Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
And we're coming to the end of this book.
And some of you are saying, well, it's about time.
I mean, let's move on.
But you know, I know we learned so many great things in this book about Jesus and about the
history of Israel.
And we're going to learn more today.
Today's message is leaders who lead to Jesus.
So that's really what this is pointing to.
And so let's pray.
Father God, Lord, we know that you're going to do something impactful here today, Lord.
And we ask you to reveal to us what we're supposed to take away from this message, from
your word.
And we ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
So let's dive right into chapter 13, verse seven, and we're going to go to verse 17.
So remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith
follow considering the outcome of their conduct.
And by the way, that word rule means lead.
So remember those who lead you, who have spoken the word to you, whose faith follow
considering the outcome of their conduct.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Is that the most amazing verse in the Bible?
Well, those songs we were singing, I don't know.
Sometimes I don't know if the worship leaders read ahead, you know, they're worship
leaders, so maybe, maybe not.
But one thing is those songs all connected to that one verse there.
Who else is worthy?
Amen.
So, and so reading on from there, verse nine, do not be carried away about with
various strange doctrines, for it is good that the heart be established by
grace, pardon me, not with foods which have not profited those who have been
occupied with them.
We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to
eat, for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary
by the high priest for sin are burned outside the camp.
Therefore, Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood
suffered outside the gate.
Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach.
For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come.
Verse 15, therefore by him let us continually offer the sacrifice of
praise to God, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.
But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices, God is well
pleased.
And here's, we're going to finish up verse 17.
Obey those who, my version says, rule over you.
Again, if you have ESV or other ones, it says, who lead you and be submissive,
for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account, but them do
so with joy, I'm sorry, let them do so with joy, not with grief, for that would
be unprofitable for you.
Amen.
So that first verse that says, remember those who lead you, who have spoken
the word to you, whose faith follow considering the outcome of their conduct.
Verse seven, you know, Danny last week ended with verse seven.
If you can recall, he talked about the missionaries, Jim and Elizabeth
Elliott, and how they were, how Jim Elliott was, was, was murdered on the
beaches of Ecuador as he brought the gospel.
And yet his wife came years later.
I forget how many years and actually brought the gospel and they received
Christ through that, through the death of Jim Elliott.
And for, for Danny, that really spoke to him.
You know, we have a lot of rulers or leaders in the Christian realm from
history until now that have been a guide to us.
The word ruler or leader is, uh, hegaiomai, it's the Greek word.
And it means just as it, as we were saying, it means a leader.
And you know, in, in society, we could find a lot of Christian
leaders who make an impact on our faith.
You know, Billy Graham, I know I'm going way back and any of you young
people may have never, uh, watched a full sermon of his, but I'm sure
you know who he is, but he has made such an impact on so many people.
My mother-in-law Jackie got saved through him.
Then Ron got saved through her and yada, yada, yada.
And here we all here are here.
Jill and I saved, you know, Billy Graham made a huge impact of recent.
Charlie Kirk has made a tremendous impact on people's lives because he
demonstrated what Christ looked like.
Now you might not love the way his style and so forth, but he
illustrated faith, you know, we're all different.
We all have different personalities and so forth.
No one is all going to look exactly the same the way they present Christ, but
still he, he demonstrated bold faith, relentless faith, and was murdered for.
It was martyred, right?
And there's so many, I, I listen to podcasts.
I watch, uh, preachers, I don't watch them much anymore, but I listen
to a lot of preachers, listen to a lot of podcasts.
So I'm blessed in so many ways.
And so there's that big picture of hegema, hegema, you know, leaders
of faith in this world, but for our purposes today, I'm going to narrow it
down to people who are closer to our, our own life, you know, people that
we are more, we know more intimately, people that we are familiar with, you
know, um, I had so many amazing mentors in my life.
When I came to Christ, all my previous pastors, the first church, I got saved.
Yo, pastor Don, you know, hearing him and just really being
ministered by him, Warren, Saul, Scott Mitchell.
Then my next church was John Hessler.
These people are burned into my memory and my heart because
they were hegema to me.
They led me to Christ.
They led me in Christ.
And I saw in their lives a demonstration of evidence of their faith.
They all went through trials.
None of them were perfect.
And yet they stood ground and they walked the walk of faith demonstrating.
That's what it looks like.
It's so awesome when you can actually see Jesus in the flesh and say,
that's what it looks like.
It looks like Doug Miller.
It looks like Kathy Swincala.
It looks like Tony.
It looks like us when we walk in faith, we are in this sense being
hegema to someone else that we may not even realize, but we're leading
people to Jesus Christ by the evidence of our faith.
And so that's what the whole point of this is.
He's saying, you know, remember them, honor them, and actually watch their
conduct and see if their faith is proven.
And so it's so important for us to do that, you know?
And so let's go on to verse eight.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.
And as we said, that's just such an awesome statement that Jesus is the same.
And you know why that's so important?
Because Jesus was before all things.
You know, everything's about Jesus.
We're singing about him because he, all things were made for him, by him,
and he holds all things together.
By the power of his word, he literally holds things together.
Whether he's the strong force that holds every atom together, we're going to
learn in heaven someday how he does this, but everything we see is the result
of what he has created, you know?
So that's how significant crisis he is, the word of God.
And he doesn't need to change to political correctness.
He doesn't need to adjust to the signs of the times.
He doesn't need to change.
We need to adjust to him because he is the standard.
You know, he still hates the sin of dishonoring parents.
He still hates the sin of murder, of adultery, of coveting, of lying.
None of that has changed.
He still hates all the sin of that because of what it does to humanity.
He still hates sexual immorality.
He still hates homosexuality.
He still hates transgenderism.
He still hates all that stuff.
Some of you are like, ooh, but he died for all of it.
So all of that sin, whatever it is, you know, the greed, all of it died
with Christ on the cross, okay?
The sin is still ugly, but he died for it.
And that's so important because rewinding one verse, when we're following
leaders who suddenly say sin is not sin, things change.
They had it wrong.
They misread it.
They mistranslated it.
It's still all sin, right?
And so, but he paid for it on the cross.
In fact, when we read Isaiah 5.20, Isaiah says, woe to those who call evil
good and good evil, who put darkness for light and the light for
darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
So that, you know, obviously that's what's happening in this world today.
You know, suddenly we're like being gaslit all the time.
Like I thought that was bad.
Isn't that bad?
No, no, it's not bad.
It's good.
You're bad for thinking it's bad.
You know, it's like, wait, I'm getting confused, right?
Because, you know, the world is gaslighting us, right?
And, but we have the truth because Jesus doesn't change.
He doesn't say, you know what, actually now, yeah, I'm okay with that.
You know, no, he's not, but he died for it, you know, so we can reconcile all
things to Jesus Christ, but we can't start calling what's bad good and good
bad because he doesn't change, right?
And neither does his, his attitude towards sin.
That's why he died for it.
So we need to remember that Christ doesn't change with the times.
Okay.
And so, so we see this idea of, of that leader must be pointing to Jesus
cause he's always the same.
You know, I've been watching a lot of documentaries lately on different kind
of weird cultish things in Christianity or anything, why are you watching that
stuff, but I don't know, it's on there.
And it's interesting.
It is interesting.
It's interesting to me how people can get manipulated by leaders to go
a stray from the gospel.
That just like it irritates you.
I'm watching it.
I get angry, you know, but I'm thinking like, how does this happen?
How do people suddenly stop reading their Bible and start following a person or
never read the Bible is because they don't know Jesus Christ.
They don't know a fake when they see one because they don't know Jesus.
Like we need people to be pointing us to Jesus.
And when they start going astray, you're saying, bye-bye.
I'm following Jesus.
And we've all probably had people in our lives, leaders.
Thank God.
I haven't had many I can think of that have gone astray.
And you're like, yeah, that's not the way I'm going.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
You know, I'm following Jesus, right?
Because if you don't know him, you won't know when you're being led astray.
We need to know Jesus.
He's the same yesterday, today, and always, and he doesn't change.
And you see these different, you know, things we're watching this teen
mania back in the nineties.
I don't know where I was during that time.
I don't remember any of that, but all these kids in colleges were
getting militant for Christ.
And it sounds good, right?
It sounds like these kids are being indoctrinated to be on the army for God.
Right.
And they see the whole world as their enemy, you know, and well, that's not so
good and they're starting to be kind of isolationists, right?
And, but what happened is they formed like these boot camps and they were
literally like just putting these kids through like a boot camp style
humiliation and for what purpose?
Well, to like, they're getting paid to do this.
Like people were parents were paying for their children to be abused by these
people who are supposed to be spiritual leaders.
And you're watching is like, how does this stuff happen?
And so many others, I won't even go into details, but you're watching.
You're like, what is that all about?
How does that happen?
And there's so many ways.
First of all, money gets in fact, you know, Paul told Timothy in
first, uh, Timothy six 10, he said for the love of money is the root of all kinds
of evil for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and
pierced themselves through with many sorrows, many leaders that once they
probably started off with good intentions, whatever it might be,
whatever kind of ministry or specialty they were in, but then when they
started selling books, when they started selling tapes or whatever they sell.
And when all of a sudden they're filling conference halls with their
style, with their format, you know, all of a sudden, like, we have to make
sure there's some healings today.
If there's no healings, we got a problem.
We can't sell out the next conference hall we're going to.
I'm just being a little, you know, whatever that is facetious.
Thank you, Cindy.
Right.
But like, we see this again and again and again, we're like, you know,
prophets will, you know, look up Facebooks ahead of time and kind of learn
about the person there's somebody in here who's blah, blah, blah, you know,
like a psychic, you know, I mean, that kind of stuff.
We need to be aware, aware that, you know, you need, we need to know
Jesus Christ, then we can spot the fraud.
You know, they say you study the authentic, not the counterfeit, right?
Because if you know, the authentic bill, you can't be conned by a counterfeit bill,
right?
You don't study the counterfeit.
So I'm just saying we need to be careful to really be following those
who lead to Jesus Christ because he doesn't change.
Amen.
Thank you, Frank.
And, um, and then also other people who have gone astray, we're not
going to see names and all this, but other people going astray in their
pride and arrogance that had huge ministries and suddenly it all went
to their head and they became filled up with themselves as they lead, you
know, thousands of people and suddenly no one can get along with them and
they can't stand them and hear this.
These people founded the ministry, you know, and Paul has a word or two
to say about that in second Corinthians 10.
It talks quite a bit about this.
He says, for we dare not class ourselves.
He's being a little sarcastic here or compare ourselves with those who
commend themselves, but they measuring themselves by themselves and
comparing themselves among themselves are not why.
So he's saying these people think they're all, they're really special
and important and they're super apostles, right?
They think they're great.
And Paul's just saying, I don't think I'm anything.
I'm just here serving Jesus.
I'm just here to point to Jesus.
And then he goes on in the next chapter, he says, for such are false
prophets, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.
And no wonder for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves
into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
So again, this is just kind of like a little warning that if we don't know Jesus,
we don't know his word, we can be conned by a false leader or someone who has gone
astray, you know, suddenly accommodating their own agenda rather than
the agenda of Christ.
Amen.
So the next couple of verses are dealing with the law, which we've talked a lot
about throughout Hebrews, so we're not going to look at those couple of
verses from nine to 14, but verse 15 and 16.
Therefore by him, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God.
That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name, but do not forget to
do good and to share for with such sacrifices, God is well pleased.
You know, in the old Testament, they offered up animals, they killed animals
and shed their blood to anoint the altar and to offer up to God.
But now Christ was our offering and now we are living sacrifices for him and we
can offer up praise and good works and sharing with other believers and non
believers.
And I think this church does an amazing job with that sharing attitude.
We really do.
We have blessed many people and blessed many ministries by this small little
church, but then let's finish on this last verse 17.
Because it goes back to the idea of leaders, Haggaiomai, verse 17.
Obey those who rule over you and be submissive, for they watch out for your
souls as those who must give account.
Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.
You know, when I read that, I think of Moses because I think Moses was probably
the one of the least esteemed leaders in the Bible when you really think through
everything he went through to lead God's people.
And I'm not going to go through every step of it, but right from, you know,
the beginning as they're leaving Egypt at the, at the shores of the Red Sea.
Why did you bring us out here?
You know, complain and complain, but no one died as a result of their rebellion
until Mount Sinai when the law was given.
And finally, because of their rebellion, making the golden calves, 3,000 of them
died, and then from there, continual rebellion against, against Moses,
including his own brother and sister rebelling against him, right?
And he was a humble leader, just trying to point to Yahweh, just trying
to point to God and they're constantly rebelling and it was never profitable for them.
Did you notice it was never profitable for them because each stage of the way they
lost, they either lost people, they lost resources, they just lost and they lost
time, so much time wandering in that wilderness, a journey that could have
taken a very brief amount of time, different speculations on that because
they had to stop at Mount Sinai.
But regardless, it never would have taken 40 years to actually
finally make it their home.
Could have been a month, two months, but no, it took 40 years because of rebellion.
And that's, you know, so the Lord is saying, you know, don't make it
difficult for leaders, you know, work with them.
You know, when I was thinking about this, I remember one time a good friend
of mine, he was a home fellowship leader.
We call them life groups now.
And he had been a believer for years, you know, long before me, he grew up in the
church and they were asking for volunteers, you know, to have home
fellowships, just like we are here.
If you've been here six months and you have an interest in being part of or
hosting or possibly being part of a leadership team of a life group, come
and see me.
And so he was a home fellowship leader.
We used to call him growth groups, actually.
And so he was leading and he knew the word, but he wasn't like deep into it,
you know, and there was a guy there who was deep into it.
Okay.
I mean, he knew everything about everything, you know, and he wanted to make sure
everybody knew he knew everything about everything.
Okay.
And so my friend, Greg, he's leading and, and he's just, he was such a, uh, you
know, a humble, just wanted to, you know, just wanted to do a good job, you
know, and so he'd go through it and every step of the way, this guy was
constantly saying, well, you know, that's not actually accurate.
Now imagine that you're a leader in a home, in a growth group or a life
group, and you have a heckler in there.
What's that?
Right.
And you're being challenged every step of the way on whatever you're saying, you
know, well, actually, or I had one time when I was a, uh, I was a growth
group, growth group, yeah.
Leader and I'm leading and somebody had out their commentary.
Okay.
And every verse we went to, she's reading through it.
Well, actually, um, so-and-so says, and I'm like, all right, well, why don't
you just kind of let the spirit sort of guide the discussion, but that's
an interesting view, but you know, but challenges, you know, and, and there's
nothing wrong with challenging, but there's proper ways to challenge.
You know, there really is.
And, and it's, it's an, and it's in an honoring way because it's great that
this other guy knew the word better than my friend, Greg, God bless him.
Okay.
But the attitude of making sure everyone else knew he knew more than Greg.
And, you know, time, Jesus one time said, wisdom is proven by her children.
You ever hear that verse time, time proves truth, you know, and it's
interesting because that, that guy who was challenging Greg ended up divorced
and now he's home with the Lord.
I hope he's home with the Lord.
I believe so.
But, and Greg is happy, married kids, you know, doing tremendous, you know,
and I'm not comparing that that happened because he did that, but it's an
attitude, you know, it's kind of a rebellious attitude.
Like, I don't like leadership.
You know, I have this resentment against leadership and there's a reason.
There really is a reason why we can have that stigma about leadership.
Maybe we experience some things along the way that we're like, I don't trust people in
church, I trust people outside of church more than I trust people in church.
And I know some of you had those experiences, right?
Where it's like, like just abuse, either, either like greed or mispriorities,
you know, or whatever it might be.
And so, you know, you kind of have this stigma against leadership
because you, you prejudge things and I get it.
I've done it, I've done it.
Don't tell anybody I'm confessing to a great cloud of witnesses, but I've done,
I've had this attitude, you know, about, well, probably, you know, based on the
past, you know, I was in the hospital, um, the Lord gave me a couple of good
metaphors, but I'm not going to use them all today.
Got to save a few.
But as I'm just thinking, you know, and you know how Paul talks about how each
body has its own member, you know, and I mean, the body of Christ has different
members and he says, you know, the eye doesn't say to the hand, I don't need
you, right?
And the head doesn't turn down to the foot and say, what are you doing here?
I have no need for you.
That's silly, right?
The body is all important, right?
And so I'm learning more and more how important the heart is.
Not that I never knew that, but I always knew that, but the
heart is very important.
I've learned a lot about lungs too, in the past couple of years, but how
important they are, but I have a graphic.
If you could put that up there, Tosh, about the body and the mind and the
heart, and you know how, you know, the mind and the heart, they have to
work together, right?
Because there's all kinds of electrical, you know, pulses going back and
forth and signals, and they have to say, all right, you know what we're
doing now, right?
You know what your role is?
Heart, you only have one way of a lot of roles, but
one is to push blood through that is deoxygenated, okay, and push it
through to the lungs so it comes back oxygenated and then push it out to
the body, to the body.
I hope I'm getting that right.
Mike, am I getting that kind of right?
All right.
Thank you, brother.
You know, so that's what the lungs do.
I mean, the lungs with the heart and the mind is working with them, you
know, knowing, yeah, okay, we're on the right path here.
We're doing the right thing.
Okay.
Cause the body has to work together.
And so I have a graphic of that first heart.
Now this isn't my heart in case you were wondering, okay, just in case I'm
not a cartoon, but no, so this is the heart, right?
And we see this, how the blood goes in, right?
And it goes back out, it comes back in, it goes back out.
Right.
And so this is the heart.
And if it's working properly and working together in conjunction,
it has a rhythm, right?
It all works together.
You know, it's pumping, it's pumping, going in, going out.
We're acting, we're working smoothly together.
Okay.
Everything's good.
The body's healthy.
You know, that's what's with the body of crisis supposed to be like.
Everyone knows their part and our parts might shift over time.
Oh, actually there's a vacuum over here.
I better start filling in and helping over here.
Oh, actually this is good.
Now, actually I should go over there.
Like God might move us around a bit, but we all have a role and we work
together to accomplish the goal of pointing people to Jesus Christ.
It's his body.
The church is his body, right?
And so that's how it's supposed to operate.
Well, my heart has a little thing going on.
If you have that next slide, okay, and if you see that, there's, and
that's kind of where they're at to these, this scarring on my left ventricle.
You never thought you'd be seeing my heart here on the screen, did you?
But, but, uh, I'm just laying my heart out for you.
Okay.
No, but so we got some scarring going on here.
Now as a result, it might be, you know, we're holding onto those things.
We can't be flexible and we can't adjust.
And sadly, what happens to some people is just, they just say, Oh, these
people are weird or these people, you know, they don't understand me.
I want it my way or no way.
And, and it has to, and they, and they go about from one church to the
next in a sense, kind of lonely because they think they're being dismissed.
They're not understood when really they have, they have scars.
They need to be healed from, you know, and the Lord wants to heal us of past scars,
past disappointments so that we can be in line so we could be part of what Christ
wants to do through the church to bring his glory.
Amen.
Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church.
As we praise God and discuss his word.
Don't forget to join us for worship live Sunday mornings at 10 a.m.
Eastern on YouTube.
Be blessed and have a great day.