WWUTT 1127 Pay Careful Attention to Yourselves?

The Apostle Paul warned the elders at Ephesus to beware of wolves that are going to come in saying twisted things and some of them would even rise up from among themselves.

We must be cautious when we understand the text. This is

When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary that we may be equipped for every good work in Jesus Christ our

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you Becky. We come back to our study of Acts chapter 20 where Paul is addressing the

Ephesian elders. I'm going to pick up where we left off yesterday, verses 28 through 32.

Paul said, Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock of God, in which the

Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which

He obtained with His own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears.

And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

So this is like part three of this message that he is giving to these Ephesian elders.

You might consider it the third point of a four point sermon, and he is warning them about false teachers.

It's this particular section that looks a lot like some instructions that Paul gave to Timothy, especially 2

Timothy 4, verses 1 through 5. Listen to what he says here. He says, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom, preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

As for you, always be sober minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Remember back to yesterday where Paul said, verse 26, I testify to you that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

And even here in 2 Timothy 4, Paul is encouraging Timothy, be thorough in his understanding of the word, preach, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

The full counsel of God. Paul has not ceased to teach anything.

And so therefore, if any of these elders were to backslide, it would not be Paul's fault, for he taught them everything that the

Spirit had laid upon him to teach them. The full counsel of God, showing them from the

Old Testament scriptures, how Jesus is the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets.

Everything points to Christ. He is our salvation. So he says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock.

Now indeed, previously Paul said, this was verse 24, I do not account my life of any value.

And then later on, he's going to say in verse 33, I coveted no one's silver or gold.

And he encourages them to likewise work hard with their hands and consider the needs of others.

So it's interesting here that he then says, pay careful attention to yourselves. If he doesn't consider his life of any value, and these elders are supposed to follow his example, then why does he then say, pay careful attention to yourselves?

Well it's so they would not fall into error. They do need to discipline themselves.

To pay attention to yourself doesn't mean, hey, suit your own needs, you know, do what you need to do to make yourself happy.

That's not what Paul is saying there. He's saying, be cautious that you're not led away into error.

As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9, 27, I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others,

I myself should be disqualified, that he would become a hypocrite. Paul disciplined himself that he would practice what he preached and would not fall into the error that he warned the churches about.

To Timothy, this is going back to 2 Timothy again, chapter 2, verse 22, he says, flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the

Lord from a pure heart. So he's saying there to consider himself, flee from youthful passions.

Don't be led astray into sin. Don't go after your temptations. Don't quarrel is particularly the context that's there in 2

Timothy 2, 22. It's not about stay away from sexual immorality, although that instruction is certainly prevalent in a lot of what

Paul wrote. But in this particular case, he's telling Timothy to keep a watch on himself.

Don't do the tendencies that might exist in your youthful flesh to quarrel and fight and argue, but instead pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the

Lord from a pure heart. Help one another, brothers and sisters in the

Lord, keeping watch on each other. As Paul would say in Colossians 3, 16, teach and admonish one another with all wisdom.

Still in 2 Timothy, this is chapter 3, verse 10. You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra, which persecutions

I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it.

Paul is constantly pointing Timothy back to examples there, especially himself, which of course he sets up as an example before these

Ephesian elders. That was the way he started, showing himself to them as an example. You know that I've been persecuted.

You've seen who persecuted me, and yet I did not hesitate to teach you the whole counsel of God.

Now you must pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, which the

Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

Paul taught the counsel of God so that you would be equipped to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

What great sacrifice God made to purchase a people for his own possession, redeeming them from all lawlessness, as Paul talks about in Titus 2 .14.

God paid a great price for these, so do not lose them by falling so carelessly into error or disqualifying yourselves by giving into the passions of your flesh.

So this goes with the warning that Paul has made to them, that they pay careful attention to themselves.

He says in verse 29, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, false teachers, people who speak wicked and twisted things.

Even those who would attempt to tempt the flesh, those who would say things that would try to give a person permission.

It's okay if you feel those urges and have those feelings. You can chase after those things for God has said, da da da da da, you know, and then taking scripture out of context to justify sin or ignoring certain passages altogether.

You see the LGBTQ movement do this a lot. Those passages about homosexuality, that's not really what they mean.

Sodom and Gomorrah, they weren't really destroyed because of homoeroticism. You know, it might be something like that.

Also, the egalitarians who want to justify that women can be pastors and stand in the pulpit, completely ignore 1

Timothy 2, 11 and 12, or we'll say, oh no, that was, that was written for a time in a

Greco Roman culture when this, that or the other, it doesn't apply to us today. You know, something like that.

I've even known pastors and I'm saying this plural. I have personally known pastors who in their ministries would condemn preachers for committing adultery and then trying to resume their ministry, though they had disqualified themselves and yet they themselves eventually did exactly what they once condemned.

They committed adultery. They made a shipwreck of their ministry, causing many others to stumble because they themselves could not discipline themselves and keep them away from the temptations of their flesh.

And sometimes even blaming somebody else for it. Well, yeah, I did this and it was sin, but it was that person's fault.

And then some of these guys will even try to resume their ministries as though it really wasn't as big, that big a deal that they did this thing.

I said, I'm sorry. And God has forgiven me, right? And so they can just go back to what they were doing before, but they're no longer above reproach.

As it says in first Timothy three, two, it's a first qualification of an elder is that he must be above reproach.

He is to be an example to others. And so that's why Paul says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, which the

Holy Spirit has made you overseers of. You didn't position yourself here.

The Holy Spirit has called you to this, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

It's so great a price. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore be alert, remembering, and he comes back to himself as an example again, that for three years

I did not seize night or day to admonish everyone with tears.

And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

We have sanctification and glorification mentioned there. It's the word of God that is able to build you up.

How can you protect yourself from fierce wolves and the temptations of your flesh?

Be committed to the word of God. Be in it constantly and apply it, the word of his grace, so that you may receive the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

That's a reference to glorification. Those whom he sanctified, he also glorified.

As it says in Romans 8 20, it is through the word of God, the hearing of his word and the doing of his word that we are sanctified and will receive the reward of God's kingdom.

If we endure to the end, let us pray. Heavenly father, keep us from the ways of this world, the temptations of our flesh, that we would not be led astray, that we would not have our ears tickled by these crafty things that the devil whispers to us through these false teachers who are agents of Satan.

May we not go after any worldly thing, but be after the kingdom of God, seeking first your kingdom and your righteousness, that we may receive the inheritance as our reward.

Keep us steadfast, forgive us of our sins. Help us to be ashamed of our sins when we sin, so that we would not be comfortable in it and repent of it, that we may not be disqualified for the day of Christ.

Make us more like him and keeping a watch on others, that we may grow each other in the faith.

In his name we pray, amen. This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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