Acts 20:17-38 Last Words

Last week we saw Paul traveling on his way to Jerusalem and he was stopping and encouraging churches along the way.

So the main message last week was about encouragement, how we need encouragement ourselves, but then we also need to encourage others.

And have you had an opportunity, have you been seeking opportunities to encourage others this week?

I want you to kind of continue that forward and just keep looking for opportunities to encourage others, to build them up and strengthen them, to give courage to them we talked about last week.

So Paul was traveling around and doing that and we picked that up this week with Luke taking the time to zero in on, he's traveling back to Jerusalem for Pentecost and on the way he stops in this little town, we left him in the town of Miletus last week, so he's there chewing on lettuce, not really, that was a bad pun, that was really bad, but he's there and he is 30 miles south of Ephesus, a place where he started a church.

Now it said in the text he didn't stop in Ephesus because he knew it was going to take a bunch of his time, but he sends for the leadership in our very first verse, the leadership of that church in Ephesus comes down and meets with him and we're going to see one long sermon from Paul, thinking in his mind that these are the last words he's going to share with these people.

So this is kind of his last words to the leadership of a church that he got started.

There is no question that Paul was a man with a fiery personality, but his passion for the truth did not get in the way of his compassion for people and we're going to see an emotional appeal to them, we're going to see him connecting with them in a significant way, he's going to speak to them from the heart, recalling the past with them and pointing the way that he ministered to them, encouraging them to follow his example.

And then he's also, in the text and in his message, he's going to look to the future with deep concern, giving them caution, saying,

I kind of see where things might go with this church, and I'm not going to be present anymore with you, and so in my absence

I'm concerned, so pay attention and watch for wolves that might come among you, and he uses the illustration of a shepherd and a flock and wolves trying to destroy the church.

He even indirectly addresses a concern that he sees in their lives about covetousness and the love of money.

So we're going to see kind of a lot of things and it has the potential to be kind of like a fire hose message, so you're going to want to kind of put your seatbelts on for this one because I'm going to preach it like Paul preached it,

I mean this is his text, his sermon, I get to borrow it and kind of explain it to you, and so if you were sitting in the crowd of leaders in Ephesus, they're listening to him, you're going to hear the same message that they heard, so he lets them have it.

But what we have in our text is the practical expression of the love of Paul for the

Ephesian church and the great respect that they had for Paul, and we're going to see how that all panned out.

It's a beautiful picture of a healthy relationship in the church, and as we read this text and come to worship this morning, we need ultimately to ask

God to prepare our hearts for what he would say to us here, where we live in West Michigan in 2011.

So I want you to open your Bibles please to Acts chapter 20, and we're going to be reading 17 through 38, and that's page 796 in the

Bible that's in the seat back in front of you, so if you want to take that Bible out, you can find it on 796, it's a bit of a big chunk, so hang in there,

I think that sometimes reading a big chunk helps us to get the flow of the text. If you don't own a

Bible, you can take that one with you by the way, we want everybody to have a copy of the scriptures, so follow along as I read

Acts 20, 17 through 38. Now from my lettuce he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church to come to him.

And when they came to him, he said to them, you yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day

I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the

Jews, how I did not shrink back from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance towards God and faith in our

Lord Jesus Christ. And now behold I'm going to Jerusalem constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the

Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and affliction await me, but I do not count my life of any value, nor is precious to myself.

If only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord, the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

And now behold I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.

Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

Pay attention, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock 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.

I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me.

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the

Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And when he had said these things he knelt down and prayed with them all.

And there was much weeping on the part of all. They embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken that they would not see his face again.

And they accompanied him to the ship. Let's pray. Father, as we come to a text where Paul is literally in a historical context giving a sermon and speaking these words to the leadership of a church,

Father, I ask that you would impress on our hearts, that you would open us up to see what it is that you desire for us to change here in our lives and where we live.

But Father, if this is just an exercise in us trying to change our behavior or an exercise in us trying to become better people and in our own strength,

Father, that's futile and that's worthless and that's senseless and we can't accomplish that.

Because we need a remedy for our souls. We have a problem.

We have a sickness and an illness that cannot be taken care of on our own strength. And so Father, as we come to you,

I ask that you would help us to offer up praise and worship to you out of hearts that are glad, first and foremost, because Jesus Christ paid the price for us.

He is the remedy. He is the one who is necessary for salvation.

And then from that position that we would go out and live and follow even the model of Paul in this text, an amazing model about certain things that we ought to change.

So Father, as we come before you in worship, I ask that you would settle our hearts. All of the busyness and all of the difficulty of this past week that we would be able to push those things aside.

Even the blessings that you've given us can get in the way. So Father, I ask that you would help us to push those things out and to help our minds and our hearts focus on you as we sing these songs out of glad hearts.

If you're not there, turn in your Bibles to Acts 20, just to remind you where we're at. Acts 20, 17 through 38, page 796.

Feel free to get up and get coffee. There's some donuts left back there. So don't make me eat those throughout the week.

So make sure you get rid of those. I want to start off just by setting the tone and the flavor for where we're at here.

And I've already mentioned that these are, in essence, the last words of Paul, not the last words that we know of him, but the last words that at least a select group.

And so what we have is him actually saying what he thought he wanted to say to a group of people. Now, imagine that you had the chance to speak with a group of people that you love for the very last time.

Okay, so you've got them, they're a captive audience, they're there and they're listening and you're pretty sure that this is the last chance that you're going to get to talk with them.

What kind of things do you say to them? Think about that. Put yourself in those shoes. What kind of stuff do you want to cover with them?

Well, I mean, for those who are in Christ, you might want to proclaim the gospel. But in this context, these are the leaders of a church.

So we're pretty sure that Paul knew that they were followers of Jesus Christ. So he's not going to re -proclaim the gospel to them.

He knows that they're in the faith, so he's going to give them some encouragement and some things. But what do you say? Do you tell them, hang in there?

Do you give them cautions, you know, beware of this or watch out for this, or some words of wisdom of the life that you've experienced, or what about commendations?

Maybe you want to leave them with something positive, like something you've seen in their life that's good and you want that to be uplifting.

What direction do you point them? That's the challenge that faced Paul as he meets with the elders, the leaders in Ephesus.

He was convinced that this was the last chance he was going to have to speak with them. Consider that. What would be your last word?

Paul begins by reminiscing with them. He's going to say, let's look back at the past and some of the good times and some of the things that we've done together.

He says in verse 18, you yourselves know how I lived among you. When I first met you, when I came in among you, when

I first came to Ephesus, you know how I lived. Notice he's not talking about the content of his message.

He's not talking about what he spoke to them. He's talking about the way that he spoke to them, the things that he did, the

MO with which he operated, the way that he did things. It's like Paul says, obviously you know because you were there, but let's think about these things.

Let me draw your attention to my methods. And there's two primary things that really stand out as character traits that ultimately characterize the way that he worked there.

And if you would like to know how you ought to be ministering to one another in the body of Christ, then this would be a good place to pull out a pen and start to take notes because that's what

Paul is going to be declaring to us is how he worked. The first thing that we see in verse 19, he says, let's back up to verse 18 where he first starts.

You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the

Lord, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the

Jews. But first and foremost, he says, I want you to know that the very first, the priority, the first thing was that I served the

Lord. It's very significant that the way, the method that Paul applied first to his ministry is that when he's talking about how to, to these people, was the mindset of ministry to God and not to people.

He says, I served the Lord when I was in your midst. Well, was he serving them or was he serving

God? You see kind of the dilemma there? Would I tell you not to serve people? No, you should be serving people, but you should be serving

God in your service to people. And he identified that first and foremost, he was a servant to God.

And that's very, very important because it can be so easy to begin with good intentions and then get off track by serving people.

Have any of you ever tried that before? Have any of you been around long enough? I'm assuming everybody in this room has been around long enough to figure out that you, this adage actually works.

You can't please everyone. Any of you?

Now, you've heard that before, but how many of you have experienced that? You've been out and trying to please everyone and you've come to that knowledge that that's true.

Not because your mom told you, not because a pastor told you, but you figured it out on your own. Raise your hand.

Okay, that's pretty much all of us. You can't please everyone, right? And you've got this group of people over here that think this way of you and want you to do this.

And you've got this people over here that want you to do this and they don't agree with each other. And how many of you know that riding the fence can totally pull you in half?

Okay? There comes a point in life where you can't ride the fence and you're going to join this group or you're going to join this group or they're just going to tear you.

Especially when people, a group of this people are together with a group of this people and you're there. That gets pretty ugly pretty fast, especially if they think you're on their side and they think you're on their side and ah, that gets really ugly pretty fast.

I've seen that firsthand, how the shifting standards of trying to please everyone can cause a person to become double -minded and unstable and just tear apart ministry.

Paul, therefore, sought to please one in ministry. Do you see how we could be arguing semantics here, but it's really, really valuable and really important.

The way that you go about ministry, thinking about who am I serving matters. If you're just trying to serve and please people, that is going to be a long and hard road.

Unsuccessful at best. Serving God, that is the way that he ministered among them. So he's serving the

Lord and he's got that mindset, but Paul served in humility, tears, and trials, he says. That Paul served in humility shows that he was not in ministry for his own glory.

He wasn't in it so that everybody looked at Paul and said, wow, great job, Paul, you're awesome. He served with humility, but also

Paul served with tears. This shows that he approached others with an open heart. How many of you know that you don't cry about things you don't care about?

Have you experienced that? Okay, you cry about things that matter. Paul was a minister who stuck his neck out on the chopping block.

Not necessarily a great professional, because how many of you know tears are not very professional?

You know what I'm saying? But he ministered among them with tears, engaging his heart in them.

Some older pastors have advised me at times, keep your distance, don't get engaged.

Don't get too engaged because your heart will get broken. Well, isn't that what it means to be in relationship with others, is putting it out there?

Do you see what I'm saying? I mean, you are always at risk when you're in genuine relationship with another human being.

How many of you know you're always at risk for heartbreak, right? So that's what it means to minister.

If we are really the church, recast, if we are the church to one another, then it means putting our necks out there for one another.

And putting your heart in somebody else's hands, that's a scary thing, isn't it?

So both be a good steward of each other's hearts, but also be willing to lay that out there.

And being genuine, like Paul was here, he's ministering in tears. That shows where his heart was in ministry.

It was not disconnected or task -oriented as many people think, but he served people, he served

God through serving people. And that he served with trials shows that he was willing to endure personal loss for the sake of serving the

Lord. So he served in trials, particularly those, he highlights, that the Jews were plotting against him and he faced some pretty hard things.

But the second thing, so that's the first thing, he served the Lord over and above just mentally serving people. But the second thing is his boldness.

Look at verse 20. He says, How I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from house to house.

Paul says, The second thing that was my MO when I was with you, Ephesians, is that I did not shrink back from declaring anything profitable.

He was bold in proclaiming the truth. His boldness included public teaching, teaching in homes. He eagerly testified to all.

He says, Both Jews and Greeks I called to turn from their own way of life and turn to God. Ultimately, when you see

Jews and Greeks there, you're talking about the religious people who thought that they had it together and God loved them because they were religious.

Some of you come from that background. Some of you are like the Greeks who were just worshiping everything.

The next fad that came along, they were going to worship it and follow it. And so you look at your upbringing and you know where you're at on that spectrum.

From being a religious zealot who was raised in a family probably with a lot of rules and I'm good and I'm better than everybody else because of this, or a family where everything goes.

Wherever you were raised and whatever you grabbed a hold of growing up, we need to repent of that life and come to Christ.

So that even ultimately he's calling the very religious Jews to repentance and to faith in Jesus Christ as their

Lord, the text says. Now, I would call Paul a great example in ministry. Paul takes those ministering in the church and he says,

Serve others as if you are serving the Lord and declare the truth without shrinking back.

Or in other words, be bold. Two very, very good things for us to consider and to think about from this text.

But now from verse 22 through 35, Paul is going to look to the future. So he's taking a look back and said, Here, let's think about the way that I ministered with implications that you ought to model the way that he ministered.

But now, verses 22 through 35, future thoughts towards these leaders. And in 22 through 25, he starts off just by speaking his own immediate future, saying in verse 22 that he's going to Jerusalem as a slave to the

Holy Spirit. The word constrained, if you're looking at the text, verse 22, and now behold,

I'm going to Jerusalem constrained by the Spirit. The word constrained means I'm in chains. I'm shackled by the

Spirit. He was going to Jerusalem somehow because the Spirit was guiding him and directing him.

We don't have exactly how that happened. If he had a vision, a dream, whatever, the Spirit's driving him towards Jerusalem.

And with the thought in the back of his mind, he's going there to his demise. He knows he's supposed to go to Jerusalem, but he doesn't know what's going to befall him there in the specifics.

But he has an inkling. He has some thoughts. If you look at verse 23, I don't know what will happen to me there at the end of 22 and then the start of 23, except that the

Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and affliction await me. The Holy Spirit is telling him, presumably through prophets, he's going to actually encounter in a couple of chapters, he's going to encounter a prophet in Caesarea who's going to outright declare, you're going to be bound in chains when you go to Jerusalem.

Don't go to Jerusalem because if you go there, you're going to be bound in physical chains and arrested. He knows that.

I mean, wherever I travel, as I'm traveling and I'm on my way to Pentecost in Jerusalem, people just keep coming out of the blue, out of the woodwork and just saying, you're going to be arrested and there's going to be affliction awaiting.

How many of you would love that? That would just be really encouraging. I mean, that ministry of encouragement. He's traveling around encouraging others and they're saying, dude, it's not going to go well for you.

I've foreseen the future and this is not going to go down well. I don't know.

Would you want to know? Would you want to know? Or, I mean, it all depends on your personality, right?

Some of us in the room would just prefer to kind of be like, I don't want to know if I'm going to get arrested next week. Just let it happen.

But the fact of the matter is, that Paul knows that he is going to get arrested, makes this speech all the more important, because he knows that he's giving his last words.

Do you see the value in that? If he doesn't know this is the end, then he might just be like chewing the fat and talking about the football game yesterday or whatever.

But he's taking this seriously and this is pretty significant because he knows that this is the end of the line for him and he's pretty sure about that.

So he's pretty sure that this is not going to go well for him. He keeps hearing this from town to town. And I'm not sure if I would want to know or not.

You decide that for yourself. He gives them this parting speech because he's certain, as verse 25 tells us, and now behold,

I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. There's the statement that lets us know that he knows that this is the end of the line.

But it's important to note Paul's bravery. And this is kind of convicting to me. He's not just under the impression that he's going to go back to Jerusalem for Pentecost and head up to Antioch, give a report to his missions board, the sending church that sent him out, talk with them, and then retire.

And retire to a nice little villa on the Mediterranean Sea where he can have hummus all he wants and grape leaves.

How many of you like Middle Eastern food? Man, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. Love that stuff.

And it's not like he's just going to retire there off the coast of the Mediterranean, you know, where the warm breeze is blowing.

And I probably won't make it back to Ephesus again because I'm just going to be in retirement golfing and having a good time.

That's not what his impression is. Because look at what he goes on to say in 24 and 25.

But I do not account my life of any value. Wait a minute, Paul. Why are you talking about what your life is worth here?

Why are you talking about the value? You just said we're not going to see you. Stop it, Paul. Stop talking about it. Because what's he saying?

I'm going to die. He sees this. He knows this. He's seeing the end of the line.

He's not talking about retirement and having a nice place off to the side or whatever and going around and visiting the grandkids or whatever.

He's talking about this being the end. And it's convicting to me to just see how serious he is about this.

He says in verse 24, I do not account my life of any value. It is not precious to myself.

How many of us can say that? I don't count my life as valuable.

And clinging to this life. Now, not that you think of yourself. We're not talking about your self -worth or things like that.

I mean, self -esteem was not known to Paul at that time. That's not what we're dealing with here. We're dealing with this notion of clinging to life as if this is ultimate and the end.

But man, I just got to hold on to this life and stay alive as long as I can. So can you say that?

Can we say that? And that's a tough statement. But the conviction gets deeper because not only does

Paul say, I don't count my life as precious, but let me tell you what is precious to me. And then, so then he comes at it from the other angle.

And actually we get a double conviction in this because Paul says, I don't count my life as precious.

But what is precious to me is that I finished the course. That is the race that God has called me to.

And the ministry that he has, getting the ministry out that he has called me to.

You see, the ministry, the New Testament assumes that everyone receives a race and a ministry that they are called to complete.

The picture of life is like this race. For Paul, he had been called specifically to be a witness of the

Gospel of the grace of God. You see that there in the text that that's literally what his calling and his race was.

To witness the Gospel specifically to Gentiles. That's what he's been out doing. And he's like, if I fulfill that, if I complete the task that God has called me to, that's what satisfies me.

And if that means dying early, so be it. And that's a hard thing for us to take on.

As much as we value our own lives, he's saying, I don't count it as anything. What I count as valuable is that I finish what

God has set me here on planet earth to accomplish. And I want to be able to say that.

You can consider his life worthless, worthwhile rather, if it was used up finishing the course and ministry that he's called to.

In verse 25 indicates he fully expects his life to end short. How well do you know your race?

How well do you know the course that is planned out for you? And I'm not talking about knowing the future here.

I'm talking about how well do you know what you've been made to do? We are not all held to the same ministry.

Not all are called to be elders. Not all are called to be preachers. Not all are called to be evangelists. Not all are called to make coffee on Sunday morning or to be greeters or to work in the finances.

All different kinds of aspects, right? So, we're not all called to the same ministry. We're not all called to the same race.

But how well do you know your race? Running a race without knowing the course would be pretty difficult, don't you think?

How many of you in here have run an actual race at some point? 5K, marathon, half marathon, something like that.

Okay, how many of you, when you get up to the starting line, and those of you who haven't run, I still think you can kind of imagine this. You get up to the starting line, the gun goes.

How far do you have to run? Now, I've never been in the front of the race, so I don't have that problem, because what do you do if you're in the back of the pack?

You follow, okay? But how many of you, if you were in that race, and the gun sounds, and how far would you have to run before you realized you weren't on course, and nobody knew where they were going?

It would probably be right around the time that you hit whatever distance you were going, and there was no finish line there.

You know, so you're in a 5K race, and you get to 3 .1 miles, and there's nothing there.

You know what I'm saying? It's just kind of like, what just happened here? And everybody, you just keep running?

What do you do? Turn around and go back? I guess this is a 10K. Knowing the course is important, but what

I, now hear me carefully. Get your pens ready on this one, because this is really, really significant.

I am not talking about finding some secret calling that God has revealed to you in a secret way.

That is not what I'm talking about. Like, God has some secret course, and your goal in life is to figure out what that course is.

Because how many of you know, God doesn't always tell you the future? Okay, some people in scripture had specific, unique callings, right?

How many burning bush experiences were in the Bible? Raise your hand and tell me how many with your hand.

One, one burning bush in history. What, would we expect that?

Like, we expect that for ourselves? What about Paul? Now, Paul had a unique calling, didn't he? I mean, that's even what he's kind of referring to here.

He knew his course in a way that I don't expect us to. Are you hearing what

I'm saying? There's something other than this, and so what I'm talking about, when I'm talking about finding your course, finding your race, is

I'm talking about a practical assessment, a practical evaluation of your gifts, your talents, the resources and abilities that God has given to you in serving

God with those things. Now, hear me out here, because some people might disagree with this, and you can come and talk with me if you disagree with this afterwards.

I believe that as a follower of Jesus Christ, you can stumble upon your calling.

Now, that kind of flies in the face of everything that tells you to live intentionally. I want you to live intentionally, I want you to be honoring

God with your lives, but I believe that you can practically stumble upon your calling by faithfully doing the things that align with God's Word and going out and using your talents.

As if by focusing on His glory and delighting in Him, you wake up one day and realize that you are on the course, running the race.

Are you hearing what I'm saying? By being faithful, by delighting yourself in the Lord, and then using the gifts and talents and abilities, you wake up one day and you're like, this is it.

I love this. Let me just tell you, that's been my personal experience. If you came to me 10 years ago, and my wife can validate this, if you had come to me 10 years ago and said,

Don, you're going to be the pastor of a church, I couldn't have handled that. That would have just broke me down right there.

I'd have been like, no way, you've got the wrong person. That's not going to happen, let alone being a preaching pastor. You're nuts.

You're crazy. And yet, God has worked in many, many circumstances in my life to bring me to the place where here we are,

Recast. And this is awesome and I love it and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. And I'm just delighted in that. Was I ready?

If God had come to me 10 years ago and said that, I was not ready for that information. That would have just blown my mind.

No way, no how. And so what is it that God isn't necessarily telling you right now that He has in store for you and all you are called to do right now is walk in faithfulness step by step, obeying

God's word, not some secret, not wasting a lot of time trying to figure out some secret calling that God has for you.

Are you getting this? Are you hearing what I'm saying? Because we can waste a lot of time sitting back, watching

TV, hoping that God interrupts with the next commercial to tell us where to go and what to do instead of doing something with the gifts, talents, abilities that He has given us.

Paul gets kind of solemn here. These are last words, and he starts using even some solemn terminology like, therefore

I testify to you this day. He says, you're not going to see me again, and so I'm going to testify to you. A formal court type of word.

And he is ultimately witnessing his own innocence regarding the eternal demise of anyone in Ephesus.

Crazy. He's not saying I'm innocent of murder as he refers to blood, which you can kind of see that if it was literal, but he's being figurative.

I'm innocent of the blood of all. In context, it's obvious that he is assured that he has adequately declared the whole counsel of God to everyone in Ephesus.

When verse 26 and 27 are placed together, what happens in my life is conviction. Okay, look at this.

Therefore, I testify to you this day that I'm innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

I would love to be able to say as I approach the end of my life, I did not shrink back in fear from declaring the whole plan, the whole counsel, the whole will.

Those are interchangeable words in Greek. Plan, counsel, will of God to all.

That at the judgment nobody could step up and say,

Don, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me?

We worked as cashiers at Sam's Club for a year and a half and you never opened your mouth.

Why? Didn't you care about me? And I'm not trying to be melodramatic. I'm trying to just lay it out there in the way that it really is.

How significant is our interaction with other people who have a soul?

It's real stuff. Why didn't you tell me? You were my neighbor for five years.

You barely even came over. You knew this stuff. You knew this was real, that there was going to be a judgment like this and you didn't say a word.

Did you love me? Why didn't you care? Can you imagine?

But Paul says, I'm innocent of all that. Like we contend to elevate some of these biblical characters beyond proportion.

They're no longer human. They're superhuman, all of this stuff. And so we don't pray to Paul. We don't ask him for extra grace.

We don't see him as any different. He's made of the same stuff as you and I. You wouldn't want to follow exactly everything that Paul did in his ministry and in his life.

He was a sinner just like you and me. But how many of you know that there are some things about Paul that we could all stand to emulate?

We could all stand to mimic his life. And this is one of those. Man, he is just watertight on this.

If he's being honest and not just outright lying to us, he's saying, there was nobody in Ephesus. There was nobody in Ephesus that I feel guilty about.

And there's nobody on my conscience that I should have shared the gospel with. I shared it with all of them.

They all know because I was there. Man, isn't that powerful? Anybody else feel that the way that I feel that?

That's intense. That convicts me. I think about that.

The phrase, the whole counsel of God is interesting because it really, really dovetails nicely with our culture and where we live.

Because how many of you know that sometimes it is hard to declare the whole counsel of God? Everything that he says?

And I'm not talking about content. I'm not talking about sitting down and reading the whole Bible with your coworker. When it comes to declaring the whole counsel, it's just not twisting it, changing it, leaving out the uncomfortable parts, which is what our culture tends to do.

And if you are a student of our culture and you are one who cares what other people think about you, which is, raise your hand.

Do you care what people think about you? Honestly, I know I do. It is easy to shrink back from declaring some of the things that are in the whole counsel of God.

Like let's name three. Hell. Is that hard to declare? Is it hard to speak about hell as a real place where there is real judgment?

Yeah. Out in our culture, that is an unpopular message. Would you agree with that? So it's easy to shrink back from that and say,

I'm going to declare most of the counsel of God. Paul said, I declare the whole thing.

Sin. How does sin settle with our culture that we're all sinners? I can't think of a more fundamental issue that we have with a culture at large.

If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you immediately set yourself against one main thing, and that is that everybody is awesome.

Isn't that the American way? Everybody's awesome. Everybody's cool. Everybody's all good. And you can just do it yourself, right?

Isn't that the American way? The rugged individualism of our day and age? The way that our culture was founded?

We just do it. And the idea of sin certainly goes against that.

Or the last one that I just wanted to point out, and there's many more things in the whole counsel of God that are difficult to declare, but that salvation is in Christ alone.

Is that a tough one? That is so hard in our culture. There's so, you know, all the roads lead to the same place, except that Jesus didn't say that, and God doesn't believe it.

And how many of you know what God, you know, God's vote trumps all others? So we can have a vote on it and say, how many of you think that there's more ways than one to heaven, but if God says there's one, we're all trumped.

There's only one vote that matters, and he's the one that's accepting the penalty for our sins through the cross.

And I mean, you know, he's free to set up the rules how he wants, and that's the rules. Through Christ, that his son was sacrificed on our behalf.

That's the way. Here's our truth found in the counsel of God that the timid will leave out, but we should be those who declare the whole counsel of God.

And ask yourself this question, who would you need to have a conversation with in order to declare yourself innocent of the blood of all?

Who would you need to talk to? If you're taking notes, you might want to write down a name. And some of us may be overwhelmed by names, right?

And it's reality. I've got multiple names in my mind. So maybe a good place to start is committing to and actually having a compassionate conversation with somebody this week.

Maybe there's somebody that you need to declare the whole counsel of God to in the sense of we are broken. We need a

Savior. And Jesus Christ provided a way. And there is forgiveness for all. That's a good message.

That's a good story. And I think sometimes we think of it as bad news.

And it is great, awesome news if a person's heart is ready to hear that they need a Savior.

And there are many people in our culture. Did you know that there are people that I guarantee, I would guarantee that there's somebody that everybody in this room knows.

Now, I don't know all your friends and all your acquaintances, but I would dare venture to say that everybody in this room knows somebody that is not a believer that is eager to hear the message, that wants to hear it and is ready.

They're ready. They want to know it. They've come to the end of themselves. They might smile every time they see you and say, hey, how's it going?

Oh, great. Are you having a good week? Yeah, I'm having a good week. How about those lines? How about Michigan? And they're talking about all this stuff and inside they are broken and they know it and they just want healing.

They want a remedy. And you have the antidote. Have what they need.

They just want to hear it. They just need somebody to tell them. Verse 28 -31,

Paul takes, again, thinking about the future. He cautions the elders at Ephesus about the future of their church.

He commands them to pay attention to themselves and their flock. Good advice to leaders in the church to pay attention to themselves, but certainly something that would be good for all of us to do, right?

To pay attention to ourselves. And to help one another.

Elders need to be very mindful of themselves, guarding their lives and doctrine closely. And we see that all throughout Scripture.

Mainly because they are shepherds over a flock and there really are wolves. There really are wolves and we don't like to think about that.

We don't like to think that people could become wolf -like here at Recast, right? Don't even like the thought that that might happen.

But Paul says wolves will come from outside the church and wolves will come from inside the church.

We don't like to think that that would happen, but here's what becomes convicting. So you tend to think, okay, we've got to guard because a wolf might come from outside into the church.

But then Paul takes it a step further and says, well, people might come from within the church and people might actually be here and they have designs on destroying or tearing apart.

That would be horrible, wouldn't it? But here's what becomes convicting is do we hear

Paul talking to us? Or do we hear him talking about someone else outside?

Because how many of you know, how many of you when you look down in your heart and you look down in your own soul, you could see the potential to be a wolf.

You see the potential to be divisive. You see the potential to be quarrelsome. You love contention.

You love to draw things out. And I think all of us, even if you're right now, you're sitting there and you're saying, that couldn't be me.

That might be the first seeds of being a wolf. It's just the arrogance and the pride that says that couldn't be me because it could be any of us, right?

So looking in our own hearts, starting here, this is not the start of some police mentality here at Recast.

Well, you're just watching everybody. Be careful. We talked about putting your neck out there in ministry. Paul had tears over these things because he loved people who betrayed him.

Did you know that? Paul had people literally betray his ministry. Jesus had one of his inner circle of twelve betray him.

He stuck it all out there. And he ended up paying the ultimate price on that one, right?

But that didn't keep him from trusting and loving and caring. But there are wolves. That's real.

The reality is it could be us. All it takes is subtle disagreement turning into backbiting, which turns into slander, which turns into quarreling, which turns into rallying people to our cause, which results in drawing disciples away with us.

As verse 30 says, that's the end of the scenario. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

Church splits all over the place based on this type of scenario happening in reality, in our community, around us.

Not naive to think that that could not happen here. And so I pray and I pray and I pray that God would protect us as a flock.

Paul would spend himself both emotionally and physically for the church and he desires the elders to be alert ministering in the same way.

Imagine how Paul felt at this point. He has the conviction that something is going to happen to this church that he cares about.

He knows things are going to get rough for them and he cares about them. And he has wept over them, he says, night and day.

What hope does he have for them? What hope does he have that they will carry on? Your last chance to talk with these people and you know that bad things are going to happen to them and it's going to be difficult and they're going to undergo persecution for both outside of the church and within the church.

Where do you find hope in a situation like that? Well, hope comes in verse 32. He says,

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 those who are sanctified.

He leaves them in better hands than His. He says, These hands are not great, but let me commend you to someone who can take care of you and that is

God. And here, Paul shows his intense trust in God's word. It is the word that is able to build up churches and it is the word that is able to give an inheritance among those who are made holy.

An inheritance of eternal life. Truth is not just a word on the back wall.

You can see it. It's written right there. It's one of our core values. But it is more than that word.

It is a core value that hopefully shines through everything here at Recast. That it is the word of God that we trust in.

I believe in the power of the word of God. I believe that the Bible is the only raw material needed to start a church.

To plant a church. This is what's needed. That we come to this and we come under its authority and we listen to it and we heed it and we hear it and we live it.

Everything in here about the church. Everything in here that we need to be God's people together and to live together in holiness.

Seeking together to... Are we going to fail? Are we going to have difficulties? Yes, but we're going to get back up again because Christ is the center and his word is powerful and strong and it's in that that we have our inheritance.

This is the raw material of what the church is really built on. Most scholars believe that Paul now is going to speak at the very end of his talk to a specific issue that he has identified in the

Ephesians. And that's why things can kind of seem disjunct in this message. I believe that Paul's standing there.

He's got the Ephesian elders in front of him and he knows them personally. Would you agree with this? He knows them personally and he knows some of their own personal problems and issues and sins.

And he's now going to conclude with a weird topic. You would conclude with covetousness if it was the last word you had to speak to somebody in general.

Probably not. Probably not the last thing your mind keys in on. So what most scholars and even myself consider,

Paul's going to talk about covetousness because he's looking at this group of men saying, I know you. I know your issues.

I know your hangups. And guess what? Covetousness. We're going to take this one head on. So he's going to address that.

He says he's ultimately going to hold himself up as a model again. How many of you feel comfortable holding yourself up as a model for money?

The way you use money. Paul did. Again, maybe something that he had pretty well in hand to say, follow me on this one.

And then he's also going to tie a quote in from Jesus Christ to kind of seal the deal on this. Paul says, when I came among you,

I didn't covet your wealth, your silver, your gold. Remember that whole silversmith thing that we talked about a few weeks ago?

There was some wealth in Ephesus. Remember 50 ,000 drachmas? $8 million to $9 million worth of scrolls and incantation books and black magic paraphernalia and stuff like that that was burned in Ephesus?

Or do you think there was some money in Ephesus? That was a wealthy place. Everything implies that it was wealthy.

And Paul says, I didn't covet your wealth. As a matter of fact, I worked with my own hands when I was among you.

Tent making. That was his trade. He was a leather worker making tents for people who were on exodus from one place to another. And he's building temporary homes for them and working with leather, probably repairing cloaks, doing all kinds of stuff like that.

He says, I worked. And not only did I work to support my own ministry, but I gave some to my co -workers.

So I helped support their ministry as well. And then he goes a step further. Not only did

I support myself, I supported some of my team with my trade. And then also, he modeled how imperative it is that we also save some to give to the poor, the weak in our midst.

It's quite obvious that he is calling them to follow his lead as he draws their attention to this quote from Jesus.

It is more blessed to give than to receive. Now that quote, you can spend a lot of time.

I could give you a really mean assignment and tell you to go find out where that is in the Gospels. And you'd come back next week and say,

I didn't find it because it's not in there. And some people might have an issue with that. Okay, a quote from Jesus, and it's not found in the

Bible. So what do we do with this? Well, it's just obvious that Paul was privy, was on the inside know about some things that didn't make the limited space of the scrolls of the

Gospels. How many of you know the Gospels are not exhaustive works on the life of Jesus?

Not everything that Jesus ever said is recorded in the Gospels. You guys get that? So there's a lot of things that he said.

And people were alive in Paul's day who heard Jesus say things. So he had some knowledge.

And he actually ends up being in Scripture. It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Paul concludes his talk with a challenge to them to avoid coveting. Obviously, this was important in his particular qualification for elders.

He's speaking to elders. Elders are told not to be lovers of money. At the conclusion,

Paul kneels down and prays with all of them. There's weeping. The last verse uses the word sorrow or sorrowful.

That is actually a strong, strong Greek phrase, emotional pain. They are grieving.

Their grieving is lost while he's still there. It says they were sorrowful because they knew he was going to leave and that they weren't going to see his face again.

They embrace. They give parting kisses. And just a little side note, God knew

I couldn't handle something like that, so he made me an American. Okay, the whole kissy, kissy thing with two men.

You know, you see a kiss on this cheek and this cheek? No. No, I mean, and that's one of those things that I could potentially offend somebody in another culture and it'd be all right.

You know, I don't know if it is in France that they do that or in Eastern Europe or whatever. You get the point.

Just sharing a little of my heart here with you. Sorrow comes in knowing that they will not see

Paul again. And do you get the impression that they love Paul? What do you get?

What do you get the feel between those that Paul ministered to and him? Do you get that they think he's kind of rough and abrasive?

There's connection there, isn't there? There's love between them. A bad rap.

As bad a rap as Paul often gets for being a bull in a china shop, he is a man very loved by those he ministered to.

They accompany Paul to the ship and he sails off towards Jerusalem, assuming his death is waiting there.

Kind of similar to another guy who once set his face to Jerusalem, assuming his death was going to happen there.

There's so much in this passage. You guys feel like you got like a fire hose? Is it like drinking from a fire hose here? Hopefully you can understand why

I'm preaching it as one message. I could have broken it up and preached every single verse as an individual sermon. I have to make these calls sometimes.

But this is one message to them. So I wanted it to be one message to you. They sat there and they heard this from Paul, his last words.

And so I thought it was valuable. Paul had a reason for tying all this together and it made sense to me.

But what I want you to do is, as I'm going to go through and summarize these points, I'm going to ask you to do something different.

I'm going to ask you to get that connection card out and think through these things. And even as I'm saying them, pray and ask the

Spirit that He might guide you into what He would put a finger on in your life that you need to do with this message this week.

What is something that you can walk away like a takeaway point? If you'd be willing to share that on the back of that card, then we will pray for you this week and walk through those.

I would love to see cards where people are saying what they're going to do differently. But listen to this list.

This is a suggestion list. Six things that I get out of the text that are application points that may or may not strike you.

But first is that Paul served the Lord. That he served the Lord with humility, with tears, and with trials.

He did not serve for selfish reasons. He served in a way that engaged his emotions. And he suffered personal loss for the sake of the kingdom.

And my question to you is, God calling you to reform the way that you view service. All of us have been at times in our lives where we're serving and we're not really feeling it.

Do you know what I'm talking about? And maybe you would consider where is your service?

Often I've found that if I really gauge myself, those times when I feel really weakest in ministry are the times when

I'm serving people. If I'm expecting thankfulness from my ministry and that's why

I'm doing what I'm doing. Let me know that if you're serving people and not serving the Lord, then you immediately assume that they ought to thank you for it.

Do you know what I'm saying? But if you're serving God, then you know where your thanks is going to come from, right?

And it's not necessarily here. So maybe it's a mind shift to understanding that we serve or a shift to serving the

Lord instead of serving people. The second thing is that Paul was bold. He was declaring, testifying, teaching, and even declaring the whole counsel of God as the text says.

So maybe your takeaway point this morning, your application would be that God is calling you to be more bold than that whole issue of the innocence.

Have you ever felt guilty about those who are lost around you that you're not sharing, you're not speaking, you're not being bold with them?

Maybe that would be you to write that one down or think through that. The third thing, Paul lived with a laser point focus on the race in ministry that was set out for him.

And so maybe some of you need to take a step and actually engage in ministry, doing something.

Come to see me if you're confused or fearful that you might get your calling wrong. I would love to walk through that with you. The college age group right now, the college age small group is going through a book called

Just Do Something. And just the title alone goes a long way to figuring out your calling. If you love

God, do something. Love God, do it. And figure out where the gifts, talents, abilities lie.

Paul warns, number four, Paul warned about wolves. And yet maybe you identify a wolf -like tendency within yourself.

You see that. You're like, I can see that. I can see contention in me. And it seems to follow me wherever I go.

Confess that to God. And I would encourage you to come and talk with me about that. We can work through that and come to a healthy place.

Especially if any of you right now are harboring frustration with decisions that the leadership makes, we want an open door, wide open door to your concerns about the way that things are being run here.

So please come and talk to us. And by the way, on the back of that connection card, there's a place for you to check.

I would like to meet with Pastor. You can check that if any of these things apply and you want to talk to me further about it.

The fifth thing, Paul encouraged the leaders of Ephesus to avoid coveting and to give to those in need.

And maybe the love of money is a serious struggle in your life. Confess that to God as sin and consider what

God might be calling you to do regarding the poor. There are many opportunities to help and assist in our community with those who are less fortunate.

And the last thing, again, these are just my thoughts. Paul connected in real, authentic, genuine relationships with others.

He was not guarded in ministry. He wept over people and they wept at his departure. I said earlier,

Paul would not have appeared very professional, but the fact of the matter is he was a minister in real life with people, really engaging them where they were at.

Maybe God is calling you to take some steps to melt the mask. Maybe you've been a mask wearer and you've polished your mask really well so that you're guarded and you don't enter into others' lives and don't let them enter into your life.

And you know what I'm talking about. You know what I mean when I say a mask like that? It's that look that doesn't express what's going on in here.

And sometimes that can be really, really hard, right? Because there's a lot of trust that's involved in that. And so I would love to talk with you.

And if you're interested in this, put this on the back of there. You can write it in. But there's a program that's going on in our community called

Journeys. It's a program that some of the people here are kind of doing a pilot program for Recast.

It's something that we might be picking up in the future. We're going to kind of see how that goes. And possibly moving in. But what it really boils down to is getting down to the heart issues and exposing our hearts to others and sharing some of that stuff and allowing the healing light of Christ to come in and to cleanse some of that out that we might be more authentic.

How many of you know sometimes we need help in being authentic? Because it's really hard. I mean, to stand up after the last song is played, we do communion and stand up and just share with somebody your crud and your junk.

How many of you are going to be comfortable with that in this setting? Okay, good.

I didn't expect that. I mean, I did expect that. I expected no hands. So this is a format and a way.

And I mean, if you're interested in something like that, put that on that card and let me know. And that would help me to see that maybe that program is something that we do need here.

Something that would be something that we consider moving forward with. But if you're making a decision to change something,

I would like to know so that I can pray for you. So put that on the card. Summarize everything. Come into communion.

Without the cross of Christ, this entire sermon is senseless, pointless, completely useless.

We've just wasted our time if the cross of Christ has not applied to your life.

It really is ultimately Paul asking people to just make themselves better if there is no cross.

Because we needed a remedy to get better. And Dave's going to come and play that song during communion, but we needed a remedy to get better.

We couldn't manufacture the medicine to make our heart right.

We couldn't heal ourselves. And as verse 28 in the text says, if you were to look back there for just a second, pay careful attention to yourselves, to all of the flock in which the

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

That is the way that we're made well. That is the remedy, is the blood of Christ applied to us.

And so we take the juice every Sunday morning to remember his blood that bought us. We take the cracker to remember the body of Jesus that was broken in our place.

He was the substitute for us and he died in our place. If you've asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, then

I encourage you to come and take communion during this song at one of the tables. There's a table set up here and one in the back.

But if not, if you're still wrestling and trying to figure out and the verdict isn't in yet on who

Jesus Christ is, I'd encourage you to just sit back and take in this song and consider the words of what the remedy is.

Consider your own situation. Consider where your heart is. Sit back, take in the song. No sense in you getting up and remembering

Jesus dying on the cross for you, remembering that he shed his blood and that his body was crushed for you, if you don't believe that.

And that's the reason that I ask you to just remain seated, because you're basically saying, I believe this, but you don't believe it.

So I just encourage you to sit. Nobody's policing this. We don't ever keep track of who's up and who's down and things like that.

But just between you and God, maybe this would be a time for you to sit and just think about it and to take it in and consider are you in need of a remedy?

Jesus Christ is that remedy and let's pray. Father, this is, even for me preaching it, it feels like a fire hose.

And I know that I'm so dependent on your Holy Spirit to even just drive home a point in anybody's life.

I know that you've convicted me at certain points along the way in this message and in the preparation this past week.

But Father, I ask that you would work in people's hearts, even over the course of this song, as we have an opportunity to reflect on the awesome, amazing sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

Father, that there is salvation. There is a remedy, that there is healing and forgiveness available through the cross of Jesus Christ.

I praise you for that. I pray that you would go with us throughout this week and allow even this time of communion together, of remembering the sacrifice, to be encouraging in a time of building us up and strengthening us in you.