Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayer for attention to Acts chapter 20 and reading
through our text the last part of verse 10. Trouble not yourselves,
for his life is in him. Acts 20 and verse 10, the last
part. To put it in context, here is
Paul preaching, and he preaches long and continues until midnight. Many lights in the chamber, where
they were gathered together. Verse 9, And there sat in a window
a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep. And as Paul was long preaching,
he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft
and was taken up dead. And Paul went down and fell on
him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves, for his
life is in him. Before we come to what is upon
my spirit to speak from these words, we would just notice several
things concerning this account. Firstly, we have the Apostle
preaching on the first day of the week. Very important in the
early church, that there was the practice established of when
they should meet together. The apostles very often, they
gathered when the Jews gathered at first, on the seventh day. And then, when they established
the churches, they met on the first day. This is the day the
Lord Jesus Christ arose from the dead. This is the day that
is set apart as the memorial, if you like, of the finished
work of redemption. The seventh day, one day in seven,
that principle remains for all time. But at first it was to
commemorate the end of the creation, but then we have it for the Christians,
a day when the Lord rose from the dead, salvation assured,
he hath given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised
him from the dead. And then he appeared to the disciples
on that day, And we find then this practice with the apostles
that it is on this day of the week that they met for preaching
and met for breaking of the bread and the collection for the saints. And so it is one of those important
passages where that precedent or example is set before us as
to the reason why. We gather together on the Sunday
or the first day of the week instead of the seventh day. Then we have preaching. Well
here it says Paul was long preaching. We're told that by those who
study men and how long they can concentrate, generally Men cannot
concentrate more than 45 minutes, and they say that even if someone
really is interested in a subject, after that time their attention
drops off. I know, as often times I preach
longer than that. Sometimes I'm sure it can be
helped in breaking up the subject or illustrations, Often our attention
span is not long, and yet such the appetite for the word, I
remember, I don't know whether it was Kramna preaching, but
at those times, they used to have an hourglass, it was actually
a two hourglass, and they preached to that, and as it started to
run out, Then there was cries from those that were listening,
turn it over, turn it over. They didn't want the preacher
to stop. And it's a wonderful thing. That's the real help given
to the Lord's servants and help given to the hearers so that
there's a desire to sit and hear the word. And so we have again
a picture or part of the picture of the worship here. that preaching
certainly had the major part of it. That was the commission
of the Lord after all. Go into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature. Yes, prayer, praise, worship,
singing is part of that worship, but preaching is the main commission. Preach the word and please God
through the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe. And
it's very sad, in many churches the preaching gets shorter and
shorter and is not a major part of the service at all. And certainly
it wasn't the case here. I also know that what we have here
is a miracle. We read of those that the Lord
raised from the dead. We read of those that Elijah
and Elisha raised from the dead. And I believe we have the same
here. They took him up, not as dead,
but took, had taken him up dead. And Paul went down and fell on
him, and embracing him said, trouble not yourselves, his life
is in him. The miracle had been brought
about and he had not died, he was raised again to life. Then there is the word here,
the beginning of our text, trouble not yourselves. You might say,
well, wouldn't they trouble themselves? Those that our Lord raised from
the dead, very often he was going through a multitude of wailing
people and people that are so distressed. And when he told
them that in one case the maid was not sleeping, they laughed
him to scorn. And he raised each one of those
from the dead. It is a time of trouble. of distress. There is a question
for us when things happen so suddenly and we profess that
we believe in God, we believe in the Lord ordering all things,
and yet how soon we can get very distressed. I've often been struck
in reading the account of Aaron And when his sons were slain
by the fire that came out from the Lord, they offered false
or strange fire, and the Lord slew them. And we read just those
few words that Aaron held his peace. And I felt what grace
that that was. To hold your peace when your
children have been slain in their sin. Such a falling before the
Lord and a oneness with his will. And here Paul says to them, trouble
not yourselves. It may be this evening or in
other times things come in our lives and we are troubled. And the Lord says in John 14,
let your heart be not troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also
in me. Simon says, the troubles of my
heart are enlarged. And man is born unto trouble
as the sparks fly upward. But may even the word here this
evening be a word in season to some. Trouble not yourselves. The Lord knows what He will do. The Lord knows the path of His
people. He knows their trials. He knows
their difficulties. And especially He knows when
those things come, so unexpected, so distressing, and so filling
us with Troubles. Trouble not yourselves. And like all of the fear nots
in the Word of God and words like this, it is backed up. Where the Lord speaks this to
his people, there is a reason. A man will often try and just
use empty words to comfort and to help those in distress, without
any foundation or substance behind them. But Paul is able not just
to say, travel not yourselves, but he adds, for his life is
in him. And he bears them that tidings
that he has been raised from the dead. He is alive. He is not dead. The other thing that is very
evident in this passage, where our text is, there's mention
of the preaching, the long preaching, but there's no mention of what
he preached. Later on, we do have, we have
him telling those of the Ephesian church that he kept back nothing. Verse 20, that was profitable
unto you. but have showed you and have
taught you publicly and from house to house." And there he
does tell us what he's been preaching. Repentance toward God and faith
toward our Lord Jesus Christ and testifying the gospel of
the grace of God He says, the ministry which I have received
of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. He says, I am pure from the blood
of all men, for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel
of God. So we get in the latter part
of the chapter, some summaries of how he preached and what he
was preaching. But in the account where our
text is, there's not. There's the preaching, but there's
what happened in that preaching, or when the preaching was taking
place, and the effect on the hearers that seemed to eclipse
the actual message itself. We think of the two on the way
to Emmaus when our Lord met with them on that first day of the
week when he rose from the dead. They didn't know it was the Lord.
He said, O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the
prophets have written, or not Christ to have suffered these
things and to enter into his glory beginning at Moses and
all the prophets he expounded unto them in all the scriptures
the things concerning himself. Now in that we are given a summary,
but we are also told how their heart burned within them. They
didn't know who it was preaching until he showed themselves in
the breaking of bread afterwards. And likewise with the times of
setting forth himself as the bread of life. Not only is the
preaching set forth, the reaction of those to it, how they heard
the effect on them and what actually happened on those occasions. And so we have here what has
actually happened on that occasion. We might have times that we gather
for preaching and something has happened and we've forgotten
the message, as it were, and it is what has happened that
seems to have been the thing that is just remembered at that
time. But may it be that there are
those times that we don't remember the words or what was preached,
but we remember the effect and we remember the occasion by the
things that surrounded it. Because often that will really
seal a matter upon us. Many, many blessings and helps
that I've had, they have been surrounded by providential things
that you can actually relate like this. Now maybe there were
those here that were blessed under Paul's preaching. And they
could look back and say, that time I was blessed, It was when
Eutychus fell down from the window and was raised to life again.
And it's marked out as to what actually happened at that time. And so may we have those times
as well that we gather together. I know sometimes that the word
has been blessed to me, and I remember it, not just the time of blessing,
there'd been a different one of the Lord's servants in the
pulpit. The man engaged was sick, another
servant was engaged, and it was through him the Lord blessed
the word. And that was as much of the providence
and the ordering of God as the sermon itself. Other times there
are different things that have actually happened during the
services and it's made it a time that's joined together as to
what the Lord has done and spoken through the word. I want to then
look this evening at this word and from three aspects. The word of our text, trouble
not yourselves for his life is in him. And really it is the
last phrase, his life is in him. I want to look first at man's
life in him. That is, really, his soul. And then secondly, spiritual
life in us. His life is in him. And then,
looking at it in a way I know is not directly in the text,
but that our life in him That is Christ. If we read the hymn
in our text as being Christ, for his, that is Eutychus's life,
is in Christ. So firstly, man's life in him. There is a reminder here of what
really our life is. We know from Ecclesiastes that
the spirit of the beast goeth downward into the earth. The
spirit of man goeth upward and returns unto God that gave him. The spirit of man is his soul
in him, that of which the Lord said to the dying thief, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, this day shalt thou be with me in
paradise. His body was still upon the cross,
but his soul was with the Lord in paradise. Our persons, our
real being, our life is our soul. Paul, when he speaks in Corinthians
about the reality of the resurrection, He speaks very clearly that here
below we have a body which is a mortal body, and it is a body
that is a corrupt body, a fallen body with corruption, and that
that must be laid in the grave. But then we shall be given an
immortal body, an incorrupt body, and we shall be clothed with
that body. at the last great day, at the
resurrection, and we shall be then forever with the Lord, a
believer shall be. But the believer himself, the
person, his life, is not his outward body here. It's not the celestial body that
he shall be given, but the soul that is within him. And yes,
It is so inseparable that as soon as the soul departs the
body, then the life is gone. Really what Paul is saying here,
his soul is in him. His soul has not departed. His
spirit has not departed. Or his spirit has come back.
It is still in his body. He is not dead. I often think of that word, when
the eye strings break in death, and having witnessed the passing
of my parents, and seen that change, very marked change, when
death takes place, and the spirit leaves the body
and returns to the Lord, We need to be reminded of this, that
here we have a tabernacle. Even with the Lord, it is said,
a body hast thou prepared me. But with our Lord, of course,
there's a body and soul prepared for the eternal Son of God, who's
made not like Abraham, not like the beasts, which are just flesh,
not like the angels, which are just spirit, but the seed of
Abraham which is body and soul. And so the first point here is
to really affirm in this that man is unique and our Lord did
take truly the human nature, the nature, soul and body of
that which he came to redeem and save and he has redeemed
the soul and the body, the soul first returning to God that gave
it, and then the body raised again incorruptible. And the
Lord has accomplished that redemption of both. And so his life is in
him. Our life, our soul, while we
are here below, The two are united and so we live. As soon as that
separation is, then we die. This body dies. It will not live
independent of the soul. It is bound up together with
it. Man's life in him then is soul. But then secondly, spiritual
life in us. Every man has a soul. But as we are born into this
world, we are born dead in trespasses and sins. And our soul is spiritually
dead. Sama says, let my soul live,
and it will praise thee. And it is the work of divine
grace in the new birth to quicken that soul into spiritual life. The body is still the same. The
body is corrupt. The body is fallen. The Apostle
Paul says, as one that has been renewed in the spirit of his
mind, that the evil that I would not, that I do, the good that
I would, I do not, a wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from this body of death?" The animal instincts of the body,
the fallen nature, is corrupt, is fallen. But that renewal is
done of the soul. He says, with the mind, I serve
the Lord with my flesh, the law of sin. He says, there's no more
I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. And he teaches in Romans
7, that very clear difference between the soul and the body,
a renewed soul that is at odds with the fallen state of our
nature. A new creature in Christ. Our Lord says he must be born
again. So when we have the word here,
for his life is in him, we think, oh, spiritual life, the soul,
is it alive? We know the soul is there in
everyone that is born into this world. But is it alive? Has the Lord passed by us and
bid us live and quickened our soul into life? given us the
new birth, made us to live. And what are the signs of that
life? You know, Paul would have been
able to look at this man, the miracle that he'd wrought on
him, the signs of life, his breathing, his heart beating, the signs
of life there. But what are the signs of spiritual
life? When the Apostle speaks of it
in himself, the first time was when the law of God came and
then brought him to be convinced as a sinner. Really the first
evidence of life is to really know that we are sinners. One
of our hymns says, sinners can say are none but they, how precious
is the Saviour. The law was given that sin might
abound, that all the world might be brought in guilty before God,
and that it is sinners that feel themselves sinners, that value
the Saviour, that need saving. And so that is a sign of life
as long as it leads to seeking for life in the Saviour. I fear
there are those, amongst our churches that would just say,
well, I am a sinner, and I can't do anything well. And in one
sense, they just excuse a godless, sinful life. And there's no sense
of urgency, their danger, the wrath of God on them. They really
are just sheltering under the fact that, well, they know that
they are sinner. But if they really knew it, if
they were really convinced of their sin, then it would cause
such distress and concern and crying to the Lord and begging
of the Lord for forgiveness and pardon and repentance and life. They would seek unto the Lord
urgently for it. You know, if one was to say to
you, well, I've got a terminal illness. I've got a bad disease.
I've got cancer. And you said, well, have you
talked to a specialist, a doctor? Are you having any treatment?
Oh, no. No, I'm not. And you say, well,
do you really believe what you've got? Do you really understand
it, that you're just not seeking help at all? If there's no urgency,
where's the evidence, the reality of it? I feel many times we fail
as ministers. We may say the right words, but
there's not the urgency. It's like someone walking into
a crowded room and just mildly, quietly saying, this whole building's
on fire, you know. and no one takes much notice
of them because there's no urgency. But if they raced into the building
and waving their arms and crying out, fire, fire, and their whole
being was one of urgency, then you'd believe them. And so if
there is life and the danger of that soul is known, is felt,
the worth of Christ, the need of Christ, and the need of a
Saviour, then that will evidence real life, a real concern. Those that were blind, the Lord
healed, they understood the Lord passed by, they cried out, they
wanted the Lord to come. The Lord asked them, would thou
that I do unto thee, Lord, that I might receive my sign. They
had no doubt what they needed, what they wanted. And if this
evening we have no doubt what we want, and we ask of the Lord
as a sign of life, if we're like Jabez, thou wouldst bless me
indeed, that thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it do not
greed me. Enlarge my coast. You know, he
had these petitions that he wanted. from the Lord. Spiritual life in us. It is the Lord that gives life
and the life is evidenced and you've got new eyes, new ears,
new feelings, new appetites, new desires. those things that
the Lord has put in. Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed
are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Those real
changes that are wrought in one that has been given spiritual
life and they no longer are dead, know their condition and seek
after the saviour and the lord says that all they that seek
shall find and the lord will have mercy on those that call
upon him call upon me in the day of trouble i will deliver
thee and thou shalt glorify me come unto me all ye that labour
and are heavy laden I will give thee rest, take my yoke upon
you, and learn of me. For I am meek and lowly in heart,
ye shall find rest unto your souls. Now the Lord has a word
for the hungry, the thirsty, the weary, and those that are
sinners. He is the Saviour of sinners.
What a beautiful, blessed name, a name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. The reason why Paul said to those
round about that they were not to trouble themselves was for
his life is in him. Now think of this in a spiritual
way. If you're a parent, got children, maybe children with a parent,
You look upon them and spiritual life they do not have. We can't say with all, trouble
not yourselves. You could put it the other way
round. If we really value the souls of our loved ones, then
is not that a cause of trouble, a cause of prayer, of desire,
of crying to the Lord, that he'd have mercy upon them, as much
as there is comfort, what the apostle John could say, that
he says, I have no, in the third epistle of John, no greater joy
than to hear that my children walk in truth, But when it is
the other way round, surely there's no greater sorrow or distress. Those words with the Shunammite
woman, is it well? Is it well with thee? Is it well
with our husband? Is it well with the child? At
that point, the child was dead. And by faith, she said, it shall
be well. And then it is well as she got
to Elisha. And again, he was used to work
the miracle to give life, literal life, to that child. We may ask ourselves then, how
do we look upon spiritual life in ourselves? Do we value it? Do we bless God for it? Do we
seek it? Do we desire it? And what about
those of our loved ones as well? Or are we deceived? As long as they wear the right
clothes and come to the services and do the right thing and say
the wrong things and act the part, well, that goes well enough
to take away our trouble for them, does it? Or do we have
a better understanding the worth of the soul, the reality of a
quickened soul. Can we say, trouble not yourselves,
his life is in him, is spiritual life, in us, is it in our loved
ones? Or are we just taking something
else in the place of it? And then thirdly, I want to look
at this in reading it in this way, our life in him that is
in Christ. For his, Eutychus's life is in
Christ. For his life is in him. The Apostle
Paul says that when Christ who is our life shall appear, then
we shall also appear with him. And the Lord says that those
that believe on him that He shall come, His Father, they shall
take abode with His people, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit,
and in that way with the Trinity of the people of God. We're exhorted
to grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby He has sealed
unto the day of redemption. But the life of the people of
God is in Christ. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear. And this is a vital thing, that
our life is, in one sense, not in us, but is in the Lord. It's bound up with the Lord. When Satan desired to have Peter,
the Lord said, Satan hath desired to have thee, saith thee, as
we, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fall not. It is the Lord that is the keeper
of his people. We read in John 10, no man is
able to pluck them out of my hand, my father that is greater
than I, no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand.
The life is in the Lord, and the Lord says, because I live,
ye shall live also. I am the vine, ye are the branches. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself, neither can ye, except ye abide in me. And so it's a two-way thing,
as it were. The people of God abiding in
Christ, and Christ abiding in them. That union of Christ and
His Church, making it, as it were, one with the Lord. His life is in Him. Are we able to join with the
Apostle in that way, that our life is in Christ? It is Christ that keeps our souls
alive, not ourselves. No man can keep alive his own
soul, but that life is hid with Christ in God, a secret life
in Christ, and every blessing that comes to us is in Christ. Our election is as we are found
in Christ, as we are called and bound up in that bundle of life
with Him. There is known God's purposes,
His counsel, His eternal love and mercy to His people. as as
he unites them and brings them to Christ. His people are chosen
in him before the foundation of the world. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the one that upon Calvary's tree had the sins of his people
laid upon him and as testified in Isaiah 53 has
laid on Him the iniquity of us all. And out of love, particular
personal love, He laid down His life for His people. And His people then rise with
Him, the ordinance of baptism, buried with Him by baptism into
death and risen again in newness of life. It is so true, so scriptural,
for a child of God, his life is in him. His life is in Christ. And that is a reason, when that
is so, that we may say, trouble not yourselves. If the Lord applies
and blesses this word this evening to one that is troubled, am I
the Lord's? Or am I not troubled and tried
and tempted? Trouble not yourselves. His life
is in Him. Where is your life? Where have
you proved that life to be? That the Lord has come and revived
your soul and blessed your soul and drawn your soul to Him. And you fed upon Him by faith. He strengthened you, kept your
faith. dawn before you in the way. Trouble not yourselves, for His
life is in Him. His life is in Christ. And sometimes it's taught in
some very painful ways. We read of Hezekiah that in the
matter with the messengers from Babylon, He left him to try him
to see what was in his heart. God knew what was in Hezekiah's
heart. But Hezekiah needed to be taught
that his life was in Christ and the blessings were his and not
in Hezekiah. Not in Hezekiah. And so with
the children of Israel, Thou shalt remember all the way that
the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness,
to try thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart,
whether thou wouldst serve him or no. What did it bring out? Murmuring, complaining, all of
their sins, their ill manners in the wilderness. But what was
their mercy? They drank of that spiritual
rock that followed them. That rock was Christ, the mercies
that they had. Christ was their life. He bore
them, bore them as on eagle's wings, and he brought them to
the promised land. And so it will be with his people
as well, not by their strength, their might, their sinlessness,
their perfect way, their perfect obedience, but all in Christ. In Christ's obedience, clothe
and wash me in his blood. So shall I lift my head with
joy amongst the sons of God. May the Lord bless us with spiritual
life in our souls and our life to be in Christ. And then we can truly say then,
trouble not yourselves, it is well. May the Lord bless the
world with us. Amen.