The Weight & The Glory

There is a mountain fortress in the deserts some miles outside of Jerusalem, a place called Masada. If you were to see it, even today, it would appear impregnable—a fortress built into a tabletop-shaped mountain. When it was built and defended, it could only be approached through a single, narrow path up the side of the mountain.

In the early 70s AD, 960 men, women, and children were besieged inside, surrounded by some 15,000 opposing Roman forces. For months, the attackers worked furiously to move tens of thousands of tons of earth and stone to construct a siege ramp from which to attack the fortress.

Finally, on April 16th in the year 73, the ramp was completed, and the Romans breached the wall in a massive volley of fiery torches and weaponry—a first-century miniature version of the US shock and awe operations in Iraq in Spring 2003.

What the Roman soldiers found when they breached the walls shocked them. Of the 960 people, only two women and five children remained alive, who had hidden themselves in a cistern while all the men slaughtered their own families, then each other, with the last men drawing lots until only one man remained, who killed himself.

Why am I telling you this story? It really happened. I’m telling you this story because every one of the Jewish zealots who died at Masada died because they followed wicked shepherds—wicked shepherds who rejected their Messiah, the Good Shepherd, and therefore turned their backs on the green pastures of life and peace to journey into the wilderness of death and folly.

Flocks who follow good shepherds thrive. Flocks who follow wicked shepherds die.

Today, our brother Peter has a word for the shepherds, the elders, of Refuge Church. We have four: Myself, Dan Berkholder, Cody Hockin, and Norm Dunham, as well as three men serving a one-year testing as elder candidates: Joshua Adams, Kevin Griffin, and Kyle Schroeder.

It is therefore somewhat strange what you are being asked to do—members of a local church listening to a pastor preach a text essentially telling himself what to do. But that’s what Peter intended; these letters would be read aloud in local churches, and chapter five begins with the words, “So I exhort the elders among you…”

You’re supposed to hear this, so that you can see the difference between a good undershepherd of Christ and a pretender; the Lord would protect you from bad men and bad shepherds through his Word.

As we make our way through the text, there are almost certainly going to be moments where specific failures of your elders will come to mind, areas where you are going to think, “What you’re saying is that an elder should be like this, but you are not like that.” Or, “I remember that time when you personally fell so short of that it was hard even tell if you were aiming for it.”

And I’m not going to ask you to stuff those thoughts under the living room rug or pretend like they’re not real. They are. We are weak, sinful men—and it is a good gift from our Lord and part of his good rule that we are to be judged more strictly as ministers of God’s Word in this local church.

We strive to take this and other texts of Scripture where pastors receive their marching orders very seriously, very soberly. We long to be good under-shepherds. But where we fail and fall short, my plea to you is that you would look past us and look with hope and joy at the Chief Shepherd over us all, Jesus Christ. Look with me at 1 Peter 5:1, if you would.

“So I exhort the elders among you, as 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: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

-1 Peter 5:1–5

In our text, Peter gives us four aspects of a shepherd’s ministry:

1. In verse 1, he tells us of a shepherd’s sheepness.
2. In verses 2–3, he tells us about a shepherd’s duties.
3. In verse 4, he tells us about a shepherd’s promise.
4. In verse 51, he tells us about a shepherd’s joy.

We will spend the bulk of our time in that second aspect, the duties of a shepherd, but let’s take a look at each in turn.