Don't Fall Asleep During the Sermon

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Amen, if you'll take out your Bibles, we'll continue to stand as we read.
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We're continuing in our study of the book of Acts this morning, and we're going to be looking at chapter 20, verses 1-16.
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So with our Bibles open, verse 1, After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples.
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And after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia.
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When he had gone through those regions, and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece.
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There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia.
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Sopater, the Berean son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him, and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy, and the Asians, Tycheus and Trophimus.
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These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas, but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and in five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days.
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On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.
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There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered, and a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer.
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And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead.
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But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.
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And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while until daybreak, and so departed.
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And they took the youth away alive and were not a little comforted.
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But going ahead to the ship, we set sail to Assis, intending to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land.
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And when he met us at Assis, we took him on board and went to Mytilene.
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And sailing from there, we came the following day opposite Chias.
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The next day we touched at Samos, and the day after we went to Miletus, for Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.
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This is the word of the Lord.
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Let us pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth in it.
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I thank you for narratives such as these that have in between the lines a lot of information that is important for us to know.
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I pray today that I would preach and teach properly and correctly, and that you would keep me from error, as I know that I am capable of preaching that which is not correct.
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And I want to be protected from that, Lord, for the sake of my conscience and for the sake of the conscience of my hearers.
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And I pray, Lord, that their hearts would be open to the truth, that they would be challenged and brought to conviction if needed.
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And, Lord God, that I would be used of you and anointed by your Spirit to preach your word.
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In all these things, Lord, I pray in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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Sometimes when you read a passage of Scripture, the message jumps right off the page, and you immediately see your outline.
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You immediately see the thesis statement.
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You immediately see the hard-hitting points that need to be preached.
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And then other times, you come to a passage that is not necessarily as easy to outline.
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And this is especially so when you're preaching long swaths of narrative, which is what we find in the book of Acts.
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Our text today includes a lot of information.
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And it's not as easy to outline all of this as maybe it would be in certain other passages of Scripture.
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And I only say that to let you know that at the beginning of this week, I didn't know what I was going to say.
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And now I don't know that I'm going to get through it all in one Sunday.
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It's funny how that works, how the Lord opens up your eyes to things and shows you things.
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There's a lot of information here in these 16 verses.
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And while I don't want to rush anything, I also don't want to get bogged down in the details either.
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I want us to just focus on the important things.
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I meant to put an outline in your bulletin, but it didn't work out that way.
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So when we get to the application portion, I'll give you some things to write if you so desire.
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But just to give you an idea, these 16 verses.
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In 16 verses, the Apostle Paul crosses the Aegean Sea twice.
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And he spends three months in Greece.
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And all that happened, and more.
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He spends more than three months.
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It's just three months in Greece alone.
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It takes him time to get there.
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It takes him time to get away.
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And on his way through Macedonia, he's stopping at the various churches.
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So this is a pretty long period of time that's being stuck in the 16 verses.
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I mean, just to cross the Aegean Sea in the first century wasn't exactly just, you know, it wasn't like getting in your car and going down to the kangaroo.
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I mean, it was a little bit of a trip.
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So this is a lot of information that's happening here all at once.
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And the title of today's message, as you've noticed, and a few of you have referenced it on the way in.
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Ha ha, Jack Bunny.
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About falling asleep during church, or falling asleep during the message.
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Really, the only reason why I put that title up was because it really is the one thing that people draw towards in this narrative.
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But from what I want to show you, it's really just one small thing that happens in these 16 verses.
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It's just one little thing.
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But it is funny to think about falling asleep in church.
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I've seen many of you, after a long Saturday, on the nods.
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I've seen it.
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And I've got to tell you, what we need to have is a giant mirror right behind me.
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Because if you could see yourselves, I think things would be a little different.
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But anyway, the thesis today is very simple.
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What I've drawn from this and learned, and the Lord showed me in these texts, is that there are things that we should value as the body of Christ.
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There are things that we should value as the people of God in His church and His world.
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And there are five things of value that we're going to see in this text as we go through it.
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And that's the outline.
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So let's read through it.
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I'm going to give some explanations as we go, and then I'm going to give you the outline.
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So let's start at verse 1.
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It says, After the uproar ceased...
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Now remember the uproar we talked about last week.
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Paul had been in Ephesus for two years, more than two years, preaching in the hall of Tyrannus, and there was a guy who was a silversmith.
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Remember what I said about him? He was making shrines to Artemis, and he got all the shrine makers together, and they caused a riot against the apostle Paul, because he was affecting their income.
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And the idols, the idol worshipers, came against Paul because Paul was claiming that there was only one God, there was only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
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And when you only have one God, and you only have one mediator between God and man, that disposes all the idols.
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And that's what Paul had done.
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He had deposed all of them.
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And the people didn't like that, and so there was an uproar.
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So after this, verse 1, Paul sent for the disciples.
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And after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia.
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Now, I don't have a map up here, but if you can sort of imagine, Ephesus is south and east of where Paul is headed.
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He's going to go up through Asia Minor, and he's going to take a ship across the Aegean Sea over to Macedonia.
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Paul had a desire to go to Macedonia.
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He wanted to see the churches that he had already planted.
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Remember in Macedonia, you have the cities there that he had planted churches, and he wanted to go back and see those churches and encourage them.
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And that's what verse 2 says.
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It says, when he had gone through those regions, and had given them much encouragement, same word as in verse 1, when it says he encouraged the people that he left.
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Now it says he's going to these churches and these regions, and he's encouraging them, same words.
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He's going basically on a ministry tour of encouragement.
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He's going around to the various churches and encouraging them to stay the course in a very difficult time.
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And finally, he makes it to Greece.
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And there's something in verse 2 that we don't see.
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Because the regions that are being mentioned here would have included Corinth and other places.
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In fact, when it talks about Greece, that's where Paul was headed.
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He was headed into Corinth where he would spend three months.
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And what is likely happening in verse 2 is Paul is visiting these churches and he's taking up a collection.
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He's taking a collection for the needs of the church in Jerusalem.
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The church in Jerusalem was having great difficulties at this time.
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And just to show you what I'm talking about, because I'm not just reading something into the text, I want you to hold your place in Acts 20 and go over to 1 Corinthians 16.
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Just turn very quickly with me to 1 Corinthians, go to the last chapter, 1 Corinthians 16, and look at verse 1.
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It says in chapter 16 of 1 Corinthians verse 1, Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do.
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On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.
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Paul didn't want to come to a fundraiser.
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Paul wanted them to be raising the funds so that when he got there, it would already be done.
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Verse 3.
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And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem.
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If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me.
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So Paul had written to the Corinthian church prior to his coming when he was in Ephesus, and he said that he wanted them to know he was coming and to start preparing for his journey.
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Verse 3.
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It says there he spent three months.
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So he's gone along, he's taken a collection, and the money is going to be going to the church in Jerusalem.
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But at verse 3 it says when he spent three months in Corinth, probably preaching, teaching, and encouraging, a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria.
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So he decided to return through Macedonia.
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Now again, just to give you an idea, because we don't have a map, Corinth is right near Centuria where there's a seaport where he could have taken right across the sea back to where he was going.
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But he just found out there's a plot against his life, and most likely he's carrying some money because he's been taking a collection.
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So here you got a guy who's a marked man.
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There are people that want to take his life, and he's got money.
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Getting on a ship, probably not the best idea.
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Because getting on a ship is a good way for somebody to cast you overboard, and you're on the ship when it leaves, and you're not on the ship when it arrives, and everybody looks around and says, well where'd he go? You know, you hear about these cruises that go out.
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You know there are sometimes people that get lost on these cruises, and the assumption is what? They fell overboard.
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They have had videos.
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Because now there's cameras all outside of these cruises.
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I'm not trying to scare you away from going on cruises, but I'm just saying it's possible.
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It ain't nothing but a rail.
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And so Paul has a choice.
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I can get on a ship here where I know there's people who want to kill me, and I can be in a precarious place for the next few days where it would be easy for somebody to take my life, and no one would even know.
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Or I could travel back by foot.
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I can travel up through Macedonia and take a much shorter ride on a ship.
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So, assuming that's what's happening here, and again, John Stott says this.
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He says, With a ship load of hostile Jews, it would have been easy to find opportunity to murder Paul and dump his body overboard.
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So this is the idea, at least of John Stott, saying this is most likely why he did this.
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He's likely going back up.
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Instead of boarding the ship, he's getting on foot up through Macedonia to go back to where he came.
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Verse 4 begins an outline of the men who were with Paul.
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Sophator the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him, and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus, and Gaius Derbe and Timothy.
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Of course, we know who Timothy is.
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And the Asians, Tychius and Trophimus.
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And these went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas.
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But we sailed away from Philippi.
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Philippi, again, is much closer to the north.
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It's a lot closer to the connection between Macedonia and Asia Minor.
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It would have been a very small trip for them on boat.
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So they did have to sail, but they didn't have to sail very far.
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And they sailed to Troas.
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And it says they sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we came to them at Troas, which was a port in Asia Minor where we stayed for seven days.
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And again, a lot of people are mentioned here, and I think if you go back to 1 Corinthians 16, you don't have to do this, but in your mind, what we just read a few minutes ago, it says in 1 Corinthians 16, Paul says, he says, I'm going to get accredited men, men who are accredited by letter to deliver the money.
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Right? What does that mean? Well, it means that they have the church's confidence.
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These are men who have the church's confidence.
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And I'm going to send these men with the money.
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I think probably what is happening here is we see these men that are named, are the men in 1 Corinthians 16, these men whose job it is to get this money back.
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Because again, it would have been a foolish thing to not have some protection for all of these funds that have been raised for the church in Jerusalem.
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So Paul assigns these men to travel along with him and to accompany him and to be his helpers.
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Some of them go on ahead, some stay behind, but they're all together moving to the same place.
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Sort of strategic, if you think about how they're doing it.
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They're probably, and it doesn't say this again, I'm using a little bit of sanctified imagination.
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They may have even divided up some of the funds among them to where some of the guys had some and some had another so that you're not carrying everything in one bag, as it were.
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And there's groups of men and some are ahead of others.
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They're not all in the same place at the same time.
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So it's a very strategic movement here that's happening to get them from Macedonia, where all this money's coming from, get them back across the Aegean Sea to Asia Minor and then all the way over to Jerusalem.
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Now, I see that this falling asleep thing is already starting to work because this is so exciting.
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Stay with me, guys.
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I promise we're getting somewhere.
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This is, again, narrative.
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It's a lot of information.
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A lot of stuff's happening.
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Verse 7, On the first day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread...
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By the way, just to mention, and I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but oftentimes Christians are accused of being Sabbath breakers because we don't worship on Saturday.
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And some people believe that by worshiping on Sunday we are actually worshiping a false way, that we are worshiping in a pagan way.
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And some people believe that worshiping on the first day of the week was introduced by...
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Oh, his name just left me.
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The 4th century...
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Who's that? Constantine.
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Thank you.
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Constantine in the 4th century.
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They'll say Constantine was the reason why we worship on Sunday, and it's blasphemous, and we shouldn't worship on Sunday.
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We should worship on Saturday.
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Well, the introduction of worshiping on the first day of the week did not come in the 4th century.
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Didn't come in the 3rd century.
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Didn't come in the 2nd century.
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The introduction of worshiping on Sunday, the day that Jesus rose from the dead, is in the Scriptures.
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We see the early church gathering on the first day of the week.
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And this is an example of it in verse 7.
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It says, On the first day of the week when we gather together to break bread, they would gather together, they would pray, they would gather together, they would sing, they would gather together, they would have a meal, and in that meal would take communion, and they would give a sermon.
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Sounds a lot like what we do.
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The only difference between this and what they did is theirs was probably in the evening because they had to work.
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Sunday was the first day of the week.
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It was a work day.
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They would have to work, most likely.
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But here we are.
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We have Sunday.
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And a lot of people think Sunday is the Sabbath.
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I don't believe Sunday is the Sabbath.
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I know some of my Reformed brethren would want to kick me in the head for saying that, but it's okay.
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They can shine their boots if they want.
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But I don't believe Sunday is the Sabbath.
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I believe Sunday is the Lord's day, and I think there's a distinction there.
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But that's a sermon for another time.
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I have preached on it.
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Look it up.
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But the point of all this is simply to say the early church met on the first day of the week for worship, for breaking bread, and for prayers.
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And Paul is preaching, and I like the way that it says this, it says he prolonged his speech.
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Know what that means? He kept on going.
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And he kept on going.
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And when everybody thought he was done, he kept on going.
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You ever heard a guy like that? Well, don't say anything.
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He prolonged his speech.
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He would get, and he would just keep going.
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And he would just keep going.
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Until midnight.
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Verse 8.
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This is funny.
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Because again, reading between the lines.
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It says, There were many lamps in the upper room where they were gathered, and a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer.
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Okay? I think what the point of mentioning the lamps is, imagine a room with no A.C.
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And you're in a room where there's no air conditioning and low light, so you have to have lamps so that everybody can see.
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The lamps create heat.
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And so where do you get cool in a room that's being lit by candles or by torches? You go to the window.
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You go to where there's maybe a little bit of a breeze, a little bit of an open space.
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And so Eutychus, and by the way, his name means Lucky.
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Interestingly enough.
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Old Lucky goes and sits next to the window.
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And it says he was a young man, probably a younger child, somewhere in the early teenage years possibly.
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And he comes and he sits down.
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And as Paul is droning on and on, and I'm sure it's probably some of the best preaching the world has ever heard because it's coming from the lips of one of the greatest preachers the world has ever heard.
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And yet, it's going on and on and on and on.
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And so Eutychus finally gives up, trying to stay awake, and he passes out.
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And lo and behold, there's nothing behind him to catch his fall.
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And so he falls.
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And three stories down.
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Now, if you catch for a minute the emotion of that, we've had people fall in church before.
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I have fallen in church, missed a step.
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Boom, it happens.
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That wasn't during service, but I have missed a step and fallen.
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Things happen.
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But you can't imagine somebody just falling to their death right in the middle of the service.
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But that's what happens.
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This child falls out of a window.
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You know, I sometimes just like to sort of read existentially, read as if I were there.
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I don't know.
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I mean, imagine the gasps.
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Imagine the screams.
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I would assume his parents are there.
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I would assume that his friends are there.
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They've just seen him fall backwards out of a window to his death.
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You know, we read past this and we kind of giggle.
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Ha ha, somebody fell asleep in church.
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This guy fell out and died.
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This is a serious moment.
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And it says later in verse 9, and Paul went down and bent over him, taking him in his arms.
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He said, do not be alarmed for his life is in him.
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And when Paul had gone up and broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while until daybreak and so departed.
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What I find so fascinating about that, Paul goes down.
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He does one of those extraordinary miracles, which we know the Scripture calls some of what Paul did extraordinary, like a miracle itself is an extraordinary enough.
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This is an extra, extra.
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He goes down and he does this miracle and then he goes right back to preaching.
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Then he missed a beat.
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He walks down, lifts him up, and it says he goes until daybreak.
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And it says, and they took the youth alive and were not a little comforted.
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That's another way.
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Luke uses that over and over and not a little and not a little.
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As I said last time, as a way of saying a whole lot.
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Verse 13, going ahead to the ship, we set sail for Assis, intending to take Paul aboard there so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land.
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And when he met us at Assis, we took him on board and went to Mytilene.
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And sailing from there, we came the following day opposite Chios, and the next day touched at Samos.
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And the day after that, we went to Miletus, for Paul had decided to set sail past Ephesus so that he might not have to spend time in Asia for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem if possible on the day of Pentecost.
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Paul is moving fast and he's going quickly to get where he needs to go.
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And it's interesting, you could stop and study each one of these places.
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Assis was where the temple of Athena, the goddess of wisdom was.
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Chios was the birthplace of Homer, the writer of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
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Samos was the birthplace of Pythagoras, the mathematician.
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These are all important historical places and it's just identifying again for us Luke as a historian as well as a biblical author.
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He is giving us clear information about where and what is happening to the apostle Paul.
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But notice what the text says, and this is where we're going to sort of close this out and move into application, but notice that it says Paul had decided to set sail past Ephesus.
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Why? He had already spent several years in Ephesus building the church there.
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He'd already spent several years building up the leaders there and he didn't want to get back there because I believe he knew if he went back there he'd end up staying longer than he wanted to.
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You ever done that? You ever had an opportunity to stop and see someone but you knew if you did it would take all day so you went ahead and went on past? I mean, it happens.
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Well, this is Paul's situation.
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He says, I'm not going to Ephesus because if I go there I'll never leave.
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But he did do this in the next verse, and we're not getting there this week, but next week we're going to study this.
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He calls the elders of Ephesus to meet him in Miletus so he can give them one final charge.
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And that's really going to be the focus of next week and possibly the weeks to come.
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So he doesn't just not care about Ephesus but he doesn't want to get tangled up in the goodbyes.
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He knows he has to move to get where he's going.
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Well, like I said earlier, this passage reminds us of things that we should value as the body of Christ and I want to move into the application of this passage.
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There's so much information here.
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There's so much history happening here.
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There's so much geography happening here.
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I don't want you to miss the application because these are some very important things.
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Five points of application and I'll try to go through them as quickly as I can.
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The first thing, there is value in encouraging one another.
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As the church exists, we have a purpose to encourage one another.
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If you go back to verses 1 and 2, you will see that before Paul left Ephesus, it said he was encouraging the disciples.
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And it says, as he went up into Macedonia and made his way to Greece, he was encouraging the churches in that region.
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Beloved, that word, that word that is in the Greek there is very similar, not exactly the same word, but it's very similar to the word parakalētos.
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And what is the word parakalētos? For those of you who know a little bit about the history of that word, that is the word for the Holy Spirit.
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Parakalētos is a combination of the prefix para, which means to come alongside, and kalētos, which means to call.
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And it's the coming together of two words that mean to call alongside or to provide strength.
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In fact, what do we call the Holy Spirit in the King James Bible? The comforter.
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Why is He called the comforter? Because in Latin, com-, the prefix means with, and forte means strength.
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And that means to be with strength.
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To comfort means to strengthen.
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So Paul is here in this text acting out the physical, what the Spirit does internally.
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He's being an agent, a minister of the Spirit.
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He's encouraging the people.
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He's encouraging them to live out their life.
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And beloved, we have the blessing and the duty to encourage one another.
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But let me tell you something, that does not mean complimenting one another.
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Encouraging one another does not mean the same as complimenting.
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It's nice when someone compliments us.
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It's nice to get an attaboy.
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And I tell you, it's nice when someone comes and says, brother, your message really helped me, and I'm thankful that God used you in my life.
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I'm encouraged by that, and I thank you for that.
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But there's more to encouragement than that.
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Encouragement happens when we invest time in knowing and appreciating one another's gifts and expressing that knowledge to one another and moving one another toward action.
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I'm going to embarrass somebody today.
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I'm going to talk about Irvin Hillard.
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I may not embarrass him, but I mention his name and hope I don't embarrass him.
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Irvin Hillard is one of the most encouraging men I know.
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He doesn't just throw around compliments, but he comes to me, he expresses that my gift in preaching has been a benefit in his life and that it continues to be a benefit in his life, how the Word affects his life, and he encourages me to preach the Word more faithfully by how he encourages me and how it has helped him.
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Beloved, we are all called to do that with and for one another.
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There are also others who encourage me to study hard because they are diligent students themselves, and I've got to keep up.
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And that's a good thing.
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And I've also had people come to me and say, Pastor, it looks like you're struggling with something.
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What can we do to help you? And that's encouraging because that's literally what it means to come alongside and help.
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I imagine when Paul was out encouraging these churches, there were a lot of conversations about doctrine and a lot of conversations about proper Christian behavior because if you look at his books, they're filled with practical theological information.
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But I think that his trip was also highly encouraging and practical coming alongside, pointing out spiritual strengths, pointing out spiritual gifts, spurring people to ministry, calling people out for their sins, but calling them to repentance and faith.
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That's all part of encouragement.
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And there's value in that.
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And if I haven't done it, I want to tell you this.
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I'm going to be honest.
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If I have not, as your pastor, encouraged you, I want to do better.
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I want to encourage you to use your spiritual gift.
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I want to encourage you to be used of God in whatever service He has called you to.
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If you have ever felt unused, unappreciated, unvalued, I am sorry because part of our job is to encourage one another.
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And my desire is to see everyone here be used as best as you can to the glory of God in whatever way He's gifted you because there's value in that.
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And there's value in you in this church.
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There's a reason why you're here.
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There's a purpose for you being here.
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And it's not just warming a seat.
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So again, I'm sorry if I haven't, and I want to do better, and I look for ways to encourage you, and I hope that you look for ways to encourage one another.
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So that's number one.
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The second thing we see is the value in watching out for one another.
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This is different, not the same.
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And you say, well, where do you get this, Pastor? I think verse 3 is where I get this from.
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It talks about the plot being made against Him and those Jews coming against Him.
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And what comes after that? A group of men gathers around Paul, and they all take that trip together.
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Remember I mentioned that earlier? He had a party of men with Him.
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Not because He was a coward, but because He wasn't a fool.
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We are not called to walk the Christian life alone.
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We are called to walk together.
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And part of that walk is to watch out for one another.
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We are accountable to God first, but we are also accountable to one another.
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You know that that's what it means to be part of the church, is to be accountable to one another? When we see someone straying into danger, we step in and we seek to protect them.
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What kind of pastor would I be if I saw you walking into sin and I said nothing? And sometimes we ask for help when we know we need it.
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If a person has a problem with a specific thing in their life, problem with a specific sin, he can ask another person to help him with that area of his life and should.
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There are people who have asked me to partner with them in helping to seek purity.
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There are people, and I would never say who, but there are people who I get emails that tell me everything they look at on the Internet because they want that level of accountability in their life.
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And they came to me and said, Pastor, I want you to see everything I see so that if I stray, you will be there to call me to account.
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I'm not saying you have to do that.
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I'm not saying that's necessary.
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But for that person, they wanted to do that because they wanted someone watching out for them and helping them.
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What a blessing that is to care enough about their own purity that they want someone else in their life to help them.
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Hebrews 3 says this, and we read this.
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This was our opening passage this morning.
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Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God.
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Hear that again.
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Take care, brothers, lest there be in you an evil heart leading you away from the living God.
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My job is not to meddle in your lives, but if there is sin in my life, I would want you to come and call me to account.
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And if there is sin in your life, you better believe I'm going to be there calling you to account.
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And we should watch out for one another.
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It says in Hebrews 3.13, remember this, Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
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Exhort one another.
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That means to call one another to a higher standard.
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To exhort, to call higher.
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Time is getting away from me, but I do want to give you these last three if I could, and I'll go quickly.
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But we've seen the value of encouraging one another, the value of watching out for one another.
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Thirdly, the value of giving to the work of the Lord.
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Again, as I said, this is sort of a separated outline, but it's all in the text.
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If you go back and look, what are these guys doing? They're collecting for what? The purpose of giving to the Lord.
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I want to ask you this question.
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We give to missionaries.
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We give to Walter.
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We have given to Scott.
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We've given to other missionaries over the years.
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But what about other churches? You realize that's what Paul's doing? Paul's taking up a collection for a church that's in need.
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Not a missionary who's going to Uzbekistan to take the gospel into a hut.
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He's giving to a church that's having a problem.
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Have we ever even considered that that could be a part of a ministry for us? Byron Starkweather left our church last year.
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He was an elder here.
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He's a great man.
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We worked together for several years.
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And Byron went to a church in Tennessee because he got called to work at a school there, and he now is at that church.
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It's quite a bit larger than our church, some 800 members or so.
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So it's us times eight.
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But I want to tell you a story about what they did.
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Byron called me.
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He'd never heard of this in his life.
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There was a church in the area that was failing, that was having difficulty.
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They had lost members.
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They had lost leadership.
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They had lost money.
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And they were hurting as a church.
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And they came to Byron's leadership at their church and said...
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And this is, again, secondhand story, so I'm trying to make sure I explain it best.
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The church came in and said, We can't continue anymore.
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We're just going to give our property to you.
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They said that to Byron's church.
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Now most churches would say, Yay! We're going to take the property, and we're going to turn it into whatever, right? That's not what they did.
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The church said, Okay, we'll take the ownership and liability for the building, but we're going to grow your church.
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And they sent leaders to the church, and they sent people to the church.
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And the church wasn't on the other side of town or in a different state.
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It was down the street.
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And they sent leaders, and they sent people and money.
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And now that church runs about, I think he said about 250 people.
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And that amazing thing to hear can happen.
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There's value in giving to the work of the Lord.
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And it can happen in different ways.
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It doesn't all have to go the traditional route.
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There are ways that God can use us if we would just open our eyes and look.
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Fourth, there's value in hearing the Word preached.
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Now you've heard me talk about this a lot.
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But I tell you what, it gets me every time when I think about the fact that Paul raised the kid from the dead and went right back to preaching.
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You know why? Because he still had something to say.
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I've jokingly said this.
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I've said, you know, I probably am going to die in this pulpit.
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And when I do, I want somebody to come stand on my corpse and preach the rest of the sermon because I came with something to say.
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Now, maybe try CPR first.
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But the reality is Paul knew that that message was important.
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Saving that boy's life was important, but the message was important too.
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And I'm sad to say that in so many churches, the sermon has been relegated to the least important part.
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The music, the invitation, and all the rest has become the focal point.
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The theatrics of church has become church and that little five-minute sermonette is what people are getting and calling it the message.
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Paul preached all night long.
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Raised the kid from the dead in the middle of it just to keep the sermon going.
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There's value in hearing the Word preached, y'all.
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Finally and fifthly, there's value in loving God's people.
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And this is going to lead me into next week.
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This is sort of a launch pad for next week because Paul is coming back and he's heading to Jerusalem.
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And he needs to get there.
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He's got a timetable.
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He's trying to get there for Pentecost, which was a feast that he wanted to make it to.
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For whatever reason, he needed to be back by Pentecost.
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But he stopped at Miletus for one purpose.
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Bring me the elders because I need to encourage them one more time.
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This is the last time they're going to see his face.
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This is the last time they're ever going to hear his voice audibly.
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And he loves them enough to say, you know what? I'm in a hurry.
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I'm moving, but I've got to stop and encourage the leaders so they can encourage their people.
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There's value in loving one another.
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And here's the point of all of this.
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This is all from verse 1 through 16 and on through, this is all about Paul as a pastor and lover of the church.
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He loves God's people.
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He encourages them.
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He encourages them to give.
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He encourages them to watch out for one another.
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He encourages them to hear the word of God.
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He encourages them to encourage each other.
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He loves the church.
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Beloved, we should love the church.
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We should love one another and we should encourage one another.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth.
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And I pray, Lord, that that truth has pierced hearts today.
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I pray that we would understand the need to love one another and to exhort one another to righteousness, to recognize our own need to be sanctified and how others can play a part in our sanctification.
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And I pray, God, I pray that you would mercy us and grace us with the desire to love, watch out for, and encourage one another.
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May we see an example in Paul who himself was following after Christ.
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And it's in his name we pray.
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Amen.
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Beloved, let's stand together and sing and prepare our hearts for communion.