We continue to worship our God this morning by considering His Word. I invite you to take your Word, your copy of God's Word, and turn to 1 Peter 5. This morning we will again take up verses 1-4. If you're following along in a pew Bible, you can find that on page 1016. Let's give our attention to the reading of God's Word. 1 Peter 5. verses one through four. 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. 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. Let's bow our heads this morning and ask for the illuminating ministry of the spirit to help us receive this word in good soil. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you that you have given us a chief shepherd. We thank you that that chief shepherd, above and beyond all that he has done in giving his life, and rising over death, hell, and the grave, and ascending to your right hand, has also been pleased to give us shepherds to your church, Father, all over the world, servants who make it their aim, their life's goal, to point people, to lead people, to prod people, to encourage people to look at the Savior crucified for them. As Paul said, we preach Christ and Him crucified. And Father, we pray that as we consider the role of such shepherds, Lord, we would not only appreciate them, not only respect them, Father, but understand what they are there to do. And that, Father, their agenda, as it were, shaped, as it were, by the word of God, would also become our agenda, that we would be shepherded by the chief shepherd through under shepherds for the glory of the triune God. Would you give help, Father, to your servant this morning as he unpacks this text? May all things point to the glory, majesty, and honor of your Son and our Lord Jesus Christ. For it is in his name we pray, amen. Well, two weeks ago, we opened up 1 Peter 5, verses 1 through 4, and what we saw was just a basic description of elders. And what we want to do this morning is we want to wade a little further into this text and apprehend the duties of elders in the Church of Christ. You know, I would submit to you that one of the most important decisions that you will make, and for many of you in this place have already made, is what church you are going to worship in. And mixed up in that decision is also the decision what pastor you are going to put yourself under. It is an incredibly important decision. I mean, if you think of it, the shepherds under whom you place yourself are going to be used by the Lord to radically shape and form the warp and wolf of your understanding of Scripture. They are going to give you and put before you imitations of what it means to follow Christ. They are going to set for you through the Word of God your understanding of holiness. how you connect law and gospel, how you think about your motivations for serving Jesus Christ, whether it is fear-centered or gratitude-centered. They are going to shape how you understand the Bible. They're gonna model how to follow Christ. It's those shepherds who will lift your countenance with precious promises in times of doubt, in times of fear, and it's those shepherds who are gonna come after you if you stray. They will marry you, they will bury you, they will weep with you, and they will rejoice with you. A faithful under-shepherd is going to be there for the long haul. And I ask you just for a moment to turn to 1 Timothy 4, verses 13-16, because it's in this passage that Paul displays the seriousness of a minister's work when he tells young Timothy, who himself was a pastor, what he is to be and do for his people. So listen to these words in 1 Timothy 4, verses 13 through 16. Paul says to his young protege Timothy, until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortations, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress. Now I want you to look at verse 16. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching, persist in this for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. Wow. You know, no matter what shepherd you find yourself under, whether it is a good shepherd, whether it is a bad shepherd, whether it is an apathetic shepherd, all of those shepherds are inevitably going to do one thing. You know what they're going to do? They're going to lead you. The question is, to where are they leading you? The question is, to where are they leading you? Paul tells Timothy that his attention to both his own personal life of piety and his teaching will save both himself and his hearers. That is a very solemn and serious thing. The members in this place have solemnly made the decision that they are going to put themselves under these elders. They have done their research. They have done their homework. And they have decided that yes, these elders, in our estimation, have such a high esteem of the Word of God, such a high esteem of Jesus Christ and His Majesty, such a high esteem of the church. And yes, they're sinners, absolutely. We see that. But we have enough respect and trust for them that we are willing to put ourselves under their under-shepherding care. Now there are some of you this morning who are visitors, some of you who have even turned in your applications as this is the deadline for prospective members to get it in. And I would just like to give you a few thoughts this morning. You know, when you're looking for a church home, one of the things that you're going to do if the church is doing its job is you're going to have an interview with the elders where they're going to sit down, they're going to ask you questions. And I think what a good prospective member is going to do is they're going to have as many questions for the elders as the elders have for them. Right? And let me just give you an analogy, okay? Let me just give you an analogy. When you and your spouse were dating and you were thinking about the prospect of marriage, what is the most important thing that you felt like you had to do? you felt like you had to ask them questions. I mean, all kinds of questions, right? Like, are you a Christian? That's probably a pretty important one, right? What is your theology? Because I mean, you know, theology is a pretty big deal and I wanna make sure that your theology is in line with my theology. Otherwise, marriage and even having kids is gonna be a little difficult. What is your view of the roles of husbands and wives? That's a pretty important deal, right? I mean, if the wife thinks that, you know, submission is an outdated and antiquated idea, there's going to be problems in the marriage. Are you in debt? Pretty important question. What are you going to hitch yourself to? Might have questions about their habits. I mean, you know, you should ask questions about their habits, right? Like, do you leave the toilet seat up? Do you drink milk out of the car? Might have questions about the future. Do you desire children? That's a really important question, right? Not everybody wants kids these days. If you got a guy that wants kids and a woman that doesn't want kids, as much as they may love each other, that relationship is not gonna be very compatible. And if you do desire children, how many children do you desire? And even if you have the same number of desired children, you know, you've gotta come back to that question of theology. Are we gonna baptize them or are we gonna wait until they believe? Will we be a single income family or a dual income family? And then you might have questions about their past, right? Serious questions like, will I be your first? And maybe less serious questions like, have you ever sported a mullet? Are you an axe murderer? Why so many questions? because you are committing to have and to hold this person for the rest of your life, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. And we need to know if we're compatible. You don't want to go into this thing with, or you do want to go into this thing with your eyes wide open. It's right and noble and wise to ask such questions. Well, I would submit to you that even though providence may not keep you in one church for the rest of your life, we should nonetheless enter into the life of the church with the same intentional inquisitiveness and commitment. You want to know about the people with whom you are entering into covenant, but you especially want to know whether or not your elders are committed to your souls. So whether you're a visitor who is considering membership at this time, membership that's going to bring you under the submission of a particular set of elders, or you're just a member who's already made that decision, you need to be reminded of what your role is to the elders and what the elders' role is to you. Consider four questions that all of us can ask of our elders that Peter's text here in 1 Peter 5 is going to answer. So let's come back to 1 Peter 5 verses 1-4 and let's ask four questions that every member or prospective member should ask concerning the duties of elders in the Church of Christ. And as I said two Sundays ago, the best way to avoid even the whiff of pastoral abuse or pastoral negligence is to have clear expectations of what the elders are to be and do in the church. You need to know that. And you know, for some of us, it's kind of like, well, duh, I see it in the text, I know it's there. But the climate in the evangelical, and even in some respects, Reformed church today, demands and requires that we revisit this and ask, what is it a pastor is called to do? And probably more importantly, what is a pastor not called to do? What is a pastor not called to be? We're gonna answer these questions this morning. So first question we wanna ask ourselves, is who is the primary target of your shepherding? Who is the primary target of your shepherding? Look at the text in verse two. He says, shepherd the flock of God that is among you. So, okay, what is the flock of God? We can all agree that that is professing Christians, but does that mean that the pastor is to be a pastor to all professing Christians? Well, of course not, because Peter follows up with, that is among you. That is to say, the particular flock that the Lord has made you an overseer of. And so that is where, for example, in this congregation, my time, my shepherding, my counseling, my discipling, my leading, and my preaching goes. It goes to you. You are the primary target of my shepherding. You know what else is interesting when we think about this idea of the flock of God? You heard it read this morning in Acts chapter 20. Paul goes on to say something even more specific about the flock of God. You don't need to turn there. But in Acts 20, 28, he says this. He says to the Ephesian elders, pay attention, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. Now this is interesting. Listen to me very carefully. How do we define who the church of Christ is? I'll give you a basic answer. You go to the atonement. Those for whom Jesus Christ shed his blood is the church. To put it another way, your atonement defines your ecclesiology. Your view of the atonement, the people for whom Christ died, defines the contours and the shape of who the church is. So if you have a view that Jesus Christ died for the whole world, then that means that the flock of God is the whole world. But that's not what the scriptures teach. Jesus said in John chapter 10, I lay my life down for the sheep. He does not lay his life down for everyone. Now our tradition has always said, and I think that it's right, Christ's death was sufficient to pay for the sins of all the people of the world, but it was only efficient to pay for the sins of the elect. And if you think of it, if Christ died for everyone in the whole world, then it is unjust of God to send anybody to hell. Because what does the atonement do? It pays for sins. The atonement covers sins. So when we think about the church, we go directly to the atonement, and the atonement helps us to understand who the church is. The church is those for whom Christ shed his blood. So what does this mean for us practically? This means that in our worship services, and not only in our worship services in morning and evening, but I would submit to you, in all the life of the church, we orient our ministry toward believers. We don't orient our ministry and our services and our liturgy and all that we do toward unbelievers. Now that does not mean that unbelievers are not welcome. And to the contrary, we want unbelievers to be here. But I will say this, if an unbeliever can sit under a sermon in the ministry of the word and be at ease, something has gone terribly wrong. Because the ministry of the word is meant to drive people to repentance as it brings the law and faith as it brings the gospel. And if an unbeliever can sit under that and not feel any need for repentance, because maybe that message was absent, then that is something that has gone terribly wrong. Unbelievers are welcome, but they should not expect the service to be geared toward their sensibilities. So the elder's primary target is the flock of God. Now what else does this mean? This also means that the pastor is not meant to be something of a community organizer or social worker under the world as if his message were for the earthly good of the person rather than the heavenly good. Enter with me into a thought experiment for a moment because there are many people out there today, even in reformed circles, who are saying, man, we've got to go out there and we've got to feed the poor. We've got to contribute to soup kitchens. We've got to even go out there and do that ourselves as pastors, I'm saying. We've got to go out and raise awareness of police brutality and try to avoid that, try to get laws passed that will avoid that. Let's conduct a thought experiment for a second. that for two years, all the pastors in Hampton Roads got together and they said, look, and not just Protestant, but Catholic, priests, pastors, bishops, everybody got together and they said, for two years, let's do everything we can to make Hampton Roads a better place to live in, for believers and unbelievers alike, for the whole place of Hampton Roads. And let's say they give all their efforts and all their energies and all their desires unto that end. And let's just say, hypothetically speaking, that in two years, Hampton Roads was a better place. The sidewalks were cleaner, there were more soup kitchens, warmer blankets for people that were poor and homeless. But here's my question. If we're able to do that, what have we done? We have made this section of the world a better place for this life, right? That's it. And you know what Jesus Christ said? He asked a very penetrating question. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet what? Forfeit his soul. You see, that's where the church comes in. The church has no problem, the church as church has no problem with engaging in these things. In fact, Abraham Kuyper, one of our Reformed luminaries, he made a very helpful distinction. He thought about the church as institution, which is what we're doing here, the church as church, and then the church organic. which is what you and I are out in the world, in the public square, Monday through Saturday, engaging in our vocations, engaging in our family, going to our Little League games, and being salt and light to the rest of the world. And as the church organic, it's good for us to do all of those things. It's good for us to make the world a better place. In fact, what is the church to be? The church in some sense is to be what we might call a re-salination plant. So we go out into the world and we give it its saltiness, and then we go dry after that, and we come back into the church on Sunday morning and Sunday evening, and we get re-salted through the word of God, being reminded of what our purpose is. It's not simply to give a cup of cold water, but it is also to give a cup of cold water with the gospel. Because what does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he forfeits his soul? I'm not interested in making this world a better place for people who are going to hell. I'm interested in making this world a better place through giving them the eternal message of the gospel, which will translate into giving life after death for all of eternity. That is what the church is to be. We are to be salt and light. So the primary target of shepherds in this is shepherding the flock of God among them, not the city as such, not the community as such, but the flock of God. And it is done by the spirit of God working in the under shepherds of God who preach the pure, unadulterated word of God. Well, this leads us to the second question that members and prospective members should ask of their pastors. Question number two, with what will you feed my soul? With what will you feed my soul? Way back in Jeremiah 3.15, Jeremiah gave a little sneak peek of the new covenant. You know what he said? The Lord said through him, I will give them, the new covenant people of God, shepherds after my own heart who will feed them with knowledge and understanding. So you see, the minister of the new covenant, what he is to give to the people is knowledge and understanding, which means that he gives them the word of God. I'll never forget an interview that I watched of John MacArthur. He said, somebody asked him why he has given his whole life over to what we call expositional preaching, which is just basically the minister getting up in the pulpit, opening the Word of God, and preaching through a book systematically. So this text, and then the next Sunday, this text, and the next Sunday, this text. Why, John MacArthur, would you do, you've given 40 years over to that. And he basically said something like this. He said, because at some point in my ministry I realized As much wisdom as I may or may not have, there is nothing that I'm going to say in my own mind and from my own heart and cooled from my own experience that is more important than what God has said. And so what I want to do in the ministry to my people is give them what God has said. And He's given us 66 books, a kaleidoscope of different ways in which we can preach the gospel. And I could spend my whole life doing that and I will still not exhaust it. And that is what we are to feed your souls with, is with the Word of God. But, you know, too often pastors give their people sentimental stories, comedy routines, self-esteem boosters, and pop psychology, but they're kind of tricky because they lace it with some proof text, right? Give you some proof text from the Bible, and they think that what they're giving the sheep is what they need. They seem to think that their goal as a shepherd is to make people feel good about themselves, so they preach to felt needs. Brethren, Our deepest felt need is the condemnation of being separated from a holy and righteous God who demands perfection. That's our deepest need. There is no need that is deeper than that. And the best news we can hear is that there stands a perfect slaughtered lamb ready and willing to forgive us of our deepest felt need and restore us to the Father. That is what the gospel does. Sheep are fed by substantial blocks of this blessed book being opened up, laid out, and set before them. But you know, shepherds don't have the responsibility to eat and drink for the sheep. The shepherd can bring the sheep to those green pastures. The shepherd can bring the sheep to those still waters, but that sheep has got to take the nuzzle of its nose and stick it down into that grass and eat and masticate and swallow for himself. He's got to put his nose into the water and drink for himself. All pastors can do is bring us to the word. And that's why here at Grace Covenant Church, one of the things that we are intent on doing is preaching expositionally. Why? Because if you don't go through a book like what we're trying to do as the primary diet, spiritual diet of the people of God, then what you end up doing is a pastor will cherry pick the passages that he wants to preach. And here's the thing, a pastor can cherry pick about some passages that are from the Bible and are good, and there isn't in and of itself anything wrong with that. But think of it analogously as a diet. If I just cherry-picked the good things I wanted to eat, I would never eat the broccoli and the carrots and the cauliflower. You see, we need a full-rounded, full-orbed diet of spiritual food to bring us before the throne of grace. And you know what? It's also important because you don't only hit the high notes in your life emotionally, do you? Sometimes in life you hit those blue notes, don't you? And guess what? When you hit those blue notes, when you hit those sad notes, when you hit those difficult notes, God is so gracious that he doesn't say, oh, looks like you're in a tough time. Well, you figure out how you're gonna articulate a prayer to me. You figure out how you're gonna articulate your grief and your sorrow to me. No, the Lord does two things for us. Number one, he gives us patterns in the Psalter for how we can lament before our God. He gives us patterns so we could take a psalm of lament, we could take a psalm of complaint, something as dark and dire as Psalm 88, the darkest psalm in the whole Psalter, that ends with, I am surrounded by darkness. And the Lord says, take that up as a template. You don't, it's kind of like when I need to come before the Lord and pour out my emotions, I don't just open up a Microsoft document Word and it's just blank, and I'm like, I don't even know where to go with this. No, I could click on a template in the Psalms, and then a template comes up, and I'm like, oh, there is a template for how I can pray to God. So he gives us templates, but you know what else he does? He just gives us words. You can take upon your lips the lament in the Psalter, the complaints in the Psalter, and you can ask those things of the Lord in holy boldness. So that we don't tiptoe around the Lord and say, Lord, I was just kind of wondering, you know, perhaps why it is that you took so long to do certain things. But you could say, how long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? Would you ever say that to God? The psalmist did. And he invites you to do the same thing. Sure, with holy reverence. Sure, with great respect. But the Lord gives us words. And so, Praise the Lord that he has given us words. And if we're going to be able to use such words, guess what we need? We need exposure to the whole Bible. We've lost the place of the Psalms in the church today. We just really have. And one of the things I love about the reformed tradition is that they still have a place for the Psalter. Because they believe that the Psalter, even though it's in the Old Testament, is under the overall covenant of grace, which means that it's for us as Christians. So we preach systematically through the word of God to give you food for your souls. What's the third question that we ask of our pastors? Will you protect my soul from harm? In chapter five, verse two, Peter says, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight. Now that word oversight, as I've said, it's where we get the word bishop. And bishop is one who oversees and he cares for and he protects. And so a pastor in the local church oversees the big picture in the church. This doesn't mean that he does everything. He does something that is wise, which is called delegation. But he also protects. How does he protect his sheep? Well, let me mention one way that maybe you haven't given much thought to, but you know, when you guys are here Sunday morning and Sunday evening, it's our responsibility as shepherds that you be safe physically. You know, in the last two or three years, there's been a proliferation of shootings in houses of worship, and as a result, the elders in this place have gotten together with the deacons, and the elders and deacons are collaborating on how we can set up measures in this place and plans in this place to react to such a thing if it ever were to happen. Furthermore, we're thinking about preemptive measures that we can take so that we can, if at all possible, avoid such a thing. We've even had the Virginia Beach Police Department come out here and we had a consultation with them for three hours on a Tuesday morning where they went through and looked at all of our exits and looked at all of our procedures and showed us where we had some blind spots. Very grateful for that. It's our job to physically protect you. But more importantly, it's our job to give spiritual protection. Paul said, as you had heard read in the response of reading this morning in Acts 20.29, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. Now, as we've said, there are wolves without and wolves within, and what we are called to do as shepherds is to guard and protect the sheep from those who would harm them. What's one of the ways that we do that? One of the ways that we do that at Grace Covenant Church is we have a confession of faith. You say, how in the world does that protect people from false ideas? Well, because we are very clear about what it is we believe. Let me give you a little advice, take it or leave it, I hope you take it. If you're looking for a church, if you come to a church and you look at their website, and their website title is What We Believe, and they have a picture of the Bible, run as far as you can away from that. You say, why would you say such a thing, Josh? Well, everybody believes in the Bible in the Christian church. Jehovah's Witnesses believe in the Bible, Mormons believe in the Bible, okay? Every cult that is under the umbrella of Protestantism or even Christianity believes in the Bible. It's not, as I always say, a matter of do you believe the Bible? It's what about the Bible do you believe? So what a confession does is it says, this confession's not inspired. The Bible is the only inspired, infallible, inerrant word of God. And yet, here is what we believe the Bible teaches. We believe God is a trinity. We believe Jesus is God. We believe that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone. You need to have a confession. You know, we at Grace Covenant Church, with all due respect, we believe that we're pretty humble in coming to the Word of God. We don't come to the Word of God as if we're the first ones who have ever read it. We come to the Word of God and we read it with the history of the church. We stand on the shoulders of not only St. Paul and St. Peter, but St. Augustine. We stand on the shoulders of John Calvin and Martin Luther and Martin Busser and all the great reformers, John Owen and Jonathan Edwards. Not that we agree with everything that they say, But we stand on their shoulders and believe that we are not wise enough to think we could read the Bible by ourselves and come to our own conclusions and be sound. No, we read the word of God with the history of the church. So what's a fourth question that we should ask of our shepherds? This is a very important question. Very, very important question. Will you come after me if I stray? Will you come after me if I stray? You know, Ezekiel 34 is that famous chapter in the book of Ezekiel where he rebukes the false shepherds for not doing what they should have done. And he says, you don't need to turn there, Ezekiel 34, four and five, he says, the weak, you false shepherds, you have not strengthened. The sick, you have not healed. The injured, you have not bound up. the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered." What every Christian should desire when they are in their right mind, coming into a church, is that if I am to stray, I wanna know, prospective pastor, will you come after me? Or are you just gonna leave me alone because you want me to have a high and lofty opinion of you? What are you gonna do? A good shepherd, listen, a good shepherd, please listen to me very carefully, doesn't wait until you're in damage control before he comes after you. A good shepherd is going to give continual maintenance to your soul when things are going okay. Why? So he can have a sounding of what's going on. So he can have a sounding of what your temptations are, what your proclivities are. Let me give you an example. Let's say you're a gas station attendant, okay? And you're doing your thing, you're checking out people, getting Coke and Jujubees and M&Ms and all these types of things. And once in a while you look out to the gas pumps just to make sure that everything's okay and there's not anything burning. And you just happen to look over and you see a man, he gets out, he puts the gas gun into the tank, and then he whips out a cigarette, and then he lights a cigarette and starts smoking. Now, what is that gas attendant gonna do? Is he gonna say, well, nothing's happened yet, so I'll just keep checking out jujubees? No, he's gonna run out there and say, look, man, you cannot smoke. This place is highly flammable, okay? Please put that out right now and don't ever do that again in your whole entire life, okay? And in the same way, pastors are meant to give preventative maintenance to their sheep. I mean, wives, isn't that what you want of your husbands? I had a mentor one time who, he's with the Lord now, but he loved candy, he had a sweet tooth. And he and his wife one day were on a trip, they were going on a vacation somewhere, they stop in the front of 7-Eleven, and he's like, man, I just gotta get something sweet. And he turns to his wife and he's like, do you want something? She says, oh yeah, I want something. And right before he was about to ask her, what do you want? She said, you know what I want. He was in dire straits. He had no idea what she wanted. Okay? But he knew that though he had no idea, on the other hand, if he asked her, he'd be in trouble. I mean, so it was like, you know, he was in a bad place either way. Okay? Now, women, what do you want from your husband? You want your husband to anticipate you. You don't want to, you know, two days before Valentine's Day, text your husband and say, give me these flowers and this arrangement and these chocolates and here's the text that I want you to write in the Valentine's card. No. You want your husband to know you well enough that he knows what kind of flowers that you want. He knows what kind of chocolates you want. He knows what kind of back massage that you want that night for Valentine's Day. He knows. Well, it's the same way with pastors. Let me give you an example, okay? Just try to bring you into my world for a minute, all right? Let's say you have a guy in the congregation who's struggling with pornography, okay? Now, he happens to be doing very well. You're meeting with him, you guys are looking at the word of God, you guys are praying, you guys are keeping one another accountable. But then in just a casual conversation, this man reveals to you that he's going on a business trip next weekend, right? Okay, great. And as you continue to talk to him, you find out that the business trip is like for three or four days. And so you just, you know, as a pastor, you casually ask, so where are you staying? Oh, I'm staying in a hotel. Okay. Who are you staying with? Oh, I'm staying by myself. Now at that point, if you're a pastor, knowing that this guy has a struggle with pornography, knowing that in any given hotel, what do you have? You have a TV, okay? You have a TV that he can click on to HBO after 10 o'clock at night and not even have to pay for anything and watch some very sensual things. You have a hotel room that has Wi-Fi that can power his computer to look at things. No wife, no kids, no brothers and sisters, no pastors, just God. What are you gonna say to him? Well, I think if you're being a good shepherd, you're going to say something like, hey brother, have you thought through how you might avoid your proclivity toward looking at pornography? And he might say something like, I think I'm good. You know, I've, you know, I've been faithful for two weeks. Yeah, okay. How's that worked out for you in the past? You've been faithful for a month and then you fail. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Do you have any suggestions? Glad you asked. I'll tell you what. Why don't, why don't you call the hotel clerk and say, I'm going to be here on such and such a day. Why don't you take the TV out? People do it all the time. And then at the end of each day, when you get done with your conference or your work or whatever, Give your computer and maybe even your phone to your friend and just say well you keep this in your hotel room So that I won't have it in mine Now if you really want to look at Bernal if you really want to do something stupid you can but by doing those Taking those two measures. It's gonna be very hard for you. Okay, that's what a good Shepherd does and can I tell you something a Good Shepherd cannot Shepherd you in the way that you need to be shepherded unless you let him into your world Okay Let me tell you something. You will only get out of this church as much as you put into it. You will only get out of shepherding as much as you're willing to be shepherded. Some sheep like to play hide and seek with the pastor. And really it's not hide and seek, it's run and hide as far away and as fast as you can. And you know, we laugh, but it's true. I mean, I've been at a house where a pastor has knocked on the door of a member who was in sin, by all accounts that we could tell, and as soon as he knocked on that door, there was a bang in the back of the house, and it was the back door opening up, and that guy running out in nothing but his underwear, bare feet into the woods, as far away from the pastor as he could. You think he just happened to be going for his run that morning? No. He was running away from accountability. Beloved, one of the things, one of the reasons we have home groups, and one of the reasons why at least once a month your pastors are checking in on you, is because we don't want to wait until damage control. That's the last thing in the world that we want to do. What we want to do is we want to shepherd your soul daily, monthly, weekly, as much as we can. And here's the thing. Here's the thing. We can't do that unless you let us into your life. And so you know what this is a call to? It's a call to honesty. It's a call to vulnerability. It's a call to being real. Are you real with your brothers and sisters? I understand it. I understand that it takes a level of trust and that trust comes over time. I get that, I get that. But in every level of trust in any given relationship, you are always going to have to start with risk. You're always gonna have to start with saying, you know, I don't totally know this person, but it's home group time, men have broken up, women have broken up. I'm just gonna tell them that, you know, I've been a jerk to my wife this week. I'm just gonna tell them that my wife just last night was sobbing and yelling at me because of how much of a jerk I've been. I'm just gonna tell them because not only can they pray for me, that's good, that's very important, but maybe they have some wisdom for me. So make yourselves vulnerable. And if you're in a church where you don't want to be vulnerable because you can't trust those people, then find another church. Go find a church where you can be. So what does a good shepherd, what does a good shepherd do after a sheep, after he's gone after a sheep who has strayed and they've repented? So he's gone after a sheep and maybe that shepherd came with the rod of the law to beat back the enemies from without, or maybe, maybe that shepherd in going after that sheep, he came with the crook of the law to show you the folly of the enemy schemes within your own heart. So whether it is the rod of the law or the shepherding crook of the law, he brings the law, but after he has retrieved the sheep, either from the mouth of the wolf or from the sheep's own careless wandering which has caused it to be caught in a thicket of briars. He gazes down at the sheep and he beholds the wounds that those briars have brought. The wounds that those enemies has inflicted upon that sheep. Wounds like guilt, wounds like shame, condemnation, a bruised conscience, fear, and doubt, and maybe even disappointment. And then here's the question, what does the shepherd say? So the sheep has repented, what does the shepherd now say? Does he say, heal yourself? No, he's not a moralistic therapist. Does he say, how could you? No, he doesn't say that. Because if he's a good shepherd, he's not a Pharisee. that only sees the problems of everybody else, but doesn't see his own problems. If he's a good shepherd, he recognizes that he himself was just as liable to fall into that sin as you were. And so he approaches you not with law, but with gospel. What else might he not say? How about shake it off? Just shake it off, man, it's no big deal. He doesn't deny the burden of guilt that sin brings. Does he say, well, you know, if you just change your diet, it'll probably change you. No, he's not a medical doctor. Think happy thoughts. No, he's not a motivational speaker. Go out and feed the poor and you'll feel better. No, he's not a community organizer that thinks that seeking the good of the city will assuage me of my guilt. Nor does he believe that some form of penance can assuage the guilt of my sin. Then what does the sheep, what does he give a sheep to treat his wounding conscience? You know what he gives him? He gives him the balm of Gilead, the gospel of Jesus Christ. He says to that sheep, despite your brokenness and failures and shortcomings, I bring glad tidings. Jesus Christ, dear sheep, has taken the punishment for your sin and given you his righteousness so that you might be brought near to God. And in that moment, you know what the shepherd is doing? You know what he's doing? He's charging the sheep to turn his gaze from his own wounds on his soul to the wounds of Jesus Christ on the cross. He shifts focus from wound to wound because he's reminded, like Peter says, that by his wounds we are healed. We look to the wounds of Jesus Christ to soothe and assuage the pain of our own wounds. He is the shepherd and overseer of our soul. So if your undershepherds are faithful shepherds, they are ultimately going to lead you to the great shepherd, Jesus Christ. You know, at the end of his life, Jacob referred to God as his shepherd who had brought him through all the days of his life. And you know that there was one day in his life that he came face to face with that shepherd? You know there was one day in his life where he, like nobody else in all of scripture and all of history, wrestled with God? This was, of course, for those theology nerds out there, an anthropomorphism. It wasn't God in his bare essence. It was God revealing himself in a theophanic way as a man. But Jacob wrestled with him. And as Jacob was wrestling with him, you remember what he said? You remember what he asked? I will not let go of you until you give me the blessing. And give him the blessing he did, but not without pain. The Lord put his finger on Jacob's hip socket And as that wrestling match ended and the sun rose at daybreak, Jacob walked away from that encounter with God with a limp, but he had the sun rising behind him and a promise in his bosom. I can't think of a better picture of the Christian life than that. walking away from encounters with God with a limp, because yes, we are sinful, but with the sun rising behind us, not the S-U-N, but the S-O-N, the son of righteousness, who has risen over death, hell, and the grave for us, and has put within our hearts the promise of grace. This is the kind of shepherd that we have come back to this morning. And what a gracious shepherd he is to hymn us in behind and before for his good pleasure and our good, Have you come to this shepherd this morning? If you haven't, he calls out to you this morning, come. How do I come to this shepherd? You turn from your sins, and you believe and trust in the name of Jesus Christ. And if you do that, he will be your shepherd, not just today, but all the days of your life. So come this morning, believer and unbeliever alike, come to this shepherd. and find pastures for your soul. Let's pray.