Text: Ezekiel 34:1–10
Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé
The Duties of Church Officers
Last week, we began our four-part look at the doctrine of local church membership, answering the foundational question, “What is local church membership?”
We said that local church membership is the pronouncement, “This person is a member of Christ’s Kingdom,” by a local assembly of God’s people. It is the formal, acknowledged relationship of a member of the church universal to the church local.
In other words, when we’re saying that you are a member of a local church, we’re saying that the leadership of that church affirms that you are a Christian—and that a particular local assembly is where you will be a Christian.
Continuing here in Part II of the series, we will ask one of the next logical questions you should ask once you hear that definition, namely: What are the duties of the leaders of the church to the congregation?
If in joining a local assembly you are saying, “This is where I will be a Christian,” then the issue of who is leading that local assembly and what they are charged with in the exercise of their office is a big deal. Let me set the stage for just how big of a deal it is by reading with you from Ezekiel 34, where the Lord God rebukes the leadership of Israel, who had utterly failed in the discharge of their duties. This is the Word of the Living God:
“The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.
“Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.”
-Ezekiel 34:1–10
Thus ends the reading of God’s Word; may he write it on our hearts by faith. Let’s pray.
As we see in Ezekiel 34, the shepherding leadership of the people of God is a serious thing. The shepherds of Israel utterly failed in their leadership, and so the people they led were hurt, starved, abused, and became prey to wolves.
And so the Lord Jesus came down, the Good Shepherd, to save his people, not only from their sins, but from their wicked shepherds. He saved them from the wicked shepherds by becoming a victim of those wicked shepherds on the cross. But through that cross, he paid for our sin, rose in victory, and rules the cosmos from his glorious throne.
And one of the things he is doing from his throne is raising up shepherds after his own heart to serve in his pastures and amongst his flocks as undershepherds. It is essential as we take up the doctrine of the local church and membership in it, that we ensure that we can see the difference between those undershepherds of Christ and any pretenders who may attempt to lead you astray.
So this morning, we will take up the duties of church leaders to the church. Of course, it won’t be possible to exhaust this subject in one sermon, but what I’d like to do is to highlight five of the most important duties of the leaders of the church to the congregation.
And what I mean by each of these things is that you are right to expect these things of your leaders. You are not being picky or divisive or rude or legalistic to insist on these things in anyone sitting in the offices of the church. So number one...
Be & Remain Qualified
An elder must be and remain qualified for his office, per the requirements given to us in the Scriptures. I’ll read one such section for us, from 1 Timothy 3:1–7,
“The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.”
-1 Timothy 3:1–7
It is clear from this passage that the elders are to be men of Christlike character, displaying the fruits of the Spirit of God throughout their lives—and emphatically not only in the church, but also in their governance of themselves and their families.
In fact, we could say that all of these qualifications with the exception of ability to teach really boil down to this: A man must rule himself well and his house well before he can be trusted to rule the church well. The elders are to be models of self-government and family government in order to be models of Christ.
This is why Paul is able to tell the Corinthian assembly to “Be imitators of me, just as I imitate Christ.” You should expect your elders to be and remain biblically qualified, so that you could say, “Yes, I will order my home, my vocation, my childrearing, my finances, my doctrine, etc. as they order them.”
Shepherd the Sheep
Number two, elders must shepherd the flock of God in their local congregation, caring for the people under their charge. Peter tells us as much in his first epistle,
“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.”
-1 Peter 5:1–4
The very word “pastor” is a farming word—the leadership of the church is a pastoral thing. It is therefore less like a king and a kingdom than it is like a shepherd and a flock. So the leadership of the church includes knowing the state of the people—their spiritual health, their temptations, their snares, their weaknesses, their vulnerabilities, their hurts, their needs—and working to see those needs met.
This obviously precludes narcissistic pastors, building churches as little towers of Babel to their own glory. He must be accessible, approachable, and compassionate to the flock. The pastorate is attractive to narcissists, because it seems to a narcissistic man like a good place to be adored and worshiped from on high. Such a man is disqualified. A question you need to ask as you join a church would be, “Are the leaders accessible? Do they know their sheep? Are they down in the weeds of life with the people?”
This precludes as well pastors from being mere professors of theology; they must be shepherds of sheep. Doctrine and teaching is essential, but not sufficient.
Now listen, because I know the little painting that comes to mind as you hear what I’m saying right now, the one of the long-haired Jesus with the little lamb over his shoulders. Even without counting the fact that the painting is a violation of the Second Commandment, it is problematic. Yes, shepherding requires tenderness like that, but don’t miss this: Shepherding requires courage as well—for two reasons.
First, because the duty of a shepherd is to bring the sheep to green pastures. And what often happens is that a shepherd will look out over the flocks and see that many of the sheep are trying to be sustained in arid deserts, trying to feed on the philosophies of the world, trying to be sustained by worshiping and harboring idols.
And so that shepherd, if he is to be a good shepherd like the Lord Jesus is the Good Shepherd, must spur that sheep to leave his beloved desert and go elsewhere—to feed rather on the Word of God and the truth therein, green pastures.
But here’s the thing: People don’t like being told that they’re idol worshipers, deluded by the gods of this world. Right? I mean, who likes that? We’re all proud people, and so we all resist correction to some degree. So a pastor must be courageous, because he must be willing to be disliked, rejected, and disregarded by those whom he is trying to love, serve, instruct, and help.
And second, he must be courageous if he is to be a shepherd because part of caring for sheep is fighting wolves. Gentleness to wolves is violence to sheep. When heretics or false teachers or non-Christians pretending to be Christians come into the flock—as Paul said they would in Acts 20 to a group of pastors, even from their own ranks—good shepherds can’t say, “But, but, but I don’t like confrontation. It’s yucky. I’m really for unity and peace and love.”
Yes—and unity and peace and love requires the sword of division to separate the true from the false and the sheep from the wolf. Cowards go to hell, and so pastors cannot be cowards—or at least, that’s what Revelation 21 says.
Shepherds can’t love to fight—they’re not to be quarrelsome—but they must be ready to fight. A good shepherd is not effeminate. He has to have the whole range of speech in his arsenal: Meekness, boldness, gentleness, anger, love, joy, exhortation, rebuke, correction, encouragement.
So good pastors should occasionally sound like Moses did in Deuteronomy 31:6, as he urged the people of Israel to go into the land of promise and kill giants and conquer nations:
“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”
-Deuteronomy 31:6
Good shepherds know how to tell the sheep that, because the LORD is their God, they are dangerous in all the right ways. Elders must be shepherds. Now, this duty is impossible to rightly discharge unless an elder also discharges the third duty we’ll take up this morning:
Minister the Word & Prayer
An elder must discharge the ministries of the Word and of prayer.
The Ministry of the Word
Listen to Paul’s charge to a pastor he mentored in 2 Timothy 4:1–4,
“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”
-2 Timothy 4:1–4
In a section of one of his works called The True Nature of a Gospel Church and Its Government John Owen wrote, “The first and principal duty of a pastor is to feed the flock by diligent preaching of the word.” And then in a sermon on the duty of a pastor, he added, “He is no pastor who doth not feed his flock.”
The flock is always in danger of being deluded by plausible arguments and human philosophies. The doctrine of demons is constantly being recycled and repackaged throughout history and peddled to unwary hearers.
The solution is to preach and teach the whole counsel of the Word of God—both God’s gospel and God’s law, meaning both the new creational ministry of the Spirit of God through the shed blood and resurrection glory of the Son of God, as well as the life of faith, the life of obedience to the Son.
Pastors cannot neglect either, but must preach both the saving grace of God in Christ and the transforming grace of God in Christ as it lives in the people of God. If a pastor feeds the sheep a steady diet of topical nonsense, good advice, and life hacks, he should quit and you should leave.
This is why we don’t typically start with our own ideas of what people need and then find some verses to support it. No, we want the text to lead, speak, direct, and change us. It is the Word of God that is endowed with the power to save and change and help and minister, not our own voices. Additionally, the ministry of the Word is inextricably linked with the ministry of prayer.
The Ministry of Prayer
In Acts 6, the leaders of the church established the office of deacons to serve the body in business, administration, and serving—why? Because they were being so consumed in the day to day care of needs in the local body of believers that they were unable to devote themselves adequately to two things: Prayer and the ministry of the Word.
Elders must not only teach the Word, they must also pray for the flock. You should expect the elders to pray for you. Prayer preaches that a pastor doesn’t trust in his own sophistry or fine speeches to change and help the people. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor do so in vain.
Number four, the leaders of the church must oversee the administration of the ordinances.
Administer the Ordinances
One way the Reformers sought to clarify how we ought to think of the one true, apostolic church on earth even in the context of many local churches was to try to boil down what must be present for a church to be a true church.
One of those, which we just talked about, is the ministry of the Word, God’s gospel and God’s law. Another of those marks—and they identified three—is the administration of the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
The leaders need to make sure that the members of the church are in obedience to the command of the Lord Jesus in the Great Commission of Matthew 28 to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They also ensure that the people are properly observing the Lord’s Supper as they gather.
This might sound kind of like a “duh” sort of thing, but it’s very important that we get this, because there is lots of wrong thinking about these things in the air right now.
For example, many churches that shut down during the current government-issued crisis continued practicing what they called “The Lord’s Supper” by encouraging people to “just grab something that’s close to bread and whatever juice or fruit drink you have on hand, and we’ll be doing digital communion.”
No. Just no. Paul is plain in 1 Corinthians 11, that this meal is not a private meal, but a communal meal. It is to be observed when you gather.
The elders are to ensure that the biblical parameters for both baptism and the Lord’s Table are being observed. Lastly, one of the duties of the leaders of the local church is actually the last mark of a true church that the Reformers identified: Practicing church discipline.
Govern Church Discipline
The leaders of the church must ensure that proper church discipline is taking place. Let’s briefly define what church discipline is so that we are on the same page. Church discipline is the correction of professed Christians within the local church who are caught in sin, with the constant aim of restoring the one caught in sin to full fellowship with Christ and the body.
Church discipline begins with the normal, every day correction of brothers and sisters in Christ to one another. Most church discipline happens under the surface and in a very organic way. Whenever a Christian helps another Christian see and repent of sin and move towards maturity in Christ, church discipline is successfully taking place.
Paul says in Galatians 6 that we are to do this in a spirit of gentleness, keeping watch on ourselves as well. We don’t want to be what Jesus warned against, the man with a plank lodged in his eye attempting to do eye surgery on his brother.
Now, as Jesus teaches us in Matthew 18, if a brother won’t repent of sin after you have approached them and shown them that what they are doing is sin according to Scripture, the next stage of discipline is to bring along other brothers or sisters, in order that we might meet the requirement of the law of God that all charges be established on the basis of two or three witnesses. If they still refuse, then we bring them to the elders and finally to the church.
If that goal of restorative, repentance-bringing correction is hindered by the refusal to repent, the church is required to remove the unrepentant sinner from their midst. This drastic step should only be carried out for serious an unrepentant sin, and only after clear warning, pleading, and all other measures are exhausted.
The leadership of the church must do this, must ensure that biblical discipline is taking place, lest the warning of Galatians 5 become a reality, and the leaven of false teaching or unrepentant sin spread throughout the whole body.
Church discipline is tragically avoided and neglected in the church today—and to our shame and our ill health. Much of the issue is cowardly pastors who fear the sheep rather than the Lord, who worry about their paycheck and not the glory of God in his Church. Shameful.
We are therefore in a place where the church is like orphan children with no parent who will love them enough to correct them. The church is tossed to and fro by winds of doctrine and whims of the flesh. The church is full of the disease of sin, uncorrected and festering like gangrene in a wound.
This hinders our witness, our joy, our legacy, and ultimately robs the church of her supernatural power.
The leaders of the church therefore must practice biblical discipline. That doesn’t mean that wisdom is not required in knowing how to carry these things out, or that everyone will always agree, or that it will be easy. But it must be done for the glory of the Lord Jesus.
A Potent Thing
Let me close with this:
We’ve all seen families devastated by foolish fathers. Whole generations have been ruined and damaged by absent, passive, abusive, evil, feckless, faithless men. We’ve seen whole cities burning because of such men.
And we’ve all seen families flourishing under the wise leadership of a good father. We’ve seen fathers who loved and served and provided for their children and for their wives and therefore established a rich and fruitful legacy.
We all know that leadership is a potent thing, whether for good or ill. May we be a church who raises up and establishes righteous leadership in this body from the pulpit on down, for the glory of Christ and the joy of his people.