Please turn to 1 Peter chapter 5. We have concluded last week our study through the book of Acts, and before we begin the book of Isaiah, We wanted to take a few weeks and look at this topic of church office, of elders particularly, and this morning I would begin with this passage. We'll spend, Lord willing, a couple of weeks on this topic of elders. Who they are, what they do, and so forth. Their calling. 1 Peter 5, verse 1. The elders who are among you I exhort I, who am a fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed, shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion, but willingly, not for dishonest gain, but eagerly, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. Blessed are those who hear this word of the Lord and keep it. Almighty Heavenly Father, your word is truth. Sanctify us by it. Your word gives light, Lord, illumine our paths. It gives understanding. Open our hearts to understand your word. Sanctify us. Feed us this morning, we ask through this word. And may we be better equipped to serve you this morning. And I ask that you would sanctify my sinful lips. and that you would keep them from error, that they may proclaim your truth with your means, by the power of your Spirit. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I have a question that I think even the little ones among us this morning can answer. So are you young this morning, little ones? Listen up. I have a question for you, and I hope you can answer it. What does an airline pilot do? What does an airline pilot do? Does anybody know? A pilot, yes, William. He pilots an airplane, that's right. See, I thought so. What does a welder do? Yes, William. He welds very good. What does a miller do? Yes, Samuel. Just wait. He mills grain, yes. What does a tanner do? Okay, William. Tans leather. Tans animal hides to make leather, yes. That's a tanner. Okay, how about somebody else? What does a fireman do? He puts out fires, that's right, a fireman. What does a blacksmith do? Okay, Jonathan. Well, that's not bad. He does, he works with steel, black metal, black metal. A goldsmith works with gold, fashions things out of gold. You see, a person's title, their identity in society or what they are is often tied to their work, right? An engineer is somebody who engineers things and so forth. Sometimes we have to look at the etymology of a word to see how that fits, but most of the time, vast majority of cases, a person's title, their name, is tied to what they do. So let's apply this to the passage that we read this morning. What is an elder? What does an elder do? What is an elder? Well, we can learn a lot by just looking at the titles that are given in this passage. And there are three of them. Did you see them? There are three of them. But before we look at that, I want to anticipate and answer another question right away. And that is the question, what does this have to do with me? Why should I care about what an elder does or his work or who he is or qualifications and all those sorts of things? Maybe you're a lady or a young girl and you're thinking, I'll never be an elder in the church. Or you're a man thinking, I don't really have any desire to get involved in that church stuff. My family, my work, my other occupations keep me plenty busy. My interests, my gifts lie elsewhere. That's not something that I need to be too concerned about. That's what elders do and how they're qualified and where they come from and all those sorts of things. Those are for the elders to be worried about. Well, I want you to notice this text. This is a charge that is given. If you go to the beginning of this letter, you'll see that it is a charge that is given to the churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia. It's a region of churches in what we would call Turkey today. But Peter did not write this in a private letter. This is the elders who are among you, I exhort. Who's the you there? It's all the saints in these churches. The elders who are among you, he's saying, I exhort. Who's he talking to? Peter's talking to the churches, to everybody that's not an elder, as well as the elders. He's saying, I'm exhorting the elders who are among you. I'm exhorting the elders, but I'm doing it in your presence because I want you to hear what I'm going to tell them. Because you need to know what I'm going to tell the elders, what I'm going to exhort them. And so I think it's very fitting and very necessary that we all would pay attention to Peter's, the Apostle Peter's exhortation to the elders. and what he's going to charge them to do. And there's very practical reasons for this. I'll give you two reasons now and two reasons in our close at the end. But first, the two reasons now. First, it's important for you as God's people to know about elders so that your expectations of these shepherds match God's expectations of these shepherds. It's so that you do not require and we do not require more of these men than what the chief shepherd requires of his shepherds. And that we require also no less from them than what God requires of his under-shepherds." You see, differing expectations is always a source of conflict, isn't it? If your wife expects you to do something and you don't do it, she's rightly disappointed, right? We feel betrayed. We feel shortchanged. We feel wronged. if somebody doesn't do what we were expecting them to do, especially if we think they should have done it. And if they do something that we don't expect them to do, we might feel like they are overreaching. or they're encroaching on our space, or they're busybodies prying into our own business, poking their nose where it doesn't belong, prying into our privacy when they do things that we don't expect them to do. You see, we need to expect from elders what Jesus expects from them, not to expect more of them than what Jesus requires and be discontent that they don't do all that we want them to do, or on the other hand, not to expect less of them than what Jesus expects of them, and to be offended when they do more than what we want or expect of them. So you all need to know what Jesus, who is called in this passage the Archbishop, the Archbishop, is the arch shepherd, I should say, is expecting of these men. But secondly, second practical reason why it's important for you to know these things about elders is that you have a very important role in the making of elders. Yes, God raises up elders, God equips elders and calls them to care for his flock as his representative. But you, you and I, as the people of God, have a responsibility to choose these people, these men to be elders, and to elect them to office. Exodus 18 and Acts 14 both speak of this responsibility of God's people. In Exodus 18, they're commanded to choose you this day, these elders. And in Acts 14, we see an example of the people Appointing it says the the the apostles appointed by but if the word is by a show of hands So there is a show of hands. There is an election. It's a word that's used for an election That the people are choosing by election by a show of hands those who are going to be elders and You know, it's a lot like our sanctification that we just read about or recited this morning. It's 100%, our sanctification is 100% the work of God's grace within us. And yet it's also 100, at the same time, 100% our work in making our calling and election sure. They're both true. They're both completely true. We are to add to our faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, to brotherly kindness love, so that we're not barren or unfruitful in the kingdom of God. We are to do that. That's our work, but sanctification is a work of God's grace within us, and both are true. So God raises up elders, God equips them, God gifts them. He says he gives them to his church, but God's people must also choose them, elect them. And so for those two reasons, it is important So this term then, come back to our question, what is an elder? Well, like a welder welds, an elder is sometimes called a presbyter. You might have heard that word if you grew up in the church. You might associate that word elder if you grew up in a church and deacon and think that this is some mysterious person connected with the church. And depending on your experience with elders, you may have a good experience or a bad experience. You may have a good memory, good associations, or maybe bad associations with this term. But the point this morning is that these are very simple words in their original language. Elder is simply a comparative adjective that means older, right? Old is the adjective. Older is a comparative adjective. Oldest is we call the superlative. And that's all the word is, somebody who is older, not the oldest, older. And a presbyter is simply the Greek word for somebody who is older. Doctors that like to give Greek and Latin names for the symptoms that we experience in our bodies would tell someone who needs reading glasses that they have presbyopia, old eyes. And so I want to encourage us this morning to think of these titles that we'll be looking at in their very ordinary sense It's like welders weld and pilots pilot and tanners tan. Elders are those who are older. I think it will provide, if you think about these terms this way, it will provide a lot of insight into what they are and what they should be doing. Just like a deacon. It's not a mysterious word. It's just a servant who waits on tables. It's a waiter. It just happens to be a Greek word that we brought into English. So what do these older men do? Well, we can just look around in the scriptures to see what they do. We find that they represent God's people. These older men serve as representatives of God's people. In Exodus 3, God told Moses that he was to go to Israel and they would listen to his voice. And then he said, you shall come, you and the elders of Israel should go to the king of Egypt and you will say to them this message, that he was to let them go. Moses was there getting ready for the Passover. He called for the elders of Israel, and he said to them, pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families. He spoke to these elders as representatives of the entire 600,000 men and several million more women and children. In Leviticus 4, the elders of the congregation were to lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord, and the bull would be killed before the Lord. What's the significance of the elders of the congregation laying their hands on the bull? They are the representatives of God's people. They are representing those people. And what they do, the people are doing. Moses wrote the law and delivered to the priests who bore the ark and to the elders of Israel. If we compare that with Deuteronomy 29, we see all Israel is commanded to keep the law. Moses delivers it to the elders of Israel. He's delivering it to the representatives of the people who will then bring that word, that law to the people, because all the people were required to obey that law according to Deuteronomy 29. Or the other way we can look at this is a number of times all the congregation is said to do something that obviously not every single person in the congregation could do. In Leviticus 8, all the congregation was to gather at the door of the tabernacle. Now could 600,000 men gather around one tabernacle door? I mean, 600,000 men, that's way more people than are in Conroe, the whole city. No, the whole city of Conroe couldn't gather around the door. let alone over a half a million men, or all the women and children. They're added up to millions. So no, what is happening? The elders, as representatives of the people, are gathering around that tabernacle door, and they're being addressed by Moses. And we see this in a number of places where Moses is told to speak to the congregation, to tell the congregation something. And what he's doing is telling the elders as the representatives of the people, or the person that was to be stoned, take him outside the camp who has cursed, because he blasphemed in Leviticus 24, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and what? Let all the congregation stone him. Now, how could 600,000 men, let alone several million people, stone one person? You can't do it. But the elders, as representatives of the people, can do it. We see that all the congregation goes to war. Well, we know the women and children didn't go to war. So there is a representative aspect to what the elders do. You remember, I had just actually we haven't gotten to it in Joshua yet, but a little bit later on, the Gibeonites come to Joshua and they pretend to be from real far away. And Joshua unwisely. Makes peace with them, and then it turns out that. These Gibeonites were right next door, they had lied. They had lied to Joshua. But Joshua had made peace with them. And this is what happened. Then the children of Israel, the congregation complained against the rulers because They were not able to destroy these Gibeonites like they were supposed to. And the and the rulers said to the congregation, we have sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel. We may not touch them. You see what the elders had done. They did in the name of the people and the people were bound by what they had done. The elders represent the people. And later on, Saul as king. tried to kill the Gibeonites and God brought a famine pestilence on the land a famine killed number of Israelites the people and when David inquired about it he was told that it was because of Saul's sin against the Gibeonites Saul violated the covenant that had been made by these elders and who paid the price the people did because they were represented in what those elders did. And they were represented in what Saul, their leader, had done. In Exodus 19, verse 6, we read, Moses is commanded to speak to the children of Israel. And then all the people answered together and said, So Moses brought back the word of the Lord to the people. So there we see the elders are representing the people to the Lord, and they're also representing the Lord to the people. It's a two-way representation. God said to Moses, you go tell all the congregation. What does Moses do? He calls all the elders together, and he gives the word of the Lord to them. And they're the ones that give it to the people. And so in this way, then the Bible says Moses brought back the word to all the people of the Lord. They represent elders, represent the people to God, and they represent God to the people. The elders meet together as a session. We never see elders operating by themselves. They are always a plurality. And notice it's plural, the elders who are among you. It's a plurality. They exercise an authority that was a plural, not individual authority. There's a difference between what this session says as the plurality of elders and what one individual elder says to you. That might be good advice, but it doesn't carry the same weight as what a session does as a session of elders. So the elders. These are older men. And older men are those who, by nature of their age, often have a dignity, a wisdom, and ought to have a respect due to that age. And that's what's conveyed in this word elder, somebody who is older, somebody who represents the people to the Lord and represents the Lord to the people. He says, I, the elders, who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and witness of the suffering of Christ. Peter was an apostle. He spoke by apostolic authority and yet he says here, I'm just an elder too. I'm a fellow elder with you. A witness of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker of the glory that will be revealed. There are the two great goalposts. or two great monuments between which elders work, the sufferings of Christ. Now, we're not a witness to the sufferings of Christ like Peter was, but we do partake in Christ's sufferings. And he's a witness to the sufferings and he's a partaker of the glory that will be revealed. You see, those are the two great goalposts, if you will, the two things between which we labor. Looking back to Christ's first coming, looking forward to Christ's second coming, we we suffer. We endure trials and tribulations as people of God and elders are there to help us, but they are also there to remind us and to point us to the glory that is before us, to the final reward. They're there to encourage us. Those are the two great markers that we must always keep in view, and elders are there to help us keep those two things in view. Shepherd the flock of God, which is among you, serving as overseers. There's two more terms there, shepherd and overseer. Shepherd the flock of God, serving as overseers. The word overseer is simply the word bishop. They may not sound like, but bishop is kind of a transliteration of the Greek word through various paths. But the Greek word is episkopos. And actually, an overseer does what? Remember, a welder welds, an overseer oversees. Now, let me illustrate how there are usually three different ways that these words, each of these words is used. Let me illustrate this with the welder, or let me do it with police, actually. There is the police, the police. That's the office, a general category, right? Then there is the policeman. That's a man who is a member of the police. You following? Yep, following, okay. And then there is the work of policing. That's a verb. So the police and policemen are nouns. One is the office. The other is a particular man that holds that office. Police, policeman. And they do the work, a verb, policing. And we have the exact same thing going on in the Bible with these words. So in the Hebrew, in the Greek, and in the English. And they're very similar, just like police, policeman, and policing are all very similar. Two nouns and a verb, we have the same thing in the Bible, in the Hebrew and in the Greek. So in the Greek word, I'll give it to you, it's episkopos, that would be the police, that's the office, episkopos. There is the policeman, which would be the episkopos, that's the overseer, and that's where bishop comes, episkopos, bishop, biskop, that's where that comes from. So the overseer is an overseer. And then there is the verb, to oversee, episkopio. So they sound very similar. And in the Hebrew, it's the same way, pakuda, pakad, pakid. Two nouns and a verb. One refers to the office. One refers to a particular man in that office. The other is the verb of exercising that office. the office of overseeing, the office of oversight, the overseer, and the work of overseeing. And elders functioned as overseers. And so in the New Testament, overseer Shepherd and Elder are all the same thing. They're three different words that speak of three different aspects of their work, but they are completely synonymous. They're the same person. And we could look at many passages in the Old Testament that speak of the oversight that overseers did. They had oversight of the temple. The Levites had oversight of furniture. They had oversight of the singing, of the worship. They had oversight. In 2 Chronicles 34, the men did the work faithfully. Their overseers were Japheth and Obadiah the Levites. And they were the sons of Kohathites to supervise other of the Levites, all whom were skillful with instruments of music. So there there's oversight of the music. There was oversight of the table of showbread, and of the altars, and of the furniture, and of the temple. There was oversight of the sacrifices. There was oversight of the money. and so on. So, Peter is saying these elders are those who exercise oversight of God's people. But the third thing here is shepherd, and this is a verb in this case, but we know in English that a shepherd shepherds, right? It's a noun and a verb, right? A shepherd shepherds. And so, this is a verb here, shepherd, the flock of God. Shepherd is, in the New Testament, is the exact same word for pastor. Pastor is, and shepherd are exactly equivalent. They mean the exact same thing. So when you think pastor, hear pastor, think shepherd. When you hear shepherd, think pastor. One comes to us from the Latin, one comes, the other comes from the Middle English, but their meaning is identical. Anytime you see that, those two words, they are the same. A pastor is a shepherd, a shepherd is a pastor. So these are to shepherd or pastor the flock of God, which is among you. What does a shepherd do? Well, a shepherd cares for the flock of sheep. And that involves feeding them. That involves leading them into green pastures, providing good food, caring for them. David was a shepherd, right? And what did he do as a shepherd? He killed wolves and lions that were a danger to the flock. So shepherds have to protect the flock. And the Bible says, that's why the Bible says that shepherds have to be able to refute those who contradict, those who would bring error into the church. Shepherds need to be able to defend against those errors and doctrines that would lead people astray, that would harm their spiritual and physical well-being. Shepherds care. Shepherds lead. So they feed. They lead, Psalm 80, give ear, O shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock, you who dwell between the cherubim, shine forth. Shepherds lead their flock, right? The chief shepherd, Jesus, the Messiah, will lead those, gently lead the young. Shepherds advise. Ecclesiastes 12, the words of the wise are like goads and the words of scholars are like well-driven nails. A scholar is somebody who has expertise in in in a field. The words of the wise are like goads and the words of scholars are like well-driven nails given by a shepherd. Isaiah 40, he will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and gently lead those who are with young. That's the work of a shepherd, to care for the weak, to carry those that need carried, to gently uphold those who are suffering. It's to rule, Isaiah 44, who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd and he shall perform all my pleasure, saying to Jerusalem, you shall be built, and to the temple your foundation shall be laid. This king, God says, is his shepherd, to rule. Isaiah 63 speaks of God's blessing. Then he remembered the days of old Moses and his people saying, where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he who put his Holy Spirit within them? See, shepherds need to be shepherd God's people. They need to have God's tools, God's spirit, God's resources to shepherd God's people. God, though notice, is called the chief shepherd. Chief shepherd. All of the men that God appoints are his under shepherds. Jesus is the great shepherd. He's called also the shepherd and bishop, the shepherd and overseer of our soul. But here he's called the chief shepherd, and that word is arch, arch shepherd, arch pastor. Jesus is our arch pastor. See, and his under shepherds are those who have to give an account of their shepherding. Remember when Jacob served Laban? He said that he had to give account for all the animals, all the sheep that were killed. He said he bore that himself. He was responsible as the shepherd of Laban's flock, because that's what he agreed to work for Laban for 14 years, actually for his wives, and another six years for the flocks. He was a shepherd for Laban, and he had to be accountable for the sheep that were lost under his watch. And so it is with Christ's under shepherds. They watch over our souls as those who must give an account. And so we are called to listen and submit to them so that they can do that with joy and not with grief. So the primary duty of a shepherd is to care, to secure wholesome food for the sheep. And this is what Christ has commissioned his under-shepherds to do. And one of the, of course, important ways that that is done is through the preaching of the word. The word is the food, that food by which we live. There's a lot more here that we will look at in in future weeks, Lord willing, about all of the manner and the means and the qualifications of those who would shepherd. God's sheep. But I would like to give you the last two reasons. why you should be interested and care about this topic. Because thirdly, what they do affects you. They're the ones who are entrusted with caring for us. Because remember, all God's under shepherds are themselves sheep who need shepherding too. So it's all of us. What? They're the ones who feed us. If they don't do a good job, if we didn't pick good ones, then they might not feed us very well. They're the ones who advise us. We want good advice. They're the ones who lead us. We want to know that they know where they're going and that they are following the chief shepherd and not their own ideas. So we want to know who these people are. We want to know how we ought to go about choosing them and who we ought to choose because what they do greatly affects us, greatly affects us. They impact us, they impact our families. So we should be very concerned, right? We wouldn't want to go to a doctor that was gonna give us bad advice or hurt our bodies, right? We run from them. And we'll look at how God deals with his bad shepherds. It's not very nice, not very easy on them. But the fourth reason is so that you better know and understand how to pray for these men who are to shepherd you. And so that you can encourage them in their work. When faithful, churches are attacked, it is often the pastors, the elders, the shepherds that bear the brunt of that attack. And they need your prayers. They need your prayers. And when you understand what their calling is and what their duties are, then you're able to pray for them more effectively, more faithfully, more pointedly. Even Paul, I remember how many times he asked, he coveted the prayers of the people because he needed them. Shepherds need your prayers. and I trust and I know that you do pray for me and I greatly appreciate that. Well, let us pray. Almighty Father in heaven, we know as your under shepherds that we are but fallible men. that we stand only by your grace, and we labor only because you uphold us, you sustain us, because you are pleased to work through us. Father, help us to rightly view these men that you have called, to give them the honor that you give to them, to give them the prayer that you call us to give them. Yes, and even to hold them accountable to the tasks that you have called them to do. Grant us, Lord, discernment in this. Grant us diligence in praying for them, in upholding them before your throne of grace. And Lord, may we also Encourage them in that task that they may exercise this oversight with joy and not with grief. And that they may grow in their wisdom. And the wisdom of their counsel and leadership and advice and and feeding and preaching of your word. We ask these things in Jesus name, amen.