Theme: A Fourfold Focus
Preacher: David Strain
Date preached: 1 August 2004
I wonder if you’ve seem the film the Thin Red Line? It is set during world war two and it follows the fortunes of a troop of American soldiers sent to conquer the Japanese controlled Guadalcanal, in the Pacific. The unusual feature of the film is that it does not appear to have a single central character. Rather, the film follows the fortunes of different members of the troop at different junctures in the story, giving us a different perspective and revealing different aspects of the terrible struggle into which these GI’s were thrown.
As we turn this evening to 1Peter, and we look together at chapter 5, Peter rounds off his letter with a fourfold focus. He follows, as it were, four different characters in the story. He wants to make us look in four different places in order to teach us and give us the perspectives that we need about the nature of life in the church.
In 5:1-5a we are to look at our leaders. In 5b-7 we are directed to look at our congregation. In 8-9, we are to watch the devil And finally in 10-11 we are directed to look at our God.
So, first, let’s look with Peter at what he tells us about our leaders in verses 1-5a.
And if we pause for a minute to note the language Peter uses to describe Biblical church leaders we will discover something of their role.
They are, he says, elders. Now the Gk word, as you might know, is prebuteroi. It’s the word from which we get the name for our system of church government, we are Presbyterians. We recognise that the Bible teaches that the church is to be led by elders, by presbyters.
And notice that ‘elder’ is not the only term Peter uses here for these leaders. Look at verse 2. He calls the elders to be shepherds, to be pastors (the word for ‘shepherd’ here comes from the same root as the word that is used for example in Ephesians 4:11 where Paul says, “God gave some to be … pastors and teachers.”) All elders are pastors. They are shepherds.
And that’s not all. Look again at verse 2. These pastor-elders are to serve as overseers. The greek word for overseer here is the word from which we get the term ‘Episcopal’. It refers to the government of the church by means of Bishops. So Peter says that the elders of the churches are to serve as pastors (that is shepherds) and bishops (or overseers).
These are interchangeable terms. You see that for example in Acts 20 where Paul says goodbye to the Elders from the church in Ephesus. In verse 17 we are told that Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church to come to him. But then in his speech to them he calls them to “keep watch over…all the flock over which the holy spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God which he bought with his own blood.” There again elders are identified as overseers or bishops, and as shepherds or pastors.
So clearly the church since the days of the apostles has been governed by groups of elders. Some among the elders are specifically set apart to teach and preach (1Timothy 5: 17, “the elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honour, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.”) But the elders are the primary spiritual directors and leaders of the affairs of the local congregation.
And here in Cole Abbey, just as in Reformed churches generally, we try to embody those principles. We are led by a council of elders, a Kirk Session, as it is called in the Presbyterian tradition made up of5 functioning elders in this congregation at the moment; Angus Martin, Peter Fraser, David Boersma, Francois Grobler, and myself. All our elders are equal, but usually one elder has been specifically called and set apart to teach and preach and administer the sacraments, and generally we call that teaching-elder ‘the minister’.
But Peter is not so concerned here about the structure of the church’s leadership, as he is about its function and character. If church leaders are interchangeably called elders, shepherds (or pastors), and overseers (or bishops), what does that mean?
Well each term clearly points us to a different aspect of the leader’s role.
The term ‘presbyter’ or ‘elder’ points to the idea of leadership and authority. It’s is an organisation word. It is an authority word. The idea of an elder is one who thinks strategically and structurally about the life of the local church. He is active in trying to give positive leadership and is unafraid to make tough decisions.
‘Shepherd’ or ‘pastor’ points to the fact that our elders are to be carers. They are to tend the flock. They are specifically to nurture and feed the flock. Remember the words of the Lord to Peter himself on the shores of Lake Galilee in John 21:15-17? “Do you really love me?” Jesus asked him, “then feed my lambs”. Do you really love me? Take care of my sheep. Do you love me? Feed my sheep.” Peter, who describes himself in verse 1 as a fellow elder, has heard ‘the elder’s job description’ from the mouth of the Chief Shepherd himself! To be an elder means to be a pastor and to tend, protect, feed the flock of God by the preaching and teaching of the Word of God, and the pastoral application of it at a private level.
‘Bishop or overseer’, points to the fact that an elder is to be one who rules. He has a role of spiritual oversight and discipline. He not only must seek to lead the flock to green pastures, and he is not only to feed the flock with the word of God, he is to discipline the flock and train them in the ways of obedience to God’s word. He is responsible to admit people to the privileges of membership in the church; to Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and he is responsible to discipline those whose lives publicly and persistently undermine and contradict their professions of faith in Christ.
So Elders are officers of the church who lead. They are Pastors in the church who tend and care. And they are bishops who rule and discipline.
And that is a high and responsible calling. It is not a merely managerial position. We don’t want men who are simply good businessmen, accomplished leaders in their own chosen field of employment and no more. The task of the elder is deeply spiritual and we need men who are called by almighty God to the job, who are burdened with it, and who are eager for it (If anyone sets his heart on the role of a bishop he desires a good work 1Tim. 3:1)
And look at the second half of verses 2-3. Not only do your elders have a lofty calling they have a Christ-like pattern according to which they are to fulfil that calling. The language Peter uses tells us about their roles. But he also tells us, secondly, about their characters.
They are not to serve simply because they “must” but because they are willing. They are not to be greedy for money, but eager to serve for its own sake. They are not to lord it over people but live as examples.
And those of us who are elders, and those of us who aspire to become elders, must scrutinize our hearts before this portion of God’s word, and ask ourselves, what motivates my service?
Not duty-slaves, says Peter, but willing. Not money-grabbers but servants. Not control-freaks but models.
But how should you practically respond to Peter’s teaching about the roles of elders, here? After all, you’re not an elder, so much of this doesn’t apply, right? Surely that means you can just switch off and wait till I move on to something else.
Well, no, here’s what you can do.
1. Pray for us. Pray urgently for us. We are sinners, weak and fallen, charged with the task of caring for the flock of God. The Holy Spirit has made us overseers among you, and we trust he has gifted us for the task. But we deeply crave your support and prayers.
2. Look for and demand authoritative leadership, sensitive pastoral care, and wise spiritual oversight from us. Pray to God for us, and demand obedience to God from us.
3. Pray that the Lord would send more labourers. We must be on the lookout for future elders, we must train and nurture men who are gifted, and we must call them to serve. We are always to be sensitive to the leading of God, and if he should raise up a man or men who are clearly gifted and called, we must be ready to submit to Him. It is our prayer as elders, and I want to ask that you make it your own also, that the Lord of the harvest would indeed raise up such men to help shoulder the responsibility and privilege of the eldership.
4. You must submit to your elders. Look at the first half of verse 5. “Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older.” Now, that is not a great translation. What the text actually says is, ‘Young men, or better perhaps, younger people, be submissive to the presbuteroi, to the presbyters, the elders.’ Peter uses the same term for elder that he used in verse 1, and there is no reason to break the flow of thought from the previous verses at all. Peter is still on the theme of elders and he wants to show what we should do to respond to them. And specifically he singles out young people. Now we are a comparatively young congregation by and large, and there are is at least one young elder too, so you can rest assured that here, if nowhere else, I know whereof I speak!
It is a temptation that we face as younger people to want to resist authority, isn’t it? It was this way in Peter’s day and it is still this way in our own. It manifests itself in countless acts, some small, some not so small: the word of gossip or of complaint directed against the leadership of the church but never directed to them; the wilful rejection of the loving admonitions of elders who seek to restore you to a life of obedience to God’s norms; the refusal to place yourself under the regular ministry of one local congregation and be accountable. It has been said that people who want to be shepherded tend to stay in the same place. The ‘spiritual-tourist’ approach to the Christian life that is all too common, especially among younger Christians, who like to shop around and be consumers rather than participants, the spiritual tourist approach, is really an act of rebellion. A refusal to submit to God appointed leaders.
But brothers and sisters, it is God who has called and gifted the church with your leaders. Their authority is not tyrannical and arbitrary. They are set over you as shepherds and pastors and overseers of your souls, charged with the care and the safety of your spiritual lives. They have an authority that is derived; it comes from God’s Word. It comes from God himself. It comes from Jesus Christ the Chief shepherd. And whenever we undermine that authority, or rebel against it, we undermine the ultimate spiritual welfare of our own souls, and the welfare of the church itself, and you mock the authority of Jesus Christ who has given these men to lead and care for you.
So Peter invites us to look first at our elders. And then the second focus to which we are directed, there in verses 5-7 is one another.
All of you he says in verse 5b. All of you clothe yourselves with humility towards one another.
If submission is to characterise our attitude towards our elders, then humility is to characterise our relationship to each other. And Peter, notice, gives us the motive for such humility; “clothe yourselves with humility because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
The reason we are to be humble is because of God. Humble people do not trust themselves. They are not self reliant. They depend on God in Jesus Christ. They are reliant on the one who gives grace to the humble. The proud, the self reliant are opposed by him, because fundamentally, if you are proud, you are an idolater, worshipping at the shrine of self.
The secret of humility towards one another is despairing of our own ultimate competency in spiritual things. We are not up to the task to which we are called. We are not, by nature, able to love as we ought. We don’t keep God’s law. We don’t trust ourselves. No, we trust someone else. We trust in Christ alone. He is competent where we are not. And through Him God gives grace to the humble.
Then in verse 6 Peter reminds them that the trials they are enduring are trials God has brought upon them ‘under His mighty hand’. He says, since God deals with you in his providence with hard blows as well as tender kisses the only appropriate attitude for us is humility. And the promise is that such an attitude of reverent dependence on God, of self suspicion, of humility, will, in the fullness of time, be met with a gracious reversal in God’s treatment of us.
Here and now you are laid low under God’s mighty hand resting on you in his providence. Life is hard, and you are clinging on to his promises, and in humility you are trusting him for grace to see you through. Here and now you are under his mighty hand, but soon he will lift you up. The hand that rested on you to lay you low will one day soon become the hand that lifts up your bowed head, that takes you by the hand and says, like Christ to the cripple, get up and walk!
Humility is the only possible attitude that fits when we are dealing with God. And humility, to be real, needs to be worked out among ourselves. You cannot claim to be humble before God, if you look down on your brother or sister. They speak Afrikaans, or they speak English. They come from another church tradition, they are still young in the faith, they are socially awkward, they are shy, they are new, they are elderly…..but they are brothers and sisters in Christ! Are they really any better than you? Do your circumstances mark you out as special and them merely as second class? But you are under the mighty hand of God, and whatever advantages you might have, they are given to you by the Lord, and he might justly take them from you in an instant.
“All of you clothe yourselves with humility under God’s mighty hand that he may lift you up in die time.” But in the mean time, while you are waiting on the heavy hand of God to be lifted from you, Peter wants us, verse 7, to cast all our cares upon him because he cares for us.
Throw them all onto the Lord, unburden yourself and cry out to him in your time of need. He is turned towards you with compassion. He cares for you.
Let that sink in, brothers and sisters. He cares for you. Sometimes when his hand is heavy upon us in difficult circumstances, it is easy to forget that he cares for us. And so we shoulder our burdens alone, thinking that we are alone. But we are wrong. He cares for us.
It is not just the fact that someone out there cares for us that is so wonderful. It is the fact that the God of the universe, the almighty Lord of Glory, the One who is high and lifted up, the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable one, he is the one who cares for you. You are precious to Him and he loves you. You have the ear of the Almighty. What cares have you that you will not freely cast upon so great a God as this?
So we are to be submissive to our elders, we are to be humble towards one another, and Peter’s third focus teaches us that we are to be watchful of our enemy, the devil.
Look at verse 8-9. We are to be self controlled and alert. In other words we are always on yellow alert. Since 9/11 the United States has remained at yellow alert. That is, they are constantly vigilant for enemy assaults. It is a heightened state of alert just below red alert, when an attack is clearly immanent. Al Qaeda is out there plotting and planning and working its terror tactics, and it is only right that those who fear for their security be watchful.
Well, says Peter, we have a far more subtle and dangerous enemy even that that. We are opposed by the devil himself and we had better be on the lookout. We are, vs. 9, to resist him and stand firm in the faith. All over the world says Peter, brothers and sisters are enduring the same trial, the enemy is prowling around.
But how can we be alert to enemy’s schemes? How shall we stand firm and resist the evil one? And for that matter, how can we be humble towards each other and submissive to our elders at the same time? Doesn’t it all seem such a tall order? What resources have we to fulfil all this?
We have none. But, bless the Lord for Peter’s final focus, on the God of all grace. Look at verse 10-11.
Isn’t that an amazing title for God? He is not ‘the God of lofty demands’, merely. He is not ‘the God of legal sanctions’, only. He is the God of all grace, who performs what he requires, and fulfils what he demands. He calls us to submit to our leaders, to be humble to one another, and to resist the devil, and He is the God of all grace who will equip us to perform it all, and all to His glory.
He is the God of all the grace we need. And he is the God who has, Peter says, called us to eternal glory in Christ. He has a purpose of glory for us. And still further he is the God who promises that after we have suffered, he will himself restore us and make us strong firm and steadfast.
He is gracious. He plans to bring us to glory. And he will supply the grace we need to persevere in faith and obedience until that day.
What a wonderful note on which to finish his letter! Suffering believers, hard pressed by trials of many kinds, still must learn to grow in grace and obey God’s requirements. But they never do so apart from a constant resting upon the God of all grace, who is gracious, who plans our glory, and who provides the grace we need to get us there in the end!
We can indeed submit to our elders, be humble towards each other and watchful for the devil’s schemes, all at once, because of so great a God as this He is the God of all grace, the God of unlimited resources. Looking to this God, truly we can sing with Peter, ‘to him be the power forever and ever,
Amen’.