Serving as Leaders

Exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily according to the will of God, and not for sorted gain, but with eagerness, nor yet as Lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. You younger men, likewise be subject to your elders and all of you. Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another for God as opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you at the proper time. Casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be of sober spirit. Be on the alert, your adversary, the devil. Prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour but resist him.

Firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brother and who are in the world after you have suffered for a little while, the god of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish. You do him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.

And, but before we get there, I want to sorta introduce myself cause I know some of you, I got to teach a little over a month ago and Roy Hendricks class and stuff, but most of my time I spend in youth ministry. Uh, my name is he Todd Smith. Uh, I am one of your elders. I have the honor to serve as one of your elders. Uh, even with the difficult times that we've been facing. A little bit about myself. I grew up in a small town, small town of Detroit , Arkansas.

So right now you probably have more people in this room than my whole high school class. Not, not my graduating class, the whole high school. So it's sort of fun to be up here and, but when I grew up in there, I was in a sort of a , uh , different area. I accepted Christ at the age of nine, gave my life for him and immediately started feeling God calling on my life to serve him.

And then while my world was opened up to so many other things, I was introduced to other religions and other thoughts, process. And as I did that to one thing that came stronger and stronger is my belief in God and that calling on God to really serve him and do something, instill . I didn't know what that serving was going to be.

And I share that with you because I think that's important for the lesson today because I believe there's probably still people in this room that you have in your heart. Something's calling on you. You don't know where it is to go yet. Well, you know, I met my wife, the , my youngest daughter was the one that read the verse here today. I met my wife and I'm in pharmaceutical sales and I went back and got my master in Christian studies because I knew God was calling me to serve him.

Now my passion in my , the stuff that I deal with is youth. I've worked with youth for longer than I've had kids. My oldest kids, 20 I've been doing it for 22 years. But my passion is to really share that with him. So now you may be wondering, why would someone like me be asked to come up here and share the word with you and everything? Well, that's because I willingly and lovingly wanting to be here.

Uh , yes, it's a little different because I'm so used, if you hear me make analogies that seem sort of outdated as , because I'm usually with junior high and high school. So, but it's such a joy to be here with them. And , and see you saw today some of the things that were going on with the mission trip, but, but today really what I really think that God was put on the heart.

Unfortunately, I shouldn't say unfortunately, it was , it was God ordained as I, as I volunteered to teach today, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I was like, I was like, Dan was gonna be out of town. He's actually back . But Dan was gonna be out of town. The pastor pastors come out and say, Hey, we have elders that love the lord that want to serve, that are willing to teach and stuff. Why don't we teach in there ? Like, hey, it sounds like you volunteered. I was like, okay.

And I was, I just thought, oh, I'll just go on mark and I'll just do expository. I'll go straight on. That's my comfort zone. It's like, just go do that. And , and it was like God ordained us with, you know, right now you may not know. We're in a a pastor, an elder search , uh , time. We're actually looking at bringing on new elders. We're also looking at a pastor search. Same on the pastor search team as well.

And you start looking at all these things and basically Dan and the elder said, you know, we want to , we want you to do is we want you to actually pray about something to share with what it is about leaders in the church and, and what is important for the church and where we can go. And over and over and over again as I read many scriptures and kept trying to get to a comfort zone. God took me out of my comfort zone and brought me to first Peter.

He brought me to first Peter over and over again. It was really neat because I , I told Dan last a a little over a week ago as I was struggling with this and I was like, you know, I don't know if this is where I want to go cause I was wanting to do something comfortable . I was like, wait, a, this is exactly where God wants us today.

Uh , because when you look at first Peter, I'm going to give you a little background before we get into , in a verse five, you have to realize, first of all, who is Peter? Peter was one of the apostles. He, he was like one of the most, besides Paul, right , one of the most highly respected apostles. He had been doing all these things. What do we know about Peter? Hey, ever since I was a kid, Peter Walked on water. That's , I still, I haven't been able to do that yet.

I've tried so it doesn't work. But Peter Walked on water because he had faith in and he looked away and went down. Probably the thing that sticks out to us most with Peter Though as what is that Peter denied Christ three times. I don't know about you, but in my life when I've messed up, sometimes I feel like that I'm just out of the fray. But Peter got back with guide , got back with Christ and was used in mighty ways.

You know, as we think about that, I think it's important to think about Peter as we go into these verses and we start thinking about the struggles that Peter had gone through personally. But also when you look at first Peter one through four, what is really talking about is a growing belief in your faith.

It starts off, you know , talking about new babies and about new believers and it talks about how you get solid in your foundation and start doing that and it talks about the example of Christ is to us and then then it goes on and guess what it says, guess what? We're going to have difficulties. Anybody can relate with that. I mean we're going to have some troubles as we seek to be with him. We're going to have troubles in our churches. We're going to have troubles in our community.

We're going to have troubles in our lives, but Peter is sitting there sharing all these things that are going on and then he comes to verse five which I believe is where I , where God led us today and that's really starting off with where he started talking off here is to the leaders of the church or the elders of the church.

Now I believe that has god was putting on this my heart and I wanted to share this, that this was not just for the the eight elders that we have or the new elders that will be coming on. This is for every one of us because while we [inaudible] , Peter was talking to the church and about growing the church and about our actions for the church. He was also talking about being a leader in our lives. He was talking about the staff. He was talking about the connect groups.

He was talking about you as parents, as grandparents, some of you great grandparents about what can we do to really be with God. And if we're growing, and God, I don't know about you, but I'm wanting to continuously grow close to God. But as I grow close to God, I also realize how much more I needed him. So as we start here in first Peter Five, Peter does something drastically, but before I go into this, one of the commentaries I was reading, it was John Piper.

He made a comment that really stuck to me. If elder leadership could be plain but explained by our world societies, we failed. If we can explain leadership in our church through the world, we have failed. And I believe that as we go into that, that's something to remember because we seek the elders seek to be different. We book , we seek to stand out of this world and to follow the example that's given here and throughout the other scriptures.

So the first part we're going to start talking about as serving as a leader. The first point that as you read here, it says, therefore I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the suffering and partaker also of the glory that is revealed. Peter being who he was and how highly respected he was, he steps down and says, guess what? You're not by yourself.

That it is important for us to rely on each other and that it's not just you're serving by yourself and you're not on an island, but we're serving together. Peter's talking to the leaders of the church and saying, Hey, you may look at me from this aspect or whatever, but what I'm here to tell you is I'm just one of you. I'm telling you that the elders here at the church, we want to say, hey, we're, we're one of you. We want to serve together.

We want to be with you, and we believe that that is the nature of what we are supposed to be as leaders and Peter is calling us out of that as serving as a leader. We must serve together. Realize the church during this time was scattered across Asia Minor. It was a difficult time for the church there. They were struggling. Just like many churches today are struggling.

Can I tell you, being on the pastor search committee, and I was talking to a lot of pastures across the country, there's a lot of churches that are hurting. There's a lot of churches are hurting . We're not alone, but what we seek to do is serve together and seek God and go after him.

Peter continues though in verse two and he uses a metaphor that Jesus used a lot and that was shepherd, the flock of God among you exercising oversight not by compulsion but voluntarily according to the will of God and not for sorted game . You know when I thought about this and in particular really what Peter was doing here is here is he's saying some of you have been called for leadership, so you've been called for leadership, but it's not about just being in that role.

It's about where your heart is. It's about where your heart is when it comes to serving. It is very important that as we serve in our church that we serve willingly. We don't serve serve out of a , Oh, I have to. I think about early on , uh, when my wife and I were growing up and you know, one of the requirements was having kids as you had to serve in the nursery and that was not my gift guys, I'll just be honest. I love junior high and high school and some people think I'm crazy for that.

But when it came to younger than that, that was not my gift. And I struggled with that. That was one of the things that I've learned too . These verses I've really struggled with a lot of these things that Peter is saying we should do. We should be serving willing . I can tell you without a doubt that I stand before you serving as an elder, not because I have to, because I want to cause God's calling.

And I'm so thankful about for you for this church and for the ability to be able to share his word today. Not because I want you to look up upon me and not that I'm going to get some gain out of it, but God is amazing and we should be willing to serve him without feeling forced .

The next part goes a little further in verse three , uh , three and four and it says this, this is one that really hit home is not yet lording over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be an example to the flock and when the chief shepherd appears to you, you will receive the unfading glory. Now remember I started with Piper saying that our leadership shouldn't be able to be explained by our world. If you think about the leaders of our world, usually there's a selfish game in it.

I think of even even looking back at history of like dictators and kings where it was all about, hey, it's all about, you know, me being in charge and doing that. That's not what being a leader is about in a church or being a leader in the church is being example, is being willing to get out of your comfort zone guys and stand before you and say, I am flawed. I'm make mistakes. It is about being an example.

What better speeches and reaches out to our communities than being an example in a world that's, that's really against us, right? When you think about the struggles that the church is finding today, we are constantly under attack, which we're gonna get to hear a little bit. And when you think about that, that desire to serve an example in mark 10 42 through 45, it says this, this , this is Jesus preaching , uh , talking to the disciples for telling his, the suffering that he's about to call.

He says, calling them to themselves. Jesus said to them, you know, those who are recognized as rulers of the gentiles lording over them, and they're , and they're great men, exercise authority over them, but it is not this way among you. But whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. And those who wish to be first among you shall be slaves to all.

And even the son of man, our prime example says, did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom to many guys. When when I look at these verses here one through four and I look at the example that we are to be as leaders, it is very important that we serve community, serve , serve together. That we actually look at this and we were enjoying about serving. And it also means that we have to be example.

Yes we have a great responsibility as an elder, but my , my, my, our jobs are not to Lord over you but to love you and be the example to you, to listen to you. I hope that I get to know more and more of you as , as I continue to serve for that. You know, one of the things that also mentioned there is there is an unfading glory that's coming. God really put this on my heart. You know, in , in the world today, there's a lot of people that want their cake now.

They want their reward now and you, you've seen the churches really leave what the Bible talks about and they've done prosperity preaching and all this kind of stuff. Guys, we need to know that our reward is coming because one day if you're a Christian, if you've accepted Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior, our reward is one day we get to be in heaven with him and all those failures and those struggles that we have. We're all be together. We're all going to be there willingly.

We're all going to be sitting there making sure that we're we're, we are the exempt cause we have no more sin. Right?

You know, when I think about this and I look at where Peter goes in the next verses, I believe he's reaches out more from the leadership and she starts talking about the church. It is still to the leaders, but it is also talking out to the church and is talking about how do we serve as a congregation. Notice I said, how do we serve? Because I'm part of this congregation too. All the elders are part of congregation. We are in in this together with you.

When we look at how do we serve the congregation, I believe in verse five it states this. It says, you younger man, likewise, be subject to your elders and all of you clothed yourself in humility towards one another. For God is opposed to the proud and gives grace to the humble. You know when, when I think about this and I think about in particular a , what this means is so many times when we're serving and we're doing something, we do it because we want something out of return.

That's not what being serving on a humble, you know, my passion is white youth. I have a wonderful wife and three girls. That's, that's what what I really want to do, but I'm here to serve you. Not because it's what's best for me, but it's what's best for the church. What would the world look like if all of a sudden we said, hey, guess what? When it comes to serving, maybe I'm just going to serve the things that are in my best interest . I'm going to serve the Church of what they want to do.

Peter saying that is very important for us to serve and be able to serve in humbleness, to be able to reach out. Uh , Jesus. Uh , it was also in the parable of the guest that says in Luke 14 says, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles self will be exalted.

I don't know how much more clear it can be when it , when Peter's talking to this, that is very important for when we're serving that we serve out of a humble heart of saying, hey, we need to make sure that we're doing where God's calling versus where my sinful nature is pulling me in. Verses six through 70 and continues on. He says, therefore, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and that he may exalt you at the proper time casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.

You know, as I read this and in particular the casting your anxieties, can I be honest with you? I was a little anxious about coming up here today. I , I was anxious to be yarn junior high and high schoolers, there's a couple of them Aussie , but you're not junior high and high schoolers. And I was a little anxious about coming up here and talking about serving to adults.

You know, God is good because I believe that Roy , uh , not , maybe not even know him when he asked me to teach that class, he was to give me sort of some confidence with that. But guys, why do we have anxiety in our lives if we're serving, if we trust him? And this next point with that point that I feel like he's really talking about us is that we need to serve and trust. That's difficult at times.

I'm in a different spot now that as I'm an elder, but as when I was just part of the congregation. That meant sometimes that guess what? I just had to serve. Trusting that our leadership was leading us the right way. That doesn't mean I don't ask questions, I don't talk to them, but I serve willingly and I serve trusting that this is where God is calling us to go. Can you imagine the disciples thinking about what did they do?

They trusted to go out and share the word with the world knowing all they had to do is deny Christ and they would live, but they trusted him to die to share the word that we may know it today. So as we serve, we must make sure that we're serving, trusting in him, casting our anxieties on him. If we're worried, maybe we're not trusting him the way we should be trusting him cause where God guides us, he's going to provide for us.

The last part of first Peter Five is eight three 11 and I'm not going to read through all of this, but, but really I want you to think of when you look at these verses, it is really focusing on Peter and you know when, when one of the commentaries I read, it said that when Peter was probably sharing this and writing this down for the church, he probably was thinking of a time where maybe he was in the garden get 70 he was supposed to be awake and he kept falling asleep and he kept losing focus

and he kept, kept really missing out the concept. I believe that when you read these verses and you realize that he says that the devil comes like a roaring lion trying to destroy our churches, our families, our testimonies, that if we are aware of what is coming and how we're being attacked, that guess what we're serving with intention and we know that if we're in tissue about what we're doing and how we're doing it, that we can overcome Satan. Why? Because God is on our side.

I don't remember who said this. This was, this was a neat thing that happened is last week I they were talking about, can you imagine how the devil must feel? The devil is continuously trying to , to stop God's plan, but nothing stops God's plan. I mean , let me think about this guys . Garden Garden of Eden. It's like, hey, we're going to get Adam and eve to eat, ate the fruit, and it's going to spoil everything. No, God's glorified through that. What are we saying?

Hey, we're going, I'm going to kill Jesus Christ and we're , we're, I'm going to get him killed, and he started sitting there. Y'All excited ? Whoa , whoa . He is resurrected. Every time the devil tries to stop God's plan over and over and over again, God says, can't you know how?

How can we not sit there and serve with attention knowing that the outcome is what God's plan and if God is calling you to serve and calling you to step out and do something, that's God's plan and he wants you to sit there and say, Hey, guess what? It's time to sit there and go do this and trust me because it's going to be my plan and it's going to happen. So we must serve with an intention to serve and glorify God.

That's one thing that the pastor search team, I think every, every meeting we've had , uh , we've prayed that we don't want our desires. We want God's desires. We want him to be glorified. We want him to be seen . If that is to , to have a pastor to mark , great. If that's to have a pastor. And later on that what much later than that, that's fine because it's not about us. It's about the intention of serving God and loving God. So I have a challenge.

Um, another commentary, John Corson was , uh, doing a lesson on this and one of the things he asked is , uh, very penetrating for me and maybe it's penetrating to you to the question really was asked is , um, if everyone in the church was like you, I was reading it as like me. If everyone in the church is like you, what would it be like now he took it further.

He said, what if everyone in the church prayed like you did, prayed for the pastor search team, pray for the elders, pray for God to be glorified, pay, pray for Central Church, pray for the families in need. Pray for revival. If everyone was praying like you do, what would it be like? It's a little penetrating in my heart. EOL He also said, what if everyone ties like you do, you know, let's be honest, if everyone ties, like God tells us to tie .

If we would have an abundance, we wouldn't have the need to worry about can we fund this missionary? Can we do this? Can we do that? I mean, we would be seeing God do some amazing things, but yet sometimes when it comes to serving that way, it gets in our way.

And I bottle you bought a book, a ball book that says the art of saying no. I said no, I didn't read the book because it's not about me doing that. It's about me following God. And if God's calling me to serve this, he's going to provide for me. He's going to provide for my family. Yes, my family will testify you, I spent a lot of time being as an elder and being on the pastor search team, but it is out of glory that we serve.

So, so the question is, is you know, when you, when you do a personal look at, what would it look like if we all, if everyone in the church prayed like you did tie , it's like you did and serve like you, when you think about serving, we have a block party that they talked about. They need people now don't feel obligated, feel called. And we have an FCA camp that's going on here. We have a backpack ministry. We have needs up in youth and children. Maybe choir needs more stuff.

There's, there's all kinds of places to serve. So if you're going, if you're feeling that column to serve, why aren't you stepping forward and calling? Well I believe that there's some reasons why we don't serve and that's we're getting in our own way. We sit there and say, well maybe I'm not good enough. I can feel that. Can I tell you that? As I was struggling with , uh , accepting the call to eldership , I was like, but I'm a sinner.

When I was being called to to teach youth, I was like, they won't like me cause I was sitting there that maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe you right now are sitting there, you're having that call on your heart to serve whether in whatever capacity and you're saying, I'm not good enough. Or maybe you're saying that you're not poor enough. Our world will want to tell you that you're not significant, you're not important enough.

Or maybe you'll sit there and say, when I have enough time or money, I will do it. Then do you know what's missing and all those excuses and I struggled with everyone of those excuses. What's missing in those excuses? You never hear God. You'd never hear God is calling me to do that now if you think that you're not important enough, can I tell you that if you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, when God looks at you, you're perfect. Now that's blows my mind, right?

That not that he died on the cross for forgiveness of my sin. He died on the cross, that my sins were punished, they were taken care of. So now when Jesus looks at me and any of you that have sex with Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, he looks at you as perfect. So when you don't think that you're , you're good enough, you're perfect.

If you're following God's call and if you sit there and sit there and say you're not important enough, can I tell you that maybe, maybe you've missed the concept that Jesus Christ loved you enough and thought you were important enough to die for you on the cross for all of your sins. And if you, if you sit there and take the excuse out as the time, the wealth, the, the , the, the resources, you know , God gives us everything. He gives us our time. He can take us at any moment.

He gives us our resources, but yet we sit there and God wants to bless us over and over again. Maybe not on this earth because we know that the devil is going to attack us, but we're sitting there struggling with it, of not being able to, to , to allow him to bless us. Woody Almon , we were talking earlier this week, made a comment to me and it rang . So, so true. You know, I'm in the professional world. I'm in pharmaceutical sales.

He's now retired and he was saying he's gotten been blessed with resources by Beth, blessed with big bonus checks and stuff like that, but there was not a single one of those checks that can compare to seeing the smile on the face of someone just lovingly hugging them and being able to share the word of God with someone and that blessing.

Many of us are missing because we're struggling that we're not good enough, we're not important enough, and we're putting it off on someone else instead of doing that. Ephesians two 10 says this, for we are God's handy , handy work created in Jesus Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us. So today, what does this mean? This means that I know because God put this message in my heart. There's some of you that are struggling.

There's some of you that are, that are sitting here and as you hear what Peter shared today, that hopefully God is in there. You've been having this calling on your heart and you have something that's keeping you from stepping out and being obedient. Maybe it's that you're having some problems at home, you're having some struggles, guys. We're not alone. We're in this together. We're we you need to know we're fits into to have a up close in prayer.

We're going to have people up in the front and the back that are there. They're serving, they're stepping out just to pray with you. Maybe you need some guidance in your life. Maybe you have a heaviness of your heart. If something that you just haven't done that. But can I say that? Um, there may be some people in here still in this room that maybe they just haven't gotten there .

Sitting there saying, how can he preach and teach this stuff that Peter's saying and be so enthusiastic and willingness to share together and the difficult times. If you don't know the god that I know, please don't wait. Don't wait to find out. And if you do know him and you've let Satan kill and destroy some of your fire, get back on fire for him. Because when it comes to this church, we have a lot of people in this church.

If we set there and said, it's time for us to commit to pray, to serve, to actually be intentional and go out and share the word serve where we're being called this the city, our town, because I don't like to call Collierville as the city, this town, this, this county, this country, this world would absolutely be turned over because of central church. Got Obedient and their willingness to serve as we closed. And as the people come up to pray, I'm gonna just close in a quick prayer.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you to just really think about where you are in your life and what you need to do. If you need to come up to the alter to pray. If you need to go back to the back or front to pray that, that's great. We'll be there until we need to go to the next service. So let's pray. Father, God, I just , um , or God, I just thank you.

I thank you for , uh, for loving us enough to , to give us the word to follow or what I, I thank you for giving us the , the ability to seek you and all that we do. Lord, I just pray that you would us the strength to overcome the challenges that we face , Lord, that we would not let Satan destroy what we have in you have given us here in central church. Lord , I pray for our church that we would see revival, that we would see you in a mighty way and that you would be blessed in all that we do.

And your name we pray. Amen.