Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.

1Co 11:1 Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.
Good day my friends, well last night was a great night of preaching, as the Pastor made some great remarks as how we are in our lives and it fits right in on what we have been studying. In his preaching he mentioned about the fact of leading and following. We are always in a continuous cycle of leading and following whether we realize it or not. We are always following something, and inadvertly we are leading somebody. The problem is are we following the right thing, or person? Does the thing or person your following honor God or dishonor God, does it draw you into a closer relationship with the Lord or farther away? Now with your following are you leading somebody astray? If whatever you are doing does not line up with scripture then of course you are! If who your following doesn't line up with scripture then you will not only be led astray, but you will in turn lead others that way. I wanted to start talking today a little on the Training of the Soldier. In turn however I believe last nights message meant a lot in the study that we have been doing so I will steal his outline and give a little bit of it for us. Within the next day or so you should be able to log onto cbclawrenceburg.org and hear the whole message! I believe this is important in our study because to be a good soldier there is always following and leading. We should be looking to the Lord Jesus Christ first and foremost to follow the Bible gives us clearly His call in Mar 8:34 And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. Now some of this nations greatest warriors are the special forces troops, and amongst them are the Army Rangers. Their motto is "follow me". They are trained and taught on how to be leaders and how to reproduce leaders. Now this should come to no surprise that the Lord Jesus Christ did this long before any Ranger unit did so, the Lord took men, trained them to lead, only after they learned to follow! Another person in the Bible said "follow me". That person was none other than the Apostle Paul, he was talking to many people on different occasions, now a lot of people may say "he's just a man, and we shouldn't follow man", rightly so not to worship Paul, but to glorify Christ through obedience. You see Paul is yet a man, but a leader, and his leadership was in such that he glorified and exalted the Lord Jesus Christ, not only by word but also in deed! We can then see that under the right leadership it is OK to follow. Paul said in 2Th 3:7 For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you; Friends you see that to follow him was essentially doing what Christ had taught them to do and that is lead others to Him that is Jesus Christ. If your preacher is preaching the Word of God then there must be two things done;

• Know that it's the right Bible (Authorized King James Bible) and the right message (Christ)
  You should be studying your Bible and know it, that way you will in turn know if what the preacher is saying is true or not.
• If it is the right Bible, and the right message
  Then get behind him as the preacher and support him and let nothing come between God, your pastor, and you!

You see under the right leadership its OK to follow, think about it, the preacher is the chosen man of God for your church, why in the world would you think not to listen to him as he is obeying the Holy Spirit in leading you. It states in Heb 13:7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. They are not up there as mere puppets of human instrumentality, and if they are then they are a hireling and not a true man of God. Notice the verse says...whose faith follow, they have been there and done that. They have learned to follow and to lead, that is why God has chosen them to be Pastor. Let me remind you that it is God who ordains and places men into position as the under Shepard's of the flock, also every true Pastor has this very verse in their hearts and minds...Heb 13:17 Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you. Believers it is because they watch for your souls, that they must give an account. Friends instead of having preacher stew, why not get behind the man of God and support him, it's what the Lord would want you to do. The end result of this would be the following statement as it was given by the Apostle Paul..1Co 11:1 Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now friends I have camped out on the fact of following, and this of course is just the tip of the iceberg and I have not even gotten to all the points in the preachers message. So tomorrow we will pick up with the training of the soldier, and until then may God bless, and may this have been an encouragement to show you that in order to be a good soldier you are always following, and leading the problem then is how are you doing it?