Date: November 30, 2025
Lord’s Day: 48
Series: Call for Duty
Title: What Is it?
Text: Acts 20:26-32; Acts 20:26-32
The Reading of God's Word
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. XX
5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. XX
9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. XX
13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. XX
17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” XX
Acts 20:26-32 26 Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all,27 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. 28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God,[e] which he obtained with his own blood.[f] XX
29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. XX
32 And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
This is the reading of God’s word XX
We come to you at this moment in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, the righteous with thankful hearts that you have brought us together once again. We are grateful for the time we have had this past week with family and friends.
Lord bless us in our study today and over the next few weeks as we look into the Elders, pastors and under shepherds. Open our hearts to receive Your Scripture and please bless and guide me that I may teach properly.
In Jesus’ Name Amen.
So often is the case that we read Scripture, especially for those who have been in the faith for a long time (most of their life or grew up going to church), and the text does not grab us completely. What I mean is, we read something and do not grasp the complete depth of what was stated.
Allow me to give an example: 1 Samuel 17, I want you to think of David. In this text, he was a boy. He was not an adult.
You have this army that represented the Philistine people. They were on one elevated, hill named Socoh; then there was a valley of Elah and on the other side of that valley was another hill. On that opposing hill was Israel.
Apparently, because I know how men area, there was some jawing going on back and forth between the two hills. There was a challenge.
The Philistines said, rather than using both our armies to fight this out, we will choose one champion, and you choose a champion. They will face each other The winner of the battle between these two champions will determine the winner of this thing between us.
Then they bring out their champion, Goliath. He was a brute.
That is an amazingly huge man. Think of Shack (at Staples display) and add 3 feet. This was the champion for the Philistines.
Israel had nothing. The Philistines taunting them, day after day. What do you have for us? Israel had nothing.
They were worried. Fear began to grow in the camp. What are we going to do? We have no one to fight Goliath. Day after day the taunting and the fear. This went on for 40 days.
Then there was little boy David. He was a shepherd of sheep. His brothers were on the side of the hill looking at Goliath. David’s father had sent him with some food to give to the boys.
When David arrived he inquired what was going on and they brought him up to speed (no Walter Cronkite to bring everyone at home up to speed on what was going on in this war).
Without hesitation, David says, I will fight him. Can you imagine that?
THE REACTION!: Are you nuts little brother? What do you mean you will fight him? Why are you here, are there not sheep which need tending? Get back to your sheep. This is man’s business. This is serious business!
The king Saul heard David’s words. He had been worried. We are in quite the pickle and who is this, someone has stepped forward to fight Goliath? Bring him here.
It is the boy David. Fail. We can’t use this boy.
RESUME: David insists. Gives his resume. Here is David’s resume for why he should fight Goliath:
34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, 35 I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. XX
36 Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” 37 And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” 1 Samuel 17:34-37
I began this by saying, sometimes those of us who have been around Scripture, we read things and it does not jump off the page. Here I am saying, don’t go too fast. Stop there and consider what little boy David just said.
I use to watch my father’s sheep. There was a time when a lion or a bear would come around. When the lion took off with a sheep, I tracked him, gabbed him by the beared I whopped them. Do you hear that?
Think in your head Ricky. I am not making fun of Ricky. But I want to give you a visual. Think of me, slightly bigger than Ricky. What if I told you I fought a lion and a bear and I am here today to talk about it?
Do not read passed this too quickly. David did this while looking after sheep. A job that many, maybe even 100% of the people, if they were watching the sheep today they would, if there appeared a lion or a BEAR, They would run!
“Let’s see, it will take about 10 to 12 minutes for the lion to eat one sheep, that gives me a good head start. Then off we would go running. Get me out of here – “
No, not the shepherd. Not a good shepherd. A good shepherd looks out for the sheep even when bears and lions appear. They fight and protect them as if they were like family.
This is an amazing Scripture. “David, how do you think you are going to beat this giant?” David says, “Well, God did this thing for me here with some lions and bears, I have faith that He will come through over here in this situation.”
You know what the tools of shepherd are? It is possible, even likely, David used a sling shot in his duty as a shepherd. But in this case, no. He wrestled this lion. The tools at his disposal are the shepherds staff and himself.
Jesus called himself, in our John 10 passage, the “Good Shepherd.” He is a shepherd who comes in by the door and the sheep hear His voice and the recognize Him. His sheep follow him. He leads them out to a rich pasture.
Not the thief. Not the stranger. These come to steal, kill and destroy.
The Good Shepherd is not like the hired hand: the person hired to watch the sheep. They do not love the sheep as much as the shepherd.
The hired hand, when they see danger they run. The hired hand, when they see the lion and the bear, and when the lion takes the sheep away, he does not go after the lion and wrestle him. They do not care for the sheep the way the shepherd does.
The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Jesus here is foretelling what He is going to do for those whom the Father calls: He is going to lay down His life for the sheep.
For this Jesus reason is called by Peter (I Pt 5:4) the Chief Shepherd. Because we are His church, God’s called out ones from the world, “The Lord is our Shepherd.” (Ps 23:1)
We begin a short topical series today titled, “Call for Duty.” It is about the shepherds of God’s church. Before we get into this series I want to share the genesis of this series. It came about from several conversations that Fred Circle and I had over mid to late summer.
As stated earlier, this is a topical series. Most of my teaching is textual/exposition of Scripture but there are occasions where we will look at a topic. This is one of those occasions and we will be looking at the shepherds of Christ’s church.
Like David, one of the jobs of a shepherd is to look out for wolves, as Paul puts it in Acts 20:28. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you.
There are wolves that desire to attack the body of believers and one of the jobs of the shepherds is to, like David, be on the look out for these moments and protect the sheep.
I have this shepherd’s staff here and there is a reason that I bought this. I want it to be the visual of a shepherd’s job in Biblical times, and really even today.
Sheep are not the smartest animals. I do not know this from experience. I have not raised any sheep. Fainting goats and sheep are great. I can’t get enough videos of fainting goats.
But I have been told that sheep can fall into a ditch, feet in the air and they are stuck. They do not know or are unable to get themselves out of that position.
This is where a shepherd will come up beside them and give them a gentle nudge. Just enough to startle them and they wiggle and get back on their feet and off they go.
In that capacity the staff is gentle. When the sheep begins to wander off from the others and is in danger of being alone and open to attack, the shepherd will use the hook to gently bring them back into the group. This is a gentle.
These are examples of this hook being used gently. It is not used to beat the sheep.
In the life of Jesus, it is so very easy to see this imagery of the shepherd’s rod. This rod has at least two purposes:
Jesus did this. There were times that, like David when a lion threatened, Jesus was quick to defend from danger.
John 8:44 with the Pharisees so confident in their own righteousness, Jesus says, “You are of your father the devil and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has nothing to do with the truth because there is no truth in him.”
There are not many pastors in America today that would stand that strong against the enemy as Jesus did. There are not many who stand up to the wolves (PAUL’S WORDS IN ACTS 20) and confront it and beat it with the staff because (in the words of the late Vodie Baucham) “Thou shalt be nice is the 11th commandment.”
But Jesus often used harsh confronting words when they were needed to address enemies of truth.
At the same time that Jesus, the Chief Shepherd, gently disciplines those whom were his own:
After Jesus had fed the 5,000 the disciples went on ahead of him in a boat to the other side of the lake. Jesus went up on a mountain and prayed . Then when evening came he was alone and it says, the boat was a long way from the land.
It is here that fierce waves had began beating on the boat. They were in fear as the waves were really bad and then they see Jesus walking to them. It is here that Peter asks Jesus, “Command me to come to you,” and Jesus does.
You know this story. Peter gets out and begins walking on water briefly. He takes his eyes off the faithfulness of Jesus and places them on the unsettling waves around him and he begins to sink. The Look of Faith became the Look of Fear.
Jesus reaches in a gets him. Does he yell at him? It may appear that way. In English it reads, “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?” That is one reading we can read into that an angry tone.
But in actuality, the original text gives a clue (“oligopistos”). Oh, you of little faith, why do you doubt? It is a gentle rebuke. It is a soft reminder. It is a loving word to Peter. It is not the harsh beating given to the Pharisees. It was a gentle nudge.
As we spend time together in this series, you will see that these people I am calling shepherds are in actuality under shepherds who labor for the Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ. In the next couple weeks you will see how this plays out in Scripture.
We will be looking at several texts: Acts 20, 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter.
We will be looking at the terms: Bishop, Elder, Pastor, Shepherd, Overseer and see what these terms mean? All used in New Testament Scripture for the Church. Are they different? Are they the same?
We will be working with this definition and by the time we get to the last message in this short series, this will make perfect sense. We will be working from this definition:
Elders are Men of God, mature in The Faith who are servant leaders within a congregation for the purpose of leading through teaching, protecting, and guarding the health of the church.
Scripture reveals a way in which our Lord has provided leadership and protection for the church.
Our reading in Acts 20 comes as Paul is getting ready to leave Ephesus. He has been there three years establishing this church. He had been daily teaching and providing for those people and it was time for him to leave.
The section we read were his words to the plurality of elders there.
Pay careful attention to this body. There will be trouble. Protect the sheep.
I think of David. I think of the courage that it took for David to do what he did for the sheep that were under attack by bears and lions. This is the passion of the pastor and elder of the church.
Would you not with great joy and confidence place trust behind a group who were looking after you like David looked after his sheep? That they would have courage to gently lead and passionately protect!
I am greatly looking forward to our time in this study and the implications that it means for Donnels Creek.
