Acts 20:1-12
Please turn in your copy of God’s
word to the book of Acts, Acts chapter 19. We’re going to backtrack
just a couple of verses, 20 to 22. And then our main passage
today will be chapter 20 verses one through 12. So 21 through
12 will be our main passage, but we want to take a quick peek
backwards. A few things that the apostle
Paul mentions about his life and ministry. Just so you will
understand where we are, Paul is ending his third missionary
journey. That missionary journey was primarily to Ephesus, where
he spent three years. He desires to go to Jerusalem,
where he wants to be there for Passover and then Pentecost.
but because he wants to double back through some of the cities
and the churches he’s met with before, it takes him about two
years to get back to Jerusalem. So some of the stuff that we’re
gonna speak of, it’s a little hard to put it together in a
timeframe, but approximately two years of ministry. Before we read God’s word together,
let’s do ask God for help and blessing, pray with me. Lord,
you sit on the throne of heaven and you have not only finished
your work of redemption, but you have finished your work of
revelation. We thank you that in our hands
we hold copies of your word, 66 books inspired and without
error, 66 books that tell us who you are and what you’ve done.
They tell us who we are and what has been done for us in Christ.
And now we come to hear our marching orders, how we can better worship
you. how we can better serve you, how we can better live life
in this world. And so we say with all our hearts,
speak, oh Lord, your servants are listening. Do soft in our
hearts, our minds, that we might receive grace upon grace from
your holy word, we pray in the name of Christ our savior, amen.
This is God’s word, Acts chapter 19, 20 to 22, and then we’ll
jump to chapter 21 to 12. So Acts 19, verse… 20 says, so the word of the Lord
continued to increase and prevail mightily. Now, after these events,
Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia
and to go to Jerusalem saying, after I have been there, I must
also see Rome and having sent into Macedonia, two of his helpers,
Timothy and Erastus, and he himself stayed in Asia for a while. And
we’re going to jump over what we looked at last week, which
was the riot in Ephesus and pick up in chapter 20 verse one. After
the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples and after encouraging
them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia. When he had gone
through these regions and had given them much encouragement,
he came to Greece. There he spent three months,
and when a plot was made against him by the Jews, as he was about
to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia.
Sopater of Berea, the son of Pyrrhus from Berea, accompanied
him, and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus, and Secundus, and
Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy, and the Asians, Tychicus, and
Trophimus. These went on ahead and were
waiting for us at Troas, but we sailed away from Philippi
after the days of unleavened bread. And in five days, we came
to them at Troas where we stayed for seven days. On the first
day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread,
Paul talked with them intending to depart on the next day. And
he prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lamps
in the upper room where we were gathered. And a young man named
Eutychus sitting at the window sank into a deep sleep as Paul
talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep,
he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul
went down and bent over him and taking him in his arms said,
do not be alarmed for his life is in him. And when Paul had
gone up and had broken bread and eaten, He conversed with
them a long while until daybreak and so departed. And they took
the youth away alive and were not a little comforted. Amen. This is the word of the
living God for us, his children. At this past week’s end, two
men, two men I would call giants in the Christian faith in the
United States, both passed away. One passed away rather suddenly
in an automobile accident. The other passed away after battling
cancer for about three years. Both men in their 70s, I think
one maybe 75, the other 72 or so. And both, if you look at
their recent ministry, their recent ministries, both realized,
maybe one generally because he was older but not sick, The other
more acutely because he was both older and suffering from cancer,
both seemed to sense an urgency to their ministry. You can imagine
being on your deathbed and what you would say to your loved ones. But can you imagine what a minister
would say? Uh, if it was possibly his last
sermon, if it was possibly his last word to his congregation,
if it was possibly the last time he would ever see them on earth.
That’s exactly what we find ourselves in here in the book of Acts.
It’s the end of Paul’s missionary journey. It’s the end of the
third journey. He is keenly aware that his age, but also the circumstances
he will soon face at Jerusalem could make it aware, could make
it possible that this is, this is it. This is the last time
I will speak to these disciples face to face. This is the last
time I will minister among them. It seems when you read through
Paul’s letters and you read through Luke’s account in Acts, Paul
seems to have this growing awareness of the fierce persecution of
the Jewish population. The fierce persecution, which
will, yes, in a chapter or two in Acts, will lead to his arrest,
a false accusation, his appearance before various tribunals, and
his desire to go to Rome and appeal to Caesar, where ultimately,
probably in about roughly 10 years from this point in his
life, he will face execution under Nero. Paul, keenly aware
of this, that it could be the end of his life, near the end
of his life, as well as aware of the culture that this new
birthed church now lives in and the impending persecution that
is coming to all of them, he seems to have an urgency to his
ministry. Now, in America, a Christian
minister has it pretty good. Everybody comes back week after
week. Everybody puts a little something on the offering plate.
It’s a pretty non-hostile culture, pretty non-hostile world we live
in. Well, that’s all changing, isn’t
it? And a minister can, well, you’ve seen it. He can have a
cold heart. He can get up and read a few
things, say a few things, you know, raise his hands, give the
benediction and go home and watch TV. And well, they’re gonna be
back next Sunday. What if we, because of Paul,
what if we, because of the example given to us in the death of two
ministers, faithful in the American church, what if we came away
from here today saying, we need urgency in our ministry. We need urgency in our Christian
living. We need urgency in our walk with almighty God. Well, Today, as we look at a
verse or two of chapter 19 and a handful of verses in chapter
20, we wanna think through Paul’s travel plans, not too much though,
because it might be a little cumbersome. We wanna think through
some of the names that are mentioned. There were seven of them. But
what we really wanna see is Paul is leaving Ephesus and headed
to Jerusalem but because of his desire to
strengthen these churches, but because of his desire and urgency
for the gospel, he wants to pass through Macedonia. He wants to
pass through Achaia, that’s remember his second missionary journey,
Philippi, Berea, Thessalonica, possibly Athens, definitely Corinth
and possibly the town of Centrae. His ministry as he makes his
way, maybe a little bit of a long route, to Jerusalem, his ministry
is going to be a ministry of encouragement and comfort. And
today and next week, we have the privilege of two snapshots.
Today, a snapshot of a Lord’s Day gathering of God’s people
in Troas. And the next week we’ll look
at his meeting with the Ephesian elders as he meets with them
at the seaport on the dock by the ship, as he’s making his
way to Jerusalem. And I want us to notice in his
ministry of encouragement, his ministry of comfort, his urgency,
it’s been said that preachers, ministers, we are dying men preaching
unto dying men, as if to never preach to those again. And so as we pass through this passage, I hope we’ll take comfort
in these things. Three years of ministry in Ephesus. Paul is going to make his way
back to Rome over and through and down and spend a little time
here and there. He’s going to go through some
religious services, write some letters. Go through Passover,
Pentecost. He’s going to do all kinds of
things as he makes his way to this scene at Troas. But we land
in Troas after about two years basically of Paul going out and
encouraging the different churches. We land in Troas and there’s
a room full of people. It’s late on a Sunday. He’s there
with his seven people mentioned in this passage. He’s got people
with him from Asia. That’s Ephesus. He’s got people
with him from Thessalonica and Berea. He’s got Timothy, one
of his first converts on his first missionary journey. Luke. is the we, they’ll pick up Luke
and Philippi where he stayed for five years and he’s with
them here at Troas. And so as Paul is gathered in
this upper room, this third story room at the house of we believe
Carpus, he has a room full of people. They’ve put out the word
one night, one night only Paul, the apostle will be with us to
preach the word. Now they’ve all gathered. Remember,
this is pagan Roman empire. They’ve just become Christians. They’ve all been to work. They’ve
all done their regular Sunday day. They’re not like us where,
well, if we’re following the pattern of the scripture, following
the pattern of a couple hundred years of American Puritan culture,
where we work five, six days, we take a Sunday off, we take
the Lord’s day. That’s still, I don’t know, maybe
the remnants of that are still in our culture. That would not
have been the case for them. They would have they would have
done their day. They would have done their work. They would have
done whatever it was they were already being and doing in the
Roman culture before they came to Christ. And they gather in
this room for Paul to minister to them, for him to comfort them,
for him to encourage them, for him to give his apostolic blessings
from Christ’s throne through his ministry to these people. And I want us to notice the encouragement
from three places. There’s going to be encouragement
from the word. There will be encouragement from a resurrection.
And then there will be encouragement from the supper. Now, remember,
throughout all of this, Paul’s urgency, his urgency to comfort
them and encourage them, it’s now gonna come through the word.
We don’t know the content of what he said to this gathering
of people. We don’t know what he taught
them, what he preached. A handy little exercise, I did
it partially this week, I read through his letters to all the
churches he visited when he left Ephesus and made his way to Troas. And you read through, like the
book of Romans, which he wrote during the three months he was
stuck in Greece. Three months, three months, because it was
winter, you could not travel. But he wrote his letter to the Romans.
And you can imagine he’s speaking in these letters, but speaking
to this crowd at Troas of the person and work of Jesus, the
person and work of the Holy Spirit, the person and work of God, the
father. You can imagine there was a little question and answer.
A gab fest, we might say, Paul, what do you think about this?
Or this is my life circumstance. Or what do you think about food
offered to idols? Or do we have to be circumcised?
Or how do we live the Christian life in a broken world, a dark
and dying context? You can imagine there were theological
discussions, topical discussions. There were all kinds of things.
And we think through the New Testament words. Paul probably
talked. He probably exhorted. He probably
encouraged. He probably evangelized. He rebuked. He explained. He
equipped. He built up. He wanted to see
Christ formed in each of them. He wanted to see unity in the
church, the place built up into a building of stones, living
stones, stones of the Lord Jesus Christ. He wanted to see maturity.
He wanted to see the full measure of the stature of Christ in each
of them as he encouraged them, as he comforted them. Now, if
you’ll allow me a little sanctified wondering here. You know, preachers,
they kind of say the same things, right? We get a little repetitive.
We have phrases we say very often. You can imagine Paul’s ministry
as he’s writing letters because he’s an apostle under the Holy
Spirit. Thirteen epistles he’ll write before his death. You can
imagine all the speeches he gives, all the refutations he gives,
all the encouragement he gives. You can imagine he’s got some
stump speeches in his head. And can’t you imagine as you
read through say Thessalonians or Philippians or Colossians
or Luke’s account of Paul’s ministry and acts, maybe you read through
some major sections of the Old Testament, even the Psalms, you
can begin to picture in your head and in your ears here in
your heart. what Paul must have said. It
was word centered, word saturated. It was Jesus centered, God exalting. It was probably like drinking
water from a fire hydrant. Could you imagine being in that
room, hearing the apostle Paul encourage people from the word? You know, Paul writes to the
Thessalonians. He writes in first Thessalonians
chapter two, verse 13. I thank the Lord. When I remember
you in my prayers that when we came to you, that was his second
missionary journey. And he’s been back a few times
since. I thank the Lord that when you heard the word of God
from us, you didn’t take it as the word of Paul, but you received
it from heaven as it were, because it was God’s word through us
to you. And it is now at work in you. And I can imagine he thinks the
same thing As he speaks to these Christians at Troas, Paul, when
he writes to the Romans, says, I hope to visit you someday.
And I hope to impart some spiritual knowledge to you. And then he
goes on to mention, I hope to find some mutual encouragement.
You know, as a minister, as a pastor, maybe some of you have taught
school. When the people you’re teaching, when the people you’re
preaching to, or the people you’re dealing with, they have that
aha moment. They get it, they understand
what you’re thinking, what you’re saying, what you’re telling,
preaching, teaching, whatever. When they get it, it’s mutual
encouragement. And what Paul must have felt
as he encouraged them to stand fast, in Christ Jesus, in this
culture, in this dark and dying world amidst this crooked and
depraved generation, how he also must have been encouraged and
comforted knowing that as he went on to Jerusalem, he was
leaving behind a church that was rooted in the word of the
living God. Now we move on through the passage
and we think of the encouragement, the comfort, this little congregation
received from not just the word, but from this resurrection that
took place before their eyes. You know, preachers can go long
sometimes. And this is an example of a preacher
going really long, but we’ve got to understand the context.
It’s a pretty special situation. You know, the rule of thumb for
a preacher, he’s allowed to say in conclusion, I think three
times, So the first and second times, don’t get your hopes up.
Somebody was telling me recently about how they went to a church
and behind them was a clock on the wall. And apparently over
his head as he preached, people were taking notice of the time. But I can imagine in this situation,
the people felt like they were soldiers in a foxhole. And that
if they stuck their heads out, they poke their heads out of
that foxhole, they would hear the whizzing and the worrying
of the bullets and the darts and the arrows of the evil one.
And I imagine they felt very privileged on this Sunday afternoon
into Sunday night and into the Monday morning. I imagine they
felt privileged for Paul to go on long, for Paul to go on with
many words, for he had so much to say and they knew that they
needed to hear it. Now, long preaching is not generally
always easy to deal with. Long preaching is usually from
little preparation. Long preaching is usually from
a lack of economy of words or lack of organization in the message
that is to be given. Now, there are some times and
there are some cases and there are some people gifted to preach
long, to teach long, and those are usually far and few between. I can remember one summer, probably
15 years ago, hearing a a minister whose name, if I mentioned, you
would recognize and you would love his ministry as well. He preached for an hour and 15
minutes. Never looked at my watch once. Wish he had never quit.
The glories of the words from heaven were so sweet and such
a balm to the soul. And I imagine that’s what’s going
on here. They know they need to hear.
They know they need to hear what Paul has to say. Now, before
we get into the details of this resurrection and how it encourages
them, let me mention they’ve gathered on a Sunday afternoon.
They’ve preached for a little while. They’re going to take
a break to heal Eutychus and then have the Lord’s Supper or
a meal together. And then he’s going to preach
on into the next morning. So what we are reading about
here is mostly just the bulk of the first part of this service,
this gathering, but it’s, it’s hot in the room. They’ve got
candles burning. There are fumes from the candles.
There’s the, the Mediterranean heat of the day that is absorbed
into likely a stone building. And so the, the heat of the sun
has heated up these bricks and it’s radiated to the interior
of the building. Um, no air conditioning, no,
no ceiling fans, no, no funeral home fans. They’ve worked earlier
in the, in the day. Uh, and this youth named Uticus
is perched up in a window. Isn’t it like, uh, the kids,
the young people to find a interesting seat in the house and he’s perched
up there and Well, he falls out of the window. He falls out of
the third story window. Incidentally, I was cruising
through Twitter a couple of weeks ago, and there’s a funny Twitter
site about, let’s just say strange preachers. And this strange preacher
in this video was ranting and raving. Where was Eutychus’s
mama? I kept saying like he was one
of the teenagers, you know, not sitting with his parents or something
like that. And so he went on and on and on about how teenagers
ought to sit with their parents. It’s not what the passage is
about. So anyway, he falls out of the window. There’s all this
commotion. Paul goes down. He picks up the boy in his arms.
And he says to the people, do not be alarmed. Do not be alarmed,
his life is still in him. Right there in front of their
eyes, the man who preached the power of Jesus Christ shows them
through his apostolic ministry, the power of the risen and exalted
Jesus Christ. And don’t you know this encourages
them? Don’t you know this comforts
them? In fact, our passage says it
brought them no little, no small comfort. The power of Jesus Christ
on display through Paul’s preaching, on display through Paul’s healing
ministry, the apostolic work of Paul affirmed through this
great resurrection of this young man. And don’t you know, it has
echoes in Paul’s mind. It has echoes maybe in the ones
who had heard the stories of Jairus. His daughter being raised
by Jesus or Lazarus coming forth from the tomb or from the widow
of Nain’s little one or the Shunammite son being raised from the dead. And can’t you imagine, Paul?
He’s got it in his mind. He’s written it to the Corinthians.
If Christ is not raised from the dead, then we are a people
of despair, a people of no hope. And so they take encouragement
from the word. They take encouragement. from this resurrection, they
also take encouragement from the supper. And I’ll say at the
outset of this point, we don’t know if they were taking the
Lord’s supper or if it was just a potluck meal. Some would argue
that this was just a potluck. Acts 2.42 says that the church
devoted itself weekly to the apostles’ teaching, to the breaking
of bread and to the prayers. And so we don’t know, was this
an official Lord’s Supper or was this just a potluck meal?
You know, was this corn dogs and pizza and casseroles? You
know, things, well, Southern churches are famous for. Or was
this the Lord’s Supper? I’m going to, I’m going to take
a stab at it. I think Paul has written the
letters to the Corinthians. And in first Corinthians chapter
11, he says to the church there in regards to their having the
Lord’s supper together. Some are eating and some are
coming without food, and the rich have a lot, the poor have
nothing, and there’s no sharing, there’s no unity, and then they’re
profaning the Lord’s supper. And Paul says, I tell you what
I received from the Lord, that on the night in which Jesus was
betrayed, he took bread and he broke it. And he gave it to his
disciples and said to each of them, take and eat. This is my
body given for you. And in the same manner, after
the supper, he took the cup And he said to them before their
eyes, this is now not the old covenant Passover meal. This
is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. As often as you
eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim my death until
I come again. Paul has already written that
to the Corinthians. And I can’t help but think the
culmination of his ministry to the Macedonians, the Achaeans
and to the Asians. Now he’s going to head over to
Jerusalem. that he institutes the Lord’s Supper as an apostle.
We don’t know. This could just be a potluck.
But one way or the other, they are encouraged from a church
meal, which sometimes can feel like a taste of heaven. Heaven
is described as feasting and fellowship, unbroken fellowship. And then we know and understand
the Lord’s supper. God, through the emblems, the
bread and the cup of his suffering and his death, takes these outward
signs and these outward symbols and reveals to us, shows us,
encourages the inward graces that are ours through faith in
Jesus Christ. So whether it was a church meal
or whether it was the Lord’s supper, and it could have been
both together, they were encouraged. I want to encourage you and comfort
you for a moment. Maybe you find yourself sitting
in the pew today discouraged. Maybe you’re falling asleep.
Maybe you’ve lost perspective. Maybe your faith is in a heavy
spot, a downward spot. Maybe you’re immature in the
faith. Maybe culture overwhelms you or you’ve bought into it
a bit too much. Maybe the devil scares you. Or
you’ve been listening to his voice, his temptations much lately,
or perhaps your flesh, your remaining sin is, it’s on the move and
you find yourself in a difficult spot today. Be encouraged. and be comforted because this
day, today, you are sitting within the hearing of God’s word. It
has been read. It is being preached and proclaimed
to you. You are in the right place. You’re
a Christian, maybe a seeker of the Lord, and you are living
in intimate territory, but you’ve come into the foxhole. You’ve
come into the upper room at Troas. You’ve come where the apostolic
words of Paul, where the words of The man of heaven, God, the
son, Jesus Christ, the great prophet who speaks to us has
brought us into his church today. And the fray of the battle is
out there. And there’s this urgency inside
God’s house with God’s people. There’s this urgency for you
to be encouraged, you to be comforted by his word. Now we won’t have
a resurrection today. I’m not an apostle, I can’t do
that. We aren’t having the sacraments today. That’s in a couple of
weeks on the first Sunday. But you see, in God’s house,
on the Lord’s day, in the Lord’s house, with the Lord’s people,
when the word and the sacraments and the promise of our resurrection
one day through Jesus at the last day, these things can help
us. These things can encourage us.
These things can lift up our spirits. These things can encourage
our minds way down with things We have filled them with too
much during the week. And just to speak to the sleepy
part, don’t be spiritually asleep.
Paul writes a handful of places, Romans, Corinthians, Colossians,
a couple of places. Wake up from your slumber. If
you’re sleeping through church, and I don’t mean just snoozing
and snoring and nodding your head and dozing, but maybe church
is just, well, I came. I got through it. I did what
the bulletin said. I wore my tie, put on my hat. I wore my best. Maybe church
is rote. You just get through it. Maybe
you’re distracted. Maybe you’re numb. Maybe your
plate is so full of life. I hope and pray that today, by
God’s word, by God’s ministry to you through his church, You
can be lifted up and encouraged and strengthened and you can
continue, you can carry on in the life of the church. I think
it’s important to look at what we do. in our church and why
we do it. We want to be a word-centered
church. It’s the word that will comfort you. It’s the word that
will lift you up. And that’s why we preach morning
and evening. That’s why we have Christian education on Sunday
mornings. It’s why we have men and women’s
fellowships. That’s why we meet one-on-one
with people for encouragement. It’s why we give table talk and
Bibles and tell you about various podcasts and audio resources. It’s so that you can have a life
of long talks with God and be awakened to live for him and
for his glory. Let’s do pray together. Our God,
we thank you for your word and how in our day, in our time,
we dwell among your word in plenty. It’s in our hands, it’s on our
phones, it’s in our tablets, it’s in our hearts, it’s in our
churches, all kinds of places. And yet, Lord, it is one of the
most neglected things possibly in our lives. So help us to pick
up your word. Help us to be in church. Help
us to have long talks with God so that we might grow in grace
and be encouraged and no longer discouraged. Hear us and help
us as we make our prayer in the name of Jesus, our great Savior.
Amen.