The Shepherd Leader: How a Man Should Lead His Family

The Shepherd Leader: How a Man Should Lead His Family

July 6, 2014

The purpose of this class. To help marriages and families by helping husbands and dads become loving shepherds to their families. The strategy will be to apply the biblical shepherding categories of knowing, leading, providing and protecting to leadership in the home. Now this class doesn’t just apply to those who are married and those who are fathers. If you’re single I pray that’s God’s plan for your life will one day include the blessings of marriage and children. This class will be good preparation for when that stage of your life begins. In addition, the principles of being a shepherd leader can also be applied to your extended family, your friends, your church and your career. This class will be heavy on practical, personal application. (Today’s class being the exception as we set out to define the role of a shepherd leader through God’s design for the family)

We are in a war. Not an imaginary way, this isn’t a round of paint ball at the men’s retreat this is reality. Steve Farrar, in his book Point Man: How a Man Can Lead His Family begins his book with the statement “war has been declared on the biblical family.” Timothy Witmer in his book The Shepherd Leader begins with the words, “there is a crisis in the family.” Unfortunately they are both correct. If you are a husband or a father you are in the war. War’s been declared on the biblical family, on your family and mine. The casualties in this war are real.

If you doubt such a war is going on in this country let me share with you some statistics or since we’re in a war the casualty list:

-One out of two marriages ends in divorce. 50% of marriages end in divorce.

-Traditional husband-wife households comprise 48% of all the households in the US. That’s down from 64% in the late 60’s.

-Unmarried female’s w/kids now account for 13% of US households. That’s more than double the number of households led by unmarried men.

-About 30% of these female led households are African American

-30 years ago there were 1 million opposite sex couples living together outside of marriage. Today this number is 6.4 million. Co-habitating couples now make up almost 10% of the opposite-sex couples in the US.

-The number of same sex couples increased 80% during this same timeframe

-Almost every week we see / hear legal challenges to the biblical framework of marriage.

Source: 2010 US Census

-While declining 820,000 teen pregnancies will occur this year in the US.

-3 in 10 teen girls will get pregnant at least once before they turn 20.

-1/4th of these teen girls will have a 2nd child within 24 months of having their first child

-79% of these teen moms are unmarried

-80% of teen pregnancies are unintended

-Only 1/3rd of these teens will finish high school

-80% will end up on welfare

Source: Centers for Disease Control

-1.2 million abortions will occur in the US annually (Source: Operation Rescue)

-60% of all church involved teens are sexually active

-66% of all high school seniors will have tried drugs

-In the US a teenager attempts suicide every 87 seconds

Source: Kids in Crisis Newsletter

I have two questions for all of us to think upon today, first; “What are you doing to keep your marriage off the casualty list?” Each of us in this room can probably name a friend or a family member who has been hit by divorce or adultery. Second, “What are you doing to keep your kids off the casualty list?” Not what is your wife doing, not what is Wes Andrews our Pastor for families and youth doing, not what are our other Pastors / Children’s Directors / Elders and Deacons doing, but what are you doing?

Some of us have teenagers and we don’t need to see the casualty list to know what’s happening. Even among Christian homes and families our kids are being attacked. Here’s another question to consider. How long before your kids turn eighteen? How much time do you have left? 21 days, two years, five, ten? The window of opportunity to nurture, instruct, discipline and provide loving care is closing. This is war – there is no guarantee our marriages or children will remain off the casualty list. You could do everything right and your child could still rebel; your marriage could still fall apart. But with God’s help and our leadership, we can greatly reduce that risk.

In scripture, God gave us a blueprint for how the family is to function. You, as God’s agent are called to be the head of your marriage in the role of a husband (a servant leadership position). And as father, the head of the family (also a servant leadership position). As a husband and father you are called to exercise authority in servant leadership. You must exercise authority not as a cruel taskmaster, but as one who truly loves his wife and children. Together with our spouses, we are to raise our children in a home where Jesus Christ is the focus. The Bible is the most important book in the home. It’s the responsibility of the parents, ultimately the father to make sure the children grow up in an environment that will one day prepare them to become competent, responsible parents – ensuring the continuity of the biblical family for the next generation. But Satan is hard at work to destroy our marriages and families. He does this by employing two strategies:

Strategy #1 – To effectively alienate and sever a husband’s relationship with his wife. Such a division can be either physical or emotional. Both are equally effective.

Q. If you were advising Satan about weapons he could use to destroy your relationship with your wife, what would you tell him?

Satan cannot kill a family without dividing the husband and wife. That’s where he puts his efforts.

Strategy #2 – To effectively alienate and sever a father’s relationship with his children. Again, such a division can be either physical or emotional. Both are equally effective.

Q. Again, if you were advising Satan about weapons he could use to destroy your relationship with your children, what would you tell him?

One of the hardest things for us to come to grips with are these things could happen to us, to our families. We could end up on the casualty list in this war on our marriages and families. If we are already passive and indifferent to the things of God and spiritual leadership of the home Satan’s attack is not necessary. He’s already won by our own neutralizing of our homes. But if we’re following hard after Christ, you can expect Satan to come hard after you, your wife and your kids. He’s not pleased when we act as the leaders we’re called to be.

The authority that best describes our roles as husband and father is the role of a shepherding. We become the guide for our spouse and children. The shepherding process helps our children understand themselves and the world we live in. So let’s examine what it means to be a shepherd leader. While there is no explicit application of the shepherding metaphor to family leadership in Scripture, there are clear parallels between God’s covenantal care for his people and a man’s care for his family. I mentioned earlier four biblical shepherd categories: Knowing, Leading, Providing and Protecting. Over the next 8 weeks we’ll focus on what it means to:

-Know your wife and children

-Lead your wife and children

-We’ll cover how a Shepherd Leader provides both materially and spiritually for his family

-Last, we’ll discuss how a Shepherd Leader protects his marriage and protects his family

As you can see the role of a shepherd leader is much deeper than simply telling your wife and children what to do and think. It involves investing ourselves in the contexts of marriage and family through open, honest communication that leads our family and points them toward Christ. An effective shepherd leader in the home is highly relational.

God’s redemptive work also has a very clear relational element and we can see that relational element in the shepherding metaphor. The 23rd Psalm highlights this covenantal relationship and mutual knowledge, “The Lord is my shepherd”. (Have someone read the Psalm) The image of God as our shepherd is so rich. The shepherd stays with his flock; they are dependent upon him for provision and protection. He lovingly cares for them, lovingly leads them. You can almost sense David’s inner calmness and peace as he rests in the assurance of God’s goodness and faithfulness. Psalm 100:3 states, “Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he, who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” In the New Testament we see Jesus describe his relationship with the sheep in John 10. So let’s examine the scripture to better understand how Jesus demonstrates for us knowing, leading, providing and protecting his sheep. Let’s read John 10:1-6

The description Jesus gives here is a comparison his audience would immediately understand. This illustration is taken from things very familiar and common to the Jewish people. (Herding sheep – they understand the role of the shepherd and they know how sheep behave). In addition, Jesus starts his discourse with an emphatic declaration – he emphasizes the weight of what he is about to say. (Verily, verily – KJV, Truly, truly – NIV or as Matthew Henry describes the word – Amen, Amen. Let Christ’s amens be prevailing on earth).

Q. So let’s examine how Jesus, the Good Shepherd knows, leads, provides for and protects his sheep.

-V.2 – KNOWS. Ownership – the shepherd doesn’t need to climb over the fence, but is admitted by the watchman. In all likelihood several flocks are kept in one fold, and that a proper shepherd attended to his own sheep.

-V.3 – PROVIDES. Sheep need man’s care, and, in return for it are serviceable to man – they clothe and feed those by whom they are cared for and fed.

-V.4 – KNOWS. The sheep hear his voice, when he speaks familiarly to them, he calls his own sheep by name, so exact is the notice he takes of them, the account he keeps of them. LEADS – he leads them from the fold to the green pastures

-V.5 – LEADS, PROVIDES & PROTECTS. When he turns them out to graze he doesn’t drive them (such was the custom in those times), but he goes before them, to prevent any mischief or danger that might meet them, and they being used to it, follow him, and are safe. For a stranger they will not follow. (They KNOW their Shepherd Leader and trust him). He makes them both feed and rest there, speaks comfortably to them, guards them, guides them, and goes before them to set them in the way of his steps.

Do you begin to see the parallels? How a husband / father applies these concepts of knowing, leading, providing and protecting his family?

V.5-6 those who are truly the sheep (wife / children) will be very observant of the Shepherd and cautious and shy of strangers. They are not likely to fall to temptation because they can discern between good and evil. They follow because they know and trust their leader; they have a discerning ear and an obedient heart.

Read John 10:7-18

Jesus describes himself as the door. So where do we see KNOWING, LEADING, PROVISION and PROTECTION in verses 7-10 KNOW - Admission to the flock, it’s how the sheep access the shepherd. When they go out they are not strangers, but they have the liberty to come in again. LEAD – they go out in the field in the morning, they come into the fold at night; and in both the Shepherd leads and keeps them, they find PROVISION in both – grass in the field, fodder in the fold (PROTECTION) – the shutting of the door is the securing of the house, the going with them to the field is protection from predators.

Christ calls himself the Good Shepherd in v.11 and again in v.14. Matthew Henry describes Jesus as the best of shepherds – the best in the world to take over-sight of the flock, so faithful, so tender, as he, no such feeder and leader, no such protector and healers of souls as he. Jesus proves himself so, in opposition to all hirelings. Let’s examine the unfaithful shepherd / hired hand.

What does the hired hand do? Or fail to do? - He sees the wolf coming, or some other danger threatening, and leaves the sheep to the wolf, for he doesn’t care for them. He neither owns them nor has no profit / loss by them. In truth he care’s not for them. He has both bad principles and bad practices. What makes the hired hand a false shepherd? – He’s self-seeking. The wealth of the world is the chief end of his work. He undertook the work as a trade to live and grow rich by, not as an opportunity of serving Christ and doing good. It’s his love of money and himself that carries him on. These are hired hands who love the wages more than the work, and they set their heart upon that.

Unfortunately some of us act like the hired hand, the unfaithful shepherd. We love what marriage provides for us, what our wives can do for us, how our kids can serve us. Some of us are more self-seeking in the pursuit of our careers, status, possessions and consequently behave like the hired hand, an unfaithful shepherd. Some of us aren’t doing enough to keep our marriages and kids from being on the casualty list. We don’t care for our wives and children as we should, they are not our property. We should have a strong loving affection serving our wives and children as opposed to ourselves that drives us to be a shepherd for them.

JOHN 10:26-30

Christ knows his sheep – he takes cognizance of their state, concerns himself for them, has a tender and affectionate regard for them and is continually mindful of them, he knows them, he approves and accepts them.

Christ protects his sheep by being willing to lay down his life for them that he may give life to them. It is in the leading, provision and protection of the sheep that the shepherd hazards and exposes his life for the sheep. The laying down of his life was in order to his resuming it. I lay down my life, that I may receive it again. Steve Farrar in his book Point Man, puts our role as the Shepherd Leader as one who is willing to live for his family. Many of us would willingly give our lives for our wives or children, but are we willing to live for them. To lead them, protect and provide for them. That is our primary calling as a Shepherd Leader.

None of us will be perfect shepherds. There was only one perfect role model.

The Shepherd Leader: How a Man Should Lead His Family

July 6, 2014

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. Psalm 23:1

I am the good shepherd… John 10:11

War has been declared on the biblical marriage and the biblical family structure.

Satan’s two strategies:

1. To effectively alienate and sever a husband’s relationship with his wife.

Weapons:

1. To effectively alienate and sever a father’s relationship with his children.

Weapons:

A Shepherd Leader – Knows, Leads, Provides and Protects

Examples: Psalm 23, John 10:1-18, 26-30

Matthew Henry Commentary on John 10 –

Jesus Christ is the best of shepherds, the best in the world to take the over-sight of souls, none so skillful, so faithful, so tender, as he, no such feeder and leader, no such protector and healer of souls as he.

The Shepherd Leader: How a Man Should Lead His Family

July 6, 2014

KNOWS / LEADS
PROVIDES / PROTECTS