Elders, Be on Guard!

We live in an era of distraction. Just one tiny example: in my 11 years reviewing books for WORLD magazine, the length of a typical book review has gone from 300 words to 125. Why? Because that is the attention span of the typical reader. This morning, Paul urges us to fight back against that trend toward the vanishing attention span. He tells us to pay attention, translated "take heed" or "watch yourselves," or even "be on guard for yourselves."
I preach this morning to the elders among us, including myself. Men, I believe that God is calling some of you to be elders. Women, pray for your man, whether he is presently an elder or not. Everyone here, including myself — listen to the great apostle's charge to the elders. We have some major watching out to do. We need to pay attention. We need to pay attention to ourselves and to the flock because, Paul says, Jesus bought that flock for God by means of His own blood.