How to have a Good Goodbye - Pastor Mike Stone

Thank you, Gunnar, for leading us in worship tonight. And thank you for your presence here tonight.

We know on a Friday evening, there are many other places that you could be. Your presence here tonight is a demonstration of your love for Christ, his church, and his word.

I wanna say a special word of gratitude to our host, Quatro, who invited me some months ago to be a part of this conference.

And then it is grace upon grace that God will allow me to share these times with you, Dr. Askel, I've loved and appreciated your ministry for so many years, and it is a great privilege to be able to be here with you this evening.

I want to invite you to go ahead and be finding your place in your Bible in the book of Acts, the 20th chapter,

Acts chapter 20. In a moment, I'm gonna read verses 17 through 27. I'll drop off there because Dr.

Askel is gonna pick up this text tomorrow and speak to us in verse 28 and following.

Tonight, we're going to read Acts chapter 20, verses 17 through 27, a message

I've entitled, How to Have a Good Goodbye. Now, I don't mind telling you that this is not a sugar stick message.

You preachers in the room know what I mean by that. In fact, when I delivered this particular sermon at the

Emanuel Baptist Church in Blackshear about five and a half years ago, it was a classic case of a sermon that died on its way to the pulpit.

You preachers know what I mean, that Wednesday, Thursday, perhaps even Friday, with an open

Bible and a prayer life in your sermon study room, it felt red hot, but it got ice cold somewhere on the way to the pulpit.

But God, in his sovereignty, is well able to lay on the heart of his messengers what he would have them to preach, and I hope that this message will strengthen your heart as we each think about what it means to conclude a ministry, either at the end of a specific tenure or at the conclusion of our life, how we can end that ministry with a good goodbye.

Acts chapter 20, beginning in the 17th verse, this is Paul's farewell address to the leaders of the

Ephesian church. And the Holy Spirit, through Dr. Luke, says, from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church, and when they had come to him, he said to them, you yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how

I was with you the whole time, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials, which came upon me through the plots of the

Jews, how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, solemnly testifying to both

Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

And now behold, bound by the Spirit, I'm on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the

Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me, but I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which

I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.

And now behold, I know that all of you among whom I went about preaching the kingdom will no longer see my face.

Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men, and here's why.

For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose or the whole counsel of God.

Hear the word of our Lord. As we consider in conclusion tonight how to have a good goodbye.

In my ministry, I've resigned from three different churches. Two were filled with the kinds of tears that Paul shed along with the elders here at the city of Miletus.

Suffice to say that after one 10 -week, yes, that's 70 -day tenure, that goodbye was not so good.

Given the tenure of the average Baptist pastor or staff member, most of us in vocational ministry will have a number of opportunities to give farewell addresses to the people

God has called us to serve and to lead. And here in Acts chapter 20, we find

Paul's famous farewell address to the Ephesian elders. The context is simple.

Paul is on his way to Jerusalem and doesn't want to spend time in Ephesus, so he summons to the nearby city of Miletus the leaders from the

Ephesian church. And as we said in what might seem like a Friday night first century pastors conference, our guest speaker for just a few moments and a few verses is none other than the blessed apostle

Paul. And he might have titled his farewell address How to Have a Good Goodbye.

And as I've already indicated in my introductory comments, my hope and prayer tonight for the lay person, the senior adult, the retiree, the staff member, the pastor, the deacon, the elder, each and every one of God's people who are commanded, called, and commissioned by God to have a ministry through the local church, my prayer is that this sermon tonight will help us see what we must be doing today so that on that day, whenever that day is, we can have a good goodbye.

Whether you're leaving the church at the end of a long and profitable ministry or leaving the church at the end of a long cantankerous deacon's meeting.

And more importantly, when we breathe our last or when the trumpet sounds and our

Lord returns, that we will be able to say a good goodbye to this world and be met by our

Lord saying, well done, good and faithful servant. I pray simply for myself and for each of you that this text and this time in God's word tonight will show us how to have a good goodbye.

Now if we're going to be able to be met by well done, good and faithful servant, there are three things that Paul testifies about his ministry as a pastor and a shepherd of the flock of God in the years he served in the city of Ephesus.

And I want to commend these three things to you this evening. Number one, you have to have consistency in your service.

Consistency in your service. I'm blessed to pastor a larger congregation.

I will often have brother pastors ask me, how many members of your church can be counted on?

The reality is all of them can be counted on. Some can be counted on to serve, some to give, some to sing, some to lead, some to teach, some to go, some to pray.

Others can be counted on to quit, counted on to gripe, counted on to complain.

And by God's sweet grace in my life, the former vastly outnumber the latter.

Paul testifies to having consistency in his service. And he begins with some powerful words in the middle of verse 17, or verse 18 rather.

And when they had come to him, he said to them, verse 18, you yourselves know from the first day how

I was with you the whole time. It is convicting and compelling to me that Paul says, you don't have to take my word for it.

If you'll just go through the memories of your own mind, stroll down memory lane and recall to your own mind how

I labored, how I wept, how I preached, how I sacrificed. You don't have to take my word for it.

You yourselves know the kind of ministry

I had among you. But he says something even more powerful than that when he says, from the first day until now.

In other words, he wasn't consistent for a day, or a week, or a season.

Pastor, he said, I was faithful in service from the moment I set foot in this place until this very day.

What a reminder to us that the easiest thing to do in the Lord's church is start something.

But may God raise up a generation who would say along with Brother Nehemiah, from atop the

Jerusalem wall, I'm doing a good work and I cannot come down.

That we would be able to say along with Paul as his last letter would indicate,

I fought a good fight, I've kept the faith, I have finished my course.

One pastor rightly noted that oftentimes at the funeral of a Christian we'll say he has finished his race.

Sometimes that's true, but sometimes it's not true at all. They died in the middle of their race and did not complete what

God had called them to do. Paul said, you know that I had consistency in service.

Now as we examine verses 17 through 19, I want to show you just three different areas or aspects of Paul's consistency in serving

Christ. And I think we would do well to model our own ministry after his. Number one,

I note that he served faithfully in times of triumph. For he says, I serve you in all humility.

And it's obvious to this preacher tonight that the idea of humility carries the need for humility.

There were times Paul had a difficult ministry that's well chronicled in the pages of the

New Testament. But Paul also had a fruitful ministry. Specifically, he had a fruitful ministry in the city of Ephesus.

That's the span of ministry he's referencing in this farewell address. And that capstone is given back in Acts 19 .11

where the Bible says of Paul's ministry in Ephesus that God was performing extraordinary miracles in Ephesus by the hands of Paul.

You can go back in Acts 19 and read it at a later time. In addition to the laying on of hands and healing that came from handkerchiefs and aprons.

And I don't mean the chicanery and the charlatan stuff that you see on the Joy Boys of TBN.

I'm talking about real acts and healings of the Holy Ghost of God. There were healings and there were exorcisms and people were coming out of the dark practices of divination, witchcraft and sorcery.

They were literally burning their books and bringing the trinkets of their idolatrous lifestyle and they were laying them at the feet of the man of God.

In Acts 19 and verse 20, you can glance across the page. The Bible simply says that the word of the

Lord was growing mightily and prevailing. Paul said on the days that everything was going great.

Listen to me preacher, when everybody liked me, when they said, great sermon pastor, oh we're so thankful that you're our pastor.

He didn't let it go to his head. He said, I serve you with all humility.

Just a few weeks ago, I was blessed to oversee the ordination to the gospel ministry of a young man who had come up through our church.

And in that prayer, in the ordination service, I remember God just spontaneously laying on my heart to pray for him that the struggles of ministry would never get him too low or that the successes of ministry would never take him too high.

If you're in a growing ministry, a place of blessing, the devil knows how to use the good times to sidetrack you as well.

If he can't deceive you with sin, he will distract you with success.

And I charge you tonight by the mercies of God, if things are going well and when they are going well, just remember, it's not going well because of you.

It's going well in spite of you. And all the glory goes to the Lord. Paul said, when things were going great,

I didn't get the big head. I served faithfully in times of triumph. He indicates, secondly,

I served faithfully in times of tears. Verse 19 says, with humility and with tears.

He's something or a moistening of the eye. It speaks of the deep anguish of soul.

Down in verse 31, Paul would testify that he admonished them with tears.

That is, he prayed over their lives with tears. He preached from the Ephesian pulpit with tears.

He held their hands and he lifted their burdens and by the help of God sought to meet their needs and he did it all with humility and with tears.

As he would testify to the believers at Thessalonica in 1 Thessalonians 2. He had imparted unto them his very life.

And once again, I want to speak to the pastors that if you will not only seek to preach in the pulpit, but pastor and lovingly shepherd the people of God, that shepherding pastoral ministry will have an impact in the pulpit preaching ministry that you have as well.

For nearly 27 years serving in our congregation, I've stood by the hospice bed.

I've walked from the graveside. I've counseled through the grief. I've ministered in the heartache.

I've been to the accident scenes. I've been to the hospital rooms. I've gone to try to find the man who had left his wife and begged him by the power of the

Holy Spirit to return to the wife of his vow. And if you serve and minister, even in times of tears, it will impact every aspect of your ministry.

When you preach on the sanctity of life, you will do it, yes, with the voice of a prophet of God, but also with the passion and the pathos of a pastor.

If you know that sitting in the congregation, there is a woman who needs to be reminded that where sin did abound, grace did much more abound.

That when you preach on the sin of homosexuality, that you remember the young man or the young woman sitting in the congregation who is at war with accusations from the enemy because of the shame of the past.

When you preach on the sin of adultery, to know that there's a backslidden man there under deep conviction who needs to be reminded not only of the commandment of God, but also that there is still a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and that sinners plunged beneath that flood can still lose all of their guilty stains.

Paul said, I was consistent the whole time I was with you. I served faithfully in times of triumph.

I served in times of tears. And thirdly, I served in times of trials. The word is drawn right from verse 19, serving the

Lord with humility and tears and with trials. The King James translates this word as temptations, but it speaks of tests and trials.

And if you've been in the Lord's service any length of time, you know that if you're serving

Jesus, not everybody's gonna like it. The late

Dr. Adrian Rogers frequently told the story of a woman who came out and seeking to compliment her pastor, said, oh,

Dr. Rogers, everyone in Memphis loves you. And in his iconic way, he said, ma 'am, don't slander me so.

It could have been Demetrius the silversmith who brought the trial. Or later on,

Alexander the coppersmith who did him much harm. Perhaps it was Demas, who at one time was a right hand in the ministry, but who had forsaken him because of a love for the world.

Maybe it was the struggle of John Mark, who although that relationship would be restored later in Paul's apostolic ministry, he had deserted him on a mission trip.

Maybe it was the accusations and the insults of the Jews at Thessalonica.

We could go on and on to talk about all the fiery trials that the apostle Paul experienced, but he did not let any of them impede his fidelity to Christ and to the

Lord's church. In the apostle's case, when he speaks of trials, it literally referenced the threat of death itself.

Paul would tell Timothy in his first letter to the young preacher that all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

Let me quote that again and just make a brief comment. All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

What that literally means is if you don't know the sting of criticism, if you don't know the pain of somebody complaining about you, griping about you, or running you down, it's probably because you're not living for God.

And far too many pastors in today's church are barely deserving of a raised eyebrow or the clucking of a tongue.

They certainly don't warrant the sharp edge of the executioner's axe that took the lives of the martyrs who stood for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

And when I talk about serving faithfully in times of trial, I'm not talking about the consequences of some sinful, foolish, or crazy thing we brought upon ourselves.

I'm talking about suffering for righteousness' sake. And if we're going to have a good goodbye on that day, whenever that day is, this day and every day between now and then must be marked by consistency in your service.

Secondly, to have a good goodbye, you have to have convictions in your speech.

In verses 20 and 21, Paul gives a description of his exegetical and homiletical ministry to the believers at Ephesus.

He describes what and how he preached. And may I just say in passing, the problem with many modern

American Christians and modern American churches is we have too many opinions and not enough convictions.

Paul had convictions in his speech. You say, what's the difference? Well, an opinion is something you'll fight for.

A conviction is something you'll die for. At the very least, you ought to be willing to get fired for it.

Paul had rock -ribbed convictions that ultimately silenced his voice and cost him his life.

But as long as there was breath in his lungs and his heart was still beating, those convictions filled his heart, characterized his ministry, and overflowed from his mouth.

You didn't leave one of Paul's sermons wondering what he believed about the subject of that day's sermon.

There were convictions in his speech. And in this farewell address, we see three reasons for that.

Number one, why he preached. Why did he preach what he preached in the way that he did?

See, verse 20, I did not shrink from you. That is, I didn't preach like I had lace on my

Levi's or bought my jeans in the women's department. I didn't shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable.

Now, Bible students ought to have that word profitable ringing in your ear from the inspired pen of Paul.

For speaking of the Word of God in 2 Timothy 3 .16, he said that all

Scripture has been given by inspiration of God and is profitable.

It means it will do you some good. It is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for training or instruction in righteousness.

Listen, so that the man of God may be adequate and thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Paul knew that he only had one source to draw from, and that is the truth of the

Word of God. And that's the only thing that would do any good in any area of doctrine, reproof or rebuke, correction or instruction in righteousness.

He preached from the Word of God from the Scriptures, showing them from the

Scripture that Jesus was the Christ. Why? Listen carefully, because he knew that message would be profitable for them.

Not because he thought it would be profitable for himself.

In fact, he even testifies here that the Spirit of God has sent me to the next city ultimately to Jerusalem and to Rome.

And all the Spirit has said in addition to that is that everywhere I go, chains and afflictions await me there.

He knew he would be arrested, falsely accused, threatened and beaten, but he preached a message that he knew would be for his personal and reputational detriment because it would be profitable for the people

God had placed under his care. This was illustrated early in my ministry when

I preached a sermon about the dangers of beveraged alcohol. And regardless your position on that particular subject,

I preached that Lord's day just to call to wisdom. When I came in my office

Monday morning, I had two of the nastiest emails I've ever received. They called me everything but Mike.

Backwoods, narrow -minded, fundamentalist, bigoted, hayseed. Those were the nice words.

Thankfully, they were not church members. They were people who had been visiting our church and got my email address off the back of the bulletin, which is why

I don't put my email address on the back of the bulletin anymore. But I mean, they just ripped me up one side and down the other.

And I did what some of you preachers have done. I found a juniper tree in my office and I sat down under it.

Maybe they were right. Maybe it wasn't what I said, but how

I said it. By the way, I want to interrupt my own sermon and say it is true, preacher, that sometimes it's not what you said, it's how you said it.

But 99 % of the time, it really is what you said. And you couldn't have said it nicely enough for somebody who vehemently disagrees with the content of your message.

But I just got really downcast. I said, I don't like being criticized.

I didn't sign up for people to send me nasty emails. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to whiten my teeth.

I'm going to curl my hair. I'm going to get me a welder in my church to fabricate me a spinning globe to put up here behind me in the choir loft.

And next week, I'm going to tell everybody that I'm a winner and you're a winner. We're victors, not the victim. Every day can be a

Friday. This is your best life now because I ain't having people criticize me all the time. And right about that time, in the providence of God, my secretary called.

She named a 45, 50 -year -old woman that was on the phone wanting to speak with me. And this was her message to me.

Pastor, please don't tell my son that I told you this. He'll be embarrassed. But I want you to know what my teenage son did yesterday.

You know, my husband works every other Sunday and yesterday he was at work. But after your sermon on a biblical call to wisdom in this area, we came home and I heard him sneak off to a phone in the back bedroom and I heard him call the office.

Daddy? Hey, Daddy. Daddy, I just want to tell you what Brother Mike preached about today.

And Daddy, I want to tell you I'm so proud of you. Thank you for giving up alcohol so me and Mama and my little brother could have a safe and a healthy home.

And you know what I did? I did what I should have done to start with. I clicked the delete button on those two nasty grams and I decided

I just want to preach the whole counsel of God, whether you like it, whether you lump it, knowing that I'll ultimately and only stand before God.

Why? Because this is the only message that can turn a drunkard into a daddy. This is the only message that can turn a harlot into a homemaker.

This is the only message that can take a sinner dead in his trespasses and sins and regenerate him unto life everlasting.

That's why Paul preached what he preached. He said, I knew it would be profitable for you.

Why he preached. I noticed also where he preached. He says,

I preached the same thing publicly and from house to house.

Now I think certainly this speaks in a literal sense that he did preach publicly and he did minister from house to house.

I also believe this could be understood as a Hebrew figure of speech and the Hebrew of Hebrews may have used what scholars call a merism.

That is the description of two extreme things to connote or indicate the whole. When he says

I preached the same thing publicly and privately, we might say

I preached the same thing high and low. I preached it here and there. In other words,

I preached it all the time. There was consistency in Paul's life.

And pastor, I want you to lean in close and listen carefully. Paul would not have understood convictions that can only be expressed in the hushed private conversations of one -on -one dialogue but is not willing to go public and say this is what

I believe God has declared in His Word. Paul said,

I said the same thing whether I was at the church house, the school house or the courthouse.

Whether I was in the choir room or the board room or the break room.

Whether I was in the pulpit or on the internet. Whether everybody's watching or nobody's watching but God.

He would say my life is an open book. No trickery, no deception. I was the same person with the same message everywhere

I went. Why he preached. Where he preached.

In verse 21 we see what he preached. Solemnly testifying to Jews and Greeks alike.

Repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. He describes the content of his message in verse 24 as the gospel of the grace of God.

In verse 25 he says he preached the kingdom. In verse 27 he says it was the whole counsel or the whole purpose of God.

The apostle Paul was well content to preach on every subject that God laid on his heart, making a beeline for the cross so that he could rightly say when he got done he had preached

Jesus Christ and Him crucified. In my own pulpit ministry we're talking about what he preached.

I have made a commitment that I'm gonna preach through books of the Bible. To discipline myself and my congregation to study and understand the word of God line by line, precept upon precept, keeping it in its context.

And one thing that I have learned, sometimes the hard way, is when you move through linked passages in the

Bible and just preach it as it comes, not every lesson will be spine tingling. Not every sermon will be as interesting as the next.

There are Sundays that I get up and I really don't look forward to having to go preach that particular message.

There are other Sundays I get up with hallelujah in my soul because I know that the people are gonna gladly receive that message.

But Paul would say to us today, insist on teaching all of.

It. And to the lay people in the room tonight, lovingly, graciously, but firmly, insist that your pastor preach all of it.

I am confident that in the church I'm privileged to serve, that if my male leaders began to sense that I was skirting around an issue, that pastor every time you've come to that subject in the text, you've sort of danced around it.

You've had splinters in your britches trying to straddle a fence. That would get me called on the carpet.

Listen now, and rightfully so. While no single sermon can address everything on that topic alone, let alone no one sermon can be the whole counsel of God, taken on the whole, you need to develop the ability to listen to the cracks in the preaching.

To discern what's not being said. Not only to thank your pastor for what he will address, but begin to notice if there's something that he wouldn't touch with a 10 -foot pole.

Paul said, I preach to you the whole counsel of God. That means you've got to preach it straight when they come and when they go.

Preach it when they clap and when they criticize. Can I be personal? Preach it when the offerings are up and preach it when the offerings are down.

I can testify to you personally that biblical preaching may not get you voted pastor of the year by the denomination.

Preaching biblical messages may not cause the crowd to flock to hear you preach. And I just submit tonight that in a culture and a world that is moving further and further and further and further away from Bible truth, being a stalwart preacher of the

Word of God may mean you will never have the largest church in town. Declaring what

Jude called the faith once for all delivered to the saints may make some people leave faster than others come.

I know that at least in South Georgia, a courageous message will cause many families led by their teenagers to say, we're going down the street to another church.

Brother Mike isn't nearly as cool as Brother Nose Ring. Pastor Rip Jeans down the street who usually looks like he's in desperate need of a hairbrush is more engaging.

But I stop by tonight to say whether they're coming or going, you stand in the

Lord's day before the Lord's people with the Lord's book and you preach the whole counsel of God.

Stand against the pragmatism that's choking the life out of our churches. Stand against the sensationalism and the emotionalism that will draw a crowd but not build a church.

Stand against the easy believism that will literally water down the gospel. Stand against the hedonism that preaches happiness over holiness.

Paul said, I don't have anything to apologize for. I'm gonna have a good goodbye. When I leave here,

I'm gonna lay my head on my pillow and I'm gonna go to sleep at peace with myself and with God. Because I know and you know,

I had consistency in my service. I had convictions in my speech.

Finally, he said, I had confidence in my struggles.

Confidence in my struggles. Paul is leaving them and heading to Jerusalem. And he admits that he doesn't know everything that awaits him there.

But the Spirit of God has told him there will be chains and afflictions.

In other words, the Holy Spirit was not acting like a Baptist pulpit committee. The Spirit told him the truth.

Here's what you're gonna find when you get here. And yet, he leaves a place that loves him to death to go to a place where he knows they will literally hate him unto death.

And I ask you this evening as I move to close, what would make a man do such a thing?

What would make a pastor, maybe even here tonight, leave your home where your wife adores you and your children love you and go up to the church house where you know you're going to be criticized and run down and mocked?

What would make some layman here tonight feeling the call to preach and to pastor leave a successful job and a wonderful career to go to a calling to pastor or to serve in a church capacity somewhere when you know you'll never make what you're making now on that secular job?

What would motivate a man to do such a thing?

As they head back to Ephesus and Paul heads off to Jerusalem and ultimately into the belly of the

Roman beast, what would cause him to do such a thing?

Would you be interested? Three things were on his heart and they must be on ours.

One is the motivation of his work. The motivation of his work, verse 22.

And now behold, bound by the Spirit. Paul uses this word multiple times in this passage.

He talks about how bonds and affliction await him at Jerusalem, but that does not cause him to fear because he's motivated by another form of being bound.

He's not worried about being bound by chains for he is going to Jerusalem bound by the

Holy Spirit. That's what motivated Paul's work.

And when you seek to serve Jesus in this way, sooner or later, there will be an assignment that Fort Knox doesn't have enough money to pay you to do.

That means when they threaten to cut your pay. I'm sure they don't do this in Arkansas, but in Georgia, sometimes they designate their tithes and offerings.

And so you got $150 ,000 in an organ renovation fund and you don't even have an organ, but you can't pay the salaries or the light bill trying to starve the preacher out.

When they run you down and try to run you off, you can try to quit, but you can't quit.

Not if you're bound by the Spirit. You'll find yourself testifying, identifying with the prophet of God who talks about how he wanted to throw in the towel, said he wasn't gonna preach anymore.

But there was a fire down in his bones that motivated him. Paul would say,

I know what that's like. I'm going to Jerusalem. I know trouble's waiting on me there, but I am bound by the

Spirit of God. Amen. He had confidence in his struggles, partly because of the motivation of his work.

In verse 24, we see reference to the consideration of his worth.

The consideration of his worth, verse 24, but I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself.

Here, Paul uses an accounting phrase. He's like a God -ordained

CPA. He's checked the books. He's done an audit. He's prepared an

Excel spreadsheet. Hey, he's got a profit and loss statement, and here's what he's decided. I put everything that my life is worth over on one side of the ledger, and I put everything that Jesus is worth over on the other side of the ledger, and I've discovered that my life on its best day doesn't even begin to tip the scale.

It doesn't even compare to the glory of serving the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

He uses a different word in Philippians, but says the same thing in Philippians 3, 7.

Whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted or considered or accounted as loss for the sake of Christ.

Paul said, I'll tell you why I'm willing to go when I know I'm going to suffer. I'm not worth anything compared to Jesus Christ, His glory and the spreading of His gospel.

Some years ago, really a watershed moment in my ministry as far as the job aspect of my ministry,

I was mowing the grass in the backyard and I could feel that I had a phone call and fielded that phone call.

It was the chairman of a pulpit committee of a large historic church that had been going through a lot of difficulty and they were without a pastor.

And because the internet these days lets a pulpit committee do a lot of work before they even call you, they had already determined you're our man.

We just want to ask you, would you consider coming to preach in view of a call as our pastor?

And they assured me all the wonderful things that a career would provide.

I told him no. But I told him no, not because in that moment

I was convinced that I was serving where I was supposed to be, I told him no because I knew that that church was troubled.

And I said in my spirit to the Lord, now you can look at me spiritually if you want to, but I said,

I ain't going down there and spending the next 25, 30 years of my life fighting hell by the acre only to turn the thing around for the next guy that follows me to come in and have a successful ministry.

I'm not doing that. How many of you know you can't talk to God like that?

And I wasn't too far from my woodworking shop and the spirit of God turned that wood shop into a woodshed.

And let me know that while He was not calling me to that church and to that place, I was to never make such a decision like that again without seeking the face and the mind of God.

He reminded me of I Corinthians chapter six, that at Calvary's cross I have been bought with a price and I'm to glorify

God with my body. And if God wills to send me seven miles down a dirt road to the backside of nowhere to pastor

New Bethel number 17, where they think that Benny Hinn is the 13th apostle,

God in His sovereignty has the right to do that. Paul says,

I've considered my life not valuable compared to doing what Christ has called me to do.

In the next chapter, in fact, a prophet by the name of Agabus will take

Paul's sash, his belt off of him and bind Paul's hands and feet. And he will say that the spirit of God, Paul, has revealed to me that the owner of this belt,

Paul's belt, is gonna be treated like this wherever he goes.

And all of the crowd there in Acts 21 begins weeping. You know the story, they start begging

Paul, Paul, please don't go. Agabus has heard from the Lord. Affliction awaits you at the next stop.

And Paul says, you're killing me. Read it for yourself.

You're breaking my heart. I would be inclined to say, have you not listened to anything that I have been preaching?

Have you missed at all by country mile? I'm not willing just to suffer. I'm willing to die for the sake of the gospel.

And one reason Paul was willing to die for the sake of the gospel is because he deemed himself as already dead.

For I have been crucified with Christ and nevertheless I live. Not I, but Christ who lives in me.

And he's willing to have confidence in his struggles. Because of the motivation of his work, the spirit of God told me to go.

The consideration of his worth. I'm nothing compared to the surpassing value of Christ.

And then finally in verses 25 to 27 is the declaration of his witness.

He acknowledges in verse 25 that in that day long before text messaging, Instagram, and FaceTime, when

I leave, you won't see my face anymore. Verse 26, here's the good goodbye.

Therefore I testify to you this day I'm innocent of the blood of all men. In other words, if you are not discipled in the faith, don't blame me.

If you or any of your kids or grandkids, any of your neighbors, classmates, co -workers die lost in their sin and bust the devil's hell wide open, don't blame me at the judgment seat.

I am innocent of the blood of all men. No doubt he has the warning of Ezekiel on his mind.

As the watchman on the wall, warning warning, he says I'm not going into eternity with your blood on my hands.

And here's why. Verse 27, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.

The truth that I see here in this text was demonstrated to me in a very personal way about five years ago.

My predecessor, two pastors before me, Dr. Carroll Phillips was his name and he went to be with the

Lord three times. And it was announced that he had survived the pastorate by one.

They had tried to run him off and starve him out. On one occasion prior to that, the police had to be called because there were inactive deacons in the parking lot with a baseball bat saying that if he came out that way, they were going to beat him.

Some of the deacons who supported him snuck him out the back way and drove him home. By the way, thank

God for men who'll sneak you out the back way. But if we had some men who'd join arm in arm and shoulder to shoulder and walk out the front door, we'd dry up a lot of this mess.

Men who'll say if you mess with our pastor, we're gonna bury you behind the fellowship hall and tell God you died of natural causes.

But when he died,

I gathered my four children around the dinner table and I said, I want to talk to you for a few minutes about a man who's had one of the greatest human impacts on your life next to your parents and your grandparents.

Your daddy's able to sleep at night because of nights that this man tossed and turned. I can have peace going to the office because of days that he dreaded it.

There had to be Sundays that he didn't sleep. There had to be days that he was praying a pulpit committee was there. There had to be days that he wondered, is it all in vain?

But late one Thursday night when he closed his eyes and texts and opened them in glory, if you could have talked to him, he would have said, stand firm in the faith.

Shepherd the flock of God among you. It's worth it. And one day when we say our final goodbye to this world and hello to the world to come, we will join the chorus we sang about earlier tonight, casting our crowns at the nail pierced feet of our

Redeemer and we will shout forever and forever, worthy is the lamb that was slain.

And on that day when we know by sight what we now embrace by faith, we will know that it was a good thing to be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the

Lord, knowing that our labor for Christ was not in vain.

Father in heaven, thank you for our time in your word. I know you've encouraged me.

I needed this message tonight. Thank you for the power of your word that simultaneously deals with the speaker and the listener at the same time.

What grace upon grace you have poured upon us tonight. And I pray, Lord, that the end result of our time in your house tonight would be that our churches will be strengthened and that our ministries would be more greatly resolved to glorify