Good morning, if you're in the back, you have not watched the sweetest little thing of a little Jew coming up to get closer to his daddy several times, Juliet keeps grabbing him, but one of these times she's probably just going to let him go, so you'll get to see him in the back. Good to be with you in the room and online, thank you for joining us, thank you for worshiping with us this morning. If you're new here, we do hope that you feel like you can get connected easily, that's one of our great desires that people get connected here. As we prepare to hear God's word and study it a little bit, I want to acknowledge that it's Memorial Day weekend, and so let's take just a moment of silence as the country honors the memories of people who lost their lives in battle, serving our country, we'll just take a moment of silence in honor of them. But also, just so you know what Pam did today in getting up and sharing her story takes unbelievable courage, and so Pam, thank you, huge, just amazing. And while I'm at it, if you ever have the chance to sit in front of Jody Sonny, you get the harmony in stereo, it's really quite remarkable. All right, I suppose I should preach a sermon here at some point. We're going to look at 1 Peter 5 versus 1 through 5 this morning while you're turning there, I'll tell you that somebody that we prayed for this morning, Bill Lee is still in the hospital, I was able to spend some time with him and Sue, his wife in the ICU on Friday, and it's still unclear as to whether or not Bill will recover. And so you can be praying for Bill, and you can also be praying for Sue as she thinks about potentially losing her husband here many, many years. And when I was there, Bill was sort of in and out, he was sleeping, and then he'd kind of wake up a little bit, and he was sleeping so soon, I got a chance to talk, and I was asking her how she's doing. And she's got such faith, and one of the things that she said, which I really loved, was she said, God is caring for me, God is caring for me, and she talked about how some of our deacons have been giving her rides, elders have been checking in on her and talking with her, but then she said, and even in the little things, and I said, like, what? And she said, well, a couple days ago, I had a key that I wanted to put on a key ring, and I couldn't do it. I didn't have the strength in my fingers to pull those metal things apart. And you do kind of need the jaws of life for those sometimes, you know what I'm saying? What's with that? But anyway, so she said, I didn't have the finger strength to open up that key ring, and she said, I got frustrated, and I just walked outside out my front door. And right at that moment, her neighbor was walking by, and so she said, hi to her neighbor, and he said, hi, and she said, I think you're an answer to prayer. And he said, okay, what can I do for you? And she said, I'm having a hard time getting this key on the key ring, and sure enough, he was able to pop it right on for her, and she said, see, God is caring for me. You know what else is sweet about that? She nailed it. Her neighbor put the key back on the key ring, but her description of that interchange was that God is caring for me, and she understands that the way God cares for his people is through his people. And that's really a big part of what we're talking about this morning, as we continue talking about shepherding. Last week, we talked about how God is our shepherd, the Lord is our shepherd. And this week, we're going to continue that idea, and look at how God shepherds his people through people, through shepherds raised up and ordained to lead and care for his people. So let's take a look at 1 Peter, chapter 5, verses 1 through 5. Here now, God's holy, true, and life-giving word. Peter says, 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. Shepherds 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 toward one another. For God opposes the proud but gives grace. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray, Father, we thank you that you do care for us, even in the little things. And we pray now that as we think about things articulated in this passage and in other places in your word, would you speak to us and teach us and help us understand more of the way that you shepherd your people, the way that you provide this comprehensive care for the people you have loved and redeemed in Christ. We pray that you will use this as a time to help us grow and our ability to continue our mission of making disciples by connecting and growing and serving and even planting churches. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Yes, if you're looking for a word of the day, we'll go with shepherd or any form of the word shepherd. And if you get a penny for every time I say the word, I think you're going to get rich today. Okay, so last week the focus was on God and how He reveals Himself as a shepherd is one of the metaphors that He uses, very prevalent throughout the scriptures. To teach us that as a good shepherd cares for His sheep, God cares for His people. And so now we're still going on that same wavelength but thinking about practically how does God shepherd His people. And what I would submit to you is that the elders of a local church are the primary means through which Jesus, the good shepherd, shepherds His sheep or cares for His people. The elders of a local church are the primary means through which God shepherds His people or cares for His people. And so we're going to talk about that and if you've ever wondered what do elders do? Well, good news, we're going to talk about that this morning. So if you're making an outline, I want to talk about four things that Tim Whitmer who wrote the book, the shepherd leader which the elders went through to understand better, the role of the elder. Four things that Tim Whitmer says, the Bible teaches, elders are supposed to be doing, okay? And those four things are knowing, feeding, leading and protecting, knowing, feeding, leading and protecting. And obviously these are, follow that with the people of the church, knowing the people of the church, feeding the people, leading the people, protecting the people. So we're going to walk through those in part from this passage that I read but also from some other places where we see the shepherd in action, the good shepherd. So let's start with number one, here's number one. Because the good shepherd, Jesus knows his sheep, therefore elders labor to know the people they've been called to shepherd. So elders are supposed to know you and be known by you. Take a look at verse two, notice what Peter says here to the elders, he says, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, shepherd the flock of God that is among you. And right there Peter shows us that an elder, someone who's raised up to lead in God's church, is not an elder of everyone everywhere. But rather they are called to shepherd, a particular group of people. In this case Peter says that this way, shepherd the flock that is among you. And a big part of shepherding a flock that is among you, a big part of an elder caring for the people of the church in which he's an elder, is knowing who those people are. And being known by those people, now where do we see this though? If you think about it, Peter would obviously, if he's thinking about shepherding at all, he is first and foremost, he's looking to Jesus, the good shepherd. And if we look at Jesus, we see that knowing the sheep was a very important thing for him. If you looked up John 10, 14, you would see Jesus say this, I am the good shepherd, I know my own and my own know me. So the shepherd, the chief shepherd, as Peter refers to him in this passage, puts a priority on knowing who he is shepherding, knowing us. That means Jesus knows you, everything about you, he knows you, wants you to know him. Tim Whitmer says the most basic responsibility of the shepherd is to know and identify his sheep. And so Jesus leads the way by showing what any church leader would do, and that is by knowing the people. Now, obviously an elder can never know us as well as Jesus does, and Jesus knows everything about us, and he loves us, and he wants us cared for. Think about how much he knows us. There was a woman named Marcia Cates, who was a psychology professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and she did a test to see how well mothers knew their newborn babies. And so according to the Associated Press, 46 mothers were chosen for this test, and the test was done not long after they had given birth, within 5 to 79 hours after they gave birth and had a chance to breastfeed their infants. And so, each mother was blindfolded, and then asked to identify which of three sleeping babies was her own, and 70% of the mothers correctly chose their baby, not amazing. Most of the mothers said they knew their child by the texture or temperature of the infant's hand, and the women in this study, they didn't have any time to prep for that, so that's just from holding that child, and they grew to know that child so much, just in a matter of a couple days that they could pick that child out of a lineup as it were. Now, if a mother knows their infant child that well, just imagine how God knows you, just imagine how Jesus, the good shepherd, who made you, knows you, and recognizes you, and therefore wants you to feel that knowledge through leaders in the church. Again, elders will never know, they won't be able to recognize you by your hand, okay? But they're to know you and be known by you. It's a big part of what shepherding is, and so the elders of this church are working to be known and to know you. That's why we have elders up here praying now saying, I'm one of your elders, so that you get to know them, and they, as they labor, to know who you are. There's kind of two ways, maybe a macro version and a micro version of how elders are to know the people of the congregation, and the macro version, the big picture, after it membership roles, knowing about the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the congregation. Hey, that's Bell Swat. That's kind of the big picture, and then in the micro version, it's knowing individuals, building relationships. So the elders have been studying the importance of knowing the people and being known by the people in this church. Elders are called to know the people they're shepherding. Number two, number two, as the good shepherd Jesus feeds his sheep, therefore elders labor to feed the people they've been called to shepherd. Look at verse two again, Peter says, shepherd the flock of God that is among you exercising oversight. Now oversight is a big word, so there's a lot in oversight, but one of the things in oversight is making sure that the spiritual condition of the people in the church is good, that it's healthy, knowing that they are being fed spiritually, not physically, okay, if you call your elder and you're like, yeah, how about KFC tonight? What time can you bring it by? You know, that's not necessarily what they're trying to do, but they do need to ensure that you are fed spiritually, that you're feasting on the word. And actually, again, if we're, where would we get this idea? Well, we look to the chief shepherd, we look to the ultimate shepherd, Jesus himself. And if you're familiar with Peter's restoration, remember how Peter denied Jesus three times? Well, after the resurrection, Jesus restored him by having him say that he loves him three times, okay, and it's a beautiful picture, but in that moment, Jesus makes very clear just how important it is to him that his people, his sheep, are fed. So if you look this up later in John 21, 15 through 17, Jesus says to Peter, Peter, do you love me? And Peter says, yes, of course I love you and Jesus says, feed my lambs. And then he says, Peter, do you love me and Peter says, yes, I love you and he says, tend my sheep. And then the third time, Jesus says, Peter, do you love me and Peter says, Lord, you know that, you know everything, you know that I love you and Jesus responds saying, feed my sheep. And we know that he's talking about spiritually because Jesus makes it very clear when he was tempted by the devil in Matthew chapter 4 verse 4, he clearly says that man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And so right there, we know how Jesus sees our true feeding needs. We need the Word of God. We need to feast on the Word of God. We need a steady diet of the Word of God. And therefore Tim Whitmer in his book says, a fundamental responsibility of any and every shepherd is to ensure that the sheep are well nourished. And so that's a big responsibility then of the elders of this church or any church, to make sure there's a steady diet of God's Word for you and I to feast on so that we can be nourished spiritually so that we can grow spiritually. I love what Charles Spurgeon says, a Bible which is falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn't. And so the elders labor to ensure that you and I are getting a healthy diet of God's Word in two ways. In the macro, the big picture way by overseeing the preaching, the elders ensure that the pastor is preaching God's Word, preaching the gospel. And then also big picture things like Christian education, Sunday school, stuff like that. And there's also the micro level of feeding and that's through discipleship or mentoring or even through our community groups which is a major place in which people here find gather around God's Word and feast on God's Word. But not only are elders called to know the people but they're called to feed the people, make sure that the congregation is being fed a healthy diet of God's Word. Number three, as the good shepherd Jesus leads his sheep, therefore elders labor to lead the people they've been called to shepherd, they're called to lead. Look at verse two again, 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. That is an incredible call to leadership, to be an example, to get out front, do things first and then call others to follow. And this is a big in the shepherd's sheep metaphor because shepherds lead their sheep, follow the shepherd, think of even Psalm 23, how the Psalmist says he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul, he leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Think of Jesus call on all of our lives, two words follow me. So if the chief shepherd leads his people by them following him then the undershepherds, the elders are called to lead, get out front and lead and do things first and then call others to follow along as well. Shepherds don't drive the sheep from behind, they get out front and they walk and the sheep follow. In fact, there's a story about a group of tourists who went to Israel and they had been informed by their Israeli tour guide after observing a flock of sheep with their shepherd that the shepherd's always lead their flocks from the front and he told them that they never drive the sheep from behind. And so a short time later they drive past the flock on the side of the road and there's a man walking behind them and so the tour is quickly point that out to their tour guide, they say look he's driving them from behind and so the tour guide actually stops the bus and gets out and walks over and talks to the man for just about a minute and then he comes back and he gets on the bus and he says to everybody who's patiently waiting to see what is going on and he said, that man is not the shepherd, that's the butcher, I didn't go over at the first service either okay but the point is that leadership is about being out front and doing, it's not about being in back and driving or demanding or being domineering, it's in the text Peter says it, not domineering and that's fitting because you don't have a domineering shepherd in Christ to you, you have one that calls to you, you have one that goes first and so that elders need to understand that their role as undershepherds is to lead by going first and leading the congregation in a couple different ways. So for example the macro version of leading, it's the elder's responsibility to cast vision, make sure there's a clear vision and mission and values for the church to make decisions, big decisions on ministry things and what the church, what direction the church will go and that's part of leading but also on the micro level to live as examples, to live as people faithfully following Jesus so that any of us could look at their life and learn how to follow Jesus. So a big part of being an elder is leading because we have a shepherd who leads us from the front, does not drive us from behind so knowing and feeding and leading and then forth. All right, forth, as the good shepherd Jesus protects his sheep, therefore elders labor to protect the people they've been called to shepherd and they protect. Look at the verse two, one more time, verse two and three and I just want you to notice the not, the NOTs, not under compulsion, not for shameful gain, not domineering. And what Peter is doing there is showing that leadership is not about you, it's not about the leader, it's about the people, it's not about the elder, it's about the people, it's not about the under shepherd, it's about the sheep and therefore elders want to be thinking about what's good for the flock, what's good for the sheep and they want to be protective of those sheep, of those people because we live in a world with some significant threats. And I'm not primarily talking about physical threats, but spiritual ones. A huge role of elders is protecting the doctrine of the church and making sure the Bible is being rightly taught and interpreted. In John 10, the shepherd Jesus himself says, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. And so in that moment, Jesus is saying that as a shepherd would lay, a good shepherd would lay down his life to protect the sheep. Jesus as the true good shepherd laid down his life for us, but it also shows the importance of protection being protected from false teaching, false doctrines of which there are so many out there. It's why I never tell you to Google a theological concept. Ever. Don't do that. Think about this. Paul in Acts 20, 28, 29 is talking to some elders. And here's what he says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, another word for elder. To care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And there again is that metaphor. Sheep are always in danger of wolves. So the shepherd needs to protect the sheep from the wolves. And Paul's not talking about actual wolves. He's talking about false teachers. Those are the wolves. And there are people who are false teachers. They teach things that are not true. They teach things that are not in line with the scriptures. And so a big part of what it means to be an elder is to protect the people by making sure the doctrine of the church is sound, making sure it's in line with the scriptures. On a macro setting, this is about public warnings, about false doctrine and cultural wolves. On a microversion or understanding of this, it's about private warnings to people who are getting into some bad theology and even church discipline. You know, church discipline is primarily about restoring someone, not kicking them out. And so that's an elder's job to protect somebody who's starting to stray away from God, by straying away from his truth. You know, in this book by Whitmer, he talks about there's some exchange between some people and an actual shepherd and they were talking about the most effective tool for keeping the sheep safe. And some people, one of the persons said, is it the staff to pull back a sheep that's about to walk off a cliff? Another person asked, is it the rod of the shepherd to beat back the wild animals? And someone asked, is it the dog that rounds up the sheep? And the actual shepherd said, no, the most important tool the shepherd uses to keep the sheep safe is a fence because it keeps them where they are safe instead of wandering off where they are in danger. And if you've ever wondered why we as a church are a confessional church, okay, we subscribe to a confession. The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, why do we do that? It's the fence. Anybody can say I believe the Bible, but we say that we believe the Bible and we believe the Bible teaches what's articulated in the Westminster standards. If you're new or new to reformed or Presbyterian church, just, this you can Google because you'll find it, Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, okay, but nothing else, no other Googling. Because when you have what we believe is a faithful articulation of the system of doctrine found in the scriptures, then you know where the fence is and you don't get too close to it, you stay where we are safe, where we can hear the voice of the shepherd at all times. So the elders are called to protect the sheep and wouldn't, doesn't that make sense to us, if you think about the number one thing Christ does for us as a good shepherd, as our Savior is what, lay down his life for us, why to protect us from the greatest threat to us and our happiness and our eternity which is our own sin and the judgment that we all deserve, every single one of us deserve because of our straying away because of our disobedience, because of our rejection of God and not trusting him. All of our sins means that we deserve, we rightfully deserve to be punished for those sins but to protect us from what we actually deserve Christ, the good shepherd laid his life down for the sheep and that's the only way we can be reconciled to God through our faith in him because he paid for our sins so that we could be right with God by grace, through faith, now and forever. So why should the elders protect the people because we have a shepherd who did the ultimate protecting of his people at the cross? And if you notice then, look at verse 4 it says, and when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive an unfading crown of glory that's a sweet word to those called to the office of elder and then he says, likewise you who are younger be subject to the elders, clothe yourselves all of you with humility toward one another. For God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble and it's reminiscent of what we see in Hebrews 13, 17 where the author says, 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. Your shepherd, your chief shepherd, Jesus, the good shepherd loves you so much, he has raised up people who he has charged to oversee you, to know you, to feed you, to lead you, to protect you, and they're actually going to make an account before Christ for how they did that one day in the future. Isn't that amazing to see how God cares for his people, provides this comprehensive care, he shepherds his people through people, particularly the elders of a church. So here's what I want to, here's the big application, okay. Now that you know this, my charge to you to me would be that we spend more time praying for the elders of this church, praying that the elders will be able to know the people and be known praying that the elders will do an excellent job of making sure everyone in the church is nourished by the word, praying that the elders will lead well, lovingly, in godly ways from the front, and praying that the elders of this church will be able to protect the members and attend to this church through sound, doctrine, and biblical teaching. Because you know what happens is then you have a happy flock and that's what Christ wants for us. Let's pray. Father, thank you for showing us in your word what you call people who you've raised up to lead us are to do. And we do pray, Lord, for the elders of this church and any church and all churches. Would you raise up an army of elders who can faithfully follow you and do an excellent job of knowing, feeding, leading, and protecting the people you put in their charge? Would you strengthen the elders of this church, ready them for any challenges that come, fill them with your spirit that they might get out front and lead well, and would this church flourish under their faithful shepherding, as they keep their eyes on the chief shepherd, the one who laid his life down for the sheep. We pray in his name. Amen.