says, gathers the elders to him and calls them overseers, which is the translation for what we get bishops, that word for. And so elders are called to oversee, or if you look in the passage, we looked at from first Peter 5. Peter says, you know, as your fellow elder, oversee. It's just interchangeable, those two things. And so a chief job of elders in the church is to oversee your life, loving life out of love for you. Because, and the reason for this, because Christ, our king, spilled his blood for you, your his sheep, we don't own you, he does, and he's told us to love you, to oversee your life, to keep you from harming yourself. That's the job of elders. Our pastor in Florida, Mike Milan, used to say that the job of the pastors to keep and elders altogether, is to keep the sheep from harming their lives, harming themselves too much over the course of their lives. And really, to see that in a more positive spin, to enable you to prosper, to prosper in your lives, to have full healthy souls that are teaming of the character of God, blessing the people around you by who you are, by how you're treating people. And for you to be experiencing, blessing is God wants you to experiencing it, even if that means being persecuted because people are bugged by you being so nice. But God ordains elders in the church, the lovingly overseer life sets, Acts 2028, Paul said to the elders there, oversee the church, keep watch over yourselves, and over the flock, which God has put you, the Holy Spirit has put you in charge. For Peter 5, 3, that's the job, oversee, and don't lord it over those entrusted to your church, and don't do this begrudgingly, but do this willingly, with joy for their sake. Hebrews 13, 17 says to the people in the church, obey your leaders and submit to their authority, but hear what listen to what it says about the elders, for they keep watch over you as men who must give an account. That's why elders, that's why human authorities, elders are in the church, they're over you, they oversee your life, and they have to give an account for your life, for how well you've prospered and loved Jesus and followed Him and represented Him well and brought Him glory through their lives, elders will give an account for that in their lives by their work. Jesus uses elders as extensions of Himself, he's the great elder, Jesus is the chief shepherd, the elder is the under shepherd, the elder is not the chief shepherd, but he's one of the assistant shepherds that's over a segment of the flock who belongs to the chief shepherd. So like Jacob sends his sons out to take care of the flocks, but they're Jacob's sheep, there's Jacob's sheep, and that's what elders are, they're under shepherds taking care of the sheep, acting as extensions of Jacob or extensions of Jesus caring for his sheep. So Jesus uses elders as extensions of Himself to, here's your blank, to shepherd you, to shepherd you for your good. And so the job of an elder, as we, and as we talk about it in our session meetings and our elder meetings, is how can we shepherd you, Christ people, citizens of heaven, in this church, in a way that's two years ago. You see your good, where you see Christ better, you love Him more, you live unto His glory, for your good, and for your blessing. And so we're sorting out things that'll be a distraction to that in your life, and bringing things in and saying, how can we do this better? How can we bring Christ more to the fore? How can we help God's people in our church see this better? And so again, just structurally, in your worship bulletin, your order of worship each week, you know, we don't put names on the elements there. You know, this morning, you know, and so Jim Smith's name is over each thing he's leaving, and sermon, you know, gospel lesson, pastor drama, we don't put that there, because we don't want, we want our names in eight point font. I think that's what I put it in on the back of the bulletin, just big enough for you to read. So in case you need us, you can find us. But Christ gets prominence in the church and Christ is using elders in the church to shepherd you for your good. So just think about this as we're looking at what Jesus does and says and looking at scripture, the elders in the church, Jesus says this in John 1011, I am the what kind of shepherd, the good shepherd. And that passage there, he's talking to the Pharisees. That's his audience there, the Pharisees. And he's saying, I'm the good shepherd. And then you know what he calls the Pharisees? The thieves who've hopped over the gate. Now come in through the gate. He says, I'm also the gate. And the Pharisees have hopped over the gate to do you harm their wolves among the flock, but I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd lay his, lays his life down for the sheep. And false shepherds, when a wolf comes, they run away because they don't want to get attacked by the wolf and so they'll sacrifice the sheep for their own good. But not me, I'm the good shepherd. My sheep need me to die for them. Okay, I'll lay my life down for them. That's Jesus being the good shepherd, putting himself before the wolf or the prowling lion, putting himself before Satan, who held the keys of death to Jesus, grabbed it from him in his resurrection. Jesus does that for the sheep and so elders represent this good shepherd who wants good for you, who sacrificed for you, who gave his life Ephesians 5 to for you. The shepherd lays his life down for the sheep. So elders in Christ dead and for him are for your sakes. They're put in place, elders in a church are put in place who are for your good. Representing the good shepherd to lead you to the good pastures, not to the pastures with with the souls and weeds and and snakes in the grass. And so elders are called to lay their lives down for you. Probably they won't have to do this physically die for you, but they will have to expend their time and their effort for your good. Most of the time when you're not looking, and since we have our elders meetings at 7 a.m. on Saturday, most of the time when you're still sleeping, and rightly so if you get up a little later on Saturday morning, they're doing things for you like praying for you, teaching you, giving you biblical wisdom whenever you ask for it from them, and spending time and thought and effort to make sure the structure of our church is such that you see Jesus and know him for your own good. This doesn't just happen, but the worship service isn't the way it is, the structure of even how we sit here is not how it is because it's just happenstance. We think through everything we can think of to think through so that you can have fruit, spiritual fruit in your lives, and all this stuff has gone into. What it's here for you here, and usually the effort of elders is to no benefit to them. They're praying and for you, and they don't see the benefit of that. You know, we've got our elders prayer email that doesn't go to everybody else from prayer requests that come, and sometimes those are a good number, and we enjoy getting those from you. And we're praying, our elders write that down, they've got it by email, and we're praying for that during the week for you. And yeah, I was speaking once at an ordination or an installation service for the pastor down in Fuqua, Verena maybe four years ago, and I had the role in the ordination or the installation service of speaking to the congregation before they gave their vows to the pastor who was taking charge of their church. And I said, treat this guy well, because he's going to be praying for you when your spouse isn't, when your kids isn't, aren't, when your mom, when your mom and dad aren't, he will be praying for you, and how dare you hang him up on a tree when he's been doing this for you for all this time, when he's been spilling his mental energy every week for you. When he's been heart torn at decisions that you've made that have been toward your bad, when he's grieved with you and said, oh no. When he's been the one that's called you when tragedy has hit, right? This is stuff all going in the background, and it's not to, it's not to the elders benefit. They're not getting anything out of it. They're not, they're not saying, oh great, I'll be an elder because I'll get a paycheck and I want to, I'll have to do less in the church. They continue to not get a paycheck except for me, so be suspect of me because I get paid for doing this. But they continue to not get a paycheck and then they do, they take all this other work on themselves and they have to come up here and lead a service and, you know, the chief fear among people is public speaking and second is death. And so they do that and work through all that. The Paul tells the elders, this is not about you. He says, Acts 2020, these shepherds of the Church of God, which Jesus bought with his own blood. Shepherding is about the sheep. It's about caring for the ones God Almighty who created the heavens and the earth, Jesus by whom nothing that has been made exists. He valued these people, these sheep so much that he came to earth and he died for them. So care for them, shepherd them, oversee them. So Peter addresses the elders in 1 Peter 5 and he says this, be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care. Elders are put in place to care for you, that are under your care, serving as overseers, getting that word oversee, they're overseeing your life, not because you must, but because you're willing as God wants you to be, not greedy for money, but eager to serve, and not lording it over those entrusted to you. So in shepherding, D, moving on, in shepherding, you and God's people today, elders will do two things. Two things that we see here in this passage. Two things that we see, Elijah and Elijah doing. Number one, they teach the Bible. They teach the Bible, God's truth, two God's people, and bottom line of this is they are exhorting them to faithfulness to God. That's what Elijah is doing. We see this in 818, you know, it confronts the king with this, A-Hab, and he says, you need to be following the God of our fathers and instead you're following the Bales. And that's why this drought has come upon the land. That's the job of the elders in the church today, those who've been ordained to lead the churches, that teach God's people leading them to faithfulness to God. Paul gets at this when he talks to Timothy and second Timothy, Timothy is pastoring a church in Ephesus and he says this to Timothy in terms of preaching, teaching God's word to the benefit of God's people. He says this, preach the word, be prepared in season and out of season, correct? Rebuke? Elijah and Elijah were doing a lot of that, correct? Rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. So elders in the church teach the Bible under faithfulness in God even if that calls them to correct and rebuke but certainly also to encourage God's people. So I got ordained people to be elders in the church, to encourage you, to rebuke and correct you. And every time we look at Scripture, we know that that should have that effect on us. You know, a little bit earlier in 2 Timothy 3, 16, he said, that's what Scripture does. All Scripture is inspired by God. It teaches us, it rebuks us, it corrects us and it trains us in righteousness. So as Christians, we should always be in this process of being taught and rebuke and corrected by Scripture and as elders present Scripture, they do that by teaching and preaching the word of God. And the word of God has that function in our lives to get us more in line with the character of Jesus. So that's one function that ordained leadership has in the church is Elijah and Elijah has this function and had that function as they went to kings and confronted them and tried to instruct them in the truth. And then number two, the other function that leaders in the church have is that they purify God's people, they purify God's people. Now look at verse 17, what God says to Elijah is that Elijah would put to death any hazel and jahumis. So, you know, if you think it in terms of big box and little box, you know, there are all these people in covenant with God in northern Israel. Now we learned last week there were 7,000 who had not bowed their knee to bail, 7,000 who were faithful, but the vast majority were unfaithful to God. And so God has a solution to that. He's going to purify his people. Okay, so just because someone's in the people, God just someone's in the church doesn't mean he's born again. Doesn't mean he's done bowing the knee to bail even though he's present among God's people, just like in this Old Testament circumstance here. And God says, I'm going to start clearing these people out. I'm going to do it through Hazel, King of Arom, who's going to be all this trouble to Israel and actually kill people through war. And then I'll also do it through Jehu who's going to come and he's going to put to death the house of Ahab and all associated with Ahab. Anyone who's left after those two, there we go in this verse here, verse 17, Elijah will take care of. Okay, so that's a function that Elijah has. Elijah had had this, right? Mount Carmel. Okay, now God proved he was God and that bail is not, now kill all the prophets of bail. So this is something that God's representatives do, that God's leadership does. It purifies God's people not only by teaching the Bible, but purifying them in this way. Now elders in the church don't put anyone to death, hang on with me. Hang on with me here. Numbers 25, we see the same thing. The people of God worship the Bales at a place called Pior, a little city called Pior. This is under Moses in Moses' day, right before they're heading into the Promised Land. They're on the other side of the Jordan still haven't crossed the Jordan River and they start worshiping Bale. And Moses and the judges of Israel and Phineas the priest put to death those in Israel who are worshiping the Bales. Purifying, putting to death. We talked about before that if you lived in Old Testament Israel, it's in the law of Moses that if somebody rises up and worships another God, you put him to death. And if a town has had somebody rise up and promote the worshiping of another God, the whole town should be put to death because the town is put up with this. That's the law of Moses. And so God's leaders have this function of purifying God's people. And in the Old Testament we see this in this physical and physical death kind of way, but God's truth doesn't disappear in the New Testament. How do we put to death and who do we put to death and how is that in New Testament times? You saw a hint of it in 1 Timothy chapter 1 verses 18 through 20 this morning. Paul refers to those who used to be his helpers in the church, Hymenas and Alexander and somebody I think there was a third person there and they'd left the faith. They'd paid attention to the glory, self-glory in the church and attention, that kind of thing. And they had shipwrecked their faith. And Paul speaks to how he had excommunicated these people who had helped him in the church and he refers to it as handing them over to Satan. The kingdom of the world is led by the kingdom, by the king of the world as Jesus refers to him. The prince of this world, Jesus says, and Paul casts them out of the church out of the kingdom of God on the earth and puts them out of church membership. Paul also refers to this when he talks to about an immoral man in 1 Corinthians 5. Excommunication were the elders of the church due to incessant unrepentance in belief or in action after patient long suffering pleading with a person when the person remains resistant to repent. The leadership is forced to say, I don't see evidence of the Holy Spirit or submission to our king, Jesus, in you. And so we have to revoke your church membership and communicate to you and to others that those who believe as you're currently believing and those who are acting as you're currently acting, and in Corinth there was a situation of a man having sexual relations with his mother and his stepmother that such a person is not a believer. And so that's excommunication that's putting to death that's casting out of the land, the church, the promised land of today for believers that's casting out such people. And so in this way elders purify the church. Sometimes elders are called to remove people from the membership role, whether by no longer attending any church at all. And speaking with them and we can't just cut somebody off, we communicate with them and we wait, we wait and say, please, you know, even if you've moved away, get in another church, and if they don't, then we cut them off and we say to them and the letter we send to them, this means you have membership in no church and there's no visible demonstration on this earth that you are a member of the body of Christ. And we hope that you take that very seriously and take up membership in the church in the church again. And so there's this purification that happens in excommunication. And so elders have these two functions teaching the Bible and purifying God's people. Now these two come together in what is letter C, letter C. Often elders teaching of the Bible asked to purify the church. We're going to end on this point here this morning. Often elders teaching of the Bible asked to purify the church in two ways. Those who aren't believers and want to play church, those who want to play church and don't care about God, if the Bible is preaching that church, they will leave. And I came to see this very early in first year of being a pastor. Some people left because they said, oh, you're calling me to change my life in some kind of way according to the Bible. And they were offended and they left. And so I refer to that as preaching people out of the church. I don't want to preach anyone out of the church. And if someone comes into this church and they think they're a believer and then find out they're not, I want them to have the other response. There's the one response stomping off mad. That's response number one to the work of God. The other response is repentance and faith. And so some of you had that experience, you grew up in the church and you came in here or came into another church somewhere and then realized I'm the one who needs to repent and believe not just those other bad people out there. And you had that good response that God brought in you, a brought about in you, of believing. But sometimes this act of teaching God's word purifies the church. And just it's just the case, the more the Bible is preached, the more the church will be pure. The higher the percentage of the people who are sitting there will actually be born again believers. And if you want to grow the church and if we want to grow the church here, I love, I'm a bit embarrassed Anthony here for a second here when first came the church and both talked him going back. Anthony said, man, that was a lot of scripture and Anthony loved it. But that's what we want to do. We talk about this in this session. We want to drench you when you're here. Everything, every element of the service, we want to drench you in scripture. You're not getting anywhere else. So if we don't do it, where are you going to get it? Right? And so we bring that to you. And so that's offensive. The Bible is offensive all the time that the most the most obedient of human believers on the earth is always being called to repent and be more like Christ. To see more things, you know, Paul indicated the more I grow to know Christ, the worse I see that I was in the past and the more I see there are things to still work on. And so this requires of us, you know, this is this heart of repentance and always wanting to be more like Christ and this attitude of thank you for this. I realize I need to be more like Christ in this way and some of you have said those kind of things to us as elders in the church and that's indeed how you should, how you should, how you should be. So generally, you know, that's just the case. If we want to grow this church, we remove scripture and we remove things like hell and we remove things like the lake of fire and we say, hey, you're okay. We're all under grace and we go to the lowest common denominator of what we can say and still be a Christian church and our church will get big. Don't mark my words, mark the sociological studies of every church in the United States. Right? Now, I'm not saying there aren't big churches that are faithful to the word. There are some of those churches that God has gathered lots of people too because people are just so thirsty for the word of God and they can't get it from other churches. And so they come in and they say, oh, thank you. This is an oasis. Don't assume that just because the church is big, it's compromised. It could be faithful to teaching and that's why God has grown the church. But as a pastor, as a session, we have that choice. We could get bigger. We know what we could do. But Paul said, we will give or sorry, the writer Feuders said, we will give an account for you and your souls. And so we don't want you out there messing up your lives and the lives of your families just so we can get bigger because we haven't offended you. And then B, that's one way we purify. We just teach the word and those who are like, I see it sometimes visitors come in here and I see their eyes rolling over. Like that literally. And I know I'm up here and I say they will not be back. I hope they come back and I pray that they will come back. But it's like I came in here to check in and check out and you want to know what are you doing to me? Yeah, I literally basically had someone say that to me before as I left. By the way, all this stuff guys, you're being faithful in this. And I'm encouraging you in your faithfulness. You care about things that are the important stuff. That's why you're here. And it'd be another way that God uses elders to purify the churches is this. Those who, so those who don't love God, they get offended by the word and they leave. And so that purifies the church. But those who love God, that's your blank, they're those who love God, will be progressively purified by his word being taught in the church. And so you who love God, you're here and you're being purified each week. John 17, 17 got Jesus praise for the those the disciples will bring to faith. And he says father sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. How are we sanctified? And you know the word sanctified means to be set apart. How are we set apart from the character of the word world? How are we set apart to be like Jesus instead of like the word world? We are set apart by the word of God, the truth. It's you're preparing for the we're hearing of the word of God. The disciples of Jesus, they are sanctified, set apart by the truth, purified, made more like Jesus or as Paul, as Paul said in his final words to the elders there at Ephesus x2032. Now I commit you speaking to the elders, I commit you to the word of his grace scripture. I commit you to the word of his grace which can build you up and give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified, set apart, purified to be more like Jesus. The elders are the authorities that God puts human authorities in the church for your good, for your sake. And they have this function like Elijah and Elijah had of purifying the church in these two ways, one having the church be essentially those who are born again and hopefully those who aren't yet and are in the process of that. And then to having this function of purifying you to be still who you are, but more like Jesus in the character of who you are. So rejoice. Elders are put in place for you, out of the kindness of Jesus, out of the love of Jesus who cares for your life and loves you. Let's put elders over you in the church. Next week, we'll talk about some of the qualifications of elders you want to follow and what elders are called to so that these things are always true for you in the church as well. Thank you for that.