Speaker: Well, there are professions in life that the title of the profession
conveys what the profession does.
For example, teachers do what?
Teachers teach, right?
Bakers bake, uh, uh, farmers.
What do they do?
They farm painters, paint welders, weld dancers.
Dance pastors don't dance, so don't ask for that.
Um, designers design things.
Cooks, cook and butchers.
Well, they butcher.
If a teacher doesn't teach though, they're not a teacher.
If a farmer doesn't farm, he may have the John Deere hat and wear
the overalls and have the redneck and the drive a pickup truck.
But he's not a farmer, right?
If a coach doesn't show up during practice to go over the basics and teach the
principles and teach the fundamentals of the game, and just wants to be there
on game day to get the glory for the w, the coach isn't what a coach, and we
know that because what, we know what it looks like to do all of those things.
We know what it means to teach.
And so if a teacher is, is saying, I'm a teacher, but you're watching their life
and you're looking at their life saying, but I, I don't ever see you teaching.
You're gonna stop and say, I don't, I don't really think that you're a teacher.
You may call yourself a teacher, but what you do, your, your, your actions,
they would betray something different.
This morning.
We're gonna consider another profession that the title conveys
something about what it should do, and that is this pastors pastor.
Pastors pastor.
But for us to be able to tell whether or not a pastor is
pastoring, it would be helpful if we knew, what does that look like?
And for you sitting here this morning, we're about to read a
passage that is directed at Pastors.
Peter's gonna talk to the elders that are pastoring these churches
in this region that he's been writing this whole letter to.
And so you might be sitting there this morning saying, what
does this have to do with me?
Shouldn't this just be reserved for a pastor's conference or pastor's meetings?
Or maybe it should just be pastor PGF here and Pastor Rod and Pastor
Mark in the audience, and that's it.
We can all go home.
But I would encourage you to tune in because this is what you
should expect from your pastors.
What Peter's talking about here about what a, an elder does, what a
pastor does, what a shepherd does.
This is important for you to know.
I, I, if, if you're with us, what we aspire to be as your pastors and
shepherds, or if the Lord ever moves you on somewhere else, what you should look
for in pastors and shepherds that are gonna care for your souls pastors pastor.
And so this morning in First Peter, chapter five, verses one
through four, we're gonna turn there and find out what does it
look like to be a pastoring pastor?
And again, this is important for you because you need to
know what are we aspiring to?
What should you expect from us as your leaders?
What should you expect from your pastors?
First Peter chapter five, verse one says this, so I exhort the elders among you.
As a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well
as a partaker of the glory that is to be revealed right away, we should
stop and, and we need to answer an important question, and that is this.
What is an elder?
Peter's writing to a group of elect exiles.
Remember, they had been forcibly repopulated, removed from
probably Rome and settled in the outskirts of Asia Minor.
And they're there.
And, and the, the Romans are saying, we want to populate this
region and expand our reach.
So we're gonna move the people that we like the least.
And that's the Christians we're gonna put you guys out there.
So they're literal exiles.
But then there are also spiritual exiles.
This is the letter written to the church, not on vacation, but the church in exile.
And that's something that we can resonate with and we should resonate with
because we like them, are waiting for an inheritance that's not here, that's
not, now we're looking forward to a future inheritance that's gonna be ours.
And so with that comes tension with this world we find ourselves up against.
Conflict, we find ourselves facing suffering.
And we've been talking a lot about that in the letter.
And so now Peter's writing to the leaders of this church, the elders, the
pastors, the shepherds of this church.
And he wants them to shepherd in such a way that they're gonna be effective
in the life of this church, in the context in which they find themselves.
And it applies to us today as well.
But to understand.
This, we need to start by asking ourselves the question, what is an elder?
You may have a concept in your mind.
Well, an elder is just an, an older person or an elder.
Is this, that, or the other thing?
Well, in the New Testament, there's three terms that are used for elders.
There's elder, overseer, and pastor.
You're gonna find those words used interchangeably in a a across all
of the New Testament writings, and they all refer to the same office.
There's not an office of pastor that's distinct from the Office of Elder that's
distinct from the office of overseer.
At least there shouldn't be when we read the New Testament.
The expectation is they are one and the same.
In fact, in uh, Titus chapter one, verse five, Paul says to Titus, I left
you in Crete that you might appoint.
Notice elders in every town, two verses later, as Paul is
then giving qualifications.
He's saying, and this is who those elders should be.
They should be these type of men.
He says, for an overseer, that's another one of the words that's here.
Pastor, overseer, elder, an overseer, just in the same context as the elder.
What are we meant to assume by that?
Well, an elder and an overseer.
Those are one in the same office.
And so these three terms that are used in the New Testament are used to help
us understand that this pastor has multiple different responsibilities and.
Yeah, roles that he functions as, as a pastor, as a leader,
as a shepherd in the church.
The word elder suggests the character and the spiritual maturity of the
man that that should be expected.
It is from a Greek word, pres, Eros, which is where we get our Presbyterian
concept of denominational leadership.
Uh, the word overseer.
Suggest the protection role that a pastor takes on.
Uh, this is to give oversight, leadership and to protect the flock.
That's a pastor's job that's from the Greek word episcopals, which
is where we get the Episcopalian concept of denominations.
Another word for an overseer is a bishop, and so they have a bishop Rick
is what it's called, and they report to a denominational hierarchy there.
And then finally you've got the word for shepherd or pastor.
And, and that word is used to convey the fact that a pastor has
to care for those under his charge.
The pastor's job is to shepherd the flock.
And so you should expect us as your pastors to do these three things.
You should expect us to be men of character, men of spiritual maturity.
You should expect us to be men who are overseeing and
protecting and leading the flock.
And you should also expect us to be men who care for and feed the flock.
There's a lot of differences out there in, uh, approach to
how a, a church should be run.
Some churches use the pastor as CEO model.
They have one pastor and he runs everything.
Everybody else reports to him and he makes all the final decisions.
You've got some other churches that have a denominational reporting structure.
I mentioned the Presbyterians.
The Episcopalians do that also, the Methodists do that, so they're autonomous
to an extent, but then they're held to accountability by a denomination.
They go and report to the denomination that provides oversight to the church.
And then finally, you've got some that have completely abandoned the role
of Pastor Elder overseer completely.
You've got the Quakers and you've got the Brethren movement.
In some of those churches, you'll walk in and they will start
their service by saying, who has a word from the Lord today?
And somebody will stand up and give the sermon that day.
And so you've got all kinds of different approaches.
We here believe that the New Testament model is that of a
plurality of eldership, a plurality of pastors, a plurality of overseers.
And so here at Compass Bible Church, right, we've got Pastor Mark, we've
got Pastor Rob, we've got myself, and all of us function together
as elders to lead the church.
And the reason why we adopt that is we, again, believe this
is the New Testament model.
And so in Acts chapter 14, verse 23, when the church is first getting started.
The apostles.
It says here that they went out and when they had appointed elders for
them in every church, notice the language there, the apostles are going
about, they are appointing elders.
For them in every church with prayer and fastening, they committed them to
the Lord in whom they had believed.
Okay, so the apostles, as the church is getting started, what are they doing?
They're starting churches and giving them elders.
That's the model that they have there.
Titus one five.
This is why I left you in Crete, like I just referenced earlier, that you
might put what remained into order.
Notice that Paul's saying there's an order that should be expected in the
churches, and what does that look like?
Well, that looks like appointing elders.
Now it says in every town as I directed you, but at this time
the, the towns would've been.
Equivalent with the churches that each church would've
would've been in a given town.
So we could have said, appoint elders in every church as well as I directed you.
And so all this comes back to the way that we are beginning this passage where
he says, I exhort the elders among you.
That's what an elder is.
We see elders other places in the Bible.
We see him in Acts 15.
We see him in Acts chapter 20.
We see him in one Timothy chapter three.
We see him in one Timothy chapter five.
Titus one, James five, one.
Peter five elders are throughout the entirety of the New Testament corpus,
and again, it's elders, it's overseers, it's pastors, one in the same office, and
so we believe that the biblical model is for there to be a plurality of elders.
In our passage here in one Peter five, one, and two, just in these first two
verses, we see all three concepts.
He says, I exhort the, the, the elders among you.
Okay, so there's the one term SROs, elders.
I exhort the elders among you.
And then the second thing he, he says in verse two, shepherd, that's the, the
verbal form of pastor, pastor the flock.
So there's the verbal form of the word that refers to pastors.
And then finally he says, exercising, oversight overseer.
Bishop, I, I want you to bishop the church.
I want you to oversee the church.
So you see all three concepts right here, written too.
Elders written to pastors, written to overseers, and so it's one in the same.
And note here, Peter says, I exhort you as a fellow elder.
Uh, this is so important.
I, I, I know that there's a trend towards Catholicism right now in this generation,
especially the younger generations.
Uh, the, the idea of Peter as the first Pope is, is aberrant to
scripture, meaning it does not, is not supported by the Bible.
Uh, and here you see Peter writing to fellow pastors and
he calls himself a fellow elder.
He appeals to them as a brother, as one of equal standing with them, and he says, I
Peter, a appeal to you as a fellow elder.
And, and then when he appeals to his, his witness to the sufferings
of Christ and the partaker of the glory of this to be revealed.
I do think Peter's appealing to a higher authority, but it's
not a unique authority to Peter.
This is his apostolic authority.
Peter was an eyewitness of the resurrected Christ, and so Peter is saying, yes, I'm
your fellow elder, but as an apostle, not as the pope, but as an apostle, I want you
to know also that I have an authority to tell you this is what you should be doing.
And so again, Peter's writing into a church that was going through trials,
that was going through suffering that needed their pastors to pastor.
And so he's going to give them instructions as to
what that should look like.
And he begins there in verse two, with this command shepherd, the
flock of God that is among you.
The word shepherd.
There is again, from that word that means to Pastor Peter
could have said, be a pastor.
Feed care for this may call to mind in the, the back of your mind.
Uh, another one who referred to himself as a shepherd, Jesus.
Right.
In John chapter 10, verse 11 said, I am the good shepherd.
I'm the good shepherd.
And the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
And so Jesus is the paradigm to what Peter is calling the pastor to.
When you think of your pastors, you need to understand that your pastors, their
model, their exemplar, their goal is to be as much like Christ as possible.
As we shepherd you, we want you to be shepherded with a Christ-like
love and a Christ-like character.
That's the one that we are to model ourselves after.
He's the paradigm.
And you think about what Jesus did with the crowds, he was patient with them.
He was loving towards them.
He had compassion on them.
He fed them, he hung out with them.
He met their needs.
He spent time.
He ate with them, he rested with them.
He gave his life for them.
So you should expect your pastors to love you, like Christ loved those
that he was in contact with as well.
Peter's intentional with this.
Remember Peter was there.
He heard Jesus say, I am the good shepherd.
And so it's not by accident that Peter says, shepherd the flock of God.
That is among you.
Shepherd the flock of God that is among you.
See, a pastor without love ends up being the noisy gong and the clanging
symbol of one Corinthians chapter 13.
He may be a man who loves to preach, but if he doesn't love
those to whom he preaches, then he's not being a pastoring pastor.
You should expect more from me than just to stand up here behind this pulpit
and preach to you every single Sunday.
That's just a sliver of what my job is.
Point number one this morning is this pastoring pastors serve from genuine love.
They serve from genuine love.
You should expect your pastors to love you with a, a sense,
not just of obligation and duty.
We're gonna even speak against that here in just a moment,
but with a, a genuine love.
I first experienced this back in college from a man named Steve Severance, who
was a, a pastor at a church in California in, in, called Placey to Bible church,
now place to Baptist Church at the time.
And Steve came in and sat down next to Amanda and I when we were dating.
It was our first Sunday at the church, and he sat down right next to us.
He said, Hey.
You guys look like you're college students?
We said, yes, we are.
You go to masters?
Yes, we do.
So I assume you've got a testimony.
Uh, yeah.
We, we do have a testimony.
Great.
Where are you gonna serve in the church?
I looked at Steve, I was like, Steve, this is the first time
I've been in the church, man.
He's like, yeah, I get it.
Where are you gonna serve?
See, Steve was a, a pastor who loved me towards developing a, an understanding
that church is more than just showing up.
And, and I needed that because at the time, I, I didn't get that.
I had been going to Grace Community Church.
I'd been sitting under John MacArthur's preaching, which was amazing and
fantastic, but Grace was so big and I was, was not doing my job as a believer there.
So it was so easy for me to just go and then leave, and I had no accountability.
Nobody knew me.
I didn't have any connection with the pastors whatsoever.
And so it was easy for me to just kind of check a box on church and leave.
Steve pastored me.
Well, he loved me to help me understand what church really is all about.
So when you hear us as your pastor say, Hey, we want you to be all in with us.
We want you to be attending, connecting, and serving.
It's because we love you.
It's because we care about you, and we want you to have the right
perspective, the right point of view on what the church really is.
I mentioned John 10 earlier and Jesus saying, I'm the good shepherd.
There's, there's another passage in John that I imagine was probably
banging around in, in Peter's mind as he wrote these words, and
that's gotta be John Chapter 21.
John chapter 21.
Jesus and Peter are on the beach together, and it says this,
it's on the screen for you.
It says, when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son
of John, do you love me more than these?
And he said to him, yes, Lord.
You know that I love you.
He said to him, feed my lambs.
He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me?
He said to him, yes, Lord, you, you know that I love you.
He said to him, tend my sheep.
He said to him the third time, Simon son of John, do you love me?
Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me?
He said to him, Lord, you know everything.
You know that I love you.
Jesus said to him, feed my sheep.
I think there's two things happening in this passage.
Number one, Jesus is restoring Peter.
Peter denied him three times, and so Jesus asked Peter three
times, Peter, do you love me?
He's restoring him from the denials to the confession that, yes, I love
you, but then he's also going a step further and saying, Peter, if you
love me, you will love the flock.
If you love me, you will tend my sheep.
You'll feed my lambs.
You will shepherd the flock that is given to you.
As we understand this, it's, it's important that we realize that your
pastor's love for you has to flow from their love for Christ, and
so that's another thing that you should expect from your pastors.
If your pastors are gonna be those that serve from genuine love, you
should expect to see that your pastors have a genuine love for Christ that's
gonna overflow into how they love you.
Your pastors are gonna love you well, if they love Jesus most.
If, if, if they're simply focused on trying to curry favor with you,
then they're missing the boat.
And so you should expect us to love from an overflow of our devotion to Christ.
But you should also expect a couple other things as far as our attitude.
And he goes on there to explain, he says they shouldn't pastor under compulsion,
but willingly as God would have.
You see, a a, a pastor is not one who goes into things kicking and screaming.
A a a pastor does it with a, a willingness.
He's gonna say later, an eagerness about him.
In other words, for for me to show up.
At your house to, to spend time with you or for me to show up at the
hospital when you have a newborn baby.
For, for me to meet with you for counseling shouldn't be to me
like getting jury summons, right?
It shouldn't be like, oh man, I have to go do that.
Okay.
I guess I have to, 'cause I'm under compulsion, right?
To go do that.
That's not shepherding.
Shepherding is to serve the flock is to love the flock from a willing heart.
This is why Spurgeon told those in his pastoral college.
He said this.
He said, man, if you can see yourself doing anything else
besides pasturing, go do it.
Go do it.
Because he knew that if they were divided in their affections, he knew
if they had something else they'd rather do than spending time with the
flock that they wouldn't be effective and they'd be tempted to abandon.
You should expect your pastors to want to be with you.
You should expect your pastors to have a willingness and eagerness to be with you.
You, you should expect your pastors to be ready to walk through the valley with
you, to walk through the trial, to do the counseling, to show up at the hospital.
I remember one of my pastors, John Cunningham, he showed up at the
hospital for the birth of Josh.
And Josh was this weird looking alien baby that we had.
He's much more attractive now.
Um.
But, but he held Josh and he was like, you guys have this beautiful baby.
He lied through his teeth to us.
I'm just kidding.
Josh was here in first service.
I said much of the same things to him there, but, but John was
there because he loved us, right?
He loved us.
He loved our family.
Well, he wasn't there because he's like, well, it's my job to be here,
so I've gotta be here for you.
So let me hold your baby and kiss your baby and shake your
hands, and I'll see you later.
That's not loving.
You should expect to have your pastors be with you with a sense
of willingness and eagerness there.
In fact, Jesus contrast the, the, the hired hand with the shepherd Here.
He says in John 12 or 10, 12 through 15, he says, he who is a hired hand
and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming
and leaves the sheep and fleas.
He, he's not all in.
He's not interested in protecting the flock.
He doesn't really love them.
Once it becomes inconvenient for him or dangerous for him, he's out.
And the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
He flees because he's a higher hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
I am the good shepherd.
I know my own and my own know me just as the father knows me.
I know the father and I lay my life down for the sheep Church.
You should expect your pastors to never abandon you.
Our love for you means that we're with you and we're here, and we're going
to be there when you have the need.
If a need arises, if you need counseling, you have pastors that are there and
willing and eager and ready to help you.
If you're in the hospital, we wanna know about it.
I know sometimes the, the, the thought might be, I don't wanna
burden anybody by letting them know that I'm in the hospital.
We want to be there, we want to serve, we want to because we love
you, because we care about you.
And so we want to know these things.
We want to pastor you, we want to shepherd you because a pastor who doesn't
genuinely love his flock can't fulfill the job that God has called him to do.
It's interesting in Ephesians four 11, uh, in in Ephesians four, just in
general, God is, is talking about here's the gifts that he has given the church,
and the last two he lists in this long list are, are pastors and teachers.
Pastors and teachers, and, and, and some want to separate those two as two offices.
My view is, I think those are one and the same.
And I think it's because of what we're talking about right here,
the, the, the pastor, the shepherd to be effective with the flock.
His job is more than just standing up and preaching to you.
His job is also to pastor you, is to shepherd you, is to love
you, is to be with you, right?
The shepherd should smell like the sheep.
And so pastors and teachers I think is unique that he isolates those two
to stress the fact that, yeah, these are both important things, but hey,
they're both part of the same office.
You should expect us to know you well enough to know, Hey, when I stand up
and preach this passage, what are the people in the congregation going through?
How's this gonna be received?
You should expect me to be able to know how my tone needs to be with you
at different times as I preach to you.
The only way I'm gonna be able to do that is by spending time with
you, by getting to know you now.
We're, we're far from a mega church, but even at this level,
we will be honest with you.
The, the one of the ways that you can help us most in that is by getting
connected in community groups, because that allows us to look at our community
group leaders and say, Hey, is there anyone specific in your, in your body,
in your flock, in your group that, that we need to bring that pastoral touch to?
We're gonna do our best to be as, as knowledgeable as we possibly can, but you
being part of community groups helps bring you more under the oversight and under
the shepherding care of us as pastors.
To be able to love you the way that we should be loving you.
I, I fear y'all standing before the Lord someday and getting a passing grade and
preaching, but a failing one in pastoring.
Those two things are not the same, and so you should expect me to love you.
Well, you should expect me as your pastor to serve you from a genuine love.
In fact, that's where Paul says in one Timothy one, five, the aim of our
charge is love, the aim of our charge.
The whole point, Timothy, is to love.
Love has to accompany our service as Christians in general, and for pastoring
pastors, it's imperative to our ability to effectively shepherd the flock, shepherd
the flock of God that is among you.
He goes on, he says, shepherd the flock of God that is among you.
And he says, exercising oversight.
Lemme stop down for just a second there and talk about that word again.
It's from another word for pastor overseer, exercising oversight is
to do the work of the overseer.
The word for overseer means one who leads, who exercises an authority who.
Uh, protects the flock, and so you should again, expect your pastors to lead you.
You should expect that your pastors, as we shepherd you are also going to
exercise an authority in your life.
You should expect that we will look to protect you and to guide you, and
to lead you because that's what part of our job is given the caveats of
what he goes on to explain and how we go about exercising that authority.
He says that a pastor is to exercise oversight.
If you look in our text here, he says, not for shameful gain, but eagerly
not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock,
how the shepherd's exercise oversight matters greatly.
How the pastor's exercise oversight matters greatly.
We've already seen part of this in, in point number one, that one of
the ways that I need to lead you and that I need to exercise the authority
that God has given me as your pastor over your life is to love you.
But there's a couple of other things that he gives here as far as how we
should pastor, how we should lead, how we should exercise the authority.
And it really boils down to us living a life worthy of imitation.
And so point number two this morning is this pastors pastoring pastors
serve with Winsome integrity pastoring pastors serve with winsome integrity.
We're gonna unpack a a few.
Aspects of character, both internal and external here in just a minute.
But one of the things that you should expect from your pastors
is that we are men of, of godliness, not perfection, right?
There is no perfect pastor anywhere, but you should expect that the direction
of our lives is towards perfection.
The direction of our lives is to want to be men of godliness, men of integrity.
That we strive to emulate and and be like Christ as much as we can.
You should expect that we measure up to the elder qualifications in
first Timothy chapter three, that we are living lives above reproach.
You should expect that from us, Titus chapter one, that we would be worthy
of those qualifications as well.
Those are things that you should expect from us because as men who
are standing up here, as your pastor is exercising oversight, we need
to exercise oversight in integrity.
In integrity.
Let's look at what Peter deals with here.
He says, first, not for shameful gain, but eagerly not for shameful gain.
Uh, this is not condemning a, a pastor making a living by being a pastor.
Okay?
In fact, Paul in one Corinthians nine 14 says that those that proclaim the gospel
should make a living by the gospel.
So this is a biblical thing to, to have paid pastors.
To have vocational pastors is actually a, a New Testament principle and a,
a concept that is, is good and right.
And lemme just say this on top of that, it's actually to your benefit.
Because if, if myself and Pastor Rod and Pastor Mark, if all of us had to be
bi-vocational, in other words, if all of us had to have a job on the side, you
know, changing oil or, or doing something else and, and, and then pastoring
on the, the other part of the time, then, then our time would be divided.
We wouldn't be able to give our full-time and dev devotion and attention to the task
at him, which is to care for the flock.
And so to have pastors that are, are vocational pastors, that this is their
job is, is a benefit to you as the flock rather, the, the condemnation
that Peter's aimed at here is for the pastor to think of his job as this
is about me and not about Christ.
And I think that's the best way of understanding shameful gain.
Maybe you appreciate the, uh.
The old English that the filthy luker that they used to talk about there in, in
the King James version, I think says that shameful gain can be a lot of different
things, though, a, a pastor might look at his job and say, well, it's a job.
It pays the bills just like somebody else who's a car mechanic or who
is a, a lawyer who's just like, ah, man, there's days I just, I don't
want to do this, but hey, it's a job.
It pays the bills.
If a pastor has that mentality towards you, that's, he's not
pastoring for good motives.
That's, that's pastoring for shameful gain.
Or if a pastor sits there and says, man, you know what?
I wanna be the next celebrity pastor.
I wanna be the next guy.
I, I wanna preach in such a way that people are just firing
off tweets of everything that I'm saying as I'm tweeting.
That's not pastoring for the right motives, either that's
pastoring for shameful gain.
Or if the pastor's like, I wanna make a church, not because I wanna see all these
souls saved and plant more churches, but because he says, I wanna build my kingdom.
And that's, that's pastoring for shameful gain.
You should expect your, your pastors to have a, a humility about them.
In other words, you should expect your pastors to pastor eagerly.
You should expect your pastors to say, I'm doing this because I don't wanna do
anything else on the face of the planet.
But what I'm doing right now, I'm doing this because I love
you, because I care about you.
You should expect your pastors to love you, not expecting
anything back from you in return.
I'm not loving you because sometimes you guys buy me double stuffed Oreos.
I don't hate that.
But if I was loving you for that, that'd be shameful.
Gain, right?
We're called to love you because we love you.
We we're called to shepherd you eagerly because we, we, we care about you because
we wanna love you with the love of Christ.
Remember again, John 21.
Peter, do you love me?
I I love you, Lord.
Then shepherd my flock.
You should expect your pastors to shepherd you for the right
motives, the right reasons.
We, we see an example, a negative example of this, I think in Acts eight.
A guy named Simon the magician.
Simon was watching the apostles do some pretty amazing things.
They were healing people, they were working miracles, they
were doing all this stuff.
And, and Simon's sitting back watching this happen, and he's
going, how do I get some of that?
Because people were impressed with Simon before and now they're
impressed by the apostles.
So Simon goes to the apostles and he says, how can I get this?
What can I pay you to get what you guys have?
And their response is this, you have neither part nor lot in this matter,
for your heart is not right before God.
Repent therefore, of this wickedness of yours.
As pastors, we have to make sure that our heart is right before God in
the way that we shepherd the flock.
We have to love you with the right motivation.
We have to love you eagerly, not for shameful gain, not for our own
benefit, not just so that you'll speak well of us and think highly
of us, but that you'll speak well of Christ and think highly of Christ.
And we as His under shepherds.
And so that's why you should expect your pastors to love you that way.
But he goes on, he says, and also not domineering over those in your charge,
but being examples to the flock.
The word domineering means to Lord it over.
In fact, that's what Jesus says in in the gospels.
When he tells the disciples.
Remember, they're arguing about who's the greatest, and Jesus says that the
Gentiles Lord it over one another.
But it should not be so among you.
You shouldn't be the same way.
It's the same word to Lord it over.
It's to it.
Exercise authority.
Remember, pastors do have authority.
That's a biblical concept.
Your pastors.
We have authority in your life as your pastors, as those that God have placed
over you as the shepherds of the flock.
To exercise that oversight, but there's an unhealthy, there's an improper,
there's a wrong, there's a sinful way for us to exercise that authority as well.
And that is to domineer, that is to be overly authoritative.
It's to, to use position to get things in return.
Right.
It's the pastor who demands without demonstrating.
I, I, it's the, the pastor who puts unbiblical restrictions upon you.
You should expect as we lead an exercise authority that if we're gonna give you
a, a, a, a command, if I can put it that way, I know that sounds harsh, but if
I can put it that way, if we're gonna tell you, we believe that you should
do this, you should expect that we're gonna be able to point to the word of
God to show, this is why we believe that you should do this, you should expect
that You're gonna walk away saying, I, I know what they're saying is good
for me because I know they love me.
That that's exercising, oversight, not domineering, but being examples that
that's out of a, a, a love for them.
The pastoring pastor, in other words, doesn't see the
flock as a means to an end.
I, I, I can't exercise oversight so that I benefit off of your backs.
In other words, and, and this is what God was condemning back in Ezekiel,
and I think Ezekiel is running behind what Peter's talking about here too.
Ezekiel 34, 2 through four, he says, the son of man prophesy
against the Shepherds of Israel.
Notice the same language here.
Shepherds, prophesy and say to them, even to the shepherds, thus says the Lord God.
Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves should
not shepherds feed the sheep.
You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool.
You slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.
Notice they're even benefit.
They're, they're, they're killing the sheep for their own good.
The weak.
You have not strengthened the sick.
You've not healed the injured, you've not bound up the stray.
You have not brought back the loss.
You have not sought with force or the loss you have not sought, and with force
and harshness, you have ruled them.
The pastor who rules you, the pastor who exercises oversight over you, the
pastor who shepherds you, you should expect to do so with a humility that
points you to the word of God that loves you, that cares about you, right?
What does the shepherd do when the sheep wanders away?
The shepherd goes after the sheep.
I remember Jesus said, you leave the 99 to go for the one to bring that one back.
The pastor should not ever look at that and be like, well,
okay, whatever door's open.
We're not locking you in here.
Go ahead.
The pastor should care.
The pastor should love The pastor should lead and exercise
oversight with the gentleness.
With the humility.
Yes, with authority.
Because That's right.
'cause that's what God calls us to.
With the right kind of authority, with the right mentality.
Even he goes on and clarifies it this way, not domineering over them, but
as examples you might've expected him to say, not domineering over
them, but, but gently with them.
But instead he says, but as examples to the flock, and that's
why this is winsome integrity.
To be winsome is to, to live a life that's attractive, that's appealing, to
say, I want to be around that person.
I want to be like that.
I want to hang out with that person.
That is a winsomeness, and the pastor should be winsome in his integrity.
In other words, to be an example, and this is why this
is the opposite of domineering.
Domineering is leading from the back.
Domineering is standing in the back and just giving orders and saying, go and do
while the, the, the leader sits in the back and just is comfortable and easy
to lead the way Jesus wants us to lead.
And what you should expect from your pastors is to lead from the front.
To lead from the front, to set the examples to be like Paul said, where
I say, where Paul said multiple times, I urge you to be imitators of me.
You should expect your pastors to live the type of life in front of you that you
want to follow because you think, man, if I follow them, I'm following Christ.
If I imitate him, I'm imitating Jesus.
And that's the type of leadership that's the opposite of domineering.
Jesus set the, the pace for us in this, in John chapter 10, verses three through
four says to him, the gatekeeper opens.
That is to the good shepherd.
The sheep hear his voice and he calls out his own sheep by name and leads them out.
When he is brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep
follow him for they know his voice.
That's the, the, the shepherd, the leader that's exercising authority.
He's calling them out.
Notice he's saying, come on, it's time to go.
Follow me.
They're following him because he knows they, they know he loves them.
He's leading a life that's worthy of imitation.
He's leading from the front.
He's being that example.
You should expect your pastors to be that kind of man for you.
That's what we aspire to be.
That's the life that we wanna live before you.
We want to be pastors that are gonna lead that way perfectly.
No, but that's our, our direction every single day.
That's what we aim for.
In fact, it's interesting if you were to look at the qualifications of an elder.
What you would find in that list is a lot of character related qualifications,
not as many skill related qualifications.
And I think the reason being is because of what Peter's talking about right
here, because the main objective for the pastor is to live a life worthy of
emulation, to be an example to the flock.
So the character attributes that you see there as the, the
qualifications for an elder.
In fact, we went through this in, in men's Bible study and ba
basically our argument was, Hey men, all of you aim for these things.
This isn't unique just to pastors.
All of you aim for these things.
So the, the pastor is meant to live a life that's worthy of emulation.
And again, that's why I chose the word winsome for this.
And so I'd encourage you to expect that of us, but also to pray for us to be that.
Pray that we would be these type of men.
Pray that we would live lives worthy of emulation.
Pray that we would exhibit the, the attributes of a pastor of an elder.
Pray that we would show forth the fruit of the spirit, evidencing
the fact that God is at work in us.
Pray for our devotion to Christ.
Pray for our marriages that we would be faithful.
Husbands that love our li, our wives like Christ.
Love the church.
Pray that we would be good dads, all of us, all three of
us on, on pastoral staff here.
We all have young kids at home.
Pray that we would be good fathers and pray that we would love you.
Well pray that we would lead from the front in a way that is
winsomely attractive, that you would say, I want to be like that.
I wanna follow them.
Pastoring pastor's concern for his flock is born from his love for them.
Right.
That's what we've been talking about, that that was our first point.
This love is here too.
And the second point, because that's, that's one of the things that's
driving our pursuit of integrity, that's driving our leadership of
the flock is because we love them.
And, and the flock wants to follow as a result of that.
Uh, but again, that, that love for you is ultimately connected,
like I talked about from John 21.
And it's derived from a love first for the Savior who Peter
refers to as the chief shepherd.
In our final verse this morning, he says this, when the Chief shepherd appears, you
will receive the unfading crown of glory.
When the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the
unfading crown of glory Pastors.
He's talking to pastors.
He's saying, Hey, pastors, if you do this well, you can look forward to the return
of the chief shepherd, which implies what?
That your pastors are under shepherds, that your pastors are under shepherds.
And so one of the ways that, that you should view yourself is you need to
view yourself not as belonging to any one of us human pastors here, but you
should view yourselves as those that belong to this chief shepherd to Jesus.
And that's true of every single one of us.
I'm part of the flock of the chief shepherd.
You're part of the flock of the chief shepherd.
Now, for this time being.
God has placed you under the care of his under shepherds here at our church, and
we wanna take that job seriously and and that's what we've been talking about.
You should expect us to love you.
Well, you should expect the integrity from us.
You should expect us to lead from the front and be examples to the flock.
You should expect all of those things of us.
But you should also expect us to understand that we're gonna
be accountable ultimately before Jesus for how we do all of that.
My motivation to love you well as your pastor is because I want to love you.
I do want to love you.
I do want to care about you.
My motivation to to live a life of winsome integrity before you as
your pastor is because I, I, I care about modeling that in front of you.
I care about living a life that I would be able to say, yeah, I want my church
to be the type of Christian that I am.
I, I, I do care about those things.
There's an undergirding motivation that's greater than both of those, and that's
the motivation that's present here.
In the end, I, I, I want to shepherd you well because I know in the end
I'm gonna be accountable to the Chief Shepherd for how I did that.
That ultimately is what awaits me and awaits Pastor Rod and awaits Pastor
Mark, is there's gonna come a day when, when we're gonna be held to a
standard where Jesus is gonna call us to give an account before him, and
we're gonna have to be ready to do that.
And so as we serve as your pastors, that's the ultimate reason why
we're serving as your pastors.
Third and final point this morning is this pastoring pastors
serve ultimately for Jesus.
Pastoring.
Pastors ultimately serve for Jesus again, when the Chief Shepherd
appears, he's coming back.
He's coming back.
Jesus is going to return for his bride, and the under shepherds are
going to have to give an account.
Whether that's when he comes back for his bride or whether that's I
live for as long as he has me live and I go to, to be with him, and
he, he takes me home to be with him.
One of the, the evaluations for me is gonna be, how did you shepherd
the flock that I entrusted to you?
Remember, you guys are his flock, not my flock.
And so I'm gonna have to stand before Jesus Hebrews 1317 and give an account for
the souls that I was keeping Watch over.
And so I'm gonna have to be before the Lord and, and be able to say about
this family or that family, or this family, or this person or that person,
or in this situation in their life.
Because the Lord takes this job that he's entrusted to me and to Pastor
Rod and Pastor Mark, he takes this very seriously because he loves
you more than, than We love you.
We love you, but, but Jesus loves you even more.
And so because you are his.
He's gonna hold us to an account for how we shepherd you.
How did we treat you?
How did we serve as your under shepherds?
The negative side of that motivation is, is the fear of saying, you know, Hey,
what about that, that couple who was going through a marriage problem and, and
you couldn't get them on your calendar because of your busyness and, and, or
you just didn't want to and, and now they're, then their marriage fell apart.
What, what about that, that couple.
What about the single mom in your church who, man, she didn't have much to live
on, but she scrounged up everything that she could to give to the church
faithfully every, every single week.
Did, do you remember her name?
Man, that, that's some of the motivation for us, that causes us to go, man,
we, we need to know our, our sheep.
We need to know the flock, and you should expect us to, to pursue you because we're
gonna have to give an account for you.
The positive side comes from what happens here.
He says those that do this well from the chief shepherd are gonna
receive the unfading crown of glory.
This is the victor's crown.
It was given to the one that that won the athletic competition.
It was also given to a warrior who was particularly valiant in battle.
It was a recognition the emperor would award it to him before everyone else.
And so as pastors, there's a day if we do our jobs well,
when Jesus will do that for us.
And that is positive motivation to be able to say, man, that
that how sweet that would be.
To receive that from him.
And I just balance that with Revelation chapter four, where the,
the 24 elders are around his throne.
They're wearing those same crowns, same word there for those crowns.
And what they do with those crowns is they fall down and worship before
the throne, and they cast those crowns before the feet of Jesus.
So we don't look forward to those crowns so that we'll be able to walk with a, a
little bit of extra swag or pep in our step in heaven being like, look what
I got, but rather, so we'll have one more reason that we can worship Christ.
As we fall down in humility before him,
but you should know that that's why we love you.
That's why we serve you.
That's why we want to, to live a life of ultimate integrity before you.
That's why we want to be winsome in how we do that.
That's why we wanna lead from the front and not from the back.
The, the ultimate reason why is Jesus 'cause we wanna be able to stand before
him with clean consciences and to say, Lord, we, we did not perfectly.
We love the flock that you gave us as best as we possibly could.
We're gonna move now towards communion in the Lord's table, and as we do so,
I think it's helpful that we reflect back on, on even this verse, this
final verse, verse four, when the chief shepherd appears, you know, the, the
chief shepherd first came to be the good shepherd, and the good shepherd
came to lay his life down for a sheep.
And so it's appropriate for us to, to reflect on that and, and to reflect
back on the fact that, that this is why we are here this morning.
There's a lot of different views on, on communion, but let me just put
one to bed, and that is communion is not here to give you any more grace
than you already have through Jesus.
When Jesus said on the cross it's finished.
The wrath of God is satisfied.
And then he yielded up his fear and he died.
And then three days later he rose to life.
And like we talked about last week, that was the father's stamp of
approval saying payment received, payment accepted, payment applied.
So where you sit this morning, you don't need the, the bread
and the juice to convey grace to you in a salvific sense at all.
It's done.
It's finished to the cross.
If you've repented from your sins and put your trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord
and Savior, you are fully saved in him.
Okay.
What these are and why we do this is because this is what Jesus told us to do.
To remember when the Good Shepherd laid down his life for the sheep to
remember when The Good Shepherd bought the church with his blood Acts 2028.
That's what we're doing here this morning.
We're remembering, and that's why we do this corporately together.
This isn't so much even just about the individual, it's, it's really about
all of us as the church remembering Christ, his death on the cross.
That was.
Offered to, to form this, what we have together this morning.
And so let me again encourage you, beware of a few things.
First, the, the lack of conversion.
What we're about to do is, is for believers, and so if you're
not a believer, please let these elements pass right on by The
second is a, a lack of confession.
It's good for us to keep short accounts with God.
And so one of the reasons why we do it this way, and we have the music play
and, and everything, and then we take the elements at the end, is that this gives
you time to get those longer accounts shortened before the Lord, to go before
the Lord, to confess sin before him that perhaps you haven't dealt with this week.
And then finally, beware of a lack of concentration.
This is a memorial, which means that we're supposed to remember, which
means our minds need to be engaged with what we're remembering here.
His death on the cross for us.
The good shepherd laid down his life for the sheep, and we are all his sheep.
So the music's gonna play, the elements are gonna be passed, and
then I'll come back up and we'll take them together without what the
Chief Shepherd did for us as the Good Shepherd, there are no under shepherds.
There's no church, there's no community.
There's no hope that we have in this life without what we're remembering right now.
We sang it earlier, pardon?
For sin and a peace that endure.
Thy known dear presence to cheer into God.
There's no peace.
There's no pardon.
We have no presence with Jesus, with the Spirit.
If this doesn't happen, his body broken, his blood poured out for
us, and so this is why it's so significant that we do this together.
This is why God said do this in remembrance.
In fact he says it, and this is the way we end our community services.
Every time, as often as you drink, eat this bread and drink the cup, you
proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
That's what we're here to do because that is what has purchased us to
be the flock of the chief shepherd.
And so Paul wrote this in First Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 23.
He said, for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the
Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, took bread and when he had
given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me
in the same way.
Also, he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me
for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup.
You proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Let's pray.
Father, we are here, uh, this afternoon, this morning, whatever time of day it is
to do just that, to proclaim corporately together, your death on our behalf.
That you took our place even as we looked at last weekend and, and celebrated
together, that you took our place.
You died in our place on the cross, satisfying the full wrath of the Father,
Jesus, you did that for us so that we might be forgiven and that you rose
from the dead three days later so that we might know that this payment has
been made, that it has been accepted.
And now Lord, you have entrusted us to your under shepherds until you return.
God, I pray that we would be a church that is faithful to your word in every way.
I pray that our pastors would lead.
Well, Lord, I pray that we would expect the right things from our leadership.
I pray that we would respond rightly to our leadership as well, and I thank you
so much that we get to do this together as brothers and sisters in Christ.
We praise you.
We thank you for Christ.
We thank you for this week.
We pray for a great week in front of us, serving you faithfully, and we
pray for a great next week in two too.
Should ter not return first, we pray this all in Jesus' name.
Amen.