Test the Spirits

The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.

Well, thank you, Joshua, for being a good older brother from my boys. And lift up Ben and all the health concerns.

Okay, let’s pray.

Father, we lift up Joshua. We bless him as he graduates. Thank you, Lord, for your faithfulness in his life. Thank you. That he knows Jesus and is holding on to Jesus as you guide him and lead him into this next phase of life. We pray for more spiritual blessing, more than anything, as he matures, as he moves into establishing his own family in your time, in your way.

So, Father, we just pray for your blessings upon him. Father, we’re saddened to hear the news about Ben. But, Lord, we know that you’re sovereign. you’re fully aware of everything that’s going on in Ben’s life and in all of our lives. We lift him up, Lord Jesus, that you would go before him, that you would touch his. We pray for all cancer cells to leave his body. In Jesus’ name. We plead the blood of Jesus over him, every cell in his body. May all cancer bow the knee to Jesus.

Father, we pray that you bring about a full and complete healing this time. We trust you, Lord. you’re calling us as a body of Christ to pray alongside our brother. We pray for Brother Abraham’s mom. Pray that you continue to strengthen her and her kidneys. We pray that you give her new kidneys. We pray, O Lord, that she would encounter you more personally, more deeply. That’s all of our prayer requests, not only for our loved ones, but ourselves. We want to meet you, Lord, even now.

We pray for Ron, that you heal him of all back pain. We plead the blood of Jesus over this brother as well. We pray that you can have a complete and utter victory. Give him a new back. No more tumors. I pray that you cure him from the inside out. Father, whatever is causing this, we cast it out of his body in Jesus name. Father, we pray that you meet us. We open our hearts wide to you. We want to meet you. We want to be healed by you. We want to be led by you.

We want to be delivered in this time. Thank you, Lord. We give you this time. In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.

Okay, I’ll read from 1 John 4. Let me start there. 1 John 4:1.

¹ Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.⁴ Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (1 John 4:1-4, ESV)

Today I’m going to be talking about testing the spirits. Testing the spirits. We have the Holy Spirit in us. We have the anointing of the Holy Spirit in us. And the Holy Spirit’s main ministry, his teaching ministry, is to point all of us to Jesus.

And so, in a sense, the fact that you have the Holy Spirit in you, you should be able to understand who is the real deal and who is the counterfeit, who is pointing you to Jesus Christ and who is the Antichrist, who is opposing Christ, putting himself or herself in the place of Christ. The Holy Spirit in you is your guide in that endeavor. Hebrews 13:7 says,

⁷ Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.⁸ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:7-8, ESV)

And today’s message: I want to thank Brother Ron because he asked me to look into a book by Terry Nance, God’s Armor Bearer. And I looked into it. I did not read it, but I looked into the comments. I started with the negative comments to see if there’s any critical remark about this author. And that opened a door, and I went down different rabbit holes. And I thank Ron for that. And I think by the end, Ron will have his answer.

He was asking, should I read this book? Is this book safe? And I think the answer to that will be very clear by the end. First of all, should we elevate the human leaders? I think that’s the premise of the book. You have your king, and you’re the lowly armor bearer, and that is your lot in life. And you just carry the armor, you just carry the weapons, and you’re the lower class citizen in the kingdom of God and you are serving your king. And is that a picture of the body of Christ?

If so, then we have biblical evidence to elevate human leaders and this two-tiered system in the body of Christ. Is that right? If you recall, last week we covered Ezekiel 34 and God’s judgment against the sheep, against the shepherds, first of all.

And he makes a point in chapter 34, saying, in verse 16,

¹⁶ I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice. (Ezekiel 34:16, ESV)

And so we’re kind of left hanging there because all the shepherds, it appears, are bad and they should not be trusted. But that’s all the people have at that point. And God says in his word, don’t worry, I will do it. And then, 600 plus years later, Jesus comes, and he says in Luke 15, and this is in response to verse one:

¹ Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. ² And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.“³ So he told them this parable:⁴ “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?⁵ And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶ And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.‘⁷ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. (Luke 15:1-7, ESV)

It’s a fulfillment of Ezekiel 34:1. God judges the shepherds and says, there’s nobody here who’s qualified to lead my sheep, so I will do it. And then Jesus comes, 600 plus years later, he finds the sheep. And these 99 righteous, righteous people who do not know how to repent, who are uncorrectable, are like the sheep, the shepherds in Ezekiel 34, who are leading the sheep astray.

There are many kinds of false shepherds, many kinds of unclean spirits that are influencing leaders in the church at a high level. In scripture, I see three major categories: leaders who are motivated by greed, the greed of Balaam. You have, and I think under this category falls charismatic preachers who give themselves all these titles.

And if you listen carefully to the full clip, you see how they are, and they, off camera, will say things, and people will catch them saying, “Oh, if you want this anointing, if you need to be delivered from this thing, you need to sow into my ministry. There is the donation box.” Like, isn’t the gospel free? Aren’t we supposed to do this free of charge? Are we supposed to twist people’s arms and get them to give more money so that I can pray harder for you?

And these are the kind of preachers we have, and they’re motivated by greed. You have those who are trying to seduce us into sensuality and sexual perversion, immorality, and a sensual version of faith which is emotional and lust-driven. And that’s a different type of false teacher. And then you got the legalistic false teachers who lorded over you. And this is the one going to focus on today. As I was looking into Terry Nance and another author who is very related, his name is John Bevere.

He wrote a book about undercover, about a spiritual covering that the leadership supplies to the rest of the congregation. I stumbled upon what is called the shadow shepherding movement. I never heard of this before until I started looking into false teaching around these authors. And the shepherding movement began by a group of charismatic Bible teachers, five of them. And one of them many of us know very well, Derek Prince was one of them and he was in this group.

It started in the late 1960s, and it was an interdenominational group, started in 1966, and then a few years later became known as Christian Growth Ministries, CGM. It’s a shepherding movement that was a response to weak commitment in the American church, shallow community, general worldliness that was rampant in the churches in the sixties in America. And their solution was to add things to the Bible that were not in the Bible. Extra biblical requirements were added to this group.

And for example, you had to be a member of a house group to be a part of this kind of pseudo denomination and included life decisions that were covered by the house leader, by the elder, by the pastor. All decisions had to run through this leader of this church. And it was decisions like, where should I live? Where should I work? Should I see a doctor? Who should I marry? These questions had to go through the leadership, and the leadership had to approve. You approve these decisions and then you just followed them.

At the peak of this movement, they had a national network of followers who form pyramids of sheep and shepherds. They love throwing the term shepherd. And that’s why I’m very wary of calling myself a shepherd because aren’t we all sheep? Don’t we have one good shepherd? But if you call yourself a shepherd, you already are creating this tier system, and the shepherd is above the sheep, even the human shepherd. And so that was this pyramid model. And so the decisions came top down, and all the tithe went from down up to these shepherds.

And so there was a financial corruption component to this model. They were very relational and these relationships were called covenant relationships. It might sound familiar to some of us who are used to some of this terminology in our church upbringing. And they had a network of cell groups that were formed and members had to submit to your cell leader, who was your shepherd. And these shepherds of these groups had to submit under the five, the original five, Derrick Prince plus four others.

And there were a large number of charismatic pastors that were shepherded by this CGM network of pastures. Fortunately, because some of us love Derrick Prince, you might have heard some of his teaching, and you heard it. I don’t know if I agree with that. It might have been in these years that he was part of this network. But fortunately, Derek Prince, Bob Mumford, two of the original five, publicly distanced themselves from the teachings. Derek Prince withdrew in 1983. He stated his belief that we were guilty of the Galatian error.

Having begun in the spirit, we quickly degenerated into the flesh. Bob Mumford issued a formal repentance statement to the body of Christ in 1989, and he was quoted as saying, I repent and I ask for forgiveness. And in that same article, Mumford acknowledged abuses that had occurred because of this teaching on submission to human shepherds. John Bevere, who popularized this teaching of the leader, providing a spiritual covering for the sheep. I’ll just quote a few of lines from his book.

It says it doesn’t matter what you believe you’ve heard in prayer, you are rebelling against God’s authority if it goes against the directives of authorities in your life. And then it says if your mediator, who is your shepherd, tells you the opposite of what you heard in prayer, then you have to accept the mediator’s opinion as God’s voice. This was just a test of your obedience. Shepherding taught that you can’t be led by the Holy Spirit because you’re supposed to hear God secondhand through a human mediator.

If you feel guided by the Holy Spirit to switch jobs, go back to school, or sell your house, but your mediator says no, then you have to accept the opinion of your mediator as the will of God. And so, the problem that I see with the shepherding movement is twofold. One is we’ve exalted man in the process, which I think is a big mistake. There’s no human shepherd who really should be a meat eater. Between a sheep and God, there’s only one meat eater. His name is Jesus Christ.

Secondly, when you exalt man, you keep the sheep infantile. The same with, you know, when you’re a parent, you’re dealing with children. They are infants. They are infantile in their behavior. There is a dictatorship. In a sense. When the kids are young, they have to listen. They have to listen. But imagine if you ran church like that. And this is my family, and I am the spiritual parent. And you have to listen to what I say. What I’m doing is I’m keeping you as a little child. In my eyes, it’s just wrong.

It’s just flat out wrong. It will lead to plenty of abuses. There’s a pastor I know. He was criticized for his ministry very publicly years ago, and this was his response. Clearly, people who are posting are either genuinely grieved and wounded or so narcissistic that some small evil or injustice or wrong done to them is something of utterly outrageous, and they can’t move on. One thing that we must not do is be persuaded by criticism that there’s something wrong with us.

When you criticize a false teacher, they will throw out the persecution card and say, “I am being persecuted.” When a Christian should humbly say, “At any point, I could be wrong. And if all these people are saying I’m wrong, I should listen.” Derrick Prince, thankfully, he listened to the critics. He was humble enough to admit he made a mistake. He came out, he condemned the movement that he started. I respect him for that. False teachers are not correctable. So, are we supposed to look the other way?

Are we supposed to say, we’re not here to judge, we’re supposed to bless them? Because I could be wrong, they could be right. Is that how we’re supposed to be in the body of Christ? False teachers are not correctable. It’s true. But the sheep under them are suffering. So should we stay silent when sheep are suffering? Jesus did not stay silent. Jesus was very direct against the Pharisees and the scribes. Because in his eyes, they were the reason why the sheep were suffering. Why are people deceived so easily by false teachers?

I think it’s human nature. We want to follow human leaders because it’s much easier to follow a visible human leader than it is to follow an invisible God. I prefer that myself. Like, if I didn’t have to be a pastor, I would be very, very happy to be in the congregation and follow a godly pastor. It’s much easier to follow a visible person. It’s human nature. We see this in scripture. In Exodus 20, when the mountain has flashes of lightning and thunder coming from the top of the mountain, Moses just came down from the mountain.

And the people said, we don’t want anything to do with God. I’m afraid, Moses, can you just go up? Can you just hear from God and tell us what he says to us, and we’ll listen to you? It’s just human nature to want to listen to a human; it’s much harder. It requires a different training to listen to an invisible God. But we must learn that we have the Holy Spirit in us to teach us. We have him. That’s all that we need. In a sense, it’s also in 1 Samuel 8.

Samuel was the last of the judges, and the judges were like military spiritual leaders, pointing to God as their king. Israel was different from all the other nations because they had no human king. But in this chapter, chapter eight, the people asked for a king. They just wanted a human leader. It’s just that we feel insecure. We need a military. We need somebody as a king, like all the other nations. It’s just human nature. We want to follow somebody. And the Antichrist spirit knows that we want to follow somebody.

And so when it says Antichrist, it can mean someone who is opposed to Christ, like Satan is opposed to Christ. But it also can be translated as someone who places himself or herself in place of Christ, as a human shepherd, as a human mediator. It’s the same thing, an Antichrist spirit. Jesus warns about legalistic false teachers in Matthew 23. You can read about them. In the first part of the chapter, they don’t do what they practice. They know how to boss people around. They know how to make people around them.

So busy, so tired, they don’t lift a finger. They are the elite. Everybody else is carrying their armor. You see what I’m saying? They create heavy burdens on the people. That’s Jesus’ first remark. And these false teachers, they love to be greeted because they’re elite. They love the titles; they love the respect; they want everyone to follow them, everyone to know them, everyone to say, “you’re so great.” They want to be called rabbi. They want to be called teacher. Jesus says that you have no one but me. I’m your teacher. I’m your shepherd.

Don’t exalt yourself. The one who exalts himself will be humble, but the one who humbles himself, let me exalt you. And then he says, these false teachers, what they do is they shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces, and they make disciples made in their image. And these disciples are twice the child of hell that they themselves are. They are bound up. How can we identify false teachers? Jesus gives a very clear word in Matthew 7. You know a tree by its fruit. You know a tree by its fruit.

A good tree bears good fruit. A bad tree bears good fruit. You know a tree by its fruit. It’s different than John 15. If you don’t abide in Jesus consistently, it’s possible to have small fruit, but it’s still the right fruit. It’s just small. It hasn’t blossomed yet. That’s a different thing. Like all of us can say, well, I’m not quite there yet. I’m not like Jesus. In many ways, I fall short. And we can say in these areas, the fruit is not showing yet, but it’s different.

Jesus is saying, there is a different way you can assess this person’s fruit is flat out wrong. It’s just simply bad. And it doesn’t matter how long you’re with them, it just gets worse. The more you know them, it’s worse. It just doesn’t get better. And if to be clear that we’re talking about the character of the person, the leader, Jesus makes it clear the verse is right. After saying, you know a tree by its fruit, a warning against false prophets, he says, many will say, lord, lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name? Do demon.

Cast out demons in your name, do mighty works in your name. And Jesus says, “I don’t know you. you’re not one of my disciples,” so it has nothing to do with the ministry. On the surface, we’re talking about the character of the shepherd of the sheep. Is it good or is it bad? How can we spot a false teacher? First, you examine the fruit of his or her life, and the more you know them, the more evidence you have, whether it’s good or it’s bad. Next is you have the Holy Spirit in you.

²⁶ I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. ²⁷ But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him. (1 John 2:26-27, ESV)

The anointing is what we receive from Jesus Christ directly at salvation, and we can receive it more and more if we ask for more of the filling of the Holy Spirit.

But the critical anointing is the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. And his teaching ministry is basically saying, there’s Jesus. Stay close to him. Abide in him. Any pastor worth his salt will say this. Don’t look to me. Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus. Abide in Jesus. It doesn’t matter how faithfully you attend this church. Look to Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in you will say, yes, that’s right. I agree with that message. I agree with that message. Everything that I heard that said, look to the leader, look to the human mediator, the human shepherd.

The Holy Spirit in us should have sounded the alarm. What is this? This is not the teaching of Christ. This is not the apostles’ teaching. There’s something so wrong, and my spirit is so agitated and is warning me, this is not right. That’s what the Holy Spirit is supposed to do. But if you’ve been part of a church of strong shepherds, they take the Holy Spirit out of us and they function like the Holy Spirit for us.

And they’ve taken a place of Jesus Christ as the mediator, and they have placed themselves as an antichrist. Spirit would in that place of mediation between us and God. Only Jesus Christ should be there. 2 John 1:7.

⁷ For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.⁸ Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.⁹ Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. ¹⁰ If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, ¹¹ for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. (2 John 1:7-11, ESV)

And so, that last couple of verses tells me that Christian leaders, in particular, should not be silent when there is a false teacher in our midst. We cannot welcome them into our house.

We must warn the body of Christ. This person is not safe. Don’t listen to this person. And if you have the Holy Spirit in you, that should confirm, yes, that warning was from the Lord. Because if you receive a different Christ, because here it says, it’s an example of subtracting something from Christ. Christ did not come in the flesh. We know he came in the flesh. The whole point of the gospel is to prove he came in the flesh. He suffered in the flesh.

He died and became a curse in his flesh so that humanity can be forgiven of their sins. We know he came in bodily form. We know he resurrected in bodily form. But there are false teachers in Paul’s day, and John the apostle is warning us they are subtracting something from Jesus. Jesus is just God. He’s not a man. He’s just a spirit.

And so they subtracted something, and that gives our permission that in our flesh we can sin all we want, and there are versions of this false teaching out there which says, you don’t have to be holy, you don’t have to, you can be just like the world. It doesn’t matter because Jesus didn’t come in the flesh; he’s just spiritual. And so if your spirit is good with God, what you do in your flesh doesn’t matter. It’s a false teaching because they subtracted something that we know is true.

And in case of legalistic churches, instead of subtracting, they add so much to Jesus Christ, so much to the apostles’ teaching that are never there. You can read all of Galatians, and you see this false teaching of circumcision was added. And Paul’s main thing is if you believe this, you’ve just departed from the gospel. And Jesus, who was once your lord, and you are holding on to him because you allowed this extra thing to come in, you’ve been cut off. And if you stay this course, chances are at the end you won’t make it.

That is his point in the book of Galatians. So it’s a big deal. And even Peter, as the apostle, was flawed in a moment where he, all these VIP Jewish leaders came to visit him. And when they came, he started to side with them and distance himself from the Gentile believers. And Paul saw it, and Paul confronted him and said, this is false. How you’re living is false. What you’re promoting is false. And he called out Apostle Peter. And Peter took it. That’s the beauty. It’s like we’re all fallible. We all make mistakes.

If you listen to any preacher and they have their sermons recorded for decades, you go rewind something that was preached ten years ago. I’m sure there was something I preached that was dead wrong. We all make mistakes. We’re all fallible. But when God confronts you, the true follower of Jesus recognizes, humbles himself, and says, yes, I made a mistake.

And Peter demonstrates such humility as the leader of the church, as the apostle, the great apostle Peter. Paul was a nobody. When Peter was with Jesus, Peter could have easily looked down on Paul.

But Paul was saying something was true. He was convicted by the Holy Spirit that was in him. He repented of his sins. That is what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to help each other. A false teacher will not repent. A true teacher, a true follower of Jesus, when confronted, will repent. The strategy of these false teachers is that they use two tools primarily, as I can tell in scripture: they use flattery and favoritism.

Galatians 4:18.

¹⁸ It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, ¹⁹ my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!²⁰ I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.(Galatians 4:18-20, ESV)

Paul was somebody that the Galatians revered, and they made much of Paul. They loved Paul. They cherished Paul.

And then Paul left, and these false teachers came in, and these false teachers, through flattery, made much of the Galatians. And the people liked that flattery, and that caused them to fall into deception and to turn on Paul. And by turning on Paul, by turning on the true gospel of Jesus Christ, false teachers will use flattery. They’ll also use favoritism. Jude 1:16.

¹⁶ These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage. (Jude 1:16, ESV)

We are so easily deceived. Just a little bit of favoritism, a little bit of flattery is all it takes for you to give that person your ear, and before you know it, you’ve been led to a false gospel. The goal of false teachers is division and bondage. Galatians 5:1.

¹ For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1, ESV)

And then 1 Corinthians 1:10, the famous passage, “I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas, I follow Christ. Is Christ divided?”

And Paul says, thankfully, I did not baptize many of you in my name because then there would be more division. Imagine if the apostles were alive today and you had Paul and John and Peter, and they had podcasts. And imagine, like, we would gravitate to one of them, like somebody like John. I like John. I like what he teaches. And I would subscribe to his podcast, and we’d have all these factions. Imagine, with social media in our day, how much division there would be, because all of these great leaders are walking the earth.

And Paul’s point is, is Christ divided? Who am I? Paul? Who’s Paul? I’m nothing. I’m nothing. I’m glad I didn’t baptize you, because then you’d be bragging on youTube that you got baptized by Paul, and you’d be going around boasting about that. Paul said, good thing I didn’t do that. So false teachers promote division because they want you to follow them. And if you don’t follow them, you’re not of God. you’re on the outside division. It’s not true. You leave that church, the body of Christ, you can still find another church.

The body of Christ is not divided. That person divided it. And if you’re a member of a legalistic church, you will feel bound. You will feel bound. Imagine if I made it a rule: Thou shalt come to Sunday worship service every Sunday. Thou shalt come every Wednesday prayer meeting. If not, I’ll kick you out or something. It’s like, imagine if I made some kind of a rule like that. Like you’re free, like God is with you everywhere. You don’t have to be here on a Sunday.

God can meet you on your bed when you’re in pain, like brother Ron. God can meet brother Ron in his room. He doesn’t have to physically be here. We all have different reasons why we can’t be here, or you’re busy with work. I understand. Life is busy. You have things going on. I understand. But churches make rules, and if you don’t subscribe to the rules, you’re in trouble. They’ve added things that should not have been added to the pure gospel of Jesus Christ.

A leader’s job is to expose false teachers and to warn the church against them. Galatians 5:7.

⁷ You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? ⁸ This persuasion is not from him who calls you.⁹ A little leaven leavens the whole lump.¹⁰ I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. ¹¹ But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. ¹² I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves! (Galatians 5:7-12, ESV)

A little bit of false teaching is like leaven. It’s a little bit of yeast that gets into the dough. You cannot take it out. It’s already in the dough. Jesus already tells us. That’s the teaching of the Pharisees. It’s like they say a lot of true things, but they’ve added a few ingredients that were not on the list. And that leaven, once it’s in there, the whole thing is ruined. You got to throw it all away. You can’t salvage the good stuff.

There’s no good stuff from it. It’s infected. You must throw it all away and start over. And I like Paul. He is not one of those people who say, well, who am I to judge? No, he is judging. He is defending his sheep. God’s sheep. He is direct in saying, you might as well castrate yourself. He is using harsh language against the false teachers, the same way that Jesus did. Because what’s at stake is salvation. You add a little bit, you subtract a little bit, you risk losing Jesus. That’s what’s at stake.

We don’t want to do that, and we must warn the body of Christ. So what is the posture of a God-centered leader when helping others? I think the two marks are humility and gentleness. In Acts 10, Cornelius comes to Peter’s house, and Cornelius bows the knee. Many false teachers would love to have the sheep bow before them. But Peter says, “Get up. What are you doing? I’m a man like you. What are you doing?” That’s what the leader should do. Why are you worshipping me? Don’t worship me. I’m a man.

You’re a man. Get up. And in 2 Peter 1, I appreciate what Peter says. Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours, by the righteousness of our God and savior, Jesus Christ. Peter didn’t say apostle Peter. Capital A. Remember apostle Peter. Remember my title. Call me by my title. No, he says I’m a servant. Yes, I’m an apostle. But we’re all equal standing. We’re all equal level. We’re all sheep. We know who the shepherd is. We know who the mediator is.

The posture of a God-centered leader is humility and gentleness. Galatians 6:1.

¹ Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. ² Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. ³ For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. ⁴ But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. ⁵ For each will have to bear his own load. (Galatians 6:1-5, ESV)

And these verses are, I think, the hallmarks of the right kind of a heart of a leader. First, there’s a gentleness, like when somebody’s in sin. you’re not pouncing on them. you’re not standing in judgment over them. you’re doing it with gentleness. You remember when you were in sin and what did you need?

You needed the kindness of the Lord to lead you to repentance. That is what a shepherd should do to restore someone gently and also with humility, knowing that, well, I should not be overly judgmental about that person’s fall because I too can fall because I’m nothing. I don’t want to deceive myself, put myself above this person, say, oh, this person has felt like this. I would never fall like this because I’m up here and I can come down hard on you. That person doesn’t know his place.

We will all stand before the Lord as individuals. Pastors may think, no, I will stand before the Lord and take account of all the sheep who are under my care. It’s true to some little extent, but really, we will stand alone before God. God-centered submission to human leaders. What does it look like? Hebrews 13:17.

¹⁷ 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. (Hebrews 13:17, ESV)

Some people twist this. Like if you are a false teacher, you want to twist this and say, submit to me in every decision because I am your mediator, I am your shepherd. I can hear God better than you. You can hear God. You don’t have the Holy Spirit in you. I have the Holy Spirit. Let me interpret your life’s decisions for you and play this role. Is that what godly submission is?

Or is it a submission that somebody is keeping watch over you? And so if they see you veering to a new age Jesus, they’re going to pull you aside and they’re going to warn you. Or if they see you veering toward a Jesus that’s very legalistic and you have to obey all the Old Testament practices or you’re not a true follower of Jesus as a new covenant believer, I’ll pull aside that brother and say, that’s not in scripture. That’s not what we read in scripture. And that’s the submission.

Like if you submit to someone looking over you and watching over your soul and pointing you to the real Jesus, then that’s a proper submission, and that is what will matter. Like me praying with you about what job to take, you might be right, I might be wrong, I might be right, you might be wrong. That’s not going to cost you salvation. But if you veer off into the wrong Jesus and you submit it under a God-centered shepherd who will warn you when you’re off, that’s the mission according to the scripture.

1 Timothy 2:3-5 tells us very clearly that there is only one God, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

³ This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴ who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. ⁵ For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, (1 Timothy 2:3-5, ESV)

We don’t place ourselves as the middle layer between you and God. Even if you’ve been called to be a pastor in God’s church, still you don’t place yourself as a mediator, as a shepherd. That is, a shepherd’s shepherd shepherding movement. That was wrong. It’s also been called the discipleship movement.

And so I want to end with clarifying. What does discipleship look like?

False teachers will say, let me disciple you because you don’t know any better. I am your spiritual parent. you’re a child. You know nothing. Listen to me. I will make all of life’s decisions for you. And this is what discipleship in my church looks like. Let me read from scripture. Matthew 28:18.

¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20, ESV)

The goal of discipleship is to point people to the teaching of Jesus Christ and to help people to connect the dots and say, here is how I observe it. Maybe you also can observe it this way. Take it or leave it. But I’m trying to help you.

Here is the teaching of Christ. Let me come alongside of you. you’re struggling in this area. Let me help you to observe Christ’s teaching in this area. This is how I’ve done it. Now maybe you can also. I’m coming alongside of you. I want to encourage you. I want to help you. That is discipleship.

Another form of discipleship that I see in the Old Testament is Moses and Joshua. Moses was a great leader.

We don’t hear about Moses discipling Joshua directly, but what we see in Exodus 33 is while Moses is interacting in the tent of meeting face to face with God, Joshua is there the whole time observing it all. He’s like a fly on the wall. He’s like, oh, this is what it looks like to be in God’s presence. I want to be that kind of a leader. When it’s my turn, I see that kind of discipleship. And then we hear what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:1,

¹ Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1, ESV)

And to really connect this, we have to look at the previous verses, 1 Corinthians 10:31. So whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

³¹ So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. ³² Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, ³³ just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. (1 Corinthians 10:31-33, ESV)

So, this is one very practical way we can imitate Paul. Paul the evangelist.

He is good at evangelism because to the Jew, he’s very careful not to offend the Jewish mindset, but to the Gentiles, he has a different approach because his goal is, how can I win this person for Jesus? That’s something worth imitation. I want to imitate Paul in this as he imitates Christ. Christ was the best evangelist. Paul was imitating Christ in his Christ’s way of evangelism. And we too can imitate Paul as he imitates Christ in this area of evangelism.

So going back to a verse that is quoted by many false teachers, I’ll end with this: Hebrews 13:7.

⁷ Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. ⁸ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:7-8, ESV)

God has gifted his church with leaders. We are to evaluate the leadership, test the spirits that are influencing the leaders. We’re supposed to trust the anointing of the Holy Spirit in us. That helps us evaluate, is this teaching right or wrong?

Is this from Christ or of the antichrist? We’re supposed to evaluate the way of life of the leaders. Is their fruit good or bad? Not immature, not small or big? We’re talking about, is it good or bad? That’s what we have to distinguish. We test the spirits and if there’s something imitatable, especially the faith in Jesus, that’s we want to imitate. If that leader has a strong faith, absolute faith in Jesus. They trust Jesus no matter what. That quality is worthy of imitation. We remember such leader. We see the outcome of their way of life.

We see the fruitfulness of their life, not their ministry size. We see who they are, their consistency, and we see their faith. We say, that’s imitable. I want to imitate their faith. And what is their faith? It is a pointer to Jesus Christ. And who is Jesus? He is the son of God, and he is the same yesterday, today, forever.

That means we subtract nothing from him. We add nothing to him. He is perfect in all of his ways. We look to him alone.

Okay, let’s pray.

Thank you, Lord, for helping us to improve in our discernment. Jesus, you warned yourself and the apostles after the Lord warned many times that there are many antichrists, many false prophets, many false teachers, in our world today. And as we read about the shepherding movement, there’s nothing new under the sun. It’s all the same. It’s all the same. When man is exalted, things fall apart. When man puts himself as the mediator between the flock and God himself, things are distorted. When we call, as leaders call people to submit to us, everything breaks apart.

Thank you for showing us a teaching of Christ. We have one teacher. We have one shepherd. We have one chief shepherd. We have one head of this church, and every church that bears your name. It’s the man Christ Jesus. There’s only one mediator. We look to you, Lord Jesus. Thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to us. We pray that you send him now, that even this teaching can be confirmed by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. If it’s not of you, Lord, may we discard it.

But if it’s of you, Lord, we fully and wholeheartedly embrace it. Thank you, Lord, for teaching us how we should expose false teachers. Not take them into our home, not bless them, but warn the sheep. Even if these false teachers don’t repent, your heart is for the sheep, for those who are broken and lost. We are. you’re going after them. your heart is for them. We join you in that heart for the lost sheep. They were once your sheep. They got lost again because of bad shepherding. Our heart is for them. We pray for them.

All the lost sheep because of bad shepherds, false teachers, our heart is with them. We pray that you would find them by sending good Christians, by you yourself going after them. Send us as your hands and feet. May we be the good workers as you send out to the harvest field, that we may harvest one soul at a time. And may you receive all the glory in the end for all that happens in and through our life. Thank you, Lord. We pray that you meet us as we partake in the Lord’s Supper. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.