A Word for Elders

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Please turn in your Bibles with me to the book of 1 Peter, 1 Peter chapter 5. If you're using your pew bibles, you'll find that on page 1087. 1 Peter chapter 5. And we'll read verses 1 through 7, but the sermon will specifically come from verses 1 through 4. Brothers and sisters, this is God's perfect word.

Let's pay attention. The elders who are among you, I exhort. I, who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed, shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers. Not by compulsion, but willingly. Not for dishonest gain, but eagerly. nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. Likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders.

Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, you humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your cares upon him, for he cares for you.

Prayer for Illumination

That's in this portion of reading of God's word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word. Lord, we have read it, and we know that it does not return void. And so Father, we pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you would make these words alive in our hearts.

Sermon

For those who need encouraged, Lord, we pray that your spirit would encourage. For those who need corrected, we pray that we would be corrected. For those who need taught, we pray that we would receive the teaching. Lord, for those who need to be instructed in righteousness, Lord, we pray that you would instruct and that we would listen. Father, please prepare our hearts and our minds for your word. and work it effectually in our lives. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. It's interesting, as Peter has moved through the book of 1 Peter, he's talked again and again and again to very specifically, how were the Christians to live in the real church?

He is not held back from the difficulties that they were facing. You'll remember in previous chapters, he had spoken specifically to women and then to husbands, he had spoken to slaves, and here, He's kind of gone back to this idea of suffering, and they were still in the will of God when all this was going on, and they shouldn't be surprised by how the Gentiles treat them as they act in the world. But now, as Peter's talking, he was speaking to the various churches, many different churches throughout the area of what's modern-day Turkey. And you can imagine if Peter was standing in the church, and it was a movie, right? There'd be a camera behind him, and as he was speaking, it was a wide-angle lens, and everybody was in view.

But in chapter five, they put on the long lens and zooms in, and very specific people come in focus. And Peter looks directly at the elders, and he has a word of exhortation, a word of instruction for them. They're at a shepherd. because Christ is the chief shepherd. And so the theme of this message that I'm gonna bring to you this morning from chapter five, one through four, is that Christ himself is calling the elders to shepherd his people with humility, vigilance, and example, not for personal gain or power, but as faithful stewards under Jesus, the chief shepherd. And so, as we look at this word that God gives by His Holy Spirit to the elders, look with me at verse 1. It's a narrowed focus, and it's specifically speaking to the elders. plural. Now, Peter is writing to different churches, right? If you remember chapter 1, he mentioned five different regions in the area, right? There is Pontius and Galatia and Asia, right? There's different churches that he's writing to. But it's very clear, even when we go to the book of Acts, when Paul is on his way back to Jerusalem, he calls for the elders of the church in Ephesus.

So there's not a church with just one singular elder, but there are many elders in each church. And he says that the elders are those who are among you. And the elders are from within the congregation. Now this word elders, it's not very hard for us to understand who he's talking to as Peter is thinking about those elders in the church that I'm sure he had personally met. Some of them have salt and pepper in their hair. Some of them wish they still had hair. Most of them are elderly men. But this idea of elders is coming out of the Old Testament.

If you go through the Old Testament, you'll find time and time again, the elders were the respected and wise men in the community, and they would sit at the city gates, and they would offer judgment. Those were the ones who, this is like Boaz in the book of Ruth, who goes to the city gate, and he's able to gather together the elders, and they're able to make judgments, legal declarations. This was when Israel was its own nation, had their own sovereignty. Well, one of the things that happened is as the Greeks came in and Alexander conquered Jerusalem and then the Romans, well, they didn't have that same type of authority themselves in the same way.

And so the elders would meet in a formal way in the Sanhedrin. Jesus was very familiar with the elders. When he was tried, it was the high priest. and the elders who sentenced him to death. But they couldn't do it himself. They sentenced him with the charge of blasphemy. But see, they couldn't carry it out, so they had to go to Pontius Pilate, and he was the one who put Jesus to death. But it's the elders who met and made this legal declaration.

But what about in places like Pontius? How did they get elders? In places like Galatia or in Ephesus, how did they get elders? in all the different synagogues. Imagine there's people who live all the way in Turkey. That's a long trek all the way to Jerusalem. So how do you make sure things are in order with the Jewish people hundreds of miles away? What about people who can't get to the temple all the time?

Well, one of the systems that arose up naturally within the church, or within the life of Israel, was the synagogue. This is the gathering, the congregation getting together, and you would have the archi-synagogue, the chief of the synagogue, and he would be one of the elders, and he would open up the word, he would lay out the scroll and he would read and then he'd sit in the seat of Moses and he'd teach the people what God had said from his word. And the people who were in charge of maintaining the order and deciding the disputes between the people and making sure that things were being done well were the elders. And so when the church starts, this is the structure that's inherited and the Lord uses in the Christian congregation. but they're not to act like the elders in Jerusalem and not to behave like the elders that condemned Jesus to death.

No, they were of a different sort. Notice, notice Peter himself in verse five. Notice what he said. The elders who are among you, I exhort. I am also a fellow elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed. Peter calls himself a fellow elder. And make no doubt about it, Peter was an apostle.

He was sent and commissioned by Jesus himself. He was one of the 12 apostles who had seen Jesus at the resurrection. He had been there at Jesus' ascension up into heaven. He was commissioned by Jesus to take the gospel to Jerusalem, Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

And as Peter is fulfilling that commission as an apostle, he doesn't get a big head. Did you notice what he calls himself? A fellow elder. He doesn't have a place of pride. He doesn't put a crown on his head and call himself like the chief of all bishops or something like that. He doesn't want to sit on a throne. Peter humbles himself and he says he is a fellow elder. Matthew Henry wrote, he does not claim sovereignty, but values himself upon being an elder. Peter humbles himself. And he adds two different things to give weight to what he's about to say.

He says that he is a witness of the sufferings of Christ. That word witness is bearing legal testimony. But the word is martyreo, where we get our word martyr from. It would be his testimony to Jesus's life, death, and resurrection that would eventually get Peter even martyred by Nero in Rome. That was his testimony. His testimony is that he had seen the love of Jesus Christ poured out for him even on the cross.

He says, when I'm urging you, I'm urging you because I've seen Jesus. I'm exhorting you with this word because I'm following after Jesus. And he has the same hope that they have. He's not urging them because he's lording authority over them, but what does he say in the second half of verse 1?

And also, a partaker of the glory that will be revealed. That's what he's been encouraging all the Christians this entire time. There is a glory to be revealed. Don't think it a strange thing when the fires come upon you. Because there's glory to be revealed. God is refining you. God is changing you. God is making you more and more like Jesus. Because when He comes back again, His glory will be revealed and you will be made more into His likeness. And so don't settle for this world.

He says, and I'm a partaker of that. I'm a partaker of that same glory. I wonder for Peter, he saw just a glimmer of what that was like on the Mount of Transfiguration when Jesus, before his eyes, was suddenly changed and his garments were glowing white. And I wonder if that stuck with Peter in his heart the rest of his earthly life, waiting to see that glory of Jesus forever. He was a partaker of that glory and he was waiting for it to be revealed even more fully. And so it's Peter in that posture, as a fellow elder, as a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as a partaker of the glory that will be revealed, he has a command for the elders in the church.

Shepherd the flock of God, which is among you. The flock is not Peter's. The flock is not any elder's. What are we seeing in Psalm 100? He's the shepherd, and we're the sheep of his pasture. Peter's very clear here that they are to shepherd. The elders are to shepherd. That's what it gets into in verse two, shepherd the flock of God, which is among you, serving as overseers. Shepherds are to do the work of oversight, remembering that they are stewards of God's sheep. Matthew Poole wrote, the flock is not the minister's flock. It is God's. They are His heritage, His purchase, His delight, and His charge. You are not any elder's flock. You are Jesus' people. You are God's treasured possessions. And so as the elders are being urged and exhorted here, they're being told to shepherd the flock of God.

The word there, shepherd the flock, is actually the word, I was playing around with this, the word is episkopos, which is where Episcopalians get their word. Later on it would come up with this idea of bishops. So you might, instead of saying shepherd, you might say bishoping the people, or episkopaling the people. The point is, What does that even mean? Because it would be later on in church history that there would almost become this hierarchy, right? Well, you got elders, and then you got pastors, and then above the pastors, you have bishops, and above the bishops, you have cardinals, and above that, you got really, really this higher view that's not here in the Scriptures, because every elder here is called a bishop. They're told to do the work of a bishop. Every elder is to do that work. But what is it? If it's not a separate office, what's the function? What does this mean to shepherd? What does it mean to bishop the flock of God? What's to have? Attentiveness. Spiritual care. It's visiting. It's watching over the people.

And so as the elders are being exhorted, the primary command here Elders are to shepherd. Which means elders need to watch over the sheep. Elders need to know the sheep. Elders need to love the sheep. Elders need to be spiritually present and not just a board of corporators above the congregation making all the fancy decisions. That's not what elders are called primarily to do. Elders are called to shepherd. That is what the Holy Spirit, through Peter, is commanding the elders to do.

Now I gotta tell you that this is a really difficult thing. God tells the elders, shepherd. But what did he just say above this before? What are we not to suffer as? Right, but let none of you suffer as a, verse 15, murderer, thief, evildoer, or a busybody. So how do the elders shepherd without becoming busybodies?

I gotta tell you, this is one of the fine tightrope balancing acts that the shepherds here in the congregation try to do. As the elders, we want to, if you're missing church, we want to call you, we want to see where you are, not because we're trying to breathe down your neck or meddle in your business, but because we love you.

I want to see, are you okay? Where are you spiritually? Is something going wrong in your life? But we know that sometimes it might feel like, oh, here they are checking up on me again. I'm like, man, do I really want to make this call? I don't want to bug you. I don't want to meddle in your business. And yet there's a command by God that we want to know who you are.

Your elders care for you. Your elders want to be involved in your life for your good. Because difficulty for any elder, and I'm not just speaking of myself and my challenges with this, walking this tightrope. I'm talking about a lot of elders that I've talked through throughout other denominations as well.

They'll say, yeah, the other side is then, okay, if I'm so worried about becoming a busybody that then I detach myself, then you become the negligent shepherd. The shepherd who lets the one go astray, and you're just like, well, I didn't want to bug them, so I just let them go. And that's not loving either. And so there's a balancing act as the shepherds try to care for, try to oversee, try to love and visit with the saints.

John Calvin wrote on this, God gave not to pastors the government, but the care so that his right remains still complete. Calvin mean by that? It means that the church is Jesus's, but he's entrusted the care in this life with your eyes to the shepherds, the elders, to the ones you've called up from among yourselves who should serve you. So the elder is a steward, not a sovereign ruler.

Christ retains his authority. Any authority that any elder has is a delegated authority. And there's a reason why. You've seen that weird thing, right? When we'll have elections, or ordinations, or even congregational meetings, when at the session meeting somebody will eventually constitute the court of the church, and they'll say, in the name of Jesus Christ, Zion's only king and head. What do they mean when they say that? Why do we even say that? Because it's Jesus' flock. You are Jesus' church.

You are no elder's fiefdom. We're going to get to this in a second, but when elders overstep this boundary and they start to treat God's people as if they're their people, you're primed for abuse. You're primed for being used rather than being loved. That's not saying that elders don't have any authority. No, they're charged by Christ to do certain things. But there can be an abuse of that authority as well.

And so what are these elders? Okay, so they're called the shepherd, but what does that look like and what does that not look like? I'd like to start with what elders are not to do. So elders are not to shepherd in these ways. Look with me at verses two and three. Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, not by compulsion, not for dishonest gain, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you." There's three different things here that the elders are commanded not to shepherd like. They're not to shepherd by compulsion. There's a horrible taskmaster, a horrible slave master for any elder, and that's trying to shepherd out of guilt or shame. or just bare obligation.

Have you ever tried to get a kid to do their schoolwork before? And instead of them knowing, hey, I love you. I know this is hard. We need to work through this. But you're just like, hey, kid, just shut up. This is a compulsory education. Let's go. It's like pulling teeth. Now, sometimes that's what needs to happen, but often it's pretty difficult.

That's not how the elders are to shepherd. And the elders aren't to have Jesus whipping them behind the back, telling them, get moving, shepherd, shepherd, shepherd. What are you doing? Visit more people. What's wrong with you? No, that's not how the shepherds are to shepherd.

But the elders are compelled because they love Jesus and they love his people. Because if it's just out of compulsion, elders will become resentful, cold, or even lazy in their shepherding. So first, elders are not to shepherd by compulsion. Secondly, elders are not to shepherd for shameful gain.

I actually like the, for dishonest gain is how the New King James translates it. This is one of those areas where I really like the King James version. They're not to shepherd for out of a desire for filthy lucre. I don't even know what lucre is. It's just a cool phrase, right? Filthy lucre. The point is, right, there's a way in which it is not, elders are not to be those who are lovers of money. They're not to be lovers of money, right? The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil.

But this is specifically talking about sordid, dishonest gain. Don't be like the used car salesman who's so desperate to make a sale that you're willing to lie to people and cheat and do whatever you can to line your own pockets. I don't mean to just call it used car salesmen. There are some who are really good used car salesmen and are honest. But there's a reason why they get a bad reputation. because they're after dishonest gain.

Gain is not evil, profit is not a bad four-letter word, but lying to people, stealing, hiding things, right? A shepherd who is out just to fleece the flock, not because they love the sheep, is not one of Christ's shepherds. Greed and gospel ministry cannot coexist. An elder must not treat ministry as a means for personal enrichment. Matthew Henry said, is a most base and dishonorable thing to make a trade of the ministry and to serve God for money. And this is where I'm gonna say, this is a personal, maybe it's a, I said it a few years ago, I'm going to say it again now. One of the real dangers of even in my situation as the one paid elder in this congregation.

I hope someday you'll put a salary cap on and you'll say, okay, Brian makes enough money. If he wants more money, go let him get another part-time job or something, right? Because this is one of the things that we know in our society when we look at pastors who have big mansions and they'll have the Lexuses they drive or their Maseratis or whatever they're driving, right? They got the big huge houses and everybody's able to sit there and go, something ain't right here. Hold on. How's this guy rich? And yet there's people who can't feed themselves in the church. Something's wrong.

And so we must, even as a congregation, checking our motives and asking, how are we using the Lord's money and being able to hold elders to account? And I mean, I remember even there was one pastor I was talking to, and I wasn't a pastor yet. I was an undergraduate studying history. I went out with a couple pastors, and this guy was talking about how this church was interested in him coming to be their pastor. And I was shocked. And I actually removed myself from a relationship with this guy because he said, well, if they want me, they're going to have to pay enough money for me to go there. And I thought, you're not an elder I want to be associated with.

An elder must not be one who is shepherding for dishonest gain. But notice a third area that elders are not to shepherd as. Verse three, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you. Being an elder, being a shepherd, does not make any elder have a right to be a tyrant or to act like a little emperor over their own little throne, their own little kingdom. Elders are not masters, elders are not overlords, elders are not rulers. Elders are not there to manipulate, coerce, or control you.

I gotta tell you, that's one of the hard things as an elder, because there are things that I pray that you will do. There's things that I have great plans for your life, and if you would just follow A, B, C, and D, all your problems will be solved. But there's a problem there. I'm not your Lord. No elder is your Lord. And any elder who then steps in and tries to manipulate and coerce you or use authority that's unduly heavy-handed on you to force you into things, it's not following the way of Christ.

The world is brutal to the flock of Christ. The world is slandering people. The world is throwing them into prison. Nero would come eventually and light Christians on fire in his garden. How dare elders then in the church rise up like ravaging wolves, destroying God's flock? It's a shame any time the flock of God suffers at the hands of heavy-handed elders. because you need to know something.

God thinks of you as his treasured possession. When the Lord speaks of his people, Shepherd the flock of God, which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion, but willingly, not for dishonest gain, but eagerly, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you. That idea of entrusted to you has the idea that the flock that you are to shepherd is God's inheritance. Children, God values you and the elders should love you and care for you well. God redeemed you by the blood of his own son. Jesus has poured out his life for you. It is Jesus who loves you perfectly. No elder is ever to walk into any church and to start shepherding in such a way that treats God's inheritance, you, his people, as if they were his own possession.

God did not give pastors the government but the care, is what Calvin says. And spiritual tyranny happens when elders forget that the people belong to Christ. When any elder begins to treat the flock as his own empire, When any elder demands loyalty instead of demonstrating love, he's overstepped his calling. He is no longer acting as one of the shepherds of Christ. Instead, elders are, instead of elders leading by force, they are to lead by godliness, not by institutional or personal pressure. Those elders are not to shepherd, so how are they to shepherd? All right, well, let's look again at verses two and three. Elders are to shepherd willingly. Shepherd the flock of God, which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion, but willingly. Joyfully reflecting the character of Christ.

An elder who's worth his weight in gold is the elder who willingly brings his sacrifice to the Lord. It takes a lot of time for the elders. It takes a lot of spiritual energy. I'm regularly saying both at Presbytery and at Synod and even at our session meetings, I am amazed by the sacrifice of ruling elders who do not get paid, who often suffer a whole deal of frustration, who leave their families and will stay up late at night and they got to deal with a bozo like me, and yet why do they do it?

They do it willingly for Christ. joyful service for God's glory. That is how the Lord is telling us elders are to serve, not under compulsion, but willingly, but also eagerly. A ministry should not be marked by indifference or minimal effort. The elder's shepherding is marked by a zealous desire to fulfill the obligations that Jesus has given them. It's not just checking off a box.

Now there's times in which we were even just talking at our last session meeting as the elders were talking together. An elder must also, sometimes godly elders can be a little, and I'm not saying this was what I was telling our elders they were doing, I'm saying in general, this is one of the things I've had to even check my own heart. You can be a little bit too willing to be an elder and neglect other responsibilities. like your family, your children, your business. So elders need to serve willingly, but also knowing that there are boundaries and there are responsibilities in their life that they must care for.

But the point is wholeheartedly, eagerly serving the Lord, but notice primarily how they are serving, not as lords, verse three, but being examples to the flock. the ancient rhetoric teachers in both Greece and Rome would talk about that there were three different things that speakers needed to have to be persuasive to people.

They didn't just need to be able to have the material down and know what they were talking about. They also needed to be able to have some type of excitement about the material. But there was one last part of the rhetoric that had to be there. If listeners could tell that person was talking out of their mouth but not living it with their lives, they were a hypocrite and they wouldn't be convinced.

Elders are to shepherd by following after Christ first in their own lives, by being hospitable, by being holy, by being zealous for their own piety, by being humble. Again, Matthew Poole wrote, elders must practice before the people's eyes what they preach to them with their ears. If we're going to preach to people's ears as shepherds, if we're going to come to your homes and visit with you and encourage you and counsel you and train you and try to correct you or rebuke you with God's Word, it better be that that's happening in our hearts and in our lives too. Leadership by example requires transparency, repentance, integrity, and even visible godliness. This is why there's a whole slew of characteristics, character qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 for elders. Because if the elders weren't models of holiness, examples under the flock, they're going to walk them down the wrong road. doesn't mean they're gonna be perfect.

You can't look to Jim as a perfect shepherd. You can't look to Ben as a perfect shepherd. You can't look to John as a perfect shepherd. You can't look to Simon as a perfect shepherd. And I beg you never to look to me as a perfect shepherd. You must look to Christ, who is the chief shepherd. That's both the motivation and the model for shepherding. Look with me at verse 4. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. No elder is the ultimate shepherd, it is Jesus who is the chief shepherd, who is the head shepherd, who is the model shepherd.

The elder must not in this life be seeking after just praise from people and from men, But any elder worth their salt is seeking the commendation that comes from Christ. As Calvin was talking about what happens when elders are serving by compulsion and not willingly.

He said, what's the cure for that? He said, there's only one remedy. Turn their eyes to the coming of Christ. When the elders get frustrated because their plans don't turn out, or Satan has a way of becoming an adversary, or when there's long nights and late meetings and hours on their knees in prayer, as there's concern about things that they can't fix and they can't do, but they've got to entrust people to the power of the Holy Spirit and the providence of God. As your elders suffer and try these things, what is their only hope? It will never be to have a perfect flock who's operating perfectly the way they want. It can't be because they want their own pride or their own ego stoked. It's because they look to Christ. They look to Christ knowing that there is an eternal reward. Christ promises those elders who are faithfully caring for his people that there will be a crown of glory that does not fade away. Two things from this.

One, the chief shepherd is going to appear someday. all across every era of Christianity and every part of the globe where Christianity has gone. It is orthodox amongst every religion, every denomination or corner of Christendom. Jesus is going to return again. We may have post-millennialists and amillennialists and historicists, and we may have premillennialists, but all of them agree on one thing. Jesus is going to return again. The Chief Shepherd is going to appear again. And so we trust that Jesus is going to appear again, and when he appears, he will give a crown of glory.

Now this idea of a crown of glory, if you were to go to the games, and you were to compete, and you were the victor in the games, they would take together some type of branches, whether it's olive, or laurel, or pine, they would take these branches, and they would weave them together, and they'd create a crown. And whoever was the judge of that games, or even if there was a general coming back from battle and they had won the battle, the judge would stand upon the Bhima seat and he would take the crown and he would put it on the victor's head. But see, the second that those branches were cut from whatever bush or tree they came from, that crown was already dying. Eventually its leaves would turn brown, it would become brittle. and it would be gone. The glory that Jesus tells the shepherds here is that they will receive a crown of glory that does not fade away. Imperishable.

Now this is the thing, right? I don't think the crown is the point. The crown is a token. of the commendation. You've gotten the approval of the judge. The elder doesn't do it to win the crown. The elder does it for the glory of the judge. Does it for the chief shepherd. Not because they want to look at the crown and take it off their heads and go, oh man, look at these leaves, look at these branches, this is so neat, and walks around the room and says, you see my crown, you see my crown, you see my crown, right? Like, no. No, it's because they want to see the smile of the one who puts the crown upon their head. To say, well done, good and faithful servant. That's what the elder desires.

It's the face of their chief shepherd smiling upon them and said, you took care of my sheep well. You glorified me. There's a place of honor for you for loving my people well. So some applications to the flock. You are no elders people. We may have shepherding groups in this congregation. But that's just an administrative thing. You're not Jim's flock. You're not Ben's flock. You're not Simon's flock. You're not John's flock. You're not Brian's flock. You are the sheep of God's pasture. Never forget that. Because your elders here will fail you. We're sinful men. Fallen, infallible, sometimes foolish. So look to the chief shepherd. You're his sheep. Remember that you, the flock of God, were purchased by the blood of Jesus. You are God's inheritance because you were redeemed at the blood of Christ.

Congregation, I need you to hear this. Your elders were called to care for you. we were not called to control you. And we as your shepherds beg you that if we drift from God's Word, if we drift from the example of Christ, if you see in us pride or lack of holiness, we aren't there entrusted to your care. But we also need you to hold us accountable as brothers and sisters in Christ, to tell us where the holes in our holiness are, to tell us if we're acting like tyrants. Call your elders back to Christ when they get big heads. To the elders, shepherd, shepherd with seriousness. not under compulsion, but willingly. The elders are to shepherd with humility and not with self-interest. We're to shepherd attentively and not negligently. Elders, these people are not ours.

They are Christ's. And we will have to give an account to Jesus, the Chief Shepherd, for how we have led them, cared for them, visited them. Though we are fallible, look to Christ. The hours may be long. The time away from your family is hard. The plans may get frustrated. Don't grow weary. Look to Christ and love Christ's people.

The chief shepherd sees every tear. The chief shepherd knows every quiet prayer. No elder will ever regret in the final day laying down their life for Christ's sheep. because he said of himself, I am the good shepherd. And when he appears, may Christ's face shine upon you for loving his people, for shepherding them as the elders of God's flock.

You are not the elders' possession. You are God's treasured possession. God has been faithful in this congregation, coming closer to 200 years, with scores of elders who have tried to love this congregation well. Some of you, they were your fathers and grandfathers, your uncles and your great-uncles.

And someday when the chief shepherd appears, those elders are going to rise up from the ground out there And they will see Jesus face to face. And they will receive from Jesus their reward. Their bodies do rest in their grave awaiting the resurrection, the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But God is glorified when the elders shepherd his people in a godly way for his glory. I pray that that is the case here today. and continues on in the tenure of this congregation. And if the elders become wicked, this is a final conclusion. If the elders of this congregation lead you astray, take you away from Christ, lead you out of the way that leads unto salvation, begins to treat you as tyrants with control, manipulating God's people and God's Word, May he shut the doors of this church, turn off the lights, and may it be bulldozed and turned back into farmland. God's people deserve the gospel and gospel-driven elders for his glory. That's why the church exists. So may he continue to raise up elders to shepherd his people for his glory.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. God, I confess to you, and I know the elders in this congregation do as well, that we are not perfect. We often lack so much wisdom and make so many missteps. Thank you, Father, that you don't demand perfection, because you've done that in your Son, Jesus Christ.

But Father, we pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you would please protect and provide for your people. We pray that you would care for your flock. Lord, you're the shepherd who brings the little lambs unto your bosom. You protect and love and care for your people.

And so God, we pray that you would please watch over us. Lord, even as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Lord, we pray that you, our Good Shepherd, would bring us beside the still waters and to the green pastures. We thank you for giving us Jesus. We thank you for promising us your presence. And Father, we pray that we will walk in your ways. Please preserve and protect your people. Please preserve and protect the elders to follow in your footsteps. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.