Shepherd the Flock That is Among You

If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to first Peter chapter five. We've been in first Peter a while, and we're coming close to an end. A couple of months ago, I went to go meet somebody at breakfast, for breakfast, and this this person was an extremely wealthy, prominent business leader here in Birmingham, he wanted me to meet him at the John Hand Club. I don't know if any of you have ever been to the John Hand Club. I had not.

Didn't know places like that existed. It's essentially a country club in the sky. It's it's one of the one of the high rises downtown, and they have an entire floor up there. And so, I went, took the elevator up, and I got there ten minutes early, and I'm just I'm walking around just looking at all the plush leather furniture there, and and taking in the views. And finally, one of the staff members came up to me and said, Sir, do you need any help?

And I said, No. I I just got here ten minutes early from my meeting. He said, Oh, so you you have a meeting? I said, Yes. He said, Well, you're in the wrong place.

Actually, come follow me. I said, Okay. And we went, we got an elevator, we went up to another floor, and and he led me into this room, and he opens the the door, and it's about the size of a large closet, and it's just like a janitorial closet. It's there's, you know, mops there, there's there's a broom, all this stuff, cleaning supplies, And there's a door on the other side, and he says, just go through the door. And I'm thinking, oh my goodness.

I'm about to go through a speakeasy. Like, that's what it is. I like, I mean, if if that if it's nicer than the place I was just sad, I I'm gonna freak out. This is amazing. And, I I opened the door, and actually, all there is was was a table with a folding chair, it was a little makeshift desk.

And, the guy said, you you are here to interview for the custodial position. Correct? Which which would would be been great, but I was not. And I I said, no, I'm actually meeting with and so. And they go, oh, you were in the right place.

And so he took me back down, and yeah. So I got home, you know, obviously a blow to my pride there, and I'm telling this story to Lauren, and I'm like, Lauren, what is it? Mean, could they just smell that, like, this guy doesn't have money? Like, could just smell it? And Lauren, in her kindness, she goes, don't take this the wrong way, because I love everything about you, but it's it's everything.

She goes, it's everything. It's the fact that you cut your own hair. You're probably wearing your, you know, the Timex watch that still has paint all over it. You said you wore your dress shoes, but like, dress shoes are so old, they've got scuffs all over them. The guy's belt probably cost more than your entire wardrobe.

It was probably the way you interacted with people. You were probably nice to the support staff there, and maybe they don't even notice them. It's it's everything. We're gonna look at this morning, what is the what are the clothes we're supposed to wear? What's the impression, the aroma, if you will, that Christians are supposed to put off?

When they see us, what what should they initially think? And in particular, we're gonna look at what should leadership look like within the church? What impressions should we be giving? And so, I wanna read the first five verses of chapter five. So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.

And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility towards one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. If you'll pray with me. Father, thank you for your gift of the church.

Thank you for the leadership you've placed in the church. For all of my brothers and sisters who are here, thank you that you have, through your blood, Jesus and your spirit, you have made us all family. And so all your children, we've gathered together in this moment to hear from you. Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us.

We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So as you might have gathered as we read through this text, we are going to be talking about church government and leadership this morning, eldership in particular, and I could just sense your anticipation, I can feel the energy in the room, has it dawned on you that's what we will be talking about. Actually, this is gonna be the beginning of a series called just boring text in the Bible. Next week, we'll look at tapestries in the temple, maybe some purification laws in Leviticus later, and we'll we'll round it all up.

We're talking about, should you tithe pre or post taxes? Granted, it's this is not it's it's not John three sixteen, people. This isn't, you know, one of the sexier verses in the bible, if you will, that you're just kind of drawn to. But, haven't we all seen at times churches that have ruined themselves, or Christians that have fallen by the wayside because they skipped over these verses to go to those more exciting places in scripture. Peter, as he is bringing this letter to a close, he decides that he wants to end by writing on eldership.

And these are not just, you know, add on words, it's not Peter trying to reach a certain word count in this letter. For weeks now, Peter's been telling the church about the suffering that's coming their way. As a matter of fact, the suffering is already knocking on the door. And so, makes sense for him to now talk to the ones who are gonna be the first to get hit, the leadership. And also, to remind the church that God has placed the elders, the shepherds, to care for them during this time.

They are to be the ones that care and to guide the church during the times of suffering that's coming its way. The words here is elders. Sometimes, you'll find the words pastors. Elders and pastors are used interchangeably throughout the New Testament. Jesus, he's the the chief shepherd of the church, but underneath him, he has placed these under shepherds, the the pastors and the elders who were to show the way that he would shepherd and guide the church.

Here at Redeemer, we have 30 such elders. Some of them are paid, some of them are lay elders, but we have 30 shepherds here at the church that care for us. If you read through the book of Acts, or if you read through the epistles, one of the things that you're going to notice is that whenever Paul went through his missionary journeys and he established churches, he always left behind elders. Didn't always do deacons. Deacons arose when a special need, you know, needed to take care of they needed to take care of, but elders, he he always established.

For instance, in Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas, they had just finished planting churches in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, and we read that they appointed elders in every one of those churches. After planting churches in Crete, Paul left Titus behind and wrote him a letter and gave him these instructions. This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town that I directed you. I mean, when Paul finished planting all these churches, think of what he was leaving behind. He was leaving behind spirit filled, bible believing, born again Christians, and yet, he said, that's not enough.

That's not enough for for these people to become all who God wants them to be. They need elders, someone to guide them, lead them, and protect them. I mean, Paul, he could have just said this to Titus. He could have written in a letter and said, you know, I I left you behind because there's no one else I could trust. There's no one as as gifted as you, there's no one who has the Bible knowledge as you, plus everybody loves you, and I just need you to step up and for you to be the man, you to be the elder or the pastor over all of these churches.

So I'm writing you to tell you to step up and to take the reins. He could have written that, but he didn't. Instead, he said, no. They don't need you, they they need elders. And if you read through the New Testament, you'll find that elders is always in the plural.

There's never an elder at a church. It is always elders. And the reason is because a church is not supposed to be led just by that one gifted guy. You know, no matter how great and wonderful, no matter how godly, no matter how dynamic that one guy is, a church is not supposed to be led by just one guy. But, God in his wisdom says, no, it needs to be led by a group of men.

And can I tell you this is the most inefficient form of government you could possibly have? I mean, it really is. I mean, could you imagine, like, if if a company, a large company, got run by elders, it would it would just tank. You know, if one day, Elon Musk just said, you know what? SpaceX is now not going be run by me, it's going be run by elders.

Tesla is going be run by elders. I mean, there's there's every rocket is going down, every every Tesla is going into a Lake. I mean, you you can't make decisions, there's there's no clarity and movement. It's hard. A monarchy is by far the best form of government.

You just have one guy, makes all the decisions, and if you imported a monarchy into the church, let me tell you, there would be clarity, there would be focus, there would be clear movement and direction, and it would be done quickly. If I was the only elder here at Redeemer, can I tell you we'd already have building? We've already moved in there, it had already been done. But can I tell you what else we'd have? Well, we'd probably have every worship song sounding like U two or Third Day.

All the morning service times would have been moved to start at 5AM, and then a 06:30, and then a eight, because I like early starts. Probably a dress code where everybody has to wear some short sleeve button up, probably blue. I mean, it it would just like, you you'd all, we'd all look the same. Yes, there'd be clarity. That's not what God's after.

I mean, but you've put thirty thirty guys in the same room, all with different giftings, all with different personalities, different perspectives. You can throw efficiency out of the window. God said, that's how I want the church to be led, which shows that perhaps God has something more than efficiency in mind when he decided this is the leadership we want. Perhaps the process is more important than even the end results. Perhaps, through the plurality of elders there, that's the best way to actually care for individual souls and to shepherd and to come alongside them.

Peter himself was an elder. Notice he addresses himself as a fellow elder. It's a little odd that he does that because, I mean, he's writing a letter, and if you want to show you have authority, he could have said, hey, Peter, remember? An apostle of God, kinda known as the rock. I mean, he could have laid all that out there for them, and I command you.

But instead, he says, as a fellow elder, I exhort you. He's not, for a moment, like, condescending down to their level. What he's doing is he's elevating up the position of eldership. It's a high calling. But then in the very next breath, he lets them know it's not a calling that anyone deserves.

I certainly didn't deserve it. We see that. He hints at that when he says he is a witness to the suffering of Christ. When exactly did Peter witness that suffering? I mean, when Jesus was arrested, he fled.

He ran away. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, Peter wasn't around. The only time that we know of that Peter actually witnessed the sufferings of Christ was when he was denying him. It's it's when Jesus was on trial, and Peter was at a safe distance warming himself by the fire, and as Jesus was being interrogated, he was committing his worst sins and failures in that moment, and Peter brings that up. He says, yeah, it's a high calling, but remember, none of us are here apart from the grace of God.

The only reason I'm an elder is because Jesus restored me and he said, feed my sheep, tend my lambs, feed my sheep. What exactly is an elder? What exactly are they supposed to do? Well, the word elder itself in Greek is the word presbyteroi. So apparently, Peter was a Presbyterian.

Who knew? I I mean, we knew he wasn't Baptist because people thought he was drunk at Pentecost. I would have pegged him for an assemblies of God, maybe Pentecostal type. The word presbyteroi, it it literally means elder, but it doesn't necessarily refer to age, it refers to one's spiritual maturity. Maturity.

So you can be elderly and not an elder, but it's a person who's spiritually mature. The task of these elders, well, they are to shepherd the church, shepherd the flock of God among you. Elders are to shepherd God's sheep, God's flock. They're not theirs. They're shepherding God's flock.

And they're to be shepherds, not CEOs, not a board of directors, not a bunch of distant men who you only know by reading their names occasionally on a worship guide or looking them up on a website. They're not to be groups that gather, you know, and and just sit around a conference table, drinking coffee, counting money, talking about how to grow to church. They're shepherds. When you picture a shepherd, you should picture someone who tirelessly cares for sheep, who lives them, someone who smells like sheep. You should picture somebody who's both exhausted and joyful.

They're exhausted because they've spent all this time pursuing the one that was lost, and they're filled with joy as they bring that one home. When you picture a shepherd, you should think Psalm 23. Elders, are you listening? You are to be the embodiment of Psalm 23, in which you are to lead God's people, his sheep, besides still waters, you are to lead them to green pastures, you are to fiercely protect them from enemies from without and from within, and there will be times that you'll be even asked to lead them through the valley of the shadow of death, and you will come alongside God's people and be present with them. And I can still remember vividly an elder meeting from thirteen years ago.

It was the first time we were confronted with a facility that was too small. We were at Cornerstone School, we were busting out of the seams, and we needed to make a decision. We needed to do something. And so, at our elder meeting, you know, bring it up, it's like, guys, what are we going to do? Are we going to go to two services?

I don't know if we should do that. Should we look for another place? I don't think we can afford that. Should we close the doors and just send people away? I don't think that's what we're to do.

Like, what are we supposed to do? And and so I raised that question, and there was just silence for a while. And then, finally, one of our our elders said, well, I'm I'm not exactly sure about that, but before we get to any of that, we do have a list of all of our membership in front of us. And I can see on that list that there's some marriages that they need to be prayed for and cared for, and that there's some people who are hurting deeply on this list. So can we just pray for them?

That's the heart of a shepherd. Yes. You gotta figure out where the sheep are gonna pasture. That's very important too, but the heart of a shepherd just longs to take care of and to provide for the sheep. In verses two through three, Peter, he gives instructions as to how elders are to exercise oversight within the church.

And what he does as he walks through, he states the first as a negative, and he states the second as a positive. He gives us three things. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. Let's look at each of these. First, Peter says, an elder should never never be forced into his role, but must do it willingly.

So so you shouldn't be coerced into it, you should not be guilted into it. Shepherding is not something you have to do, it's something you get to do. And elders, if if you ever see the task before you as something that you must do at a out of just a sense of duty and sacrifice, and that's the only thing fueling you, you will neither honor God nor his sheep, because he wants you to do this as an act of joyful worship. I mean, last week, I became so aware of this. In our parking lot, it's basically the trash heap of Birmingham, I think.

People are just throwing stuff all the time. There's there's been trash there for weeks, it's been driving driving me me crazy, crazy. And I keep waiting for somebody to to come by and just pick it up, and finally, I I think, I'm gonna go do it. And so I go out, and the blazing heat of the day is 90 something degrees, and I go with trash bags, and I am just putting in there, like, I mean, the worst stuff. I can still feel the texture of some of those things on my hands, who knows what diseases I picked up, but I I I was cleaning all that up, took about twenty minutes, I am drenched.

And can I tell you, Jesus received no glory in it? None. Because I did it begrudgingly. Like, I did it, it's like, somebody's gotta do it. Well, I guess I'll do it.

I even had this thought. This is how bad was. I was thinking as I'm putting this in, I it's like, I hope somebody by the church lease drives by and sees me. Maybe staff will look out the window and see me. I I turned the act of service into being about me and my sacrifice, and Jesus gets no glory from that.

Now, this is something that we get to do out of honor and glory to him. So elders, we do it out of a faithful, joyful, worshipful heart. Next, Peter says that one must not be an elder for shameful gain, but eagerly. So you shouldn't become an elder or a pastor for the money. And lay elders are out there like, yeah, we know that.

You can have all the money we make from being an elder. Do you know that when we first moved in here, there were all these banners that were on this wood lattice kind of behind me? And these banners was from the church before us, and all the banners were about money, every one of them. And, you know, a banner might say, if you make this much money, this is how much you're supposed to give. It literally broke it down so the church could see it the entire time.

Or another banner would say, if it's your birthday, consider giving a special birthday gift to the church. Are you supposed to financially just give to the church if it's your birthday? Didn't know you were supposed to do that. And then, in every pew, there were envelopes in which you could give a special love offering to the pastor that would just just bless him. Pastor went to prison for tax evasion.

Not a surprise. What is a little surprising is that the church then sent a limousine to pick him up when his time was done. Because sometimes that's expectation, it's it's kind of what you you think a pastor, well, yeah, he did get in it for the for the money here. No. You don't pastor an elder for the money, or shameful gain can be, or for the respect, or for the power, or for any of those things.

Just do it eagerly. Paul does say in first Corinthians nine that some pastors should get paid, especially if they preach and teach. A worker is worthy of its wages, is what he says. I'm one of those pastors. I get paid.

And I just wanna thank you guys for doing that. I do not take that for granted. I've said this before, but it really hit me as I'm going through first Peter. Peter's about to die. Peter got killed for writing the words that I'm proclaiming.

And Peter preaches the gospel, gets killed. Paul preaches the gospel, gets killed. I preach the gospel and I get paid and I get people's respect, and it is not something I deserve. I think it's right that we do pay for those pastors and elders in some positions, but just know that it it is it is not something that we deserve, and it is not something we take lightly. So thank you.

The final instruction that Peter gives is that these elders are not to be domineering, but instead, they're to be examples. In other words, God looks at leadership a little different than the rest of the world. He's not looking for some alpha males. I need them to come in here, whip everybody into shape, get us all moving in the same direction, get everybody in line. I think, probably, most people in here have seen the damage that has been done in churches or to Christians, perhaps you have felt that damage when a pastor begins to see the pulpit as his throne.

The church is his castle. The members, well, they're just his subjects. Jesus here, he is he's telling us through Peter that he wants the church well, the church leaders, they need to be led by love and not by power. Now, that doesn't mean that the eldership of a church should be spineless, you know, weak pushovers, always just seeing which way the wind is blowing. No.

They're to be fearless protectors of the church because wolves are coming. They're gonna protect the church. They're to be people who are never supposed to back down from declaring the whole truth of the gospel. However, they don't just go around telling people what to do. Peter says, don't go out giving commands, be examples.

Don't tell people how to live, show people how they're supposed to live. Let me tell you that no podcast can be an example. No author of a book can be an example. Whatever TikTok theologian you might be listening to cannot be your example, but an elder who lives among you can. This word example, and is the Greek word, it literally means this, it's an impression or a mark that is made by repeated blows.

It's actually the word that Thomas, after the resurrection of Jesus, he's like, I won't believe it's Jesus unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands. That mark is the word example, tupas. Lauren and I, as you most of all know, we live in a really old house, it's a 115 years old. We've been in there for twenty five years. It now bears our marks all throughout the house.

You know, we have one shower and raising all these girls in there. So that shower, I mean, people are like, they're getting in and out so fast, and as a result of that door being opened and closed so many times, literally, the door handle has bust a hole through the wall that was plaster, just being thrown open and shut so many times. Our floors have got deep divots in all of them because our girls have been running around wearing heels over the years. Our steps, the landing of our steps, we have this this banister, this rail that goes down, and it is smooth as glass. I have repainted that thing so many times.

It's because our girls growing up, they would slide down that rail every time they came down the steps. The house bears the marks of them. Even if you never met me or my family, you would come to her home, and you could look, and you could see the evidence, you could see the patterns, and it would fill you with a picture of, I can get a good idea of what took place here and the type of people that were here. That's the word example. What are the marks or the impressions on you?

And what are the habits that you have that have pressed their their mark on you? And and every habit you have makes its mark. So as you walk around, what are the people seeing when they look at you? Here, Peter, he tells us, he says, the habits of an elder, they need to leave the impression that Jesus lives here. So you just look and you could see, like, obviously, you have the marks and the impression of Jesus, And those marks have been formed by years, day after day after day for years of studying God's word, of praying, of coming alongside people as they need care and support.

Years and years of being a faithful husband or faithful father, those things leave their mark. And because God has placed elders to be with us, we can now feel those marks. We could look at them and be like, okay, that's what Jesus is like. So if you wanna know what a good marriage looks like, you should look in an elder. If you wanna know what it looks like to be hospitable, you should look at an elder.

If you wanna know what it looks like to sin and then to repent of it, you should look at an elder. Do they do that perfectly? By no means. But the elders are to bear the marks of Christ. So God has given us and the church, these elders to look at and to observe.

Not that they're a perfect example, but they are a way that we do get to see him. Verse five, we we we get the final ingredient, if you will, for eldership. It's the key to them all. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility towards one another, for God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

Can I tell you why I think God chose eldership to lead a church and to care for the members of the church? Why I think he chose this as the form of government instead of getting the, the one guy, or any other kind of form of government? I think he chose eldership because it is it is the one form of leadership that cannot work apart from humility. It cannot work. It will grind to a halt.

If a bunch of guys get together in a room, you know, and and they're just they're bitter, or they're all trying to put forth their own agenda, they're trying to be served instead of to serve. You get a bunch of men like that, and it becomes this toxic cesspool that contaminates the entire church, even if they move with efficiency. But if you get a a group of men together who humbly love and serve one another, lay down their own preferences and agenda, and listen to one another, and really reflect the character of Christ, that kind of humility? That's like the the heart of Jesus, like, just pumping nice nourishing blood throughout the body. So I think he he chose eldership because it's the one form of government that cannot operate apart from humility.

And guys, you've heard me say this a 100 times, I'm gonna say this a 100 more before I retire or just keel over. We don't know which will come first. But when you read through your bible, one of the things you will notice is it's not the good that go to heaven and the bad that go to hell, even though that's what most of the entire world thinks. It's not the good that go to heaven and the bad that go to hell, it's the humble that go to heaven, and it's the proud that go to hell. The humble go to heaven, the proud go to hell.

The humble go to heaven because they're the ones who realize how desperate their condition is and that they actually need a savior. The proud think they're doing just fine. I'll trust my own self righteousness. Thank you. And as a result, they deny the grace that could be theirs.

That's why Jesus said to the Pharisees, even the prostitutes and tax collectors, they're gonna get into heaven before you. Why? Because they know they're prostitutes and tax collectors, but you think you're righteous. You don't think you need help. Grace flows to the lowest places.

And if you try to raise yourself up, pull yourself up by your bootstrap, and think that's what God wants in his church, all you do is deny yourself the grace that could be yours. So the humble, they are the ones who receive the grace of Jesus. That's why this command to be humble is for the entire church. It's not just from the elders. But from the top to the bottom, or from the bottom to the top, humility is to be a mark of the church because it's the only way we receive grace.

It's the humility that Jesus modeled for us. Now, that word to clothe, it's actually an unusual word to clothe. It's not the normal one. It literally just means to tie. So to tie on humility.

It's not the word you would use for putting on a shirt, but it is the word that's used for putting on an apron. It's like you're you're tying yourself, you're wrapping that apron around, you're tying it, or as Jesus modeled for us, you're taking the towel, you're tying it around yourself, and you're kneeling down, and you're washing the feet of the disciples. It's a beautiful picture humility of the Chief Shepherd. Jesus is the Chief Shepherd because he's the one who humbled himself even to the point of death, even death on the cross. He says he's the good shepherd because the good shepherd is the one who lays down his life for his sheep.

I wanna end just by reading Paul's words to the elders in Ephesus in Acts 20. Elders, for those of you who are present, listen carefully to these words. Be on guard for yourself and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. The church that we are to care for has been purchased by the precious blood of Jesus, meaning there is nothing more valuable. And for those of you who are members of the church, I hope you see just the value that Jesus has placed on you.

He has seen you as such a treasure that there's no expense too great, even if it means his own blood, that he might have you. Let's pray to him now. Lord Jesus, thank you for your love for us, your love for your church. Through your blood, your spirit, you have made us brothers and sisters. We are family.

You've given us new life, eternal life. And so we just take time to remember that and to thank you for that, Jesus. And thank you for the elders that you have placed to care for us here at this church. Lord, would you empower them? Would you use them?

Would you humble them so that they could be faithful under shepherds to all of us here? We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.