God’s Holy Stewards Of Truth // Faithfulness In Pastoring

This being the final message of the conference from my side, I thought i should end by once again thanking the Grace Ministers Conference Committee for extending the invitation to me to share this ministry with you. It’s been an honour, its been a privilege and it’s been my prayer that the material we have worked through together has been of help and will continue to be of help in your ministry wherever you might be preaching.

As we come to this final message, we want to continue in our reflections on the subject – Faithfulness in the ministry. In our last two sessions we introduced the subject, and so that faithfulness in the ministry refers to being reliable, steadfast, and unwavering in the ministry. We noted that ministers must generally be seen to be faithful. There is much they are called to be doing. They must prove themselves faithful in whatever work they do. But we noted particularly that ministers must be faithful in prayer. And not only in prayer but also in preaching.

We now want to turn our attention to the third thing under the subject – Faithfulness in the Ministry. Namely, faithfulness in caring for the church. Just as ministers have been called to be stewards of the truth and must be faithful at preserving it and defending it and preaching it, even so, ministers have been called to be stewards of the church of God. And they must be seen to be caring for that church. That ministers have been called to be stewards of the church suggests that the people they shepherd in fact belong to the Lord. The Lord refers to the church, at least elements in his church as ‘my lambs’ in John 21:15. And as ‘my sheep’ in John 10:28. The apostle Peter refers to the church as ‘the flock of God’. And in Acts 20 which I shall be reading o us in a moment, Paul refers to the church as ‘the flock of God.”

God’s People Belong To Him

So ultimately the church is not your flock but God’s and this flock is precious to him. Yours is to faithfully care for them on his behalf. Well at this moment I would like us to read from Acts 20:28 to see and find Paul underlining that fact. He was speaking to the elders of the church at Ephesus. He told them many things, he instructed them about many things pertaining to the ministry. And one of the things he says to them is found here in verse 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.” Caring for God’s flock is synonymous with shepherding. Paul here is Acts 20:28 says “Shepherd the church of God.”

What did Paul mean by his charge to the Ephesian elders to shepherd the flock of God? And what does being faithful at doing that look like? I think. that when Paul urges the Ephesian elders to shepherd the flock of God, he meant at least five things they should have been doing. Five things they should have been doing even has they cared for the flock. And as we unpack that we’ll take our cues from what shepherds in the Eastern world, in the Middle East did even as they cared for actual sheep.

Know The Condition Of Your Flock

First, to shepherd or rather to care for the church of God means to know the condition of your flock, to know the condition of your flock. Proverbs 27:23-24 which would have been cast in the context of the Eastern world says, “Be diligent to know the state of your flocks and attend to your herds. For riches are not forever nor does a crown endure to all generations.” Now that text suggests that a shepherd in that context was expected to know his flock. Indeed he would have known his flock. Even so must you as a shepherd of God’s church today. And knowing the condition of the flock entails first of all knowing the members of your flock by name. The lord Jesus Christ in John 10:14 suggests that he knows his flock. “I am the good shepherd,” he says “and I know my flock.” The manager can’t manage what he does not know. A steward can’t keep or manage what he does not know. if you would be an effective manager or keeper you must make a point of knowing your people. Some pastors tend to focus too much on their sermons and on the administrative details of their work and not enough on knowing their people. Knowing their people first of all by name.

Watch Over Your Flock

Secondly to know the condition of your flock entails knowing about the condition of your flock first hand. That also is being suggested from Proverbs 27:23-24 and that context obviously referred to actual sheep, actual sheep. A shepherd in those days would have been diligent to know his sheep. And how would he have done that? He would have taken the time to inspect his flock one by one so he may understand which ones among them was ill and which ones among them were healthy. Which ones among them needed his attention. The flock then were the main elements of wealth and security in work and life. It was only by care and diligence that the most solid possessions or wealth could be preserved because as the wise man suggests wealth tends to fly away. Wealth tends to disappear so it needs to be taken care of very, very carefully. Even so as shepherds entrusted with spiritual sheep, we should do well to heed the warning of these verses in Proverbs 27 to know the condition of our flocks whether they are healthy or not.

And when you do, when you do care to know I suggest that you will care to visit, to visit your flock wherever they are. To visit them, to know them, to familiarize yourself with their condition wherever they are. And when you visit and know, you will find that among them are the sick and the grieving. And they might be grieving perhaps because they have lost loved ones or because they have lost wealth or because they have lost relationships. And it is your duty to grieve with them and to give them hope and encouragement. You will find among them the backsliders, the weak. You will find among them the widows. You will also find the strong and the dying. Visit them and you will acquaint yourself with their conditions. Visit them when they are in hospital. Visit them in their homes. Sometimes you will have to visit them in their work situations, visit them. Do you visit your flock? Familiarize yourself with their condition.

John Owen commenting on this matter said, “The pastor is to know his people’s temptations, he is to be familiar with those areas where they are spiritually decaying and withering. The pastor who does not consider these things,” warns Owen, “never preaches aright unto them.” If you would preach aright unto them, if you would bring appropriate and precise applications to them you must acquaint yourselves with them. How will you know if they are spiritually decaying and if they are withering if you have no familiarity, personal familiarity with them? Endeavor to know them therefore. And when they know that you know and when they know that you care they know that you are indeed their shepherd and they follow you, not someone else. They follow you. It is an old adage but it is true that, and I quote, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” End of quote. So caring means to know the condition of your flock.

Secondly, caring means to watch for falls that are pitted against your flock. To watch for falls that are pitted against your flock. Coming back to the Eastern shepherd, we find a man like David who would have watched for his flock. Before he became a king shepherding a nation he was shepherding animals and when he did that he was required to watch out for danger. To watch out for lions, to watch out for the bear and the wolf, to see that they were not too close to his sheep. And to move his ship further away from danger. He watched for his flock. Even so, as a minister as a pastor you must watch. In his parting address to the elders of the church in Ephesus, Paul prophesies. He says, “I know that after my departure, grievous wolves shall enter in among you not sparing the flock and from among your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them.” And then he says in verse 31, “Therefore watch.”

The flock, Paul is saying, is surrounded by many dangers to the soul and it is the responsibility of shepherds to watch, to watch against them. And if you would watch competently and carefully there is an implication that you must know the truth. You must know the bible, you must know theology, you must be well schooled in that so you can be able to descend error from afar. You can be able to see a false teacher from afar and take precautions to guard your flock. But before you would guard, you have the ability to watch. You must know the truth and you must be familiar with the dangers with the false doctrines around, the winds of doctrines flying around, you should be familiar with that so you can warn your people against it. Watchfulness therefore becomes one of the most critical of the pastor’s responsibilities.

Lead By The Staff

Thirdly, to care for the church means to lead the flock by the staff. Now you’re probably not familiar with that word especially if you know nothing about shepherding. But David tells us about it and we’ve already spoken about his work as a shepherd before he became a king. But even after becoming a king, in his relationship with the lord, he understood that just as he shepherded animals, God shepherded him. And this is something of what he says of that shepherding in verse 1, “The lord is my shepherd i shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod,” and then here is the word, “and your staff they comfort me.” To care for the church for the flock is to lead them by the staff.

Well David as a shepherd did that, even so you as a pastor a shepherd of God’s flock today must lead your people by the staff. Now a shepherd’s stuff is basically a long stick. It was a little over one and a half meters perhaps and has a large curve on one end that resembles a question mark. It was a stick the question mark and went right down to the ground. What was it about? It was actually the forerunner of the scepters used by ancient kings. You will have noticed that kings carried a scepter. The scepter was a mark of leadership and not just a mark of leadership, a tool of leadership and especially as it pertained to a shepherd of flock. A tool of leadership, that’s what it represented.

And there are four leadership functions the staff helps the shepherd to perform. First, it represents a shepherd’s responsibility to guide and direct his flock. Sheep are not independent travelers they must have a human conductor. David did that ministers of the gospel need to do something of that. And when a shepherd of animals of sheep did it, his first duty of the day was to lead his flock out of the fold to find green pasture and to find still waters. That’s what he did. Exactly what the lord himself does we read in verse 1, “The lord is my shepherd I shall not want he makes me to lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.”

So he leads the sheep to green pastures and he leads the flock to still waters. To green pastures, to fresh pastures, not infected ones. To still waters, pure water that was not poisoned. And they did it every day.

Even so you must guide and direct your flock to green pastures, to still waters. This is another way of saying you must feed the flock. That in fact is the meaning of the word shepherd. Feed the flock. And for you it means you must feed them with the word. 1 Timothy 4:2 this was Paul’s charge to Timothy, “Preach the word.” Whether in public or in private, preach the word. Feed them with the word. And by word he meant the scriptures. By word, he meant biblical doctrine. It was his duty to feed them with that. Now the flock is the flock of God. The flock belongs to Christ Jesus the head of the church. They must hear his word. In john 10 he says, “My sheep hear my voice I know them they follow me and I give them eternal life.” His sheep hear his voice you as an under shepherd of Christ must see to it that what you are speaking is the voice of Christ. That is how Christ’s sheep survives.

So just as the sheep leads using the staff to direct the flock to green pastures, leading the flock, and nudging the flock, and tapping the flock so they don’t lose their way, so they don’t go to infected pasture. He nudges them and taps them this way and that way until they get to the posture he wishes for them to feed on. Even so, using the word, feed them. Now remember, lead. them by the staff. Not so much by the rod at this moment in time, by the staff. When you lead by the staff you are leading in such a way that you are persuading rather than coercing. You are persuading with the word rather than dictating and demanding. You are leading not with authoritarianism but through the power of the word. When you  lead by the rod you are basically leading through. authoritarianism. Lead by the staff, lead by the word. Direct by using indicatives, imperatives, persuasion and your people will follow you. Not out of fear because of authoritarianism, but out of trust because you lead with love.

Secondly the staff represents a shepherd’s responsibility to get out in front of the people and establish boundaries for them. Sheep have a tremendous flocking instinct but they also have a tendency to stray from the herd and it’s the duty, the responsibility of the shepherd to ensure that they are brought back in line. And he does it by the staff. He nudges and taps. One tries to stray, he nudges them and nudges and taps them and they come back in line. There are boundaries and he ensures that they are within the boundaries. Even so as a pastor of God’s people set boundaries. Provide, direct and set expectations. Those boundaries must be inspired by the word. The staff also represents a shepherd’s responsibility to rescue stranded sheep. No matter how great a shepherd you might be or how hard you might be trying sheep will stray from the flock. And the Eastern shepherd would have experienced that – one strays beyond the pasture and they are attacked by predators and they are seen no more. Another strays and they get stuck in a rock, in rock crevices and others stray and they are entangled in the under bush by virtue of their thick wool. And the shepherd in those circumstances must go out and look for the sheep and when he finds them he will hook them by the neck, he will use the curved part of the staff to pull them out of the crevices. To pull them out of those under bushes to rescue them and bring them back into the fold. Even you must go out looking for those who have strayed, for those that have gotten lost and use your staff to draw them back. Use your staff to woo them back. Many of them will lose their way through their stupidity or perhaps because they don’t sit enough under your ministry and they lose their way. Pull them back and use your staff. Use those aspects of the word that God would use to convict them of sin to draw them back to the Lord Jesus Christ. And those that are diseased in the process having lost their way use that same word, that same staff to help them, to help heal them, to help encourage them. This is a work of skill.

A staff also in the fourth place represents the shepherd’s responsibility to encourage his flock. How does he encourage with a staff? Well sometimes a shepherd uses the staff to separate one or the other sheep from the rest of the flock and pull them closer to himself. At other times he uses a staff to gently stroke the side or the back of the sheep. It’s a signal to the ship from the shepherd that he cares. He cares. He wants the sheep to know that he has noticed them. He loves them. He cares for them. And they need to know that for comfort. Nothing assures the sheep more than the presence of the trusted shepherd that they are loved and cared for. Even so sometimes the flock is somewhat downcast for whatever reason. A member of your flock may be downcast because they have lost a loved one or they have lost a job or they have lost their relationship. They have failed, they’ve been disappointed, whatever their reasons might be, you must draw closer to them or draw them closer to yourself and be an encourager to them. Encourage them by your presence not just through a phone call, by your presence. Not just through a letter, and there is place for that, by your presence. Go there and spend time with them and encourage them with words from the scriptures and your presence.

Fourthly caring for the flock means to be an example to the flock. Peter uses the word example in his first letter chapter 5 and verse 2. He wrote that shepherds must shepherd not because you must, he said, but because you are willing as God wants you to be not pursuing dishonest gain but eager to serve. Not lording it over those entrusted to you but be examples to the flock. Being examples to the flock. Leading includes modeling doesn’t it? Living by example. You are the preacher, you are the teacher you are setting standards. The church must see you do what you preach. If you don’t do what you preach you undermine your message. If you do what you preach you underline your message. An example seems so much easier to follow, so much more easy to follow than than instruction is. Be an example.

Are you an example? Do you live what you preach? Do you model what you preach? Can you call your own flock the apostle Paul did when he said imitate me. Do you have the courage to say imitate me? Or you would much rather they did what you said rather than what you did. If you are the kind that says and does not do, shame on you. You are not qualified to be a shepherd. Sometimes example requires that you show them how to repent, how to humble yourself. You have shown them how to be righteous, you’ve led them to paths of righteousness but you yourself have made a mistake, you have sinned. Well just as you had led them to paths of righteousness well lead them to paths of repentance and humility and confession so they may know how to get back their righteousness.

Protect & Correct The With The Rod

Fifthly, caring for the church, caring for the flock means to use the rod to protect and correct the flock. David testifies to the fact that God his shepherd led him by the staff and not only by the staff but also by the rod. The rod is much shorter than a staff, probably just about half a meter. It was smooth to the grip, heavily weighted on one end by a large knob or ball. So it was like a ball tied to a rod, that’s what it would have looked like. And the shepherd used the rod for two things. First, for protection. In other words he used it to protect his sheep from predators. David the shepherd when he saw a lion or a bear come he would try to protect the sheep against those predators. Sometimes in his bid to protect them he would have to use the rod. He threw the rod at the animal, at the predator and he had better be careful to see to it that the road landed upon the head of the animal or some such part that would inflict everlasting damage.

In other words he stood in the gap for the sheep. Even so you must protect your flock from wolves. This is what boy is encouraging here. Savage wolves would come, they will rise. What was the duty of the shepherd? To stand between the flock and the wolves. To stand in the gap for the sheep. To fight for them. To take the heat for members of the flock. There are times when the flock feels threatened by all manner of circumstances,  you my friend must stand in the gap and protect the flock. Protect the flock. This is what Paul is saying, protect them. Stand in the gap so they may remain safe. You my friend must protect the flock against false doctrine. You must protect the flock against all manner of false teaching. You must protect the flock by teaching them correct doctrine. Sometimes you have to point out who the heretics are, who the false teachers are, so the flock can keep away from them. You must warn the flock, you must urge the flock to keep away, not to draw near to danger.

Another use of the rod was correction. In other words he used it to protect the flock from themselves, to correct them. The road was often thrown at the danger inside but sometimes when the shepherd notices a sheep about to do something that would not only jeopardize its safety but that of the other members of the flock, he would use the road as an instrument of discipline. Sometimes he may have to throw that rod at that erring member. Even so as a shepherd you must not be afraid of using the rod. You must not be afraid of disciplining your flock. You must not be afraid of warning, of rebuking. Sometimes you may have to suspend members from membership. There may even be times when you may have to excommunicate a member from the fellowship. Use the staff to nudge, to tap, to persuade. Use the road to discipline where the flock as not to follow your instructions and not to follow your example. Don’t rule by the rod, rule by the staff. Don’t discipline by the staff, discipline by the rod. You need both sticks to care for the flock.

What Caring For The Church Looks Like

So this is what care looks like – faithfully care. Do these things, do these things. Even if you don’t feel like it, if you choose to be a minister of the gospel, if God has called you to care for the flock you owe it to the flock to care. To do it faithfully, to do it steadfastly, to do it without wavering. And peter says in chapter 5 do it humbly, do it willingly, do it eagerly. And be motivated by the fact that it’s God’s flock. You’ve only been called to be an under shepherd, it’s god’s flock and you will give an accounting. But also according to Galatians chapter 4 verse 19 you are involved in a work that is all about forming your people into the image of Christ. Right now they are in your womb as a baby is in the womb of a mother, right now they are in your womb. Carry them carefully, protect them, nurture them and go on to the end of the term until they are born into the image. Until they are formed into the image of Christ. Are you doing that? Are you forming the flock into your image or into the image of Christ? Care enough to form them into the image of Christ and may god bless you. Amen