Sermon Tone Analysis

Northside Church

1 Peter #4 Living HOPE

Jamey Mills

11/13/22

My name is Jamey Mills and I am the lead Pastor here at Northside… It’s great to be with you all.

(NLT)

And now, a word to you who are elders in the churches.

I, too, am an elder and a .

And I, too, will share in his glory when he is revealed to the whole world.

As a fellow elder, I appeal to you: 2 Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you.

Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God. 3 Don’t lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example.

4 And when the Great Shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of never-ending glory and honor.

5 In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders.

And all of you, dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for

“God opposes the proud

but gives grace to the humble.”

6 So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor.

7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

8 Stay alert!

Watch out for your great enemy, the devil.

He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.

9 Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith.

Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.

Peter begins signing off, And it's common, did I suggest a TV instead accentuate these 3 foundational… important truths… these things that he wants them to cling to int he face of the harassment… and all of them are sort of wrapped up in or impacted by this underlying idea of humility.

Peter talks about the importance of leadership in the face of it.

We talked about this about a month ago, but there are three words did the Bible uses to describe one role within the church.

Three words that describe one role…

Elder, Shepherd, and overseer.

All three of those words are used in the first two verses.

And those words help us to understand the role in the function that this position is to play with in the church.

What leaders provide…

Peter says that leaders care for and watch out for the flock that God has entrusted to them…

That idea of being entrusted by God … is heavy.

With that we realize that

This form of leadership is actually a calling…

That God is the one that moves and gifts people into that position…

That

God has expectations on what these leaders do and

how they do it.

AND… that these leaders will be held accountable by God Himself… for these things.

Peter provides a list of some of the things leaders are to provide…

Wisdom

Leadership and direction

Accountability

Care

Oversight

Most authors suggest it can really be boiled down to

Feeding

Leading

But it involves all of those things.

In terms of how they lead…

Peter said that he too, is an elder… and a witness to the sufferings of Christ...

Witness = someone who’s seen and heard…and tells others…

He’s saying that he personally walked and talked with Jesus… he led people… out of his own experience…

Church leaders personally walk with God and are growing in that relationship.

It’s non negotiable;

Growing… 2 Peter 3:18 says it this way… growing more and more in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus.

Peter is saying Church leaders lead by example

… that it's a big part of what’s required of them.

That they live, speak and lead out of their experience with Jesus.

Personally I don’t think it's a call to perfection… but to humility, transparency, a strong commitment to following Jesus, a strong commitment to godly relationships and to growing in Christ likeness.

Like anyone else… They experience ups and downs, highs and lows… peaks and valleys in their relationship with Him… but he’s saying that leaders live their lives and lead from a place of close connection, deep commitment… and high investment in Jesus.

On author said “sheep aren’t driven well, they are led”.

I was a youth pastor in Dayton for a while… tiny town that I am pretty sure has more sheep than people… it wasn’t uncommon to see sheep walking down the road in the middle of the service… and it was always that same guys sheep… someone say… in the service… Mitch… there out again… and it’d walk to his truck… get an empty bucket out of the back… let them see it… and simply walk home… and they’d follow.

One author said it like this…

As a shepherd grows… So do the sheep prosper.

This is the way I’ve said it… you cannot lead people in a direction you are not headed.

Growing in faith, our submission to and likeness of Christ…

Leaders don’t lead like this for attention, for power, for their benefit or to put forth their agenda, not harshly… but with humility and with serving God in mind.

Their job… first and foremost… is to lead with God in mind.

Peter’s own experience… after denying Jesus… emphatically denying Jesus 3 times… Peter sat down with Jesus… to deal with that… almost feels like he’s reinstating Peter’s leadership…

3 times… Peter, do you love me… yes lord… then feed my sheep.

They care for and watch over… and set the example out of their own experience with Jesus.

We are in the process of setting the 2023 ministry calendar now… and we noticed that we had softly planned our 3rd birthday on a bad date…

We’ve officially moved our NS birthday celebration to Feb. 19… 10 AM right here…

It’ll be a great sunday… we’ll have cupcakes… hopefully baptisms…

The whole staff will be here to share… as we celebrate God’s faithfulness and provision through what’s been some incredibly hard and odd years…

Northside’s story… powerful and unique… It’s never been normal.

God’s blessing has been clear from the beginning…

The way the staff came together, the way the financial stuff came together, this school being built… I could go on and on… God’s done several miraculous things along the way…

One thing a church planting agency does (ours is stadia) is work with a planting pastor to establish a short term leadership team that they work with to establish a new Church…

It’s often made of supporting church pastors and members from the agency…

Right away they noticed that Northside was blessed with rough qualified leaders to have this be an internal team… which is healthy and rare…

But we always knew the day was coming..

Where the MT would transition to an eldership… and, our goal is to celebrate the installation of our first elder board on that date…

Here are some things you should know…

The current MT has really been instrumental in leading Northside up to this point.

They are the ones that will be nominated for eldership

We aren’t planning on adding to that team this year, but likely will the following year.

That elders require a affirmation vote from the member of congregation

Info on membership… at the table at this link…

That vote will take place on… Feb 5 and 12

In January there will be opportunities to hear from our MT members… would love to invite you to get to know them if you don't.

My experience with Northside…

My experience with them…

Peter said that leaders lead in humility… and that those under that leadership accept it humility…

That God opposes the proud… and favors the humble…

Humility is a virtue that God honors…

God opposes the proud… favors the humble.

Why?

(NLT)