Pastors (Part A)

When leaders lead in Israel, as we read from judges and people, when they willingly give of themselves, bless the Lord. This is a good system, all systems susceptible to sinners but also to the Holy Spirit.

It doesn't have to be negative, it can be very positive. A church should be honored to have men who are called by God to do what He has assigned them to do. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1st Peter.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of 1st Peter chapter 5 as he begins his message called Pastors. We are in 1st Peter chapter 5 this morning. If you have your Bibles, please open to 1st Peter chapter 5. We'll take verses 1 through 4. The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed, shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion, but willingly, not for dishonest gain, but eagerly, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.

And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. Pastors, that's our subject this morning. It is handed to us from the text, the verses that we just read. And Peter now turning his attention to the pastors in the hearing of the congregation.

Custom in those days was that when an apostle wrote a letter, it was received by the church, it was read aloud to the congregation. I'm reminded of this section from Exodus chapter 18, God instructing Moses how to oversee the people of God. He said, moreover, you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And then this section right out of judges when leaders lead in Israel, when the people willingly offer themselves, bless Yahweh.

Those verses are supposed to mean something to we Christians. Unfortunately, I think they're often dismissed because of just this carnal spirit that we all have where just somehow authority becomes irritating at some point. Well, not here because it's me and you should expect me to say something like that, those of you who know me.

But this is the way it is. We all have to fight it and find out where we belong in the presence of authority. What is our role? Read the book of Judges to see what happens when there is no leadership, no real leadership.

What happens to a people without fixed authority that is righteous? Well, we look at verse one, then there we read, 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. Well, there at the beginning, the elders who are among you, I exhort. The Greek word, presbuteros, for elders, we get our English word, Presbyterian. And here he uses it for the pastors, not always used that way in the New Testament, but here it is the pastors.

Context makes it clear, I'll get to some of that as we move forward. But it means those who are in the senior positions. It can be, you can use it in the sense of an elder, an older person, but the context dictates that these are those who are the matured overseers within the flock and where it is used elsewhere also. So a person can be relatively young and leader in the church, that would make them an elder, not necessarily a pastor. All pastors are elders, but not all elders are pastors. Now I have to point out early on that I don't just go along with what everybody else is doing.

I hope I don't. I like to try to think it through and find out what I believe and go with that. And I don't agree with much of how other churches do it, though I don't fault them or act as though I'm better than them, but I don't always agree with their interpretation. If they would just get their act together, they would agree with me. We all know this.

It's plain and simple. Anyway, those who have been around without collapsing and have been entrusted with various positions. And again, this section is to the pastors, not all the elders, though of course there is application to them, but Peter has them in mind in their official capacity. And we consider, for example, 1 Timothy 5, let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of a double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. You will find this word elders and overseers interchanged in its use by Luke and Paul and Peter. He will reference shortly the chief shepherd, the chief pastor, which subsumes that there are assistant or under-rowers, assistant shepherds, which would be the pastors, and we'll cover that too. I know I'm making all these promises.

I need to get moving forward. An elder is not necessarily a pastor, but all pastors are elders. That's foundational. So in the New Testament, the words bishop, elder, overseer, and pastor, as I mentioned, used interchangeably to describe the man who shepherds the flock. You can look up in Acts 20, verse 17, verse 28.

I'm just going to give you a few of them. Titus 1, verses 5 through 9, and here I'll text 1 Peter 5, verses 1 through 4. These pastors, these shepherds, are responsible to lead the flock. I'll give you more scripture verses for those of you who want to look it up after.

Fat checked me. Don't do it now. You'll miss the good stuff, especially the humor. That's why you come to church, right?

I hope not. 1 Timothy 5, verse 17 speaks about the responsibility of pastors to lead. Hebrews 13, 7, 17, and 24. You say, slow down, pastor. I say, you've got to listen to it on the podcast.

Later you'll get it. Preach and teach, 1 Timothy 5, 17. Help the spiritually weak, 1 Thessalonians 5, 12 through 14. To ordain leaders, 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 14.

To care for the local church, as we have here in our section this morning. In Acts chapter 20, when Paul called the elders and the pastors to Miletus, from the city of Ephesus, where they were ministering, he says this to them. He says, therefore take heed to yourselves and to the flock among you, which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, that is the word episkopos.

We get our English word episcopalian from that word. He's applying it to the pastors. He says, who has made you overseers to shepherd, that Greek word is pastor, where we get our English word pastor, to shepherd, to feed.

To pastor the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. So the Lord addresses the pastors in Scripture, in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, each church, and there are seven of them that he addresses, are addressed to the messengers of the church. We translate the word there, angel. An angel means the messenger.

It doesn't make any sense to write to the angel of the church, because the angels don't speak to the church, the pastors are ordained. This is a mouthpiece of God when it comes to preaching to the assembly. The pastors are the gatekeepers, and so they are held accountable. And they are told in that passage, make sure you keep the gate or you lose your light from me.

A very serious charge. In America, church government structure and corporate influence, the outgrowth of these democratic processes have been taken on, unfortunately, by churches. And so churches often conduct business by vote or according to principles of business, and I don't think that that is biblical. I don't find the Apostle Paul putting anything to a vote.

I don't find him following the laws of business. I find him led by the Spirit of God in no other way. And I think that is the way that it is supposed to be.

I think it is a good way. If you have a good pastor, it will work better. If you have a bad pastor, then everything begins to fall apart.

And what really makes a bad pastor is one who will not uphold and stand by the Word of God as the Word of God. And because, again, Luke and Paul used these words from the Greek, overseer, elder, pastor, interchangeably to the office of the pastor, it is why I come to the conclusions that I come to. Israel's government was structured in a very similar way. There you had the priests, the spiritual leaders. Eventually you had the kings, who were the civil leaders. But the priests had the Levites, who assisted them in their work, as the kings had the tribal leaders, who assisted them.

Leadership is essential. When leaders lead in Israel, as we read from judges, the people, when they willingly give of themselves, bless the Lord. This is a good system, all systems susceptible to sinners, but also to the Holy Spirit. It doesn't have to be negative.

It could be very positive. A church should be honored to have men who are called by God to do what He has assigned them to do. We were singing When the Saints Go Marching In. You know that part when the saints are gathered around the throne?

Does that part not stand out to you and make you say, yes, that is going to happen to me. I am going to be around that throne, and everything about my life in this world is concerned with getting others there too. That is the role. What other reason have we to be like Christ?

Christ, He'd come here to seek and to save that which was lost to destroy the work of the devil. He tells us that right out. I can't wait to be gathered around that throne.

But until then, it's business to take care of, like it or not. Peter says, I, who am a fellow elder. He says, I'm a pastor too. I'm one of you.

I understand this. So much for Rome's claim that Peter was the first pope. Peter would have rebuked that thought. There's a far cry from saying, I am the supreme pontiff.

It's not what he's saying. I'm one of you. I minister to the flock like one of you.

I'm no better than you. I have my assignment, and I have the authority that goes with it. He says, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ. Of course, he is qualified for this because Christ worked, invested in this man. Peter was there at Gethsemane. He knew about the Lord's intense prayer and then facing the arrest.

He saw him arrested and mishandled. He saw from afar the crucifixion of the Lord. He says, I witnessed his sufferings. When those early saints spoke of the sufferings of Christ, they meant the cross of Christ.

And while they all ran and forsook him, they trickled back. He says, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed. He saw the glory of Christ. John, in his gospel in the first chapter, he speaks about this glory. John's gospel chapter 1 verse 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Peter saw that. He watched him heal people. He watched him walk on water, raise the dead.

He saw him transfigured, the glory of God upon him. Incidentally, those who believe in soul sleep, that transfiguration when Elijah and Moses are there, did they wake up from their nap? I just took passing thought. I should not have gone down that trail.

Some of you are like, huh? Some people believe you go to sleep and just stay sleeping when you die. And the Bible, I believe, rejects that. Anyway, he had been to the empty tomb. He saw the proof. He saw the risen Christ. He watched him materialize in the upper room, and he watched him ascend into glory from the Mount of Olives. And so he, when he says, a partaker of the glory of Christ, he had experienced these things, and he also knew that eternal life was granted to him and that he would be forever with the Lord.

Verse 2 now. And so he says, pastor the flock of God. That is the Greek word, poi maiino. It means to shepherd, to feed as a shepherd. It is translated shepherd the flock of God. It is a correct translation. But in our language today, we lose sight of the word pastor means to shepherd. That's what it means. It's from the Latin. Shepherd the flock of God, which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly.

I don't care who you are. If you disagree with the assembly of the saints and the structure of leadership, then you disagree with the scripture. And there are a lot of people that claim Christ and him in awe about this. It's probably good they don't attend churches because they would just be creative of a situation where they would have to be dealt with.

And I don't know of any pastor that likes to draw the rod and have to use it. But this shepherd the flock of God, is it not an echo of the Lord's commission to Peter himself? Pastor the flock, feed them, shepherd them, take care of them.

No matter what they do, back to you. Well, it's the same charge to the people in the pew. You are to uphold Christianity, to preach Christ, to make yourself available in love, even to your enemies, no matter what they do to you. Peter's ordination was on this day, John chapter 21 verses 15 through 17. We all know this. If you've been around the scripture, you know it.

But maybe it's new to you. Jesus said to Simon, Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, feed my lambs. Now Peter probably thought that was the end of that.

Okay, I'll do that. But it did not stop there. He said to him again a second time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And he said to him, tend my sheep. And he said to him a third time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you know all things.

You know that I love you. Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. You can't pastor. You cannot witness effectively if you don't love the Lord. If he is not your passion, through thick and thin, as we would say, feed my lambs, give the new converts nourishment so they can grow. Tend my sheep, take care of the spiritual needs of God's people according to the scripture and uphold it to tend to something, to watch over it, to make sure it is as best you can, functioning as best it can under your entrusted hand. Feed my sheep, give pastoral application from God's word.

Well, what does it mean then when he says, teaching them to observe all things, go out and baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe. There's an accountability. Unfortunately, many think that grace is permission to allow sin to be sin unchecked. We're not accountable to anyone because we have grace.

Unfortunately, there are those that behave this way. Hebrews chapter 13, remember those who rule over you. He's talking about spiritual matters, not in your private lives, dictating to you where you should work, what car you should have, who you should marry. It's called that type of behavior, shepherding. It is unbiblical.

It is to be rejected. But in the house of God, these men rule over the house of God, as did the rulers of the synagogues in the Jewish system of belief ruled over the synagogue. He says, they rule over you who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow considering the outcome of their conduct. Now we know he's not talking about being a tyrant over them.

Peter's going to say that. We read when we stood, we read not as lords over them, but certainly leaders amongst them. And so again, Hebrews 13, 7, who have spoken the word of God to you, the role of the shepherd. These metaphors are not supposed to be wasted. The metaphor for the flock is descriptive.

The metaphor for the leader of the flock is the shepherd. We're supposed to be very mindful of these things, find out what they mean, and then work them. Not just sit down and have a Bible study and get up and behave as though we did not have the Bible study. These things are supposed to produce results in our lives, as I'm standing up here speaking to you.

It's supposed to do something, not just give you some nap time. Okay, see this is why we need a laugh track here. Some of you are sleeping through that one. So writing to Christians in local assemblies. There is the universal church. We agree that there are Christians all over the world.

Most of them we will not meet in this life. We'll have to wait until we're gathered around the throne. But then there is the local assembly, every bit of the body of Christ. And that is the application Peter is talking about as he singles out these under shepherds. The flock of God. In the midst of persecution, they were still the flock of God. God did not desert them. Remember 1 Peter is written to Christians who are in the persecution of Nero.

It is not fully escalated yet. It does not seem from the writings of Peter. But we know from history it is going to Proverbs 27 verse 23. Be diligent to know the state of your flocks. Attend to your herds. It has to be attention given to the flock by the shepherd or else things will begin to break down and be torn down and that is never good. The shepherd's rod is an emblem of protection from predators, foreign and domestic, in the church and out.

Heresies that try to creep in from outside, trouble that tries to rise up from the inside. In my office I have an illustration of a shepherd there with a rod in his hand, which I think should be an M-16, but that's okay. Artists, they get things wrong. And the wolves are in the background and the little lamb is by his legs. And so that is to remind the shepherd he is there.

Not bearing the rod in vain. Christians, many, tend to believe that shepherds should have no rod of correction. The problem with them in that view is that they disagree with Christ. They disagree with God. If you ever see the shepherds take the rod out and administer church discipline, you probably won't like it. Just remember, they don't like it either.

No alternative. Many times, 1 Timothy chapter 5, those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all that the rest may fear. We tend not to do this today. There are several reasons.

Lawsuits is one of them. But we're not trying to humiliate anyone. And yet, if they insist, if they keep pushing, maybe they will find themselves exposed in a way that they would have been better to avoid. 1 Corinthians 4, Paul writes, what do you want? Shall I come to you with the rod or in love and a spirit of gentleness?

We need to get these things in our head because as Americans, we're so into freedom and that's good. But the body of Christ is a whole other thing. And you do not, and I do not, know how to automatically fit into this body of Christ. I have to be taught.

I think most people like to learn but a lot of us don't like to be taught. You're going to have to put your pride down. You're going to make progress with the Lord because God resists the proud. I don't want God resisting me. It's no contest. It's not like a tug of war and I might come out a top.

It's you lost and I wasn't even ready. Do it again. It doesn't work that way. But it is critical to understand, he says, to shepherd the flock of God. It's God's flock.

It's never the pastor's flock. We're so glad you tuned in today to study the book of First Peter on Cross Reference Radio. Cross Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. And we're blessed to bring you God's word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information about this program or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music or your favorite podcast app. We hope you'll tune in again next time to join us as we continue our study through the scriptures right here on Cross Reference Radio.