Shepherds Watch Out for Wolves

Fourth Sunday of Easter

April 26, 2015

Acts 20:28-30

Shepherds Watch Out for Wolves

In the name of the Father and of † the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which He bought with His own blood. (Acts 20:28)

In his final sermon to a group of fellow pastors, Paul told them above all to keep watch like a shepherd. First of all, pastors should keep watch over themselves. Secondly, pastors should keep watch over their congregations.

Shepherds in the field watching over their flocks at night or by day might have thought that their work was routine. It would have been tempting to find a tree and sit down and daydream. It would have been easy to become bored; some shepherds probably even fell asleep on the job while the sheep wandered around and away.

My guess is that the best shepherds are the ones who understand that their routine of watching was important. The best shepherds looked at their sheep as part of their family. They wouldn't sit under a tree; they'd walk among the sheep and get to know them. When one started to wander off, the shepherd noticed. If wolves were around, the alert shepherd would be on guard and protect the sheep from danger.

Pastors will learn from the best practices of good shepherds.

First of all, pastors should keep watch over themselves. The wisest way for me as a pastor to watch over myself is to look at myself through the Word of God every day. So every day I need to be listening to Jesus' words: His rebuke of who I am, a sinner, and His promise of who He is, the forgiver.

A pastor who doesn't pray is going to end up faking his way through his job. He won't hear Jesus speaking into his ear every day killing him and raising him back to life. He won't be reminded of how much Christ loves the members of his church who are under his spiritual care. The work of the church will become routine to the non-praying pastor because he won't be daily confronted by the fact that he and all his members are sinners. If a pastor isn't grounded in the reality of his sin, then while he might be very busy, he won't be using his time to focus on the most important things.

Now a pastor with a family and a congregation doesn't have a lot of time. My wolf inside me keeps on suggesting to me that spending time in daily prayer could be better used in more productive ways. But my flesh is hungry wolf trying to destroy me and needs to be regularly smacked down with God's Word. This is one of the reasons I have been talking about daily prayer at church in our newsletter.

I put Matins in the newsletter every week to force myself to pray. If I wasn't afraid of one of you showing up at 6:30, I'd be awfully tempted to skip. So I do this more for myself in my daily watch with Jesus than for any other reason. Good habits come with difficulty (like praying daily) and bad habits come easily (not praying), so a wise shepherd, who knows how foolish he is, knows how helpful is it to have others watching out for him.

This is why weekly time with other Christians in Bible Study is so helpful for me. Pastors need to be sounding out their theology with their members a lot. So come and do that today. Some of you never or rarely come to study with us after the service. Whatever your reasons are, please considering coming to help me, your shepherd. You will have questions and insights that I don't have. Please stop keeping your faith to yourself; share it with me and your fellow sheep.

Pastors also need to be sounding out their theology with other pastors; we need to be asking each other questions and digging into God's Word a lot. I go to several pastors' gatherings throughout the year. The purpose of my continuing education is to sharpen my thoughts about Jesus' words with others who are wrestling with many of the same thoughts. Just as doctors, engineers, and teachers seek the wisest approaches to their work, and wisely keep honing their knowledge, pastors need to examine our doctrine and practice, too.

Secondly, pastors should keep watch over their congregations, like a shepherd watching out for his flock. Paul warned his fellow pastors:

[S]avage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. (Acts 20:29-30)

Paul was correct and what he predicted sadly came true. False pastors came and lied about Jesus. Perhaps worse was that some believers became convinced that they knew Jesus better than Jesus knew Himself. Loud voices in the church of Paul's day insisted that faith in Christ alone was not enough to be saved. This directed contradicted Christ who said

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6)

Many were fooled and led away by these falsehoods, like sheep lead away by false shepherds. They added themselves into their own salvation and lived on this new motto: "I and Jesus together are the way and the truth and the life." Their inner wolf was trying to eat them alive.

Paul was speaking about external threats to the Church and dangers that come from within the Church. We live in similar times—we face wolves from without and within the church. And these threats often ooze into one big lie.

The lie that shepherds and their flocks must confront together is the claim that everyone has the right to be happy. And the wolves within the Church insist that Jesus agrees. They claim that Jesus just wants everybody to be happy. It's hard to argue against Jesus and happiness.

But shepherds who treat their flocks as their own will argue against this lie. They will recognize this lie is the first lie, the original lie, told not by a wolf, but by the snake in the Garden of Eden. The snake lied to Adam and Eve that eating the forbidden fruit would make them happy because they would be like God. I always am amazed at how quick they were to eat the fruit, until I look at myself and see the same speed to sin in me. Behind my lamb-y eyes is a wolf staring back at me. As Paul said in Romans:

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24)

Who will save me? Jesus' answer to Paul's lament is the answer that is for Paul and for your pastor and for you.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. . . . I am the good shepherd; I know My sheep and My sheep know Me—just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. . . . The reason My Father loves Me is that I lay down My life—only to take it up again. (John 10:11, 14, 15, 17)

Our Good Shepherd sacrificed Himself to the wolf, to Death, and by dying He decisively defeated the wolf. The proof of His victory on the cross is that empty tomb. He is our Good Shepherd because He is risen. He's risen indeed!

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. Alleluia! Amen!