1 Peter 5:1-7 - Humble Leading and Following

1 Peter 5:1-7

Shepherd the Flock

1 The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed: 2 Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; 3 nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; 4 and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.

Submit to God, Resist the Devil

5 Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for

“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”

6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, 7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

We are called in the church of Jesus Christ to humble leading and following.  Elders are to shepherd the flock of God’s sheep with the challenge and charge to oversee the spiritual health of all the individual sheep and the corporate whole of the local flock willingly and eagerly.  Willingly means we shepherd because they need to be fed, cared for by exhorting to do right and warned against doing wrong (Colossians 1:28-29) since we truly care for their state and not just because we have to since we have been appointed to that role.  Eagerly because their gain is what matters, not our own at their expense with the trumpeting of our own image of selfish importance or other gain earned with dishonesty and manipulation.  We are not to lord over the sheep but in all humility living the life ourselves as exemplars we hope God to work in them in their learning and sanctification.  Knowing the shepherd must care for those entrusted to him, we look to our own example to follow (1 Corinthians 11:1) who is the Chief Shepherd of us all that we might be crowned as good and faithful servants at His coming.  As for those of the flock, we are to submit to the God-given authority entrusted to the elders as we all submit to one another in humility as we brush aside the hindrance of pride and self-serving entitlement so prevalent in the world today.  We know from all of scripture how God stands against those who live in pride but how He gives the unmerited goodness of His grace to the humble who serve Him and one another as if to Him.  Knowing all these teachings here, we are called to humble ourselves under God’s omnipotent hand and wait for Him to call us to the higher place (Proverbs 25:7, Luke 14:10-11) in that grace instead of pursuing it ourselves.  He promised to do so and therefore we can safely and securely set our worries and cares on Him and His grace of provision and providence.  He truly cares for each one of His sheep as our merciful and loving Chief Shepherd so we who are called as under-shepherds must imitate Him in this watchcare for the flock of God in Jesus Christ our Lord by the enabling power and wisdom of the indwelling Holy Spirit.  We need therefore to humbly follow as well as lead by submitting to one another and to Him above all others.