Let me make one preliminary comment. I don't often preach thematically, just preaching on different themes. And so our text, Psalm 23, will be helpful for us as we go through, actually, multiple different portions of Scripture this morning. But I will not be exegeting just this passage. So I just want to give you a heads up. But Psalm 23, beginning at verse 1, I give you your attention. This is God's holy and infallible Word. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. For You are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You have anointed my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely, goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." This ends our reading of God's holy and infallible Word. May He bless it to our hearing this day. How would you respond if you were talking with someone in the community or talking with someone who doesn't live in this community but just friends of other churches? How would you respond if you were asked, does your church have a shepherding ministry? Does your church have a shepherding ministry? And if you said, yeah, we have shepherds, we have a shepherding ministry, then the follow-up question might be, what does it look like? What kinds of things do the shepherds do? in their ministry. Let me think about that for a second. Your elders, your shepherds, have been working for the last year and a half, not straight, but we've taken a year and a half to study and modify and to affirm the good things of our shepherding ministry. We had a retreat recently. We asked you to pray for us, and we trust that you did pray for us. And now we would like to take the next four weeks and explain what we understand our duties are to Christ, Jesus, and to you, His flock. I'm not going to be explaining what the qualifications of elders are. I'm not going to be preaching on the differences between, say, a teaching elder and a ruling elder. I did put some passages on the very top, on the back portion of the bulletin, where you can take notes. If you want to go and look at some of those things today or in the week, you can do that. But what we want to accomplish in this short series of sermons, there will be four, we believe, we want to be on the same page with you as we consider the Bible's teaching on the duties of elders. This will be more topical in nature, but I hope to root each of these attributes, these duties, within the framework of a major passage or two of Scripture. You'll notice that in the outline, it says introduction. There's going to be more introduction today than we normally will have. And so this is still introductory, but we want to lay a good foundation for us to understand some things about eldership and shepherding. Jesus Christ himself is the good shepherd. We see that in Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. We see that in John 10, I am the good shepherd. How many times does he say it? And that's probably not surprising to you. And in fact, the Bible uses these titles, shepherd, and other titles as well. Guardian, Jesus is our guardian. In 1 Peter 2.25, for you were continually straying like sheep. But now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls." But did you know that these titles, shepherd and guardian, they're the same exact words that we use today for elders. So the word shepherd is also the word pastor. It's also the word feeder. And the word guardian is the word overseer. And not a term that we often use in our churches, but it's also the word bishop. And so Jesus is the pastor and bishop of our souls. And we see these titles being used also for office bearers, specifically elders. In Acts chapter 20, when Paul is leaving Ephesus for what he believes to be the last time, he gathers, it says, the elders of the church together. there he commends them in their shepherding ministry. One verse in that passage says this, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood. It's interesting, he actually calls elders bishops in this passage. The Holy Spirit has made you bishops to pastor the church. Just as Jesus pastors and guards His people and oversees His people, He has appointed human agents to manifest in a visible or tangible way His ministry to His people today. Jesus has ordained elders or pastors or bishops or overseers. It's all interchangeable. He's ordained these offices in His church. That might not be so controversial, maybe, in our context, but there are many churches that wrestle with this and debate this. And let me just give you a couple passages, this is still introductory, just to think about the importance of having elders in the church. Mark 6, 34, we see Jesus coming to shore in Gennesaret. He sees a large crowd. He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. He shepherded them. And he knew that when he would leave, that the sheep would still need human agents as under-shepherds, Him being the shepherd, but under-shepherds to manifest in a tangible way His ministry in the earth. And this is what the Apostles do in Acts 14.23, when they had appointed elders for them in every church, they prayed with fasting, they commended these elders, to the Lord in whom they had believed." Titus. Interestingly, Titus is sent back to the churches that Paul was involved in planting. And what is Titus' main job? Is it help the people with an evangelistic program? Is it what you need to do is establish the sacraments in that place? No. Titus, for this reason, I left you in Crete. that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you." For the church to be ordinary, to be organized and as ordinary as possible, that she might be involved in everyday ministry, she needs elders. Now, eldership is not essential to the church. All of us who are united to the Great Shepherd, we are the church. But in terms of the ordinary ministry and function of the church, we see that there's need of elders. Why? Why is there need of elders? I look at my own ministry, my weaknesses and my failures, and I say, why, Lord, does this church need elders? Well, in Ephesians 4, the apostle Paul tells us that Jesus gave gifts to men. And some of those gifts were apostles and some were prophets and some were evangelists and some were pastors or shepherds and teachers. And then he tells us why. For the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. You see, the primary purpose of shepherds then is for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, as it says in our confession. Well, if that is the case, how do these elders particularly manifest the ministry of Jesus in the earth? What is it that they do in order to gather and perfect the saints? Well, we actually see all of that in Psalm 23, where we see a shepherd who knows his sheep. The Lord is my shepherd. He's mine. I am His. We know one another. The shepherd leads his sheep. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. He guides, he leads, he brings. The shepherd leads his sheep. The thirdly, the shepherd keeps his sheep. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. And fourthly, Jesus, the great shepherd, feeds, I'm sorry, yeah, he feeds his sheep. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. And so Jesus knows his sheep, he leads his sheep, he keeps his sheep, and he feeds his sheep. We are, I mean, what man is equipped to do that kind of work? And yet by the grace of God, in a much smaller sense, and ultimately leading you to the one who does all of these things. This is our work as elders. We did read through a book that really helped us. Timothy Whitmer wrote a book called The Shepherd Leader. He identifies these four particular qualities of an elder. And I want to be very clear that my outline today follows a lot of his chapter on knowing. I don't want to be guilty of plagiarism. There's just such a good outline that it is what I'm using today. This week then, This is the introductory section coming to a close. This week, then, we want to talk about elders knowing the sheep of Christ. Elders knowing the sheep of Christ. And with that, let me say one final introductory thought. You might think that if I'm going to preach about what the work is of an elder knowing the sheep, that you can just kind of sit back and relax and go, oh, this is for the elders. This is for these two guys right here. No. All men are called to have these qualities, especially when they're responsible for other people. If you are a boss, if you are a father, if you are a husband, you should be aspiring to have to grow in Christ and to have these qualities. But in the same way, these qualities are not unique even to men. Women are to have these qualities as well. In a subordinate way, the scriptures would teach, but if you have children, you are to know your children and lead your children and keep your children and feed your children. And in that, even if you say, I don't have children, there are ways that you are to take on these attributes because they are attributes of Christ Jesus himself and apply them wherever he gives you opportunity. So this is a sermon for everyone. Two main ideas or thoughts then. First, Jesus knows his sheep. And secondly, the elders are to know the sheep. Especially those in whom they come in contact with. So first, Jesus knows his sheep. Again, Psalm 23 verse 1 says, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He's mine. And in John 10, we read earlier, and I'll just read a couple of those portions to bring them to our memory. When the shepherd puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger, they simply will not follow, but will flee from him because they do not know the voice of strangers. I'm the good shepherd. And I know my own, and my own know me, even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep." This has been an amazing truth ever since the creation of the world. That God did not create robots that you could just program, we could just be doing whatever He wanted us to do. God did not create puppets in which He would just kind of move the strings and again we would just follow along. But God created sheep. God created those who would know His shepherding care. Children, you heard this, maybe you were counting when I was saying earlier, count the no's, how many times Jesus talks about knowing others. The sheep follow the voice that they know, and they don't follow the voice that they don't know. And so, you know, if you were in a grocery store, and you were looking at the cereal boxes or something, or the toys, and you're like, ooh, and all of a sudden you just kind of didn't pay attention that, you know, mom or dad was down the end of the aisle. You know when your parent says to you, son, daughter, come on, you hear their voice. It would be strange to you if some stranger said, son, daughter. You're not going to follow that person. They have a strange voice. Here, these sheep, we've been created to know the voice of God and to follow Him as His sheep. But we, like sheep, have all gone astray, as the Scripture reveals. You notice in Psalm 23, it's not saying that the generic God, there's some God, a God is my shepherd, but rather it's the Lord, it's Yahweh, it's His covenant name. This is the God who brings us back in Exodus 6. God tells Moses, say therefore to the sons of Israel, I am Yahweh and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. Then I will take you for my people and I will be your God. And you shall know that I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. This is the way that God speaks in terms of covenant, that we are His and He is ours. He's not just out there and we have no way of knowing Him. He is a God who comes down that we would know Him. We sang it in Psalm 100. Know that Yahweh Himself is God. It is He who made us and we not ourselves. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture. This is not a mere knowledge. This is a relational knowledge. This is covenantal knowledge. This is a relationship that is bound by making and keeping promises. On God's part, mostly. Primarily. Firstly. Jesus Christ Himself has the name, God saves. Why? That's his name. Call him God saves because this one came to save his people from their sins, meaning he's God. Matthew will go on to say this is the fulfillment of the understanding that God would be with us. And this Jesus is with us. Consider the relational aspect that he speaks of here. I am the good shepherd. I know my own, my own know me, even as the father knows me and I know the father. If you ask the question, what do you think the relationship is between Jesus and his dad? That's a significant relationship. They know one another intimately. That's probably the most pure and most deep and most intimate relationship that ever existed. Jesus says, I know my own and my own know me in the same way. And you say, well, I wish. It's okay. Jesus knows you that intimately. And you are coming to know Him more and more. And He'll give you a whole eternity to know Him more. It's relational knowledge. This Jesus is so real that we speak about knowing God, knowing this Jesus, and yet we've never met Him face to face. They know His voice. You know, it's interesting. We're going to talk about shepherding in the next four weeks, and I don't want to use all my illustrations up today. But here's one that is fascinating. It's a story about a man who is going over to the Middle East. He's trying to understand shepherding, so he hung out with a bunch of shepherds. And one night, two shepherds with two different flocks come together. They were friends. They hang out. All the sheep are mingled in a cave. And in the morning, after everyone awakes, The two shepherds come out and they stand on different portions and they start calling the sheep. I don't know how the calling goes. Hey sheep! But all of a sudden the sheep stand up and they start, you know, they're mixed, but they start walking to their particular shepherds. They know the voice of their shepherd. Jesus is saying, I know my own and my own know me. But not only is this knowing a relational knowing, it is a promise-keeping knowing. What does He say right after that? Even as the Father knows me and I know my Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. That's what I promised to do. And that's what I've come to do. How far did we stray that He had to come and lay down His life for us? He says it three times in that text, John 10. I lay down my life. I lay down my life. I lay down my life. Christ is Magnus Pastor. He is the great shepherd. What shepherd, one church father says, has ever fed his sheep with his own blood that they would live? That's why He's my shepherd. Because I'm His sheep. Because He purchased me by laying down His life. Because He bought me and because I belong to Him now. He's my shepherd. Because I'm His. We don't like the idea of being purchased. Some of that's for good reason. We've seen the abuse of slavery in this nation and it should be shameful to us. But really it depends on what we're being sold into that would determine if it's good or bad that this shepherd buys us with his own blood. Children, I want you to imagine for a minute you're a sheep. You're a sheep and you're going to be purchased. And one master, we'll put him over here, that master He makes you walk through rocks and soil and up mountains. He's always nagging you and calling you, come out here, come out here, come away from there. This shepherd, he pulls us sometimes with his staff. Then there's another guy who's going to buy us. That one, his fold, his pen is so warm and cozy. And he gives us all that we want to eat. We are never in want. This one over here, he shaves the wool off of us, and we get cold. This one over here, he lets the wool grow nice and thick, and he never cuts it off. And you think for a moment, which one sounds better? Maybe this one sounds better. But what if this one was letting you eat all that you wanted because he was fattening you up because he wanted to eat you? And what if he didn't cut the wool off of you, he just let it grow and you became mangy and things started sticking to you and you got dirty and gross? But this one, he walks you through soil and rocky soil and hard places because he knows where the best grass is. This one, he shaves the wool off of you because you need to be cleansed and taken that wool off. And he actually knows how to use that wool to best serve other people and to clothe other people. And you'd find out that if you got to know Him, His voice was not a nagging voice of, come out of there and get out of there, but actually it was a voice of warning. Don't go that way. There's death over there. Don't go that way. There's wolves and bears and they'll kill you. Now who do you want to buy you? This God, this shepherd, is a relational, promise-keeping shepherd. And how does that relate then to the work of an elder? That brings me to my second point. The elder knows the sheep of Christ. In Acts 20, 28, we heard Paul tell the elders, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock. Be on guard. Literally, he's saying this, pay careful attention to yourselves and to the flock. And another place, the same word is saying, be devoted to this or that thing, be devoted to guarding and taking care of and paying attention to and knowing yourselves and the flock. The elder is to know the sheep. So they come in contact with Jesus. I'll talk more about that a little bit. Let me just say there's two aspects to this knowing. First, there is a corporate knowing. There is a corporate knowing in that particular elders are called to shepherd particular sheep in particular congregations. It's not just particular elders are called to particular sheep, but to shepherd a whole congregation. In Acts 14. 23, we read this when they had appointed elders for them in every church, they pointed elders for them. In every church. Every church had particular elders appointed, and then they were also commended. To that congregation. Titus was to set in order. What remains in a point elders in every city and the idea there is that there would be a city church and there are tied to that particular Congregation First Peter 5 says this therefore I exhort the elders among you shepherd the flock of God among you Shepherd the flock of God among you Just as particular elders have been called to shepherd this flock of Christ You've been particularly called to be the sheep of this flock. I People don't usually question, well, I mean, they might question it, but if you have a man who is an elder, they'll say, oh, he was called to that. God called him to that. But do you think of yourself as being sheep who were called to a particular congregation? That's the way that the Bible uses this word, call, is calling to Christ and calling to a place and calling to a service, calling to a ministry, calling to a community. And you, like I said, you might have thought you were off the hook. But it's not just that you are to passively be known by the shepherds. It says in the Scriptures that you are to also pursue to know the shepherds yourselves as sheep. 1 Thessalonians 5.12 But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord, and give you instruction. you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another." When he says in our translation, but we request of you brethren that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, the word there is the word to know. Brethren, know those who labor among you. And so there is this mutual responsibility, elders to know the sheep, sheep to know the elders. Why? So we would be encouraging one another in pursuing the Great Shepherd. The elders need to know the strengths and the weaknesses of this particular congregation in order to affirm that which Christ has done by His grace Because there are wonderful things that Christ has done here and is doing here. But also to encourage further progress, to spur us on corporately together in further progress of our corporate faith. So there's a corporate knowing. There's a corporate knowing. And you are called to be sheep of this particular flock. And so what that means is that we need to have a membership role. And we need to be diligent with our membership role. And we need to be attentive and careful with our membership role. And every sheep is to be gathered. They are to be accounted for. They are to be known. A church that has no membership role, a church that has no membership, is a church that allows straying sheep to go off and to not be found. To come and go as they please. The sheep are not very good at coming and going as they please. Well, there's a corporate knowing. Secondly, there is an individual knowing. I should say one more thing real quick, and that is this. So I talked about membership role. I'm going to talk about visitation. After we go through all four of these, then Sunday evening on the fourth one, we're going to talk about all of the practical implications, what particularly our shepherd ministry looks like. This is all just the theory. I want you to appreciate what we're looking at from the scriptures. Secondly, there is an individual knowing. And First Thessalonians 5, 13, the one I just read about, know those who diligent labor among you and says that you're to live in peace with one another. That's just not live in peace with one another corporately, but live in peace with each other individually. James tells us, is anyone sick among you? Is there any particular person sick among you? Then call the elders of the church and they will pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And we do that. We come and we visit with you. Peter and five to Peter talks about that the shepherds need to exercise oversight, not yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge. And then he goes on. And I just want to talk about that for a second. Allotted to your charge. That's a very interesting language. It's talking about a land allotment that's assigned to citizens by civil authorities, often by the use of a lot. We went through the book of Joshua and God separated and divided all of the land. And then he started giving it out by allotment. That's what this is saying here. Isn't it interesting that there are those who have been allotted to you in terms of your service? Have you thought about this as it were land that needs to be taken possession of? Have you thought of yourselves as land that needs to be taken possession of? It's not saying that we possess you as elders, it's saying and it's illustrating that there's a need actually to cultivate the flock. that we have responsibility over. There is an individual knowing. I can't cultivate a portion of land without knowing the particular parts of the land and what's going to work best. Acts 20, 20, Paul shepherded, he says, not only publicly, but also from house to house. So there's an individual knowing. It's not just a public shepherding, but it's a house-to-house shepherding. One Puritan says this, it's as if Paul perceived that his public doctrine would vanish into air unless it were assisted by private admonition and conference in people's homes. And so we have house-to-house. This is one of the foundational texts for the idea of family visitation, where elders come into your home and they meet with you and they see how you're doing. That Puritan goes on further and says this, if false teachers creep into houses for the purpose of seduction from the truth, should not the Orthodox pastors show at least equal diligence? There is an individual knowing. There is the need for this mutual duty of knowing one another on an individual basis. How can an elder guide, nurture, protect one in the flock if they don't know them? How can a sheep be led, fed, protected by someone who they do not know? So there is this need for mutual love and duty. And is that not really what people are looking for, to be known? Isn't that what we desire is to be known? They say that if you want to have, if you don't know somebody and you want to have a good conversation with them, ask them questions about themselves and you'll have a great conversation. There's a truth to that. We want to be known. We want to be known. We want to have close relationships. We want to have authentic connections with people. And at the very same time, Isn't there really a challenge to our relationships? You say, I agree with that, that elders should know corporately, elders should know individually. I, as a sheep, have a responsibility to know my elders, and yet, and yet, I don't want to be known. I have all kinds of insecurities. I have all kinds of fear of judgment. I have all kinds of criticism against myself. And now I'm talking to you as me. And now I'm talking to you as your pastor. I don't want to be known. I wrestle with that. We talk about people being introverted and extroverted. I'm not dismissing that. But part of the issue really is We're afraid to be known by others. And it's not just that's not the only challenge. There's another thing, and that is this. We don't want to take the time to know others. I wrestle with having a self-centered attitude that often gets in the way of me taking the time and being patient and getting to know somebody else. How about you? the struggles and the failures and the burdens in your life and the celebrations and the accomplishments in your life, how much of these things are shared with your church family? How much of these things are shared in the context of shepherd and sheep? How much of it is unknown? And I have a lot of repenting to do. Therefore, we need to be connected, first and foremost, with Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd, so that we can shake off our insecurities, so we can consider the issues and lives of others more important than our own, just like Jesus did, so we can bear fruits of the gospel in terms of our relationships and in terms of our knowing one another. One Puritan pastor, he writes a textbook on the Christian ministry, and he talks about how elders are to know the sheep to such an extent that they can identify different kinds of sheep within the flock who have different kinds of struggles so that the elders can bring particular remedies. to those sheep. He actually names them and he goes through each of them in this long chapter. There's the unbelieving sheep. There's the self-righteous sheep. There's the new convert sheep. There's the careless and uninformed sheep. There's the false profession of faith sheep. There's the unassured or depressed sheep. There's the backslidden sheep. There's the worldly sheep. There's the naturally convicted but not spiritually convicted sheep. And then there's the consistent sheep. That's very fascinating. And there is a mixture of diversity that exists here in this flock. The shepherds need to know, and you need to be somewhat vulnerable, that we can together go to Christ for our remedy. You know, one of the first things we did when we established a new visitation plan was that the elders started with their own families by putting them in shepherd groups. Because my family needs to be shepherded and I need to be known to my elders. We're hoping to lead the congregation in this pursuit of knowing one another by God's grace and help. Why seek to know each of these struggles? Because if we know the particular struggles that we are wrestling with, and that one another is wrestling with, then we can more carefully identify the particular ways in which we still don't know Jesus. We can encourage one another to Christ our remedy. To know Him more. The One who is able to deal with all of our trials, and all of our burdens, and all of our failures, and all of our struggles. We are to know one another so that we can help one another know Christ more. And that's why the sheep are to know you. Let me say this then in conclusion. John Piper, in writing about the unbiblical tendency to make shepherding a professional work, calls shepherds to get into the field and to be among the sheep. Now, he's not implying that shepherds are better. He's not implying that in what he's about to say. He is actually identifying the fact that This office can be so abused that we actually promote the false idea that elders are more spiritual or in a higher place than the rest of the church. And we've seen the fruit of that. In early church history. So don't interpret what he's about to say with that. He's really addressing the heart of the shepherd that needs to be in and among the people and not so passive. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 1.5, you know how I lived, you know how we lived among you for your sake. The apostle understands that shepherds should smell like sheep. The sheep's wool should be lint on our clothes. Our boots should be caked with their mud and their mess. Our skin ought to bear teeth marks and the weather-beaten looks of exposure to wind, sun, and rain in the fields. We belong among the people to such an extent that they can be called on to honestly testify that our lives as messengers commend the message of the gospel. We should be so frequently among them that we smell like them, that we smell like their real lives, sometimes fragrant, but more often sweaty, musty, offensive, begrimed from battle with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Our people should be able to testify that we lived among them for their sake. The power of the gospel to change lives does not depend upon the giftedness of the elder. Everyone, every single life that God has changed, He's changed and accomplished despite our ministry. I began with this question, how would you respond if you were asked, does your church have a shepherding ministry? You should meditate on that. For sure, Jesus Christ has given us grace to know one another. I don't mean to create a false bifurcation. It's the sheep and the shepherds. We're all in this together. In terms of our roles, for sure, Christ has given us grace to know one another. And for sure, there is need for a lot of repentance and growth in this area of knowing one another. Pray for us that we would know Jesus more intimately, and that we would be spurred on to know His sheep more, so that we all together would know the true and living God, the Great Shepherd of His sheep. Amen.