animal I'm talking about tonight.
Sheep, the animals are sheep.
Now stop me if you heard this one.
I'm not trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
You missed the first pun and you got,
stop me if you heard this one.
Yeah, this message is for you.
These jokes are bad.
For you nerds out there,
if there were sheep in the Star Wars universe,
where would they be from?
Dagobah.
That's for free.
Anyway, okay, so this is the audience participation portion.
I'm gonna come down.
I'm gonna come down to you, my Bible.
In the Old Testament,
where do you hear about sheep?
Give it to me.
Raise your hands, I'll call on you.
Psalm 23, right?
Think about sheep with Psalm 23, where else?
Where do you hear about sheep in the Old Testament?
Miss Kathy.
Isaiah 53.
All we like sheep have gone astray.
We turn anyone to his own way
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of his soul.
It also says he was led like a lamb
that's done before his shears and he opened out his mouth.
Yeah, that's it.
Georgia Bate.
David's a shepherd who agrees there's sheep
connected with David for sure.
Yeah, what else?
I thought about a bunch of them.
Now you're getting into stuff that...
Yeah, okay, took the flocks to Dothan.
That's like a Jeopardy one, man.
Like you're gonna win.
Yeah, that's good.
What else?
Exodus the lamb.
The Passover lamb.
You can just remember the Passover lamb, right?
So you have the Passover lamb that's there.
Early, earlier on.
Okay, who else?
Oh, yes, Ella.
Psalm 103, does that talk about lambs?
Cool.
Very specific.
That's good.
Huh?
Abel.
Cain was a tiller of the ground.
Abel was a keeper of the sheep.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Huh?
Did I say something wrong?
I probably did.
Yeah, you think of any more?
What about like the sacrifice, the day of atonement?
Were that, that was all part of the things that they would do?
You guys, what about Isaac being...
Hey, I see the fire.
I see the wood.
Where's the lamb?
And then he was, there was a substitute.
A ram caught in the thicket.
What'd you think, Dave, you got another one?
Yeah, the Bible talks about the fat.
Yeah, it's better to obey than to sacrifice.
The baby is better than the fat of rams.
That's awesome.
You guys got a bunch of the ones that I thought about.
What about in the New Testament?
Where does the Bible talk about lambs in the New Testament?
Dave Fawcett.
He gets a sticker on his chart tonight.
Amen.
John the Baptist sees Jesus coming and says,
behold, the Lamb of God,
which takeeth away the sin of the world.
Where else?
What'd you say?
My sheep hear my voice and they know me
and they follow after me.
Yeah, very good.
John chapter 10.
I'm the great shepherd Jesus called himself.
You guys are right on it.
I'm the good shepherd.
The shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.
I want to show you another place
and it kind of connects with what we're talking about tonight.
I had you go to 1 Peter 5, but before I do that,
I want you guys to go to John chapter number 21.
John chapter number 21.
This passage will be on the screen,
but you remember that Peter had this amazing relationship with Jesus,
and so many of the disciples.
And after Jesus rose from the dead,
Peter said at some point, he said, I'm gonna go fishing.
And he goes back, he takes some of those other guys with them
and they go fish.
And much like when Jesus called them,
they fished all night and how much did they catch?
Show me the universal symbol for how much they caught.
Very good.
They caught nothing, much like what happens when I go fishing.
I catch nothing, right?
That's why God made podcasts for fishing.
So I can at least get something out of it
because I'm not getting fish out of it, I can tell you.
Okay, so he fishes all night, they don't get anything,
and what happens, then Jesus is on the shore.
Children, have you any meat?
In fact, let's just read it.
Simon Peter, saith unto them, I go fishing,
they say unto him, we also go with thee,
they went forth, entered into a ship immediately,
and that night they caught nothing.
But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore,
but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.
Then Jesus saith unto them, children, have you any meat?
They answered him, no.
And he said unto them, cast the net on the right side
of the ship, and ye shall find,
this is almost exactly what happened
when he called Peter the first time,
they cast there for, and now they were not able to draw it
for the multitude of fishes.
Who got to fish like that?
If I'm fishing, I want to catch a bunch,
and then I want to fry them almost immediately,
and eat them right after that, right?
Nobody else?
You're not into that?
We're going to Captain D's afterwards, let's do it, okay.
Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved, who's that?
John.
Sayeth unto Peter, it's the Lord.
Now when Simon Peter heard that it was him,
now it was the Lord, he girded his fishers coat unto him
for he was naked, and he cast himself into the sea.
He's not even waiting to bring the fish back.
He jumps in and swims to Jesus.
Go down to verse number 12.
Well, verse 11, Simon Peter went up and drew the net
to the land of the great fishes in 150 and three,
and for all there were so many, it was not the net broken.
Jesus sent unto them, come and dine.
He had already caught fish, which is hilarious.
Don't you think that's funny?
He's better than them at fishing.
That's all they're good at, and he's better anyway.
Verse 12, come and dine, and none of the disciples
was asked him, who art thou, Lord,
knowing that it was the Lord?
Who art thou, knowing as the Lord?
Jesus then cometh and taketh the bread
and giveth them and the fish like white.
This is now the third time that Jesus showed himself
to his disciples after he was risen from the dead.
So when they had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter,
Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, love is thou me more than these.
He said unto him, yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.
He said unto him, feed my, what does he call it?
Lambs, feed my lambs.
He said to him again the second time,
Simon, son of Jonas, love is thou me.
He said unto him, yea, Lord, you know that I love you.
He said unto him, feed my sheep.
You guys got it.
He said unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas,
love is thou me.
Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time,
love is thou me.
And he said unto him, Lord, knowest all things,
thou knowest that I love thee.
Jesus said unto him, feed my sheep.
Peter had said to the Lord,
I'm gonna go to death for you.
And Jesus had told him, you're gonna deny me three times.
And then Peter did do that.
Peter did deny Jesus three times.
I believe with all my heart.
You read between the lines, but I believe with all my heart
that this was Jesus restoring Peter.
This is Jesus giving Peter another chance.
He asked him three times, do you love me?
Do you love me?
And the response that Peter had every time to do you love me
is feed my sheep.
And then he said this, verily, verily, I say to thee,
when thou was young, thou girdest thyself
and walk with thy woodess, but when thou shall be old,
thou shalt stretch forth thy hands,
and another shall gird thee and carry thee
whether thou wouldest not.
This fate, he signifying by what death he should glorify God.
And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him,
what did he say?
The same thing he said the last time he got him
a boat full of fish.
From that time until this time, God had prepared,
Jesus had prepared Peter to do what God had called Peter to do.
That is to give his life for Jesus
in service to Jesus by doing something very specific.
And that is feed my sheep.
That same Peter wrote a letter.
We call it first Peter, there's also second Peter.
And in that letter, with that language about feeding my sheep
with Peter having that from the Lord
and knowing that Jesus called himself the great shepherd
and having all that knowledge of the Old Testament
and what it means to be a sheep.
He said this, and I think he's specifically talking about,
as we're gonna read, the church.
The church is a flock, the church as the sheep of Jesus.
And this is what he says.
This is getting into the fifth chapter of first Peter,
here's what it says, I'm gonna read it right here.
Instead of reading on my screen,
I wanna read it from my Bible.
First Peter chapter five, verses one,
we're gonna cover more than to verse seven,
but I'm gonna read now to verse seven.
He says this, the elders which are among you,
I exhort, who am also an elder and a witness
of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker
of the glory that shall be revealed.
Feed the flock of God, which is among you,
taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint,
but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind,
neither as being lords over God's heritage,
but being examples to the flock and samples to the flock.
And when the chief shepherd shall appear,
you shall receive a crown of glory that fatheth not away.
Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder,
ye all of you be subject one to another
and be clothed with humility for God resisted the proud
and give grace to the humble, give us grace to the humble.
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God
that he may exalt you in due time,
casting all your care upon him for he careeth for you.
What a beautiful passage, isn't that beautiful?
Let's pray now, God, I love you so much.
I pray that you bless the reading of your word.
I pray that you'd help me to help it make sense
and that we as a body of believers, a church, a flock,
that we would be even more ready to be unified,
to be kind, to be humble,
to all work together towards the same end.
That is to be the kind of church that you'd like us to be,
the kind of church that you want us to be,
on mission for you here in Finley,
for as long as we ought to be.
And to glorify and honor you,
even so quickly come Jesus in Jesus' name, amen.
In this particular text,
I believe Peter is talking about the local church.
And he's talking about,
he's writing to a bunch of churches actually,
but he's talking to the pastors and others
in that local church.
And he's using this illustration of the flock.
And I think it says something to us,
and I think this is just an extended illustration
of how we ought to be as a church
and how we ought to function together.
We can understand God's plan for believers
to live life in the assembly.
You know, the word I call, I see a means assembly.
That's the word we call, say church.
It's all talking about the same thing.
We live life, doing life together.
I'm glad to see you guys, I see you more
than I see my own family.
That's awesome.
We become a church family in that way.
And we live life in the assembly
by understanding four roles associated with the church.
Here's the first role that we see.
The first role we see is the shepherds.
The shepherds, we see that in verses one to three.
He says, the elders which are among you I exhort,
whom also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ
and particularly the glory that shall be revealed,
feed the flock of God, which is among you,
taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint,
but willingly, not a filthy leoker, but of a ready mind,
neither is being lords over God's heritage,
but being examples to the flock.
Now in this particular passage, you see three terms
that speak to the shepherds and what they're supposed to be
and what they're supposed to do.
The first term that you're gonna see,
and I think there are three terms
that are used interchangeably throughout the scriptures
and they're all showing up in this one passage
here in 1 Peter that all are referring to one office
and that's the office of the pastor.
You see the word elder, the word elder is the word
presbuteras, presbuteras.
It's where certain denomination got the name presbyterian.
It's the same idea, presbuteras, okay?
And it means elder, it means mature one.
It speaks to a person's lack of maturity,
meaning that they don't lack maturity,
that they are mature in the Lord.
That doesn't necessarily mean that they're old, okay?
You can be mature without being old.
You can be old and not be mature.
Anybody know people like that, right?
Being some, and not always bad.
Do we want to see people of all ages getting saved?
We absolutely do.
Hey, I was thrilled today to find out
that Pastor Corey got to lead a young lady
to the Christ today after church.
Isn't that awesome?
And she understood what it meant to be a sinner
and what it meant for Jesus to die for her sins
and she called in the name of the Lord to save her.
I'm pumped about that.
And so the idea here though is elder being presbuteras.
Then there's another word that says feed.
That word is the word poimino, it's in Greek,
but it's the idea of feed.
It's really the verb form of the word pastor.
So the word poimino is, I'm messing up tonight,
is the word pastor, poimon.
That's the word pastor.
It's shepherd, the idea of shepherding.
Have you ever heard of somebody calling a,
you can even look at this particular picture up here,
a painting that is a hillside with flocks and trees.
They call that a pastoral scene.
Have you guys ever heard somebody use that way?
It comes from this same kind of idea
of the word history here.
So the idea of feeding the flock is the idea
of shepherding the flock, providing for the flock.
So you have elders, then you have literally
the verb form of the word pastor.
We even use the English way that way too.
Sometimes the pastor pastors, he shepherds,
he leads, he cares.
Are you with me?
That's what it, hey, what are you just doing?
My pastoring duty.
So that's what that idea is.
Then you see this other term where it says,
he says in verse four, I'm sorry, verse two,
feed the flock of God which is among you,
taking the oversight thereof.
That word oversight is episcopio.
It's where we get this word episcopos,
there's some churches called the Episcopal church.
It comes from this Greek word
and it's literally translated in the noun form of it
as bishop, it's the word bishop.
So literally a way you could say this particular passage is,
hey elders, I want you to pastor the flock,
bishops them.
That's basically what he's saying.
Three terms, all talking about the same office.
It's talking about these undershepherds.
So what is the idea?
What does the elder, what does the pastor,
what does the bishop, all three terms for the same office?
What is his job to do?
Feed the flock, feed the flock, pastor the flock,
give them food.
Now, what a literally a shepherd doesn't literally take the
grass and shove it in their faces, right?
He takes them where they can graze and teaches them to feed.
And that's what he's telling them to do here.
Hey, your job is to feed.
Where did Peter get that idea?
Hey Peter, do you love me?
Feed my sheep, right?
And what Peter's saying to these other elders is, hey,
what I want you to do, I'm an elder too, what do we do?
We feed the sheep.
Now, if the only time you eat on the word of God is here at
church, you're not gonna have enough, right?
And that's why we're doing things.
That's why I preach expositionally, taking verse by verse.
I wanna teach you how to do that even when I preach.
When we do discipleship groups in Sunday school class,
what are we doing?
We're going through the Bible verse by verse,
because this is the authority, right here.
This is what it is.
And this is where you eat from, right?
And this is what I, this is what I as a pastor,
Miles in the youth group, Cory in the family ministry,
all of our Sunday school teachers, what are we doing?
We're getting into the word of God.
This is where we eat from, amen?
And this is what we try to understand and try to put into
practice.
So he says, hey, I encourage you elders,
I encourage you who are leading the flock of God,
I want you to feed the flock of God,
and I want you to take the oversight.
Now, when you think about a shepherd,
what does it mean for a shepherd to oversee?
Think about that picture, right?
What is a shepherd oversee?
He is looking out over to the flock.
And he's looking, what does a shepherd wanna make sure the
sheep are able to do?
Eat, drink, be safe from people outside of the flock,
from thieves and from wolves, who's with me, right?
And sometimes from each other, from cranky sheep.
Anybody know any cranky sheep?
Do not point at them, okay?
No elbowing each other, right?
You know sheep bite each other sometimes?
It's not smart, not good, right?
And so, and sheep wander, that's what they do.
And so, yeah, he's feeding the flock of God,
he's overseeing the flock of God,
and then it says they protect him.
If you go to taking the oversight, what does he do?
So if you're taking notes on the lesson,
three, you know, you have the shepherds,
they feed the flock, they lead the flock, AB,
and then see they protect the flock.
He even tells them how to do it,
like what's the motivation and what's the flavor
by which the shepherd does this?
He says in verse two, not out of duty, but willingly.
Not just cause you have to, but because you're called to,
because you want to, and that what he says in verse two?
Are you with me?
And verse two, feed the flock of God
which is among you, taking the oversight thereof,
not by constraint, not out of just sheer guilt
cause somebody forced you to do it.
You've ever been served by somebody,
let's talk about restaurant or maybe in retail,
and you can tell they don't want to be there, right?
The pizza just doesn't taste as good
when the guy making the pizza doesn't care.
I want the Italian guy whose name is attached to the pizza,
making my pizza, and all God's people said,
I'm sure that if Captain D was down at Captain D's,
the fish would taste better, amen?
Who is Captain D?
Is he real?
Is that a real person?
I don't know.
If Wendy is making my frosty, it's gonna be way better.
I have no idea.
Okay, can you tell I'm hungry?
Okay.
You want people that want to do it.
You want people that care about what they're doing.
And so if you're gonna lead, you wanna do it willingly.
He says another thing, A, is not out of duty but willingly.
B, is not for mere money but readily.
He says it not for filthy, lucre but of a ready mind.
Like if your desire is to be a pastor
and you wanna do it cause you wanna make money,
that is a bad idea.
We know those guys and they give Jesus a bad name.
And then he says, not by Lordship, but by example,
in verse three he says, neither is being Lord's over God's
heritage but in samples to the flock.
Literally a shepherd in Jesus' day,
and he even says, my sheep hear my voice
and they know me and they follow me,
there's this leading aspect that says, hey, come go this way.
One person said, the shepherd leads the sheep,
he doesn't drive the sheep.
It's better to lead the sheep than drive the sheep.
Now I've had people in my ministry say,
when I'm holding them accountable for things,
not that I'm the only one that does that,
but in church discipline situations,
I've had people when I'm going, you can't do that.
You can be here but you can't cause division.
And they called that driving the sheep, okay?
And I'm saying, that's not driving the sheep.
It's, I can't tell if you're a sheep or a wolf right now.
That's kind of where you're at.
If you're creating that kind of division,
we go after the sheep, we help feed the sheep,
we protect the sheep, we shoot at the wolves.
And that's kind of how you have to deal with it.
David had a slingshot for a reason, amen.
And so that's the idea here, not by Lordship,
not like, but the idea here is not that like,
you're in this position to be served,
no, you're in the position to serve.
That's what Jesus also taught Peter, isn't it?
Jesus taught Peter, hey, the greatest among you,
let him be your servant.
And so that's the idea.
So how is the under shepherd supposed to lead,
not out of duty, but willingly not for filthy lucre,
from your money, but readily, not by Lordship, but by example.
So that first role is the role of the shepherd.
The second role is the flock, the flock, okay?
The flock, verse three, he says,
not being lords over God's heritage,
but in samples to the, what is it?
Examples to the who?
The flock, down verse five, he talks to the flock,
he says, likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder.
He says, hey, you people who are young,
it's good for you to follow leadership.
Submit to leadership, follow leadership.
He also says in verse five,
ye all of you be subject one to another.
You know what that means?
If everybody in the church is putting each other first,
that's a great thing for the church.
The church that's fighting because they want their way,
that's a bunch of sheep biting each other,
wandering all off together, does that make sense?
That's not good.
So he says, be subject one to another.
He says, clothe with, what does it say?
Clothe of what?
Humility, humility.
You know what humility means?
You can't be subject one to another
without putting other people ahead of yourself.
Everybody wants to be in a relationship where it's you first,
no you first, no you first, no you first, why?
Because you know each other, have your back.
So what does the flock do?
Well, verse five, it submits to leaders as unto the Lord.
A, if you're taking an outline, this is under number two,
the flock ought to submit to leaders as unto the Lord.
They submit to leaders.
They also submit to each other.
Do you see that in the text?
Be subject one to another, be clothe with humility.
And then thirdly, in verse six, they submit to who?
Humbra yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God
that he may exalt you into due time.
So the flock ought to submit to God.
Hopefully when they're submitting to their leaders
and to each other, they're submitting to the Lord
because God puts leaders in and God acts as unto them.
God adds to the church, right?
People here because God adds to it
and we're also submitting to God.
And then lastly, the flock ought to depend on God.
Look at verse seven, casting all your care upon who's him?
Who's him?
God, because God cares for you.
Not casting all your care on the pastor
because he cares for you.
Not casting all your care on each other.
Now, should we care for each other?
Should the pastor care for the flock?
The flock care for each other?
Absolutely.
But ultimately, God's the one that's gotta do this thing.
And we cast all our care on him for he cares for us.
That leads us to this third role
that's mentioned in verses four and then 10 and 11.
Look at verse four.
It says in verse four,
And when the chief shepherd shall appear.
Who is the chief shepherd?
Jesus Christ, is he coming back?
He is coming back.
And when he appears, he talks here to the elders,
you shall receive a crown of glory that fatedeth not away.
This chief shepherd, verse 10,
he go down to verse 10 and see
as he begins to talk about this God of all grace.
Verse 10, but the God of all grace
that called us into his eternal glory
by Christ Jesus after that you have suffered a while,
what does this God do?
He makes you perfect,
establish, strengthen and settle you.
To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
What does the chief shepherd do?
What does God do for us?
Well, quickly going through this outline,
what does he do?
He rewards us, right?
When we live for him and we serve for him
and we're doing it with the right motivation,
he's gonna reward us.
Anybody looking forward to heaven
and the rewards that are gonna be there?
Like what did Jesus say?
Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.
Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven
where rust is in that, where thieves aren't.
They're not up there, right?
Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven
and God's gonna reward us.
What does God do when he shepherds?
God rewards the great shepherd,
rewards the great shepherd, shepherds.
It says here, using suffering, he makes us perfect.
That idea for perfect there is not that you are
without sin or free from sin.
Although one day we will be.
One day he'll do that for us.
Anybody looking forward to no sin?
He's gonna do that,
but make you perfect there as he matures us.
This great shepherd is the one who helps us go from
being an infant to being a toddler,
to being young, to being mature, reproducing.
That's what God does for us.
He establishes us.
Think about this in the context of the passage
talking about this great shepherd and the sheep.
Do sheep need to be matured?
They need to grow.
Do sheep need to be established?
Yes, do they need to be strengthened?
That's what he does.
Do sheep ever need to be settled?
Yeah?
Do sheep ever need to be settled?
Do you ever see sheep get skittish and run off?
That's what the sheep do.
And at the end, what's all of this for?
What's all of this for?
Who's it for?
It's for his glory and his honor and his dominion.
That's what we're trying to do.
We wanna be what God wants it to be so he gets the honor.
So we've got the shepherd, we've got the flock,
we've got this great shepherd.
What's the fourth role I'm talking about?
Well, there's one more that's associated with the church.
This one doesn't like the church.
This one likes sheep, but for the wrong reasons.
It's the roaring lion.
Look at verse eight.
Be sober.
Be vigilant.
Because your adversary, the devil,
as a roaring lion, walketh about,
seeking whom he may, what's the word?
What do lions like to do to sheep?
Eat them.
What do we do with that?
The flock and the shepherd must be aware.
Why? Because a roaring lion does two things.
A roaring lion prowls.
Do you see that in the verse?
He walketh about, he prowls.
I was watching, Zeke, was that today?
Where we were watching a video and we saw the Impala
and you saw the cheetah.
Were you with me?
You remember that?
And that cheetah was stalking.
And that thing was grazing and it had no idea.
Closer and closer and closer and closer.
And then took off.
And the Impala did not get away.
The cheetah got him.
That's kind of the picture here.
You need to be sober and vigilant.
Why? You've got an enemy.
The church has an enemy.
And this enemy prowls and this enemy devours.
So what is the attitude of the flock?
What is the attitude of the shepherds of the flock?
What is the attitude of the people in the flock?
Three things.
How do shepherds and sheep respond?
Number one, sobriety.
Subriety.
Church family, I want to tell you this, okay?
We're not just getting together three times a week
to have fun.
We're not getting together to do a religious club here.
Souls are at stake.
God's glory is at stake.
What would Finley be like without Trinity Baptist Church?
I think it'd be worse.
I really do.
I think how would your Christian life be
if there wasn't Trinity Baptist Church?
I'm not saying this is the only church God uses.
I'm glad there's other churches in town God uses, amen.
But we've got an enemy and he's prowling
and he wants to devour us.
He wants to cause us to not be unified.
And so what we need to do is understand
that this isn't just about having fun together.
This isn't just about enjoying one another.
We got to grow and mature so that we can go out,
not dismissed, but sent to make disciples of all nations,
starting in Jerusalem, then to Judea, then to Samaria,
and then to the other most part of the earth.
Not so that we'll be famous,
not so that we're gonna be better,
not so that everybody knows how great a church we are,
why, it's for his honor and for his glory.
And so people will know and love
and follow the great shepherd Jesus Christ.
We gotta take what we're doing seriously.
You know what's cool next week?
I'm praying, you gotta pray.
There's some people that have recently got saved
that are gonna get baptized.
And these people don't know much about Jesus
except they know that they're saved
and we're trying to disciple them.
People that are being discipled
are not winning people to Jesus
and they're starting to disciple others.
And as that gets started going,
you know who's excited about that?
Your pastor's excited about that.
I'm excited about that.
I hope you're excited about that.
Like, well, I really like the new carpet,
I really like the new gym.
What about new Christians?
How about that?
The carpet's going away.
I really like this song.
Okay, cool, we'll sing a new song in heaven.
What about people that weren't going to heaven,
who were going to hell, going to heaven?
That's pretty amazing.
You know who done like that?
This roaring lion that's prowling,
seeking whom he made of ours.
So let's be very serious.
We've got a mission that we gotta do.
We gotta be serious.
We gotta be vigilant.
He said be sober, be vigilant.
Vigilant means not quitting easily,
resilient, courageous, moving forward.
Your adversary, the devil, he says,
walk at the bout like a roaring lion,
seeking whom he made of ours.
He says in verse nine,
whom, talking about the devil,
resist steadfast in the faith,
knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished
in your brethren that are in the world.
What he's saying is this,
the devil's not just trying to take out Christians.
He's trying to take out Christians.
He's trying to take out everybody.
Satan hates people.
People are made in the image of God.
And if he can't destroy God,
he destroys people who are in the God's image.
We gotta love people.
And we gotta fight him for every soul we can.
Right?
We have an enemy.
But the good news is we have a great shepherd
who loves us and cares for us.
He matures us, he establishes us,
he strengthens us, and he settles us
so that at the end of the day,
he can get the glory and he can get the honor.
And everybody that needs to get saved gets saved.
And that's a cool illustration that Peter gives us.
There's shepherds, there's flocks,
there's the great shepherd, but there is that roaring lion.
And we gotta be careful for that.
Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me tonight?