Acts 20

Acts 20:1-16

58. TO WITH THE GOSPEL Acts 20:1-16 In the previous chapter we read about the uproar at Ephesus. The angry mob stood for more than two hours crying, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” Finally, “the town clerk appeased the people” and “dismissed the assembly.” We pick up the story in the opening verses of chapter twenty. TO GO TO (Acts 20:1-16) - Here we have another of Luke’s rapid descriptions of Paul’s ministry. He is leading up to the Apostle’s farewell message to the Ephesian elders at Miletus. But in these verses Luke very quickly tells us that after the uproar at Ephesus, Paul went right on doing what God had called him to do. He spent the next several months travelling, by land and by sea, through Asia, Macedonia, and Greece, visiting the churches which had been established during his earlier ministry. Everywhere he went he did the same thing. In the synagogues, in the streets, in the churches, and in the market places, Paul preached Christ to the people. But all the while he was hurrying to Jerusalem (Acts 20:16). Why did Paul have this preoccupation with Jerusalem? God distinctly appointed him to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Yet, in reading through the Book of Acts, we see him repeatedly determined to return to Jerusalem on the feast days. Was this, as some have suggested, because he had a hard time breaking with the past and shaking off the grave clothes of dead Judaism? Not hardly! The apostle Paul was forthright and constant in his declaration of the believer’s freedom from legal, ceremonial, carnal ordinances (Romans 6:14-15; Romans 7:1; Romans 10:4; Galatians 5:2; Galatians 5:4; Colossians 2:8-23).

Paul was determined, if at all possible, to be in Jerusalem on the feast days, not to observe those feasts, but because he knew that on those days he would be able to preach the gospel to more of his kinsman than at any other time. And he was determined to do everything in his power to see them saved by the grace of God (Romans 9:1-3; Romans 10:1-4). THE MESSAGE OF THE BIBLE - Wherever he went, the message Paul preached was Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). Sometimes he preached to Jews, sometimes to Gentiles. Sometimes he preached to large crowds of lost people, sometimes to small bands of believers. Sometimes he preached to learned philosophers, sometimes to simple women. But his message was always the same. He preached Christ, the whole of Christ, and only Christ to all people. Sometimes he was a little long winded, preaching until midnight. Sometimes people got tired while he was preaching and fell asleep (Acts 20:9). Often he was persecuted for his message. But Paul never changed his message. His message was Jesus Christ and him crucified. THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD, IS IN ITS A BOOK ABOUT THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. It is not a book about science, history, politics, morality, or even religious dogma. It is a book about Christ (Luke 24:27; Luke 24:44-47). Christ is the living Word of whom the written Word speaks. It is the business and responsibility of every gospel preacher to preach and teach nothing else but Jesus Christ and him crucified. To do so is to faithfully preach and teach “all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:27; 1 Corinthians 2:2). All the prophecies of the Old Testament are predictions of Christ. All the sacrifices and ceremonies of the law were pictures of Christ.

All the temporal deliverances of individual believers and the nation of Israel were illustrations of the redemption of God’s elect by Christ. The law was given by Moses to show man his need of Christ. The four Gospels record the history of Christ and his teachings. And the Epistles explain the meaning of our Lord’s teachings. Be sure you understand this. Every book of the Bible, every chapter, every verse, every line, every word in Holy Scripture is designed by God the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ to his people. Stop studying the Bible to find out facts and buttress doctrine. Study the Word of God with the desire to know him of whom the Scriptures speak (John 5:39).

If you find any text in the Book of God that does not immediately cause your heart to look to Christ, you do not yet understand that text. The doctrine of the Bible is Christ. The law of the Bible is Christ. The gospel of the Bible is Christ. Do you see that? Any doctrine divorced from Christ is heresy, a mere show of intellectualism. Any precept divorced from Christ is self-righteousness. Paul went everywhere preaching Christ.

And any sermon that does not point men to Christ ought never to have been preached. Any doctrine that does not have Christ for its essence must not be believed. Any precept that is not motivated by love for and faith in Christ must not be obeyed. From Genesis 1:1 through Revelation 22:21, “Christ is all, and in all!” A PLOT (Acts 20:1-6) - Wherever Paul went preaching the gospel of Christ he met with opposition. Proud flesh cannot tolerate the message of salvation by grace alone through the merits of Christ alone. Paul again discovered a plot against his life. While in Greece the enemies of the cross “laid wait for him” (Acts 20:2-3). “Over the centuries of the Christian church the lives of God’s servants often have been in danger. Many have been martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ. Others have suffered intensely.

God has never promised a bed of roses. Remember what Paul himself wrote to the Philippians: `For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake’ (Philippians 1:29)…As a matter of fact, the church has always been at its purest when it has had to face suffering and martyrdom for Jesus Christ” (Donald Grey Barnhouse). Paul left Greece after three months. As he prepared to sail to Syria, he learned about the plot against him. So he took Sopater and Luke, his travelling companions, and went by land through Macedonia to Philippi, and sailed from Philippi to Troas. There they met up with their other co-workers, and stayed for seven days. A SERVICE ON THE LORD’S DAY (Acts 20:7-12) - Notice that the disciples came together for worship on “the first day of the week” rather than the seventh. Like many things in this transitional period, sabbath observance was terminated gradually. The new day of worship, the Lord’s day (Revelation 1:10), was established by the resurrection of our Lord (Matthew 28:1). Sunday is not the “christian sabbath”. We are expressly forbidden to observe a legalistic sabbath day (Colossians 2:16) in this day of grace. Christ is our Sabbath.

We cease from our own works and rest in him by faith (Hebrews 4:9-10). Yet, it is clear that the established day of worship in the New Testament was Sunday (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2). On this day the church gathered to observe the Lord’s Supper and listen to the preaching of the gospel. The communion service was a very simple part of public worship, not an elaborate ceremony. When the saints of God met for worship on the Lord’s day, they passed around a loaf of unleavened bread and a cup of wine and every believer took a portion for himself. There was no restricted or closed communion in the New Testament! In this passage disciples from many different places observed the Lord’s Table together because in Christ all true believers are truly one. They did not examine one another to see who was worthy to participate in the ordinance, but each believer examined himself before the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:28). Paul was evidently a long winded preacher. He preached until midnight. Eutychus dozed off and fell out of a third floor window. Everyone presumed he was dead. Perhaps he was and Paul raised him from the dead. However, verse ten seems to imply that he was not killed by the fall. Either way, God intervened. After that, Paul continued preaching until daybreak! Then (Acts 20:13-16), after just a short stay at Troas, Paul and his friends departed for Assos, because Paul was determined to stop by Ephesus on his way to Jerusalem.

Acts 20:17-38

60. FIVE GRACES Acts 20:17-38 Grace makes people gracious. Grace experienced in the heart causes grace to flow from the heart. Our Lord teaches us plainly that all who know the love of God in reality love one another (1 John 3:10; 1 John 3:16-18; 1 John 4:8; 1 John 5:1); and that all who have experienced God’s forgiveness are forgiving of others (Matthew 6:14-15). All who are born of God are new creatures in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). All true believers have been given a new nature by the Holy Spirit which is gracious (Galatians 5:22-23). Believers are not perfect.

The child of God has a nature of flesh and sin, with which he has a continual warfare (Romans 7:14-25). However, in the tenor of his life, a believer is a person who walks not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Here are five graces, five God given spiritual qualities, which are characteristics of all true believers. (Acts 20:19) - Paul, writing by inspiration of God, says, he served the Lord “with all humility of mind.” Without humility there is no salvation (Psalms 34:18; Psalms 51:17; Isaiah 66:2; Matthew 5:3-5; Matthew 18:34; Philippians 3:3). And no man can serve God or the cause of his glory in this world without this God given “humbleness of mind” (Colossians 3:12). Anything done for Christ must be done with humility (Matthew 6:3; Matthew 6:5; Matthew 6:16; Matthew 6:33). Most people seem to think that humility is demonstrated by a timid, weak, cowardly spirit; or that it is to be seen in an unwillingness to be bold, decisive, and uncompromising. Nothing could be further from the truth. Moses was none of those things, though he was the most meek, humble man on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3).

Humility is not an act. It is an attitude of the heart. Humility is brokenness of heart before God by reason of sin and in gratitude for his love, mercy, and grace to sinners in Christ. Here are six things revealed in the Word of God as characteristics of humility.

1. Humility is a realization of personal unworthiness by reason of one’s own depravity and sin before God (Job 42:1-2; Psalms 51:4-5). It is not a show of words which sound humble, but are designed to gain praise. Rather, it is a heartfelt unworthiness before the holy Lord God (Luke 18:13; Isaiah 6:5).
2. Humility is a renunciation of all merit and personal righteousness in the sight of God (Philippians 3:9). No man’s heart is humbled before God so long as he imagines that he has anything by which he may merit God’s favor above another, or imagines that his righteousnesses are more than filthy rags in God’s sight (Isaiah 64:6).
3. Humility is an inexpressible gratitude of heart to God for his abundant, amazing grace to sinners in Christ (Psalms 116:12; Psalms 116:16). It causes a person to live with a sense of delightful obligation and indebtedness to the Lord God (1 Corinthians 9:15).
4. Humility is a willing submission and devotion of one’s heart to the Lord Jesus Christ that cries, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). It is devotion to Christ as Lord, submission to this providential rule of all things, and a determination of heart to obey him and honor him regardless of cost.
5. Humility gladly ascribes the whole work of salvation to God’s free and sovereign grace through Christ (1 Corinthians 15:10).
6. Humility is the mind of Christ in a person which causes him to love his brethren, esteem them more highly than himself, prefer their honor to his own, and gladly give himself to serve their interests (Philippians 2:3-8). (Acts 20:21) - “Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” always go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. It is only through “repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” that sinners obtain eternal salvation. Both are necessary. Both are vital. Both are gifts of God’s grace.

True repentance is “toward God.” Paul did not say, “I preached repentance.” He said, “I preached repentance toward God,” because there is a repentance that is not toward God. There is a legal repentance that is no more than a sense of guilt, a dread of God’s wrath, and a fear of hell. But repentance toward God is produced by the goodness of God (Romans 2:4), not the wrath of God. It comes from the revelation of redemption by Christ (Zechariah 12:10), not from the fear of judgment. Repentance, in its essence, is a change of heart toward God, as illustrated in the prodigal son (Luke 15:14-20), the publican (Luke 18:13), and David (Psalms 51:4). Repentance is the honest acknowledgement and confession of sin to God (1 John 1:9).

It is an acknowledgement by a person that he has offended God by his sin, that his very heart is enmity against God, and that it is right for God to punish his sin (Psalms 51:4; Romans 8:7). Repentance is sitting in judgment with God against yourself, abhorring yourself by reason of your sin, and pleading for mercy on the basis of pure grace through the merits of Christ alone. Only God himself can cause a person thus to repent (Acts 5:31; Jeremiah 31:18; Lamentations 5:21). FAITH (Acts 20:21) - “Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” is the gift, work, and operation of God the Holy Spirit within saved sinners (Ephesians 1:19; Ephesians 2:8; Colossians 2:12). “Faith toward Christ” is the believer’s confidence in Christ as Savior and Lord. It involves knowledge of the Person and work of Christ, for you cannot trust a Savior you do not know. That knowledge that is essential to saving faith comes by hearing the Word of God preached (Romans 10:17) in the power of the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 1:5). And faith is the agreement of a person’s heart with the gospel, which causes him to trust the blood and righteousness of Christ alone as the grounds of his acceptance with God. Both repentance and faith are continual, progressive, growing, and persevering graces. They are not isolated acts or events in life.

They are characteristic attitudes of every believer’s life. The believer continually looks to God with repentance and continually looks to God through Christ in faith, trusting his propitiatory sacrifice, providential rule, heavenly intercession, and Word of promise. (Acts 20:24) - Believers are men and women who are consecrated to Christ and his gospel. They are committed to him. As men and women who love one another commit themselves to one another in marriage, so believers, loving Christ, commit themselves to him. Paul was convinced that the gospel of God’s grace and the cause of Christ’s glory in this world is worthy of the ultimate sacrifice of life itself. Ultimately, he made that sacrifice (2 Timothy 4:6-8). Let every sinner saved by the grace of God follow his example. The experience of God’s mercy, love, and grace in Christ demands the commitment of our lives to him (Romans 12:1-2). (Acts 20:35) - God’s saints are a generous, giving people. Grace makes people generous. Find a person who has the grace of God in his heart, and you will find a person who serves the cause of God and the people of God with open heart and open hand. Find a person who is tight fisted with his money, miserly with his possessions, and ever seeking to increase his riches, and you will find a person who does not know God. Search the Scriptures for yourself and see if grace and generosity do not go together (James 2:14-17; 1 John 3:16-18).

Acts 20:26-35

61. “TAKE HEED” Acts 20:26-35 When Paul called the Ephesian elders together at Miletus, his object was to impart to them some final words of instruction by which they might be enabled to serve God and his people in their generation. Paul’s words of instruction on that momentous occasion have been preserved for us in this chapter so that we too might know how to serve our God and Savior, his church, and his interests in our generation. If we would do so, there are certain things to which we must “take heed”, knowing that satan will constantly attempt to draw us away from Christ by drawing us away from our responsibilities in this world. In particular, the apostle, speaking by inspiration of God the Holy Spirit, tells us that there are three things to which we must “take heed”: the ministry of the gospel, the church of God, and the words of the Lord Jesus. THE OF THE GOSPEL (Acts 20:26-31) - Certainly, Paul’s primary object here is the instruction of elders, pastors and teachers, regarding their responsibilities as God’s servants. Every God called preacher must “take heed to the ministry which (he) has received in the Lord” to fulfil it (Colossians 4:17; 1 Timothy 4:12-16). However, it is also the responsibility of God’s people to know, follow, and obey those who labor among them (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13; Hebrews 13:7; Hebrews 13:17). Paul tells us three things about every true gospel preacher, every true pastor in the church of God.
62. God’s servants are watchmen over his church and watchmen over the souls of men (Acts 20:26-27; Hebrews 13:17; Ezekiel 3:15-21; Ezekiel 33:1-16). The work of a watchman is not mysterious. He has but one thing to do. He must watch over the camp. God says, “Thou shalt hear the Word at my mouth, and warn them from me.” When Paul gave account of himself, he simply said, “I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.” The word he received from God, he faithfully declared.

He kept back nothing. That is the whole work of the ministry. A faithful pastor is a man who seeks a word from God for his people and faithfully delivers that word. He seeks and finds his message in the Bible alone and faithfully declares the message of Holy Scripture. The phrase, “all the counsel of God”, is the gospel of the crucified Redeemer (1 Corinthians 2:7). God’s watchmen proclaim to eternity bound men and women the message of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. 2. Pastors are the spiritual rulers and overseers of God’s house (Acts 20:28). It is every pastor’s responsibility to take the oversight of the church he serves (1 Peter 5:13). The care of the house of God is his responsibility. He is to rule the church of God in exactly the same way a husband is to rule his house (1 Timothy 3:4-5). A pastor must rule by example and in love. He must win the respect of men and women, so that they are willing to be ruled by him. And he must rule by the Word of God. But rule he must! The church is not to be ruled by the voice of the people, but by the voice of God through his messenger. Read Numbers 16:1-35 and see how serious God makes this matter to be! As the overseer of God’s church, it is the pastor’s responsibility to feed the church. Many fleece the church. God’s servants feed it with knowledge and understanding (Jeremiah 3:15). He must feed God’s people with the knowledge of pure gospel doctrine and with an understanding of their peculiar needs. Such knowledge and understanding can be gained only by prayer and study. Therefore, the pastor must give himself entirely to this work (1 Timothy 4:12-16). 3. God’s preachers are set as pastors for the protection of his church (Acts 20:29-31; Eph. 4;14; 2 Timothy 3:1 to 2 Timothy 4:5). As shepherds watch over their sheep, so true pastors watch over the flock of Christ’s sheep to protect them from the pernicious, subtle, cunning doctrines of wolves. These wolves (false prophets) come from many quarters, wearing many different names, but they always have four things in common: (1) They deny God’s total and absolute sovereignty. (2) They deny the effectual accomplishment of redemption by the blood of Christ. (3) They deny the efficacy of God’s grace in salvation. (4) They give sinners something to do to make the blood of Christ and the grace of God personally efficacious. THE CHURCH OF GOD (Acts 20:28) - The church of God is a spiritual society, a family of believers. The only bond holding its members together is their relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. It cannot be denied that the word “church” is used in at least three ways in the New Testament. (1) It is used to describe all true believers of all ages, both those of the Old Testament and those of the New, both on earth and in heaven. This is what we call “the universal church”. It is the mystical, spiritual body of which Christ is the Head (Ephesians 1:22; Ephesians 5:25-27; Hebrews 12:23-24). (2) The word “church” is also used to describe local, visible assemblies of all professed believers in a given place. In a local church, there are both believers and unbelievers, true possessors of faith and mere professors of faith.

Yet, every local assembly of professed believers is set forth as a local church in the New Testament, and is called “the church of God” (Romans 16:1-5). (3) The word “church” is also used to describe all local churches at any given time in the world (1 Corinthians 10:32; 1 Corinthians 12:28). That does not mean that all religions, or all denominations together make up the church of God. However, all true churches, worshipping God in the pattern and doctrine of the New Testament, are one. In Acts 20:28 Paul is addressing the elders of a particular local assembly at Ephesus, or perhaps, as noted before, these elders were preachers from several local assemblies in the Ephesus area. He calls this body of believers “the church of God”. Two things are here revealed about the church of God.

1. It belongs to God. He chose it (2 Thessalonians 2:13). He bought it with his own blood (Ephesians 5:25-27; Titus 2:14). And he calls it out of the world in effectual grace (Colossians 1:12-14).
2. The church of God is a flock of sheep. Before we were converted, God’s saints were lost sheep, straying from him. After conversion, believers are compared to sheep because they are meek, inoffensive, patient, and entirely dependent upon their Shepherd, Christ Jesus. “THE WORDS OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST” (Acts 20:33-35) - In Acts 20:35 Paul refers to one of the statements made by Christ that was commonly known to his disciples, though it was nowhere recorded in the four gospels. But, read together, Acts 20:33-35 teach us three facts that need to be recognized and remembered.
3. God’s servants are not greedy, covetous men; and they are not beggars (Acts 20:33). Paul did not seek luxury, or even comfort. But he would not grovel before men. He would either be maintained by the free, voluntary gifts of God’s people; or he would work to provide for his necessities. But he refused to beg!
4. Every believing man ought to labor as one working not for himself, but for the glory of God and to help others (Acts 20:35). Every man is responsible to work and provide for himself and his family (1 Timothy 5:8; 2 Thessalonians 3:10). We should each labor with diligence, not to amass great wealth, but, like Paul, to have the means to support those who preach the gospel and those who are less fortunate. Believers should work with their hands so that they may have the means to give to those who are in need (Ephesians 4:28). This is love indeed (1 John 3:16-19).
5. Ever remember, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” because the person who gives generously, with a willing heart, by his gifts, gives evidence that he is born of God; whereas the person who receives, but does not give, by hoarding God’s bounty for himself, proves that he does not know God (1 John 3:16-19).