shepherding the shepherd
from PreachingToday.com
With-Under-Work
There’s that Greek word, disguised in ordinary English clothes, “as you help us by your prayers.” Used only here in the New Testament, it’s a compound of with-under-work. Laborers together under a burden. One—two—three—LIFT! The very reason we ask others to pray for us.
Transfer Agents
For our flock to persevere in the faith, they need to know God’s comfort, and that’s where we come in. We are their lead comforters, representing to them the rich varieties of God’s consolations by our teaching and example… But here’s the pastoral bonus: God compounds the comfort he gives us by extending it to those we shepherd.
Sharing in the Sufferings of Christ
Any kind of suffering we face—illness, defiant kids, financial woes—now have a discipleship function. They school us in trust and obedience. Even Jesus “learned obedience from what he suffered” (Heb. 5:8). But hardships must be met with the difficult prayer, “Not my will, but yours be done.”
Comforters
There’s nothing quite like personal suffering to round out a pastor’s ministry. And God sees to it that none of us go on for long without gaining this advantage. It isn’t suffering itself that is so valuable, but that our hardships position us to experience the comfort of God.
‘With Prayer and Fasting’
Our churches face more danger than we and our fellow elders probably realize. In recent years, our churches have started security teams who quietly keep watch at the doors, in the halls, and around the parking lot. Perhaps elders should be given walkie-talkies some Sundays and take a turn to help us imagine our spiritual vulnerability. We would pray more urgently for one another and our flock.
‘To Continue in the Faith’
To help Christian pilgrims in their progress toward the Celestial City God gives them shepherds, which is where we come in. It is sweet work indeed when we can lead someone up the hill to the Cross and watch with them as the burden of their sin rolls away. But most of our shepherding helps the pilgrim after that, with what Bunyan called in the subtitle of his book, “His Dangerous Journey.”