Trusting the Lord: Humble Shepherds and Servants

October 11, 2015

Trusting the Lord

Humble Shepherds and Servants

1 Peter 5:1-7

(Advance Slide #1)

Introduction

Every once and awhile the television or the newspapers tell us that there is a crisis of ‘leadership.'

(Advance Slide #2)

• This usually means that they disapprove of the current political leaders.
• I have found myself changing my views on leadership.
• I don't believe in leadership...at least how it is viewed and defined today.

Real leadership happens when someone is so energetically and productively involved in whatever is concerned.

• Leadership happens not when you're thinking about it, but when you're actually doing it.
• I would rather belong to a group or a fellowship where the ‘leader’ had no idea about ‘leadership’, but was committed to God and the gospel.

(Advance Slide #3)

What we need is men who care deeply about the state of the church:

• Men who have studied.
• Men who listen.
• Men who can articulate.

As much as we need humble Shepherds there is something else that we need...humble servants to follow their lead.

• This lesson is going to ‘dovetail’ right along with the elder’s announcement today.
• It will not only serve as a reminder to them but also will reiterate our responsibility too.

(Advance Slide #4)

Text

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he

may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” 1 Peter‬ ‭5:6-7‬

What Peter is describing here is not ‘leaders’ but shepherds.

• And the point about ‘shepherds’ is that the best of them aren’t thinking, ‘How can I be a shepherd?’
• No, the best are asking ‘How can I best look after these sheep?’

Pete will give some practical advice to shepherds and sheep in this text.

• Notice how Peter appeals to them...as 'elder.'
• The word means ‘senior’, both in the sense of status within the community and in the sense of older in years.
• Thus, Peter is saying that he knows what he is talking about.

These Christians needed shepherds to lead them.

• They needed to trust those in leadership over them.

(Advance Slide #5)

Lesson

All the lessons of this text build upon this first important focus...the good of the sheep.

The Good of the Sheep

The focus of the good shepherd is not only on his or her own qualities.

• Their focus should be on the needs of, and potential dangers for, those they are looking after.
• Peter has learned from Jesus himself the central thing about being God’s shepherds.

(Advance Slide #6)

• Don’t lord it over them, but be an example.
• EX. - Unless an officer is serving the soldiers of his unit—thinking about them as people, getting to know who they are, what they are afraid of, what makes them give of their best, and looking after them in those and all other ways—they will simply not be able to lead them in any difficult or dangerous situations.

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Shepherds MUST ‘clothe themselves’ in humility.

• Since our leaders have clothed themselves in such humility we as sheep should do the same and follow them with the same humility.

• In fact, the text says that we should show this humility ‘toward one another.’
• God gives grace because of our humility.

We hear so much of humility within early Christian writing that it’s easy to forget that, until this strange movement of Jesus and his followers, nobody outside a narrow strand of Jewish tradition had regarde for humility.

• Something has happened to generate an entirely different way of going about things.

(Advance Slide #8)

Jesus Happened

No prize for guessing what it is that ‘has happened’...Jesus ‘has happened.’

• He announced God’s kingdom, He died, was raised and enthroned in glory.
• This is the ‘good news’.
• He is ‘the chief shepherd’, who will reappear and make all things right.
• He will be the model, the standard by which all other ‘shepherds’ are to be judged.

Jesus drew heavily on the biblical traditions about God’s desire to ‘shepherd’ His people Israel.

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• We now are the ‘new Israel’...His chosen nation...royal priest...a people of His position...called out of darkness into the light.

• It’s hardly surprising that this is one of the standard images for the way in which either God himself, or the anointed king, are to look after the ‘sheep’.
• To make sure they are fed, and to protect them from predators.
• A glance at Psalm 23 or Ezekiel 34 will show where some of this comes from.
• Jesus Himself in Luke 15:3–7 and John 10:1–16 also explains.

So what does this mean for us?

• We live as ‘His people’...in all that we do we glorify Him by following those leaders that have been appointed over us.

Conclusion

(Advance Slide #10)

The normal ‘worldly’ way of ‘leadership’, is to boss and nag, to threaten and punish.

• With this approach you may be able to get sheep to do what you want that way.
• But they will be neither happy nor healthy.
• Such an approach may look ‘strong’, but it is in fact weak.

The call to be a humble shepherd is the call to the true strength in which one doesn’t have to shout or bully.

• He does not have to because the work of humble service has forged such a strong bond between shepherd and sheep that the shepherd only needs to walk towards the pasture and the sheep will follow.