Take your Bibles and turn to 1 Peter chapter 5. There's a place in your bulletin for you to take notes and let me encourage you to do that as we look at God's word this morning. It was a Sunday morning and Johnny's mom came into his room and she said, Johnny, it's time to get up. We need to go to church. He rolled over and said, Mommy, do I have to go? She says, of course you have to go. He said, but Mommy, I don't have any friends down there, and they don't talk to me, and nobody listens to what I got to say, and they even talk about me behind my back. She said, Johnny, of course you have to go. You're the pastor. Now that story, I'm afraid, points up a somewhat strange relationship that some churches and some pastors have. And Peter today is addressing his words to the church leadership and to the congregation. And I think he will give us some instruction that will be helpful to us. And you perhaps have had friends that are in situations where there is less than the best relationship between the church and the staff. And perhaps you can share with them some of these truths that you'll be learning today, as well as practice them as need be in your own situation. Although I think we have a great relationship. But anyway, take your Bibles and turn over to first Peter chapter 5 and We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 4 Peter has addressed the relationship of the Christian to the government. He's addressed the relationship of the Christian to his employer. He's even addressed the relationship of Christians in marriage. Now he takes the relationship of the Christian to his church and church leadership. Stand, if you will, in respect for the word of God and follow along with me as I read beginning in verse one. Therefore, I exhort the elders among you as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily according to the will of God, not for sordid gain, but with eagerness. nor yet is lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. You may be seated. And may God bless the reading and hearing and most of all, the obeying of his word. Now, the first thing we want to see is the basis for Peter's exhortation to the church leadership. First, his basis for the exhortation is God's plan for Christians. He says in verse 1, therefore, I exhort the elders among you. As the saying goes, any time you're interpreting Scripture and you see a therefore, you need to go look and see what the there is there for. And so we need to say, why does it say therefore? What is he referring back to? I believe he's referring back to everything that he said previously in this letter. And so a brief review is in order. And for those of you that are here for the first time, this will help bring you up to speed as well. So let's go back and summarize what we've seen so far in 1 Peter. And I will ask questions and you see if you can click with the answer. You remember what was the primary purpose that God has for those who are chosen by him. He doesn't choose us and save us just to take us right to heaven. If he did again, as soon as you got saved, you would die. So he keeps us here for a purpose. But what is that purpose? It is that we might proclaim his excellencies. that we can proclaim how great our God is. That's one of the main purposes God leaves us on earth after we're saved is so we can tell others about His greatness. That's the purpose. Now, what's the plan to accomplish the purpose? The plan is to keep our behavior excellent among the Gentiles. As we keep our behavior excellent among unbelievers, this proclaims God's excellencies. Now that tells us, first of all, that how we live speaks louder than what we say. That we need to live out the Christian life before we speak out the Christian life. Because as we live it out, we'll get people's attention, and then when we do speak, they will listen. And so God's plan is for us to live our lives in a way that proclaims His excellencies. And then we saw that there was an overriding principle in this plan, and that was that through our righteous sufferings we would proclaim the loudest God's excellencies. When we as Christians go through righteous sufferings, this causes us, when we do it with the right attitude, this causes us to stand very brightly before the dark world. Our light shines its brightest when we are undergoing righteous suffering with the right attitude. Now, Peter goes on to give two particular situations where our righteous suffering is to be seen. First, he says, in our submission to ungodly authorities. And he talked about, again, submission to godless government. He talked about submission to bad bosses. He talked about submission in marriage. And so when we live in submission to ungodly authorities, this proclaims, this shouts, the excellencies of our God. And then the second particular situation, and Christ was our example of that, you remember, how Christ was reviled and He did not revile in return. He suffered for submitting to the authorities of His day. He was our prime example. The second particular was as we suffer for doing what's right. We do what's right, and because of it, we catch flack, we get adversity, we get into trouble. When we stand for God's truth, that puts us against our society. When you stand for God's truth, you're going to be politically incorrect. And that's going to cause some people to react to us, but when that happens and we have the attitude of Christ, we proclaim God's excellencies. And again, Jesus was our prime example of this, as we saw Him being willing to die for sin once and for all, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. Now last week in chapter four, we saw how God uses our righteous suffering, and we showed that God uses our righteous suffering to purify the Christian, to unify the church and to glorify Christ. Now today, let's look at what Peter has to say. Therefore, because God's plan is for you to proclaim His excellencies through living your life righteously before the world, particularly when you submit to ungodly authorities and when you suffer for doing what is right, you need good leadership to help you do this. Because this is God's purpose and plan for you, you need good leadership to enable you and to help you in living this way. And so that's what the therefore is there for. He says, therefore, I exhort. Now this word exhort is a rich word in the Greek language. It means literally to call alongside. And it carried the idea of calling someone alongside another person to either encourage them or to comfort them if they were going through grief or to exhort them or even to admonish or rebuke them. Here, it's translated, exhort. Kind of like a kick in the seat of the britches, I think. Peter's saying, I exhort you elders, I admonish you, I urge you strongly. Now he calls this charge to the elders, overseers, bishop. Now this word primarily speaks to those who are responsible for the spiritual growth and leadership of the congregation. In our Baptist church, it would comprise the pastor, the ordained staff, and the deacons. And so Peter is speaking to those who are in charge of the spiritual growth and leadership of the church. He says, I'm exhorting you because of God's plan for the Christian. Because God plans for Christians to live a life that proclaims his excellencies in difficult situations, they need some godly leadership to help them do that. They need godly leadership to show them the way. That's the first basis for his exhortation. The second basis is God's plan for Peter. God's plan for Peter's life put him in the position to give this exhortation. Notice Peter is, first of all, a fellow elder. I exhort the elders among you as your fellow elder. They didn't say Pope, but one who is in equal status. He didn't even use his position as an apostle, though he could have, but rather he's putting himself right on the level with these elders as a fellow elder. I think Peter's doing that for several reasons. I think the first and foremost. is that he has been a pastor himself and he knows what these guys are going through. It's the old saying, unless you've walked in my shoes, you really don't understand what I'm going through. And he's saying to these guys, look, I've been there. I've walked in your shoes. I know the frustrations, the heartaches, the joys, And so I'm coming to you as a fellow elder and I'm exhorting you. Not as one who's been in an ivory tower away from the realities of what it means to be involved in church life. I'm speaking to you as one who's walked where you have walked. It always means a lot more to us when somebody can come alongside us who's been there, who's walked that way. You know, it's one thing Someone's lost a child for us to go up to them and say, you know, I know it's hard, I know it's difficult, you know, but we got, you got to just pull this together and you've got to keep going. That's one level of reaching out to them. But what about when somebody who has lost a child comes up to them and says, I know what you're going through. I've been there. I know how it hurts, but you got to pull it together. Now, which one's going to mean more? When you've walked in their shoes, you can speak to their issues. And Peter's saying, I'm your fellow elder, I've been there. Secondly, he says, as a witness of the sufferings of Christ. Peter has been an eyewitness to the crucifixion of Christ and the sufferings of Jesus as he was beaten with the whip, 39 lashes, as he was hung upon the cross. Peter saw that, he witnessed Christ's sufferings. And basically, I think what he's saying is, I have seen the sufferings that Christ endured for you. And since Christ, our chief shepherd, has so suffered for us, any suffering we might go through is not even comparable to what he's been through. And then he says, as a partaker of the glory that is to be revealed. Now, Peter knew. that as a Christian, as one who was living in adversity and suffering for righteousness, he knew that he was going to share the glory of Christ as every Christian will, who endures hardships and difficulties. Look in verse 10 of this same chapter, as Peter speaks about it. After you've suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. He says, God has called you to his eternal glory in Christ. Peter knows that as one who will participate in the glory of Christ, he comes to these elders and he says, now, as a participant in the glory of Christ, I exhort you to be the leader God's called you to be. He was like the football coach at the state championship game. And he's in the halftime, in the half in the locker with the guys and he's encouraging them and he wants to really motivate them to win and really give it all they got in the second half. And he recounts for them when he was in high school that they'd won the state championship and how glorious it was to get that state championship ring and to get that Letterman jacket with state champions across it. And he says, guys, it's going to be great. When you win this state, you're going to have so much glory. And he gets them motivated. He gets them pumped up, anticipating the glory that awaits them. And Peter's saying to these guys, look guys, we've got great glory awaiting us. When Christ returns, the degree that we share his sufferings will be the degree that we'll share his glory. Now, as a fellow elder, as one who has witnessed the sufferings of Christ, as one who has partaken His glory, now, fulfill God's call upon your life. And then he gets to the commission, he gets to the call. First, their ministry. Verse 2, "...shepherd the flock of God among you." This is the ministry of the pastor This is the ministry of the elders. Shepherd the flock of God among you. This is the only imperative in this passage. This is a command. Peter's not suggesting this. He is commanding. God says, shepherd the flock among you. In other words, we have a picture here of the church and the pastor as having a relationship of the shepherd and his flock. Now, why does Peter use this example? Well, Scripture often uses example of a shepherd and his sheep to represent spiritual leadership and Christians or believers. In Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want." Jesus talked about being the shepherd and as Christians, being His sheep. And the agrarian society that Peter's readers lived in, they understood clearly this concept of shepherd and sheep. And they've seen it. They'd grown up with it. They saw the tender relationship between a shepherd and His sheep. Jesus said a shepherd even knows the name of his sheep. I don't know if I ever told you this story or not, but My dad grew up on a farm, and he decided to go to college. He said one day he was out plowing in the field with a mule, and it was hot, and he was hitting stumps everywhere he went, and he just decided right then, he said, I'm going to college. I'm not going to do this the rest of my life. So he went to college, majored in animal husbandry for some reason, but anyway, went to college and ended up being a hospital administrator, but he kept a farm as a hobby. And so he'd keep about 70 to 80 cows just kind of as a hobby to go down and have something to do, take his mind off work. Well, when he died, I noticed in his dresser, in his desk drawer, there was a book. And in this book, he had a picture of all of his cows. When he bought them, how many calves they'd had, and even name some of them. Now, again, that may seem weird to some of us that are not agricultural in nature, but that's exactly what Jesus said the shepherd did. He named his sheep, and he said they knew his voice. Now, to me, all the cows looked alike, but not the dad, but he could tell which one it was. And so a sheep and their shepherd have a special tender relationship that scripture picks up on to describe the relationship between the pastor and the church leadership and the congregation. Now, Jesus is the chief shepherd and the pastor is the under shepherd. Notice it says the flock of God. The church is not the pastor's church, it's Jesus' church. You're not my sheep, you're Jesus's sheep. I'm just the shepherd that he has placed here to lead you. And the shepherd has some very definite responsibilities and duties. First, he's to feed the sheep, to feed them good nutritious food. And it's important that the sheep get good nutritious food to help ward off disease. to help ward off becoming weak and emaciated. They need good food. And Ezekiel talks about what happens when the shepherd does not properly feed his sheep. Let me read that for you. Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to those shepherds, thus says the Lord God, Woe, shepherds of Israel, who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? Those who are sickly you have not strengthened. The diseased you have not healed. The broken you have not bound up. The scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost." God was using Ezekiel to prophesy to the shepherds, the spiritual shepherds of his day. They had not been doing their job. And because they were not feeding the people of God, they were feeding themselves. The people of God were weak and they were sickly and they were scattering. You see, it's not only important that the pastor proclaim the truth of God, proclaim the word of God and feed the sheep, but it's just as important that the sheep be here to eat. I hear an amen. That's why you need to be here on Sunday. You need to be here so you can be strengthened in the Word of God. You need to be strengthened so you can be spiritually strong and fight off spiritual diseases that want to come on you. There's a swine flu out there, but let me tell you, there's also spiritual diseases of pride and greed and envy and worry that want to take over you. And when you get fed on the Word of God, it helps strengthen your spirit to fight off these diseases. It keeps you from being weak so that Satan can overcome you with his temptations. You need to be fed the word of God for what it can do to your spirit and how it can help you. It can bind up your wounds. It can provide what you need. So the next time you're laying in bed and it's time to go to church, don't roll over the second time. Get up and be here. Because you need it. Secondly, not only feeds the sheep, he's got to lead the sheep in following God's will. Now, it's interesting to me that the shepherd doesn't drive the sheep. He leads them. He's out in front. And this has always been my pattern ever since I've been pastoring, not to try to drive the church to do something, but to seek to lead. to share with the leadership what I believe the will of God in a situation was and let them pray about it. And then they had to choose to follow. And if they chose not to, it was between God and them. My job was to lead and show the way. But a shepherd doesn't drive his sheep. He leads them. And it's important that they follow what happens to sheep that don't follow the shepherd. And then he needs to encourage, he needs to encourage. The shepherd would encourage his sheep by pouring oil upon them, by bandaging up their wounds. And the pastor and church leadership need to encourage the congregation. Encourage them with words of hope and words of comfort. That's also the guarding, the protecting. There needs to be that guarding. The shepherd would guard his sheep from the lions and from the bears and from the wolves. The pastor needs to guard his congregation by pointing out to them things that they don't need to be involved in, places they don't need to be going, books they don't need to be reading, television programs they don't need to be watching. And then there is the disciplining. The shepherd had that crook on the end of his staff so he could bring them back when they were getting out of line. And there comes a time that congregations need to be, and individual Christians need to be disciplined. There needs to be that word of warning. That needs to be that rebuke. There needs to be that seeking of the scattered as well. Jesus tells that beautiful story of the shepherd who goes out after that one who has scattered and seeks to bring him back. But notice it doesn't say anywhere the shepherd is to entertain the sheep. I hear some preachers and I get the idea that they think their job is to entertain their congregation rather than feed them and shepherd them. Seems like it's just a lot of jokes and I'm wondering where the Word of God is in all of this. And you know they draw a big crowd because folks want to be entertained. They like to have their ears tickled. People will pay to be entertained, but they won't pay to come hear the Word of God. But a shepherd's responsibility is to feed the sheep. That's their ministry. Now, the motive. Peter talks about their motive, that they're to do so voluntarily according to God's will. Again, in verse 2, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God, and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness. First, he says, not under compulsion, not reluctantly, but willingly, voluntarily, That may have been as the Christians were experiencing persecution in Peter's day that maybe some guys were reluctant to get into the spiritual leadership because they realized they would be the primary targets of this persecution. And so Peter says, look guys, willingly pastor the flock. And because you love Jesus, not simply because you have a job to do, but shepherd the flock because you love Jesus and because you know it's God's will that you be there. See where it says, but voluntarily according to the will of God. The most important thing between the church and his spiritual leadership is for the church and the leadership to know that it's God's will for us to be together. I'm here because it's God's will for me to be here. May not be your will, but it's God's will. And you're here because it's God's will for you to be here. May not be my will for you to be here, but it's God's will for you to be here. Now, since it's God's will for you to be here and it's God's will for me to be here, we need to get along best we can, don't we? Because that's what God wants. We need to put it together and we need to work for the glory of God. And so it's all important that the pastor knows it's God's will. He's not to be there because he wants to be there, but because it's God's will for him to be there. But when you know it's God's will, this makes you desire to be there and to do his will. Notice it says not for money. A pastor's motive must not be to make money. I don't think many people go into ministry to get rich. I really don't. But sometimes they fall into that trap. We all know TV evangelists, TV personality, preacher personalities who have fallen into the trap of being greedy and going after it for the money. We can game examples. I don't have to go into them. That's one thing I have always appreciated about Billy Graham. He had a board of directors that set his salary. And he kept it at a very reasonable amount. Though he wrote all these books, he did not take those personal proceeds for himself. He told, when I was at seminary, he came and spoke. And he said, guys, he said, there are three things you've got to always be on guard against in ministry. He said, money, women, and pride. He, you know, women, he meant, you know, your unnatural affections and attractions to women, not just women in general. But he says those three, you understand what I mean? Those three areas will get you and trap you quicker than anything. You've got to always be on guard. And if you'll notice, it's those three areas that have tripped up the TV Avengers. We know it's either women or money or pride, all three. And so a shepherd is not to be in it for the money, but he is to be paid. As Paul says over in first Corinthians nine, if we sold spiritual things in you, is it too much that we reap spiritual material things from you? So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel. Though he is to be paid, that's not to be his primary goal and motive for ministry. You don't go in it. to make money you don't take a church because it pays you more money you take a church because you believe God's called you to that church and then he says with eagerness and this means cheerful readiness someone has said it means vigorously from the first it means to be as excited and enthusiastic about pastoring the church 17 years later as you were the first day. That's a challenge. I think Peter knew that. When you've been doing something for 34 years, it's a challenge to be as excited and enthusiastic as you were at the beginning. Those of you that have worked at jobs for that longer time, you know what I mean. Peter understood this. That's the challenge. But by God's grace, that is the motive of the pastor, to with eagerness, willingly serve the Lord by shepherding the flock. Now he talks about their manner in verse 3. Not lording over them, but leading through example. Yet not as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be an example to the flock. Not lording it over the people, The pastor's not to be a dictator. He is not to be domineering. He's not to be a tyrant. Again, he's to lead the sheep, not drive them. He's not to say, look, I'm the pastor. We are going to do what I say we're going to do. And there have been some pastors that have said things like that, but that's not the biblical position. The biblical position is to lead through example of a godly life. That's the way Jesus led. Jesus could have commanded, rightfully commanded, but He didn't. He led through His godly example. The church leadership should lead through their example. They should be the most committed, they should be the most spiritually minded, They should be the most consecrated of the entire congregation. As I tell the leadership, you cannot lead from behind. You've got to lead from in front. You lead people to move to the next spiritual level by your example. But you need to have wisdom even in that because A leader is one who's five steps ahead of his people. A martyr is one who's 10 steps ahead. So you got to have wisdom to be that five steps and just keep the levels moving forward. And then he talks about their reward. When the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. This is the only place in scripture chief shepherd is used. And again, I think Peter's wanting to say, look guys, it's all about the chief shepherd. You're the under shepherd, but he's the chief shepherd. You're serving him. You need to remember you're serving him first. The people second early on in ministry. I had to learn this. Because when I first started off in ministry, I was trying to please everybody. And you know what happens when you try to please everybody. You hardly please anybody. But I came to find out that there were some people who were not going to be pleased no matter what I did. I mean, it was just impossible. They were going to complain and gripe no matter what I did. And then there were some people who were going to love me no matter what I did. They was all preaching, you know, you're just doing your best and we just love you. And then you had those that could go either way, right? Well, I learned early on, I needed to be concerned about pleasing only Jesus. And if I was convinced in my heart that I was pleasing Jesus, the chief shepherd, and he could take care of the rest. And that has worked throughout my ministry. What does the chief shepherd desire for me to do? How can I be faithful to my chief shepherd? And to those who are faithful, he says, there awaits for them the unfading crown of glory. Notice unfading crown of glory. You know, glory in this life is fading. You know John Smoltz? Remember when he pitched for the Braves? Boy, he'd get cheers and they would just clap and oh, they'd just give him great glory. Well, Friday, the Boston Red Sox cut him. After three and a half innings, pulled him out the game. He'd had a miserable two and five seasons so far. In humility, in shame, no glory. He walks off the field, probably never to pitch again. See how His glory just faded? That's the way life's glory is. You know, one day people are praising you, the next day they're booing you. But the glory that God has is an unfading crown of glory. It will not diminish. It will not go away. And that word crown is the word stefanos, which is the victor's crown. To those who faithfully serve by shepherding the flock of God, they will receive the victor's crown of unfading glory. It makes you wish you could be a pastor, doesn't it? So you could get that unfading crown of glory, doesn't it? Well, I got news for you. You can get it anyway. And I'm going to tell you how. Over in Matthew 10, 41, Jesus said, he who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward. He who receives a man of God, a God called leader in the name of a prophet as one that God has called, I accept you as the one God's called to lead us and act accordingly, then you can get the prophet's reward. which is that unfading crown of glory. You say, well, how do I do that? How do I receive a prophet in the name of a prophet? Let me tell you. First, by praying for your pastor and deacons and leadership. Praying for us. We need it. Secondly, by encouraging him in the work of the Lord. Letters, notes, checks. No. by undergirding his ministry with your tithes and offerings. And that goes to the church, not to him. But it's encouraging. You know, when you see people putting their money where their talk is, you know that they're committed to what's going on because your heart does follow your pocketbook. And then given freely of your time to serve the Lord. I want you to know it was encouraging to this man right here. It was encouraging how many of you signed up to be involved in our community makeover with Floyd Middle School. How many of you were involved in the painting project and in the uniform drive and the yard sale? That encouraged me. It did. You're going to get some rewards for that. You know, it's discouraging when you're trying to do stuff and nobody wants to sign up, nobody wants to step forward. You can encourage and you do encourage the leadership when you give of your time to serve the Lord. God's call on the leadership is to shepherd the flock because they need leadership to help them to live the life that God's called him to live, to proclaim His excellences. Will you accept that leadership? Will you follow the words of the rite of Hebrews? In Hebrews 13, when he says, Obey your leaders, submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account Let them do this with joy and not with grief for this would be unprofitable for you. We're in this thing together, aren't we? We both have a job that God's called us to do. Let's do it for his glory. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for the truthfulness of your word. Thank you. that you have clearly spoken to leadership and what our responsibility is to you and to the congregation, and that you've spoken clearly to the congregation's responsibility as well, that we might walk united as those who walk together, who agree, who love you supremely to advance your kingdom. In Jesus' name, amen.