09-13-26 Study of Acts Chapter 20:21-24 Pauls View of the Ministry Part 2

➡ This Bible study focuses on Paul’s view of ministry, emphasizing the importance of being a good example in leadership. It discusses how Paul’s success was not due to his methods, but rather his character and dedication. The study encourages self-assessment and personal growth, highlighting that success in any ministry comes from being the right kind of person. It concludes by stating that leadership, both in a spiritual and secular context, is about setting a good example.
➡ The text discusses the spiritual success of Paul, emphasizing that his success was due to his character and his dedication to serving God, not his background or abilities. It suggests that we can achieve similar spiritual success by following Paul’s example: being what God wants us to be and letting the Holy Spirit work through us. The text also highlights four perspectives Paul had towards his ministry: towards God, the saved, the lost, and himself. Lastly, it recounts Paul’s journey and his final words to the elders of Ephesus, urging them to follow his example in their own ministries.
➡ The text discusses the importance of serving God with humility and obedience, as exemplified by Paul. It criticizes those who alter the gospel to please others, emphasizing that true service to God may involve suffering and should not be influenced by the opinions of others. The text also highlights the need for humility in service, stating that one must see themselves as lower than their master to be an effective servant. Lastly, it warns against division within the church and the dangers of placing too much importance on human leaders, reminding readers that they are merely channels for God’s message.
➡ The text emphasizes the importance of being a faithful servant to Jesus Christ, teaching and spreading His word. It highlights the role of a steward, who manages and takes care of what is entrusted to him, in this case, the teachings of the Bible. The text encourages us to be faithful stewards, teaching and sharing the mysteries of the gospel, and to always point our actions towards Jesus, not seeking personal loyalty or followers. It also stresses the importance of being an example, not just in words, but in actions, and to continuously teach and preach the word of God.
➡ The text discusses the role of a minister or a pastor, emphasizing that their main duty is to share the teachings of the Bible with their congregation. It highlights the importance of being a faithful steward, using the spiritual gifts given by God to serve others. The text also criticizes those who rely on human speculation or the infallible institution of the church for truth, instead of the Bible. It concludes by stressing the importance of living by the teachings of the Bible, not just preaching them.
➡ The text discusses the importance of repentance in the Christian faith, emphasizing that it is a crucial part of salvation. It explains that repentance means a complete change of mind and direction, turning away from sin and towards God. The author also highlights the role of the Gospel in teaching about salvation and the work of Jesus Christ. Lastly, the text underscores the need for thorough and complete presentation of the Gospel, and the importance of understanding and applying its teachings in one’s life.
➡ Peter, in his sermon in Acts chapter 2, urged the people of Jerusalem to reconsider their judgment of Jesus as a fraud, presenting facts and fulfilled prophecies to prove Jesus was the Messiah. He emphasized that repentance involves understanding you’re wrong (intellect), feeling remorse (emotion), and deciding to change (will). This process leads to faith in Jesus Christ, which is the positive conviction that the gospel is true. Paul also preached this message of salvation, seeing himself as a herald announcing the good news of Jesus Christ.
➡ Paul was a dedicated Christian who publicly preached about Jesus, acting as a herald of the gospel. He believed in teaching those who followed him and reaching out to those who didn’t know about Jesus. Despite knowing he would face persecution, Paul was determined to fulfill his mission, not caring about his own safety or comfort. His main goal was to complete the work God had given him, even if it meant sacrificing his own life.
➡ The text discusses the importance of sacrifice and service in Christianity, using Paul’s life as an example. It emphasizes that everything in life is a ministry and that God is in control. The text encourages believers to live their lives fully for God, without fear or worry, and to fulfill their ministries without concern for their own comfort or safety. It concludes with a prayer of gratitude and a call for continued growth and understanding in faith.

Foreign welcome. This is our Sunday morning Bible study. We’re in the book of Acts. We’re in the second part of a little Mini city series looking at Paul’s view of the ministry. We, we’re going to look at how he saw evangelism and sacrifice. And I think you’ll, you’ll enjoy this because we’ll get into a few, a few things about individual self assessment, things along the way that I think you might find helpful. We’re doing this in conjunction with just finishing up Ephesian looking at Revelation. We broke out of Revelation to Ephesians to look at your individual relationship with Jesus Christ and the applications required as Paul set forth in order to build that individual relationship with him.

And now we’re looking in at his acts as the church. And just for definition, you are the church. So we’re looking at you a little differently, not as an individual, but as a participant in the body of Christ and as a unit, unified body, collective as a whole. So we’re doing this from how Paul looks at his ministry and then expresses his great love for the church as we talked about last time. Now we’ve seen this again and again all through the 20th chapter and we usually think of Paul’s love. Typically if you read Paul’s Epistles, people or pastors will always go to probably 1 Corinthians 13 where exposes all about love.

And you might say that 1 Corinthians 13 is a love chapter in doctrine and Acts 20 is the. Is Paul’s love in action because certainly here he expresses his love for the Lord and his love for the church by the sacrifice of himself and his dedication to the ministry. Now we’ve learned so much about Paul’s love for the church in the last several weeks and we’re going to continue to see some of it as we go through this morning’s teaching. And I suppose in the mentality of today’s world, if we were to examine the aspects of Paul, he would, he would present with us and we.

And he would, were, were invite and he would be invited to be our guest and we would find out his methods of. For success. Now this is a day. This is a day when methodology is a marketable commodity. Even your names, okay, gets down to a methodology of how you market to people. So the whole system of this world has changed so much that even the churches today and religious organizations are both selling and buying success methods. It’s a business as we’ve talked about. There’s even a whole curriculum of material called success With a use in which the whole effort is to bring about a successful response.

The word success is a tremendous dominating word in our world today. We measure a lot of things that way. And so we’re going to look today at this term, in this term called success in terms of its methods as it’s being used. So when somebody is successful, the first thing we want to do is bottle his or her method up and transport it somewhere. I suppose if Paul were here today and a whole lot of Christian leaders gathered around him, they’d start pumping him on the area of well, how did you do this? Or how did you do that? Why did you go here, why did you go there? What are the tremendous techniques for reaching a city? On and on and on.

What are the patterns for growing a church? How do you work this way? What is this little trick that you might have used and so forth. We would look for all of the gimmicks that we typically look for in today’s world as to how one moves through society and mark itself as successful. And we could do that till we were really blue in the face and never get to real success appall, unless he sidetracked us off of that and got us on the main track of who he is. Because success of the Apostle Paul had nothing to do with his methods.

And I don’t hesitate to say that at all. It had nothing to do with his methods. Directly or indirectly. The methods grew out of what he was and were important. That’s, that’s a critical self assessment. God does not change your personality, your drive, that type stuff. He changes your heart. And from there you grow into okay through sanctification you grow into the foundational person he wants you to be. But he wants you to use your personality and your methods and all that stuff because those are gifts at birth, those are talents. So he never wants you to give that stuff up.

And Paul’s success was totally based upon who he was. You try to make out that you to be somebody else, that is not going to work for you, okay, what you’re doing is setting up two battle lines to be drawn against you, to overcome, to even become, be part of a successful engagement. So if I were, I, I, I tried to say, okay, how would I apply this today if, if I were asked to speak at a conference on leadership and, and knowing that an organization had, had maybe anywhere from eight to 12 weeks of training, all kinds of graphs and charts and things that they had trained people on, which are all very good, by the way, I, I did that with Motorola a long, long time ago, you know, I went through a eight week training class in Schaumburg on management.

And in wrapping up all of this learning experience as a keynote speaker, to express in one sentence, as the best I could, in one message what success was biblically, how would I do it? Well, the first thing I think is many might see this as a monstrous problem to try to reduce it all down to what is leadership? What successful leadership is in maybe one message of some sort. And you know what, as I thought about this this week, I could do it in one word when you bought it all down. And the one word that spells leadership and the one word that spells success is the word example.

I was always taught that if you were going to be a good manager of people, you had to learn how to lead. And in understanding how to lead, you had to show yourself, you had to teach, you had to be the example for their success. They needed some something to go on in order to understand what to do. Now, in all of Christian leadership, that is the most dynamic thing that happens. By the way it’s expressed throughout Scriptures, we are told to use the Old Testament as our example. The Lord Jesus Christ, who taught repeatedly by example due to the people, what I have done to you, he expressed his love and service by Washington their feet.

Time, time and again, Jesus Christ manifested what they were to do by doing it himself first. Acts 1:1. Luke says, the former treatise have I written to you. The thepis of that Jesus began to do and teach. Jesus not only taught, but he set the example. The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and told him how to be a leader. He put it in one sentence, be thou an example to the believers. The apostle Paul said to the Philippians, the things that you have seen in me, do them. Another example, Peter said to the elders, he said, you take care of the flock and you feed the flock and you take care of the oversight of the flock, not as being lords over it with a big club, but being examples.

And the reason Paul was so successful was he was an example. There’s no credibility gap between what he said and what he was. Think about yourself, self assessment, guys look at you and people pattern their lives after him. He said, be followers of me as I have, I am of Christ. The Christian life boils down to example. And biblical leadership is example. And the thing that made Paul what he was was the example not of his methods, but of his life. If you want to know how to be successful in any ministry and you are called to minister, what don’t matter what it is.

So in any ministry, you want to know how to be successful in building whatever particular objective you have in mind, it is that it is as that simple, spiritually speaking, though, as being the right kind of person. And that should be at the heart of everything you do. You should not take on any challenge of life unless you are, are, have placed yourself in being the right kind of person. And I don’t care what the gimmicks you’ve got up your sleeve for leadership. If you’re not the right example, you’ll never pull it off. Matter of fact, you’ll be sorcerer pretty quick.

Leadership is example. This is true even in a secular world. They teach this in Management 101, but monumentally true in the spiritual. And so rather than caring about what Paul’s methods were and tricks of the trade and gimmicks, which he didn’t have any, I’m more concerned as it relates to your review of your life, as to what kind of man he actually was. Because if we can pattern our life spiritually after the things that made him spiritually successful, then we can have the same kind of fruitfulness that God gave him. Maybe not the same dimension, maybe not the same degree, but the same in kind.

So I’m not concerned with talking about all of the avenues of approach that Paul used, as much as I’m going to speak about talking about the kind of man he was. Because in my life can all approximate the kind of man he was. I’ll know the kind of fruitfulness that he knew. So if I can apply Paul to my life the best I can, then I can. Then I will have a baseline of knowing the fruitfulness that God has for my life. That’s what I’m trying to say. So as we look at Acts chapter 20, we’re seeing some of the greatest insights into effective ministry.

They’re not academic, strung out on a list of things to do. They’re not pendentic at all. They’re just there in his life and just ooze out of him. But they’re keys to everything about how you want to live your life. And so really, to reduce Paul to a list of successful techniques is absolutely the wrong thing for us to do. We need to look at the man. And he was a man. That was what he was because he was the man that he was. I, I would, I say this all the time. If you were to look at the resume of Paul in today’s world, you would kick him to the curb before you even interviewed him.

But that that was who he was. And the Christian life is as simple as being what God wants you to be and then letting the Spirit work through you. So it doesn’t matter about your background, you should care less about that. You learn from it. You make sure that you understand the conditions of your background and how it applies to your life today. But the at the heart of this, the Christian life is as simple as being what God wants you to be in the present and then letting go and letting the Holy Spirit work through you.

Now it’s, it’s what we’ve talked about for months. If God will, God will express his will through you. It’s a question of being the right person. And Paul’s success was because he was the right person. He was called of God, empowered by the Spirit. He yielded to that power, lived a holy life, and through that avenue the Spirit of God operated with blessedness. That is your self assessment policy statement right there. You’re called of God, you’re empowered by the Spirit, you yield to that power, obedience. You live a holy life, righteous. And through that avenue, the Spirit of God operates with blessedness.

Ephesians 1:3. But there’s one little dimension here in this chapter that just gives us an insight into Paul’s mind that really helps us see the man that he was. And that’s in verses 17 to 27. We have Paul’s view of his ministry. He saw the ministry in perspective and he saw it in four different dimensions. He saw the ministry as it related to God, to the saved, to the lost, and to himself. And they were all spiritual perspectives. Remember that’s how the Bible is written. It is to minister to you spiritually, not physically. There’s not one iota of information that pertains to you physically other than saying your flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

That’s it. This is a dead body. Everything else is relates to Spirit. Now Esau, his ministry for being what it was, a ministry toward God, towards saved, toward lost, and an obligation toward himself. You don’t need any more than that. Now I know in my heart that if I ever got into the position that Paul is in, in Acts chapter 20 and ever really and honestly and totally felt these four dimensions, the way he fills them, that the world wouldn’t be able to handle the impact of my life. And that’s true of yours as well. Because these four things, as simple as they might seem, are the heart of the success of any man.

If you break it down in any situation and approach the situation with Those four views, perspectives of the ministry that you’re doing, it’s at the heart of you being successful. Now, the setting here in verse 17 is mellitus. Paul is completing his third discipleship tour. The church is being planted around the world, and that’s the story of the Book of Acts. It’s all about the creation of the church. And by this time, it’s reached the Gentile world. Paul himself has been the great agent of that planting, establishing churches all over the eastern Mediterranean area. And now, coming back from his third discipleship tour, under great persecution and stress, he lands at Melitus, headed for Jerusalem.

He’s got a lot of money, and he’s going to give the poor saints at Jerusalem from the Gentile Church. And he wants to tie the two together to show their love. Remember, Gentiles and Jews hated each other. And Paul’s. Paul was given the task to unite the church. So he’s got all of this money with him. He’s got some other men with him who represent the Gentile Church, and they’re headed for Jerusalem, trying to make it by the time of the feast of Pentecost. But he has a couple of days layover at Miletus, which was on the shore of Asia Minor near Ephesus.

And so he sends to the Ephesus elders in verse 17 and said and calls for the elders of the church about 30 miles away. And he wants the yellers of Ephesus to come down to him because he has a few more things to say before he leaves. Now, as you recall, Paul thinks that this is the last time that he is going to see them, and he thinks this will be the last time. So he knows the churches are growing there, they’re reproducing themselves. They have. They have it elders raised up in each of the city.

He knows that the fruit has already begun to be born and there are probably an already second and third generational believers. And he knows his primary work is done. So he is very much aware that the Jews are on his trail. Remember, this is a legalist, Legal. This is our government. He knows that these Legalists, these Jewish leaders are on his trail. And that’s a torrid persecution on him. And so he feels this is a farewell type of. Type of process for him. And he wants a last word with the elders of Ephesus where he spent three years and whom he loves so deeply.

So he calls them, just come down. I need. I want to talk to you. So in verse 18, he announces to them the subject of their discussion and when they were come to him, they came all the 30 mile distance. He said to them, you know, from the first day that I came into Asia Minor, the first day that I arrived in your area, you know what manner I have been with you at all seasons. In other words, he’s saying, guys, you know my lifestyle, you know the patterns of my living in ministry. And then from these, he says, now I want to remind you of those patterns, for they must become the patterns of your life in ministry.

He says, how have I been with you at all times? You know my priorities, you know, now let me remind you that these are to be your priorities. And so he begins then by saying, this is how I conduct myself. This is how to conduct yourself as leaders of the church. And again he comes back to real leadership is the, is the question, you know how I did it. Now let me tell you and refresh you for this is the way that you must do it. Self assessment, pay attention now. How did he see his ministry? Well, as, as we said earlier, he saw it four ways.

Your life needs to be viewed in these four ways. What your life toward God. What’s your life towards the church, the unity of the believers. What’s your life towards the lost, the unsaved believers? And what’s your life towards yourself? And then he, and then we saw last time last week we, we looked at toward God. He said his ministry is service to the Lord. His godward view of his ministry was in the at all time he ministered, he kept in his mind, I’m not serving men and I’m not serving the whims and fancies of the people.

I’m serving the Lord. So whatever the Lord tells me to do, I do that without worrying about what people are going to say. Now we’ll tell you. That’s character builder. Okay, Whatever, whatever the Lord tells you what you to do, you should not worry about what people say. That’s a great thing to learn. The ministry was to the apostle Paul, service to the Lord. He saw himself in the mentality of a servant. In Romans 1 he says in verse 1, A servant of Christ. But in verse 9 he says, God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit.

He didn’t just serve God externally, but he served him internally. And he saw it outwardly externally because of his inward position. He saw himself as a slave. And he uses the word doos over and over again. And that means a slave, a bond slave, a slave in bondage. Paul saw himself as a servant of God. Now the mentality of A servant is this. I obey orders, I’m obedient. Self assessment. That’s a servant. The mentality of Christian ministry is obedience. God gives the orders and we carry them out. And for me, I don’t worry about the reactions, what, whatever they might be.

I don’t worry about them. I don’t worry about what people are going to say. And I don’t try to please men. Galatians 1:10. Paul says, if I try to please man, I am not the servant of Jesus Christ. So he says, I’ve got to serve God. That’s the mentality of the servant. He gives the orders and we carry them out. But I think the beautiful thing about it was he didn’t just do it on the outside, he loved it on the inside. He had the spirit of obedience as well as the actual physical obedience. He never changed his message.

He never altered his plans at all because of what men did. He believed that God gave him something to do and he was going to do it. And you know, it’s a sad thing to admit, but throughout the history of the church, the church has taken a back seat most of the time because of the whims of men. They’ve watered down all kinds of ministries so that they don’t offend people. Yeah, jennifer. In fact, sometimes it’s amazing how we work hard at trying to make everything so palatable that it loses all of its meaning. If we go back and look at the history of the church and we’re doing this in various podcasts for, for having it, having the audiences of the podcast owners understand the true history and if.

And in doing so, in one of the episodes, one of the episodes, we were Talking about the 17th century Jesuit priests who went to China and they arrived in China and they were so startled at the tremendous culture of the, of the Chinese people and at the very elite character of. Elite. Think about this elite character of these people, the cabal. And they felt that the basic gospel would be offensive to them. So what did they do? Well, history tells us that the Jesuits redrafted the gospel. Roman Catholic. This is the Roman Catholic Church, guys. They re addressed and redrafted the gospel, omitted everything that they felt would be offensive to the Chinese, including the crucifixion, and went from there.

And that goes on today, Same thing. There’s no place for that type of activity. Service to Jesus Christ is to complete slavery. And whatever the orders are, we obey with the spirit of obedience. That’s how Paul saw his ministry. Not as pleasing men, but as pleasing God. Were you now, he says in verse 19, there are two ingredients to this. Here comes the first statement toward God. He says, serving the Lord. Now that’s the way he viewed his ministry Godward. It was a service to Christ. Service, servicing the Lord. But here are the two ingredients with all humility of mind and many tears and trials from the plotting of the Jews.

He said, there are two things that are that go with service. One is humility and the other is suffering. And the suffering comes from two things, inside and outside. Inside grief and tears, outside persecution. And he realized that servitude has with it two things, humility and suffering. Humility is, is basic to being a servant. You can’t be effective as a servant unless you see yourself as lower than your master. That’s just why it’s got to be in everything. How many of you get so ticked off at work that all you want to do is just go up and just land blast your, your manager or the owner of the company or whatever, because you feel like you’ve been wronged or you’ve been hurt or you don’t have the.

It’s going your way or whatever. You know what, you’re supposed to be humble to that master. Now that doesn’t say you can’t confront, but it does say that there’s a hierarchy here. You cannot see yourself in terms of honest servitude unless you see yourself in subjection to him who is your Lord. And that’s basic. Paul saw himself that way. He said, even in that I glory, meaning I have accolades for myself. I see myself doing good things. Occasionally he would boast and he would say, I only boast in the Lord. I’m not boasting about who this servant is.

I’m boasting about who the servant gets to serve. Okay, every one of us, being humans, are going to boast from time to time. But hopefully we gather our thoughts about that and come to the conclusion that the only reason you can boast is because we gave you the opportunity to do that. Now I’m. I’m excited about just being able to serve the King of Kings. And so basic to every Christian’s ministry is a tremendous consciousness that is nothing more and nothing less than serving the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, knowing your position. And what a high calling to be called into God’s chamber to be his personal servant.

But it’s service and evolves humility. And that’s why before past Paul gives all the list of ministries. In Romans chapter 12, he says the first thing you do is you do not think more highly of yourself than you ought to think stuck on yourself. Because if you do, you’re not going to cement yourself as a servant. It’s a mindset here who’s in control. And First Corinthians 3. It illustrates this by showing you how Paul viewed the ministry. First Corinthians 1. First of all, the Corinthians had split into factions, splitting of the Church. This was the first exercise of denominationalism, by the way.

Didn’t happen in the Reformation. It happened right here in First Corinthians. In First Corinthians 1:1, they were having all kinds of hassles, contentions, divisions. They were fighting. And the reason was they were all split into groups in verse 12, he says, First Corinthians 1:12. Now this I say, every one of you says, I am a Paul. I’m a Paulette myself. I follow him. Whatever Paul says, I’m for that. Somebody else says, well, I’m an Apollos. I’m an Apollos man myself. Can you just hear yourself today? In the days, oh, I. I’m in this group or I’m in that group, because your group doesn’t do it this way.

And you know what? You. You set the stage for total failure. I’m a CFIs, Peter. Then there’s always those that came along and says, we’re of Christ. And they were just as contentious as the rest, okay? And then Paul says, is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? How’d you ever get all split up in your minds? That’s what he’s saying. He says, guys, come back to reality. But over in verse five of chapter three, he really, really makes a great statement. It gets lost sometimes in general interpretation, however, because it’s just kind of tucked in there.

And if you don’t study it over and over, you’re. You won’t get it. But he says, who then is Paul? Who is Apollos? Now, I kind of like that because he’s just saying, guys, who do you think I am? I’m no guy to be put on a pedestal. He just says, you think you’re. You’re. You’re anything. Who am I? I’m nothing. If you’ve got a fantastic commodity over here and you want to deposit it over here, the funnel you pour it through doesn’t have anything to do with it, you see, it’s just there pulses. I’m nothing.

I’m just there so God can get through to You I’m nothing but a channel, no glory in me. Who am I? Who’s Apollos but servants by whom you believed, even as the Lord gave to every man now. And that’s all the only way to look at the later ministry. Because to begin with self assessment, you should see, you should see it then. Your fruitfulness to the Lord is basic. It’s an ongoing event that will continually occur. Because why your servant, if you do not obey the Lord, whatever else you you do can never make it up with that because you are basically a servant.

If you don’t serve, then what do you do? That’s basic. And so he says, your servants don’t belly us. We’re nothing. Who are you following? Who do you get your information from? What self research or belief system do you filter this through to understand what’s the truth? And he had the servant spirit when it came to Corinth in the chapter there, right before in chapter two, he says, I didn’t come with fancy words and great speech and try to show you what a wonderful guy I was and use all kinds of long words, philosophical knowledge, you know, I don’t want to blow you out of the tub, show you what a terrific person I was.

I just came in there and I determined nothing to know, nothing among you except Christ and him crucified. Why do they do that? Because he said, I don’t want your faith to depend on me. Verse 5. I wanted it to stand in the power of God. I wasn’t looking for followers for me, I was looking for followers for Jesus. So the worst thing a man could ever do is build loyalty to himself. Oh, that’s going to drop a lot of heads really quick over when you read your own self assessment because that’s, that’s the thing you want to look for.

How high do I get up on this chart? That only makes factions in the church, makes factions in whatever it is. The only thing you should be interested in is being such a faithful servant to Jesus Christ that every single thing you do ultimately points to him. Paul himself saw that as a servant of the Lord in terms of that kind of service, ministry and depth of service. He was a slave and he loved every bit of it. And secondly, and we’re still reviewing, tying last week to this week, he saw his ministry towards the church.

He knew the priority towards the church. And we said there in verse 20 of Acts 20, that toward the church, his ministry would was seen as teaching toward God. It was a service towards the church. It was teaching in verse 20 and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shown you, have taught you publicly and from house to house. Now watch this. He says, I have shown you and taught you I was the example and I have told you what the details of that example to be part of your life. What do you see there again? What, what’s our word for leadership? Example.

It’s just saying it over and over and over again in whatever format. And that’s is the heart of this whole ministry life. So the heart of every Christian is not what he says, it is what he is. I’ve always told you that you will not know who you are unless you know who Christ is. Why? Because you got to be present. That is what makes the difference. And Paul says, now I have taught you, I have shown you in my life, taught you publicly and in house to house. Now here’s he talking of his relationship to the church.

I kept back nothing from you that was profitable. Well, as we talked last time, we tried to define profitable. What is profitable? We found it in 2nd Timothy 3, 16. All scriptures is given for inspiration of God and is what profitable all scripture? So Paul taught publicly from house to house. Taught, taught, taught. He taught is as many hours in the day as he could teach outside of working and providing for himself. So what was profitable? The word was profitable. That’s what he taught. And he’s the guy who said in second Timothy 3:16. So he must have known he was saying what he was saying for him as our example.

Everything in the church took on the character of teaching. That’s the reason why in in Ephesians doesn’t say some teachers, it just says teachers. We’re all teachers. We’re all to minister teaching. When he wrote in Timothy and told him how to handle his church, he said, you just keep reading the text and explaining the text till I get there. And he wrote later on to him and said, preach the word in season and out of season. Preach it when you’re supposed to do it and when you’re not, just keep preaching it. And he taught in two places.

Well, what are those? One publicly. You remember the school of Tyrannius where he took over the school and taught on the hours that they weren’t teaching and from house to house he went to the home example for you. He went to the home and reinforced what he was teaching your ministry. My ministry at the base of that is teaching. It’s communicating divine truth. Paul expressed this in another verse in 1st Corinthians 4 because it’s so basic to this particular concept in 1st Corinthians 4:1, it says, Let a man so account of us. In other words, when books are written and they write down your name, let it be said that you were like this.

Like what? As ministers of Christ. There’s that word service again. Servants of God and stewards of the mysteries of God. Well, what’s a mystery? It’s something that was hidden and is now revealed. Remember the Old Testament is the New Testament unrevealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. What’s the Bible? It’s a whole lot of mysteries revealed. We’re stewards of the Bible and if we’re ministers, I’m a steward of this automatically. So what’s a steward? Well, let’s. You were living in Paul’s day will put it in his context, and you had a nice house and some land and some service.

And in those days they had the houses grew up because oftentimes the kids would get married and live in the same place and they add a little addition on. So a big family would grow on a piece of land and they had animals and a whole lot of stuff, a lot of servants, a lot of food, a lot of processing of various things going on. And you had a business, but you were the house owner. And in order to keep the business alive, you had to be on the move. You turn over the running of the whole operation to a person called a steward.

And this guy would direct everything. He would pay the wages of the employees, he would set up the time schedules, he would determine the priority of jobs, and of course you’d work with him and he’d be the guy that carried it out when you were out of town as the owner, he would make sure that nobody overdid their eating so that they ran short on food, because in most cases they supplied their own food. He would make sure everything was dispensed in a balanced diet. He would work through the kitchen staff as well as the people on the fields, taking care of the animals, etc.

Etc. He managed the whole thing. Oh, let that be example of business owners today. 80% of new startup businesses in the first year fail. In the second year, 80% of the remaining 20% fail. And in the third year, 80% of the 4% left over from the 20% fail. So you get out of a hundred businesses starting in a period of time, one to one and a half of those business actually make it into a full fledged business. Why? Because you don’t know how to run the business correctly. Paul Just gave you the example of running a business.

You need to get out of the way and let people do what they do best around you. And you do what you need to do strategically to grow the business. Now Paul says in First Corinthians 4, 2, it is required of stewards that a man be found faithful. Was Job’s household an example of this stewardship? Yeah, but you need to read Job in the manner, in the context of what the book of Job is trying to tell you now. You can understand that hopefully. And if you turned over your whole operation to a guy that wasn’t faithful to you, you’d really have a mess when you got back.

And that’s why the Lord dealt so seriously with a servant who was given a stewardship. Remember all the parables that he went through in that example of a talent? And he buried it. He didn’t dispense that which was he was given to dispense. He didn’t multiply that which he was given. He was unfaithful in his stewardship. He hoarded it. Oh, there’s something for a self assessment review. The steward had to be faithful, a trustworthy person. I mean, if you could trust him, you could. He could steal from the cash box. Okay, if you couldn’t trust me still from the taskback, he’d pill for your food and mess you up badly.

So the guy that you selected to be in charge had to be faithful. The whole character of his work was as a steward of something that he didn’t belong, that didn’t belong to him. He managed it as a minister. You’re a steward. You’re a steward. Well, you might say, what am I steward of? You’re a steward of the mysteries of the gospel. I’m a steward of this book that we teach from. And God said, hey, pew, I’m going to give you this book. I’m going to give you some people and you’re all going to sit around here now, and you’re a gift from God to me.

And God says, with this book, feed these people. That’s my stewardship. Now I’m going to be in heaven. I’m going to put my spirit within you. I’m away. I’m putting my spirit into you because you need the spirit to do it. But it’s your stewardship self assessment. And you’re going to be responsible for carrying it out. And I want more than anything else for you to be faithful to that. As I began my long journey of study and, and this calling of teaching that God had placed on my heart some three and a half years ago.

That helps simplify this ministry. You know what my ministry really is? It gets to the heart. Of this book. It’s to get this book from my hand into your heart. That’s my ministry. That’s exactly how Paul saw his ministry to the church. The minister is a steward of the mystery of God or the mysteries of God, to dispense those mysteries that they might learn and be fed and grow. Well, you might say, well, I’m sure glad I’m not in that ministry because I don’t want to do. I don’t want to be a devout steward. You’re steward and you’re in the ministry.

You may not be a pastor, you, but you’re still a servant of the Lord. If you’re saved, don’t you Weren’t you given spiritual gifts by the Spirit? And the dispensing of those spiritual gifts is your stewardship. If you don’t do it faithfully, you’re an unfaithful steward. We’ve all been entrusted with goods that don’t belong to us. They belong to the Lord to dispense to other people, to bring blessings to the whole house, the unity of the church. Think of it in a simple term. Your father, you live in a home. You’re a Christian father. You’re steward of the mysteries of God for your family.

This is the book that you’re to teach your family. If you don’t, you’re an unfaithful steward. That should be simple enough. That’s how all Christian life works. We’re stewards dispensing what God has given us to those who are in need and those who are in our care. In fact, Specifically to a pastor, does this word come from Paul to titus in Titus 1:7? A pastor must be blameless as the steward of God, not self willed. In other words, he must realize that he doesn’t run his own life. He dispenses the mysteries of God. I said this so often and I, and I say it over and over and over about denomination, religion.

I cannot understand how a man in the pulpit can see himself in any other way than a dispenser of the truth of God. But they don’t do it. And that is, that is probably at the core of why God called us to do in our study expositionally. Because then you’re going to give out the whole thing. That’s what Paul said in verse 27. Here he says, I haven’t failed to declare unto you the whole Thing, the whole counsel of God. Now it is a question of dispensing the food as God committed it to the, to their care.

And you know, I think the more you do that dispensing of the word, the food, which is the word of God, the less you’re going to have factions because the less you’re going to get in the way of what you’re teaching. I don’t want to create anything that even remotely represents a follower of me. I tell you that all the time. I want to create followers of Jesus Christ. And if you can’t see through me to him, then I haven’t done my job. I haven’t really fulfilled my stewardship. Stop. A theologist says the less the preacher comes between the word and the hearers, the better.

What really feeds the household is the food which the householder supplies. That’s God, not the steward who dispenses it. The Christian preacher is best satisfied when his person is eclipsed by the light which shines from the scripture and when his voice is drowned out by the voice of God. So what is this skilled steward do? He dispenses the full men here. He doesn’t absolutely destroy his people with, with a steady diet of the same thing. And he doesn’t make him fat and sassy by giving a whole lot of stuff they can’t understand. He dispenses a balanced diet.

Now this is the art of Paul and this is what God desires. Paul looks at his ministry towards the church and what did he say? I kept back nothing. That was what profitable. He did it publicly and house to house. I taught it and I lived it. That’s the key. Self assessment. I taught it and I lived it. There are only three ways to learn truth. There are only three possibility possible sources of truth. Well, what are they? Well, one is human speculation and that’s the one most people learn to lean to opinions. I just think it’s true.

I believe such a. Whatever. I hear somebody say that, you know, I always wonder how could they be so dumb as to believe that what they believe there is if made credible. Have you ever heard anybody interviewed? You know, you hear them on a talk show and they say, I believe this or I believe that. This is my opinion. This is, you know, whatever. That’s a really hopeless thing. I’ve. That’s the reason why I said, you know, if you don’t have the truth, don’t say it. Why? Because it’s just your opinion and it’s hopeless to everybody else.

Wouldn’t it be terrible to have to say that in front of everything you thought, Isn’t it much better to say, you know, the Bible says this, that’s the authority. But some people want to put their eggs in the basket of human speculation. It’s sort of like a shifting san of philosophy. It doesn’t hold any weight. Then there are some other people who say, no, it’s not in human speculation. Truth is through the infallible institution of the church. Oh, my goodness. And wondering, what’s the church? Well, it’s the Roman Catholics have been trying to sell people that for a long period of time.

But I think a lot of people now are coming around not to buy it anymore that whatever is true is going to be stated as such by the Pope. If he says it, it’s true. I remember reading a story about Dr. Crystal. He was the pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, when I was a child and he was riding on a train from Munich desert and he wrote this little testimony. He said, I sat in a compartment with a Catholic monk who had been brought up in Detroit. He lived. He lived the last 13 years of his life in Rome.

He was a member of the Benedictine order and was being trained through a 15 year course for the office of a priest. That’s a long course to learn to be a priest. Now, he said, they were on his train. So he was. Dr. Crystal said, I was eager to take advantage of the opportunity, even though I was somewhat dubious about the outcome of the conversation. And if you ever met this guy, he had a tremendous wit about him. He would, he would crank you up to the point that you had no way out. So he said, I just read an editorial in the famous national magazine to the effect that when you ask a Roman Catholic about his faith, his answers are clear and lucid, but when you ask a Protestant about his faith, his answers are always fuzzy.

There’s a setup. He said, I thought, well, with this well trained Benedictine month, I will be. I will be at a grievously unhappy disadvantage. But this is my one chance to try. And so I started. He said the Pope had just delivered a tremendous address in Rome in which he announced the fact that when the 1st of November that year came, he would formally propagate the dogma of the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven. He said, she didn’t die, she ascended like Jesus. This is the Pope. And he says, the Pope at that time made a scorching, withering blast against those in the congregation of the faithful who were arguing against that doctrine.

The Pope was saying that he was purposely to pronounce the dogma and when if he did, that of course would make it immediately true and infallible. He the Pope said, in matters of faith and morals, the Pope is above imperfection or mistake. All this meant the Roman Catholic person was to believe the dogma or be guilty of mortal sin as determined by the Pope. So Crystal says. I started off with the priest by asking him how he knew the dogma of the bodily assumption of Mary to heaven was true. He replied that it was true because the head of the church said it was.

Then he said to me, this is the monk to Dr. Criswell, you must have faith, son. And he asked me if I did not receive my religious convictions by faith. Dr. Christmas says I, as I answered him, yes, I received it by by faith. But I have a reason, I have proof for what I believe. So he asked me this month, what is your proof? And I replied, I have the New Testament. And in the New Testament Jesus is more clearly seen in the pages of the book than if I had spoken hands with him and spoken with him face to face.

Well, the conversation continues. And he said. Then I said to him, what proof do you have? This is Crystal to the monk, what proof do you have for such thing as a bodily assumption of Mary? Here’s where it gets interesting. The monk not being able to answer that question any further than a vow that it was true because the Pope had said it and he turned the discussion to other topics. In each instant, Dr. Crystal states whether we discuss the immaculate consumption of Mary, that is she also was a virgin born, her marriage to Joseph the Santo born Binyo, or the doctrine of transubstantiation.

To my amazement, he had no other foundation to his face than the dogma proclamated by the Church as it was exhibited in a so called infallible Pope. Now here you have an illustration of another avenue of true possibility, and that is through the infallible human source, the Pope. Neither one of those makes it with me. The only real source of infallible truth is a biblical revelation. If God is true and God speaks the truth, then when we have his truth, that’s where we have what we hate, what we need, that is all we know about truth is here.

Then what in the world is anybody in the ministry doing who’s not teaching this self assessment? Paul knew what he was doing, what was to be done. The noblest men of God are the stewards who dispense the word, just like the noblest people are those at Berea and they were noble because they search the Scriptures daily. You’ll die for the lack of knowledge. And right. Thirdly toward the text is the lost. What was Paul’s view of the ministry towards the lost? It was towards God. It was serving the Lord towards the church. It was his teaching toward the loss.

It was evangelism. Evangelism comes to us in verse 21. Paul saw his ministry not only in reference to Christians, but to unsaved people. He knew he had an obligation to the world. Verse 21, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks. Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And here do you have the Gospel. Repent from sin and put your faith in Christ. That’s what he preached to the Jews and Gentiles alike. If you know First Corinthians 9 that Paul really was burdened about preaching, he said in First Corinthians 9, don’t glory, glory me.

Don’t praise me, for preaching necessarily is laid on me. Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. This is what God has called me to do. This is the thing he’s given me to do. This is the passion of my heart. And he was like to weep tears in Romans 9 when he says, I could almost wish myself accursed for the sake of the brethren, my kinsman in the flesh Israel. See, he really had a burden for the loss. In Romans 1 he says, I’m a debtor to the Greeks, the barbarians, the wise, the unwise.

And he says, I’m ready to preach the gospel of at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. See, the gospel is the story of the cross, the resurrection and the message of salvation. Now everything isn’t the gospel. I think Christians have used that as a cliche. Well, we preach the gospel. Well, you’ll preach a sermon on something and they’ll say, oh, thank you for preaching the gospel. There was no gospel preaching or teaching in a book. Ephesians. It was understanding the plan of creation and learning the applications of your life to meet the plan.

At the source of that application was salvation and redemption. But we didn’t. There was nowhere in there that talked about the gospel. All says, that wasn’t the gospel. The gospel is, Jesus died, rose again for our justification. That’s the gospel. And there’s a lot of other good things that aren’t in the gospel. And the gospel is good. You don’t go out and say, oph doesn’t believe in the gospel. That’s not what I Said the gospel is good, I believe the gospel, but everything isn’t the gospel. There are other things in scripture. Abraham went over there from Ur to Israel.

That’s wasn’t the gospel, that’s history. That was just Abraham going over there. A statement of fact. That’s just something else. It’s history. But everything isn’t the gospel. So don’t always say, well, that’s the gospel. You preach the gospel because the gospel relates directly to the plan of salvation, the work of Jesus Christ on the cross and the resurrection. Getting back to the text, that’s what Paul told young believers. Repentance from sin and faith exercised toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Now there, there’s two sides here, little note the word testifying. There is a compound verb and it means thorough, complete testimony.

And I think it’s important to point that out, especially for your self assessment that Paul’s presentation of the Gospel was always thorough, it was always complete, it was never, never shoddy, never shabby, never with someone’s missing ingredients. Do you take the time to truly talk to somebody? Do you take the time to listen two sides to the gospel message? The negative side is this repentance. Well, you might say, what does repentance mean? The word. The word matanio means to change your mind. That’s the reason why I say if you’ve not changed your mind and going in a completely different direction after your salvational event, you need to question your own salvation.

It means to be thinking one thing and to go and think the complete opposite thing. It doesn’t mean, well, he repented, he went 10 degrees. No, it means 180 degrees to go from one to the opposite, to change your mind completely about it, to make an evaluation about Christ in reverse course. And believe me, if you want to know, you’re truly saved. This is the first aspect in man’s experience of salvation. It is not the first aspect in salvation. It’s the first aspect in salvation was the call of God, the decree of God. But the first aspect in man’s experience is when he actually turns away from sin toward God.

He repents of his sin. Now even in today’s society, especially as we’re looking at the New age movement and it’s, and it’s how new it really is. There are some people who say repentance is not even necessary. You can be saved without repenting of sin. Now I find that very hard to accept and the reason is for multiple reasons through scripture. But Luke 24:47 tells me of the importance of repentance. It says this repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations. Well, that’s the reason why Jesus gave the Great Commission.

Jesus says, you go preach repentance and forgiveness to all nations. And if, and if it wasn’t important, he wouldn’t have it being preached to everybody. And if repri. If repentance just as much wasn’t just as much a part of salvation as forgiveness, he wouldn’t have lumped it into the same context. Ah, think. Ah think. Can you have salvation through repentance without forgiveness? Not forgiveness from Jesus Christ? Because Christ says, I. I won’t forgive you unless you forgive those as well. In fact, in Acts 17:30, Paul says this. God commands all men everywhere to repent. You can’t be saved until you turn from your sin.

Salvation has got to be the changing of your mind from living in unto sin to living unto God. That is what it is. It’s a conversion. I don’t know if we can say that you don’t need to repent of sin. That’s why sometimes when we present Christ and we tell people to believe in Christ, we don’t get into the area of repenting for sin. And I often wonder, is their salvation really legitimate. If they’re done that repentance in their heart? Certainly Jesus in Luke 13:3 Interesting statement. He says, I tell you, nay, but except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.

Well, that sounds like to me like repentance has got to be there at salvation. It’s none of Those lacking buckets. Second Peter 2. I’m sorry. Second Peter 39. God is not incap incapable of keeping his promise, as some men are, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. There has got to be a turning away from sin. We’ve had many conversations on this. If you have your a continually sin problem over and over and over the same sin, how in the world can you assure your salvation? You don’t have a turning from sin.

That doesn’t mean you’re not going to sin. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to send the same thing, but in a different way. Because the devil is there to deceive you, but it means you’re. You’re not going to do it. The same thing over and over and over and over again. You have a turning. So repentance then is the conscious act of the sinner whereby he turns from his sin toward God. He’s sick of his sin, he realizes involves three things. Some and some people have it and some people don’t. It’s called intellect. I have ability to comprehend reason, I have some degree of emotion, and I have a will.

First of all, I think repentance starts with the intellect. You got to change your mind. That’s what the word means, to change your mind. It’s illustration from Acts 2. The people of Jerusalem had just killed Christ and the Romans did the actual execution. But they were the ones that killed him. That’s what Peter says in Acts 2:23. They had killed Christ, they had made a judgment, they were facing sin. And they said, we judge Jesus to be a fraud. He’s not our Messiah. So what Peter did, he comes along in his great sermon of Acts chapter 2 and he says, I want you to change your mind about Jesus.

And so he approaches them on an intellectual basis and he gives them all of the facts and all the fulfilled prophecies and all that. And it’s an intellectual thing. And in verse 36 he sums it up in Acts chapter 2. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made the same Jesus whom you’ve crucified, Lord in Christ. In other words, he says, guys, here’s the facts. Folks, wake up. Going to tell you the truth. He’s the Messiah. Whatever you think that’s intellectual. You can’t repent until you know the facts. That’s pro. That’s a lot of problem with salvation today.

People get emotional having an emotionalism experience without the facts. If you’re, if you’re looking this way, in other words, you ought to be looking that way. You got to know that looking this way is the wrong way to look at it. And so he says, intellectually, change your mind about Jesus. Change your evaluation. You said he was not the Messiah. The evidence says he is. That’s intellectual. Change your mind. Why are you arguing about your opinions and not not using the truth about scripture where there can be any opinions? You know, they come back to you in an argument.

And that’s what it all, that’s where it all begins. Repentance starts there. When you come exposed to the Gospel, to the place where you say I think that Christ is who he claimed to be, well then you get to the emotional part. I think in repentance there is an emotional response. I believe that because in the next verse In Acts chapter 2:37, he says, when they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts and they said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles. Men, brothers, what shall we do? They got really torn up about what they had done.

That was an emotional experience, you might say. Why were they torn up? Well, because Peter got all the emotional and preached a tear jerker sermon. No, that’s not what he did. Why were they torn up? They were torn up because they intellectually understood that they executed their Messiah. They were standing in opposition to God and it got to them and they knew it. Self assessment, think. I think in every honest repentance there’s that inside emotional reaction. Not everybody bursts out and cries all over everywhere, but people do that. The tremendous awareness emotionally that you have been living in rebellion against God.

The emotion is part of it. Then the third and the key is the will. Foreign. I’d be fine to have the intellectual. He’s right. Oh boy, he’s right about Jesus Christ. I’m wrong. And to get all the emotional and feeling the pain of all of that. But the third thing there’s got to come along somewhere is will. Not will and individual, your will. Like the prodigal who says, I’m standing here in a pig slop. That’s not good. My father’s home is. He’s loaded, he’s got all of the goodies and he wants me. I will arise and go to my Father.

And it was then that he got out of the pig slope and into the blessing. Why are you muckering around in negativity? Why are you muckering around with these people who do you no good? Why are you consistently going and being, you know, members of organizations that are not tied to biblical principles? Why do you fill your mind that way intellectually robbing you from the intellectual experience of the truth. So the prodigal son had to activate his will. He could stand there mulling around about the circumstances all day long and he could even believe his. The Father had all of the goodies, but number one, he had to get up and go.

He had to take action. You couch potato people. So repentance involves the intellect where you know you’re in the wrong position. It involves emotions where you’re hurting because of your knowledge of that. And it involves the will where you turn and go the other way. You must not confuse repentance with remorse. I think the reason some people want to suck repentance out of the doctrine of salvation is because they confuse it with a little emotional thing. Totally. I think it has emotion and I’ve said that, but not totally remorse. You know what it is, is sorry for the consequences of sin.

But Repentance is condemning the sin that brought the consequences. Remorse is, I’m sorry I got caught. Repentance is, I’m sorry I did it. One thing that I don’t like about King James, that it hasn’t done us any favors, is in Matthew 27:3, it says, Judas repented. Now, that’s not the same Greek word. It isn’t even Latonia. It isn’t even the word repent. It’s the word regret. A lot of people do a lot of that. They do a lot of regretting. No, no, repentance. Judas never repented. Did he ever turn around and make another evaluation about himself and about Jesus Christ and turn from his sin toward God and put his faith in Christ? No.

He was regretting. He regretted the man, the mess he’d made of his life, and he regretted never being saved. Oh, Job knew. What about repentance? West? He says, I look at myself and I hate myself. And I repent. I repent in sackcloth and ashes. He turned toward God. True repentance is what we’re talking about. And that’s what Paul preached. That a man, in order to come into the time of conversion, in order to come to God, a man, in order to be saved, a man, in order to be right with God, must first of all shown intellectually that he is the wrong position, That’s he’s facing the wrong way, that he’s living in rebellion against God.

He must be convinced of that intellectually. If you don’t change your mind, you will not change no matter what you do. That’s the reason why I say, if you’re doing the same sin over and over and over and over and over again in the same way, are you actually saved? See, that’s the reason why we must preach the content of the Gospel. And the Spirit of God will convict our hearts and stir up emotion. The Spirit of God in John 16 moves in and convicts of sin and righteousness and judgment. And then he exercises an act of will when he turns from sin toward God.

See, the negative side of salvation is repentance. Well, now it brings us to the positive side, which is expressed by Paul in 20 verse. In chapter 20, verse 20, as faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, you turn away from sin, you turn toward God, then you place your faith in Jesus Christ. Well, let’s look at what faith in Jesus Christ means. Well, it’s like saying this. I’m a sinner. I know it intellectually. I know it. I see it. I’m living in violation of God. I’ve been making the wrong evaluation about Jesus. He is the Messiah. He is the Savior.

He is the Christ. He made a claim on my life. I owe nothing and I’m going to exercise my will. I’m going to turn to God and to Christ. And when you turn there, then you place your faith in Christ. That is the positive conviction that the gospel is true and you’re going to bank your life on it. That’s faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. That is believing all that he was, all that he did and all that he said. That’s also intellectual, emotional and an act of the will. It’s the same thing. Those people on the same day intellectually heard who he was and be baptized in the name and and felt emotional, torn on the inside.

And Peter says, what are you doing? Do this. Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. They did. In 3,000 of them were added to the church. So Paul preached salvation. He felt in his heart to preach it. He saw himself as a Herald. In First Corinthians 1:23 says we’re so far wheresoever preach the Gospel. But he uses the word we herald here. And Harold is an old word. In those days you didn’t have any newspapers. So when you had a big announcement to make, you hired the local herald. And he went down and you seen this historically.

He stood on the corner and said, hear ye, hear ye only in Greek. He probably said ao, ao or whatever he wanted to say. But anyway, everybody would come. Anyway, everybody would come and listen. This is a new city or ordinance, a dignitary arriving in town or a special event. Well, the Christian preachers just jumped on the bandwagon. They arrive in town, they stand on the corner square here you hear he, Jesus is Messiah. That was like front page headlines. That wasn’t a herald. And Paul herald the gospel publicly. He moved into the city, moved into the swing of life and he just pronounced and announced Jesus.

That was his ministry to the lost. He was a herald. He was a preacher, a herald of the gospel. The task then of the Christian ministry for Paul was a steward feed the household. But it was a herald and announced to the whole world the good news. An evangelist. This is part of our ministry as well. To claim to the loss that Jesus is the Savior. Now I think any good Christian has to do this, has. We have to be in tune with both of those areas. Teaching those in his charge as well as proclaiming to those who are outside of Jesus Christ.

Paul then was a debtor. He proclaimed the death the resurrection of Christ and called people for a response. Sometimes when we think about the sovereignty of God and how God purposes are all set, signed and sealed, and God knows what he’s doing and we say, well, I don’t need to get too pushy with people. If they’re in, they’re in. If they’re out, they’re out. I’ll let God do that. Well, that means you don’t want to get involved. And that is not the attitude of the Scripture at all. Second Corinthians, chapter 5. Paul says, we beg you in Christ’s stead, be reconciled to God.

In other words, he pleaded with people, begged them. Jesus even cried. I think we have every right to persuade people. The word appears over and over in the book of Acts. We’ve seen it at least five times already, six and seven times that we’re going to see. He was persuading them, trying to get them to come to Christ. There should never be an appeal without a proclamation. There should never be a proclamation without an appeal. When we proclaim the truth, we ought to make that appeal. I think Paul had a heart that was passionate enough that he begged men.

Second Corinthians 5. He said, now we’re ambassadors too. The ministry of reconciliation has been given to us to call men to God and we need to beg men to be reconciled to God. That is an ambassador for Christ. Paul’s view then of the ministry toward God was service towards the church, was teaching towards the lost, his evangelism, and lastly towards himself. Sacrifice. He saw his ministry in terms of a sacrifice of self and self will. Self assessment. He had only one reason to live. Self assessment. To minister. That’s all. The only reason he lived was to minister.

Look at verse 22 and know. Behold, I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem. And the term bound in the Spirit is very interesting. The word bound here is very. Is a very strong word. It refers usually to chains or chords or fetters. He was tied up. He was under strong pressure. Romans 7:2. The same word is used to speak of a strong obligation. He was obviously chained to this fulfillment. He was changed and driven to this desire, bound in the Spirit. Now some say that’s the Holy Spirit, some say it’s his human Spirit. He’s just saying, inside, I was bound for this.

And I don’t really think it matters because it was both. He was a Spirit filled man. So either the Holy Spirit or the human Spirit would possibly be one and the same. That’s what happens when you are sanctified in Christ. So Paul was compelled on the inside to go to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that should befall me there. As he says in verse 22, he was on his way to Jerusalem because he believed God was in was right and he was going to do it. He had a great compulsion to go. He had this money, he had to give it to the saints there.

He knew that it would help to tie the church together. It was so important to him that as we have discussed and he knew that things were going to be rough. He said, I don’t know the things that are going to befall me there. Except in verse 23. He says that the Holy Spirit keeps telling me in every city that bonds and afflicts awaits me. In other words, he’s going to to be persecuted. We might say, what do you mean you don’t know? That’s what Paul says. I don’t know what befalls me. He says, I don’t know the specifics.

I just know generally I’m about to get persecuted. Again, self assessment. Even at the thought of persecution, you wait. You wait to find the details so that you can plan an outcome for those details. And that is not what scripture tells you to do. You’re to plan for persecution in your strategic plan of life. Know that it’s going to come. Move forward and allow it to come. And as it comes, you deal with it. And when he wrote the book of Romans, in chapter 1531, he said to the Roman Christians, he said, pray for me. I’m headed to Jerusalem.

And I. I know what’s going to happen when I get there. But he says I go bound. And the only thing I know is, is that everywhere I go the Spirit keeps telling me I’m going to get it. And that was true. And later on in chapter 21, when we get there, he comes to Tyree and he meets a prophet, Agabus, verse 10. And Agabus gives him a little object lesson. He takes his belt and ties him up and says, see this? That’s what, that’s what’s going to happen to you when you get to Jerusalem. Agabus gave Paul a little object lesson.

And the Holy Spirit told me that as Agabus says. And Paul goes on, says, fine, check verse 13. What do you weep and break? Why do you what mean do you weep and break? My heart. Why are you crying? What are you trying to do, make me sad? They were all saying, well, Paul, this is what’s going to happen to you when you get there. And he said, what are you trying to do make me feel bad? I am ready not to be bound only. In other words, I’m ready to be put in chains, but to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.

He’s saying, cut this stuff out. I don’t need this. You guys want to. Want to deal on the negativity. I want to go to the positive. If I die, I’ve got gain. He didn’t care about his life. Chains and afflictions await me. That’s what bounds me. And he says, that’s all right. And everywhere I went, people kept telling me that over and over. And he says, that’s fine. He only had one reason to live, and that was to finish the work God gave him. And he just wanted to get it done and leave. I mean, if you went through what he went through, you’d probably want to die too.

Now, here’s an interesting thought. The lowest thing and the last thing on Paul’s list of priorities was self preservation. Do you get that? The last thing. Worried about yourself. Do you know where that is on most of your lists? It’s the very first thing. Well, I will endeavor to do that at some point. However, I must take care of certain things first. Jesus calls the disciples and the guy said, well, I have to go home and bury my father. His father wasn’t even dead, but he wanted to hang around until he died so he could get the goodies that were left to him.

Say, always self preservation. But that was all that was on Paul. At Paul’s list at the very last, he’s saying, look, guys, don’t worry about me getting tied up. I’ll die. If that’s what the Lord wants, I’ll just want to do what he wants anyway. There’s a combination of faith and confidence. His only concern was to finish the work. Many of you. Don’t even think about that. Yeah, in verse 24, I just. I just love this part. None of these things move me, he says. I mean, I don’t care in every town if they keep telling me, even via the Holy Spirit, that I’m going to get it when I get there.

That doesn’t bother me. I do not count my life dear unto myself. Where are you on that part? Can you say, I don’t care what’s going to happen to me. It doesn’t bother me one bit because I don’t care about my life, this physical life. I have only one reason to live, and here it is so that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. He says, I’m here for one reason and that’s to finish what Lord gave me to do.

And then I want to go. And as soon as he did, he did. Because when the time came that he was done, he said, lord, please take my life. I am now ready to die. I am done. 2nd Timothy 4. That’s the only thing he lived for. The last thing he ever thought of was self preservation. The whole view towards self and the ministry for Paul was sacrifice. And you know, that’s a word that probably doesn’t belong in any of our vocabularies. Can you fit sacrifice into your vocabulary? When’s the last time you made a sacrifice of anything? I mean, anything, Comfort, money, time, anything.

We’ll have a kind of leisure time of Christianity. Yeah, just sort of a little leisure thing here on Sunday or whatever Bible study is. We get all together, some of us go, go into to actually a church. Putt, putt in your little car. Most of us live our whole life. And the biggest, the highest point of our Christianity is when we go to a retreat. We all shake out, flake out on a mountain somewhere underneath some super Bible teacher. And that’s the exposure we have to the depths of Christianity. Now believe me, it’s nice to go there and hear a Bible.

But I’ll tell you, there’s more to Christianity that if your Christianity is a vacation, you’re in trouble. Paul saw his life toward himself as sacrifice. He only lived for one reason, and that’s to finish the work the Lord gave him to do. And that’s all he says, I want to finish my course in the ministry. And look at this that the Lord gave me. I received it of the Lord. Listen, if you really believe that God has given you a ministry, whatever you have is your ministry. By the way, he’s saying whatever you have in your life is a ministry and that he’s in control of your life.

You control nothing. You’re not going to worry about dying. You’re not going to worry about anything. You’re going to take it and spend it on him because you know, he’s in charge of it now. I like what he says in Philippians 2. Just kind of obscure character, you know. His name of course is oh my gosh, I practice this and here I go, I’m going to blotch this all effort Ethoditis. But he says you might ought to receive him. He says to the Philippines, you receive this fellow. He’s terrific. Verse 30 Philippians 2. Because of for the work of Christ, he was near death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me.

What he says is, this guy served the Lord and didn’t take a thought for his own life. The literal Greek, he. He rolled the dice. He gambled with his life. He bet that God was in charge of his life and he could do anything. Even when he was deathly sick, he had a fatal illness. And he continued to minister because he was willing to gamble that God was in control of his life and he wouldn’t die one split second sooner than what God had already determined before the foundation of the world. Some people say you don’t want to overdo.

You must get proper eating, sleeping and exercise. Don’t overdo it. I hear that all the time. Some people just coddle themselves and dote on themselves. I have a little slight pain here. I best not do that today. I don’t know whether I’m up for it today. Oh, y’ all coddling yourselves. You see, I never have known in my life, and I’ve never read anybody of their life who died from overwork in the service of Christ, who didn’t die right on schedule. He knows the exact heartbeat number that you’re going to check out. So why do you want to wait? See, you should risk everything so that you fulfill your ministry.

And then when you’re done, you can go and be with the Lord. That’s Paul’s passion. He says, I’m not going to be worried about what they do to me. I’m just going to finish the job, and when I’m done, I’m gonna go. He saw his ministry in the right perspective. Service toward the Lord, teaching toward the church, evangelism toward the lost, and sacrifice towards self. He concludes all of this with three words. Now, we’re going to look at more of those next next time. But in verse 25, he says, Behold, I have. I know that you all know among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God that means everything about God’s rule in the world shall see my face no more.

He says, well, this is goodbye, guys. I’m about ready to go. Wherefore I testify unto you this day that I am pure from the blood of all men. I’ve released my responsibility. What happens now? I’ve released my responsibility. I declared the truth. What they do with it is their problem. And we’ll get into that in detail next week. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the Whole counsel of God. What he’s saying is, I discharge my ministry to the absolute full. To you, the responsibility is now yours. It’s exciting to think that you could come to the end of your life and say, I discharged my ministry.

It’s exciting to think you could come to the end of a certain time in a certain place like Paul did, and stand up before a group of people or leaders and say, look, I’m leaving, guys, and whatever happens is up to you, because I gave you the truth. You know, that would be what a teacher or pastor should say in May. Only God knows. Someday I should be able to say that to you. I’m leaving, but I’m leaving knowing that I’ve given you the truth. What you do with it is up to you. That’s what Paul is saying.

But the only way you’ll ever be able to say that in your ministry is when you view it right toward God, right towards the church, right towards the world, and right towards yourself. The last two things of the ministry is evangelism and sacrifice. You can’t do those two effectively unless you have the right intellectual attitude towards God, the right intellectual attitude towards the church, the right intellectual attitude towards those that are less, and most importantly, the right and intellectual attitude of knowing to get yourself out of the way. And with that, we are done for today.

Any questions or comments? Anything? Jennifer, you got your hand up. You have a. Something you want to say, a question or something? It’s. It’s showing my hand down, so I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. Oh, that’s okay. I just want to make sure if you got something, it’s open to you. Thank you. I’ve had a hard time getting on Bible studies for some reason, so I’m still trying to figure that out. So I’m glad you’re here. All right, guys, let’s pray. Father, thank you again for a morning of worship into your scriptures, understanding the truth about your scriptures, seeing.

Seeing our life, using the examples of Paul’s life, understanding what you did through him, given us the knowledge of, understanding how we should use him as our example. So I just thank you for everything you have done throughout this entire ministry. Thank you for the great support of those in need. And Father, just continue to bless the hearts of the believers. May we continue to grow in peace and joy. We know that this world is a world that is changing, changing very rapidly with a lot of consequence. And coming to the knowledge of you only will allow us to receive all of that in its right framework.

So far. We just want to glorify you and all that you do. And we want to thank you for your son. His death, his burials, resurrection. Without that, we would not have the gospel. We would not be able to go home. So we thank you for that. We ask all these things in your son’s name.
[tr:tra].