You Need a Pastor • 1 Peter 5:1-2
37:41 Teaching begins
Notes
Peter has just said that judgment begins with the house of God. You are founded upon what Jesus Christ has done for you in dying for your sins and rising from the dead.
Now you are building your life on that foundation. You are using either valuable material, gold, silver, precious stones, or you are using worthless, burnable material, wood, hay, and stubble. The day will reveal the quality of each one’s work by fire.
Judgment is coming, you have to prepare for that. Maybe you need some help?
God has help for you, a person who takes Jesus extremely seriously, so as you watch him, you take Jesus seriously, and you inherit eternal life.
God gives him to you as a gift. So you need him. He is a pastor.
You need a pastor.
We are reading in 1 Peter 5:1-4 to get the context.
1. Why have pastors anyway?
A. This is a fair question.
1. People question authority and leadership as if it’s a dirty word. Who does a guy think he is, to vote himself into being a leader? And there are pastors who abuse their position.
2. Some people think that anyone could do the job. So why have one guy do it? Why not everybody be on the same level and we wait for the Holy Spirit to speak through any one of us? Let’s sit around the campfire and sing Kum-bah-yah!
B. Sheep were created by God to have shepherds. That’s another name for pastor.
1. God created sheep to have no natural defenses. They don’t know how to get up if they fall over. They actually die. They are not very smart.
2. Sheep have always had a shepherd. Abel, the son of Adam, was a keeper of flocks. A shepherd. Right from the very beginning sheep are intended by God to have a shepherd.
C. People are described in the Bible as sheep.
1. When David says, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” that means I am His sheep. Psalm 95 says we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.
2. God means for His people to have leaders who are shepherds.
D. God gives different kinds of ministers to the church.
1. Ephesians 4:11-13 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
2. Pastor/teacher is the same guy, a gift from God to you, to help you attain to the fullness of Christ, to enable you to inherit glory.
2. To return to our text, Peter exhorts the elders as one of them.
A. This is before there were hierarchies in the church, and it’s why you get the words used in the New Testament almost interchangeably: shepherd, pastor, overseer, elder. Later on these words develop specific meanings. At this point in history it’s not as rigid. An elder is a shepherd is an overseer. Someone who feeds and watches over the church.
B. Peter wants to build shepherds up in their calling so that they accomplish what God has called them to do. He mentions three things that give him the right to do this.
1. He’s one of them. I’m an elder along with you. Notice that though he is an apostle he doesn’t put himself above them? He’s not telling them to serve him, he is serving them. He is teaching them the word of God that will encourage them and enable them to do what God has called them to do.
2. He is a witness of the sufferings of Christ. Jesus is the model for all pastors because Jesus became a servant to all people. Peter saw Jesus serve as the Suffering Servant of God prophesied in Isaiah. Jesus was called by God to suffer for the people and cause them to possess the eternal inheritance. He said, “...the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:28. Therefore, Peter is a servant of God speaking, to servants of God.
3. Peter is also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Peter saw Jesus’ suffering and His glory, so that he knew that the way of all God’s people is humility and suffering first, and then being revealed with Christ in glory.
C. In all these things Peter is himself an example of just the kind of leader that a group of believers need in order to reach their eternal inheritance. He’s serving the elders who serve their people.
D. His main command to the elders is to shepherd the flock of God. When you shepherd people, you feed the people of God and you watch over them to protect them. The other phrases, that we will look at next week, give detail how to shepherd.
4. A pastor is to feed people the word of God. That’s our food. Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.
A. Why that? It’s because Jesus fed people the word of God.
1. Mark 6:32-34 So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves. But the multitudes saw them departing, and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him. And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things.
2. Matthew 9:36 But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.
3. Those words weary and scattered mean exhausted, fatigued, thrown down like one rejected, discarded as useless or unwanted.
4. So He taught them many things. He wanted them to be established through knowing God. He wanted to refresh them, fill them with life. He wanted to let them know that God did not reject them. He was calling them to Himself. God wants you!
B. A pastor has to teach the word of God. 2 Timothy 3 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. Only the word of God can build you up and equip you to serve God. Nothing else.
C. What a pastor is not supposed to teach is his own ideas and whatever he thinks. When a pastor teaches what he thinks he destroys people. Jeremiah 23 shows us wicked shepherds feeding people their own ideas.
1. God declares woe to them. Jeremiah 23:1-2 “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!” says the LORD. Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel against the shepherds who feed My people: “You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings,” says the LORD.
2. Jeremiah 23:16-17 Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; they speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the LORD. They continually say to those who despise Me, ‘The LORD has said, “You shall have peace” ’; and to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say, no evil shall come upon you.’ ”
3. Jeremiah 23:21-22 “I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in My counsel, and had caused My people to hear My words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.
4. Jeremiah 23:28-29 “The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat?” says the LORD. “Is not My word like a fire?” says the LORD, “and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
D. Paul told the Ephesian elders, “So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” Acts 20:30. Nothing else can do what the Bible does. No one’s ideas can substitute for the Bible.
E. Sometimes we get the suggestion that this is a new day, we have to adapt and change with the times. There is no trace of that in the Bible. A pastor is to teach the Word.
F. To give people the whole counsel of God we teach through the whole Bible, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book. It’s not the only way to do it. But I can testify that consistent Bible teaching made all the difference in my life. I only got living as a Christian as I heard the Bible taught systematically. It was the difference between night and day because I could finally know God for myself. Knowing God is eternal life. So I believe in the power of the word of God to enable a person to inherit eternal life. That’s why the pastor here teaches that way.
5. A shepherd watches over the people.
A. Paul warned the pastors in Ephesus in Acts 20:28- Therefore take heed to yourselves and to 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. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.
B. One of the jobs of a pastor is to watch out for himself.
1. Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. This is something every Christian has to do, but especially pastors. There is a principle of spiritual warfare in Zechariah 13:7: strike the shepherd that the sheep will be scattered. Jesus quoted this as applying to Him, and it also applies to pastors. When a pastor goes down, it affects the whole body, and the sheep scatter.
2. So a pastor has to watch out for his own sake and for the sake of others. You stay close to the Lord, you have a secret life with God for your own sake. You let the Lord search your heart and see if there be any wicked way in you, and pray that He lead you in the everlasting way.
C. Then the pastor watches out for the church.
1. Savage wolves will come in. They don’t want to help people, they want to consume them! False teaching leads to false living that will separate a person from Christ, not draw them close. False teaching puts the burden on you, not on trusting Christ. When you trust in yourself, you are no longer trusting in the grace of Jesus. You make your relationship with Christ of no effect. That’s how Paul puts it in Galatians 5:4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
2. Paul didn’t hesitate to say, “Such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their deeds.” 2 Corinthians 11:13-15. Their teaching sounds right, but it isn’t right. So a pastor has to oppose false teaching.
3. In Acts 15 some men came to Antioch and taught that if you weren’t circumcised according to the law of Moses you couldn’t be saved. Paul had no little dispute with those men. Paul even opposed Peter publicly when false teaching led to false living, in Galatians 2. A pastor must oppose false teaching. And he does that by teaching good doctrine. When you know the Bible you are not a defenceless sheep when the Next Big Thing arrives on the Christian scene. Oh! Everyone who is spiritual is into this! I need to be spiritual, too! Depends. Is it in the Bible?
3. Paul says people in the church will rise up and seek to draw people after themselves. It becomes about personalities rather than Jesus. It is focusing on me, not on Jesus. It’s self-worship, not worshipping Jesus. “I want people around me to show that I am somebody.” But who is anyone next to Jesus? Pride and arrogance do not show forth Jesus Christ. It is not the character of God. When pride and arrogance is in the church it destroys the church.
D. A true shepherd will always point people towards Christ for everything. He’s there to help people get mature and capable in Christ, not make them helplessly dependent on himself.
6. So far, so what?
A. God evidently thinks you need to know about pastors and what they do.
1. One reason is so you can appreciate what a pastor does. He’s supposed to work hard to feed you the word of God and watch over you. There’s lots of other things a pastor could be doing, but if he doesn’t do those two things then he’s not doing his job.
2. When you are looking for a church you can look to see if the pastor is doing what he should be doing. If his teaching has very little of the Bible in it, you are not going to be fed. And it’s going to not be helpful. A church might have a lot of activities that seem cutting edge and “now”. In comparison with the Bible these exciting things do not make you know God, which is eternal life.
B. You need a pastor. That’s an obvious takeaway. It may not be this particular pastor, but you need one.
1. A pastor is God’s gift for you to help you. This is an occasion to thank God.
2. He’s going to feed you good food so you grow in grace and in trusting Jesus. He’s going to look out for you so you don’t get lost.
B. You need to be a sheep. Don’t make your pastor go looking for you, because you just drop out. Sheep wander off. They don’t get that they need to be fed so they know Jesus and then they can feed someone else.
C. The point of the pastor teaching is so faithful people, men and women, can learn and turn around and teach others. Not just spoon feeding for the rest of your life. You can grow to where you need to be teaching others. There’s so much need for this.
D. The Lord might be calling you to be a pastor. Even in a congregation this size. A pastor is one of the sheep who has the calling to take Jesus seriously, so that everyone else takes Jesus seriously.
Do you take Jesus seriously?
Let’s pray.