Shepherds for the Sheep

Let’s pray as we come to God’s Word. 

Heavenly Father, we confess it is easier to sing those words familiar to many of us than to mean them from the bottom of our hearts, so we offer ourselves once again to you, surrendering up our lives knowing that surrender does not mean we are passive, but rather we are active and yet we surrender our will to yours.  So, help us as we come to your Word to teach us just what we need to hear, each one of us, and may we have the ears that are eager to receive and to obey and to surrender.  We ask in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Please turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter 5, so we come today to the end of our summer series on the Book of 1 Peter, this morning and this evening working through this final chapter, chapter 5 and this morning the first five verses.  Follow along as I read.

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: ² 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; ³ not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. ⁴ And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. ⁵ 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.”

The temptation I think in coming to the end of a book like this, and it’s probably a temptation coming to the end of many of these New Testament letters, is to think that when we come to the end what we have here is just a nice little disjointed lesson rather than seeing this chapter as being connected with everything that has come before it.  We’re apt to think that what Peter is communicating is, well dear saints before I wrap things up and let you go, I did wanna change gears a little bit and just give you a few words about eldership, and everyone if they’re having the letter read to them, oh really, Peter we’re almost done and we have a lesson on eldership before you finish your letter.  But we would be wrong to think that Peter is simply tacking on here a lesson about eldership because who doesn’t want polity whenever you can get it, no, what he’s telling us is very much connected to everything that you have been hearing and studying over the summer.  Look at that little word at the beginning of verse 5 as the ESV translates, “So”, it’s the Greek word oun, it’s a connecting word, sometimes it’s not translated here, I think it’s helpfully translated with “so” which is connecting chapter 4 and chapter 5 of course when it was originally written you didn’t have Peter marking down with a big 4 and then verse and verse, those are added later and it’s helpful, so the so is connecting us with the immediately preceding section and what is the end of chapter 4 about.  You can see the heading before verse 12, Suffering as a Christian.  It’s about fiery trials, it’s about facing persecution as you follow Christ.  It’s about suffering according to God’s will.  We’re gonna talk more about that tonight because the second half of chapter 5 wraps up the entire book which has to do, one of the main themes as you’ve heard, is about suffering and in particular the end of chapter 4.  So, it’s not for no reason that Peter just thinking and talking to these saints about suffering now wants to talk about eldership.  Why, what’s the connection?  Well, I think there’s several connections.  Most obvious if the body is going to suffer you want shepherds who are godly men ready, eager, wiling, able to help care for the flock.  So suffering is coming upon you, fiery trials may be around the corner, well then you certainly are going to have an added interest in knowing, well who are these shepherds that are going to care for this flock as we are under assault.  But it’s more than that.  When suffering comes, when there is crisis, that is the moment when leadership is either proven to be successful or a failure.  When trials come and this whole book, as Peter is saying, you’re facing trials and likely more are on the way, you should not be surprised, that is when leadership is most necessary.  This is true not only in the church, it’s true in politics, it’s true in the home, it’s true in life and your business and the school.  It’s not the crisis that unravels an institution, you don’t want those, but it’s not the crisis, it’s not even the immediate scandal that might break out, but rather it’s the handling, or too often, the mishandling of that case.  What you probably all think of institutions and even churches, sometimes when that crisis hits, it’s an opportunity for the pastors, for the elders, for the leaders of the church and just time-out here, there’s no, and here’s the crisis, okay.  But you know churches where this happens and it’s an opportunity for godly leadership to show and exert themselves and then it actually, though painful, brings people a sense of even confidence and trust to see their leaders and yet sometimes just the opposite even with small bits of suffering or crisis, and so it is absolutely important.  If crisis is coming to this church here in Peter’s day to these saints, what sort of men will they have to care for the flock and to provide leadership because it is in that moment an opportunity to build trust, to build community, to show honesty, courage, or things can be destroyed.  The men leading are either too harsh or too weak or too selfish or too afraid.  And that’s also the connection.  If the trial that’s coming to these Christians, and perhaps the trial that will come to some of us in our days, is that they will face a negative world, they will face opposition, they will face people who do not like what they believe and what they teach and what they stand for and do not like the Jesus whom they worship, then the elders, the leaders, the pastors, the teachers of that flock ought to be prepared if so called upon that they will be the chief sufferers.  That they are the ones who are standing tallest, their names will be on the website.  They will not take it as an opportunity to keep their heads down.  It is for good reason that in Acts chapter 20, when Paul is giving these tearful final instructions to the Ephesian elders that twice he tells them “Don’t shrink back.”  He says it once about himself, that he did not shrink back and then he gives the command to them, “Don’t shrink back.”

As I say in my pastoral ministry class, I don’t think that pastors and elders necessarily suffer more than other people.  I never say that I have the hardest job in the world.  I think I have the greatest job in the world, and it has some unique challenges and it has some unique blessings.  Here’s what I do say, not that pastors and elders necessarily suffer more than other people, but when they do not handle suffering well, or they shrink back from doing the right thing, doing the hard thing because of the fear of suffering, that the ripple effects are larger than for other people in the church.  So, Paul says when these fiery trials come, you men must be ready to stand firm, people will be watching you, they will first notice you, do not shrink back, do not give up, do not give in, in particular do not be embarrassed to declare any truth taught in the Word of God.  That’s what Paul says to the Ephesian elders, that’s what Peter says here.  So that’s why it is so important thinking about suffering in the church that Peter would say, now absolutely I need to talk to you about the men who are going to lead and are going to serve and shepherd in this congregation.  No fancy cleaver outline, but a series of threes and ones as we walk throughout this passage, threes and ones. 

Here’s the first thing to notice.  Three ways Peter describes himself.  You see in verse 1, “I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder.”  Why is this important?  It’s important because you know that in some branches of the church, they argued that Peter was the first pope, that he was the bishop of Rome, that he had supreme earthly authority over the church.  Surely, it’s important that he describes himself when he has the opportunity.  Surely here would be the time that Peter humbly wants to assert a unique kind of authority that he might have, the authority of jurisdiction over a wide variety of churches or authority of ordination in himself because that’s in an ecclesiastical or rather an episcopalian system how they understand the office of bishop, we’ll come back to that.  But Peter does not describe himself in any of those terms.  He says, “I am a fellow elder.”  He uses the Greek word that is near and dear to all your hearts, presbyter.  Peter was a Presbyterian; we shouldn’t be surprised.  He describes himself, “I want you to know who I am writing you elders; I am a fellow elder.”  Just a little bit of history here. 

We have an American pope and that makes for lots of good memes about the Papal Bulls because he’s from Chicago.  Think about it, about he’s a White Sox fan like I am so he’s used to martyrdom, lots of other things.  Yeah, there’s something interesting and unique and maybe even feels special, but it does force us to think about, well where did this office come from?  The papacy as we know it today, supreme earthly authority over the church bestowed upon the bishop of Rome took centuries to develop.  The word pope, or papa, you can hear the word simply means father.  Initially it could refer to any important or honored bishop in the church.  There are references to Pope Cyprian of Carthage, Pope Athanasius of Alexandria, all the way into the Middle Ages. Anselm in England is called the Pope of another world.  It was an honorific title for important bishops, fathers, and even after the term became identified with the Bishop of Rome in the west, in the east the word pope was still used much more freely.  And it’s worth saying something about Rome.  Certainly, Rome is a historic city, the Roman Empire, it’s the capital of the empire, but it was far from the most important city for the Christian church in the early centuries.  There were more important Christian centers one could argue in Alexandria, and Antioch, perhaps in Carthage and North Africa, in Jerusalem itself, and certainly in Constantinople, today Istanbul, people there considered for the next thousand years, in fact actually until right now considered that Constantinople is of more importance than Rome because when the Roman Empire fell in the west, it remained for another full millennium, the Byzantine Empire in the east, so it would have been news to those in Constantinople that the bishop of Rome should have supreme authority over the church.  It wasn’t until really Leo the Great in the 5^th century that the pope in a recognizable form began to emerge.  Rome itself was not the nerve center for the church and in fact became much more important as the Roman Empire in the west crumbled leaving the only plausible institution to pick up the pieces, the church and with that the bishop of Rome there at the old heart of the empire came to have more and more authority.  But throughout the Middle Ages even in the east it would have considered Constantinople to be at least equally as important.  So, all of that is to give us great deal of historical theological and exegetical heartburn before one would conclude that, well Peter obviously is the first pope, the Bishop of Rome.  He describes himself as a fellow presbyter. 

I have a title of a senior pastor, I think that’s okay, we have associate, assistant pastors, we have a staff with an org chart, but when it comes to our session, a fellow presbyter, I have one vote, I do not have the power to appoint and remove elders, do not have the power to appoint and remove pastors in a region, this is the responsibility of a gathering of presbyters called a presbytery.  Second thing, more quickly that Peter says about himself, not only is he a fellow elder, he is a witness of the sufferings of Christ.  It is important, as an apostle he was an eyewitness of Christ’s passion, but here it is significant because the community is facing persecution.  Peter can say, I saw with my own eyes what they did to our Lord Jesus.  Let us never forget what Jesus himself taught us, should a servant be expected to be treated better than his master.  If you think you can make it through your whole life, even in a relatively Christian place like Charlotte, North Carolina, more Christian than many other places, if you think you can make it through your whole life and no one will say something ill, think ill, do something ill of you because you’re a Christian, why should you be treated better than Jesus was.  So, Peter says, “I know, I saw the sufferings of our Lord.  Peter knew that Christians would suffer, and he saw how Christ had suffered.  And then third he describes himself as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed.  So a witness looking at the past what he saw in Jesus and now looking to the future what he knows will be his and all of the church.  He will be a part of the renewal of all things and the glory that in particular comes to God’s people and he would have had eyes to at least glimpse what this glory, because Peter was on that Mount of Transfiguration and saw the unveiling of Jesus in his glory and so he had a glimpse of what he would one day partake in and what each of us as God’s people will enjoy.  So, Peter is giving this description of himself very deliberately, elders, I am speaking to you as one of you, I’m a fellow presbyter and I’ve seen suffering, I saw Jesus suffer, but not just that, I saw His glory and we will be partakers of glory.  Three ways Peter describes himself.

Now I want you to look at three words for one office, three words for one office.  Look at the end of verse 1, there’s a colon there, here’s the main thing Peter wants to tell the elders, here’s what I exhort you to do.  If you want in one phrase what elders are to do in the church, here it is.  Verse 2.  “Shepherd the flock of God that is among you.  Shepherd the flock of God that is among you”, and then as a description a further clarification of what that looks like, adds the phrase, “Exercising oversight.”  So, I said there are three words here, one office.  Three words.  Well first we have the word elder.  We’ve already seen that, “I exhort the elders.”  That’s the Greek word presbytery, presbyter, Presbyterian church is so named because we believe in God ruling His church by presbyters, by elders, by a session, that God does not give to one person over the church nor to one person who has broader jurisdiction over all of the pastors, but rather to the elders gathered together.  We call them in the Presbyterian church in America teachers elders and ruling elders, because we see in the apostles that there are some who labor especially in preaching and teaching, that’s what I do, that’s what the teaching elders do.  We also call them pastors.  We see that language, pastor just means shepherd.  So that’s the second term.

These men are called elders, that word comes from the Jewish tradition, speaks of men of wisdom, of decency, of maturity, of respect, men of prudence, gravity, experience, normally they will be older men, hence the term elder, yet we know that Paul tells Timothy don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young and he too had the laying on of hands so it isn’t necessarily, there are sometimes, where men though younger in age have the maturity and gravity of an elder, but it is normally those who have the experience, so an elder, that’s one word.  The second word is shepherd, same word as pastor, that’s what it means.  It can be translated both ways, pastor the flock of God, shepherd the flock of God.  So, the central command, what do elders do, they’re to pastor.  What does a shepherd do, well the easiest way to think of what shepherds ought to do is to think of the most famous shepherd chapter in the Bible, Psalm 23.  What does the good shepherd do in chapter 23?  He leads, he feeds, he guides, he protects.  Leads me beside into the green pastures where I can feed, gives me rest beside the cool waters, his rod and a staff, that’s for protection for beating away the wolves, but it is also sometimes for getting the sheep to walk in line through the valley of the shadow of death.  A good shepherd leads, feeds, guides, protects.  And note this little phrase, “Shepherd the flock of God that is among you.”  This is a local defined responsibility.  It may be that there are other opportunities, maybe you have shepherds that people read their things on the internet, but God does not call people to shepherd the internet.  Note very well He is not calling any of you to shepherd the internet. 

There are too many young men who get fired up, that’s what they wanna do, they wanna be teachers, they wanna exercise oversight, and their first goal, what gets them animated in the morning is to go do that on the internet.  This says, “Shepherd the flock of God that is among you”, real flesh and blood people in your midst.  Wesley said, “The world is my parish”, given the benefit of the doubt he meant something good by it, not very good ecclesiology.  The world is not your parish.  You might want to have a voice in the world, but your church, so he tells the elders, shepherd this particular people.  So, elders shepherd and then look at this phrase at the end of verse 2, “Exercising oversight.”  This is the Greek word, episkopountes.  You can hear a word, might be familiar to you, episcopal, so an episcopalian system of government is ruled by bishops, and it comes from this Greek word.  Now here’s the thing to notice and this is absolutely one of the hallmarks of, I would say not only a Presbyterian understanding, but I trust a biblical understanding of how God means to rule His church is that these men are called elders, then they’re called to shepherd and here they’re called to be bishops.  In fact, I was reading recently the first constitution of the Presbyterian church in the United States of America from 1788 who among us has not read it.  And in the very first chapter addressing pastors it uses the word bishops, using them interchangeably.  Now almost none of us would think to do that anymore, but biblically there is precedence for that.  We see it again, we go to Acts chapter 20, Paul does the same thing, he addresses elders, he tells them to be shepherds, and then he tells them to be also overseers.  That’s the word translated, overseer, oversight.  So, a bishop is a pastor, is an elder, is a shepherd.  So, you say do Presbyterians believe in bishops.  Well yes, we do.  Do we believe in them as the term has come to be used and defined in an Episcopalian system, so thinking of the Methodist church, the Anglican church, the Catholic church, no because we understand that Peter here is using these words interchangeably.  So, the noun form of Episkopos.  Now what’s important for us?  Move out of the polity lesson.  He is giving another picture of what the pastor elder does.  He is given the immense responsibility, not individually, but jointly together with the other shepherds of exercising authority. 

Now just hold this in your mind.  We’re gonna come in just a minute to the danger of some pastor wolves.  That’s true, there are pastor wolves who beat up the flock.  We’ll give that it’s full weight, but there is also the danger of pastor weaklings.  Pastor weaklings can end up doing just as much damage in the church as pastor wolves.  Sometimes for a longer time because they’re nice and nobody sees what they’re doing because they’re not doing what they should be doing.  You must as an elder exercise oversight.  Think that some pastors of course have the opposite danger of lourding their authority over others and Peter will warn about that in just a moment.  Yet I also fear in today’s climate that many young men in particular are extremely timid, nervous about exercising any oversight.  If there are bully shepherds there are also bully sheep and both are an offense to God, and it is possible for some sheep to construe all oversight as oppression and to reinterpret what was true necessary shepherding under God’s authority and later to understand it in a different lens.  The antidote to bad authority is not no authority.  It is not abdicating authority.  The antidote to bad authority is good authority.  As I heard someone use this example recently, it’s a good one, it’s like when children want their dad to play Monopoly with them or the kids say, “Dad would you come out and play baseball or football or play soccer with us,”  Now why do kids want that, they want that because it’s fun when dad joins along and dad’s funny when he tries to do sports with the kids, but there’s also this idea that when dad comes the rules will be followed, the fouls will be called, the balls and strikes will be called.  There will be a winner and a loser.  We’ll make sure that no one is stealing from the Monopoly money.  There’s a sense this will go better if dad comes and plays with us to make sure that the rules are in force, that no one gets hurt, and that all things are done decently and in good order.  That’s what our kids mean.  “Dad, would you come play with us, you’ll make sure that this things works.”  That’s what good authority does.  Elders, shepherds, overseers.  Three words, one office. 

Now I want you to notice it, I said we’d come to it, three vices to avoid.  Come in the following verse.  It comes in a series of not this but that.  It’s very obvious in the Greek and it’s very obvious in your English translation, there are three sets of vices.  Here’s what Calvin says, “In exhorting pastors to their duty, he points out especially three vices which are found to prevail much.  Here they are.  Calvin labels them.  Sloth, desire of gain and lust for power.  Let’s call them sloth, greed, and a lust for power.  These are perennial temptations for shepherds in the church.  So one, there’s the danger of sloth.  Verse 3, “I want you to do this, this shepherding work, this feeding, leading, guiding, protecting, overseeing work not under compulsion, but willingly.”

Remember in 1 Timothy, “He who desires the office of an overseer desires a noble task.”  There has to be some desire for it, some aspiration for it, some sense I want to do this work.  Now yes, especially here thinking of our elders here in our midst, there will be seasons that that work feels exhausting, maybe even times you want to quit.  That’s normal and human life, but overall, there should be a sense of energy, a sense of enthusiasm.  Calvin uses the word at least in the English translation, alacrity.  That’s a good one, look it up, put that in your word of the week.  Alacrity.  It means a brisk and cheerful readiness.  Kids, you can say to your parents, I’d like this to be a week of alacrity for me.  Brisk and cheerful readiness.  That’s what God expects to see from the elders.  I’ve known pastors at times, I think they mean well, they want to prepare other elders for the trials that come with pastoral leadership, and yet I always cringe when I hear men talk about pastoral ministry as if it’s a vocation filled with nothing but unending burdens and difficulties and unrelenting struggles and signing up for constant pain.  Now I get it, be warned for the struggles, the trials, but that’s not good if the people among us feel as if, oh, oh elders, oh I’m so, I’m so sorry.  Now we went them to sense brothers that God has given to us, yes, an immense task, yes one that we do not feel fully equipped for ever in this life and yet it is a great and glorious work and a privilege to be called to it, and we are eager and ready to serve.  Not slothful. 

Second danger, greed.  He says, “Not for shameful gain, but eagerly.”  Now the ruling elders here are saying, yeah, check, the pay here has not kept up with inflation for the ruling elders.  So perhaps this is in particular for the teaching elders.  Now we know it’s not wrong to get paid.  Paul makes that clear in 1 Corinthians 9.  “If we have sewn spiritual things among you is it too much, we reap material things from you?”  So, it’s not wrong.  This is a generous church.  I think I can speak for all the pastors and the whole staff I hope and say that we feel loved, we feel cared for, we feel provided for, thank you.  So, Peter is not against getting an income in ministry, he is against ministering for shameful gain.  Lest anyone in ministry would think of this as just another job, just another paycheck and in particular then, here’s what he means by shameful gain, that someone might twist the truth.  In the ancient world rediritions were a big deal, they were the movie stars, the rock stars of their day, and they would get paid to do their teaching from house to house, or they’d get paid to put on a show, and you can imagine when your livelihood depends upon that, you start making the audience sovereign.  You start giving to them, you start tickling their ears, what do you want to hear, what would make you feel good, and it becomes mere fan service.  That’s very possible, it’s possible in the church, possible in politics.  You ought to just be careful if the person you’re listening to all the time only always tells you exactly what you already think and what you want to hear.  It may not be a teacher as much as just providing fan service, not wanting to ruin or threaten a constituency.  That’s shameful gain.  Being an entertainer, just trying to tickle ears, whatever the ears around you, you may even sometimes preachers can have the appearance of being very prophetic, but they’re only really saying things that they know everyone at a safe distance doesn’t want to hear, but everyone right in front of them is very happy.  In fact, you can draw a very big crowd if we all just have the same enemies and I say all sorts of things against all the people that we already don’t like, and you’ll say, “Oh you’re very prophetic pastor, oh you give it to them.”  Well yeah, it’s easy to give it to them, they’re not here.  It’s hardest to speak the truth verse by verse, word by word, chapter by chapter, however it hits each one of us.  Feed the flock not themselves.  That was the great sin of the shepherds in Israel’s day.  You can read Ezekiel 34. 

And then the final danger, lust for power, so he says in this contrast.  Not domineering but be an example.  So, here’s what I said, yes, it is possible to be this kind of lordly pastor, an elder who just is interested in building his own personal fiefdom.  Or doesn’t want to feed the flock, but wants to use the flock as a platform or to make me look good, or to make me feel good, or a pastor who leads by intimidation, manipulation, is prone to anger, defensive, always casts blame, never takes any blame, shades the truth, plays people off against each other, is always insistent upon calling the shots in every matter all the time and he treats the flock cruelly, harshly, brutally.  Scripture condemns such a man, and it is possible, you don’t have to have very much power to be power hungry.  That’s what C.S. Lewis writes about the inner ring.  It doesn’t even matter, you don’t have to be striding the world with great power, it can be an HOA that gets you power hungry.  It can be a city planning commission, it can be a drain commissioner, those guys actually have a lot of power.  It can be a little nursery commission in the church, anything that you wanna hoard onto that.  Scripture warns us, especially the mean leading the church, lest we become the sort of man that never apologizes, never admit to changing our mind, never seek the input of others, have a sense of entitlement more than service.  We would like to be enforcers more than examples.  It’s worth remembering.  Some of these questions that are asked at an ordination service.

Number five, says the pastor, “Have you been induced as far as you know your own heart, to seek the office of the holy ministry from love to God and a sincere desire to promote His glory in the Gospel of His son?”  “Do you promise to be zealous and faithful in maintaining the truths of the Gospel and the purity and peace of the church, whatever persecution or opposition may arise to you on that account?”  “Do you engage to be faithful and diligent in the exercise of all your duties as a Christian and a minister, whether personal or relational, private or public and to endeavor by the grace of God to adorn the profession of the Gospel in the manner of life, and to walk with exemplary piety before the flock of God over which he has made you an overseer.”  Those are good questions.  I’ve answered yes to all those questions, so have some of you.  And we ought to do so with joy and with fear and trembling. 

We’ll move more quickly, we’ve made it through the threes, now we have the ones.  One reward to look forward to.  Here he mentions the unfading crown of glory, verse 4 when the chief shepherd appears, “You will receive thee unfading crown of glory.”  There are other crowns mentioned in the New Testament.  They all seem to refer to eternal life.  So, this may not be a unique gift over and above eternal life given to the elders that they get a special elder crown, but the imagery is significant, and it is meant to be motivating, to hold out before the elders, but the chief shepherd will give.  Now we hear crown we think of something that is glittering in gold and bedazzled with jewels, but notice it says, “An unfading crown.”  Well, that lets us know this is a different crown.  This is a wreath.  This is a wreath with dark red flowers, would have been given to a victor in some kind of athletic contest or maybe given a position of some honor or authority, that’s the unfading crown.  The only time a crown is linked with glory in the New Testament, and it is meant to be a motivation to the under shepherds to think of that chief shepherd on that day calling your name men, up to the podium, placing upon your head.  Though you do not deserve it, and I do not deserve it, this magnificent wreath circled with red flowers never to fade to say you have been a faithful shepherd among my sheep.  One reward, one command.  One command for the young guns, the young bucks in the church, verse 5.  “Likewise you who are younger be subject to the elders.”  Now doesn’t everyone have to be subject to the elders, well yes, they do.  But there’s a reason he is likely thinking in particular of the younger people in the congregation because it was the case in the 1^st century and is still the case today, that young people, okay I know, I’m, not young anymore, I am DeYoung, ha, ha, ha, yes.  But listen, this is not just for me, this is from the Word of God, young people, young people are normally those most in need of wisdom and they are apt to be those most hostile to listening to those who are older than themselves.  That’s why Peter says, now once you were younger, I’ve been talking to the elders, I’ve been telling them who they should be, I’ve been warning them against the dangers.  Now that’s not all I have to say, I see faces that we may have tried and persecution and suffering.  How is this community going to hold together.  Well it not only takes good shepherds, it takes godly sheep. 

Here’s question number 5 that we ask, that I ask to the new members and if you’re a member here you answered yes.  Do you submit yourself to the government and discipline of the church and promise to further it’s purity and peace.  If you are a confessing member at Christ Covenant Church, you made that promise.  Now yes you say, well but the elders sometimes make mistakes.  Yes, they do.  Or every earthly government makes a mistake.  Sometimes lots of them, counsels err, pastors err, sessions, Presbyterians, commissions, they can all make mistakes.  Peter understood that.  We know that the ultimate principle is if it’s a choice between obeying man and obeying God, you always obey God.  And there are mechanisms actually in our Presbyterian system available for people when they think that someone made a mistake and you can appeal and you can have other people look into the matter so all of those necessary caveats and yet if we are honest for so many of us when we promise to submit ourselves to the government and discipline of the church what we really mean, some of us, I will submit myself (as long as they make decisions that I like) I will submit myself to the discipline of the church (as long as they do not seek to discipline me in any way, as long as I am never challenged in my attitudes or in my actions I am happy).  But who among us is that happy to submit to people who always do what we like, always agree with us, always affirm the very things we already knew and wanted to do and believe.  Younger men, women be subject to the elders. 

And here’s a final word, the last one, so one command for the young bucks and then here’s one reminder for everyone.  Clothe yourselves all of you with humility toward one another.  Most of you, almost all of you got dressed up, Sunday clothes, good job.  This is one of my four suits that’s in rotation.  It’s the nice thing about the south, people still like to dress up, pat ourselves on the back there.  You think about what you’re gonna wear, especially on a Sunday.  You’re like, does this still work, what do you think?  You think about what clothing you are going to put on.  Will you, when you head out the door each day think about clothing yourself with humility.  Take even a fraction of the time you take to clothe yourself with earthly garments, to think about how you will walk out of the door today clothed with humility and notice the words toward one another, that’s important, humility toward one another because we can think a humble person is someone who is just very quiet, they always talk down about themselves and she never brags about any of her abilities and sort of maybe just mousey and almost defeatist and maybe self-flagellating and you think, well that’s humility.  But notice, it’s humility toward one another.  This isn’t about, I just have to go through life with my head down, don’t make eye contact with people, and if I’m quiet and a private person, I must be humble.  Humility is a relational commitment.  It’s not a personality trait, it’s about how we interact with one another.  Do you clothe yourselves with humility?  Again Peter’s thinking about if you have crises, if you have conflict, if you have suffering, it’s even more incumbent upon the body, how are you gonna relate to each other, and when you think about humility toward one another, here’s what I do, I think about the easy people in my life, how to be humble to Tricia, that’s easy.  You’ve gotta think about the hard people in their life.  I think of, no I’m not gonna fill in the blank there.  Think about the difficult people, are you humble Christians, are you eager to forgive, are you quick to believe the best about people, are you suspicious, cynical, always sure that there’s something else.  Are you easy to impress, are you ready to give people the benefit of the doubt or are you the sort of person who loves to pass along good reports, looks for good in other people.  Any kind of lasting community, I mean real community not just a gathering, real community is going to depend upon people who clothe themselves with humility toward one another and don’t you love/hate the end of verse 5, I hope you love it.  “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 

I don’t know what verses you have in your life that just always stick with you, this is one of those that sticks with me.  It’s so simple, I need to hear it, it has maybe been the most common thing I have prayed in 23 years of ministry before I go up and preach a sermon.  I’ll just say it quietly to myself, “Good you oppose the proud, but you give grace to the humble.  So would you let me now be one of those who is in the way of your grace.”  Don’t you want to experience God’s grace?  Calvin says we should imagine God having two hands and in one hand a hammer to beat down the proud and the other is an outstretched arm ready to lift up the humble.  Don’t you want the Lord’s blessing.  If you are proud this morning, you can count on it, absolutely count on it.  You will be brought low, maybe soon, maybe later, maybe at the end of the age, but He will bring you low.  Why would you want to be the sort of person that God has promised to oppose?  Aren’t some of you tired of being the Lord’s whack-a-mole?  He opposes the proud.  It’s a hammer to expose that, to break our pride, and He promises the way of blessing is humility.  If you are humble God will give you grace.  Do you want more grace this week, I do.  He will give it to you.  It is the way of the cross, it’s the way of Christ, the way to be lifted high is to bring yourself low.  If you would get on your knees and bow your head and live your life spiritually with open hands to heaven He promises to fill them.  But you can’t have a fist.  If you’re going through life with God with a fist, you’re never gonna win a boxing match with God.  Drop the fists, you’ve gotta open your hands, and He will give you grace.

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your Word full of so many good and precious promises, encourage us, strengthen us, help us, give to the shepherds among us the grace to live out these things, guard us against these dangers into each one of us, make us humble as Christ himself as our glorious example of mercy and grace, humility and power.  In His name we pray.  Amen.

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