Hello, saints. Hello. Good morning, Jeffrey.
I would like to read a couple of passages in 1 Peter. These have to do with shepherding—the Lord being our Shepherd. While we are turning to 1 Peter, there is the beginning of Psalm 23, which I think we all know: “The Lord is my shepherd.” If we can remember that the Lord Himself is our Shepherd.
At the end of 1 Peter 2, verse 25, it says:
Ye were going astray as sheep;
but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
Here is the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls. Of course, this is our Lord Jesus. We were going astray as sheep, and you might remember Isaiah 53: we all were like lost sheep, with our sins and everything.
Also, in 1 Peter 5, beginning in verse 1, there is a term used of the Lord as a Shepherd. The phrase, or title, is “the Chief Shepherd.” I especially want to notice this:
The elders therefore among you I exhort, who am a fellow-elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, who am also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:
Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according to the will of God; nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock.
And when the chief Shepherd shall be manifested, ye shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away.
Just that last part in verse 4: “When the Chief Shepherd is manifested, ye shall receive the unfading crown of glory.”
Let us pray together.
Lord, we come to You as our Chief Shepherd. We come to You as the One who is really looking over us and caring for us. We can all willingly confess that we shall not want. We have no lack, especially after remembering You this morning.
Lord, we know that all our needs and all of our desire are bundled up in You. You are our Shepherd. We just trust in You, Lord. We pray that You would feed us with Your Word, and that Your Word would be nourishment to us; that You would show us the green pastures and restore our souls.
Lord, we pray that You would refresh us with water that is drinkable and wonderful. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now, the Apostle Peter, in 1 Peter 5, is exhorting elders as a fellow elder. I am not an elder, and I cannot exhort elders as a fellow elder like Peter could. Peter probably was an elder in Jerusalem.
But as a fellow non-elder, I would like to exhort all of the non-elders to shepherd the flock under the Chief Shepherd. I wanted to talk about shepherding some, and how it works, especially with Christ as the Chief Shepherd.
Even though Peter is specifically talking about a situation of shepherding, He is connecting those who do shepherding with the Chief Shepherd. It is not meant to be different from that. Whatever shepherding goes on in the church—however we care for one another, love one another, look out for one another, and help each other—there is the first Shepherd, the Chief of the shepherds, the original Shepherd, the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls.
When we were lost sheep, we were rescued by that good Shepherd who came and found us, cleansed us from our sins, put us on His shoulders, and took us home to be with Him. We found Him as our Shepherd. We have walked with Him as our Shepherd. We have known Him as our Shepherd.
We can say that He has led us in paths for righteousness’ sake. We go down certain courses, and sometimes those courses are through dark valleys and are really difficult, but He has a purpose involved. He has a house that He is building. He has a place for us to live forever that He is bringing us to. He heals us up. He is working with us. I think we could all say that.
But probably, as His sheep as well, we can also say that sometimes we feel neglected in being shepherded. Now, I do not know how these two things work together. The Lord is my Shepherd; I have no want. He is the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls, and He is the Chief Shepherd.
But it seems as if sometimes our Chief Shepherd allows experiences that seem neglected: “I feel like I am not being shepherded. There is some neglect in the church, as I want to be shepherded.”
Now, I am thinking about other people around me. I am not thinking merely about me and the Lord. I feel like I need more, and there is a little bit of neglect.
I think we find this experience in the Scriptures as well, even with the original church, even at the very beginning of the church. There seems always to be a wave of strong shepherding and then some neglect. Out of that neglect, the Lord raises up part of His body to do His work of shepherding.
Even some of us who feel neglected end up being the very ones whom the Lord raises up to experience the Chief Shepherd. We have experienced Him as the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls. But to experience the Lord as the Chief Shepherd means that you experience a little bit of shepherding other saints too.
It means that you get to know Him as the leader of shepherds, and you get to be an under-shepherd under the Chief. It is like a new experience of shepherding, where you almost get to set aside your needs for the moment.
I am sure the shepherd who goes after the one and has to carry him back felt some neglect of comfort and felt tired along the way, carrying the sheep and searching. I am sure many people who are helping others are themselves in need of something.
But sometimes it is that very experience, where you need something and the Lord calls you to help someone else in their need, that our Chief Shepherd uses to shepherd us personally. I think it is one of His ways of working with us to actually help us.
For example, thinking about healthy neglect in the church, if there is such a thing—or accidental neglect, but the Lord arranging it or allowing it—consider the very beginning of the church in Acts 6. There was an experience among the widows. There were many widows in Jerusalem.
A lot of people moved to Jerusalem after the church was birthed. Many of those who moved there were from areas outside Judea, where they did not naturally speak Hebrew. They may have known it and known how to read the Bible, but they mainly spoke Greek as their common language. They were Hellenistic Jews, Greek-speaking Jews.
The twelve apostles, as leaders, were definitely called to shepherd. Peter, in John 21, was exhorted—as the Lord was restoring him—to shepherd the sheep and feed the lambs. He knew this calling.
The twelve were doing a lot, and they were shepherding. They really were. They were taking care of widows as well, making sure that they were fed. But in the midst of it, they accidentally neglected the Greek-speaking widows. They probably did not even know about all their needs. The communication lines were kind of cut.
So a complaint arose among those Christians. This was the complaint, “I am not shepherded.” We have experienced this. Probably, if you have been a Christian for more than a month, you have experienced a little wave of murmurings: “Something is not as I want it to be.”
Typically, the expectation is that those twelve apostles should be doing better. That is typically the feeling. I am not saying that was the case with those saints, but Acts says there was murmuring.
The good thing about this is that it became healthy murmuring—or at least healthy believers knew what to do with murmurs. I wonder if it was brothers like Stephen, who became the martyr, or Philip, who was the evangelist. I do not know who it was, but eventually the murmurs got to the ears of the apostles. This is a good thing.
Probably it was a concerned believer, knowing that the Lord is our Shepherd and knowing, “Here is a want. I shall not want, but here is a concern.” They brought it to the apostles.
The apostles sought the Chief Shepherd. They did not just buckle up their strength and say, “Well, there are twelve of us. We can do this.” Instead, they sought the Lord. Out of that neglect, they said, “Let us search out seven others, full of the Holy Spirit,” really as models for the believers.
These seven were chosen. We think of them as deacon-type people, doing a physical task to the glory of God. It is a wonderful thing. This was an aspect of the shepherding experience, but it was pulled off the twelve.
An overflow of shepherding beyond the twelve apostles happened, and the seven were raised up. They had to be people respected in their lives. They had to be full of the Holy Spirit. Probably most of them were brand-new believers, because they all had Greek names. Probably they were not ones who had walked around for three years with Jesus. Perhaps they were saved at Pentecost.
Either way, these men of God were raised up, the neglect was gone, and shepherding was happening. It is wonderful. It is all under the Chief Shepherd.
What were the apostles able to do? They were able to give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. That does not mean they had said, “I am no longer shepherding.” They still had to do shepherding things. They simply had more on their team of shepherding now.
Some aspects of shepherding could be handled by others, like these seven. But when things came up, especially major authority situations or matters of oversight, that was especially where the apostles had to be involved.
For example, consider Ananias and Sapphira. Barnabas, who was Joseph, sold his property and gave it to the church to help take care of the poor. Others saw that and saw the praise and glory in it—not that Barnabas was walking around boasting in it.
Ananias and Sapphira sold their property, kept some money hidden, and it was almost like the experience after the battle of Jericho, when things were stolen and hidden. Whatever it was, it was a sin unto death. They came before Peter and the others; it was exposed, and the Holy Spirit struck them dead.
It is pretty wild to think about in the church. Those are the types of situations—pretty big deals—not the normal things most of us handle. None of us are talking to somebody else and the Lord strikes them dead, not usually. It is unusual.
But the twelve apostles had experiences of oversight and shepherding that they had to deal with. Peter himself was called to shepherd.
I read 1 Peter 5, which speaks specifically to elders, because Peter was probably an elder in Jerusalem, as John the apostle may also have been. Peter was able to exhort them, “Shepherd the flock.” He is saying, “This is really a main task. If I have to exhort you on one thing specifically, shepherd the flock.”
Peter knew about the wave of accidental neglect with the widows. He knew from all his experience that there was so much going on. Even though he gave himself to prayer and the ministry of the Word, and sometimes went out to other parts of Judea preaching in other places, he knew that the emphasis of the Chief Shepherd is this: shepherd the flock.
When the Apostle Paul was passing by Ephesus in Acts 20, he gathered the elders of Ephesus together. If you read the account, he shares a number of things. He even says, “I probably will not see you face to face again.”
But his actual exhortation is to shepherd the flock over which the Lord had made them overseers. That is the thing he told them to do. He committed them to the Word of His grace, which is able to keep them, and he warned them that wolves would rise up even among them. But his exhortation was, “Shepherd the flock.”
If Paul felt the need to exhort them to shepherd, and Peter felt the need to exhort them to shepherd, this must be a normal experience: shepherding does not happen, is forgotten, or is accidentally forgotten.
Even in a healthy period, there seems to be a wave of reminder and exhortation: “This is the thing.” So much goes on. Especially in their case, there were larger issues—the Ananias and Sapphira type of things—and other things swallowed up the time.
What I want to propose, which I think I can find in the Scriptures, is that the experience of the apostles was meant to be an example, and the experience of the elders also. As we read in 1 Peter 5, they are meant to be models for the flock, examples for the flock.
This calling to shepherd is an example for the flock. If it is an example for the flock, it means that the rest of us in the flock have some portion.
Not necessarily the Ananias and Sapphira portion—not necessarily an authority position where we have to deal with bigger issues—but we all have a portion. Consider Matthew 18. If your brother has sinned against you, perhaps you forgive him and go to your brother to restore him. Is that shepherding? That seems like shepherding, and that is for every one of us.
If the brother or sister is not responding, you take another regular sheep—a regular person, not necessarily a deacon or elder. Maybe you take two or three whom they may respect, and you go to try to restore your brother who has sinned and is being stubborn.
This is restoring a broken sheep, going after the one. It is a shepherding-type experience. In Matthew 18, speaking of the local church and our experience of two or three gathered in His name, we all have something to do with helping restore one another.
If it gets so bad, you may tell it to the church. Then you come into a possible authority situation. But either way, we have our part to play. We have something to do. We have a place in this.
Elders are called to shepherd. That is a verb. They are not called “shepherds.” The titles used for elders are elder, speaking of spiritual maturity among the saints, and overseer, meaning they are looking over what is going on.
That may include knowing when somebody did not show up. I used not to count how many came to something, and sometimes I am afraid of people who count us. I think it can be done right and it can be done wrong.
The right part is that you find out, “This person has been missing for five weeks,” and you start to pray for them. You join with the Chief Shepherd. He notices when people are missing for five weeks in a row. He notices. So you begin to notice these things. You are looking over some things.
The word overseer is sometimes translated in the King James Version as bishop. If you have heard the term bishop, that is the word overseer in many of our Bibles. A bishop is an elder, and an elder is a bishop. One speaks more of a position, while the other speaks more of a function—making sure the sheep do not fall off a cliff, that kind of thing.
There is also a person called a shepherd. Of course, there are shepherds tending actual sheep, such as in Luke 2 at the birth of Jesus. It is the same word.
But there is another case, similar to what we have been discussing, where there is a Chief Shepherd and under-shepherds. They are examples helping to equip the rest of us. This is in Ephesians 4.
Ephesians 4 speaks of the Lord Jesus as the Master Builder and the Head over the body. He gives gifts to the church. He has given gifts to every believer, but Ephesians 4:11 also names people whom He gives to the church. The people themselves are called gifts.
The picture is that you have to see the Giver behind the people. It is not like saying to a very kind person, “You are God’s gift to humanity.” It is not like that. It is not merely, “Wow, what a gift.” It is that He is doing something through a person.
He sends someone almost like a gift: “I want to do something through this person.” To do what? Not to do everything for the church and not to fix the church, but, as Ephesians 4 says, to equip the church.
Then the church can build itself up. There is body ministry, where the church builds itself up and grows up into maturity in the Head. That is the Ephesians 4 concept.
The ones mentioned are apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. They minister to the church, equipping the saints.
Consider the equipping role of apostles. Paul and Barnabas were sent out establishing churches. On their return trips, they might lay hands on elders, but they were teaching the saints how to gather in the Lord’s name. They gathered them together so they could eventually leave, and the saints were equipped to church.
They were equipped to testify of Jesus. They were equipped without Paul remaining there forever. They had what they needed, so he could leave.
Perhaps Paul was used by the Lord in Philippi to begin the assembly. But eventually he was gone, and that assembly continued. When Paul wrote to the Philippians, he wrote to the saints there, along with the overseers and deacons. What an established church, with church leaders and deacons. They were equipped.
Then there are prophets. Prophets prophesy, but there is equipping going on also. We may hear a prophetic word from one of those in Ephesians 4, and it is the Word of God. It is the needed word at our time.
Sometimes at a conference, or through a particular message, you especially feel, “That was something from the Lord.” But prophets do not only prophesy; they equip the saints.
We learn from hearing prophetic words. We also learn how to seek the Lord’s mind ourselves and how to share with one another what we feel is on the Lord’s heart.
The prophecies discussed in 1 Corinthians 14 are for all the saints. This is an experience of prophesying. I do not mean fortune-telling or future-telling. I mean sharing something edifying, comforting, and consoling—something for the people of God that is on God’s heart right now.
We are equipped to do this. The more we hear prophetic messages and think, “That was for us,” the more we understand how it works. We begin to say, “Lord, I want something for the Bible study this week that is from Your heart for the saints. I want something in this open sharing time that is on Your heart for Your people.”
I may know ten things I could say, and perhaps they are all edifying. But, “Lord, what is on Your heart?” We are equipped as the church to learn to speak the Words of God, not merely our own words.
Balaam was a bad example, but he did say, “I can only speak what the Lord gives me to speak.” He was a terrible prophet, but he had the concept right. You get the Word of God.
Then there is the evangelist. You may not think of an evangelist as equipping others, but it is not always as you would expect. It is not that evangelists necessarily teach us how to evangelize. A lot of times, they cannot explain it. A lot of times they are simply saying, “Why do you not just do what I did?” To them, it is natural and easy.
Philip is called Philip the Evangelist later in Acts. When he was one of the seven, he was simply called Philip. When he was doing major evangelism among the Samaritans, he was still simply called Philip.
The Lord took that greatly used man of God in evangelism and brought him to share with the Ethiopian eunuch. He wisely shared the gospel, was whisked away, and eventually settled somewhere. The next time we see him, he is older and has four daughters who prophesy. Paul and his companions visit there, and Agabus the prophet also visits and binds himself with Paul’s belt.
That is where it says they were at Philip the Evangelist’s home. Maybe it calls him Philip the Evangelist to distinguish him from Philip the apostle. I do not know.
It does not seem as if all these people—teachers and others—walked around with titles before their names. Perhaps apostles did, sometimes. Paul would say, “I am Paul, an apostle,” describing his situation. But I do not know if people always said, “Evangelist Philip,” or something like that.
Either way, evangelists equip the saints. How? They serve first. They do what they have. They evangelize.
We see Philip the Evangelist. We may also think of D. L. Moody, whom the world would recognize as an evangelist because so many souls were saved through him. Or, closer to our time, Billy Graham. Sometimes there is such a large measure of the gift that you recognize, “There is an evangelist, largely used.”
But when that equipping happens, the rest of us saints, who have the gospel, who have received Christ, and who have the Evangelist living inside of us, get swept up into what they are doing. They take us along.
As you are around someone, or watch someone preach the good news, you learn a little bit of what they do. I read a book—I think Mac loaned it to me—by James McKendrick, Seen and Heard. It was so good. He tells stories of his evangelism experiences.
It helped me more than anything else to know how to bring in the net. I saw how he prayed with people and what he said. I thought, “That is good. That is better than what I have been doing. Mine has been a little sloppy.”
I heard some of his stories and thought, “Oh, okay, that is good.” When you are around somebody, you catch it a little bit. They cannot always explain it, but you hear the stories. Evangelists equip.
Then there are shepherds and teachers. I put them together because many people do this. In Ephesians 4:11, there is the word some before everyone except the last two. The last two are “some shepherds and teachers,” or, in some translations, “pastors and teachers.” It is the same word: shepherd.
They are kind of put together. It is not simply a matter of proper English where you need to stop saying some at some point. In the original language, there is no need for that. It was likely removed for a purpose, indicating something like a combined person.
We may think of a teacher, but it seems from Scripture—not only there but in other places—that teachers have some shepherding in them, and shepherds have some teaching in them as well. There may be a larger measure on one side or the other.
When someone teaches, they should be able to help people into the experience of what they have taught. Let us say John is teaching a message at Solomon’s Porch. The teaching goes out, and then John is talking one-on-one with someone. Can he help that person into the experience of what he just preached? He should be able to. That is shepherding.
Shepherding works on a smaller level. It brings people from where they are to the Chief Shepherd—to the Good Shepherd—and into the experience of what was taught in a larger way.
Both things should be able to happen. You can help somebody one-on-one or in a larger gathering. One of the qualifications given concerning elders is that they should be apt to teach. That does not mean they must give a long ministry of the Word from Solomon’s Porch. It means they must be able to help the saints into sound teaching.
That shows that something of the shepherd-teacher gift should be there—probably more on the level of shepherding, because the repeated exhortation is, “Shepherd the flock. Shepherd the saints.”
Sometimes we encounter someone especially gifted in shepherding. We may even say, “There is a shepherd,” or in English, “There is a pastor.” There is someone with a heart that big, caring for many people. That may be. We may encounter someone who is very much a gift to the church in shepherding.
With teaching, we can recognize it because when they speak, we say, “Okay, now I get it. Why did I not get that before? It is so simple.”
I often feel that way with Brother Kong. When he speaks, I think, “I am such a dummy. Why did I never get that?” After he says it, it is like, “Wow, how was I so wrong?” It is almost every message I have heard from him. When there is a gift in teaching, you just get it.
But when it is shepherding, you feel as though you are brought to the Shepherd. The love is there, and it almost seems natural. This can produce the wrong response: “Oh, that is not me. I am not that huggy. I am not that kind of person. I do not overflow love in that way.”
It is not meant to be like that. These gifts equip the saints, just like all the other gifts mentioned. If there is equipping, the rest of us have some portion to learn from it.
There may be teaching involved, and we realize, “I should love one another. I should go after my brother who has sinned against me. I should do this or that.” But there is something of catching it.
If you know a shepherd and feel that there is a very gifted shepherd right there, appreciate that. You may feel that person has been praying for you. But catch the equipping they are giving also.
The equipping does not need to come in class form. Similar to an evangelist, you probably catch it. If we find a shepherd, hang out with them while they are shepherding. That is how we get equipped.
Maybe they take someone along, or maybe you are at a lunch table and you see someone caring about others at the table, asking questions and listening to what they are saying.
There were older brothers—some are in this room—when we were in Toronto, and I was at lunch tables. Naturally, in some settings, I am pretty shy. So I was being shy.
But I saw what happened with two different brothers and the way they worked the table at lunch. I am shy, I only know half these teenagers, and teenagers are actually really scary to me, especially when I first meet them. You know you are going to say something that is not cool. You know you have something wrong, and probably something in your teeth.
Anyway, I was a little bit in my shell, and I saw this happen again and again with these brothers whom I think are pretty gifted in shepherding. They were not about themselves; they were about those sheep at the table.
It probably seemed natural to me because of their gifting. They may be among those gifted to the church. Great. I saw it, and they cared. Everyone at the table felt listened to. It was like they were being shepherded, just during a meal. It was wonderful to watch.
You know what? I felt that equipped me a little bit. I caught it. I thought, “Oh, that is how you work a table.” Not as though it were a method, but they were listening.
Have you ever asked someone a question and then immediately thought about the next question you would ask, or thought about something totally different? I do this when I ask someone’s name. I ask, “What is your name?” Then I do not even hear them say their name. That is how bad I am naturally.
You walk away from a conversation and have forgotten their name. I test people with this when I introduce myself. I say my name, get their name, learn a little about them, and then, by the end of the conversation, I ask, “Do you remember my name?” That is probably the worst question for me to ask them.
But you know what I mean. It is not always the name thing. You ask somebody not merely, “How are you doing?” but perhaps something specific. As they begin to share, you say, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,” while we can all see in your eyes that you are somewhere else, thinking about something else.
It is rare to find someone who focuses—who is like a blank piece of paper, letting you write your story on their heart as they listen to you. It is wonderful.
One of the first times I had an experience like this was after I read about it in The Character of God’s Workman. There is a chapter on listening. It is really cool. I wanted to do it, but I had never met anybody who really did it well.
Then I came and visited Richmond. I visited Brother Kong one time, and I started to talk. I almost could not keep going because he was listening to me one hundred percent. This was back in 2004.
He was listening so much that I felt, “Oh no, I am all exposed.” But I got used to it, and I shared. He was not thinking of what to say. He was not about to interrupt. He just let me waste his time and share. I got everything out.
It was like he heard what I said. I learned from that: that is how you listen. You do not think about other things. It was good.
If someone has some gifting in shepherding, or if they have received grace from years of trying, they know how to do some of these things. We can learn from each other when we catch it. When someone helps you, learn from that experience how you might help somebody else.
If you have been brought out of the mud, you not only get helped out of the mud; you also learn, “Oh, that is how you bring someone out of the mud.” Sometimes you simply sing a hymn with them.
You may not even know their answers, but you are with them. You understand. Then somebody says, “Let us sing this song together.” Someone did this with me one time. They did not have an answer for me. They actually knew a little less than I did in the Bible, so they could not answer my complaints or struggles. But they said, “Let us sing a hymn.”
That younger person in the Lord brought me through and washed my feet. I thought, “Oh, that is how you shepherd. That is how you do it.”
The point I want to make is this: the Ephesians 4 people are the most likely ones for us to call shepherds—the noun—besides the Lord Jesus and those who shepherd actual sheep. The Ephesians 4 shepherds are very gifted in it, and they are a gift to the church. Sometimes they may work with more than one church.
But they are not sent by God merely to do the shepherding. They do shepherding in order to equip us to shepherd.
Think about our Chief Shepherd. He has a plan for shepherding. He is the Shepherd. He is our Shepherd. We shall not want.
He does not replace Himself with some little shepherd guy. He does not do that. He always remains your Shepherd. In one sense, He is the only Shepherd. In another sense, He is the Chief Shepherd, and He has others representing His shepherding experience.
He has others doing shepherding under His headship, under His chiefness. He is the Chief Shepherd.
We may think of John 10 when we think of the Lord as Shepherd. He speaks of the enemy as a thief who comes to steal and kill. I want to read this passage. I did not want to read it earlier because I did not want you to think I was focused on Him merely as the Good Shepherd. I wanted to focus on Him as the Chief Shepherd this time.
In John 10:11, the Lord Jesus says:
I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep.
He that is a hireling, and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, beholdeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth; and the wolf snatcheth them, and scattereth them:
he fleeth because he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep.
I am the good shepherd; and I know Mine own, and Mine own know Me,
even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.
Notice that: somebody is doing shepherding, but they are not the Shepherd. He is the Good Shepherd.
The one serving for wages does not own the sheep. The sheep do not belong to that person. He sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees. The wolf seizes them and scatters them. He flees because he is serving for wages. It makes sense: “It is not worth dying for these. They are not my sheep.”
That is why he runs away. He is not concerned about the sheep. But the Lord says, “I am the Good Shepherd. I know those who are Mine. I am known by those who are Mine. As the Father knows Me, I know the Father. I lay down My life for the sheep.”
It is a familiar passage. I just want to bring to our attention the concept that there is such a thing as serving for wages—or, to borrow the thought for a moment, shepherding outside of the Chief Shepherd.
Even if you do not intend to do something merely because you receive a paycheck, or for some financial reason, when somebody has to shepherd so much that they bring the flock to themselves more than to the Chief Shepherd, they get outside the Good Shepherd’s shepherding.
He is the Shepherd. He is really the only one. True church leaders are called to shepherd the flock as examples.
It is true that we are all called to care for one another, really to shepherd one another, to go after each other. As Galatians 6 says, if you see someone stumbling, caught in something, then “ye who are spiritual, restore such a one.” Be careful that you do not get caught up in it, but if you are mature, restore them. That is shepherding. That is what we are talking about.
Then it says to bear one another’s burdens in love. That is for everybody. Even if you are not spiritual, bear one another’s burdens in love. There is some calling upon all of us.
But everything we do has to be under the Chief Shepherd. I think this is how it works. Part of the reason I am going all the way around the world to get to this is that, when neglect happens, we tend to think about those who are examples or especially gifted, and we want them to do more.
But I think the neglect, actually, like in Acts 6, was that the seven were not doing their part. Not because they did not want to; they just did not even know.
I think this happens to us sometimes. Sometimes it needs to come up so we can know, “Oh, we need some more people doing something here or there.”
Usually, I think the Lord allows some neglect so He can raise some of us up to do a little more than we have been doing. Even if it means each of us in this room praying for one person each week—caring about one person—you can see how no one would be neglected.
We probably cannot organize this outside of our Chief Shepherd. It cannot simply be that we all draw names this week. That is not a bad thing to do, actually. But it cannot be that every week we draw names and that is the person you shepherd.
Remember, we are not the Shepherd. If you are hired by wages, or assigned by a slip of paper, you may get yourself outside the Chief Shepherd.
Instead, ask the Lord: “Lord, who can I pray for? Lord, how do You want to love this person?” As you bring someone to the Lord’s attention, I think the Holy Spirit will lead us.
We have to keep in mind that He is the Chief Shepherd. I do not want to get into many details of what to do this time, except for this first point, which I think is the foundation for all shepherding: He is the Chief.
Everything we do in shepherding has to come under Him if it is going to be right—if it is going to be the Psalm 23 experience, and the Lord is actually doing it.
If we believe that He is the Head over the body, we need to take a step back and say, “I have known Him who is in the third heaven, at the throne, at the right hand of God, as my Shepherd. I know that. But do I know Him, who is the Head of the body, who surrounds me with His body, as my Shepherd?”
Sometimes I do not know. Am I in the experience of being part of His body, and He is the Shepherd?
Think for a second: He is shepherding His saints. He may send a gift alongside to equip. He may use whatever church authority is set up to oversee. But He is the Shepherd of His people, and He is using His body to do most of His shepherding—most of it.
He wants to work through His body. We have an individual thing happening, but He wants to use all of us to help each other with all the neglect and all the needs we have.
Sometimes I need someone to pour out my heart to. Can I go to the Lord and pour out my heart? Yes. But does it feel like I need somebody on the ground as well? Yes.
God feels the same way. He is always saying, “As in heaven, so upon the earth.” So He puts the body on earth to do what He is doing in heaven.
We cannot just have, “The Lord is my Shepherd in heaven.” The Lord is our Shepherd on the earth as well, and it comes through His body. It is when we, as the body, join with our Chief Shepherd that He does it. Then He shepherds the saints. He cares for everyone, and we all have some part to play.
We need to bow our knees to the Head of the body and say, “Lord, I pray for Your people,” and then go from there. Maybe someone comes to mind. Maybe you begin to mention some people. Then He leads you to call someone, sit with someone at lunch, restore your brother who is in sin, or whatever it is.
He leads you, and we find this strange organization that is only Holy Spirit-organized, but no one is neglected. Sometimes there needs to be a little organization, but if we all got on our knees, the Lord is our Shepherd. He is the Chief Shepherd.
That is actually all I wanted to bring up. I am pretty excited about it because I feel it is almost like a key to shepherding that unlocks the issue of neglect.
Many of us have experienced this. You hear the murmurings, and sometimes you even feel the murmuring. Then you ask the Chief Shepherd, “You are the Shepherd. Why is this like this?”
Sometimes the Lord will say, “Go and talk to somebody about it.” Sometimes the Lord will say, “Let us do this. You are My body. You are part of My body. Let us do this.”
“Why are these people neglected right here? I see them every week. It feels like they always sit by themselves.” And the Lord is saying, “I am their Shepherd. Let us do this. You are the one I showed. You are the one who just saw it, and it is because of My Holy Spirit. I am sending you. Let us shepherd. Let us care.”
It is not always the case, because sometimes you see something but do not have the ability to do anything about it. But sometimes you see something and the Lord wants to use you to help with it. That, I think, is pretty key.
I do not want to beat this down or say too much over and over, but there is this excitement: He is the Shepherd. We are part of Him being the Shepherd.
There is no one in this room who is born again who has no shepherding to do, because He is the Shepherd and you are part of His body. That is why. Because you are part of His body.
He works through the body to do most of the shepherding. Most of our shepherding needs have to happen through us.
If you have been a believer for a little while, probably the next level is not merely that your needs get met, but that you get out of yourself and begin meeting the needs of other saints. As you do that, you may find, “It really was not that important what I was complaining about. That was not the big deal.”
You get beside yourself. Yes, sometimes you feel neglected, but who is even thinking about that when you see these saints right here and see how the Lord loves these people?
Suddenly, the love of God through you for those saints swallows up the death of whatever neglect somebody could say was happening to you.
We have to admit that perhaps you have been neglected. But is the Lord raising you up like the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep? Is He allowing you to experience neglect so that you can deny yourself, deny your own need of shepherding for the sake of other saints, and spend your attention on other people like the Good Shepherd?
You are not a shepherd for hire. You are not someone concerned only about yourself. You are concerned about the saints getting taken out by wolves. You are concerned with the love of God for other people because we have touched the Head, who is our Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd.
Let us pray together.
Oh, Lord, we want to thank You that You have left us with no neglect. You have really left us with everything we need, all bound up in You.
Lord, I appreciate my brothers and sisters who have shepherded me so many times in this room. I appreciate this home, this family, that my family has experienced.
Lord, we thank You for a place to rest, remember You, and be among Your people. We thank You that You are our Chief Shepherd and that You have given us everything we need.
Lord, we bow our knee to You as the Lord, as the Head over the body. We pray for each other right now. Show us what is on Your heart.
Show us whom You are going after right now. Show us who needs to hear of greener pastures, to hear of the water, and to be led this way.
Lord, we pray that You would raise up among us many brothers and sisters to hold the hands of others spiritually and to bear one another’s burdens in love.
In Jesus’ name, amen.