This is the word of the Lord. So, I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another. For God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Let's pray. Our Father, we do give you thanks. We thank you for this chief shepherd, the Lord Jesus. We thank you for his life given, for his instructions to his church. And Lord, we thank you for the chance to study your word together. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Please be seated. It's usually my kids that keep me humble as I think about getting up to preach. This morning it was my wife's turn. She had beat me to head this way and I got a little text back from her as she looked ahead to her morning and she said, make sure you bring that novel I'm reading. And I thought, she's trying to fill the hour here when I'm preaching with the book. I thought, well, then I remembered that she was heading to the airport after church to pick up our daughter and probably filling some time. But I also was reminded of just some sweet words from one of our young people in our church, just in grade school. I was given this note last week. I guess it was in response to a little teaching I had done sometime in the past. And this note of thanks said to me, dear Mr. Tate, thank you for telling us about Jesus, even though we already know about him. And Ben, that was your daughter. And I can assure you, I will treasure this as much as any note I will ever get from someone older. But you know, it's a little bit how I feel when we get to talking about a passage like this, that's talking about the elders and the makeup of God's church. Because I think we're a church that rightly can say, we pay attention to this. This is not, the kind of teaching that is a surprise to us that we sit in the pews here or get familiar with what we're about and say, I've never heard that before. Elders, shepherds, leading, shepherding the flock. It's, it's something that's very important to us here. And I would dare say some of you have studied and been familiar with a passage like this or the teaching for many years. Some of you might just be newer to our church, but have already thought and started to really appreciate the biblical teachings because we seek to go back there when we talk about how God wants his church run, how he wants his church led, and the kind of people and the duties that they are to have. So there's an aspect in which I feel like you could say, well, thank you for telling me about how God wants his church run, but I already know that. But I do think that so often when we go back to the scriptures and someone has taken a few weeks to wrestle with it, to look for the clear teaching of that and shares that as I hope to do, that there's some things that are reinforced. There's some aspects that you already know that God builds on and helps you with. And maybe if at the all the said and done at the end of this time together, you say, you know, I already know that, but I'm left appreciating the chief shepherd and his shepherds more than ever. Well, I'll consider that a home run on my standpoint of success of bringing God's word to you. Well, I want you to look at this passage and we'll kind of head through it from start to beginning, but I've organized things just as might be appropriate to this shepherding and some of the different aspects of that. And I begin with just a reminder that God's leaders in the church especially in a passage like this we are given some significant insight simply by the terms that are used. I was around my good friend Ben Lewis and his son Samuel a few weeks ago. We were in a setting where some of the kids were introducing their dads and several of the people in this group had dads who were pastors in the church and so in various churches. It was just a Christian setting but not just our church. And so when I got to Samuel, I saw Samuel proud to be able to introduce his dad, but just not quite sure what to say. All these others had introduced as a pastor. And he said, my dad's a elder in the church. And you know, the other kids are like, well, okay, interesting. You know, I don't know what that is. And I remember texting Ben later in the day. I said, I think you need just to have a little lesson with Samuel, just reminding him or showing him that in the church, the same office here, right from the beginning, has terms like elder and shepherd, Latin for pastor, as well as bishop, the word for overseer. And I said, next time, have him introduce you as Bishop Ben. But I say that kind of humorously, but the terms here in this passage here, we have in just the course of the first two verses here, we have all three of these terms that show up in various churches and denominations in various ways. And yet it's so very clear these terms are biblical and they all refer to the same people, okay? So I want you to look at verse one and just point out that we see these terms. So I exhort the elders among you. There's the first one, the elders. He goes on to say, as a fellow elder, a witness of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Now, verse two, the second term, shepherd the flock, pastor. If we were in Latin, we'd say pastor the flock. And then right after that, it says, exercising oversight, episkopos, which is the word we would use for Bishop or overseer. Well, You know, an elder is a term that is very much a scriptural term. It's the term that we tend to latch on to here in our church, is the term we use. The Presbyterians use the term as well. They use the original Greek word presbyteros. And so when you're in a Presbyterian church, the leaders in the church are often called the presbyters. When they gather together, they call their meetings Presbytery, not just an elders meeting, they call it Presbytery when they gather together. So you can see the term used there. It is a term that's used very clearly in this passage of men. If they wanted to say women, they would have used a different word, presbyteros, A-S as opposed to O-S at the end. It's a term that has definitely a root with those of age. Presbys means an older man, but It's very clear as you study the scriptures and even just study the meaning of this term as it's used that it's a term that doesn't refer to age but of maturity. And you don't have to live long to realize the two are not always directly proportional. We appreciate the young man, the young woman who has demonstrated some maturity in life and we think of that person perhaps even in their early 20s and we say, that's a mature young lady. We say that as a compliment, that for her age she's already demonstrating some wisdom, some ability to relate well to people. We don't find that as just a strange way of saying things. And then we say about the guy that's still living in mom's basement and playing video games that's much beyond the time, that he hasn't grown up yet. He hasn't matured. We wouldn't use the term elder of someone just because their age would suggest that. The term shepherd is the term to, here it is, to shepherd the flock. A shepherd, shepherds. So we don't see the noun here because it says shepherd the flock, but plenty of other times we see the noun. We'll see the noun in verse four. The chief shepherd, Jesus, is that person. And so often the shepherds are called to shepherd, to do the verb of it. It's a verb that means to feed, to tend to flock, to keep sheep, and it's the key metaphor of a church leader that is used in the New Testament. And so we want to make sure that though we're familiar and we've heard things at different times, it's worth revisiting what it means to shepherd, and we'll do that. And then this term to oversee, this term episkopos, it's used elsewhere as a noun. in verse 20, verse 28, it refers to those overseers. What do overseers do? Well, they oversee. They look after in the same way shepherds shepherd. So here though it's the verb giving oversight. It's other places the same person is referred to as an overseer. I experienced just that tension of terms in the little church I grew up with that is similar to our church here in terms of much of its denominational historical background. And, and I remember knowing that though my dad was an elder in the church and other men were that I would never ever refer to them as pastor. That was anathema just to be honest with you, because there was a sense that the pastor was a paid position and there was just a resistance to that. I'm not justifying that or being overly critical. It's just the way it was. I don't, I don't know if I ever heard the word pastor in 20 years of growing up in the church. because of just a hesitancy of what that term often meant, of a lead guy, a paid guy, and the others were maybe just yes men. I'm not sure all of what fed into that, but the word pastor wasn't used. And yet the term, when on the back of our little church bulletin listed the elders in the church, the term over that was the oversight. They wouldn't dare use the term the episkopos or the bishops. but there was this appreciation for different terms, though a hesitancy to use some terms. So I say that just to say, here, let's go back to the Bible and just realize, it's very clear in verses one and two of chapter five that the same, originally, the same group of men leading the church were at various times called the elders, were called the shepherds, the pastors, and were called the overseers. The bishops would be the term that would be most closely aligned to that. And I think those terms, and I'm not here just to talk about terms, but the terms help us to define the duties of those church leaders. Because I would dare say if you went and found a job description of just a random church, evangelical church in America, for someone who is going to be the pastor of the church, There might be some things on that list that stray. They may not be in quotes unbiblical or anti-biblical, but may well stray significantly against the core things that the scriptures have and almost seem more CEO or managerial like. I'm not against management, but there's a place for knowing what does the scripture say as the starting point, the core things in which we should pay attention to, we should desire, and we should encourage in our leaders. Well, the term shepherd or pastor is the first of just the two things I want to focus on because it really encapsulates so much of what the duties are. I appreciated just a sermon I read on this passage this past week by a well-known preacher and has a large congregation that He's a well-respected man and in the sermon of about 10 years ago, he early on began with this statement as he looked out over the congregation of probably a few thousand. He says, I dare say there's not a single shepherd in the audience today. And my guess is he was right. And I could probably say the same with our congregation isn't quite that big, but I thought I could even ask the question, how many of you in your lifetime have been within 10 feet of a sheep for more than 10 minutes. And there's a few, I appreciate it. Let's just change places here, Daniel. All the rest of us have just kind of read about it here and there, and we kind of get up there and hope we know something about what it means. But the truth is we live in a country, not just a culture, but we live in a country that really has not that many sheep. Now I don't know if you know this, there are 1.2 billion sheep in the world. That's a lot of sheep. And I bet you didn't know this because we haven't all been as close to a sheep as Dan is. If you turn the sheep upside down and dig around in the wool right underneath, you will see a stamp that says made in China. Because 200 million of them live in China out of that 1.2 billion. The next most, 70 million in Australia. They're always behind the kangaroos. You know, you pay attention to kangaroos, there's sheep in the background. India has 60 million. Nigeria and Iran have 40 and 45 million. I thought they all lived in New Zealand but they only have 30 million. Even head across the pond to the UK and around Britain, they have 30 million themselves or 33 million. And here in Colorado, I think we have four sheep. But the truth is, this dominant metaphor of the New Testament is distant to most of us. Not all of us, but most of us. And even those that I would say have been around sheep would stretch it to say they're shepherds. They might know more than the rest of us, but nonetheless, there's not many of us that really know the metaphor in a personal kind of way, the way that Jesus' audience, and Peter's audience in this case, would know. As I've studied it and I've heard things before, and some of you have shared things that have been helpful to me over the years, as I've listened to some of you teach and preach in various contexts, I would say when it boils down to it, here's what I'm left with is maybe the most important thing, at least that I can remember about sheep and shepherds. And it's this, sheep need a shepherd. perhaps more than any other domesticated animal. Sheep need a shepherd. You know, there's many animals. You think about those wildebeest out on the Serengeti plain. I can't remember when they all run through. You know, and it's like, mom looks over at them. Hey, you've been born 15 minutes ago. Get up and walk and follow the rest of us. They just find their way so early on, but a sheep has such needs, such needs for a shepherd. And what are those needs? They have the needs for a shepherd to lead them, to feed them, and to care for them. To lead them, to feed them, and to care for them. And if a shepherd is not available to do those things, as one person said, When there's a sheep that's wandered off without a shepherd, nature's just gotten a snack. That's what one father said. And I want to take you actually to just a passage to reinforce that about these shepherds back to Ezekiel 34. And frankly, it's not a very encouraging passage. It's when shepherds were failing. It's when shepherds weren't living up to their responsibilities, but as the spirit of God speaking through Ezekiel speaks against them, we see him outline their failings very specifically. And in their failings, what they're not doing, we see what they were supposed to be doing. And it teaches us, especially spiritual shepherds, what they are to be about. Ezekiel 34. And I'm just gonna read verses one to five about these shepherds. And listen as I read it, listen for what the duties of a shepherd are to be, especially a spiritual shepherd. That's what's being outlined here. The word of the Lord came to me, son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to them, even to the shepherds, thus says the Lord God, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves, Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat. You clothe yourselves with the wool. You slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. How opposite they were of the good shepherd, sacrificing the best of the sheep for themselves, taking on their wool for their own comfort. Verse four, the weak you have not strengthened. The sick you have not healed. The injured you have not bound up. The strayed you have not brought back. The lost you have not sought. And with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered because, though there were people present, there was no shepherd. Because there was no shepherd. Can you see in that passage, just the outline of a spiritual shepherd's responsibilities to feed, to care for them and to find and pull back the strays. It's so clear. The shepherds are one very clear role. I encourage you to think more about those things of leading and the feeding and the care of sheep. Much could be said there. But let's also consider just the role of being an overseer, one that watches over souls. That's there in verse two, the second part, after we're told the leaders are to shepherd the flock, they are to exercise oversight. And I just want to, I won't ask you to turn there. If you're taking notes, you might wanna write down these very helpful verses right here. Acts 20 verse 28, speaking very similar language. Keep watch elders, keep watch over all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. It goes on to say, be shepherds of the church. So once again, in tandem, be overseers of the flock watching out for them and also be shepherds. It's a complimentary role there. And then Hebrews 13 verse 17, referring to the elders, they are keeping watch over your souls, keeping watch over your souls. You know, the idea of oversight, you know, when I thought about that at the back of the bulletin in the little church I grew up with, the oversight, I find myself not able to relate to that word so well. Someone who's overseeing things is standing at a distance, you know, maybe looking over the construction yard that they're a manager and just making sure everybody kind of showed up and, you know, the machines are running. Now, maybe I picture somebody in the military looking on from a distance, you know, in the old days up on the hillside, seeing how the battle is being run. But the New Testament description of this word, is someone in the fray. Someone who is among, twice it says, verse one and verse two, among them, look after them. It's more like talking with Nate in between services and realizing as you're talking with him, his eye finds its way to the back and he smiles and he sees somebody that he's been praying for whose illness has kept him away for a few weeks. He's looking after the flock. It's different than an older brother being told to look after his little brother. I once thought to myself, if I could ever talk Sandy into just to let me take her away for a summer, and I put Jackson in charge of Barrett and said, look after your brother. And I keep in mind Jackson's 17 and Barrett's 14. If it was even legal, I don't think she'd let us do that. But if she did, I know that I would not ask for a daily update from Jackson on how his little brother's doing. I know I wouldn't bother with a weekly update. I might hope for a monthly update because that's about all he would ever see him once a month or something to look after him. When we are told though, to look after your little brother, even as growing up in a family, if you're an older sibling, it wasn't just kind of once in a while, know where they might be. The expectation, and we never lived up to it, I'm an oldest, we never lived up to it. But the expectation was, you'd know what they were up to. You would be watching when they got close to danger and intervene. You would make sure they got lunch. Even if it was already two in the afternoon and you let time slip, you'd make sure they got lunch. You'd make sure when they got hurt, you did something about it. I've wondered as I look at this aisle here, I sometimes think ahead with two daughters that are 20 and 21. I find myself a little more these days wondering, what will I say to that man that I'm handing her over to? I actually do think about that some of the time. Will I say to him is after I've walked her up the aisle and she's next to me and he's there and I'm ready to turn her over to be in this special relationship, will I say, she's expensive? I mean, I gotta speak truth. Am I gonna say, leave her alone to that first cup of coffee in the morning, don't even talk to her. I mean, I might have some sage advice at the altar, but you know what? If I just were given four words, I might simply say, look after your bride. And my hope would be if I were to say those four words, that there was a time a few weeks before during that period of engagement, when I pulled him aside and it was just the two of us. I didn't demand and I didn't bark at him and I didn't speak down to him, but I let him know just what that's meant for me for the first 20 or 25 years. That it's meant when her hands were cold and the gloves were wet, she got mine. That when she was tired from being sick, I was tired from her being sick. from checking on her and getting up early. And when she was resting soundly in her bed, not just on a Saturday morning, but even during the week, that there was many, many a days when I was up and gone to show up at work to provide for her. That would be the context that I would want him to know when at the altar he might hear me say, look after your bride. In the same way, an elder often is installed on an altar as well and on a platform. And it would seem to me that altar should hear very similar words from the shepherd that has looked after and loves deeply the ones that he is turning over to some degree to that elder. And he would hear similar words look after my bride. To look after is part of a shepherd's duty, part of an overseer's duty, to look after their souls is what the scriptures say. And then it were told at the end of verse three that of their duties, the last of the clear duties I see here being a shepherd, being an overseer, the end here in verse three is that they should be examples to the flock. to be examples to the flock and certainly other places when leadership is talked about. We see that call of being examples. Paul saying, follow me as I follow Christ. Set an example, be above reproach, set an example is a repeated refrain for leaders in the church. And I would say to you that I think there's aspects that being a shepherd, being an overseer can take hours in the course of a week. the men in this church and for many who are serving in churches. But you know what? Setting an example demands your life. It demands that every aspect of your life is subjected to the way God would want you to leave it knowing it has repercussions in the life of the flock. You can shepherd, you can oversee in a way that involves showing up at meetings, Giving up a weekend once in a while for an elders or pastoral retreat involves spending a little gas money to get to the hospital to check on somebody, a phone call, an email, any number of things and they take time. But setting an example invades every aspect of your life and ask, is it consistent with the kind of example that my Lord would have me set for those under my care? It's a life that demands that there's a respect and a life worthy of imitation. It's a life that requires that one's prayer and devotional life is consistent and worthy of emulating. It's a life that demonstrates if the man is married that he loves his wife deeply. It's a life that shows that he's aggressively investing in his children when they're still in his home. It's a life that is a student of God's word, whether that particular pastor elder is routinely in the pulpit or teaching in Sunday school or his duties are varied and he's not doing that so much. He is a student of God's word consistently month after month, year after year when he's in this office of shepherding God's people. It's a short little phrase being examples to the flock, and yet it's a phrase in which it requires so much. I wanna look at the shepherd's heart here just briefly, because I think the shepherd's heart, it's evident here, is supposed to be one in which he serves willingly and eagerly. I could take you over to 2 Corinthians 9, verses six and seven, where similar wording is used to talk about just how we are to give of our resources. Listen to what it says in 2 Corinthians 9 verse 7. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Not instruction is to the wider church as it relates to our money. And yet the same idea, really the same exact words are there as it relates to an elder serving in the church. that the question that we have when the money bags go around is not, what can I afford to give? That's not the question God would have us ask. The question that God would have us ask is, what can I willingly, even cheerfully give? And so to an elder, the same question, and the church should be asking the same question of who can, not who can do the job, but who has both the gifting to do the job and the calling as well as the willingness and even the eagerness to do the job. How important it is that that's the case. I think there's a sense in which that's also can be related to how we do the job, not just for the right reasons, but for in the right way, humbly and among the flock. Look at these words here in verse three, verse, that chapter 3, the beginning of verse 3, it says this, that we are to not domineer over those in your charge when you're an elder. Not domineering over those in your charge. And I so appreciate that right here, though Peter doesn't give a lot of concrete instruction of how you lead humbly, he demonstrates it by his own use of his words here. He's writing to elders. And you know what, Peter could pull out quite an impressive resume, couldn't he? I mean, to be one and say, you know, I remember when Jesus looked me in the eye and said, come follow me. How many people was he writing to that could say that? How many people he could write, he would talk about and be able to say, you know, seeing all those miracles, do you know what it's like to break? You know, my wrists were so sore breaking that bread and making 14,000 baskets and having eight left over, you know? Well, gosh, sometimes I just sit around, Peter might have said, and just think about meeting Moses and Elijah up there on the Mount of Transfiguration. And he could have easily said, if God's Spirit gave him insight, you know, hold on to this letter, don't get the coffee stains on it, because it's going to be part of Holy Scripture one day. I mean the list of what Peter could claim on his CV, on his resume was impressive. I don't know outside of Peter and Paul if there could be a more impressive spiritual resume. And yet he talks to these men in various churches and he says to them right at the beginning, I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder. I'm in the camp with you brothers. I'm one of you. It's the voice of camaraderie. It's not the voice of being elevated above them and talking down to them any more than they are to talk down to those around them. Peter demonstrates what Jesus did during his years, that though he had so much resources, the son of God himself, he was not one just lifting himself up. He left that to his father to handle. and Peter here follows an example of Christ and just has a spirit of camaraderie with the flock and he encourages that in the elders as well I believe in the ways that he says to humbly serve them that are among you twice he says that in verses 1 and 2 I exhort you as a fellow elder I'm sorry, exhort the elders among you meaning these elders are in your midst and then he says in verse 2 shepherd the flock that is among you." I think those are such simple words. It just seems like a little prepositional phrase and yet it's very valuable for the elders to hear those words and realize my focus is to be among the people and my focus is to be those that I am among. That in a sense the ones that hear my voice, that recognize my voice, that is my flock. John MacArthur said it this way on a sermon one time. He looked out and he said, my calling is to take care of the flock of God that's allotted to me. And he looked out over an audience one morning and said, like it or not, that's you. As long as you're here, that's you, he would say. I'm more concerned with the occupied seats than with the empty ones. I think it was not a message of I don't care about the unoccupied seats, but I realized the flock is right here. They are the ones that I am moving among and I want to make sure that I am serving them well. I was talking to a friend of mine just a couple of weeks ago and he was bemoaning his trip to the emergency room. And being an emergency room physician, I thanked him for his business and contribution to the health care system. But he said, he has three daughters, and two of them are away in college. And I happened to be there when he was around, one of those college daughters who was home for just a weekend. And he said, yes, I texted everybody, the wife and three girls, and said, I'm going to the ER. And of course, this one over here quickly got back to me two hours later and my pain and suffering, he was kind of just kidding her a little bit. And to defend herself, and I remember this so clearly what she said, she said, dad, I was being fully present with the people I was with and I didn't have my phone. And he looked over her as if he had maybe said those words to her before and said, well done. You know, I think there's a part in this world today that the calling of an elder is more challenged with in that aspect of to be present with the flock that you're there. I commend the men in this church. They do it marvelously well. But what a challenge it is. It's so easy to be connected, to try to be connected and be focused on things that are very distant rather than those that you're among. That the calling is very specific to those that recognize your voice and to be concerned about them as first priority. You know, there's an expectation of the shepherds. We see that in verse four. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. The theme of 1 Peter, I appreciate what a gentleman named Edmund Clowney, a theologian, said, is he said, here Peter's reflecting on God's program, and here it is, over and over again throughout these five chapters, suffering now, glory to come. That has been a recurrent theme as he's talking to those that have been through much and continue to go through much. Suffering now, glory to come. And here we find that this passage on shepherding and leading the church fits so well in that theme. And you would need only sit down with one of the elders, maybe even better, one of the elders' wives, and hear of just the burdens that they bear. Not hear the specifics that are confidential, but to hear the burdens that they bear, the trials and the suffering that so often they feel on behalf of God's people, and to see The encouragement from the chief shepherd that he himself, Ben and Lars, Reed, Paul I know is working today, sent me a text saying he's praying for me and Nate. And to hear this encouraging words that the chief shepherd at the right time, at a distant time in the future, perhaps maybe it's nearer than we think, will give you a commendation. And don't you hold onto these words unfading. I don't know if there's anything I could do for anyone in this room that would not be fading. Maybe there are, I don't know, but most of what I could do for you would be fading. The chief shepherd's into unfading gifts, unfading commendation. And I would challenge you brothers, hold on to God's word, even in the storms of the weights that you bear, because it's right there in scripture, intentionally there to encourage you about that. And finally, I just want to look at what the chief shepherd expects of us in our closing moments here. I'll be brief with it, it's verse five. You who are younger be subject to the elders, clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. You say, what? I'm not an elder in the church. What importance does this passage have for me? What is the action for me in that? Well, I'll tell you one clear action, seeing this related to this passage before, one clear action is to obey, to be in obedience to those who God has placed over your care as shepherds. And it's, he calls out those who are younger, though the context quickly goes on to say all of you, clothe yourselves with humility and be subject. be submissive to those that God has placed in leadership. And I will say that as a younger person there was such a temptation that I didn't always overcome to think, well, you know, some of the things he's talking about I know a little bit more about that than he does. And to write it off. Or maybe to even find, well, that person isn't that articulate. too foolish in a younger stage of life to appreciate the depths of the shepherd's heart, the imitation of the chief shepherd evident in that person's life. But I just found myself too often finding reasons maybe to not be that submissive to those placed over my care. And yet here we see that we are to obey as Hebrews 13 verse 17 says, obey your leaders, submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls. You know, in closing, I would say this, you know, you might appreciate, you got young kids, you need to get out of the house and to dinner, you might appreciate a good babysitter, one that you can trust the kids to look after for a few hours and just give you a much needed break. You know, you might appreciate a sports coach in your own life or in one of your kids' lives that has a particular concern and really just is doing the job well, seems to be loving on your kid or even loving on you when you think back at a time. It was so helpful. You might even find yourself valuing that neighbor. You're on vacation, you get a text from that neighbor. I saw Amazon, you know, like they do all the time, delivering another package on your porch there, I knew your way, I tucked it in the garage in that back door you always leave open. Borrowed some tools. But I tell you, friends and brothers and sisters, there's an indifferent appreciation that should well up within us. when we think of those who are not just looking after some smaller part of our lives, but those that are looking after our souls. When we think of those that, whether we realize it or not, have found times they have awakened in the middle of the night, and God has brought you on their mind, the job you've been struggling to get while out of work, the struggles you've had in your marriage and they weigh down this brother in the middle of the night. I would hope that there'd be an appreciation as they look after your soul that you would realize they have interrupted their plans when your health scares came. Whether it was visiting you at the hospital, whether it was sending you an email, just checking on you. Someone who seeks you out when doubts have you at church a little less often. The trials have led to doubts and that elder seeks you out. Friends, there is an appreciation that should well up when we think of those who are looking after our very souls. It's the chief shepherd's plan and how grateful I am and I hope you are as well for those who under the chief shepherd, under shepherds looking after our souls. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for this teaching in scripture. And I take this moment to give gratitude to the chief shepherd who has set up his church and intends the duties and the ways of carrying out the duties to be in such a beautiful and loving way to the flock. And Lord, I thank you for those men in this church and those around the world even this day that are laboring on behalf of the flock, caring for them, feeding them, binding up their wounds, looking after their souls. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. You are dismissed.