Sermon Tone Analysis

*Intro*

I had a great conversation with a brother in ministry this week about insecurity in ministry.

He recently graduated from seminary and was struggling with insecurity.

I was thankful for his vulnerability and I did give him the sober reminder that it’s not going to get any easier!

And it’s a good thing.

Insecurity in ministry causes you to rely on God alone rather than your education or experience.

Paul himself said, “Who is sufficient for these things?”

(2 Cor.

2:16) and later answers his own question with “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers…” (2 Cor.

3:5-6).

Yes, there is a gap between where we think we should be and where we think we are and that is what causes insecurity.

Sometimes the gap is not as wide as we think it is, but other times the gap is really wide.

But for people in ministry, the gap is filled by the grace of God.

He helps us be what He calls us to be when we rely on Him.

Not that we do not do our part, but more than anything, as Paul says, ministry is “struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” (Col.

1:29).

To be honest, I can tell you that there is not a day where I do not feel insecure.

I still get nervous every time I preach.

And I hope to always be!

And I always have to fight a nagging voice in my head that says, “Perhaps you are not cut out for this.

You cannot do this.”

I have learned (and still learning) through this that if I am not careful to channel my heart to the Lord’s, I can get in trouble and be in a bad place.

And so can you with your own insecurities.

Perhaps you have felt the same way in ministry here at Living Hope?

If so, Peter has a word for us today.

Wait, you say, I am not in ministry.

Well, news flash: ministry belongs to everybody in the church.

And everybody in the church belongs in ministry.

I may be called full-time as a vocation, but really all of us are Kingdom workers, hired by the Lord when you said yes to follow Him.

What a privilege and what a responsibility!

Peter, now well advanced in years, speaks as a spiritual father to struggling believers scattered in various places in the Roman Empire, who are faltering under severe persecutions executed by the monster tyrant Nero.

Peter’s heart has been one of hope.

He wanted these believers to have a living hope, a hope that affects them in the present in the way they will live, thrive and grow in the midst of suffering.

Last week we saw that Peter wanted his audience to realize that God uses the worst of situations to demonstrate His best work.

Case in point: the cross.

He’s now going to share closing remarks to the church leaders.

This makes sense.

As the shepherds go and falter under suffering, so goes the sheep and so goes the church.

So Peter wants to make sure the leaders of the various churches know how they are to lead their flocks when the wolves of persecution come to eat their souls.

So this message is directly to those who are pastoring the churches.

Therefore, for us, this message has first direct application to me (I will be preaching to myself), then to the servant team, and finally to most of you, who are serving in any leadership capacity in our small flock.

But all of us, whether we are pastoring or being pastored, need to know what God says about what a flock under the Chief Shepherd looks like.

So the title of the message, “Shepherding under the Chief Shepherd.”

We are going to look at what it means to be under the Chief Shepherd as His under-shepherd.

What does it mean to serve and work for Jesus Christ in church ministry?

What are the main responsibilities and what should be our heart~/motives behind it?

We will look at principles even as some of you lead in youth~/children’s ministry, worship or any other type of ministry where you are shepherding people under the Chief Shepherd.

I actually also feel the principles conveyed today will even help you parents shepherd your children.

I came up with a new phrase for church leaders from this passage: servant shepherds.

I see that leaders are first servants throughout this passage.

So I am going to use that throughout.

Let’s start with this:

*I.

**Servant shepherds must be growing in relationship with the Chief Shepherd (1 Pet.

5:1).

*

Before he gets to the duty and character of spiritual leadership, Peter first identifies himself.

He could have said, “So I’m the Apostle.

Better yet, call me the first Pope.

I’m first always on the list of any list of disciples.

Jesus called me the Rock.

I preached on Pentecost and thousands got saved.

So listen up!”  No, he’s so humble.

Peter says, “I’m 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.”

He doesn’t even say, “I command you.”

He says, “I exhort.”

Exhort means to “call alongside, to encourage someone in a certain direction.”[1]

Some scholars don’t think Peter wrote this epistle because it seems so out of character.

This does not sound like the Peter of the Gospels.

I just think, Jesus has radically transformed him over the years.

How do you know Jesus did that?

A good sign: humility.

Peter asks, “You want to know who I am?

I am one who has encountered Jesus in my life, seen him suffer (though I ran away for most of it) and have suffered for Him already and waiting to see Him again.”

All I am is what I have in Jesus Christ.

Peter sees himself first in relation to who he is in Christ.

And that is what ministry really is.

It is you and Jesus living life together, worshipping Him and the overflow of that is walking and working for Him.

Let me first give you a brief note on church government.

Who are elders?

Well, first I think that the New Testament teaches the plurality of godly leadership, that there is no one person who should be leading the church.

There is a lot of practical wisdom to this.

Plurality of leadership protects the church from being a one-man show.

It also protects the church from doctrinal error.

The teachers and preacher are then accountable to the Lord and others for what they are teaching.

Moreover, it is good to have elders when a church discipline issue comes up, so a matter can be decided upon more than one witness.

Also, it is good to have a team of people to pray and come up with the direction of the church.

The Bible says with a multitude of counselors there is safety (Prov.

11:14).

God does not give all the spiritual gifts to one person as we learned in the message a couple of weeks ago.

So the elders of the church have the responsibility of three main areas: doctrine, discipline and direction.

I have to say personally I have experienced the wisdom of God’s Word in having a plurality of godly leadership, with the amazing servant team I am part of!

Though elders are originally found in the Old Testament (Lev.

4:15; Num.

11:25; Deut.

25:7; 1 Kings 21:11; Ps. 107:32; Prov.

31:23), the term “elders” first show up in relation to the church in Acts 11:30, where Luke identifies them as leaders of the church in Jerusalem.

The actual Greek word for elder is /presbuterion /where we get the word “Presbyterian.”

Another word that is used interchangeably us overseer or bishop, which is the Greek word /episkopos/, where we get the word “Episcopalian.”

Still another word that is used is the word “pastor” or “shepherd.”

All of them are used to describe the same office.

John Macarthur does help to differentiate the nuances between the three when he observes, “/Elder/ emphasizes the man’s spiritual maturity necessary for such ministry, and in many Protestant churches it is the official title chosen for the office.

/Bishop, /or /overseer, /states the general responsibility of guardianship.

/Pastor/ is the word shepherd and expresses the priority duty of feeding or teaching the truth of God’s Word.”[2]

The Bible does give qualifications for being an elder in 1 Tim.