Sermon Tone Analysis

*Be Shepherds of the Church of God*

*Acts 20:28-38*

 

This Thursday an important step happened.

For five years, our daughter church (PH) has been governed by a management team: me, Tom B, Jim P, & Sean.

Sean has run the major big picture items and decisions by this management team for the year before the church launched and then through the four years of the church’s existence.

But it has been a far less than ideal situation.

I don’t know most of the people who attend PH.

The decisions I make don’t really affect me; they affect others.

When crises arise in PH families, they don’t call me.

All of them call Sean.

But over the past ten months Sean has been instructed by the Mgmt Team to come up with a transition plan.

And this last Thursday was the last mtg of the mgmt team.

Later this month they will set aside three elders for the church and they have three more men who will walk alongside those elders for six months and then join them as elders if the body approves.

That is how God designed his church.

It is not to be governed by one man.

It is not to be governed by popular vote.

It is not to be governed by some bishop or person elsewhere who is not affected by the decisions he~/she hands down and who is not involved in the pastoral care of the church.

The New Testament model is for the pastor to appoint godly men to serve as the spiritual guides, the spiritual directors for the church.

Acts 14:23:/ //Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust./

Titus 1:5:/ //The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you./

The concept of elder arose from the Jewish idea of elders.

ELDER: Person who, by virtue of position in the family, clan, or tribe; or by reason of personality, prowess, stature, or influence; or through a process of appointment and ordination, exercised leadership and judicial functions in both religious and secular spheres in the ancient world, both among biblical and nonbiblical peoples.

(/Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible/)

The heads of each tribe and clan of Israel would gather and exercise leadership and administer justice for the nation.

In the church that concept carried over to the most spiritually mature and respected men in the congregation.

While deacons (or ministry team leaders as we call them here), prophets, evangelists, apostles, teachers were both men and women in the New Testament, we only find men filling the role of elder in the Bible.

The pastor of the church and the elders of the church formed a close team.

Together they directed the affairs of the church…striving for the good of the local congregation.

We see a picture of the closeness of Paul to the elders of the church which he served the longest, in Acts 20:28-38.

Paul had spent three years in the church in Ephesus.

It was the longest ministry that he had.

And in Acts 20, Paul is on his way to Jerusalem.

The Holy Spirit is telling him that great hardship awaits him in Jerusalem.

And so he wants, one last time to see the elders that he appointed at the church of Ephesus.

They are not able to stop in Ephesus itself, perhaps because of the ship’s schedule or perhaps because he knew if he went to Ephesus he would never be able to get away on time and he is hurrying to Jerusalem.

For whatever reason, he sends messengers to the elders of the church in Ephesus and asks them to come to Miletus to see him.

Miletus is about 50 miles away from Ephesus.

It would be like Leroy Lawsons, the founding pastor or TCC sending word that he would like the elders of TCC to walk down to Turner, OR because he would like to meet with them.

I am preaching on this today for two reasons: 

1.

We have come to Acts 20 in our journey through Acts.

I am kind of picking up the pace because I want to finish with the book of Acts by the end of the month so that we can begin a Christmas series the first of December.

2. In two weeks we have our annual congregational meeting at which we affirm new elders for TCC.

And I believe that this is an important responsibility that the church has.

And so it is important to review what the responsibility of elders entails.

There are a number of places in the NT where the existence, appointment and requirements for elders are given.

You particularly will find them in the Pastoral Letters of I & II Timothy & Titus.

But the most clear place where the work of elders is found is here in Acts 20.

(READ 20:17-18) 

In v. 28-38 he gives his charge to them: (READ)

Of all the things that Paul COULD have spoken about, he chose to speak to them of their ministry as elders.

*1.     **GUIDE (They are to be shepherds)*

a.      Tasks of a shepherd

                          i.

Feeding

1.

No child or lamb is born full grown

2.      And even when it is full grown, it still has to eat to be healthy.

3.      Ps.

23 –he makes me lie down in green pastures

4.      Jn 17 –Do you love me?  Feed my sheep

5.      Elders are to be teachers

a.

I don’t know that that necessarily means they have to stand in front of a classroom, but there must be a teaching role.

b.      Doug D-on fam & med leave of absence

c.       Tom Richardson-leads REACH group

d.

Dan Wurgler & Norm Pederson –lead REACH group & SS class

e.      Mark Rust-teaches SS class

f.        Walter Germer-doesn’t formally lead a  group, but Walter is an incredible reader and you not be in discussion with him long before he is teaching you one on one something gleaned from his reading.

g.

I also serve as an elder and I teach through my preaching and leading ia REACH group as well as teach occasional classes.

ii.

Cleaning & healing

/1.      //He restores my soul…your rod and your staff comfort me.

/

2.      The rod was used to part the wool in order to check for sores, infections or parasites.

iii.

Watching

1.

Much of the care of shepherds in NT times involved just watching over the flock.

They were not in pens, except sometimes at night and so the shepherd was watching to make sure all was well with the flock, that none were drifting off and that there were not predators around to harm the flock.

2.

More about that in a minute.

b.

The flock does not belong to them (/the church of God,//// which he bought// with his own blood/.)

i.

This is not Cal’s church; elders church; any one individual’s church.

ii.

This is CHRIST’S church.

iii.

While the elders are appointed by the pastor or elected by the congregation as we do here, they do not report to the congregation.

They report to Christ, whose flock they have been given charge.

iv.

I Peter 5:1-4 (READ)

*2.     **GUARD *

a.

They are to guard first of all themselves (keep watch OVER YOURSELVES)

                    i.

When a pastor or elder

1.      falls into sin the affect in the church is greater than when one of the flock falls into sin.

2.

falls into a plateau or a dry season, it affects the entire church.

3.      is infected with spiritual sickness, it infects the entire body.

b.

There will be those who will seek to destroy the unity, love, or pure doctrine of the church.