Tuesday, November 8, 2016

“Leaving Friends” – Acts 20:22-24


I want to ask you an important question.  Don’t respond out loud.  I just want you to think about it. How do you want to be remembered after you are gone?  Do you want to be known as the funny guy or the hard-worker?  Do you want your grandkids and great-grandkids to remember you as the grandmother who was generous or a good listener?  Maybe they will remember you as a good cook or as having a great mustache.  Hopefully, they remember granddad and not grandma as the one with the good facial hair.

Like it or not, death comes to all of us and we are not guaranteed another breath so if we think right now about our legacy, hopefully we will focus on being the way that we want to be remembered.  To tell you the truth, any of us will be doing good if we are remembered much at all in as few as 100 years and unless you are very extraordinary, they will sum up your life in one sentence.  How do you want that sentence to read? 

This is a manuscript that my cousin produced after years of studying our family history.  Evidently, it’s a big deal to be able to trace your family history to the Mayflower and he was able to do that.  There is something like 13 generations between me, my cousins and dear old Granddaddy Brewster who sailed over on the Mayflower and each one is cited, documented, proven and their whole lives summed up in no more than a paragraph.  Some are extraordinary and some are less than that with a few being quite the scoundrels of the day.  How would you like to have your legacy be the fact that you were the one who cussed out the judge as he was sentencing you?

But some of them don’t say much of anything, just when they were born and died and who they married and the names of their kids.  That’s all we know about a lot of these people.  They lived 40-60-80 years and then they died.  But these people really lived.  They had joy and pain and laughter and tears, boredom and excitement just like you.  Now they are gone and all we have to remember them is one paragraph or maybe just one sentence.  How do you want yours to read?

We are continuing our look at the life of the Apostle Paul in Acts chapter 20 where we see him leaving some friends for the last time.  Paul had spent about three years in Ephesus, starting a church there and seeing that church grow and mature and he had made some dear friends but God had called him to be an evangelist and a missionary and not a pastor so Paul is telling them that he is moving on and they will never see him again.

In this passage, I believe as much as any other passage, Paul reveals who he really is and how he wants to be remembered and is, in fact, how we remember him and if you could only use one word to describe Paul, I think that word would be “radical”.  Paul was radical and this passage is radical.  Paul was different.  He was changed by God’s grace and he wanted everyone to be changed.  He wanted everyone to be different.  He wanted everyone to have a life-changing relationship with the risen Savior, Jesus, like he did and it did not matter what he had to do, where he had to go or what he had to endure.  He was going to tell people about Jesus.

In this passage, we are going to see why Paul did what he did, how he did what he did and then what is was exactly that he did.  So, let’s turn to Acts chapter 20, verses 22-24 and remember that he is talking to his dear friends that he is about to leave.  His boat is waiting on him to sail off.  He will never see them again as far as he knows so he leaves them with these last words.

“And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. 23 I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. 24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”

Have you ever done anything that you knew there was a good chance that it was going to hurt you somehow?  Have you ever done anything dangerous where you were pretty sure pain was about to be involved?  Men, how many of you remember telling your wife you loved her for the very first time?  The two of you have been dating for a while now and there you are on the couch at her mother’s place or maybe the front seat of your car in front of her house and you are sitting there talking.  You are looking at her with those googly eyes and you are just smitten.  You can’t imagine life without her and you want her to know it but you’re not sure if this is the right time.

You want to tell her but every time you start to say those three little words, your brain kicks in, right?  “Don’t do it!  Whatever you do, don’t say that.  What if she doesn’t say it back?  What if you say you love her and she says she really likes you too?  Don’t say it!”  But you can’t help it.  You have to say it or you will blow up.  Do you remember feeling that way?  You were compelled to say it.  You couldn’t help it.  You knew it was dangerous but you did it anyway and (hopefully) it paid off and you two lived happily ever after.  Paul is saying here that he, too, is compelled.  He’s not stupid.  He knows it’s going to be dangerous if he goes back to Jerusalem.  In fact, it is going to be dangerous for him to preach the Gospel almost anywhere but he does it anyway.

Jeremiah (20:9) said that he had a fire in his bones and he couldn’t keep it in.  That fire was the word of the Lord and he had to let it out or he would burn up.  In this passage, Paul says he is compelled by the Spirit.  That word “compelled” means to be dragged away as if in chains.  Have you ever been compelled by the Holy Spirit to do anything?  Has there ever been a time that something came to mind that you needed to do and you knew that you wouldn’t be able to sleep if you didn’t do it?

Years ago, I was at Schlitterbahn Water park with my family.  We were waiting in line to get something to eat and there was a group of men there in front of us who were making it obvious to everyone that they were homosexuals.  They were loud and proud and making a scene as they stood in line right in front of me and just as clearly as I could hear them, I heard the Lord tell me, “Just say hello.”

I tried to drown that voice out.  I tried thinking about something else but nothing worked.  “Just say hello.”  So, because I couldn’t make the voice in my head go away…I walked off.  I walked away…and I have regretted it ever since.  I don’t know why God wanted me to say hello.  It was probably just to see if I would be obedient in some small way.  Maybe it was so that 20 years later I could stand here and tell you how miserable it is to be compelled to do something and be disobedient. 

But Paul was obedient even though he knew that he would face prison and hardships of every kind.  He was compelled to do it.  He couldn’t help it.  He couldn’t be disobedient to his Savoir and Lord.  He was compelled.  That’s why he did what he did.  Now let’s see how he did what he did.  Look at verse 24.  I consider my life worth nothing to me.  Now that sounds pretty radical, doesn’t it?  In fact, that sounds crazy.  How can a person consider their life worth nothing?  I’ll tell you how.  Or, actually, I will let Paul tell you from something he wrote in Galatians 2:20.  Turn there.

Galatians 2:20 says, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”  Paul said his life was worth nothing to him because his life was Christ’s and whatever Christ wanted to happen in his life was going to happen and why not?  The Bible says in several places that our life is a mist, a breath, a vapor or a puff of smoke.

*match*  Did you see that smoke?  Not enough to even set off a smoke alarm.  Do you remember what it looked like?  Was it black?  Grey?  White?  You don’t even remember and it just happened.  That is our life.  At best, it is remembered with a paragraph or maybe forgotten entirely.  But when Christ lives in us, we live for eternity.

Thinking of the fullness and duration of this wonderful life, W. B. Hinson, a great preacher of a past generation, spoke from his own experience just before he died. He said, "I remember a year ago when a doctor told me, 'You have an illness from which you won't recover.' I walked out to where I live 5 miles from Portland, Oregon, and I looked across at that mountain that I love. I looked at the river in which I rejoice, and I looked at the stately trees that are always God's own poetry to my soul. Then in the evening I looked up into the great sky where God was lighting His lamps, and I said, ' I may not see you many more times, but Mountain, I shall be alive when you are gone; and River, I shall be alive when you cease running toward the sea; and Stars, I shall be alive when you have fallen from your sockets in the great down pulling of the material universe!' "  (sermonillustrations.com)

Paul knew he would live on in eternity and he had that mindset at all times and so he lived his life as if it were already eternity; as if it was actually the life of Christ.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”  That is how he did what he did.  Now, lastly, let’s see exactly what it is that he did.  Look at the rest of verse 24.  if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me

Then see what the task was.  What was it that God had told him to do?  Was it to be an evangelist?  Did God call him to be a missionary?  Did he send him to the seminary for training?  Was his task to write most of the New Testament?  No.  He says his task – the one thing God had called him to do – was the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.  There is an infinite number of ways to tell people the Good News.  There are any number of ways to witness to somebody and to bring them to have a life-changing relationship with Jesus but the very best way is just to tell them about God’s grace in your own life.  What has it meant to you?  When you have good news, don’t you want to share it?

Somebody tell me right now in one sentence what God’s grace means to you.  I know I’m a sinner and I know I have displeased God and there is nothing I can do to be good enough to get into Heaven.  There is nothing I can do to deserve God’s forgiveness.  I don’t deserve peace.  I couldn’t find joy in the difficult times on my own, no matter how hard I tried but I can have peace and joy in this life.  I can have forgiveness of my sin and I can spend eternity in Heaven as a child of the one true King and a co-heir with Jesus to every good thing Heaven has because – and only because – of what Jesus did.

Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life and was crucified for all my sin and for all of yours.  Then He rose again after three days and lives today and I will see Him with my own eyes one day very soon.  And if that’s not good news then I don’t know what is.  Come today and let me tell you more about it!

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