Sunday, May 4, 2025 AM

Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the day again. Thank you for the singing of these hymns and psalms and spiritual songs by which we may exhort one another, edify each other in the goodness of your good news, in the righteousness of your son, Jesus Christ, our hope in your gospel.

Lord, I pray today that as we look at your word that we would be edified, that we would have a clear view of your son, Jesus Christ, in this word, and that you would make us to look like him in this world.

And we ask these mercies in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts 20. We're reading verses 28 through 38. This morning, as we continue to think about Paul's last words, perhaps it is fitting that last words of Paul should be delayed for long periods of time, as Paul has been famously noted to say, finally, brethren, and then go on for chapters at a time.

But last words are precious words. Last words deserve a lot of meditation, a lot of consideration. We would give extra weight to the last words of our loved ones. We would give extra thought to the last words of those whom we respected.

And these are the last words, the parting exhortations, the parting words of Paul to these elders in Ephesus, men that he had been discipling for years, men whom he saw come to faith in Jesus Christ, men whom he labored beside and prayed with and wept with in the labor of that church there in Ephesus.

And so, these are good words for us to consider, good words for us to weigh. Now, last time, we thought about the warning that Paul gave to the Ephesian elders. He wanted them to heed the warning about potential wolves that would come in among them or arise from within them and that they were called to a type of watchfulness that even would be paired with weeping, with compassion and concern.

And so, we move forward another step in the last words of Paul this morning to think about the importance of the Word of God, the Word of His grace, and how central this should be in the life of the church, how vital that is for the work of the elders.

The Word of His Grace Commits the Church to God

So, I invite you to stand with me if you are able as we read God's holy Word, beginning in verse 28. Therefore, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.

For I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And also from among yourselves, men will rise up, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves.

Therefore, watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears. So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the Word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

I have coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. Yes, you yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities and for those who are with me. I have shown you in every way by laboring like this that you must support the weak.

And remember the words of the Lord Jesus that He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. And when He had said all these things, He knelt down and prayed with them all. Then they all wept freely and fell upon Paul's neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spoke, that they would see his face no more.

And they accompanied him to the ship. This is the word of the Lord. Praise be to God. You may be seated. Last words are often a list of instructions. When parents leave older children at home, they may leave them with a list of instructions.

When families go on vacation, they leave a list of instructions for house sitters. When parents of younger children leave, they leave a list for the babysitter. Teachers will give lists to students and hope that they weigh them appropriately before it's too late.

These instructions that are left behind should have some degree of weight because of the expected return. But sometimes there's a list of instructions that are weighty because of a more permanent departure, one's final will and testament, last words, the words that give a list of instructions, that which is left behind.

What are we going to do now? Who gets the inheritance? And there's an avid expectation that it is precisely because of that person's absence that their words will be considered all the more weighty. They're not there to change their mind.

They're not even there to nuance anything. They're absent from the picture, and so these words left behind are intended to have great weight and meaning. The last words of Paul to the Ephesian elders, he's not going to see their faces anymore.

Now, we are interested in last words. Last time we talked about some last words are innocuous. Sometimes they are intense. Sometimes they are insane. Sometimes they are ironic, but we are always interested.

What were the last words of this famous person? What were the last words of this person that I know of? But Paul here puts in all of the wisdom and love and truth that he can pack into this moment as he's with them at Miletus before he sets sail for Jerusalem and certain imprisonment and suffering.

They have a lot to be concerned about. Their ministry in Ephesus was exceptionally challenging. It was the capital of witchcraft for the ancient Near East. Although they had been there for some years now, they were relatively a young church.

They had much opposition not only from the witchcraft industry, but also from the local synagogue that had turned to outright slander trying to ruin those who belonged to the church. And so these elders are going to be returning to a very challenging situation, one in which they're not going to have the Apostle Paul to come and help them in any near juncture.

What does he have to say to them? He has gracious words. Gracious words meet the need of the moment with the hope of eternity. Gracious words meet the need of the moment with the hope of eternity. And I think it would be a mistake for us to wait until our final moments with folks to use those types of words.

In following Christ, He says that we are to put on the cross every day, pick up the cross and follow Him every day. And it has a way of bringing the end of us forward into the now of us so that we may bring these gracious words to bear in these variety of situations and needs.

So, verse 32, the Ephesian elders are exhorted to hear the Word, hear the Word. And so also we are exhorted. Verse 32, Paul says, "'So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the Word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.'".

The need of the Ephesian church is great, and so Paul gives them instruction, words that contain instructions and words that put their focus upon their inheritance, instruction and inheritance, kind of like a final will and testament.

There are three, I think, movements we could call them in this verse. The first is that God's Word of grace brings us together to God Himself. Secondly, that God's will in this is that we would grow up into Christ.

And thirdly, that God, as He works His will in us, is going to end up as glory. And all of it is centered around the Word of God, the ministry of the Word. As Paul commends the Ephesian elders unto God, he says, "'And to the Word of His grace.'".

The Word of God's grace proves absolutely vital for the saints. It's that which we can not do without. We have to have it. We have to have it. It's clarifying on so many levels. It gives us not only an understanding of who's in charge or what we're supposed to be doing, but it also tells us where everything is heading.

We have to have the Word of God. We have to have the Word of His grace. In the season of graduations and field trips and family gatherings and vacations and weddings, children, and very often their parents, adapt to each new moment of organized chaos by asking three questions.

Who's in charge here? What are we supposed to be doing? And what's the point of this? And if I can have the answer to those three questions, I'm much more at ease. At least I know the plan. And in a way, Paul is answering those three questions in this verse.

As he's leaving, who's in charge? As he's heading on, what are they supposed to be doing now instead of waiting for Paul to come back around? And if he's never coming back, what's the trajectory of the church?

What are they going to be looking forward to? And so these questions and their answers, I think, resonate with us as well. Who's in charge? God is in charge. What are we supposed to be doing? We're supposed to be growing.

And what's the point of all this? Glory. God's Word of grace. So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the Word of His grace. With two words right at the beginning, Paul acknowledges the strain he's putting on them.

He says, so, now. So, because of the assurance that I've just given you that wolves are going to come in among you and even arise from within you, not sparing the flock, that savage wolves are going to be assaulting the flock of which you are a shepherd, and this flock is so precious to Christ, He shed His own blood for them, so you know what you've got to do.

So, I'm going to make a recommendation to you. So, I'm going to exhort you in a particular way. And this exhortation is not something that Paul has failed to do in his own life. He himself, day and night, has kept watch.

He has wept for those who are astray. Paul sets himself forward to them as their example, as we saw in verse 31. And what has Paul been doing all the time that he had been with them, the three years that he established them as a church, and on his return visit?

What has he been doing in their midst? Well, he's already said in verse 24 and verse 26, he has preached the gospel of the grace of God, the good news of God's grace, that there is this new King, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that in Him, we have the favor of God.

Not only does he describe his preaching as that of the gospel of the grace of God, but he also says it's the whole counsel of God in verse 26. And you say, well, which is it, Paul? Was it just the gospel or was it the full counsel of God?

His answer would be yes. We're never going to get out of the full counsel of God. We're never going to be in a part of the full counsel of God that doesn't have something to do in its most native sense with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The scriptures are replete with showing how the sum of God's wisdom and knowledge are caught up in the riches of the glory of Jesus Christ. Now, Paul has set himself as an example. He's told them how serious it is that they shepherd the church of God well.

He's guaranteed them that savage wolves are coming in, and although they've relied on him a great deal, he says now. So now what you're going to do is you're going to have this ministry without me. I'm not coming back to fix some sort of snarl, some sort of snag.

I'm not going to come back around again and sort everything out. This is the last time you're going to see my face. You're on your own, but not really. You're without Paul, but you're not on your own.

You're without Paul the apostle. You're without Paul the bondservant of Jesus Christ. He's not going to be there, but guess what? You're not going to be without ability. You're not going to be without power.

You're not going to be without help. You're not going to be without strength and resources. He says, so now I commend you, my brethren, to God. You see, Paul is Christ's slave. He's not their slave. If they could make the arrangements, Paul would base the rest of his life and ministry out of Ephesus.

And sure, Paul, you can go on little trips here and there, but Paul, we're going to have to have you back. Paul says, you know what? I am Christ's slave. I am Christ's prisoner. I am bound. You're worried about me getting arrested when I go to Jerusalem.

You have no idea. I'm already in the chains of Christ. I am bound to go wherever he tells me to go. And so I am the slave of Christ, Paul says. I am not your slave. He's going to get used up for other things.

So now what for this church? He says, so now, brethren, a good reminder that Paul as an apostle has authority by Christ over the churches, but he takes this moment to subtly remind the Ephesian elders that he and they are brothers.

They're brothers. Yeah, I'm the slave of Christ, and the way that I slave for Jesus is as an apostle, and that bears a great deal of responsibility, but we're brothers. He wants them to remember that, to relate to them in the way that reminds them that they share in the same calling.

They share in the same responsibility for the church. It is so important that Paul calls them brethren because he's not their conduit of grace. He is not their mediator. They're not dependent on him. He's their brother.

The fact that they are all brothers calls to mind that they have the same father and they have that father by Christ, not by Paul. Paul is a shepherd, but he is not their good shepherd. And there's a great difference in that.

And so he says, I commend you to God, meaning I want you to rely on God. I don't want you to rely on me. You're upset because I'm leaving, but you're not going to be at a loss. God's going to be your supply.

It's going to be disruptive. They're going to have to learn some things. They're going to have to grow up in a way, but Paul just reminds them who's in charge. And, in fact, I did have authority while I was here, but I really wasn't the one in charge.

I commend you to God, brethren. God's in charge. That's a comforting thing. That's a comforting thing to reflect on, though changes occur in our lives and authority structures change and situations change, that in all things, God has the authority.

God is our maker. God is our Savior. He's the one in charge. And we can rejoice in that. That's a comforting thing. Paul says, I commend you to God. I entrust you to the one who is most trustworthy. It has the idea, the Word has the idea of making a deposit.

I'm depositing you in the sovereign good of God. Don't worry. He'll keep you safe. He'll accomplish His will. I may be leaving, but don't feel insecure. I commend you to God. I entrust you with Him. By the way, I'm just preaching the next passage that comes.

I'm not hinting at anything, okay? Some of you are getting worried. There's like the comfort and the confidence that the saints have was what Paul always taught them in the first place. Their confidence and their comfort was God in Christ.

Paul was often trying to find ways to tie the disciples, his disciples, those whom he ministered to, those whom he preached to, sought ways to tie them to Christ rather than himself. A couple of expressions of that we can find in 2 Corinthians 11 .2.

He says, I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. And you might get the idea that Paul is saying, now that you're listening to other folks instead of me, and you think that somebody else kind of hung the moon as far as spiritual teaching goes, I'm jealous about that, and I'd like you to start listening to me again instead of them.

No, he says, I'm jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. And this is what upset Paul with the Corinthian church, that they seemed willing to be latched on to other husbands, to be moved away from the gospel of Jesus Christ to whatever seemed to work best, to other versions of Christ, to different gospels.

And he says, no, I'm jealous for you, not that you would hold to me or that you would be a Peter kind of guy or somebody who really advocated for Apollos, but I want you betrothed to Christ. In Galatians 4 verse 19, he put it this way, my little children.

And you have the idea of a sense of possessive love in this metaphor as well as, I don't want you rebelling against me and dishonoring my name and disappointing me. No, listen, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.

It's not that I'm in labor pains because you're not as a big a fan of Paul as you once were. No, he's laboring because he wants to see Christ formed in them in like manner. He says to the Ephesian elders, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace.

By saying I commend you to God and the word of His grace, he's saying by entrusting you to God, I'm entrusting you to God by the means of recommending to you the word of His grace as that which should play the central role in your ministry.

You should be, when I say I commend you to God, it's also to therefore to the word of His grace. Paul is not commending them to warm fuzzy feelings about God. God is so great. God is so big. How amazing.

Not generalities, not feelings that there is a God, but particularly the word of God's grace. It's a vital connection that he makes here between commending them to God and the word of His grace. It tells us that there's no way to God except by the gospel, first of all.

How are you going to say that you have God and don't have the gospel? How are you going to say I have God, but not His word? I have God despite His word. No, holding to the gospel, holding to God is the only way we can hold to God is by the means of the word of His grace.

We have the gospel, and to have the gospel means to hold to the mediator, Jesus Christ. Gospel is the good news, and Jesus Christ is the good of the good news, and He's the news of the good news. You can't have God without Christ.

You have to hold to Him. The word of God's grace is what Paul commends. How are they going to make any progress there in Ephesus? What are they going to do without an apostle on station helping keep things clear and moving?

He says, I commend you to God and the word of His grace. That's what you need. You need the good shepherd running everything, not man's libertine permissiveness, not man's condemning expectations. You need the word of God's grace.

God's word of grace is the message of salvation. It is the message of forgiveness. It is the message of justification. It is the message of cleansing, transformation, hope. This expression, the word of His grace, is not unique to this passage.

We also find it again in Acts 14, 3, hostile environment in Lystra. He preaches the word of His grace there. He preaches the word of His grace in Ephesus. This is what the elders are to cling to. Paul is thus still serving as their example.

How are you going to operate in enemy territory? How are you going to operate in a post-Christian culture? We're not in neutral world. How are you going to operate in enemy territory where more and more people are adverse to Christianity?

I commend you to the word of His grace. We don't have to become exceptionally permissive and adopt the church motto, as one church said, acceptance regardless. You don't have to swing the pendulum to the other side and say, welcome to all manner of religious regulation.

I commend to you the word of His grace. Their concern is the wolves. What's the answer? The word of His grace. They want to strengthen their community as brothers, as sisters in Christ. What do they need?

The word of His grace. And they need confidence that God is the one who's going to be providing for them and helping them. What do they need? They need the word of His grace. Everything concerning who they are and what they are to be about is in hearing this word because it is able to build you up.

The Word of His Grace Builds Up the Saints

It is able to build you up. God's word of grace is commended because this is God's will for the growth of the body, the growth of the local church, not simply in terms of nickels and noses. Not certainly in not just in terms of fame and facilities.

The point of this growth is the building up of the saints in Christ. Is there going to be a bigger footprint in Ephesus when it's all said and done? You bet. Will there be more saints in Ephesus than before?

You bet. But it is a building up into Christ, seeing Christ all the more clearly. So God is in charge. And what does He have for us? He has an agenda of growing for us. And what is able to build us up?

Who is able to build us up? Look, Paul commends them to God and to the word of His grace. This is what is able. Now, his commendation here is not simple semantics. He's not superficially smoothing over sorrow with spiritual sentiment.

I'm leaving. You're sad, but God be with you. I said something nice. You should cry less. I'm leaving. Please make it easier on me. He's also not thinking about my legacy is going to be tarnished if they don't get it right.

So he's not meeting sin challenges with religious rigor. Here's a new set of rules for you to follow when I'm gone. You better get it right. He says, I commend you to God and the word of His grace. Why?

Because the word of His grace is able. It is able in every single way imaginable. When we think about the power of God's word of grace, we can think of it in a variety of contexts. We'll mention three.

God's word of grace is able to bring about, by the power of the Holy Spirit, this miracle we call the new birth. You want to see people saved? You want to see people's lives transformed, sinners giving up on their sin, prideful people giving up on their self-righteousness and turning to Christ?

What is able? The word of His grace. 1 Peter 1, 23 through 25 says, Having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible through the word of God, which lives and abides forever, because all flesh is as grass, all the glory of man is the flower of the grass, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever.

Now, this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. You want to see people saved? You want to see them born again? I commend to you the word of God's grace. There's also the power of God and the salvation to bring us in right relationship with God, sinners justified, living without condemnation before the face of God.

Romans 1, 16 through 17. Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

So look there in the Jew and the righteousness of God manifest there because they believe in Jesus Christ and are right in God's sight. Look there at the Gentile. They are righteous before the face of God because their faith is in Jesus Christ as well.

Here is the righteousness of God manifest by faith. The power of God and the salvation is the gospel, the word of his grace and for sanctification. We are not regenerated by the gospel and then justified by the gospel to then go get holy by the flesh.

This was a great error in the Galatian church. We don't then say, okay, having now been saved, time for me to go put in a lot of hard work and rigor so that I can feel better before God. You're forgetting the fact that you're already as welcome to his sight as his dearly beloved son.

Don't forget your justification as you make a right pursuit of sanctification. The gospel is able, able there as well. Verse 20 of Ephesians four, when it comes to the contrast between the old man and the new man, it's not a matter of rigors and religious regulations, Paul says, but you have not so learned Christ.

That's who you need to learn. You need to learn Christ. If indeed you have heard him and been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man that grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on a new man which was created according to God and true righteousness and holiness.

Every time we exhort one another to something better, calling one another alongside, further up, farther in, come along, it's not about meeting some regulation. It's let's learn Christ. Onward this way, the principles and the rules that we hand down to our children are what?

Ultimately for what? Leading them to learn Christ. This is what we desire. The word of grace is able. This is the power of God for our salvation at every level. We need to believe in that and be confident in that.

This is how we make progress. The word of His grace builds us up. Christ has promised, if you recall, to build His church on the rock of this word of grace. You remember? Remember that in Matthew 16, 13 through 18?

Who do men say that I am? Some say this, some say that, but Peter, by the grace of God, says, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus says, on this rock, I'm going to build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

That's what we're built on, is the gospel of Jesus Christ, not by affirming sinners in their thoughts and affections and relations and behaviors. That's not grace. It's not through shaming or manipulating sinners into behavior modification.

That's not holiness. The church is not built on making Jesus out to be whoever we want Him to be or think that we need Him to be. Change is brought about in Christ by the power of His word through His Spirit.

Jesus is the wisest of all wise men, and so He builds His house on the solid rock of His own gospel. That's how He builds. And if we would be built up rightly in true godliness, it will be as brethren by the word of God's grace.

The Word of His Grace Gives an Inheritance Among the Sanctified

Unto glory. There's an inheritance here. There's a direction here. There's an outcome that is desirable, that keeps us on track, that makes the discipline in our life and the direction of our life meaningful, and it's this inheritance.

The word of God's grace is not only able to build you up, it's also able to give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified, among all those who are sanctified. God's word of grace initiates the church.

God's word of grace builds the church. God's word of grace provides its direction and culmination. Now, when we see that God's work of glory, first of all, is in terms of making us His heirs, we are given an inheritance by the word of God's grace.

Here is a fitting last word that Jesus Christ is able and powerful to build up the saints and to grant us an inheritance. It's an interesting thing that the word for inheritance in the Greek is made up of two other words, which simply means dice law.

Now, where in the world did anybody ever roll some dice and call it law to have to do with an inheritance? You remember that? Had to do with the land that God promised the tribes of Israel. Deuteronomy 4, verses 37 through 40, the same Greek word is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to talk about the inheritance that the tribes had to look forward to.

And when you get to Joshua 18, it clarifies that all that geography that you just almost stayed awake through in your yearly Bible reading was determined by casting of lots before the face of a sovereign God, and thus the allotment was given to the tribes.

Dice law. Our inheritance, our portion, and Jeremiah stands in lamentation at the loss of the land and the city and the temple and everything. And what does he have to say about his inheritance? What does he have to say about his lot?

The Lord is my portion. The Lord is my inheritance. Everything else stripped away, the Lord is my inheritance. And here we have an inheritance by the word of grace, by the gospel, by the person and work of Jesus Christ, we have an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

So we are told that this inheritance is not life in a land, but life in our Lord. Eternal life is in Christ who brings us to God. John 17, 3, this is eternal life that we may know God and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent.

It is the word of grace that gives us Christ as our life. It is the word of grace that grows us up in Christ in love. It is the word of grace that grants Christ to us as our lot, as our land. Hebrews 4 goes on and on about it.

Now, notice that this inheritance is located among all those who have been sanctified, those who have been set apart unto God as his peculiar people. Now, Paul is leaving them, but they're not left. They're going to lose time together, but they're not lost.

Their continued labor, their confidence in God are not in vain. Paul says, you keep on preaching the word of his grace, you have a hope, your future is bright, you have an inheritance, you have a place of belonging and blessing, and that place is located among all those who have been sanctified.

It's set in the perfect passive tense. It's already been done. They already have been sanctified. Paul's not talking here about that progressive sanctification of being built up in Christ. He already talked about that.

This is describing the saints, the holy ones, literally, as those who have been set apart. There is a positional holiness in Christ as well. God has set us apart, chosen in him. 1 Peter 2, 4 -10 says we are God's chosen people.

We are set apart and peculiar people for His own possession, and that is where our lot is. Our lot is in Zion. Our land, our inheritance is located among all those who are sanctified. Remember, Christ is the heir of all things, Hebrews 1 says, and Hebrews 12, 22 says.

When you come to Christ, you come to Mount Zion, you come to the city of the living God, you come to the heavenly Jerusalem, you come to the innumerable company of angels, you come to the general assembly and church of the firstborn.

There are the sanctified who are registered in heaven to God, the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, a covenant that is into the blood of sprinkling that speaks of better things than that of Abel.

And so Paul is saying, I'm leaving, but you're not lost. This is a sorrow, but you have every reason to rejoice and hope. I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

So who's in charge? Paul's not in charge, God is in charge. What are we doing? We're growing, we're growing up in Christ. We're being built up by the word of His grace. And what's the point of all this?

We have something to look forward to, something that we enjoy already, even now, eternal life in Christ. With all that is at stake for them in the face of all that is savage, they may be fully confident, both in their present trials and in the future triumph, by holding fast and holding forth on the word of His grace.

Now, just a thought. It's not going to seem reasonable to us to rely upon the gospel of grace, and it will not seem right to us to relate humbly to one another as we are growing, if we have little confidence in God and His word to justify, sanctify, and glorify us in Christ.

If we don't have this confidence that Paul is saying here, I entrust you to God and to the word of His grace, if we don't have that confidence, if we are not entrusting ourselves to the word of His grace, which is able, then we have no time, we have no ability to wait, we have no prospects, we have no hope, we don't know how to make progress together in unity, and love does not continue.

But if we have confidence in the gospel of His grace, then love continues because we can have longsuffering and hope and expect the good of God. And if we have this confidence in God, we do not have to diminish the moment or downsize the mandate when we have God as our Father, Christ as our Brother, and the Spirit as our Comforter.

We don't have to settle for a small vision, to think small, expect small overall. We can trust that Christ does not despise the small things as He brings everything along in His way according to His power by His time.

It is so good to know that we have a good shepherd. Let's close in prayer. Father, I thank You for the time You've given us here. Please embolden us and support us in this confidence in the word of Your grace that we would look to where You have pointed when we sense our need.

We thank You that You are a good Heavenly Father who provides for us, help us to trust in that provision, and rejoice in Your grace in Christ. We pray these things in His name. Amen.