When the uproar had ended, Paul sent for the disciples and after encouraging them said goodbye and set out for Macedonia.
He traveled through that area speaking many words of encouragement to the people and finally arrived in Greece where he stayed three months.
Because the Jews made a plot against him just as he was about to sail for Syria, he decided to go back through Macedonia.
He was accompanied by Silpeter, son of Pyrrhus from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, Timothy also, and Pyrrhus and Trofimus from the province of Asia.
These men went on ahead and waited for us at Trofimus.
But we sailed from Philippi after the Feast of Unleavened Bread and five days later joined the others at Trofimus where we stayed seven days.
On the first day of the week we came together to break bread.
Paul spoke to the people and because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.
There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting.
Seated in a window was a young man called Eticus who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on.
When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead.
Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him.
Don't be alarmed, he said.
He's alive.
Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate.
After talking until daylight, he left.
The people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted.
We went on ahead to the ship and sailed for Assos where we were going to take Paul aboard.
He had made this arrangement because he was going there on foot.
When he met us at Assos, we took him aboard and went on to Mithon.
The next day we set sail from there and arrived off Pierce.
After that, we crossed over to Samus and on the following day, arrived at Miletus.
Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus to avoid spending time in the province of Asia,
for he was in a hurry to reach Jerusalem, if possible by the day of Pentecost.
From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church.
When they arrived, he said to them,
You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia.
I served the Lord with great humility and with tears,
although I was severely tested by the plots of the Jews.
You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you,
but I have taught you publicly and from house to house.
I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance
and have faith in our Lord Jesus.
And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem,
not knowing what will happen to me there.
I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.
However, I consider my life worth nothing to me,
if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me,
the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again.
Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men,
for I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.
Be shepherds of the church of God which he had bought with his own blood.
I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.
Even from your own number, men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.
So be on your guard.
Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you, night and day with tears.
Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
I have not coveted anyone's silver or gold or clothing.
You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions.
In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak.
For remembering the words of the Lord Jesus himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.
When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed.
They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him.
What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again.
Then they accompanied him to the ship.
This is the word of the Lord.
Well, if you have your Bibles open in the book of Acts, chapter 20,
we're going to have our last look in the book of Acts, looking at Paul's missionary journeys.
Next week, heading on up to Easter, we're going to think about why did Jesus suffer and die,
thinking about answers that we have for that from the book of Hebrews.
But we're going to focus our attention this evening, particularly on what Paul says to the elders in Ephesus.
In a sense, we're going to review Paul's mission strategy that he shares with the elders in Ephesus.
So for the last few weeks, we've been on something of a whistle-stop tour of Paul's mission.
We've seen him in Asia.
We've seen him in Europe.
We've seen him proclaiming wherever he goes, Jesus Christ is Lord.
We've seen lots of opposition, but we've also seen lots of people from different backgrounds,
different cultures coming to faith, being established in church, and the church has been growing.
For those of us who've been around, it's been exciting.
It's been encouraging.
It's been a good way, I think, for us to start the first few months of this year to remind ourselves of who our God is.
But as we come to an end, I guess there's a temptation to think, well, that was then.
This is now.
That was Paul.
That was Paul the apostle.
That's not me.
There can be that temptation to think, well, those are wonderful stories, but they're relegated to the pages of history.
Do you know one of the good news things that comes through the book of Acts is the reminder time and again that this is not all on Paul.
It's Jesus who is building his church.
It's God's power that we see demonstrated through Paul and through others in the Christian community.
And it's the same spirit that's at work in Paul that is ours as a church.
And so I want us to leave Paul's missionary journeys taking heart that this is our God, the God who builds his church.
But here we are.
Last week we were in Ephesus 9, chapter 19.
We see Paul establishing the church.
We saw a riot.
And now here we find a return to meet with the elders of Ephesus where Paul both reviews what he's done and he also looks forward.
There's one more chance for us to draw some principles for ourselves from Paul's missionary journeys.
So we've got a sermon with five points this evening, which sounds fairly intimidating, but I'll draw your attention to the story of Eutychus.
Paul says it's okay to preach till midnight.
So let's just bed ourselves in and let's get ready to hear some of these principles from Paul.
The first principle, mission, God's mission requires humble service.
Look with me again at verse 18.
The elders of Ephesus are summoned to meet with Paul.
And when they arrived, he said to them, you know how I lived.
The whole time I was with you from the first day I came into the province of Asia, I served the Lord with great humility and with tears, although I was severely tested by the plots of the Jews.
His attitude, his pattern from the beginning for the two and a half years that he was with them and through his mission was to serve with humility.
He endured suffering.
He endured opposition as he served among them.
He tells them in verse 33 to verse 35 that he took no pay in all the time that he was with them.
He didn't want anyone to be able to speak badly of him and say, oh, this guy, Paul, he's just preaching to make a name for himself and to get rich and famous.
Rather, he worked and in so doing provided an example of serving the weak and the poor with how he used his resources.
And when we look across these chapters of Acts, we discover here is Paul who serves the church.
Here is Paul who serves the community.
Sometimes that's through making tents and making tents well to the glory of God.
Sometimes it's teaching.
Sometimes it's evangelism.
But the question for us is this.
What's the key to this humble service?
How is he able to keep going serving the church while he faces so much threat and opposition?
Notice what he says in verse 19.
I serve the Lord.
As he served the church, as he served the city, as he served people, he was conscious that he was serving Jesus.
That here he is loving others, but at the same time he's pursuing the glory of Jesus in all aspects of his mission.
And that example of Jesus, the humble servant, enables him to humbly serve.
One of the things that I get to do as a representative of presbytery is I get to interview potential ministry candidates.
And somebody handed this piece of information on to me or this piece of advice when you're looking at potential leaders in any church context.
Do they pass the chair stacking test?
Very important test.
Is somebody willing to show up early, to get stuck in, willing to stay late and to pack up?
I worked in a co-op supermarket in Sky for about seven years.
Most of the time I was on the day shift, but I spent one summer on the night shift.
Very different world when you're locked in for seven or eight hours at night.
Still serving the public during that time, but my service was unseen and unnoticed.
As Christians, maybe a lot of the service we do is the equivalent of night shift ministry.
We're doing stuff that isn't necessarily upfront public notice.
So the question for us is, do I serve others for the glory of God even when no one else is watching?
We're called, like Paul, to love our family, our neighbors, our community for the sake of Jesus.
And so as we reflect, would we pass the chair stacking test as we think about humble service?
What we see of Paul is that he lived as an imitator of Jesus.
Jesus, the one who humbled himself, left the glory of heaven to come down to live among us,
ultimately to humble himself, to suffer and die for us, taking our place, bearing our sin and our shame.
For the sake of gospel mission, do we embody that kind of humble service ourselves?
So that's the first principle. Mission requires humble service.
The next thing we learn from Paul is that mission requires teaching.
Now we saw last week in Acts chapter 19 when Paul arrived in Ephesus, he did his usual thing.
He began in the synagogue, teaching the Jews that the Messiah they were waiting for had come,
and his name was Jesus. He spent three months in the synagogue before they drove him out,
and then he spent two years teaching in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.
And what we discover as Paul addresses the Ephesian elders is that as he taught them during that time,
he gave them depth and he gave them breath.
You look at verse 20.
You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you.
Verse 27.
For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.
Paul knows this about this young church.
They need to know the Bible.
They need to have confidence of God's truth.
They need to understand and appreciate the gospel and how it's the center of the Christian life.
So he doesn't teach superficially.
He is aiming for maturity.
He is laying a foundation.
He's providing them essential truth that they can then pass on to others.
And what we see too is a quote from John Stott was that Paul was thorough.
He shared all possible truth with all possible people in all possible ways.
We see that in verse 20.
He shared all possible truth.
He didn't hesitate to teach anything that would be helpful.
We see he does it with all possible people.
He's declaring it to both Jews and Greeks.
And he's doing it in all possible ways.
He's doing it publicly.
He's doing it privately.
Sometimes he's preaching.
Other times he's debating.
Sometimes he's lecturing.
Other times he's having in-depth conversations.
Paul was a teacher.
He knew that people needed the truth about God if they were to be saved and if they were to grow in holiness.
It takes us to that wonderful story of Eutychus.
Paul knows when he goes to Troas, he's got one night and a bit with these people.
So what does he do?
He teaches.
He teaches till midnight.
Poor Eutychus is struggling, understandably perhaps.
He falls asleep and he dies.
Three story drop.
He's dead.
What happens, Paul pauses just long enough to raise him from the dead, to share the Lord's Supper with the church,
and then to get going again for perhaps another five or six hours.
God's truth matters.
It's not that Paul is long-winded and he likes the sound of his own voice.
He understood that truth matters in a church.
There was a special focus in Paul's ministry.
Verse 24, he said his task, end of verse 24, his task was testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
What did he declare in verse 21?
He declared to Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.
He's testifying about the gospel of God's grace, God's free and loving gift of salvation made available through the finished work of the Lord Jesus.
So he spent a lot of time teaching from the Old Testament to show that Jesus is the promised one,
that Jesus fulfills all those rich promises that we find in the Bible.
So whether we're thinking about the promise made at the time when Adam and Eve fell into sin,
that one would come and he would crush the head of the serpent,
Paul would say, this one is Jesus.
He has come and he has gone to the cross to defeat the power of Satan and sin and death for his people.
He would have drawn their attention to the promise made to Abraham,
one of your descendants will bring blessing to the nation.
Jesus is that blessing.
He would have looked at David, the great king,
the one who hopes were centered on that one from his family would be the redeemer, the great king.
That God promised.
And again, see, that's Jesus.
The one who has now taken the throne of heaven and rules and reigns forever.
That Paul was demonstrating to the people that Jesus has come as a gift of God's grace,
as the only way to be saved.
And because of that, people needed to repent of sin,
to change their allegiance to allegiance and loyalty to God,
to doing battle against sin,
to having faith in Jesus alone,
depending on him to save them from sin,
and depending on him so that we might have a just verdict,
a righteous verdict when we stand before God.
And so Paul is a teacher,
and as a teacher, he focuses attention on Jesus as God's promise
and the gospel of God's grace.
And he wants them to become mature.
Our youngest nephew, who's now maybe three or four months old,
he started on solids this week.
Too much celebration from his parents.
Life gets much easier when babies are on solids.
But also, I guess it's a sign,
here is a child who's growing healthy,
who's growing up.
Something to celebrate.
In our own lives, are we growing spiritually?
Are we receiving from God in his word?
What is the place of the Bible in our day-to-day life
and Christian experience?
Are we growing in maturity?
And bearing in mind the fact that Paul was a teacher,
and recognizing that we're not Paul the Apostle,
but understanding that we are messengers,
are we talking to others about Jesus,
about how he's central to our hope?
Are we looking for ways to share our story
to point others to Jesus as Lord?
Because mission requires teaching.
We have a heart to play in that.
The next principle that we see
is that mission requires devotion to Jesus.
So verses 22 to 24 are significant.
Paul is looking ahead,
led by the Spirit,
to consider his future prospects.
And what it seems from a human point of view
is that his future looks fairly bleak.
Verse 23,
I only know that in every city
the Holy Spirit warns me
that prison and hardships are facing me.
But for him,
he doesn't seem too concerned about that.
His only concern seems to be
about being faithful to the Lord Jesus.
Verse 24, he says,
Amazing word.
He wants every day
to be on this race of faith,
to be living in faith and obedience,
anticipating that prize
of eternal salvation with Christ
that's laid up in heaven for him.
That's his goal.
That's what drives him day by day.
And he wants to complete the task
that he's been given.
He's called as an apostle
to bring the good news of God's salvation
through Jesus to the Gentile world.
That's his unique calling.
And he wants to give himself
totally, wholeheartedly to that task.
We see Paul willing to be an instrument
in the Redeemer's hand.
He wants to live his life
directing others towards God's grace
and love demonstrated
in the sending of Jesus, his son,
to be the savior of the world.
This is the same Paul
who when he was writing to the Philippians
said, for me to live is Christ
and to die is gain.
When we look at his example,
we understand that those are not
just nice sounding words.
He absolutely meant it.
He was devoted to Jesus as Lord.
I find it interesting sometimes
to read the stories of the training regimes
of some of Britain's top athletes,
whether that's long distance runners
or whether that's boxers.
it's really fascinating to listen
to their sacrifice.
Time away from family,
maybe months at a time,
altitude training,
long hours,
enduring agony,
and why?
For the glory of an Olympic medal.
For the prospect of winning
or retaining a world championship.
And they will go through anything,
it seems,
in order to win that prize.
Now, by contrast,
a couple of weeks ago,
my friend sent me a message saying,
hey, the Sky Half Marathon
is on this June.
I hear it sounds like a nice race.
Would you like to join me?
It took me maybe five seconds
to consider the cost
and say, absolutely not.
I was not willing to count
that particular cost.
I'm not even sure
that I could have done it anyway.
But here's the question for us.
When it comes to following Jesus,
when it comes to serving Jesus,
which are we?
Are we the willing to do anything
or are we the couch potato person?
Paul's example,
the desire of God for us,
is that we would be wholly devoted
to the Lord Jesus.
And that would be reflected
in our priorities
and our values
and how we live
and how we serve.
Am I willing,
are you willing to suffer
in mission
for Jesus' sake
and in response
to God's grace
to what?
To the suffering of Jesus
for us.
And I was reminded of
the words of the missionary
Jim Elliott
who gave his life
seeking to bring
the gospel
to tribespeople.
He is no fool
who gives
what he cannot keep
to gain
what he cannot lose.
Mission requires
devotion
to the Lord Jesus.
And we also see
from Paul's life
and mission
that mission requires
the local church.
All the way through
the book of Acts,
we discover
that Paul worked quickly
to establish churches
and to establish elders
within those churches.
So here,
having spent
two and a half years
in Ephesus,
there's clearly
a church has been planted,
elders have been appointed,
and now he calls
these elders
to speak with him.
Paul was leaving,
but they would remain.
So what is his message
to the elders
and to them
as the local church?
And his message is this,
keep watch,
be on guard.
three different aspects
to that.
First of all,
at the beginning
of verse 28,
he says,
keep watch over yourselves.
To the church leadership
in particular,
he's saying,
you need personal holiness.
You need to be devoted
to the truth.
You need to be sharing
and living out the gospel
in your own experience.
Reminded me of the words
of Robert Murray McShane
where he said,
my people's greatest need
is my personal holiness.
So they're called
to keep watch
over themselves.
They're also called
to keep watch
over the church.
Continuing in verse 28,
keep watch
over yourselves
and all the flock
of which the Holy Spirit
has made you overseers,
be shepherds
of the church of God
which he bought
with his own blood.
Now,
Paul says something amazing
about the church there.
He's saying to the leaders,
remember you're shepherds
but ultimately
you're under shepherds.
What does he say
about the church?
He says,
the Holy Spirit
has appointed them
as overseers.
The church
doesn't belong to them.
It belongs to God,
the Father
and the church
has been bought
by the blood
of Jesus Christ.
This is a flock
with infinite value.
This is a flock
who ultimately
are being shepherded
by Father,
Son and Spirit.
The local church
matters to God
and the local church
matters in mission.
Therefore,
it's important
that they also
keep watch
and guard
against false teaching
and false teachers.
Verse 29,
I know that
after I leave,
savage wolves
will come in among you
and will not
spare the flock.
Even from your own number,
men will arise
and distort the truth
in order to draw away
disciples after them.
So be on your guard.
Internal dangers,
external dangers.
And they're called
to defend the truth,
to protect the sheep
from lies
and against
spiritual attack.
The local church
matters.
Eldership
in a local church
matters.
Let me encourage you
to pray
for your elders.
They are shepherds
looking to
feed you
from God's word,
looking to
protect you
by presenting
gospel truth.
They are
a gift
of God
for the church
in order to guide
and strengthen
and help
grow.
So pray
for your elders.
But remember
too
that mission
is not a solo
project.
Mission
is something
that the church
does.
I love
the list
of verse 4,
chapter 20,
verse 4,
apart from the fact
that the names
are not that
straightforward.
What we see,
and we see this
so often,
when Paul is on
mission,
he doesn't go
by himself.
He has
others who
he's training up
to work
alongside him.
He has others
to support him,
people with
different gifts,
but they're all
engaged on
mission together.
Paul was
careful to
establish local
churches because
they were outposts
from which the
good news could
then spread in
communities and
cities and
regions.
So the local
church matters
for God's
mission.
And so we
need to pray
that for us
as a local
church and
for the local
churches that
you belong to
if you're
visiting,
that those
churches would
be defended
and guarded
in the truth
against lies
and against
opposition
and spiritual
attack.
And just to
think a little
bit more about
the place of
the church
and mission,
remember the
words of
Jesus.
He said it
to his
disciples by
extension to
us.
He said,
they will
know you
are Christians
by your
love.
Now he
doesn't mean
as an
individual goes
out and
loves others.
There he
means they
will know
you are
Christians by
the way that
you have
love one
with another
by your
shared love.
And so one
of the things
that we need
to think
through is
how can you
and I,
how can we
as a local
church,
how can we
make that
love more
visible to the
people who don't
come into
church,
to the
people who
we live
with,
to the
people who
are around
about us
and who
we work
with.
Our
shared love
is part
of our
mission.
So mission
requires the
local church.
And the
last principle,
a hugely
important principle,
is that mission
requires God's
grace.
In verse 25,
Paul says,
now I know
that none of
you among
whom I have
gone about
preaching the
kingdom will
ever see
me again.
Paul would
never see
the church
that he
planted ever
again.
How can he
be okay with
that?
How can he
not be
stressed out
wondering,
how is this
church going
to do
without me?
Verse 32
is the answer.
Here's what he
says to the
Ephesian elders,
now I commit
you to God
and to the
word of his
grace which
can build
you up
and give
you an
inheritance
among all
those who
are sanctified.
God's grace
is the key.
God's grace
begins the
church.
God's grace
will sustain
the church.
So what Paul
does, knowing
he's never
going to see
them again,
is he commits
this church
to God,
their true
shepherd,
trusting,
again to quote
from Philippians,
that he who
began a good
work in you
would carry
it on to
completion.
Paul knows
the power
of God's
grace.
He knows
that it's
grace that
saves a
person.
He knows
that it's
grace at
work in a
person's life
that sanctifies,
makes clean,
makes more like
Jesus a
person.
And he knows
that it's
grace that
secures a
person's final
inheritance.
In other words,
he knows that
grace is the
A to Z of
Christian life
and so he
commits the
church to
the God of
grace and
to his
word.
So his
whole mission
rested on
this truck.
This is
God's work.
Jesus is the
one who will
continue to
build his
church.
Even if I'm
not here,
I can trust
that God
will continue
what he
has begun.
That's not
an easy
thing.
Before being
here, I
spent four
years in
international
student
ministry and
that was
one of the
really difficult
things.
You spend
maybe a
year with
people,
introducing
them to
Christianity,
teaching them
the gospel,
seeing some
of them
respond in
faith, but
then you
send them
home.
And a lot
of the
times, not
having a
clue how
things would
go with
them, it's
really hard
to commit
people to
God's care.
We want to
see how
they're getting
on, but
that's not
always the
case.
And Paul's
lesson to
this church
is I
might go,
but God
is still
with you
and that's
what matters.
God's
word of
grace belongs
to you and
that's what's
going to
sustain you.
He trusted
that
implicitly.
Small
picture of
that.
Toddlers on
a Friday
happens in
that hall.
And it's
nice to see
there's certain
patterns and
traditions that
go along with
the toddlers.
So come
five to
eleven, it's
time to
pack up,
tables and
chairs go
away, the
toys go
away, and
all the
kids help
with that.
The thing
that they've
started to
do that's
new is
they've
started to
help.
We turn
the sofas
around so
that people
can play
with their
kids, not
to sit on
the floor.
So the
kids, come
the end of
the time,
have taken
to helping
to lift
the sofa.
Now if
you've
ever tried
to lift,
they're
fairly hefty,
those sofas.
So you can
see them,
they're working
and being
involved in
this project,
but here's
the good
news, success
in sofa
lifting is
not down
to them.
They're
playing their
part, but
they are not
ultimately the
source of
strength.
And you
know, that's
the comfort
for us in
mission.
It's God's
mission, it's
God's strength,
it's God's
grace, it's
not on us.
God is
pleased to use
us and that's
wonderful, and
we should be
encouraged by
that, but
ultimately it
relies on his
grace and
power.
not our
ability.
So we
leave Paul's
missionary
journeys
remembering
that this
same God
that built
his church
then is the
same God
who continues
to build
his church
now, and
there's an
invitation for
all of us
to do our
part to
get on
board.
together.
So let's
talk to each