“It is right and proper for us to give thanks to God for the graces he has worked in other people’s lives. It is right and proper to give thanks to God for the service people have rendered to the church. But we do this in such a way as to exult in the grace of God in the gospel. Leaders are a gift to the church. God enables leaders and others in the church to serve with zeal and self-denial and love and faithfulness. But we are all sinners saved by grace. We are all worthy only of death. Our most holy acts are mixed with sin so that they alone are sufficient to condemn us. The reality is that in ourselves we are all capable of nothing but sin. We depend completely and absolutely on the forgiveness and righteousness of Christ. Anything that we do that is good and beneficial is the direct result of the grace and power of Christ through his Spirit.”
Obey Your Leaders
Read: Hebrews 13
Text: verse 17
“You can make your elders rejoice. Or you can make them groan. How you respond to their care can make their hearts sing or it can make their hearts heavy. God is giving you the responsibility to make your elders happy. Not by gifts or flattery or over-the-top respect. But by being diligent and serious about living the Christian life, by cooperating with their leadership and by complying with the word of God as they bring it to you. ”
The Fifth Commandment (7) Authority in the Church
“The requirement of believers in Jesus Christ to submit to the oversight of elders requires them to be members of a specific congregation. The biblical teaching about salvation includes church membership and not submitting to church membership is direct disobedience to the clear teaching of the word of God.”
Sermon Series: The Ten Commandments
The Sure Foundation of the Lord
Read: Psalm 127
“The success of our building, our watching and our sleeping is conditional on what the Lord has already accomplished. We must base our activities, the Bible is saying, on what God has already accomplished. The Lord must first build, he must first watch, and he must first grant rest, or our efforts are always futile. That’s the point of a condition clause like this, it’s always futile unless it is in the Lord. It is always futile, our efforts, all of them. It is a universal statement. Think about that. Everything that we do, every activity that we put our hand to, if it is not done in the Lord, will always, always, always be ultimately futile.”
Westminster Confession of Faith 31: Synods and Councils
Read: Acts 15:1-35
WCF 31: Synods and Councils
Aspects of the Church (16) Calling and Qualifications for Office
Read: 1 Timothy 3