Acts 20

I'll say thank you to Anthony for those kind words. I do hope that, as Paul said, imitate me as I imitate Christ. So hopefully I'll live a life that encourages other people to follow in the steps that I'm taking. Now what I wanted to point out was that we did not plan this. other than Austin speaking first because of the passage that he chose. But I had a sense that Austin's passage and my passage would dovetail nicely.

And anyone who listens, I want you to listen for that. We're going to be in Acts 20. If you want to turn there, we'll spend most of the time there. I'm trying not to flip around too much. We're going to look at the last half of this chapter. So we're going to take a very shallow view of a long passage.

And as Austin said, many sermons could be made out of a lot of these passages, even single words used at times. And we have just a short time today, so what I want to do is give you what I'll call a very shallow view of it, give you a lot of things to think about, and maybe we'll hit some areas that are important in your life. so what I want to do is I want to read the passage and then we're going to re-read the passage with my commentary and then I'll try to give you a few high level points to think about before we're finished so I'm in Acts 20 we'll start with verse 15 we'll go all the way to the end of the chapter I'm reading from the ESV and sailing from there we came the following day opposite Chios. 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 that 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 from 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 of 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 as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of 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 ministered 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 had 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 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. So to give you some context, When I read the book of Acts, the mistake I make is I read through it like a story, and I kind of get the general narrative, and I don't get the details.

And when you read through the book of Acts, if you start to look at the details, which includes grabbing the maps that come in the back of a lot of Bibles, maps are available online, you can buy Bible maps, and starting to see where these cities really are, see where the cities really were that day, you start to get an idea of these travels that the apostles were going through, that Paul was going through with Timothy and the other people who were with him. I have to admit, when I started looking to find where Ephesus was, I didn't even know where to start. And so this chapter is about the Ephesian elders and Paul having a conversation.

And so I wanted to look into Ephesus a little bit And if you look at all the cities in the Bible that are primary in the book of Acts you know you have Jerusalem and Antioch there a lot of things going on There's a lot of cities named. But Ephesus in particular, there is a lot of information on. If you go back to previous chapters of Acts, if you go to Revelation chapter 2, the book of Ephesians, and the book of 1st Timothy was written to Timothy who was at Ephesus at the time and by extension 2nd Timothy applies as well being still in Asia.

Ephesus is a port city. It was a very important town. It was the type of town where boats from far away lands would come and stop and they would bring their goods. It was the type of place where a lot of people would gather. it wasn't very different from what we experience a lot in the United States I don't think it's the kind of place where there's a lot of different people from a lot of different cultures and so probably one of the ways that they would have had to get along is by being tolerant and accepting which is what we do here you would have had a lot of diverse opinions and you would have had people who got very angry as you see if you go back a couple chapters to where there's the great mob at Ephesus that is mad at Paul and his people because they were going to take away business from the men who made idols.

And so Paul is dealing with all this. And so what I want to do now is go back through and I want to see how some of this develops, how Paul starts talking to the elders from Ephesus and see what the implications are. And then maybe look, if we can, look a little bit at some of the things that we see after this chapter, the letters Paul wrote to these people, how that gives implication to what Paul had told them at these times, or what prophecies maybe even came true.

So going back to the beginning of where we were reading, Paul's on his way from Troas, actually, and they're setting sail, and Paul walks to Assos, and the rest of the people with him, including Luke, who wrote this book, they sail to Assos, Paul had previously planned to walk there, so he was doing his ministry. Paul traveled all through Asia, and it's easy. Again, you can read the book of Acts pretty quickly if you wanted.

I mean, you can read it in a couple days comfortably, probably. But to actually, you know, you can go get Google Maps. You can get on the Internet, and you can say, Hey, how far is it from Ephesus to Miletus? And it'll tell you. And it'll tell you in today's terms, which you can imagine it took a lot longer then. And also, interestingly enough, the landscape has changed slightly, so there's some fun history to read about there.

But Paul's walking all around. This guy is working hard to spread the gospel, to encourage the churches all throughout Asia, Macedonia, and Greece. And so they're sailing, and it says, They met him at Assos. They took him on board and went to Mytilene. And sailing from there, we came opposite Chios. The next day, we touched at Samos.

And the day after that, we went to Miletus. And so if you don't have the map, if you have one in your Bible, you can check out the one that's usually labeled Paul's third missionary journey. He's going down the western coast of Asia, Asia Minor here. And he's just going south. And so you can see it on a map. And you just kind of see the dots.

It goes there to there to there to there. And what you notice is he goes right past Ephesus. So he had just spent years in Ephesus building up the church there. He had had the riot where they were yelling, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians! And they were angry. And it says in verse 16, 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.

So Paul is on his way to Jerusalem. He's got a date there that the Spirit himself has revealed to Paul. He's got to get there. But Paul stopped at all these other cities. And so it made me wonder, well, why is Ephesus skippable for this reason and all these other cities he stopped at? And the one conclusion I could draw was that his love for the people in Ephesus and their love for him was so great that he knew it would have been hard to leave.

And I think we all know that feeling. How many of you, you don't have to show your hands, but church ends at 12, and there's still people standing there at 1 o'clock talking, and they've missed lunch, and they don't want to leave. Somebody else has to say, close the door. You've got to go. We've got to shut the door. because when you're with the brothers and sisters, when you're in the fellowship of the saints, there is a love there that's incomparable.

Amen. We experienced it in 30 seconds this morning, right Pablo? Yeah. And we all know what that's like. And there was something about the Ephesian church or the Ephesian churches where Paul's time spent there and his labor of love for them, I think, made him, I bet he was their hero. And I think we'll see more evidence for the fact that they certainly would have really looked up to him.

I don't mean hero in a negative way. I mean in a very positive way, a hero of the faith, a man to be looked up to, and somebody who, if he came to your city, you'd stop what you were doing to go spend time with him, to sit at his feet and learn. And when he said he was going to get up to leave, you'd grab his robe and you'd say, man, I'll go make you a sandwich.

You just stay here and keep teaching. Okay? So I think that that was what was going on here. We're at a time when there's healing still going on, and there prophecy coming I think people were excited to learn from Paul So he says okay so now we into verse 17 which is actually the beginning of my passage That's the fun part of all this. So 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, so we'll stop there for a second. He's in Miletus, he sends to Ephesus and tells them, come here. There's no indication that he had prearranged this. he had prearranged this trip to Assos where he was going to walk and the boat was going to go by sea but he gets to Miletus and he's you know he's got his guys with him he basically it'd be like if I told Austin hey go take this 15 hour journey by foot which probably two three days at that time at least and just go tell those people come here and it's kind of a big deal when you think about that.

Anthony asked me to come to Cleveland today and I had to kind of, do I want to drive two hours? I had to think about it. And so that's four hours if you go both ways. And you kind of have to think about your time. And he says, get the elders of the church to come to him from Ephesus. And these guys come.

And to me, that's an indicator of the love and the respect they had for Paul. they left what they were doing to come see Paul notable might be these elders may have been they may not have had to be bivocational their church may have been taking care of them so that they could preach the word of God so that they could leave on a moment's notice to go be taught by Paul there's an argument there I don't want to get into that one right now necessarily it's a possibility so they come to him, they respect him, they love him they come. So now you've got a few days built in already. So if you figure that he spent this time to send people up there, and then the time spent for them to get back, and you start wondering, well, he could have just stopped there, right?

And you realize he really knew he'd be stuck. He'd be there a long time. And if you look at the time he spent in Ephesus, it was usually a long time. So he's got the elders now. He doesn't have the lay people. He's got the elders of the church.

So what we have at an early point in church history here is we have the establishment of local churches. We have the establishment of elders of local churches. So some people would deny that that even exists at all. And evidently Luke didn't. Also, he'll have an opportunity here to let them know when it's time to stop meeting as a local church. And he won't do that.

I'll just spoil that for you. He never does that. He says, you yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia. He lived among them. Serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews. So he lived among them.

Peter says to the elders, shepherd the flock of God that is among you. I have nothing against social media. I think it's really great that we can communicate the gospel over text and over Facebook and different things, But there is a sense that Christianity has always been about shepherding those that you live among. About caring for the ones that are around you.

About evangelizing the people that are in your city. How many missionaries have come to your door, to your church, asking for support? What they mean is they want finances, right? Most of the time. I know some guys legitimately say, yeah, they want your prayer. but when they're coming around doing their power points and they've got the pictures of the partially clothed starving children in the country they want to go to and they talk about they want to be missionaries do you ever ask them well when's the last time you shared the gospel because I do and what I find is a lot of these people that want to be missionaries don't share the gospel they don't know what it is actually but they're so focused or even if they do they don't share it in their own backyard they're going to leave a neighborhood with 20 houses that live close enough to them that they could have walked to of people that have never heard the gospel to go to a far away place and we're going to fund them to go do it there they're going to be brave there just not here Paul lived among them and you'll see that Paul wasn't afraid while he lived among them to offend them, if necessary, because he loved them and because he loves the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I use the present tense, which I guess wouldn't apply because he's dead, but Paul's more alive than us right now, isn't he? In a sense. Paul is serving the Lord Jesus for all eternity, as we will. But he says he served the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials. And I want to point out this word humility. And this is a hard topic.

And actually what's hard about even talking about it is the same problem Paul had. I'm going to tell you this. Paul may have been the most humble guy who ever lived, other than Moses, who God says he was the most humble guy on the earth at the time, at least. But Paul was a humble guy. And I'll tell you something. Someone who actually is humble doesn't want to have to tell you.

Because as soon as you talk about humility, the joke is as soon as you say you're humble you're not right but Paul says he's humble he says he served with all humility right Jesus Christ most humble man who ever lived he tells us about his humility and you know what's sad about it is he shouldn't have to we should recognize that in others those people should have recognized it in Paul but Paul and the Holy Spirit who inspired Luke to write this knew that people needed to hear this humble people get taken advantage of. Humble people often are seen as stupid or meek people especially People who are gentle they often seen as stupid or that they lack courage Paul shouldn have to tell people how humble he is And you should recognize humility in others and you should encourage them for it, praise them for it. Tell people, hey, I recognize that.

Oh, well, I'm worried that if I tell him he'll get prideful. Well, let the Holy Spirit deal with that. Holy Spirit tells us to encourage one another. Why is it up to you to decide which encouragement that person can't handle? Encourage people for those things. Let God grow them even more.

To me, it pained me to read this, that he had to tell them he served the Lord with all humility. To think that he had to say that. And we were talking before the conference, Pablo and I, and we made an analogy that if somebody took a dog off the street, let's say you have this dog, he's eating garbage, he's trying to catch rats, he's dirty, people won't go near this dog because the dog won't let anyone near him without trying to bite him.

And if somebody came along and trained up that dog, and cleaned him up, started giving him some good food, gave him training until the dog was able to obey the commands, you'd never look at that dog or let me put it this way and then you went up and you said wow what a great what a great dog this is if that dog was able to speak and you said yeah I sure am aren't I you know our joke was you'd grab the gun right then just put him out of his misery because the dog has nothing to brag about when he was just trash he was a worthless creature and another came along and took him and made him better and trained him and helped him. And all the credit would go to the one that trained the dog, not the dog himself. Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord. I think Pablo sees the analogy, yeah. Thank you, Lord. Hallelujah. And you know what? The movie All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Well, the dogs don't go to heaven. I hate to spoil that for you. If that's controversial, we can talk about it after. But you know what? Dogs don't go to hell either. Amen.

But people do. Yes. And if you want to live in persistent pride, if you aren't growing in humility, if you're not able to recognize that in your own life, if you're not having other people in your life who can help you understand that, then you should fear. Amen. And don't take credit for what the Lord's done in your life. Don't take any credit for that.

One of the fruits of the flesh will say, Galatians 5. The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit. The desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. He says, if you're led by the Spirit and not under the law. He says in verse 19, the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality.

So we've got all these big bad sins, some of which we'll preach about today a little. We'll preach to people who are exposing them. But then he says, jealousy, enmity, strife. rivalries, dissensions, divisions. Well, these things are all just a result of pride. It's our pride that desires the rivalry. It's our pride that creates division.

It's our pride that makes us jealous, makes us think that something that somebody else's ought to be ours. Yeah, it's covetous, but where does that come from? It's that pride. We think we deserve something that we don't have. So be humble like Paul. Learn humility.

Strive for it. it's like the untalked about virtue. And I know why. It's because just talking about it sometimes kind of makes people feel awkward. And if you ever say, I feel like I'm more humble than I used to be, people will call you prideful for even thinking that. I think that gets a little silly. I think that gets a little silly.

So Paul had humility, and we ought to also. And we ought to recognize it in others. And we ought to recognize it especially in our leaders. leaders are in a difficult position pastors elders, men who speak men who lead outreaches, men who lead ministries in the Christian church, not only are they surrounded by fools who look like them but aren't of us I'm not going to name all of them but like Joel Osteen and those types it's hard enough to be a pastor when you've got guys like that But to try to be humble, and yet you have to stand in front of people and tell them things?

That's hard. And people, they'll accuse you of pride. And then because every one of us knows that there's still a remnant of the sin that we were conceived in in Adam, we may take that criticism too seriously. But Paul served them with all humility, with tears and trials that happened to him through the plots of the Jews. And he says he did not shrink from declaring to them anything that was profitable.

Well, what's profitable? Anyone, go ahead. Can you think of another verse where the word profitable is used? All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. He says, I didn't shrink from telling you anything that was profitable. He didn't shrink from telling them the Scripture.

Let's keep it real simple here. He told them the Scripture. and by now there was actually a little more scripture but if I understand chronology I think the letters to Corinth would have been written by now he may have had more to share with them than just the Old Testament but he certainly shared with them all the scripture he taught them all the things that they would have been needed and he wasn't afraid to do that he did it with tears, he did it with humility he did it through trials and he was teaching in public and from house to house so he was in public I don't see how you wouldn't interpret that as open air preaching street ministry going and giving the gospel wherever you are following the Great Commission. He's testifying to both Jews and the Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

So that was his message. He didn't preach himself. He preached repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I'm going to Jerusalem. He's constrained by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. He says, he doesn't know what will happen to me there.

But then he says, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. And we do see this borne out in Paul's life if you keep reading in Acts. But now here, again, Paul's humility. 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 the grace of God.

Paul did not value his own life. He didn't find it precious to himself. His goal in life was not self-preservation. It wasn't self-protection. I think they tell him, I don't remember if it's right before or right after this, they're telling him, don't go there, something bad will happen. The other people see Paul as valuable.

Don't do this thing, you're going to die, Paul. and they were right but they were wrong about telling them not to do what the Spirit told them to do who else made that mistake remember which apostle told somebody no don't go do that that can't happen Peter he stood opposed to Christ's resurrection didn't he and Jesus says get behind thee Satan when you oppose the will of God when you try to oppose God's decree his plan from all eternity for how things are going to go, you're on the wrong side. But Paul didn't count his life as value. Paul counted Jesus Christ's magnification, he counted the glory of God being made famous throughout the earth as more valuable than his own life.

And Paul entrusted his soul to a faithful creator while doing good. So even if Paul were to suffer, Paul recognized that that suffering was appointed by God. You can look at Philippians 1, the very end for that. But the passage I get excited about is Daniel. And Daniel and his guys, they're getting ready to get thrown into the fiery furnace. And they say, oh Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. this is Daniel 3 if you're wondering 17 he says if this be so our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of your hand O king so they proclaim God's going to do whatever he wants with us and he can deliver us there's nothing you can do to us there's nothing the people in Cleveland can do to us today but then they follow it but if not okay so there's something they can do to us he says be it known to you O king that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up so we'll qualify there's nothing people can do to us without the decree of God some people would even say well tone that down and say it's the permission of God well I'll say it's the decree of God God appoints suffering suffering has been granted to the saints according to Philippians 1.29 and there's no greater comfort can you imagine can you imagine the theology that says when you go and try to share the gospel under the authority of Jesus Christ all authority right we just learned about that and you go and decide I'm going to be courageous and I'm not going to be dismayed I'm going to be of courage and I'm going to go and I'm going to share the gospel because the Lord's going to be with me and then something bad starts happening and your theology tells you that somehow that had escaped God's plan?

The comfort is the fact that He sent it. And that it's for your good. And as long as you are on this side of glory, that suffering is for your sanctification. And for the magnification of the glory of God in the hearing of men. For some of us, it's going to mean maybe a long life, ease and comfort in the suburbs. Right?

I don't know. For some people, it could mean today's the day. We don't know. So be prepared for either one. Make up your mind how you're going to behave if it comes to you. Be prepared.

This is what Anthony's whole talk this morning, maybe I misinterpreted it, but it was just about, hey, be prepared. Stuff's going to happen. How are you going to respond? Think about how you're going to respond beforehand. And if you respond from a heart of love, you'll respond properly. So, Paul says he doesn't count his life of value.

He loves these people, I think. He doesn't say it right here, but he says later he'd give up himself for his people in Romans 10. Paul loves these people that he's going to find and give the gospel to. He really wants to see them saved. And he tells them that none of them who he's gone about proclaiming will see his face. Now they're going to be sad about that.

I'm going to skip that part. But he says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseer. So watch over your flock, not somebody else's flock. Watch over yours. But he says, I know in verse 29 that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. So wolves are going to come.

Now if you a strict literalist that means that there going to be animals that kind of look like dogs but are still a little wild, that are going to come and do stuff to the church, right? But what's he talking about? He's talking about false teachers. False teachers are going to come, and he tells them what they're going to do. So, he says, from among yourselves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after him so i want to talk about that word twisted so you've got wolves coming in who won't spare the flock so people who would rather take from the flock than give to the flock right shepherd dies for the sheep right the good shepherd did and that's what under shepherds ought to be willing to do well these wolves come in and they actually want to eat they want to kill the sheep and they don't care which one as long as they're eaten they're shepherds feeding themselves it says in Jude.

And so when we look at this word twisted, what I want to get to is that it's real easy to spot a wolf who's not in sheep's clothing, right? It's the wolves in sheep's clothing that are harder. It's the ones that are disguising themselves. And how do they disguise themselves? The idea would be you take a real part of a sheep and you actually wear it, right?

And you're wearing sheep's clothing. And now you look like a sheep because you're dressed as a sheep. so in the analogy. So what you have is you get a person who stands in front of a congregation and opens up the Bible. And they may preach a bunch of truth from the Bible. And chances are they're a better preacher than I am and better preacher than Austin is.

These guys are charismatic as all get out. The ones that get away with it. What do they do? They twist. So when you twist something, you don't create something. You take something that already exists and you twist it.

So think about like if I had a metal bar and I was a thousand times stronger than I am and I just twisted this metal bar. It would still somewhat resemble its original shape. From far away you might not even be able to tell. I know I wouldn't. I can't see you guys every time I look up for my Bible. Oh, that's Austin over there.

From far away it wouldn't look any... It would be indistinguishable from the original metal bar. one of the reasons why you shepherd the flock of God that is among you and why the flock ought to be among the shepherd because you're close enough to see that man's life I don't know who I'll just pick a guy that I don't think has any reason to be afraid of but John MacArthur, great preacher I don't know him personally though I cannot vouch for his holy living I can't tell you how he treats his wife I can only tell you what I hear him preach that's why we get close to people in the church you should see your pastor on a regular basis he's a church member your elders are as well as elders and they're accountable to the church just as the church is accountable to them so how to recognize these wolves that come in they come in and they twist things and so they take scripture and they make it mean something different than what it really means and how do you know the difference? you need to have some protections so you have the Holy Spirit to help you but you also have other Christians you have historic Christianity God has been building this church for 2000 years and when we open the Bible without reviewing any decision that's ever been made by a historic church council we basically are saying that God's Holy Spirit has never really done anything significant in 2000 years with the people of God we ignore the Nicene Creed because well that's a man's written Creed. Well, at some point, the thing you're about to write is man-written too then.

So we have to learn how to look back at the rest of the church and see how the work that they've done to fight heresies that came up at their times, to fight the cultural things that were going on, how that helps us to maybe get a little bit ahead. How we can understand the Bible from what other people have already developed through the trials and hardships they were put through. So I want to move along.

He tells them, be alert, remembering that for three years I didn't cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. Again, he talks about tears. It's convicting to me. As a preacher, as a person that goes out to the streets and preaches to people, it's convicting to me to read this and to think about how few times I've shed tears over it. You get hardened because we are still in the flesh.

I don't want to say in the flesh. We still have this flesh. And you can become hardened. You can become so sure of the doctrine that you know so well. You can become so understanding of things like the fact that there's even reprobate people that you become hardened to the responses of the sinners you're actually preaching to. And in order to not feel the emotional roller coaster of being sad that people are going to hell, we cover it up by saying, well, you know, it's the eternal plan of God, or that guy's just wicked.

We come up with these coping mechanisms. Instead of simply feeling the emotions that come with being broken over the fact that people are dying and going to hell, and that they're enslaved in sin and that they're enslaving others. Even the false teachers, it says they're deceiving and being deceived. We have to have hearts of compassion. And we shouldn't be ashamed to experience the gamut of emotions that come when you actually, from a heart, love people.

And if you're like I am, and you realize, wow, I don't always do that as well as I ought. I'm not talking about in the like well we're never like Christ I mean like really falling short well ask God God does God knows how he knows your struggle and God has given other men hearts that loved people the same Holy Spirit that was in Paul is in you The same Holy Spirit that inspired Luke to write this He lives in you We deny that power. False teachers have a form of godliness while denying its power.

That's fine. They're bad. People that say, you know, the big teaching now that I'm seeing is you can be gay and Christian. that's the big one now and it's Christians saying that it's not non-Christians well yeah thanks for the air quotes but the point is that you deny God's power to sanctify people and to change their natures when you allow for that but how many of us live a life where there's some sin where we've just given up fighting it it hurts too much to admit that we're still doing that Amen, brother.

Amen. It hurts my pride too much. I'm certainly not going to confess it, because what will that guy think of me? Right? So you can stand all day and you can judge pagans for saying pagan things. You can even get mad at celebrity Christians for saying really foolish things.

I think you ought to. But when's the last time you looked at the sin that still is in your life? Amen, brother. and said, I need to kill this. My excuse is, well, I didn't mean to. It just kind of popped in my head. Listen now with the homosexuals, I was born this way.

I didn't choose to be homosexual. This is just what I naturally have affection for. Just because your natural affection is for self-preservation, pride, striving, gossip, all the respectable sins in the church, it doesn't make you any different. It may just mean you have a hotter hell because you know more. Mortify the deeds of the flesh. In contrast to the wolves that come in, Paul said, I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel.

Remember, this is Ephesus. we'll say it's we'll say it's Los Angeles or New York City this isn't middle of the country Cleveland or Ohio this is the nice place this is where all the nice stuff was and Paul was there and people were getting saved I bet who had money and Paul is reminding I did not want I didn't come there to get your stuff I helped you get saved I mean these people would have given Paul credit for becoming a Christian and Paul didn't come for their stuff he didn't say okay now you're a Christian start tithing to me he could have I guarantee it and these people were readily forking that stuff over or were about to to the false teachers and Paul reminds them that's not what the Christian shepherd does I didn't covet those things he worked with his own hands and he told him he says I've shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and that's a distinction that we fail to make enough sometimes I think and that is when you're talking to people who are caught up in false teaching you're talking to people who are at a I don't even like calling it a gay pride parade when you're talking to people who are at a homosexual pride parade there are going to be people there who are the leaders there are going to be people that need a sharper rebuke they need more law to break them and there's going to be people like the girl that Andy told us about Anthony told us about earlier if that was my first misspeaks, praise the Lord but like that girl who her heart was softened she didn't need more law crushing her at that point, did she? Anthony's job at that point was to help the weak to try to help her to see, even see her own weakness, that she might seek the strength that God offers. False teachers don't help the weak.

I could tell a story. I live close to a church that's got a famous health and wealth guy. I could tell story after story about how they don't help their own people. To me, that's just the fruit of the ministry. that's what they're about helping themselves read Jude, shepherds feeding themselves clouds without water fruitless trees in late autumn can you imagine it's vivid imagery you go out to your apple tree in Ohio this is like the apple center of the world you go out to your apple tree, nothing you'd be pretty mad at the effort you put in right? false teachers, don't have any time for that so then he prays and he leaves and they accompany him to the ship and I want to highlight a couple points love from a pure heart is our goal alright if you want to study the bible and search for the word love you're going to see it a lot love is vital to the Christian life God is love what did you say?

I can't hear you, I'm sorry God so loved the world God's love and our love for one another is constantly highlighted and interestingly enough, Paul is talking to the Ephesian elders if you look for the word love it has the highest frequency of occurrence in the book of Ephesians based on the total number of words in the book He tells the Ephesians about love a lot. So we want to be moved like Paul. He loved the Ephesian elders He loved the Ephesians He loved the people at Jerusalem that he was heading down to give the gospel to at Pentecost he loved the people at Rome he loved Festus and Agrippa and Bernice he loved all these people he said I would that you would all be like me except for these chains in I think Acts 26 did Paul invent love though?

Jesus Christ is love Jesus Christ demonstrated his love when he came and died for sinners while they were yet sinners somebody once asked me if we were judging the disciples for fleeing like you talked about earlier and somebody said well if you were there you probably would have fleed too and I said no I was shouting crucify him I hated him and he loved me and he came and died when I did not want him to. And we need to love like he loved. Willing to take on human flesh.

I think it's icky. Can you imagine? We really can't imagine what it's like to be God and take on human flesh. I'm already sweating and kind of smelly today. I'm in an air-conditioned building with electricity and water, fresh water. Jesus came in 0 BC, I guess, right?

He started the calendar. 0 AD. Thank you, Lord. Amen. Amen. His love is what should compel us.

His love toward us ought to compel us, as well as His love for His elect all over the world. He has sheep that are not of this fold. His sheep will hear His voice. Go preach the Word of God to people. Second point, the whole counsel of God is necessary and sufficient. Paul says it didn't shrink back from teaching them anything that was profitable.

He tells them that he gave them the whole counsel of God. This means that Paul taught them the hard things. It means that he was rebuking people who were coming out of a world system that promoted everything opposite of Christianity, and he was rebuking them daily from house to house and in the public, and he was teaching them. and if he found elders there then he was finding people who were growing in the Lord Ephesus wasn't like a Jewish city like Jerusalem where people got saved and they already kind of understood some of the law stuff and the prophets these were straight up pagans prostitution like crazy there's nothing new under the sun that's what's crazy about now and they're like, well, you guys are living in this old book.

That's why you oppose homosexuality. Homosexuality's been around forever. At least since right after the flood. We know, we have some evidence of some stuff there. We believe what the Bible says and we teach it, even if it's hard for people to hear. And that means sometimes we tell people things that are hard for them to hear.

I hope I said something that was hard for you to hear not just because but I'd like to believe if I go through 20 verses of the Bible with you that at some point God's speaking to your heart from his word but Paul uses one phrase that I want to point out he tells these elders I'm innocent of your blood therefore I testify to you this day verse 26 that I am innocent of the blood of all, because he didn't shrink back from telling them the whole counsel of God. The accusation there is that some of them are going to not be innocent. That's the accusation.

He's going to walk away with clean hands, and he's going to get his reward from God. And if anybody in Ephesus falls away, it's going to be because that person chose to fall away, or because the elders that were still there stopped preaching the whole counsel of God. They started to give in to the temptations to modify their message to match what the culture was demanding at the time.

That is Paul's charge to them. And it's his charge to you. Don't be guilty of the blood of sinners. What Spurgeon said, if sinners be damned, let them jump over our bodies to get to hell. let them climb over you while you're clutching them save those who are perishing pull those out of the fire have mercy on those who fear save others by snatching them out of the fire that's what she said hating even the garment stained by the flesh you're going to get dirty you might have might have a drink dumped on you today how you respond to I'll call it lighter persecution may tell you more about yourself than how you would respond to something extreme.

It's almost easy to say, yeah, I'm willing to die for Christ. When the suffering's over, I'm with Christ, right? It's almost harder to think I'm going to spend 50 years suffering for Christ here before that moment. Being ashamed, possibly getting arrested, losing a job, being looked upon funny by even other people in your church. You've got to love people enough.

And finally, I wanted to say wolves will find a way. Wolves will find a way to get in. They'll try different things. And if anybody studies church history, you'll see that church history has just been a consistent attempt by, we'll say, the forces of the demonic to just bring false teaching into the church. And there's always like a ramp up where it starts to get big, and then people finally have a council and they crush something and then something else pops up.

Wolves always find a way. Satan is so foolish and selfish and prideful that he's not happy enough to just rule the pan. he wants the church too, even though he knows he can't have it. But he wants to disrupt it as much as he can. And he enjoys that little disruptions that he can do, even if he knows he can't win the battle. So be on guard. Listen to people with discernment.

Don't hate discernment. And don't hate people that do discernment who are also imperfect at it, and who have their own failures. Take what you can get. Learn from people. And keep your eye on your teaching. Keep your eye on your life.

Because it's your sin that will take you to hell, not the false teachers. Not the author that taught the thing you didn't like. So by contrast to the false teachers, love the lost, Paul was the absolute opposite of a false teacher. Not only did he teach truthfully, but he lived a life that showed that he didn't want to take, he wanted to give, he loved people.

I'll end with this. Paul, the greatest Christian who ever lived, some people could argue, I probably wouldn't argue with you, but I'd say he is. Best man other than Christ. His resume is amazing Half of my sermon was lauding Paul for good qualities Paul says about himself, when he's writing to Timothy at the church at Ephesus, he says, But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent.

So here's his resume. And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. He didn't brag about himself. Paul's whole letters could have been, here's what I did. And it would have been somewhat legitimate, right? But Paul says, I was a blasphemer, persecutor, insolent opponent.

And he says, this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. And I think if your attitude is one like Paul's, who we are to imitate, and you stand out there at a gay pride festival, and you remember that your sin is what put Jesus Christ on that cross. Your sin was abominable in the sight of God.

Your sin caused the need for God the Father to crush His only Son. You have that attitude And I think you be able to talk to other sinners in a way that promotes the gospel to them In a way that, at least if they accuse you of evil, God will see your heart. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, right? So let's pray that God will give us pure hearts in the midst of a difficult generation. let me pray Father we are indebted to you you are the one who sent the Son into the world to be the Savior of the world you are the one who has given us your Holy Spirit to indwell us to keep us from living a life of persistent sin Lord so search our hearts and know us reveal to us these depths of hiddenness hidden sin that still reside in us.

The very sins that we often accuse others of are the ones that in our hearts we're still playing with, toying with. Give us hearts that want to kill sin. Mortify it. I pray that you would bless our outreach today. Lord, that you would bring people to hear the gospel and believe. Yes, Lord, amen. we want to see people come to saving faith And I pray that we would have hearts of love toward one another as well as toward the people there Give us the right attitude that helps us to be, to not be hypocrites.

Glorify yourself in all that we say and do. Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart be acceptable in your sight. bring fame to your name regardless of what it means about us whether it be your will that we have a wonderful day and come home safe or whether it means some type of suffering Lord we pray that we would be faithful to you as you are always faithful in Christ's name I pray Amen Amen Thank you for listening to Be a Berean with your host, Michael Coughlin. I am a writer at thingsabove.us and I also have a personal website, michaelcoughlin.net You can contact me by emailing me, michael at thingsabove.us I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures. you