Exhorting the Elders

I Peter 5:1-5

Pastor Matt Moran

Transcript

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. So we're getting back to the closing
chapter of 1 Peter as we enter this new year. And as we just read, this is a
section of scripture that is primarily addressed to the elders, but I thought of
three different groups of people as I got ready to preach this week. First,
there is obviously the primary audience, the elders of the church that are being
exhorted in this passage. So in our context, that's myself, that's Micah, that's
Tom. But secondly, there are those among us who may aspire one day to serve as
elders. 1 Timothy 3, a different letter, but tells us that he who desires that
office desires a noble task. So the passage has a lot to say about the basic job
description of an elder, about what spiritual leadership in the church should
look like. And then third, there's everyone else in the church who's listening
in on this exhortation. Everyone benefits when we see a clear picture of what
spiritual leadership in the church ought to look like. And then we see in verse
5, this section broadens out to exhort everybody. So the passage is an
exhortation, an encouragement, a charge, a challenge to the elders, but it
addresses all of us this morning. And we've been out of 1 Peter for the
Christmas break. So as we get started, let me just orient us to where we left
off at the end of chapter 4. At the end of chapter 4, we read in verse 17, for
it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God. And if it begins with
us, what will be the outcome of those who do not obey the gospel of God? And
that image of purifying judgment coming to the household of God comes from the
Old Testament book of Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 9, we read there's a prophetic vision
where God begins to judge his people, and it starts in the sanctuary, and it
starts with the elders. So that's kind of the illusion that Peter is making when
he addresses the elders now for the first time. It's that reference backwards to
judgment. And the churches that Peter's writing to, they have been undergoing
suffering. They are going through and will continue to go through the purifying
fire of judgment and suffering. These are small, scattered churches.
Christianity is very much a minority religion. Peter's addressing the men who
are leading these churches. And if you think about the language that Peter's
used to refer to the people in the churches as a whole, he's called them elect
exiles at the beginning of the letter. He's called them sojourners. They're
traveling through the wilderness of this present life, and they're going to go
through suffering and judgment. And therefore, they're going to need spiritual
leadership and shepherds to guide them. So that's kind of our framework as Peter
wraps up the letter and he aims this exhortation at the elders or what we would
call pastors. Elders are the church leaders, the overseers. And when you hear
elders addressed in New Testament letters, it's always plural. It's not one
person in charge. It's a team plurality of leadership. So with that in mind,
let's just start in verse one. This exhortation begins with perspective. First
Peter five, verse one. 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. It's perspective. Here are the men that first Peter's that
Peter's exhorting, and you might notice that Peter intensifies his words in
verse one by providing three vantage points for the exhortation past, present
and future. In the present, he notes, I am a fellow elder myself. Going
backwards, he says, I was a witness of the sufferings of Christ himself. That's
referring to Peter's own story as an eyewitness of the crucifixion 25 or 30
years earlier. And then going forward, Peter says, as a partaker of the glory
that is going to be revealed. That's in the future. That's referring to the
return and the rewards of Jesus Christ. So let me just explain why that's
significant. That present tense thing Peter says as a fellow elder. I personally
love this. Peter's not a he's not like a a theoretician. He's been called by
Jesus to follow him. He went around with Jesus for three years as one of his
disciples. Now he's a much older man, but he's still going. He's actually we we
understand now he's actually still doing the work of pastoring people himself.
He's still in the trenches, so to speak. And one of the reasons I love that is
today, much of the advice that gets that is given to elders or pastors is not
counsel from actual pastors themselves. American church denominations are very
often staffed by people who may be pastored for a little while and then got out
of the local church and then were given titles like consultant or catalyst or
missyologist or church revitalization specialist. And then if you if you read
their book or listen to their seminar, they will be sure to tell you what is
wrong with your church and how to get it turned around. And you can probably
tell I don't I don't tend to have a lot of tolerance for that, but Peter's not
writing as someone who is used to have some interesting experiences and now
dispenses his wisdom. He's a fellow elder present tense. And we could put it
like this as Peter is exhorting these men and the churches who are reading this
letter, it's as it's being circulated around Asia Minor. He's doing it someone
as someone who personally understands their challenges like any any good leader.
He's not asking them to do anything that he wouldn't do or hasn't done himself.
So that present tense exhortation is powerful because it's coming from someone
who has all the credibility credibility to say I get it and I'm there right with
you. But then there's also more to this encouragement. In the past tense,
Peter's referring to himself as a witness of the sufferings of Christ. If we
simply just stay in the present tense, there's more than Peter just saying, hey,
I get it. It's more than that. It's more than him saying I know what you guys
are going through. Peter only needed to look back on his own story. He was a
live in-person witness of the sufferings of Christ. Nobody had a closer
firsthand look at the ministry of Jesus than Peter. He saw Jesus when he was
welcomed and loved. He saw the tide of popular opinion start to turn against
him. He saw the suspicion of Jesus's earthly family. He saw religious leaders
start plotting against him. He knew Judas personally who betrayed Jesus. And
then after living alongside Jesus for three years. Peter himself was hidden in
the shadows when Jesus was on trial and he denied even knowing him. And now
Peter's looking back as a witness of the sufferings of Christ. In other words,
he's saying, I know I saw with my own eyes Jesus. His sufferings, his
crucifixion. Dying for my sins and yours. And now decades later, he's still
gripped by what he witnessed. He saw personally the sufferings of Christ and he
knows personally the redemptive power of the grace of God. It's very interesting
before Jesus died, before those sufferings, Peter was very confident that he was
ready for whatever ministry that he was called to. He was sure he was ready for
spiritual leadership. He said to Jesus, even if they all fall away because of
you, I will never fall away. Then he failed spectacularly. It's only after that
failure that Peter was restored and Jesus restored him in his brokenness and
called him to be a spiritual shepherd and to feed his sheep. So Peter's pointing
these fellow pastors backwards towards what he is seeing as a witness of the
sufferings of Christ. Saying, look at what Jesus has done and look at the price
that he paid. It really happened. So that past tense exhortation is when someone
looks backward into their own story and uses that to intensify what they're
saying. But then third and final, he also looks forward. He says to the elders
that he will also be a partaker of the glory that will be revealed. So partaking
to partake means to have a share or a portion in something. So we partake in
meals together. We partake in celebration. Sometimes we partake in victory
together. But Peter's reminding these elders of something that they will partake
in, that he will partake in. And it's glory, weighty future glory. He's been
called by Jesus. He's sinned. He's repented. He's turned away. He's been
restored. He's now serving Jesus as and continuing on in ministry. And he says,
I am by extension, we will share with him in glory. That is really that's
amazing. It's the hope of the gospel that's available for each one of us, kind
of regardless of title, restoration, forgiveness and glory. And we see that time
and time again, this letter that suffering leads to glory. And as it applies to
us, whatever our titles are here on this earth, however significant or
insignificant what we do each day seems. There's a future glory for those who
know Christ. And as it relates to pastoral ministry, that means that an elder
cannot be informed simply by what he observes in the present. It's a ministry
pastoral ministry is kind of like a ministry of delayed gratification. And you
cannot only evaluate what is going on. By what you see in the moment and by the
all the and think that is all that's going on. Because of the death and
resurrection of Christ, we have hope that we can be partakers with him in glory.
And in the life to come, look forward to a reward for faithful service. So
elders need a past, present and future perspective for the work that they're
doing. And that's what Peter provides. He gives this framework for this
exhortation. So with that perspective in mind, here's the exhortation itself
that Peter has now made kind of triply intense. The perspective moves to the
exhortation itself, and the exhortation is simply this shepherd, the flock of
God that is among you, exercising oversight. An elder is tasked with the
responsibility of what the Bible calls shepherding. So what's that supposed to
mean? In John 21, when Peter or when Jesus restores Peter after his betrayal, he
tells him, feed my lambs, feed my sheep, feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my
sheep. In Acts 20, when the apostle Paul exhorts the elders at Ephesus, he says
to them in Acts 20, 28. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock
in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God,
which he obtained with his own blood. The flock, which must be shepherded,
refers to the people of the church whom Jesus has bought for himself with the
payment of his own blood. The shepherding motif or theme in scripture is very
powerful. We could go on about this for a long time, but Moses, the man who
brought the Ten Commandments, was a shepherd. King David, the man after God's
own heart, was a shepherd. And those Old Testament saints, as great as they
were, point us forward to Jesus himself. And when Jesus spoke of his ministry,
he says, I am the good shepherd. I lay down my life for the sheep. When Jesus
restores Peter and gives him the responsibility of tending to his sheep, he's
ushering in the church age where pastors are entrusted with the care of Jesus's
church. So to shepherd is to feed and to watch over. Or you could say it like
this. It is to feed and to lead. The Greek word for shepherd means to tend
sheep. And that's ultimately where we get our English word for pastor. And what
that means in the pastoral context is that the primary job of the pastor is to
feed the church with the word of God. And that includes preaching. It also
includes teaching other other contexts, teaching, instruction, counseling, one
on one conversation. And to watch over or to lead means that the shepherd knows
his people, cares for them, and protects them. He is to protect his people from
error and from false teaching, to warn them from danger, to correct, and even to
exercise discipline in the case of unrepentant sin. Peter also notes that elders
are to shepherd the flock that is among you. Those two words mean something
among you, mean something very important for both the elders and the
congregation. For the elders, it means we have specific people that were called
to shepherd, to feed and to lead, to pray for and to care for. Specific people
that we will stand before God and give an account for. Very often, pastors,
particularly of smaller congregations, but not always, can start to feel bored
or discontent with the congregation that God's given them at its current
constituency or current size. They start to feel like they're dealing with the
same people and the same issues week after week, and they think that they
deserve or are entitled to a more significant number of people or a greater
platform. So they start trying to carve out influence somewhere. Usually it's
digital. In some digital sphere, like a podcast or a YouTube channel. And I'm
not really condemning that digital ministry out of hand, but also, like, let's
be real, there's no shepherding going on there. There's no knowing and being
known in that setting. So the primary job of the shepherd is to shepherd the
flock of God that is among you, among them, whatever number that is. And if we
can do some good out there, that's great. But that's not primary. By
implication, there's also an encouragement here to the whole church to identify
with the flock. In other words, don't be a floater going from place to place
without any oversight or care. It's evident from this text that the elders would
know who that is among them. That's why that's why it's a joy to be adding Otto
and Alyssa to membership this morning. It's a formal way of saying we are part
of this flock. We're following Christ together with these people. OK, so the
basic job description of an elder is to shepherd the flock of God that is among
them, among you, exercising oversight. But now we start to see how that's
actually done, and Peter puts that together with three clarifying contrasts.
When he says here's how that's done, shepherding the flock of God that is among
you, he starts to build that out with these three sets of contrasts. When you
look at this text, look at the repetition of the not and but and you'll see the
contrasts. Verse two and three, 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. The pastor pastors shepherd the flock
of God, the church belongs to God, not to the pastors, and yet the pastor is
called to exercise oversight. And Peter clarifies what that means by way of
contrast. As he explains the shepherding ministry, it's not under compulsion,
it's not for shameful gain, it's not domineering over those in your charge. One
of the amazing things about the Bible is just the absolute timelessness of it. A
lot changes in 2000 years or 1950 years since this was written, but not human
nature and not the absolute relevance of the scripture. Peter puts his finger
right here, this is amazing, in 60 AD or 62 AD on temptations that pastors are
just as prone to today as they would have been back then. John Calvin, when he
wrote in the 1500s said this, in exhorting pastors to their duty, he, Peter,
points out three vices which are often to be found, namely sloth, desire for
gain, and lust for power. So let me go through this phrase by phrase, not under
compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you. That's what Calvin is calling
sloth. The oversight that elders must exercise is not simply out of duty, it's
done willingly. You've probably experienced this before. There's a church
congregation that's stagnant and lifeless and the leadership is stuck and
there's no sense of joy. People seem to be going through the motions. But the
pastor still has seven or eight years more to go before he feels like he can
safely retire. That's doing ministry under compulsion, because you have to,
because it's your job, because there's nothing else that you're trained to do,
because nothing better has come along. Our oversight ought to be willing, not
under compulsion. Our attitude ought to be joyful and grateful. We ought to take
pastoral ministry seriously, but also approach it with anticipation and joy. The
calling is weighty, but it's also a weighty privilege. If we are shepherding
simply out of compulsion, out of a sense of duty, then something is missing.
Under compulsion manifests itself in all sorts of things. Laziness, sloth, duty,
joylessness. A good friend of mine, someone that I really appreciate over the
years, was recently forced to resign from his church because he was plagiarizing
his sermons. And that is happening all over the place, especially as people can
generate outlines or even whole manuscripts with artificial intelligence. But
when it happens, it's a sign the man's lost his eagerness or his willingness for
ministry. He's not seeing it as a privilege to get to open up God's word. He's
doing it under compulsion. Not under compulsion. Secondly, we see not for
shameful gain, but eagerly. If we look at other letters of the New Testament, we
see from the early days of the church, it was customary to financially
compensate the church's leaders. But even in the first century, that privilege
was abused. Not for shameful gain means that the overseers of the church cannot
misuse the church's resources for their own personal advantage. Money can't be
the motivator. The attitude ought not to be eager for gain, but instead just
eager to give. So shameful gain is not speaking to compensation in general, but
it's rather to greed or to dishonest gain. And obviously, we can look at this
and point at prosperity teachers or faith healers or people that are fundraising
for their own private jets. And we can recognize that that's obviously wrong.
And we can see it as sinful and shameful to the gospel. And that's true. It's
done great damage to the witness of the church. But really, it's also kind of
low hanging fruit. What's closer to home is just the need for absolute integrity
among the leaders of the church. Most pastors that I know are not walking around
trying to figure out what to do with all their extra money. But many of them
deal with low level resentment because their church hasn't grown or they don't
think they're compensated enough. And that easily leads to temptation in much
smaller areas than fundraising for jets. The real temptation for most people is
trying to justify some small expenditure or to cut corners in some little way.
This is just another way that ministers can undo years of fruitfulness. The love
of money and the misuse of money among spiritual leaders causes immense
spiritual damage. So Peter warns the elders oversight must not be for shameful
gain. There's a third contrast here. Not domineering over those in your charge,
but being examples to the flock. So abuse of power in the church. It was and it
is a real thing in the church. It does great spiritual damage. So although
oversight is part of the job, that authority should be exercised. That oversight
should be exercised with humility. The office, spiritual leadership, is not for
people who are power hungry. And real authority doesn't lie in the title or in
the bylaws, but from the power of the elders integrity and the congregation's
growing recognition that he's called by God and actively following God. That
word domineering means to be arrogant or dictatorial or overbearing. It's that
attitude that people exist to build you up. And no matter how gifted a person
might be, spiritual leadership is never about exercising personal power. It
never can be that. There is a leadership, but it's a servant leadership. Being
willing to go first, being willing to do the humble things, the dirty work. And
we can't, I think churches often fall prey to this, we can't elevate giftedness
above character in those that we elevate. And again, Peter's biography helps us
here. In John 13, we read about how Jesus taught Peter to serve. This is the
famous passage of Jesus' book. Before the Lord's Supper washing his disciples
feet. And John 13 tells us that Jesus rose from supper and he laid aside his
outer garments and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. And then he poured
water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with
the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter who said to him,
Lord, do you wash my feet? And Jesus answered him, what I am doing, you do not
understand now, but afterward you will understand. You don't understand now what
I'm doing, but afterward you will understand. Well, 30 years later, as Peter
writes this letter, now he understands. Now he understands. Peter says not
domineering. He knows that Jesus exemplified servant leadership. That's what
we're after. Then he looks forward in verse four. And when the chief shepherd
appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Jesus is the chief
shepherd, the capital S shepherd. So in one sense, pastor, elder, it's an
important title. In another very real sense, Micah or Tom or I are just under
shepherds, just servants, not that important. People who will give an account to
the chief shepherd. The chief shepherd. Jesus will return as a chief shepherd.
As king and as judge in the church, lives in light of that day when Jesus
returns, that's where the reward for faithful service will come from. So Peter
summarizes this exhortation to the elders by circling back to the whole
congregation. He says in verse five. 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. You who are younger does
not have to refer just to chronological age, although it's likely that the
younger people in the church might be more might buck up against authority more
or less prone to want to listen. But Peter is describing an atmosphere where
oversight is exercised, faithful leadership is happening, but it's within a
context or a culture of mutual humility. Clothing yourself in humility for the
congregation means being willing to listen, to love and to assume the best. If
you think about it, there are not many places in our world that could be defined
by mutual humility. When we think about other settings that we're part of,
families, workplaces, organizations that you might belong to. We see power
exercised in a domineering way. We see it be abused. We see laziness and sloth
and incompetence at work. We see resentment and anger towards those who are in
authority. We see shady financial dealings and wastefulness. We see leadership
vacuums where something has great potential, but no one's willing or qualified
to step up and lead. The church is described and called to be something just
unlike any of that. It's a place of mutual humility. And God gives grace to the
humble. And really, there's nothing that we need more than the grace of God.
Elders are to set an example of humble servant leadership because God pours out
his grace on the humble. So that's our desire. That's our desire. The elders
ought to be shepherding the flock of God, exercising oversight, not under
compulsion, but willingly as God would have us. Not for shameful gain, but
eagerly. Not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples. And when
the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. And
likewise, all of us 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. That's what we need, mutual humility, so that God would pour out
grace on us. Let's pray together. Lord God, as we consider this text, we thank
you, Lord Jesus, that you are the chief shepherd. And we thank you that you have
laid down your life for the sheep so that we might come into your fold. And I
pray for your blessing on our elder team, present and future, that we would be
godly examples, that we would faithfully shepherd, as your word instructs. Lord,
I thank you for just the grace that has been manifest through so many years here
in this congregation and the humility that's been expressed. And I pray that
that would only continue and grow, that there would be a mutual humility and
love and unity within our congregation. We pray for it. In Jesus' name, amen.