Is Authority Bad?
Notes
Transcript
Series Disclaimer
Series Disclaimer
We are using the Building Healthy Churches curriculum by 9Marks this year
Leading One Another
Growing One Another
Introduction
Introduction
Most of us have some scar tissue around authority.
It's been used to hurt people, control people, silence people.
So tonight, before we go any further in this series on church leadership, I want to answer a more basic question: Is authority itself even a good thing?
Because if the answer is no, then nothing else we study about how a church should be led is going to matter — you'll never trust it.
Why the Study on Leadership/Governance in the Church
Why the Study on Leadership/Governance in the Church
A healthy church has several kinds of leadership working together:
Congregation committed to guarding the gospel
Deacons who serve the church's practical needs
Pastors who preach and pray and shepherd faithfully
Elder, overseer, and pastor/shepherd are three different words for the same office in the New Testament
Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.
Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
Pastors exist especially for prayer and the ministry of the Word (Acts 6:4)
They're not primarily an administrative board, they're men set apart to pray for and teach the church.
Baptist churches have historically practiced a plurality of pastors — more than one man sharing the load
While final decisions still rest with the whole congregation, not the pastors alone.
The point: eldership/pastoral leadership isn't a power grab.
It's God's gift to a church, meant to lighten the burden on any one man and protect the church from one person's blind spots.
So this series is going to unpack what that looks like practically. But tonight we start further back — with authority itself.
This series will also prepare us for our Bylaws proposal coming in January, where we will be hoping to expand our Pastoral Team to include unpaid lay pastors, as well as paid staff pastors.
Main Idea
Main Idea
Authority is a good gift from God that images his rule over us.
Authority is a good gift from God that images his rule over us.
Scripture and Authority
Scripture and Authority
A. Daniel 4 — Nebuchadnezzar Humbled
A. Daniel 4 — Nebuchadnezzar Humbled
God sent Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, out into the wilderness to live like a wild animal for a period of time, stripped of his sanity and his throne.
This happened so he would learn who was truly in charge of the universe.
Here's what he says once his reason returns to him.
At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever,
for his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay his hand
or say to him, “What have you done?”
The most powerful man on earth at the time — a man who had leveled Jerusalem — is brought to the point of confessing that God's rule has no rival and no expiration date.
Every other authority that exists, exists underneath his.
That's the starting point for everything else we say tonight: God's authority isn't one authority among many.
It's the authority every other authority borrows from.
B. Genesis 1:26–28 — Made to Rule, in God's Image
B. Genesis 1:26–28 — Made to Rule, in God's Image
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Notice the order here.
God doesn't grant humanity authority despite being made in his image — the authority is part of what it means to be made in his image.
Ruling well over creation is one of the ways human beings reflect who God is.
That means authority isn't a corruption of God's good design for the world...
....it's woven into the fabric of it from the very beginning, before sin ever entered the picture.
God’s Three Area of Delegated Authority
God’s Three Area of Delegated Authority
God doesn't just hold all authority himself and leave it there — he delegates real authority to real people, in at least three areas of life.
Romans 13:1–7 — civil government.
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
Government is given authority to restrain evil and promote good.
Paul even calls it bearing “the sword.” Christians are called to submit, pay taxes, and give honor.
Ephesians 6:1–4 — parents.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Parents are given authority to raise children in the Lord; children are called to obey and honor them.
Hebrews 13:17 — church leaders.
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
Church leaders are given authority to watch over souls — and they'll personally answer to God for how they did it.
The Bottom Line
The Bottom Line
Government, family, church — three completely different spheres, and in every one of them, God places real people over other people and asks for a real response: submission, honor, obedience.
This isn't incidental to how God runs the world. It's the pattern. And it's worth pointing out.
For church leaders, it is a heavy weight, because Hebrews says they'll give an account for the souls in their care.
That's not a light thing to sign up for, and it shouldn't be a light thing to disregard either.
D. 2 Samuel 23:1–4 — David's Last Words
D. 2 Samuel 23:1–4 — David's Last Words
David knew authority from both sides. He knew the good that could come from it — and because of his sin with Bathsheba, he knew firsthand the damage that comes when a man in authority abuses it.
So it's striking that when we get to David's very last recorded words, in 2 Samuel 23, this is what's on his mind.
Now these are the last words of David:
The oracle of David, the son of Jesse,
the oracle of the man who was raised on high,
the anointed of the God of Jacob,
the sweet psalmist of Israel:
“The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me;
his word is on my tongue.
The God of Israel has spoken;
the Rock of Israel has said to me:
When one rules justly over men,
ruling in the fear of God,
he dawns on them like the morning light,
like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning,
like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.
The phrase that carries the weight here is ‘in the fear of God.’
A leader who genuinely fears God will use his authority to bless the people under him, because he knows he's accountable to someone higher.
A leader with no fear of God will eventually abuse whatever authority he's given, because in his own mind, he answers to no one. (OPPRESSION/DOMINEERING)
And when authority is used in the fear of God, David says the result isn't oppression — it's like morning light, like sunshine, like rain that makes grass grow. Godly authority produces life, not fear.
Application
Application
So — is authority itself bad? No. Authority is God's idea.
It reflects his own rule over creation, and Scripture never treats it as a necessary evil.
What Scripture does say is that authority can be abused, and when it is, the fault lies with sinful people, not with authority itself.
The answer to bad authority was never ‘no authority.’
It's godly authority — leaders who rule in the fear of God, and people under authority who submit the way Scripture calls them to.
That's the foundation we needed before we go any further.
Next time we're together, we'll get specific — we'll start looking at what this means for how a church itself should be led, starting with the biblical office of pastor/elder.
But hold onto tonight's main idea: authority is a good gift from God that images his rule over us.
Before we close, take a moment this week — on your own, not right now — and think through two things:
What authorities has God placed you under, and where has he placed you in authority over others?
What authorities has God placed you under, and where has he placed you in authority over others?
Closing Prayer
Closing Prayer
Thank God that his rule over the world is good, not oppressive.
Ask for grace to submit well to the authorities he's placed over each person present.
Ask for humility and the fear of God for everyone who holds authority over others — parents, employers, and future leaders in this church.
