Well,
we’ve only got a little over a month left in our study of the book of
Acts. I plan on finishing Acts the
Sunday before we begin our Advent series, which only gives us this Sunday and
the next five after that. However, we
have around nine chapters left to cover in the book of Acts. I wanted to skip over a few chapters this
week, but something in me led me to see a deep need for our hearing of the
words that Paul spoke the Ephesian elders.
You see, Paul was nearing the end of his final missionary journey at
this point. We don’t know whether or not
Paul knew that his days of traveling as much were coming to an end, but we see
that he made sure that when he left Ephesus that he gave them some final
instructions. In verse 25 he tells the
elders that this was to be their last physical encounter with each other. We saw a riot in Ephesus last Sunday. Well, Paul had to leave Ephesus for a bit after
the riot was over and travel to some other areas. After a time, Paul went back to Ephesus and
called the leaders of the church together and gave them this farewell address.
Paul
did three things in this farewell address.
He gave a testimony about himself, charged the elders for their future
work, and he prayed for them. He spoke about
how he had labored for the sake of the gospel since day one in Asia. He spoke of how he never allowed the gospel
to be hindered either by the ethnicity of the audience or the backlash that he
received from it. He made sure that the
elders, the leaders of the church in Ephesus, understood just how much he had
sacrificed for the sake of the gospel.
Verse 24 gives a great account of Paul’s view of his life, “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.” You know; this notion of Paul not counting
his life of any value and not seeing it as precious is confusing to us. After all, we would view Paul’s life of great
value and very precious. He was one of
(if not the) great teacher about God other than Jesus that has ever lived. We also have a problem not viewing Paul’s
life as valuable because we view every life as valuable. The mere thought of someone giving up their
life for any cause, even one as great as the gospel, seems horrible to us, but
should it?
No
one likes to think about death. No one
likes to think about themselves, someone they love and care about, or even
someone that they don’t really know dying.
It’s one of those funny things isn’t it?
In ministry, I’ve gone through seasons where I felt like things have
come in abundance. There have been
seasons that seemed like endless weddings.
There have been times that were endless meetings, studies, and
planning. There have been seasons of
constant health situations, and there have been those times of seeming like
around every corner hid the passing of another brother or sister in Christ. Now, I have told you before the story about
the little girl who during the Columbine shooting professed faith in Christ and
subsequently lost her life because of it.
I said at that time that I would hope that we would all make the same
proclamation that young Cassie Bernall made that day. However, I know that there are those who
would rather have their own life, or the life of their loved one, preserved
instead of proclaiming faith in Christ.
However, what Paul was telling the Ephesian elders here is that earthly
life is secondary to gospel proclamation, regardless of who the person might
be.
Now,
we may also want to think that Paul’s testimony about himself and his insisting
that not his nor anyone else’s life is of account is a little odd, but there is
a purpose for Paul going into this.
Well, what is that purpose? It
begins in verse 25, that same verse that I mentioned at the beginning of the
sermon, “And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about
proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.” Paul was having to prepare this church to go
on without him. He was having to prepare
the leadership of this church, the elders, to care for and shepherd the people of
this congregation without him. “Pay
careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock...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.” I don’t know about you, but when I read these
words from the Apostle Paul my mind immediately shifts to the wolves in the
church in 1 Peter 5 or the false prophets and teachers of 2 Peter 2. In other words, the elders in Ephesus needed
to be prepared for an attack upon the gospel from within the church. It’s a warning that we need to heed today as
well. Many of the attempts to destroy
the gospel have come from those who are considered to be leaders of the
church. Teachers and leaders who talk
about prosperity as God’s approval, personal happiness being the primary thing
God wants for His children, or salvation being something that we can earn as
opposed to Christ achieving it for us.
Now, I’m not just speaking of pastors here, but any Christian who is
considered to be among the church who promotes such atrocities. Friends, such wolves must be stopped for the
sake of the truth of the gospel.
The
question then becomes how we are to stop them, and Paul gives us the
answer. “Therefore, be alert, remembering
for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears.” First off, we have to be alert; we have to be
looking for it. Secondly, we have to
constantly be looking for it. Paul spent
three years without ceasing his defending the faith among them. It’s not enough just to pay really close
attention to the situation for a few weeks and then take a break. We are to be constantly on guard for the
truth of the gospel, ready to defend it at a moment’s notice. I’ve got family in town celebrating Thomas’
birthday next week. He’ll turn 4 on
Wednesday. His mama and I have spent 4
full years looking after him, protecting him, and trying to teach him the right
way to live in accordance with God’s will for him. Now despite our constant attention over the
past for years, if we are to take a break for a week there’s a good chance that
something bad is going to happen. A week
of nothing but French fries and donuts, loose change in an electrical outlet,
or a week long without bathing; something is going to happen. You see, as parents, we have to be constantly
on guard until our children reach a certain level of maturity known as
adulthood. Well, in our faith, we don’t
ever reach that adulthood until we enter into heaven. Sure some of us grow to a more mature
spiritual state of sorts, but that’s kind of like saying that Ashby, our 5 year
old, is better equipped to take care of herself than Thomas is at 4. Technically you’re right, but neither of them
are really qualified for the job.
The
third thing that we know about how to care for God’s people and defend the
gospel from Paul’s words comes from the words, “with tears”. You see, Paul was emotional about the
gospel. I was reading an article the
first part of this week about pastoral burnout and growth in preaching and it
said that one of reasons why some preachers get better and some don’t is
because of passion. Well, you would
think that all pastors would be passionate about the gospel (which most are but
a shameful number don’t show it).
However, you would think that all Christians and Christian leaders would
be equally as passionate. Unfortunately,
this is not the case. I see people all
the time who profess faith in Christ, but can pick it up and put it down like
they can a jacket or a pair of pants. In
order for us to be able to rightly defend something, there has to be no limit
to which we would go to see its success or continuation. Hence the language that Paul used earlier
about his life being of no account or value when compared to the progress of
the gospel. In order for us to be
willing to lay down our lives for something, we have to be passionate and completely
consumed by our love for it, much like the young girl at Columbine.
Finally,
Paul prayed for the people of Ephesus, and especially of the elders of the
church there. He asked for God to bless
them. He asked that God would build them
up and give them the strength to do the things that he had charged them to
do. He prayed that the future of the
church would continue on just as strong (if not stronger) than the past had
been with him there. The people knelt
with him, wept with him, and prayed with him.
They loved this man and he in turn loved them. Their tears were just as much from the fact
that he was leaving them as they were from the words that he had spoken to them. Then they accompanied him to a boat where he
would continue on his travels.
Now,
I briefly mentioned the ways that the gospel comes under attack in today’s
world. Sure there are the open attacks
like ISIS, the burning of the churches of the Coptic Christians in Egypt
several months back, or the persecution of Christians in North Korea. However, these are attacks from outside the
gospel, outside the Church. We expect
those. We know those are going to
happen. Jesus told his disciples
numerous times throughout his earthly ministry that they would be persecuted
and hated for his namesake. We may not
like these hardships and persecutions, but we know to expect them. However, the persecutions that Paul told the
Ephesian elders about, the ones that we mentioned Peter writing about, those
are the ones that in my mind do the most damage. I’ve briefly hinted at this over the past few
months as we’ve look through the book of Acts, that the greatest threat and
enemy of the gospel is found within the church itself. I can promise you (and I’ve seen this with my
own eyes) that more Christians stray from the gospel because of other
Christians than anything else. Whether
it’s the folks that are overly harsh and turn Scripture into a mere moralistic
rule book, or the line of teaching that just promotes that God loves us and
Jesus died for us so we can do whatever we want without fear of losing that,
great danger can be found within the Church.
I
want you to hear the words of Paul again, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to
all the flock...to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own
blood.” I want us to notice some
things here. First off, if we are to pay
careful attention to ourselves and all of Christ’s Church, then it must very
much matter how we conduct ourselves. If
there’s nothing that we can do to find ourselves not “caring for the church of
God” then they would be no reason to pay attention to our actions. And secondly, we have been purchased at a
great price. Just think about that
statement for a second, “which he obtained with his own blood.” Christ bled for us. Christ died for us. And many of us won’t even sacrifice one thing
or even one minute for him. Yes, God
loves us, but his love has come at great cost to himself. Lucky for us, God is the only one who has the
means by which to pay the cost, the debt that we owe to God. Being a Christian isn’t just about doing the
right thing from a morality perspective.
It isn’t about just shouting God is love and John 3:16 and then doing
whatever we want. Now, to a certain
extent these teachings are true within the Christian faith, but they are
woefully short of the entirety and the central message of the Christian faith,
the gospel. When we see people teaching
these types of messages, we have to heed the words of Paul to the Ephesian
elders and be willing to stop them at all costs. But ultimately, the greatest way to stop them
isn’t just by rebuking them, but by proclaiming the one true message. It’s by teaching the actual gospel,
completely unhindered and without agenda.
When one of my children make a mistake, it does little good to simply
fuss at them and tell them what they did was wrong, but it does a world of good
for us to show them why they were wrong and teach them what they should have
done instead. Let us all be on alert and
arm ourselves to proclaim the right gospel this day and in the days ahead. Let us be on guard, ready to defend the world
from the false gospels that arise, even from within the church. And let us know that God will give us
strength for the task ahead, because “he obtained [us] with his own blood.” Glory be to God; in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.W
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