Well, Grace Covenant, let's continue to worship our Lord this morning by considering his word. I invite you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter five. 1 Peter chapter five. And this morning I will be reading in your hearing verses one through five. 1 Peter chapter five, verses one through five. And if you're following along on a pew Bible, you could find that on page 1016. So let's give our attention to the reading of God's Word. The Apostle 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, 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 toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Thus far, the reading of God's word, the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our Lord stands forever, and we are grateful for it. Are we not, congregation? Let's ask the Lord now to illumine our hearts and prepare them for the exposition of God's word. Let's pray. Father God, we have sung in so many different ways this morning of the great shepherd, who leads us beside still waters and through green pastures. A shepherd who prepares a table for us in the midst of our enemies. And Father, we need the great shepherd to come to us this morning through your word. Not only the sheep of this congregation, Father, but even the fellow elders as Peter addressed them. For in so many ways, Father, we are hurting. In so many ways, we have tendencies and proclivities to stray. As elders, Father, we have temptations to shepherd for wrong reasons. We have temptations to take shortcuts. We have temptations to not give attention to the flock of God, either to maintain the reputation in the eyes of those of the sheep, or out of fear, Father, out of fear that a conversation, a confrontation might cause them to think less of us. But Father, all of us need grace. All of us need humility. All of us need, Father, the reminder that As many under-shepherds as you put over your local congregations, all of them together with all of your people, look to the one shepherd, the chief shepherd, the overseer of our souls. And so this morning, Father, we pray that you would speak through that chief shepherd, through this under-shepherd, through your word, and that spirit and word would converge this morning and give us a humble disposition to receive the word in good soil and to be grateful for the under-shepherds that you have given to this place. Help your servant to do this with clarity and pastoral compassion, we pray. In Christ's name, amen. When a Christian and his or her family walk into any given congregation, there is a sense in which inhibitions are low. There is a sense in which that man with his family has something of a trust Even if he does not know the people, even if he does not know the shepherds, he, together with his family, knows that this is a Christian assembly, a congregation, where they as a whole name the name of Christ, where they as a whole exalt the name and the glory of Jesus Christ, where they as a whole hold dearly in their hearts the Word of God. And it is into such an environment, into such a congregation, that there is an assumption of trust And I would submit to you this morning that that is a good thing, but on the other hand, I think all of us have experienced where that trust has been violated. I had lunch this week with a dear Christian friend, and we got to talking about these very issues, and he shared with me, in pain, the many instances in which shepherds had abused that trust. Many episodes in his life where either the shepherds were unfaithful doctrinally or unfaithful morally or were hirelings rather than actual under shepherds and as a result cared not for the sheep. And as a result, he had a very jaded view of leadership. And if we're all honest in this room, we could say that to one degree or another, many of us have experienced what we might call pastoral abuse. It manifests itself in many different ways. It could be an abuse of authority. It could be an abuse of the sheep that manifests itself in such ways as sexual abuse. We often, our minds often run to where? Our minds often run to the Roman Catholic Church when we hear of these sexual abuse scandals. But the fact of the matter is a report was just put out two weeks ago in a Houston paper of 700 documented cases of sexual abuse to one degree or another by ministers and ministry workers in the Southern Baptist Convention. Sexual abuse knows no boundaries. It can jump over denominational and traditional boundaries. And why is that? Because sin knows no boundaries. Sin in human hearts, even in the human hearts of supposed under-shepherds manifests themselves in a number of different ways. And these are very sad. I could tell you, I won't, for propriety's sake, share with you some of my own personal experiences, but I can say this. I have been, I have had trust in under-shepherds violated in flagrant ways, in flagrant ways. And what happens when we experience these things? I would submit to you there are typically three reactions that we have. Sometimes a Christian's disillusionment with a leader in the church causes them to abandon the faith. I've seen this. In a church where I served in California, there was an absolute pastoral scandal. It rocked the church, it rocked the community. Headlines that were on national syndicated news stations across the country of what this pastor had done. And as a result, there were a number of people in our congregation that just walked away from Jesus. And while on the one hand we should never, I repeat, we should never discount the pain and suffering that someone experiences as a result of pastoral abuse, especially in those cases where one has been a victim of sexual abuse. On the other hand, we would gently and humbly and lovingly point out that these wicked leaders are not the captain of the ship. We have a captain of the ship at the helm of the ship whose name is Jesus Christ, and he is faithful to the end. And to the degree that we look to these under shepherds to guide our hopes and our aspirations and our level of trust as we walk into a local congregation, to the degree that our hopes are set on them, we have a wrong point of focus. Our focus should be the chief shepherd, the overseer of our souls. And so abandoning the faith is really putting our hope in the wrong place. But a second reaction is this. Some exhibit such a knee-jerk reaction to such pastoral abuse that what they want to do in the context of a local church is they really want to strip any authority that a pastor might have, that a leader might have in the context of the local church, and just make the pastors consultants. such that church members like, if I want your opinion, I'll ask for it. If I am interested or convinced by your particular interpretation of the scripture in the ministry of the word, maybe I'll go with it. But bottom line, just let me live my life and leave me alone. And on the other hand, what do pastors do? There is a knee jerk reaction tendency to be so scared of what people might think by using the legitimate authority that Jesus Christ has given to his under-shepherds that they refuse to talk about it. And this is an extreme that we should avoid. But not all abandon their faith or have this knee-jerk reaction. I think what most people, and this is the third reaction, what most people do when they experience pastoral abuse is that they leave the church, and they come into a new church, and what do they bring with them? They bring baggage. They bring baggage of mistrust. They bring baggage of fear. They bring baggage of even skepticism. And now with that baggage, they are tenderly walking through the process of church life, trying to see if the shepherd is going to be a faithful shepherd. Well, there are two broad principles that this passage teaches us this morning, and I'm only gonna begin to delve into them this week. But here are these two principles, and please take note of them, because these are coming, listen to me, from the word of God. This is the Word of God now speaking to us as a congregation and the Word of God to which we must bow the knee and submit to humbly and forthrightly. Principle number one, shepherds are to shepherd the flock of God by exercising authority and oversight as humble servant leaders. There is a real authority that the Lord has given to His undershepherds, and we should not in any way, shape, or form be scared of that. We should not in any way, shape, or form speak lightly of that. There is an authority that is to be exercised as undershepherds exercise oversight. But secondly, and we see this in verse five in our text this morning, the congregation is to humbly submit to their elders insofar as their elders lead according to the word of God. Now, as much as we want to be sensitive, as I said, to take into consideration the real life experiences of pastoral abuse that some have, on the other hand, we want to be careful to never use those experiences as an excuse to discount or unsay what God has said. Let me put it in a broad principle, okay? The abuse of a good and legitimate thing does not make that thing a bad and illegitimate thing. Government is instituted by God, is it not? Civil government. And yet we know, not only in this country, but we're seeing it in the headlines all over, that men can pervert and corrupt government. People say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely. There's a sense in which I agree with that, but there's a sense in which I think it's missing the point. It's kind of like if you were to say, as Paul says, Money is the root of all evil. Is that what Paul says? No. What does he say? The love of money is the root of all evil. And so when it comes to things like power, power is not a sinful thing. Jesus Christ is reigning in full power with his scepter at the right hand of the majesty on high of God. And he rules perfectly. Why? Because he has no sin in his heart. And so it's not that power corrupts, it's the sin in men and women's heart that causes them to make power an idol, such that they pet it, and they nourish it, and they keep it, and they seek to keep anything away from or at hand's length that would take it away from them, and that's where power corrupts absolutely. And so what I'd like to do first off this morning is I'd like to give you three things to remember as we consider pastoral abuse. And why am I spending time on this? Well, the fact of the matter is in the instructions that Peter gives to the elders, his fellow elders, he's assuming that pastoral abuse is possible. When he says don't lead in a domineering way, he's essentially saying it's possible to lead in a domineering way. When he says that we are not to, as the King James says, serve in ministry for the purpose of filthy lucre, that is to say to do it for dishonest gain, he is saying that there are shepherds, undershepherds, who are going to do that very thing. So pastoral abuse is a real clear and present danger that we need to be aware of, but the other clear and present danger is that we can, like so many do in a knee-jerk reaction, say, if there has been abuse, then it's just a foregone conclusion that in my congregation, those elders are going to abuse their pastoral authority. Let me give you three things to remember. Number one, congregations can abuse pastors just as much as pastors can abuse congregations. Some of you read Jonathan Edwards, that great Puritan divine, and you are something of a hero, or he is something of a hero to you. What many of you may not know is that Jonathan Edwards served in a congregational church, and he was kicked out by his congregation. The elders did not have enough authority to veto that decision, but the congregation came together, and simply because Jonathan Edwards was seeking, as a good under-shepherd of Jesus Christ, to shepherd his people with the word of God, some thought it was overreaching, some thought he was domineering, and they kicked him out. Imagine, Jonathan Edwards being kicked out of this congregation. The fact of the matter is, not only do the leaders in the church have authority, but guess who else has authority? Congregation has authority. And we've been talking about that in our Vesper services. You have on a number of different issues in the life of the congregation, authority as an assembled group with the power of the keys and the name of Jesus Christ to make decisions that not even the elders can overturn. And in the same way that elders can abuse their authority, congregations can also abuse their authority. But the second thing we should remember is this, the abuse of the sheep at the hands of wicked and faithless leaders is nothing new. It's just nothing new. And the Bible has warned us to be aware of it. We read this morning from Ezekiel chapter 34, Pastor Jim did, and there you see that instead of feeding the sheep, the false teachers fleeced the sheep. Instead of protecting the sheep, these false teachers abandoned the sheep, just as we read in John chapter 10 that when the wolf comes along, the hireling says, that's it, I'm getting out of here. Whatever wage I'm getting is not enough to put my life on the line to help this sheep who is in the claws of the wolf, and so they skip town. Jesus rebuked the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew chapter 23 for being what? Blind guides. And the apostle John, in the epistle of 3 John, he rebukes publicly. A man named Diotrephes, he must have been a leader in the church, but Diotrephes did a number of things. He did not acknowledge the authority of the apostles. He was talking wicked nonsense and illegitimately and unilaterally, putting brothers and sisters out of the congregation. You wanna know why? Because they weren't towing the line of this man's agenda. And John publicly rebukes him in his letter, a letter that was to be read in the presence of all the congregation for being an overly pompous shepherd. And finally, as you know, in Acts chapter 20, as Paul got together on the shores of Miletus there in Ephesus, and he addressed the Ephesian elders, never to see them again, he told them this, listen to me very carefully, as soon as I depart, what's gonna happen? Wolves are gonna come in, and guess what? This is so interesting. Not only from outside the church, but what? From within the church. And they will seek to disrupt the peace, unity, and harmony of the congregation. So, dear elders, shepherd the flock of God. Same language. Shepherd the flock of God over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseer. Protect them from the wickedness of these false shepherds. Keep them from their clutches. We should not be surprised to see Even in the headlines that I read this morning, three more cases of big named super rockstar pastors in the evangelical world who have fallen from their positions, been fired by their churches. And you know what is the bottom at most of them in their cases? Pride. Pride. Ugly, disgusting pride, which Peter says has no place, not only on the part of leaders, but on the part of the congregation. We should not be surprised by these things. But then the third thing to remember is this, so important, do not let the appearance of abusive pastors distort and eclipse your appreciation of faithful pastors. For all the examples of abusive elders, there are countless examples of faithful elders which never make the headlines. The mainstream media doesn't want you to hear of these faithful pastors, these pastors who are meeting in small buildings, some large buildings, pastors who are meeting in cafeterias of elementary schools on Sunday mornings where they have a church in the box. They've got to set up all the chairs and then take them back down. faithful pastors that you will never hear about that are lovingly, faithfully, and graciously shepherding the flock of God. For all of my experiences of unfaithful pastors, I have also, by God's grace, experienced exceedingly faithful pastors. Pastors who take the word of God seriously. Pastors who have no desire whatsoever to fleece the sheep. Pastors who have every desire whatsoever to present every one of the members of his congregation complete in Christ through the ministry of the word. These are the pastors that you never hear about. But our practice of church government, what we might call ecclesiology, should function under three realities, or better put, three promises, and they are this. Number one, Jesus promised in Matthew 16 that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. Number two, God promised throughout the scripture that there will always be a remnant. There will always be not only a remnant of faithful Christians, but there will always be a remnant of faithful pastors. And finally, the new covenant promise that we see in Jeremiah 3.15, It is the promise of the new covenant. The Lord Yahweh says through his servant Jeremiah, the day is coming. The day is coming. when I will give to my people faithful shepherds after my own heart who will feed them with knowledge and understanding. And do you know where we see the fulfillment of that in the New Testament? We see the fulfillment in Ephesians chapter four where Jesus Christ is depicted by Paul in this beautiful parade of victory language wherein ascending up to heaven after he has resurrected He leads his captives, he leaves his people in a victory parade as he marches through the gates of the city. And what does he do as he's leading this victory parade? He tosses out gifts to the people, throwing out gifts. And what gifts does he give to his people? Shepherds, evangelists, teachers, and pastors. The gifts to the church by the ascended Lord are pastors. So how are we then, on the one hand, to avoid even the whiff of pastoral abuse in the church, and on the other hand, avoid even the whiff of congregational abuse? How do we do that? I would submit to you that Peter answers that question in this passage by doing this, defining the relationship. Peter defines the relationship on the one hand between elders and the congregation, and on the other hand between the congregation and the elders. And to the degree that we as a congregation engage this text, and we're gonna do it over the next three or four weeks, engage this text and really examine what should an elder be? What are his duties? What is his demeanor? What is he to be to the sheep? And then what are the sheep to be to this under shepherd? To the degree that we understand that as Peter articulates it, and then listen, we'd go a step further, and we seek to hold elders accountable to this description. And on the other hand, seek to keep the congregation accountable to this description. In that way, it is very possible that we can avoid even the whiff of either elder or congregational abuse. So in this passage, Peter gives us four things. He gives us a description of elders, the demeanor of elders and the reward of elders. And what I'd like to do over the next four weeks is address these issues. But this morning, with the time I have remaining, I simply want to address a description of elders, a description of elders. So let's move on then secondly to number two. What is an elder? Throughout the Bible, the people of God have always had faithful elders to shepherd them. In fact, even under the people of Israel, it is said that there were 70 elders that feasted on the top of Mount Sinai with the Lord. And elders have always been a part of the people of God, and we see that when the temple of Solomon was destroyed, and the people of God went into exile, and they no longer had a temple where they could worship, did they cease from worshiping? No, they continued to worship. In fact, it is in the exile and post-exilic time that we begin to see the emergence of what today are called synagogues. And synagogues are where the people of God got together and they prayed and they read Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and they would worship. But in those synagogues, each synagogue had a board of elders. And those elders presided over the congregation and led them in the life of worship. And it's interesting that when you come to the New Testament, on the one hand, in Acts 6, you have a very clear description of the origin of deacons. We see the problem that was brought to the attention in the church, and as a result, the church designated deacons. But we don't see anything like that in the book of Acts with respect to elders. In fact, elders just kind of appear in the New Testament. And I would submit to you is that what the apostles did is they commandeered this idea of elders in the context of the synagogue and just cut and pasted it into the life of the church and used it for the purposes of the church. And so in Acts, for example, Acts chapter 11 verse 30, the church at Antioch was sending a gift to the churches in Jerusalem who were suffering from a famine, and they sent it to the elders of the church. And in Acts chapter 14 verse 23, After having preached the gospel in various cities and making disciples, Paul and Barnabas, we read, appointed elders in every church. So it seems as if the apostles have simply continued the tradition and practices of elders from the synagogue practice of Judaism and now have commandeered it for the life of the church. But I want you to notice under this head secondly, and now I want you to come to the text, This passage, 1 Peter 5, is incredibly important in underlying the function of elders in the church. So we believe that in the context of the church, there are two offices, the office of elder and the office of deacon. But within the office of elder, we see here in 1 Peter 5, that the elder functions in at least three different ways. And I would submit to you that he functions as an elder who rules, a shepherd who leads and feeds, and a bishop or overseer who protects and oversees. And I wanna show that to you from the text here. I want you to notice verse. Peter chapter 5 verse 1, he exhorts the elders. So automatically the ears of the leaders in the church would have perked up and they would have known that Peter was now addressing his exhortation to them. And Peter addresses himself as a fellow elder. But then I want you, so we see the term elder used for Peter, and then in verse 2, what does he say? shepherd the flock of God. Now that is an imperative, which means a command, but that word shepherd in the verbal form here, the imperatival form is also used elsewhere in the New Testament to refer to shepherds. It's actually where we get the word pastor. So he is assuming that these elders in their ruling are also shepherding, feeding and leading. And then he says, very interestingly in verse two, Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight. Now that word oversight is the word from which we get the term overseer. In fact, Paul says in 1 Timothy 3, verse 1, if anyone aspires to the office of episkopos, or overseer, it is a noble thing that he desires. Now why am I bringing all of this out here? Because there are some traditions that would see a distinction between an elder, a shepherd, and an overseer. Many of them make two offices out of this office of elder. They say, well, there are elders who rule, okay? There are elders who rule, they might call them a ruling elder. And then there's elders who teach, we might call them a teaching elder. But I want you to notice that here in 1 Peter 5, he makes no distinction. He makes no distinction, but he assumes that all of the elders are simultaneously what? Shepherds and overseers. What does that mean? It means that elders have three functions. They are first to rule. Now listen. An elder can't rule unless he has people that are following him. An elder can't lead unless he has people who are submitting to him. So baked into this idea of an elder ruling is the idea of some sense of authority. Now, this authority is simply an authority for an elder to wield the word of God into the life of the congregation and hold them accountable to it. It does not go beyond the bounds of that authority. The elder has no authority to simply tow his own agenda. The elder has no authority to insert his own private opinions that are contrary to the Word of God. The elder rules with the shepherding crook of the Word of God in the context of the local church. But now also, I want you to notice under this head, verse 4. He says, and when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Now, what that means is this. The chief shepherd is Jesus Christ, which means that elders who serve in the congregation are what they are under shepherds. And you will often you even heard this in the liturgy this morning. Pastors referring to us as under shepherds. And that is very important because we do not rule as chief shepherds. We do not rule as chief overseers. We rule as servants of the chief shepherd. And so our agenda, our goal, our desire, our vision is in line with the chief shepherd. So we are under shepherds of Jesus Christ. But now thirdly, I want you to notice what I'm calling the voluntary and mutual commitment between shepherds and sheep. Shepherd without a sheep is no shepherd at all. One of the things that my first pastor would always tell me is, if you think you're a leader, look behind you and see if anybody's following you, okay? Because if nobody's following you, you're not a leader. You may think you're a leader, you may slap a title on you, but unless people are following you, you are not a leader. And I want you to notice an assumption of Peter in this passage. Peter assumed that all professing Christians that he addressed were unmistakably identified with specific local congregations. Do you see that? Peter assumed that all the Christians that he addresses in this letter were unmistakably identified with specific local congregations. What's another way of putting that? Peter assumed that everybody he was addressing were church members. Now, how can I say that? Look at verse 1, chapter 5, verse 1. He says, as a fellow elder, I exhort the elders among you. Now, everyone would have known in hearing this letter that there were specific men gifted by Christ and confirmed by that congregation who would identify with the designation elder. There is no such thing as an elder at large. In other words, the elders who are hearing this had a particular congregation over which they were elders. There is no such thing as an elder at large. There is no such thing as an apostle at large. There is no such thing as a bishop at large. Any authority, according to the New Testament, that an elder has is precisely and specifically within the realm of his particular congregation. That is incredibly important to remember. But I want you to notice secondly in verse two this, he says, shepherd the flock of God that is among you. That is to say, each set of elders had a specific group of people put under their care by Christ and no sheep would have, listen, voluntarily agreed to this arrangement of leadership within their own congregation. You say, Josh, when does that happen? When you become a member of a local church. you agree to submit to these three elders in this congregation when you become a member of a local church. And what does that mean? Well, that means that unless and until a person has done that, I'm just gonna be very blunt here, we as pastors of this congregation don't feel a shepherding responsibility to non-members. Now, you may think that that is a little harsh. You may even think that that's a little mean. But let me ask you a question. Parents, do you feel responsibility for the child of the parents that live next door to you? Of course you don't. Now, yeah, I mean, if you're out there and you see him fall in a pit, you might go help him. That's good. And as shepherds, we will do the same thing if somebody's here and they're a non-member and they come and they say, hey, can I have a conversation? We're not going to say, well, fill out the application and then we'll come. We're not going to do that. But at the same time, one of the things that we do as shepherds is we have an ongoing ministry of accountability. We have an ongoing ministry of shepherding. Your pastors have a shepherding list that is broken into three parts. Pastor Jim, Pastor Ken, Pastor Josh. And the people under those particular pastors are the ones that we seek prayer requests of, we check in to see how you are doing, we maintain a relationship with them. That's called congregational care. And we don't put somebody on that list unless they are a member. And so what I'm trying to show here is that Peter just assumes, he just assumes that the people to whom he's addressing have identified elders in their congregation that they have voluntarily through membership, whatever it looked like in the first century, have made a commitment to submit to. Now, if upon hearing these words, a Christian cannot identify who her elders are, then these words are meaningless. How can you, verse five, submit to your elders if you don't know who your elders are? You must make a covenant relationship with a local church in submitting to the elders and, I would also say, submitting to that congregation and covenanting to minister to that congregation. Now, in 5.1, Peter's going to display the humble and gracious demeanor of a pastor as he beseeches fellow pastors to shepherd the flock of God. So finally this morning, I'm gonna ask you to consider Peter's model of grace-driven, humble leadership. I just want you to note four things here, four things as we close out this morning. I want you to notice that in verse one, this isn't as clear in the English. In the ESV, he says, so I exhort the elders among you. It's really the word beseech It's really this idea of entreat, he's entreating himself to the fellow elders to shepherd the flock of God. Now, I find that incredibly interesting, why? Because Peter, as an apostle, had all the authority that he needed to say, elders, you listen to me and you do this. He could have said that, but he doesn't do that. Why does he not do that? Peter does not command them, he entreats them. Why? What he's trying to do is to model to the fellow elders how they are to shepherd their flock. There is a sense in which if there is a brother or sister in the congregation that is, for example, committing adultery, we can and should and ought to come to them with the word of God, yes, lovingly and yes, graciously, but confront them and say, brother or sister, you should not be doing this. But what Peter seeks to do and what every elder should seek to do is to preserve the dignity and pride of every person under their care without eroding the legitimacy of authority. In other words, I entreat to you, brother, if I can approach this issue, if I can broach this issue with you in an indirect way so that I can lay out the sticks and you could pick them up for yourself and you walk away thinking it was your idea, that's what I wanna do. I saw a marquee one time that says, tact is letting a person have your way. And that's what tact is. Tact is letting a person have your way. And you know what? As shepherds, just as Peter is exhibiting here, we, Pastor Jim, Pastor Ken, and I, should seek to entreat you. Dear brother, dear sister, by the mercies of our Lord Jesus Christ, I beseech you to do this. But that's not always possible in an exclusive way. Sometimes you lay things out for people indirectly, and either because they're trying to guard their own sin or because they just don't get it, sometimes that happens, you've gotta turn up the level of what? Directness. But we should start, we should start not with directness, but with indirectness that seeks to entreat them. There's a famous Christian song, I don't know who wrote it, but it says, We will preserve to guard each man's dignity and save each man's pride, and they will know we are Christians by our what? By our love. This is what Peter's getting at. Secondly, I want you to notice with Peter in verse one, he associates himself as a fellow elder. Now again, he could have said, he could have pulled his apostolic trump card and said, I am an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew 16, he says, I am the rock. And we won't get into the Roman Catholic Protestant debate on that, but whatever that means, I'm the rock, I'm the Petros. And so elders, listen to what I say. He doesn't do that. He says, as a fellow elder, why? Why? They had a pastoral, well, let me put it this way. Peter was an elder over all the church. There was a sense that as an apostle, Peter was an elder at large. And any church that he came to as an apostle, he was an elder to them. He had a pastoral responsibility to them. But Peter, as he comes to these pastors, he beseeches them, he entreats them as a what? As a fellow elder, why? He wants to convey to them, brethren, fellow pastors, I am no theorist. I am a practitioner of the trade. He, like every other under-shepherd, feels the haunting burden of Hebrews 13, 17. Obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Peter knew this, I know this, Pastor Jim and Pastor Ken know this. There is coming a day that even as a Protestant I recognize I'm gonna get into heaven by grace through faith and by believing in Jesus Christ. But somewhere, somehow in that judgment, Jesus is going to look at me, he's gonna look at Pastor Ken, he's gonna look at Pastor Jim, and he is going to confront us for how we shepherded you. That is a haunting thing. It's sobering enough to know that we will give an account of ourselves, but how much more to give an account of the flock over which we have been made shepherds? You know, brethren, it is a frightening thing to pour out a waterfall of words in the ministry of the Word, week after week, and year after year, and decade after decade, knowing that those words are going to come back to me in the day of judgment. They will come back to me. They will come back to Pastor Ken. They will come back to Pastor Jim. And maybe some of you wonder sometimes, why doesn't Pastor Josh just tell more funny stories? Why doesn't he just have a little more humor? Why doesn't he just have a fireside chat with us? There's a place for humor in the pulpit. There's a place for it. And I believe Jesus had some sense of humor in his Sermon on the Mount, but at the same time, beloved, what we are doing here is heavy. There is a deep and profound gravitas to calling men and women to eternal life, to laying before non-believers the terror and the pains of eternal hell. And if we are going to stand up here as men of God who one day are going to give an account to Jesus Christ, we want to do it with solemnity and gravitas, knowing that souls hang in the balance. And not just souls that haven't believed in Jesus Christ yet, but your souls. Through many tribulations must we enter the kingdom of God. This thing called perseverance is something, the perseverance of the believer that the ministry of the word is supposed to minister to. The ministry of the word speaks to you in your persevering, exhorts you in your persevering, seeks to comfort you in your persevering. And we don't do that all the time through funny stories. We do it through the exposition of the word and Peter comes to these fellow elders and he says, brethren, I'm a fellow, I'm not a circuit speaker that speaks at the T4G and all the conferences that doesn't myself have a flock over which I care. I am a seasoned practitioner who is in the foxhole with you. With the bullets whizzing by and the mortars dropping and the shrapnel showering upon us, brethren, here are my scars. Here are my scars that I have received as a result of shepherding the flock of God. What scars? Sheep, they're not harmful. You'd be surprised. You'd be surprised when you go to lovingly, pastorally, and with a pure motive, as much as I can as a sinful human being, come to a sheep in our congregation, seeking to help them, and all of a sudden, they put down their heads and turn into a goat and butt me. It happens. It happens. And there are scars for that. We're human, too. We have feelings, too. We have emotions, too. But Peter comes as a fellow elder. I want you to notice, thirdly, he comes, in verse one, as a witness of the sufferings of Christ. I thought a lot about this because it's very easy to gloss over this and just think, oh, he was a witness of the crucifixion. But what could he have said that might have maybe even given more authority? Peter was on the Mount of Transfiguration. He saw Jesus Christ transfigured. Peter was a witness of Jesus's resurrection. He could have said, I'm a witness of the transfiguration. He could have said, I'm a witness of the resurrection. But what does he say? He says, I'm a witness to the sufferings of Christ. What kind of witness was he, brethren? As Jesus Christ was standing before Pilate and was beginning his process of suffering on the cross, what kind of witness was Peter? He was a miserable witness. He was a miserable witness who three times, not once, not twice, but three times denied the Lord who bought him. And what we see here is, yes, he's an apostle, yes, he's a man of, in some sense, great superiority, but he's a man that is broken, and he comes as a broken man to fellow broken elders, and he says, brethren, I denied my Lord, but yet here I am shepherding the flock of God. Not only did I deny him, but the Lord restored me, John chapter 21. And in the same way, fellow elders, as you bring your thoughts about shepherding into the liturgy on Sunday morning, as you bring your thoughts about shepherding into the room to counsel, as you confront a brother or sister, as you encourage a brother or sister, Know, know that there is exceeding grace to cover all your sins and your foibles. Know that there is exceeding grace, not only for your people, but for you when you don't shepherd well. And I have a flash bulletin for you all. We don't always shepherd well. We drop the ball sometimes. You know, there are a number of things in the ministry of the church that the Lord has given us a general rubric for, but has not given us specific details on. Church discipline is one of them. When do you pull the trigger? When do you say enough's enough? These are difficult decisions and as we seek to seek out the wisdom of the Lord in these areas, we hope and pray that you would have patience with us as we likewise seek to have patience with you. Finally, Peter says that he is a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Peter is a partaker of the glory that is going to be revealed when Jesus Christ breaks through the clouds. He's talking here about the second coming of Jesus Christ and all the glory that will come with it. But Peter, like you and like me, attested the fact that through the new birth, we have already tasted of some of that glory. We have already tasted of some of the glory of the new heavens and the new earth through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit that dwells within us, we have a taste of the divine. We have a taste of the glories that are to come. We have tasted of the ages to come. And Peter says, as a fellow elder and a partaker in this tasting of the age that is to come, shepherd the flock of God that God has put over you. So Peter's example puts on display what kind of elders the church should recognize and to which the congregation should submit. Why? Because the single passion of every God-fearing elder is that people would not only come to Christ, but remain in Him all their days. And sometimes, that requires a little admonition. Other times, a little encouragement. Sometimes there are hard conversations that we must have, It is all toward the end that we come to and remain in Jesus Christ. And this, dear congregation, this is what Peter was getting at in 1 Peter 2, 25. He says, you were straying like sheep, but now have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your soul. The desire of the elders in this place is that each and every one of us bows the knee to Jesus Christ, our chief shepherd and overseer of our souls. And that is why when we interview you for membership to become a member of this church, the very first question that we ask is this, do you know Jesus? That's the first thing we want to know. Because we assume that if you're coming to be a member of this church, what Peter says in 2.25 is true of you, you were straying like a sheep, but by God's sovereign grace, you returned to the shepherd and overseer of your soul. Tell me about that. I want to know about your testimony. I want to know about how God has not only saved you, but he's been continuing to work in your life since that conversion. Tell me about how you were strained like a sheep, but through the gracious condescension of God in Christ, who left the 99 and came after you, you returned to the shepherd of your soul. Congregation, have you done that this morning? With all this talk of under shepherds, the bottom line is these under shepherds want to point you to the chief shepherd. Have you come to Jesus Christ this morning? Jesus Christ, who unlike the various under shepherds in the churches today, will never fail you. Jesus Christ who shed his own blood for you. Jesus Christ who made a way to God that was previously impossible. Jesus Christ who gave you his righteousness and took your punishment. It is that Jesus Christ who is put out before you this morning in the ministry of the word, and I bid every single one of us, believer and unbeliever alike, come to this over shepherd, come to this overseer, come to this chief shepherd, and delight in his faithfulness through and through, delight in the fact that he will keep you in his hand and never let you go. Come to Jesus this morning, let's pray. Dear Father in heaven, we thank you for the chief shepherd and overseer of our souls.