A PILGRIM'S SHEPHERD

Introduction

-{1 Peter 5}

-We’ve been studying 1 Peter this year, and what this epistle tells us is that this world is no longer home for those who are in Christ Jesus. We are temporary residents—we are pilgrims. This world (as it is in its fallen state) is just a temporary layover until we reach our final destination with Christ in glory. In Christ we have been given a new life which is in contrast to the lifestyle of the world, and, while we have been empowered to live that life through the Holy Spirit, God has also given us other resources to help us navigate this world in a way pleasing to God.

-Peter points out that one of these resources is what we normally call pastors, which is another word for shepherd. The Bible uses the terms elder and overseer and pastor interchangeably to talk about the same office that Christ has set up for His church for its good on the earth. It’s interesting, a shepherd is in charge of sheep, which would be a picture of the congregation, but the shepherd himself is a sheep. Peter (in our passage) says that Christ is the Chief Shepherd, and the Chief Shepherd calls some from the flock of sheep to help take care of the other sheep.

-But why would Christ call certain people to shepherd the flock? Well, it’s because of our nature. Sheep is an apt description for all of us. One pastor noted about sheep that:

They require, more than any other class of livestock, endless attention and meticulous care

Christ knew the care that sheep would need in this hostile environment, and so He has appointed earthly shepherds to help the Chief Shepherd care for this flock so that the flock (the church) would be strong and empowered and equipped to fulfill the calling of the Chief Shepherd. And now, more than ever, this world needs a church that stands strong in its biblical convictions and able to give answers to the deep issues that plague the world. But the church can only do that if its leaders, its shepherds, are able to fulfill their calling. A.W. Tozer said:

A scared world needs a fearless church.

But the church will only be what the world needs it to be when its leaders can be what Christ called them to be. So, you might wonder what this has to do with you. I mean, here’s a pastor preaching about pastors to those who aren’t pastors. And yet, this is very important for you because if I can’t be what Christ called me to be, you can’t be what Christ called you to be. And so, what we do with a passage like this is to take it and turn it into prayer. You need to pray for your pastors.

-And so what we want to take away from this passage is that for a church to successfully navigate this world, they must pray for the shepherds to whom God has given their care.

1 Peter 5:1–4 NET 2nd ed.

1 So as your fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings and as one who shares in the glory that will be revealed, I urge the elders among you: 2 Give a shepherd’s care to God’s flock among you, exercising oversight not merely as a duty but willingly under God’s direction, not for shameful profit but eagerly. 3 And do not lord it over those entrusted to you, but be examples to the flock. 4 Then when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that never fades away.

-{pray}

-Here we have Peter, after writing so much about living in a hostile world, now exhorting the church to fulfill its role. He first addresses the elders/pastors/overseers, and then in the next passage he talks to the rest of the congregation. In reading today’s passage, you can’t help but think about an incident in Peter’s life that would give him a shepherd’s heart for the flock and for other shepherds. After Christ’s resurrection Jesus put Peter through a process of restoration (after his denials) that came with an important exhortations. Three times Jesus asked Peter if he loved him. And each time after Peter said yes Jesus exhorted him to shepherd the church. Jesus said: Feed my lambs, Shepherd my sheep, and Feed my sheep. With that in the back of his mind he writes this.

-But for the shepherd to fulfill these exhortations, he himself needs the strength, and that strength comes through the prayer of the people. People (in general) think a pastor’s job is easy: he only works on Sundays and Wednesdays, right? But if a pastor’s job is so easy why did Barna find in a survey that only 1 in 10 men who become pastors actually retire as pastors? That means that 90% of men who go into ministry drop out of ministry and retire in a different vocation. Another author claimed that 16,000 pastors leave the ministry every year. There is a meme that I think summarizes the attitude of many pastors; it said: MINISTRY IS THE ONLY POSITION YOU GO IN THINKING YOU’RE GOING TO CHANGE THE WORLD AND THEN ALMOST GET FIRED FOR CHANGING THE BULLETIN.

-And now the American church is in a crisis because many pastors are getting older but there are not enough younger people going into ministry to take their place. A Barna study found that there are more full-time senior pastors over the age of 65 than under the age of 40. There may come a time in a decade or two when finding a pastor to fill a pulpit will be difficult. Now, I am not saying these things out of any personal complaints or concerns. You all are such a blessing to me and my family, and I am blessed to be here. I love my ministry. But if the other pastors and I are going to be who God wants us to be, you need to pray for your pastors. But what do you pray? I think the instructions that Peter gives to pastors is a good indication of what the church needs to pray for us if we are going to be a healthy church.

1) Pray for the shepherd’s ministry (v. 2a)

-This is a consideration of what the pastor does. In v. 2 Peter tells the pastors GIVE A SHEPHERD’S CARE TO GOD’S FLOCK AMONG YOU, EXERCISING OVERSIGHT. Peter gives a command here—what my translation says is GIVE A SHEPHERD’S CARE, other translations may simply translate as SHEPHERD. It also says that the way the pastor gives that care is that he EXERCISES OVERSIGHT, which means to have a responsibility to look after. These are really broad words that cover a lot of territory, and that’s because the ministry of a pastor is very broad. To cover this territory the pastor has a lot of hats that he wears. One person wrote in an article the different roles that pastors take on—pastors act as:

a mediator; a counselor; an encourager; a teacher; a minister; a leader; a social media manager; an advocate; a rehabilitation coordinator; a business administrator; human resources; a writer; a technologist; a data analyst; a public speaker; a theologian; a politician; a motivator; etc.

-If we are not careful it could easily be said that a pastor is a jack of all trades but a master of none. But if we are going to follow the biblical picture of a pastor/shepherd, this GIVING A SHEPHERD’S CARE and EXERCISING OVERSIGHT entails some important aspects, and we must pray that the pastor is able to fulfill these biblical duties for the church to be healthy.

-Part of shepherding is caring for the flock. This involves emotional and spiritual care during crisis as well as equipping the church to take care of physical needs. Pastors are there to provide comfort and guidance in times of difficulties, to encourage and uplift in times of discouragement—general ideas of care.

-Part of a shepherd’s ministry is to protect the flock. We know that the shepherd’s rod and hook were tools of the trade to help protect the flock. Part of this protection was to protect the sheep from themselves. Sheep like to wander and go off and do things to their own harm, and the shepherd had to reel them in (so to speak) before they hurt themselves. But obviously protection included keeping them safe from predators. Sheep were vulnerable to attack, and the shepherd had to drive away the wolves and the like. In a similar way, the pastor prevents false teachers from coming near the flock to lead them astray.

-Part of a shepherd’s ministry is leadership. To exercise oversight you have to lead. The biblical concept of church is that it is pastor led and deacon served. Now, as Baptists, we are a congregational church meaning that the church is autonomous and the congregation as a group makes decisions about certain aspects of business. But it is the shepherd that leads and directs and guides the church in the direction God is leading. Our passage in v. 2 makes it clear that this is God’s flock, but He has given leadership authority to the shepherd. And the church is given this exhortation:

Hebrews 13:17 NET 2nd ed.

17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls and will give an account for their work. Let them do this with joy and not with complaints, for this would be no advantage for you.

-But, within the context of 1 Peter, there is a certain way that the shepherd fulfills this calling of GIVING A SHEPHERD’S CARE and EXERCISING OVERSIGHT and that is through the ministry of God’s Word. I care for you and protect you and lead you by pointing you to God’s Word—I feed you with the truths of Scripture. If you need comfort or encouragement, I don’t give you a pep talk, I point you to God’s Word. If I need to protect you, it’s by surrounding you with the truths of the Bible. There are thousands upon thousands of false teachers, and there is no way I can tell you what’s wrong with all of them. But I can give you God’s Word so you know the truth and are able to discern whether teachers or teachings are true or false. I care for you and oversee you by giving you the truths of God.

-R.C. Sproul wrote,

“Today a pastor is expected to be psychologist, theologian, biblical scholar, administrator, preacher, teacher, and community leader. The minister spends so much time on secondary matters that he has little time to do his principal work, which is to feed the sheep through preaching and teaching. The greatest service your minister can do for you is to feed you, not with his opinion but with the Word of God.”

-Everyone has their opinion about what a pastor should do, but the greatest service I can give you is to equip you with the knowledge and understanding you need to grow in your faith, and that is by constantly pointing you to Scripture. I think of the early church where the church had certain expectations of the apostles in ministry, but the apostles gave certain aspects of the ministry to the first deacons and the apostles said that they were going to devote themselves to prayer and the Word of God, knowing that would be the greatest service to the flock.

-So, pray that the shepherds would be empowered to feed you the truth of the Word, that they would have wisdom to lead and that the flock would willingly follow. And pray that God would bear fruit through their ministry because it is to your benefit. Another area of prayer that we can talk about:

2) Pray for the shepherd’s mindset (vv. 2b-3)

-We could say that this talks about how the pastor fulfills his ministry. Peter at the end of v. 2 and then going into v. 3 gives three different contrasts to how the shepherd could approach ministry. And Peter says don’t approach it with this mindset, rather approach it with this other mindset. And so, it is to the advantage of the flock that the pastor has the right mindset for ministry. Again, the congregation has an obligation to pray that God would work in the heart of the pastor to bring this mindset about. What does Peter say about this mindset?

-First, in v. 2, Peter says that a shepherd cares and exercises oversight NOT MERELY AS A DUTY [not under compulsion], BUT WILLINGLY UNDER GOD’S DIRECTION. It’s saying that pastors shouldn’t approach their shepherding as an obligation or like it’s something that they feel forced to do, but rather approach it as a blessing that they are privileged to be a part of.

-The reason that this is so important for the church is that a pastor who feels almost stuck in the ministry that they are a part of has no heart for Christ, no heart for the people, no heart for the lost—they’re merely going through the motions. They have no passion, no desire—they are indifferent (maybe even numb) to the work God has called them to. Sometimes it’s because of a stagnant walk with the Lord on the part of the pastor, sometimes it’s because of the interpersonal conflict that often happens in churches; but, something took the life out of the pastor’s ministry and he’s just mindlessly doing the work like a zombie because he feels stuck.

There’s a story about a young man who on a Sunday morning didn’t want to get up and get ready for church. His mother came into the room to tell him to get up, and he replied, “I’m not going!” The mother asked, “Why not?” He said, “The people there are mean and they don’t like me.” The mother more sternly told him to get out of bed. With his face buried in his pillow, he muffled, “Give me three good reasons why I should?” The mother replied, “One, because it’s Sunday and we always go to church on Sunday. Two, we only have 40 minutes until church starts and you haven’t even showered yet. And three, because you’re the pastor of the church…now get up!”

-That mindset is not healthy for anybody. What we want to pray for pastors is that they minister not because of some sort of external pressure, but because of an internal passion that the Lord places within them. We want the pastor to have the same weight in their heart as the apostles in Acts 4 when they said that they cannot help but speak about what they saw and heard with Christ. So, pray that the pastor’s mindset would be one of have a desire to shepherd the flock willingly, not merely out of a sense of duty.

-Then Peter says in v. 2 is that you want to pray that the pastor cares and exercises oversight NOT FOR SHAMEFUL PROFIT (not for greed or dishonest gain) BUT EAGERLY. Pastor’s aren’t to approach ministry as a means of personal gain, but rather with an attitude of eagerly meeting the needs of others. You would think that even with basic Christian ethics this would not need to be said. We are told to love others, that the last shall be first and the first last, that just as Christ did not come to be served but to serve we are to do the same. And yet, unfortunately, there are shepherds that turn things around and make it about themselves and what they can get out of the whole deal (rather than what they can give).

-Yes, it would be easy to pick on the prosperity preachers who swindle people out of their money so that they can live in mansions and drive fancy cars. Now, don’t get me wrong, pastors need a livable wage; but, they aren’t supposed to be building their own little empire either. Pastors aren’t supposed to approach the ministry with the thought about what’s in it for me, or what can I get out of it?

I remember several years ago it was in the news that a certain pastor demanded from the church that they get him a $75 million jet, which he said was for “ministry” (yeah, right, wink wink). So, I jokingly asked the church for a $75 million dollar jet. Let’s just say I’m still flying commercial, economy class.

-This guy wanted to use his flock to gain himself riches. Instead, Peter says that pastors are to approach their ministry with eagerness. That means that they have a devoted zeal. That they get up in the morning looking forward to using their gifts for the good of the people and the glory of God.

-Then in v. 3, Peter says that pastors aren’t to LORD THEIR POSITION OVER THOSE ENTRUSTED TO THEM, BUT TO BE EXAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. We might say that the shepherds aren’t to use their position to feed into a power trip. They aren’t to act like some sort of despot, taking advantage of the sheep in order to feed their own ego with power.

-I think of illustration that are given about different forms of leadership. There’s the guy who sits behind the people with a whip barking orders—that’s the autocrat. Or there’s the person leading from the front saying FOLLOW ME, being the pacesetter, leading the charge. Maybe another illustration of the different types of leadership is a pyramid, where the first guy sits at the top and the rest of the people are below supporting him, while the second guy is at the bottom supporting everyone else.

-Peter is saying pastors aren’t to be the autocrat leading like a dictator. Rather, they are to lead by example. They are to say THIS IS THE WAY, WALK IN IT. Again, Scripture is the basis for that. The pastor is to say THIS IS WHAT SCRIPTURE SAYS, SO LET’S ALL DO IT.

-The church will thrive when their pastors have the right mindset.

Conclusion

-Peter ends this passage by saying that WHEN THE CHIEF SHEPHERD APPEARS, YOU WILL RECEIVE THE CROWN OF GLORY THAT NEVER FADES AWAY. A pastor that faithfully fulfills his duty will receive eternal reward. But the thing is that if a pastor is able to fulfill his duties, everybody is rewarded. The church is healthy and thrives, God is glorified, the gospel goes forth, and the kingdom expands. There is eternal reward for everyone. That is why the pastor needs your prayers.

-If you don’t want to pray for your pastors, you need to ask yourself, do you want them approach shepherding as a ministry empowered by God or as a job empowered by their talents? Let me ask you, do you want your pastor to visit you in the hospital and say WELL, I’M HERE BECAUSE IT’S MY JOB. Or do you want them to say, I’M HERE BECAUSE I LOVE YOU AND I WANT TO TAKE CARE OF YOU. That’s only maintained by your prayer.

-I also want you to think of another consideration. C. H. Spurgeon warned:

A time will come where instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns feeding the goats.

He meant that instead of there being true pastors leading true flocks, there’d be a lot of false prophets leading a whole lot of false Christians. That, obviously, doesn’t do anybody any good. The world needs a true church led by true shepherds who are empowered to give a shepherd’s care to the flock so that the church would be equipped to spread the gospel and expand the kingdom of God. But that will only happen if the church is praying for it’s shepherds—praying for their ministry and mindset.

-So, church, come pray for your pastors, and pray that God raises up new pastors for His church in the years to come.

-I wouldn’t be a good shepherd, though, if I didn’t ask you about the state of your soul. Do you know if you will go to heaven when you die? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ—that He died and rose for you...