Will the Real Shepherd Please Stand Up?

There used to be a TV show called "To Tell the Truth." Usually, there would be three people pretending to be a particular person and the contestant would have to guess who the real person was and who the imposters were. At the end of the show, the big reveal, the host would say, "Will the real X please stand up?" Then the person who had been telling the truth would reveal him or herself to be genuine and the others to have been imposters. We have a similar problem in the church today when it comes to shepherds. So many pastors don't seem to know who they are, and because of that, they think that they are Jesus and little by little end up convincing their congregations that they are as well. 

I, of course, don't mean that they all convince their congregations as far as a Jim Jones might (even though that is a symptom of the very problem I am talking about today). Instead, I think many of them merely convince their congregations, slowly but surely, to love them over Christ. Let me explain.

I was always confused by the statement the Gospels make concerning Pilate’s epiphany about the Jewish leaders betrayal of Jesus. The text says, “For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up” (Mark 15:10).

Why would the chief priests, the pastors of Israel, be jealous of Christ? Were they going to be the Messiah? Were they going to bring in the kingdom of God? It seems clear that when one reads the Gospels that the religious leaders enjoyed having the spotlight shewn on them due to their religious service. They enjoyed having others consider them first for seating in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplace, etc. They enjoyed recognition as godly people and instructors in the community. And Jesus stole all of that from them. The crowds began to follow Jesus instead, and when they did that, they began to hear the messages that Jesus gave that condemned the self-benefiting leadership of the Jewish religious leaders.

You see, there are two kinds of shepherds. There is the shepherd who genuinely wants the people to know Jesus and so he gives the people the Word of God at every opportunity. He teaches them the law and prophets, which is the character of Jesus. He teaches them the hard truths of the whole counsel of God so that they can know the Lord fully. They do this because these shepherds know that they actually aren’t the Shepherd. They are not the ones who can be with the people 24/7 to guard them against the attacks of the devil and the world and the flesh. So they give them the means through which the Lord Jesus shepherds them through the Spirit 24/7, i.e., they give to them the Word of God through whatever means they can. They don’t need to give them themselves, as they are not the shepherd. Jesus is the shepherd.

Hence, these shepherds are undershepherds. Their entire ministry is centered around giving people the whole counsel of God because they labor at connecting people with the Shepherd, Jesus. They teach the whole counsel of God, no matter how offensive, no matter how radically different than the religious culture of the church, because it is their job to make sure that Jesus, the one true Shepherd, is heard so that He can shepherd His sheep. These are true prophets. They point, not to themselves, but to Christ through the Word.

But there is another kind of shepherd, and they are, unfortunately, far more plentiful. These are the shepherds who are concerned about drawing the congregation to themselves. Now, let us be clear. These people will always teach the Bible, or at least from the Bible, in church because no member of a church will ever want to go to a church that doesn’t “teach” the Bible. I’ve been in numerous churches of all denominations and persuasions, conservative, liberal, RCC, EO, Prot, etc. Not one, and I mean, not one, declared that they do not teach from the Bible. They all claim to do so and they all use the Scripture in their sermons.

So how does one distinguish between them? The false shepherd always has the same trait. He will be concerned primarily about how the people will respond to the teaching, namely, to him because he is concerned about how people view him. He may do this by lifting himself or his wife or children up explicitly or by way of implication when he teaches or talks to people. But it often happens in an even more subtle way than this. You see, if a man is a politician and not a prophet. If he is a hireling and not a true undershepherd who draws people to Jesus, he won’t teach the whole counsel of God because it is radical and offensive. He will instead teach either his own opinions or he will teach a few true things in the Scripture but not all of them. He will mostly find what the majority believes and preach to the choir on those issues over and over again. He secures his Amens that way and his popularity among the majority.

And this is an important point. Many think all false shepherds are all heretics, but the majority slowly starve their sheep with minimal nutrition by only giving them the few biblical things that check their boxes, but not the things that would transform them completely into the image of Christ because those things are also offensive. They are offensive because the sheep are not conditioned culturally, traditionally, or religiously to accept them. They are, however, usually predisposed to receive some biblical truths as norms because they are familiar with some major tradition or culture that normalizes them. So the false shepherd gives these things to the sheep and nothing more.

Again, this is done because the false shepherd is worried about how people will receive the message because he is worried about whether people will reject him. He is not concerned with presenting Christ, His full character and His full will accurately whether people reject Christ for it or not. If they reject Christ, they will surely reject the person speaking about Christ and only genuine shepherds are prepared to receive such a rejection.

The modern false shepherd has a job he wants to keep. He, therefore, has a popularity contest to win. Another way to do this is by setting himself up as a victim of anyone who challenges his qualifications biblically. For this, he needs enemies and so he creates them by defaming their character through slander thereby deflecting anyone from scrutinizing what he is doing. Like the old magicians trick, it’s all about misdirection. If your eyes are focused on the problem people in the congregation, they’ll never be focused on him, and once again, this allows him to win the popularity contest.

What all of this ends up doing is stealing the spotlight from Christ. An undershepherd should be pointing the congregation to Christ, not just by saying it (every pastor is going to talk about Jesus and say he points to him), it’s about actually doing it by teaching the whole counsel of God, in the voice of the authority of God, by applying the Word of God to his congregation even in the areas that they don’t want it applied.

Now, again, everyone I know is going to say, “Yep, that’s my pastor!” But let’s test that. If the whole counsel of God is being taught, and we know that the larger part of religious crowds were offended by Jesus and His teaching, then the majority of a religious group wherever you go is going to be offended by the whole counsel of God, the whole character and will of Christ. So if this is true, then people will leave your congregation due to the offensiveness. They will actually hate your pastor. So here is the question, Do you have lots of people who claim to be Christians and were a part of your congregation at one time hate your pastor, not because he did some evil sin toward them personally, but because they hate what he has taught or rebuked them for?

That’s how you will actually tell. And the reason I say this is because everyone who is actually under a false shepherd, because he is popular, because they love him due to the usual tricks of the trade, will never see it unless they ask that particular question. Is your pastor generally loved by everyone in the congregation or are there tons of people who hate him for his particular teaching about this subject or that, the authority with which he expresses the teaching, a rebuke he gave to someone he said was in sin, etc.?

You want to live under genuine shepherds, you want to know Jesus Christ truly, you’ll ask that question and you’ll make the appropriate measures to make sure you sit under someone that loves Jesus Christ more than himself, and points you to your true Shepherd.

And that brings us to the fact that there is only one true Shepherd. Listen to these three following scriptures.

 

Ezekiel 34

 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to ^[a]those shepherds, ‘This is what the Lord ^[b]God says: “Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been ^[c]feeding themselves! Should the shepherds not ^[d]feed the flock? ³ You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat sheep ^[e]without feeding the flock. ⁴ Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you searched for the lost; but with force and with violence you have dominated them. ⁵ They scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every animal of the field and scattered. ⁶ My flock strayed through all the mountains and on every high hill; My flock was scattered over all the surface of the earth, and there was no one to search or seek for them.”’” . . . ¹⁰ ‘This is what the Lord God says: “Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will demand My ^[g]sheep ^[h]from them and make them stop tending sheep. So the shepherds will not ^[i]feed themselves anymore, but I will save My sheep from their mouth, so that they will not be food for them.”’” ¹¹ For the Lord God says this: “Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and look after them. ¹² As a shepherd cares for his flock on a day when he is among his scattered ^[j]sheep, so I will care for My ^[k]sheep and will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day . . .²³ “Then I will appoint over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them; he will feed them himself and be their shepherd. ²⁴ And I, the Lord, will be their God, and My servant David will be prince among them; I the Lord have spoken.

 

John 10

“Truly, truly I say to you, the one who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. ² But the one who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. ³ To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep listen to his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴ When he puts all his own sheep outside, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵ However, a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” . . .  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 is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters the flock. ¹³ He flees because he is a hired hand and does not care about the sheep. ¹⁴ I am the good shepherd, and 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 . . . ⁶ But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep. ²⁷ My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; ²⁸ and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.

 

1 Peter 5

Therefore, I urge elders among you, as your fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and one who is also a fellow partaker of the glory that is to be revealed: ² shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not with self-interest but with eagerness; ³ nor yet acting tyrannical and intrusive over those assigned to your care, but by proving to be examples to the flock. ⁴ And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 

 

In each of these passages, Christ is the shepherd. The job of all other shepherds under him is to point to him in word and deed. They are not to point to themselves. They are not in their positions to make people like them. They are there to show Christ to the people by giving the people the Word of their Shepherd. Through this word, His sheep will hear His voice and He will bind up their wounds and rescue them from their places of exile.  Jesus is said to be “the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands.” Only He can be with His people, the Shepherd with HIS sheep.

Any pastor who makes himself out to be the shepherd is a sheep rustler. These shepherds take up their posts for personal gain whether it be financial, relational, personal success, a need to control, etc. Have no doubt that such shepherds would not only crucify Christ if He were to suddenly come to His people as the Pharisees did to Him, but that they are also busy crucifying Christ now in their teaching by presenting a completely abbreviated version of Jesus, so as to present a completely different Jesus in the end, one that will allow the congregation to give to these pastors what they want. And if you tolerate such a ministry even for one more second, you simply don’t belong to the true Shepherd because His sheep will hear His voice only. They voice of another, they simply will not listen to it.