Acts 20:13-38
You may be seated. Please turn
in your copy of God’s Word to Acts chapter 20. Our passage
today will be Acts chapter 20, verses 13 to 38. You can find
this in the Pew Bible on page 929. Acts chapter 20 verses 13 to
38. This is Paul’s farewell address
to the Ephesian elders. Remember, we’ve talked in recent
weeks about his end to his third missionary journey. He’s been
in Ephesus for about three years and desires to go back to Jerusalem. He wanted to make it by Passover. Now his desire is to make it
by Pentecost, which is, well, that’s today in the church year.
But it’s 50 days past Easter, past the resurrection. He is
delayed, though, because he wants to make one last round through
the churches of Achaia and Macedonia. That would be the church at Philippi,
the church at Berea, the church at Thessalonica, Corinth, possibly
Athens, Sentrae, a few other places. We saw one snapshot of
his last visitation with the Sunday at Troas. And today we
get a snapshot of his meeting with the elders at the dock at
Miletus, which is about a 30 minute or a 30 mile trek from
Ephesus. So Paul is making the best use
of his ship’s delay. The cargo would be loaded, unloaded,
and shifted. And so as they docked from this
port to that port, they have some free time. And so he spends
it here in our passage today, meeting with the Ephesian elders.
Before we read God’s word, let’s do pray together. Our Lord, open
our eyes to see wonderful things from the scriptures. Open our
hearts to be recipients of the truth of your word, the grace
of our Savior. May your Holy Spirit help us
to hear, believe, receive, and see, and most of all, live the
words that are before us today. Bless us now as we take some
time to hear from you, the King of heaven, the prophet of the
people of God. Help us, and we ask this in the
name of Christ our Savior, amen. Acts chapter 20, beginning at
verse 13. This is, when you see the word
we, this is Luke narrating, and several of them traveling together.
But going ahead to the ship, We set sail for Assos, intending
to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending
himself to go by land. And when he met us at Assos,
we took him on board and went to Mytilene, and sailing from
there, we came the following day opposite Chios. And the next
day we touched at Samos, and the day after that, we went to
Miletus. For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that
he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening
to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost. Now
from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the
church to come to him. And when they came to him, he
said to them, You yourselves know how I lived among you the
whole time from the first day I set foot in Asia, serving the
Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened
to me through the plots of the Jews, how I did not shrink back
declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you
in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to
Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
And now behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the
Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that
the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment
and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life
of any value, nor is precious to myself, if only I may finish
my course in the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus. to testify to the gospel of grace,
the grace of God. And now behold, I know that none
of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom
will see my face again. Therefore, I testify to you this
day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink
from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention
to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit
has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which
he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure,
fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And
from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things
to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be alert, remembering
that for three years I did not cease, night or day, to admonish
everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God
and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up
and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one’s silver or
gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these
hands minister to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things, I have shown you
that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and
remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it
is more blessed to give than to receive. And when he said
these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there
was much weeping on the part of all. They embraced Paul and
they kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word
he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they
accompanied him to the ship. Amen. The word of the living
God for us. May he add his blessing to the
reading, but also the preaching of his word. Every year during
March Madness, when I hope my favorite basketball team, the
Darker Blue Shade, will win its sixth national championship,
and it has escaped us for the last eight, get pretty intense
watching basketball games, you know, March Madness, the weekends,
where they make it to the 64, the 32, the 16, the 8, the 4,
the 2, and of course the big one. And there’s this commercial
that interrupts rather loudly March Madness. And it’s Ray Charles
singing about the state of Georgia. And I say to myself, who cares
about the Masters just yet? That’s always the advertisement
for the Augusta National, the Masters golf tournament. It’s
March Madness. We don’t care about golf yet.
But then our team loses, and we begin to get Georgia on our
mind because, well, we need something to watch, right? We hope to see
somebody do it big. We’re on to the next sport. Well,
Georgia may be on Ray Charles’ mind, but I tell you in this
passage, Paul has two cities on his mind. And I don’t think
Ray Charles ever sang about Jerusalem. And I’m sure he never sang about
Rome, but you can imagine in the heart and in the mind and
in the emotions, the desires of the apostle Paul, he has one
eye on Jerusalem and another eye on the city of Rome. He wants to go to Jerusalem to
worship God through the Feast of Pentecost. He wants to go
from there to Rome and possibly Spain and carry on in what would
be his fourth missionary journey to take the gospel to, in his
day, the far reaches of the earth. Well, what’s really on Paul’s
mind? It’s, well, not Georgia. It’s,
yes, Jerusalem. It’s definitely Rome. But what’s
on his mind here in our passage? Well, it’s Ephesus. It’s the
Ephesian Christians. It’s the saints of God, the blood
bought children of God who are at Ephesus, who are on his mind. And so as Paul and his traveling
companions are slowly but surely making their way, passage by
passage, island by island, port by port, they’re going to make
their way across the Mediterranean where he will ultimately go to
Jerusalem. He wants to stop and encourage
as many people as he can. And in these two years since
he has left Ephesus, he’s now circled back to the elders and
they are on his mind. They are on his heart. I can’t
help but think, Paul, and his understanding of the New Testament
and the vestments of the Old Testament priests. They wore
the ephod, they wore the robes, they wore the decorations, the
palm granites and all the rest. But on the hearts, on the chest,
the breast piece, of every priest were the names of the tribes
of Israel. And for sure, for Paul, the names of the blood-bought
saints at Ephesus. One of the things we don’t think
about often as Christians, but it was definitely on the forefront
of Paul’s mind, were the unseen realities, the unseen spiritual
dangers, the forces of darkness that were at play in the life
of the Ephesian church. They’re at play in the life of
our church. They’re at play in the life of
each of you. And those unseen realities would
be the world in all its ways, the world and all that it offers,
the kingdom of this world rather than the kingdom of God. But
also the remaining sin in each Christian, the remnants of original
corruption, the remnants of original unrighteousness inherited by
every one of us from Adam, our first parent. And he refers to
it in other places as the flesh. He refers to it as that remaining
sin that that that rears its ugly head in every one of our
lives. Then he speaks of the devil. He speaks or we think
of the devil, that third enemy, the destroyer, the devourer,
the deceiver, the one who, when you pair him up with our own
flesh, you pair him up with the world and all it offers. Satan
really just has to sit back in a beach chair and let the church,
let the saints self-destruct, our hearts go astray. The world
and all its shiny things is very tempting to us. So as Paul has
the Ephesian blood-bought saints on his mind, he’s for sure thinking
of the unseen realities of the world, the flesh and the devil. How do you know this, you ask?
Well, the Ephesian church is going to be near and dear to
Paul’s heart. After he departs, young Timothy
will remain as a pastor there. Timothy is going to get two letters,
first and second Timothy, at least in our copies of God’s
word. We know those two letters and he’s going to tell him of
some of the same things that we find in our passage today.
He’s going to tell them of the hardships that are there at Ephesus
and you must work to overcome them in your ministry. But we
also get a letter to the Ephesians. Our fight, the letter to the
Ephesians says, is not against flesh and blood. We do not wrestle
against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the
authorities and against the cosmic powers over this present darkness
and over the forces of evil and the heavenly places. Don’t you
say from time to time the world we live in has gotten really
bad. And then we begin to say it’s probably not ever been this
bad before. Well, ask Paul about life in Ephesus, a city dominated
by the temple of Dionysius, a city that was devoted to the worship
of Artemis or Diana, a city that was devoted to a pagan prostitute
cult practice. And he planted the little church
at Ephesus there. And we say, oh, the world’s never
been this bad before. It’s only been this bad today.
You know, it’s been a rotten world. since sin entered the
garden. It’s been a rotten world since
the days of Babel and Sodom and Gomorrah, since the days when
Israel, God’s people, begged for a worldly king to rule over
them. And we could go on and on through
redemptive history, through the pages of history and see it’s
a cycle. of faithlessness. It’s a cycle
of sinfulness and it’s a cycle of desperate need for God’s redemption. And so in our passage today,
Paul is going to speak a word to the pastors, the shepherds,
the elders of the church at Ephesus. And he’s gonna say to them, basically,
here’s what I did when I was among you. And then on the flip
side, what you must do as you remain as elders in the church.
So let’s first think about what Paul did, what I did, Paul’s
ministry among the Ephesians. If you study, say, advertising
or speech-making or what kind of person you ought to be and
what you ought to do in life, you have probably bumped into
the three words, the three key words, logos, word, Ethos, kind
of ethics, and then pathos, emotions. You watch a TV commercial. Reason
is the logos, right? This is why you should buy this
car. It’s had a J.D. Power stamp of approval for 47
years, right? Or it’s a Buick. Or whatever. So there’s reason, rationality,
there’s word, logos. In advertising, there’s ethos.
Who is that old fellow? Is it E.F. Hutton? If E.F. Hutton says it, you should do
it. Or, you know, we should buy Wrangler jeans because Brett
Favre wears them. Whoever the spokesperson is,
you drink something, eat something, buy something, you do something
because so and so whose ethos or their credibility gives you
reason to do that. Then there’s pathos, there’s
emotions. You see these car commercials. And you begin to think to yourself,
because they’re making you think to yourself, boy, I would look
good in that car. I would feel like a man in that truck. I would
feel young in that sports car. I would look good on that Harley
Davidson. You get the idea. They appeal to your emotions.
So there’s three ways to give your presentation. Logos, word,
reason. Ethos, who I am, the authority
I carry when I speak. Or pathos, emotions, sympathizing
with. You see this in the life of Jesus,
don’t you? Logos, you have heard it said, and therefore I say
to you, he speaks the word of God. There’s ethos. People flock
to Jesus because he was a good man. He preached with power. He had compassion on the crowds.
And so we think of this in the life of the apostle Paul, what
I did, Paul says, what I did when I was among you, among you
Ephesians. A minister ought to have these
as well. Paul says several things about
himself in this passage, how I lived among you, how I served
among you, how I suffered among you and how I ministered the
word among you. Let me zip through these. This
will be a mouthful, but I think you’ll get the sense of Paul
was much like Samuel. We read of Samuel’s farewell
address in first Samuel 12. Pretty, pretty similar in some
of the things. How did Paul live among the Ephesians? Well, he lived among them where
they saw him. The church saw him morning, noon
and night. They saw him as a tent maker
making his own way. They saw him as a tent maker
and his earnings provided not only for his own living expenses,
but also all the names, all the associates, all the people who
were with him. They lived at Paul’s expense
and not at the expense of the church. They saw in Paul these
three years, the good. They saw the bad. They saw the
ugly. They saw the regular. They saw that when You pricked
him. He bled just like every other
human being. They saw that he had hurts. He
had desires. He had emotions. He had longings. He was just a regular guy like
they were just regular people. He was a tent maker. He worked.
He was content. He goes as far as to say, I did
not covet your silver. I did not covet your wealth.
I didn’t covet anything you had. In fact, I was content with what
God provided for me through the work of my hands. They saw his time. They saw his
energy. They saw his efforts. They saw
his heart. They saw his unceasing work in
the ministry at Ephesus. Remember a couple of passages
back when Paul was reasoning in the synagogue and the Jewish
crowd got tired of him. So he went next door and rented
Tyrannus Hall, where for two years, our passage told us he
would tent make in the mornings. And then from the afternoons
and into the evenings he would lecture. And probably in the
evenings when Tyrannus Hall was needed again, he would go house
to house as he speaks of in this passage to the Ephesian elders.
And so mornings he worked, afternoons he lectured, and in the evenings
a house to house ministry, probably over the evening meal. Paul’s
life was one of tireless Effort and energy for the gospel of
Jesus. He wanted to see Christ formed
in each and every Christian at the church at Ephesus. He served. with humility. He served them
with tears. He served them in such a way
that when fierce enemies came, the plots of the Jews, he did
not shrink back. He was not timid, nor was he
intimidated. He considered his life of no
account. He did not consider his life
as precious. And before their eyes, as he
lived and as he served, he also suffered. He suffered many trials
of his own health, his own body, but he also suffered many trials
as the Jews continued to plot against him. I would imagine
Paul looked over his shoulder quite a bit. I would imagine
he, as we say, slept with one eye open. I would imagine Paul
kept people nearby. We’re going to see in a couple
passages where as Paul goes to Jerusalem, he’s going to be accused
by the Jews from Asia. That’s the Jews from Ephesus.
They’re going to follow him and persecute him all the way into
Jerusalem, where he eventually, because of the accusations, will
have to appeal before Caesar. And he will die by the sword
of Caesar in years to come. But he considered his life not
precious of no account. And he suffered many trials.
And he even says, As he has Jerusalem on his mind, he says in every
town awaits me imprisonment and afflictions. Paul is speaking
to them of what he did as he ministered before them. And the
last thing he says to them in this stretch of what he did as
he ministered before them is he speaks very boldly and broadly
and completely and thoroughly of his ministry of the word of
God. His ministry of God’s word was comprehensive. His ministry
of God’s word was exhaustive. His ministry of God’s word was
something Jesus gave to him on the road to Damascus. He received
this ministry. He was a steward over it and
what he received, he was required to give, to present. And we hear
all these words in Acts chapter 20 of how he declared to them
the kingdom of God, how he taught them the word of God, how he
testified of the kingdom of grace and how he proclaimed salvation
through faith in Jesus. And he admonished them in his
ministry. He commits, commends them. He commits them at the end of
his time with them to the word of grace. which he exhaustively
and thoroughly and completely taught to them during his ministry
there because he knew it would build them up. He knew it would
buffet them and strengthen them and nourish them in the faith
of our God. And he knew it would let them
know of everything that they would inherit in Christ in the
heavenly places. He speaks about his ministry
among them. I taught you nothing. that wasn’t
profitable. No chitchat about the Tar Heels
or the Panthers or the Hurricanes. No chitchat about what’s for
sale on Amazon or you know how we can be sometimes. We talk
about things of no consequence, not Paul. Whatever I spoke to
you, whatever I taught to you was profitable. Can you think
of what he writes to Timothy later? All scripture is breathed
out by God and is useful. or in some translations as profitable
for doctrine and for reproof and for correction and for training
the man of God in righteousness so that the man of God is fully
equipped, fully furnished to do every work God has called
him or her to do in the Christian life. He has proclaimed the whole
counsel of God. One of the great blessings of
the Reformation And I think really brought about again by the work
of Martin Luther was to put back in the service of the church,
the reading and the preaching of the word, the reading of the
in the preaching of the word was moved off to the side or
completely moved out because they elevated the sacrament of
the Lord’s Supper or in the Roman Catholic belief system, the the
the re-sacrifice of Jesus Christ every time the service was held. And so Luther brought the pulpit
back. He brought the reading and the
preaching of the word back. And one of the great blessings
we have from the Protestant Reformation is what we call the Lectio Continua. You hear in a lot of churches,
they preach from the lectionary. The lectionary is about a three-year
cycle of Old and New Testament passages. And over the course
of every year, but every three years, you get through the cycle
of kind of an overview of the whole Bible. Well, out of the
Reformation came what we call the Lectio Continua. It’s the
lectionary that just opens the Bible and preaches it cover to
cover. That’s why we’ve been in Acts for, well, it’ll be two
years by the time we finish it. We were in Luke for about two
years. We were in Hebrews for about a year and a half. We were
in the Psalms on Sunday nights for a couple of years. It’s why
we’ve taught Genesis on Wednesday evenings and now Exodus. We’ve
gone through Joshua and Judges and some other places. various occasions in the life
of the church, we have sought to give the whole counsel of
God. Let me tell you why that’s advantageous.
If I open up my Bible tomorrow and I preached to you today from
Acts chapter 20, 13 to 38, guess what’s next Sunday? It’s the
next passage. Well, what if it’s about divorce?
What if it’s about a proper view of sexuality? What if it’s about
something hard and tough and difficult that you don’t want
to hear and I don’t want to preach? Well, the Lectio Continua keeps
us faithful to the word. It says next up is the next sermon. It keeps me from preaching all
my hobbies. It keeps me from having to dive
in and find passages that will support my favorite topics. It
keeps us all honest. And we believe, because Paul
says it here, the whole counsel of God is good for the whole
soul of every Christian. And so Paul says, I deliver to
you the whole counsel of God. For him, it would have been Genesis
to Malachi. Can’t you imagine he had to zip
over to the synagogue where they didn’t like him much to sneak
in some studies or maybe to get in his head what the Bible said?
If he had had Matthew to revelation, he would have taught and preached
it. Now I can imagine this is a little sanctified wondering
and rambling, but I can imagine he had every 13 letter word from
his 13 letters in his head. And I would imagine he, he preached
a little of that under the inspiration of the spirit. And then it got
put into the scriptures, but he sought to teach them the whole
council of God house to house in public, in the synagogue,
in the hall of Tyrannus, What he received from Jesus, he gave
to them. And that is the gospel of the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he says in this passage,
I want to complete my work. I want to be a good steward of
what Christ has entrusted to me. And he goes so far as to
say, as he ends his speech to the Ephesian elders about what
I did among you, I am innocent of your blood. I have told you
that you’re sinners. I have told you that the judgment
of God is coming. I have warned you and admonished
you to leave your old nature, old man, non-Christian ways behind
and live new life in Jesus. I’ve said everything I can. And
so I’m innocent of your blood, an echo, a hearkening back to
the voice of the great prophet Ezekiel. He says, my business
here is finished. Jerusalem is in my mind, Rome
and possibly death. by the sword of Nero. My business is unfinished here,
Paul says, but yours, you elders, is just beginning. And so we
wanna think for a moment of what the elders must do. Paul has
said to them, what I did when I was among you, now he’s gonna
say, what you must do among the blood-bought saints. There’s
a word in the scripture for elder. have several of them. There’s
the press, uh, press Buteros. That’s where we get the Presbytery
from. That’s where we get Presbyterian from elder rule. But there’s
also the episkopos word. We hear the word episcopal in
it. It basically means overseer. And the word presbyteros, can’t
say it, and episkopos are used synonymously in the pastoral
epistles. And so we believe an episkopos
or a bishop is an overseer. We believe a presbyteroi, a presbyteros
is an elder. We believe they’re the same words
just used are different words used in the same way. And so
what are elders to do? They are to oversee. And I hope
you noticed in this passage, the two types of oversight the
elders have. They first have oversight of
their own souls, their own Christian life, their own Christian walk. And the second thing they have
oversight over is the flock of God. I’ve been reading through
the last couple of weeks, a little book by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
called the minister’s self watch. And you can imagine that title
comes right here from Paul’s admonition to the Ephesian elders.
And Spurgeon, who’s a great writer with flowery language, he’s well-learned. He quotes some of the Puritans
who were a couple hundred years before them. He says, what kind
of minister are you if you’re like the cook who serves up sumptuous
meals, but eats crumbs yourselves? Or what kind of minister are
you if you don’t watch over your own soul? You’re like the tailor
who dresses people in finery, but himself is in tattered rags. Or the words of Robert Murray
Shane, who says, the best soldier in the army of almighty God keeps
his weapon, his saber clean and oiled and sharp and ready. And
that’s exactly what Paul is saying to these elders. It’s what he’s
saying to those who would oversee us. It’s what he’s saying to
me and others as ministers. We must be careful over our own
lives. Paul is going to write to Timothy
later and say to Timothy, watch yourself, watch your life, Timothy,
and watch your doctrine. Because if you have an impure
doctrine and an impure life, you’re no good to the church
of Jesus Christ. And how true, how many ministers,
how many elders have not watched their own souls and brought ruin
to the church of Jesus Christ. Pay careful attention to yourselves. If you don’t, it’ll be deadly.
But then he turns their oversight, their bishopric, their eldering
and says, after you’ve watched your own self, You need to watch
over the flock of God. The Holy Spirit has made you
overseers. The Spirit of God has made you
elders. It’s your job to care for the
blood-bought saints who, by the way, have wolves surrounding
the sheepfold. And if you think about the life
of Ephesus, the world of Ephesus, what a rotten city. You think
about our own culture. What a rotten culture we live
in. One of the jobs of pastors and elders and overseers, and
I think parents as well, is to know what the culture is serving
up, and to shut the windows, to lock the doors, to get a firmer
grip on the shepherd staff, a deeper knowledge of who God is and what
he’s done and what he’s promised, and to follow these verbs of
this passage. Pay careful attention to yourselves.
Pay careful attention to the flock. care for the blood bought
church of God, be alert. And as he says, be alert, he
says, remember my three years among you. Why did he go into
all the detail of what I did? It was Paul’s alertness. It was
Paul’s ministry of being alert and caring for the flock. You’ve
got to do the same. No sleep, no distraction. Care for the blood bought church
of God for fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing
the flock. They will eat the lambs. They
will devour the flock. Peter speaks of this. Jude speaks
of this. Revelation chapter two. John
speaks of this. The seven letters to the seven
churches. The very first letter is to John’s own church. Timothy’s
former church. Paul’s mission plant. The church
where Apollo served, well-served church, eaten up by wolves. And Jesus is gonna say in his
seven letters to the seven churches, he’s gonna say specifically to
Ephesus, you’ve forgotten your first love. You’ve fallen apart. And he’s gonna give this command
to them. Remember from where you have fallen, repent and recover
your first love. And we’re seeing the result of
the elders of the church not heeding the warning of Paul. They probably didn’t look in
on themselves and therefore didn’t look in on others. Fierce wolves
came in and they devoured them, not sparing the flock. But he
also gives another warning. It’s not just wolves from outside.
It’s some from among you. And we have to think a couple
of the elders defected. A couple of the elders were captured
by Satan. A couple of the elders arose
and spoke twisted or perverted things to the church. We hear
this all the time, don’t we? The publishing factories that
are out there in America putting videos and books into churches,
heresies on the television screen to draw away the people from
Christ, to lead them to apostasy like Satan in heaven when he
led other angels into rebellion or he went in the garden and
led our first parents, Adam and Eve, into the garden. Why is
Paul going to great lengths to stop at the port at Miletus,
to send a couple of days journey, a courier to go get the Ephesian
elders, to have them come a couple of days journey to meet with
them? For him to speak with them this briefly is because he is
concerned for their hearts. He’s concerned for their souls.
He’s concerned for their walk in the faith. And he is concerned
that almighty God or that the all not almighty, but the mighty
devil might seek to devour. And he says, work hard, care
for the flock, feed the flock, help. the weak, remembering the
words of Jesus, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Can
you imagine being there at the speech? He was out of breath, he was
out of words, the horn of the ship blew, it was time to board,
and he’s saying, keep the sheep safe in the sheepfold, watch
the perimeter, keep a night watchman, live among the sheep, listen
to the sheep, know what their troubles are, their temptations
are. know the city where they live,
you know, C.S. Lewis, when he wrote the screw
tape letters, there’s little places in that book where it
doesn’t say it like this, this is my paraphrase, but all Satan
has to do is sit back at the beach and put his feet up. We just wander off into stuff,
don’t we? We get tempted by things and
it doesn’t take much effort sometimes to destroy the people of God.
or the church of God. And so Paul gives them this admonition
to the people of God. You need to repent. You need
to turn from the temple of Diana. You need to turn from the pagan
ways of the Roman world. You need to turn from the flashy
things of life in America in 2023. And you need to turn towards
God and you need to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, believing
that he suffered, lived, obeyed, died in your place. And you need
to trust in him alone, rest in him alone for your salvation,
because the gospel of the grace of God is all that will see you
through this life that is full of dangers, toils and snares. You know, it’s Memorial Day weekend
and so many people are off at the beach. Imagine disappointed
because it’s the coldest Memorial Day in recent history. But, you know, you go to the
ocean and you sit there and you put your toes in the sand. The
waters are placid. And you sit there and you look,
look at the ocean, you feel the calm breeze and you text people
and you put it on Instagram. I’m living my best life. This
is great. This is wonderful. But then the
wind picks up and there’s a tropical storm or there’s waves and the
water is no longer placid. Maybe it’s boiling. And that’s
only the surface. Have y’all been reading about
these killer whales attacking boats? It’s shark season, isn’t
it? In a couple months, we’ll, for
some crazy reason, watch shark week. There’s things under the
surface that have tentacles and stingers and poison. They can
kill you. And not to mention the ocean’s
really deep. You can’t touch the bottom. You can’t even see
your feet. We fear the ocean, don’t we?
We reverence the ocean. We take care when we’re at the
coast. After all, it is the sea. It
is the ocean. It has the great depths. And so when we swim or
scuba or sail or surf or explore, we’re aware there are unseen
realities under the surface of the water. We are aware that
the wind can kick up and things can harm us and kill us. That’s
why we have lifeguards. That’s why we have a branch of
the military, the U.S. Coast Guard. Friends, the churches
in the world and the sea may look calm. The sand may feel
good on your feet. But Satan is out and about. There are many dangers and snares
and difficulties. And it’s important for the shepherds
of the church, whether they be pastors or elders, to protect
the fold of God, to protect it from false teaching, a harmful
teaching, or to protect it from outside enemies or even from
enemies within. And Paul is saying to them, I’ve
done all I can. I’m moving on to Jerusalem. You’ve
got this. because Christ is your all in
all. And a passage goes on to say, they knelt down, they prayed,
they wept, and their saddest tears were because they would
never see him again. But he gives this wonderful blessing,
and now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace,
which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance
among all those who are sanctified. Paul is affirming something here
that we need to remember. Jesus is the chief shepherd.
All the shepherds on earth, whether it’s elders or pastors, they’re
under shepherds. We can only do what we can only
do. We can only do what in our human abilities and spirit given
abilities are there for us. But what can Christ do? He sits
in the heavens and he prays and he knows this world, he’s lived
in it. He sits in the heavens and cheers you on. He sits in
the heavens. and waits for the day when he’s to bring you home
and into his glorious presence. And so may the grace of God and
the word of his grace build us up and lead us heavenward. Let’s
do pray together. Our God and Savior, we thank
you for your word of grace that is able to save us. We thank
you for your word of grace that is able to comfort us and build
us up. And we thank you for your word of grace that contains so
many promises that you never leave us, you never forsake us.
You’re aware of the enemy. You’re aware of the evil one.
We know from the book of Job, he must submit to you. He can’t
touch a hair of our head. He can’t touch the sole of our
foot. He can’t touch a petal of a flower
of this earth without your permission. And so we rest in your providence,
your sovereignty. We rest in your goodness. We
rest in your plan. And we commend ourselves now
to your grace and your word. Take us safely home to heaven.
We do trust and pray in Jesus’ name, amen. We want to sing of
God’s goodness. We’ve just brought in someone
to membership and we think of Paul saying goodbye to the saints
at Ephesus. So let’s stand together and sing,
blessed be the tie that binds, number 409.