I'd like us to turn back to Acts
chapter 20 in your scriptures with me and I'd like us to talk
about a matter which is of the deepest significance for now
and for all eternity. The question that Paul so delightfully
answers is what is the Christian ministry or what is the manner
or the way of Christian ministry? What is it? What is it to be
under the ministry of a faithful pastor? What is it? What is it
for us? to be a people who bear witness
faithfully to who the Lord Jesus Christ is from the scriptures. And Paul, as we saw earlier,
has gone on this extenuated journey through these paths and to this
place in Ephesus because of the Jews in verse 3 of chapter 20
laid in wait for him. And so we have this whole chapter
of scripture before us. And Paul, in his speech, in his
time of these Ephesian elders, gives us the manner of the Christian
ministry. What is the Christian ministry? I pray that God will actually
write these words on our hearts and God would cause us to be
wise. We are called upon to test the
spirits. Our friend Norm is going to preach
for you next week out of John chapter 3. Your obligation is
to test the spirits. Your obligation is to test what
I am saying. As I said earlier in our previous
message, the ministry of God's servants is a ministry, if it's
from the Lord, it's His, isn't it? He ascended on high and He
descended to the lower parts and He that ascended is saying
that He ascended up far above all the heavens that He might
fill all things and He gave some apostles and some prophets and
some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting
of the saints, for the maturing of the saints, for the work of
the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Till we all come in the unity
of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
man under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. They are huge words, aren't they?
The Christian ministry is nothing less than our great triune God
bearing witness to His presence and His glory and His sovereign
reign and rule over all things by the Church. It's remarkable,
isn't it? You read what Paul has written
to these Ephesian elders that sat with him on that beach and
heard him declare his ministry. He says, now, verse 19 of chapter
2 of Ephesians, now, therefore, are you no more strangers and
foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household
of God. and are built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the
chief cornerstone in whom all the building fitly framed together
groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are
built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. What
a remarkable description of little gatherings of believers like
us throughout this world. A habitation of God through the
Spirit. A building built and its fitly
framed together. You see, this is a vital thing.
This is absolutely vital for my eternal salvation. And it's
vital for your eternal salvation. And Paul has been sent on this
extra part of this journey, and here under a sovereign hand of
God, He is brought to these Ephesian elders and He gives them these
instructions and He puts them in remembrance of who He is and
what He's done there. Let's start reading in verse
18 of Acts chapter 20. And when they were come to him,
he said unto them, you know, you know from the first day that
I came into Asia, after what manner I had been with you in
all seasons. See, Paul's a pattern. He says
in 1 Timothy, he's a pattern to all those who will believe.
He's a pattern in terms of him meeting the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's a pattern in terms of light shining. He's a pattern in terms
of the Word of God coming to him powerfully and actively.
And he says, Paul says, you follow me as I follow Christ. The extraordinary reality is
that you'll follow someone in this world. And you'll follow someone in
this world who will either lead you to heaven or lead you to
hell. One of the Puritans said that
of all the groups in hell, the one with the greatest percentage
of representatives in hell will be pastors and preachers. I think there's an awful lot
of biblical warrant for that. Follow me, says Paul. So this
is a pattern. That's one of the reasons, I
think, that the New Testament has given us in the book of Acts
and in the epistles of Paul, he's given us such an extraordinarily
comprehensive biography of this man, Paul. He's given you a biography
of the best part of 30 years of his life. He's given you his
behaviour in all sorts of situations, all the trials that befell him.
all the love and the embracing that we see here and the affection
that he was held in, all these abandonments and all the other
things. And we have, in all of the New Testament letters, and
Paul wrote two-thirds of it, we have a remarkable evidence
of the things that he preached. You see what he said there? He said, he said, after what
manner I had been with you in all seasons, You'd known him. These Ephesian elders had known
him for three years. Some of them had known him for
the three weeks that he was there beforehand when he preached in
the synagogue. Some of them had probably come
out of the synagogue when he preached there for three months,
and the Jews had finally rejected the gospel of free and sovereign
grace in the Lord Jesus Christ and stayed with their Judaistic
religion, the self-righteous religion of man. You see, he
was the same, wasn't he? after what manner I have been
with you in all seasons." They had seen Paul in all the seasons
of his life, these people. We have witnessed Paul in jail. We have witnessed Paul in extraordinary
trials. We have witnessed him in the
midst of riots. We have witnessed him being stoned,
as it were, to death and dragged out of that city. We've witnessed
him dealing with the Jews again and again and again. He says
the lying in the way of the Jews has been a trial to him. And
in all of this, Paul was a stable man. Paul was a stable man. See, God, our rock, builds his
ministry upon the rock and Paul was a stable man. In Proverbs
24, 21, there's a great verse that says, meddle not, meddle
not with those given to change. meddle not with those given to
change. See, Paul could take these people
to record that the gospel that he preached the very first time
he met with them is exactly the same gospel he preached the very
last time he met with them, and it's exactly the same gospel
that he wrote to them about. Nothing changed. Nothing changed. I trust that we will see again
our biography and the biography of our church in this, and I
take you to task. Have we changed anything that
we've ever said from the beginning? See, if God's in a ministry,
it doesn't ever change. It doesn't change. God's truth
doesn't change. The gospel doesn't change. It's
called the everlasting gospel. And where the everlasting gospel,
where this everlasting saviour who is a rock, has met with his
people, he builds something on that foundation we read about
in Ephesians 2. It's solid. There is a chief
cornerstone. It's built on the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the cornerstone and the foundation of the apostles
and the prophets. It never has to change. It never
has to change. We don't have a new message.
We are not looking for a new message. In fact, we're always
looking for a very, very old message. I want a message that's
as old as God. I want a message that lasts as
long as God lasts. And I want a message that sustains. I want it for myself, brothers
and sisters. I am fearful of hell. I am fearful
of hell. And Paul was as well. You see what he goes on to say
there in verse 19, chapter 20. He says, serving the Lord. See, he never served himself.
He never served his interests. Paul was never involved in self-promotion. He wasn't involved in building
a ministry or building a church. He was there serving the Lord,
and he wasn't serving men. He simply said, this is who the
Lord Jesus Christ is. This is how he saved sinners.
This is what sinners are. And he served the Lord with all
humility, There are so many reasons, aren't
there? So many very, very good reasons for the children of God
to be humble. And pride, pride is such an offensive,
an offensive characteristic of man. And the worst pride I ever
see is the pride that's in me. It's horrible, isn't it? It rises
up all the time. It rises up all the time. When
someone offends you, the first thing you want to do is defend
yourself. Pride. And pride is made all the more
disgusting because of the object in which it lives and the object
with which it points to. Sinners. Sinners proud. What a terrible statement. But
he served the Lord with all humility. See, what it is to be humble
as a Christian is to have a right estimate of yourself. Paul said,
I am what I am by the grace of God. I am what I am by God's
grace. People can have low self-esteem
and be extraordinarily proud. You can have low self-esteem
and all you're doing is thinking about yourself all the time.
To be humble is to have a just, a right estimate of who you are. See, Paul said he's a sinner. He says, I am the chief of sinners. You can say, I used to be the
chief of sinners and now I'm getting more and more sanctified
and getting better. He says, I am the chief of sinners. the least of all the apostles.
So by the grace of God, the grace of God has taken that proud,
self-righteous Pharisee and made him to be a humble sinner. By the grace of God, Paul has
been turned from a sinner into a saint. He's actually sanctified,
isn't he? Saint Paul sanctified and justified
and he's glorified and not because of anything he's ever done. And
Paul was a preacher. He was made to be a preacher
by God. He was directly commissioned
by the Lord Jesus Christ. So here we have a pattern of
Christian ministry. It doesn't change. It's serving
the Lord with all humility of mind. And listen to this, Christian
ministry is an emotional ministry, isn't it? With tears, with many
tears, and many temptations which befell me by the lying in wait
of the Jews. Many tears. He says in verse 31, if you turn
down there, he says, watch and remember that by the space of
three years, I cease not to warn everyone, night and day, with
tears. There is, there is in genuine
Christian ministry, real emotion. that digs deep
into the hearts of people. The Lord Jesus Christ wept over
Jerusalem. They weren't fake tears. God's children, in the Scriptures,
wet their pillows with tears. You see, the tears of God's servants
are not necessarily always seen before men. There are so many
reasons for tears, aren't there? There are tears over sin, the
sin that I am. There's tears, tears over people
that you love very, very dearly. who seemingly have a coldness
and a deadness towards the things of God, a coldness and a deadness
toward the reality of the eternal souls that they have. I'm probably justifiably accused
of hiding my emotions, but for this last twenty years
I've had more reason for tears than I have in the rest of my
life put together. I love what the scriptures say. The psalmist says in Psalm 56
verse 8, the Lord keeps the tears of his own in a bottle. I cry before the Lord, my heart
breaks. when such a glorious Saviour
is treated so poorly and not esteemed. Paul David said he's
wet his pillow with tears. There are tears over sin. There are tears over rejection
of the Gospel. There are strong emotions associated
with the preaching of the Gospel. It's not done. in a vacuum of
emotion and it's not done as just a ritual reciting some doctrine
to people. We all one day will meet the
Lord Jesus Christ and I will give an account. and I give an
account now. And for some people I give an
account and I have tears of joy. I just can't believe how much
encouragement I get from what I see of the Lord's work in people's
lives. And others, and so many others,
I have tears of sorrow. I have tears over my sin. I have
tears over the selfishness of my tears even. But also, Lord's
people have tears because of the reality of the love that
God has brought amongst them. You see, God's people care for
each other. This chapter begins and ends with there being an
embracing, an embracing in real love. So this gospel, this gospel that
Paul proclaims, is a matter of life and death. It's always a
matter of life and death. This Gospel that Paul proclaims,
this Gospel that I proclaim is a Gospel that exposes people.
It exposes everyone before the presence of God. And whether
you like to think of it or not, when the real Gospel is being
preached, you are in the presence of God himself. And he's dealing
with you. It says in the scriptures that
He passed by. What an extraordinary statement.
That our God passes by. It says in Romans 1 that He gives
people over. But that same Lord that passes
by stops. He stops at a tree when Zacchaeus
is there. He stops at a funeral when a
young man is being carried out with his weeping mother. He stops
when he meets with blind Bartimaeus. The Lord who passes by stops
where he hears cries of mercy. Paul, like all of God's true
servants, shows us that you cannot serve the Lord, you cannot serve
the Lord with all humility of mind, without tears. And with
temptations, that word means trials, the temptations which
befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews. If you're going
to serve the Lord with all humility of mind, if you are put into
the Christian ministry, you're going to have the opposition
of this religious world. Grace and works cannot mix, do
not ever mix, will never mix. The righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ and human righteousness can never be put together. See,
Paul lived before these people with humility and sincerity and
in love. And he preached, and he praised,
and he persuaded, and he exhorted them. What were the Jews doing?
They were lying in wait. It means they were plotting,
they were scheming, they were forming plans against him. They were lying in wait. It's
in the plural. They did it in a multitude of ways. They were
lying in wait for him. They took counsel to kill him
in Acts chapter 9. In Acts 14, they stoned him to
death and they took him outside of the city. He had trials. You can read about his trials
in 2 Corinthians 11. He says perils. He had perils. And these Jews were the fomenting
of so many of them. If you're going to be in the
Christian ministry, the religious world will find you offensive
and find the message that you bring offensive. And the only
way to get rid of the offense is to join with them, either actively or passively. Go on to show us that. One thing
that will never befall any Christian ministry is the woe that the
Lord spoke of. Woe unto you when men speak well
of you. What is highly esteemed among
men is an abomination to the Lord. If you preach the gospel,
if you proclaim the gospel, you will not have the religious world
as your friends. Paul was told, wasn't he, In
that conversion of his, when Ananias came to him when he was
blind, the Lord said to him, I'm going to show him, I'm going
to show him, right now at the beginning of his ministry, I'm
going to show him how much he must suffer for my name. How much he must suffer for my
name. At the end of his life, at the
end of his active ministry in this part of the world, he knows
that wherever he goes in the future, bonds and afflictions,
imprisonment and afflictions are going to abide him. It means
they stay with him. And yet, what's he say? Verse
20. It's a great description of Christian
ministry, isn't it? And then, now, I kept back nothing
that was profitable unto you. Nothing that was profitable.
He kept back nothing that was unprofitable. See, Paul's ministry was a profitable
ministry. He kept back nothing that was
profitable. He gave them everything that
was profitable. That word to keep back is the same word that's
used down in verse 27 where he says, I have not shunned to declare
unto you the whole counsel of God. That word not profitable
and shunned, kept back nothing, sorry, and that word shunned
is a nautical term, it's a seafaring term. It means that if you're
sailing your little ship and you meet with a storm, what do
you do? You let down the sails. You let
down the sails in the midst of opposition. kept back nothing. You see, we
think that false prophets are defined most clearly by the things
that they say, and they are defined clearly by the things that they
say. But false prophets are also defined, according to this and
according to the scriptures, they're defined most clearly,
I believe, by what they don't say. by what they don't say. Ben and I listened to part of
a message on this same passage of scripture last week from a
young fellow preaching a message on it some months ago. And he
read this passage of scripture and he talked about Paul's ministry
and he talked about all the things that you have to do. All the
things that you have to do. And he left out a verse. He left out a verse. You know
which verse he left out? Verse 28. feed the church of God. He was
talking about how all the activities and all the responsibilities
for people in ministry, and he left out, feed the church of
God which he has purchased with his own blood. The reason, why
did he leave it out? Why did he leave it out? It's
offensive. It's like the pastor I Last time
I've been in that church, many, many years ago, 12 years ago,
and he preached through Acts 13. He preached the whole passage
of Acts 13, and he left out that verse where it says that those
that were ordained to eternal life believed. And I knew him,
and I said, why did you leave out verse 48? You didn't even
read it to them. As many as were ordained to eternal
life leave, he left it out. I said, why did you leave it
out, Rod? He said, well, we had a debate in church last week
about predestination and the election of God, and people were
upset. And I didn't want to upset them
again. nothing. I don't want you to
be ashamed of the fact that God elected people, that God chose
the people and put them in the Lord Jesus Christ from before
the foundation of the world. I don't want you to be ashamed
of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is in union with those
people and because of his union with those people, when he walked
on this earth and he died on Calvary Street, he was one with
them and united to them. and the justice of God slew him. And therefore all of our sins
are gone and put away by a just act of a holy God. And the blessed
Holy Spirit will take the things of the Lord Jesus Christ and
He will reveal it to those people. He will reveal the truth of who
He is. I want you to rejoice in an electing God. Without election
there is no gospel. Without election there is no
salvation. Election is under salvation.
We're not ashamed. It's one of the titles of the
Lord Jesus Christ that he's the elect one, my servant, the elect
one. God is not ashamed, I'll remind
you. He's not ashamed of his character. He's not ashamed of his character.
Paul was serving the Lord. which means that he had a tale
to tell, he had a story, he had a witness. He was testifying
to who he was and he kept back nothing. He didn't let his sails
down and it didn't matter what the opposition was. He didn't
let his sails down but he knew that those Jews were enraged
against him as he preached the gospel. He just preached the
gospel to them because enraged people need to hear the gospel.
They need to hear the gospel. So the false teacher keeps things
back. That's the question, isn't it?
The pattern of ministry. Does the minister declare the
true nature of man? Does he declare who you are? Who you really are? Does he declare
who God really is? Does he declare how salvation
is purely and utterly and completely, in every aspect, the work of
God himself? Does he speak of Christ and his
accomplishments? Does he speak of Christ and where
he is now? Does he speak of his blood and
his grace? If someone keeps something back,
it proves that he is a false prophet. Someone that withholds
information that is vital to your salvation. Someone that
withholds information. If someone withholds something
that he really holds dear. There was terrible ructions in
a church here some years ago, wasn't it? Because it was finally
discovered that the pastor and a bunch of others believed that
we were descendant from monkeys. That Adam and Eve were somehow
special monkeys that got zapped by God. The thing that was extraordinary
for me was that he believed it for 20 years. Why did he hide
it from people? If he believed it and believed
that that was what the Scriptures were saying, why did he hide
it? He hid it from people. He hid it from people. False teachers hide things from
people. There are many people that believe
the things that work. We go and proclaim this gospel to people
and so many people in religion say, yes, I agree with that.
And then they go off and join with those and become part of
a ministry where these things are openly denied. We're not
ashamed of what happened on Calvary Street. We're not ashamed of
the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ bore the sins of all these
people. We're not ashamed of the fact
that, as Paul says, he bought, he purchased a church, and the
price of that church was his own blood. And he gets what he
paid for. Paul was an honest man. Someone that withholds something
is a dishonest man. And they're hypocrites. And what's
he go on to say? He held back nothing. I kept
back nothing that was profitable, but have showed you and taught
you publicly from house to house. The gospel that Paul proclaimed
in private was exactly the same gospel he proclaimed in public.
It wasn't a private Paul and a public Paul. He had his private
life. He had his private life, but
his private life and his public life in terms of proclaiming
the Gospel were all as one. And his private life was lived
in such a way that to the best of his ability and the grace
of God he wanted to honour the Lord with his private life as
well as his public life. It's always the same message.
He wasn't a hypocrite. He showed them and taught them
and he says, I testify, verse 21, Testifying means that you're
a witness. You're only called to testify
and called to what you've actually seen and what you've actually
heard. If you're in the Christian ministry,
you've seen something, you've witnessed something, God has
taught you something. So you can't preach that which
you haven't experienced. You can't preach something which
is not experienced as the Scriptures have been open for you and the
Holy Spirit has taken those things of the Lord Jesus Christ and
revealed them to them. And he testified to both the
Jews and the Greeks, he didn't have a different gospel. So we
don't have a different gospel for young people and old people.
We don't have a different gospel for religious people and irreligious
people. Paul is an example, isn't he?
Saul, on that road to Damascus, was as ignorant of the character
of God as the pagan worshippers dancing around a stump somewhere
or a piece of rock. The Jews had many advantages,
but they were ignorant of who God was. He testifying to the
Jews and the Greeks, and these are the two fundamental things
that are in every Christian ministry, repentance toward God and faith
toward our Lord Jesus Christ. I love the towards of it. So
there's no preaching of the gospel without repentance and faith.
If you haven't repented, you're
not saved. And if you don't have faith,
you're not saved. But as with so many things in
this religious world that we live in, the waters are muddied. I read something the other day
from someone I knew. He talked about repentance. Repentance
means to change. You've got to change. You've
got to change what you do. You've got to have remorse for
what you've done. And you've got to never repeat
it again. So you've got to be really sorry
for what you've done, and you've got to stop doing it. And if
you haven't done those two things, you haven't repented. No one ever tells you how sorry
you have to be. How much sorrow is good enough
sorrow to account for repentance that God's pleased with? And
you might stop things outwardly. And you might look very clean
outwardly of what's going on in your heart. What's going on
in your heart? Have you stopped anything in
your heart? Have you stopped being proud? Have you stopped
being self-righteous? I love how Paul's honest in Romans
7. Every time he wants to do good
sins with him, when he's preaching to these people and praying for
these people and weeping for these people on the beach at
Ephesus at Miletus, He's sinning because he's falling short of
the glory of God. See, what is repentance? What
is repentance that can give comfort to the people of God? It's a
change of mind. That's what repentance means.
God has changed my mind. How did you see God? How did
you see God before the Gospel came? How did you see the Lord Jesus
Christ? How did you see yourself before
the Gospel came? It's a change of mind about the
very character of God. It's a change of mind about the
fact that this God who we, in our natural rebellion, find offensive. We find his sovereignty offensive,
don't we? We find the fact that he's absolutely
in charge of even the thoughts you're thinking now is offensive
to people. We find it offensive that he
requires absolute perfect holiness to enter into his presence. We
find it offensive. Naturally, we find it offensive
that he elected people. How dare he elect people? We
find it offensive that he predestinated people. We find it offensive
that he just died for a particular people. All the things that naturally
you find offensive about God are the things that now you love
the most. That's what I find anyway. I
trust it's the same with you. I love the fact that he's sovereign.
I love the fact that like Paul, I have a path laid out for me
and God's gonna come and mess it all up. And in the midst of
all the messed up stuff, He's going to be there. And the messed
up stuff gives Him a great opportunity that I would never have seen
before to reveal His faithfulness and His love and His compassion
and His grace and His mercy. I love the fact that He chose
me. He chose me in Him before the
foundation of the world. which means that I can't mess
it up. He chose me knowing that I was going to do everything
I possibly could to mess everything up I ever touch. He chose me
before the foundation. He predestinated me, and it says
in Ephesians 1, He did it in love. He did it in love, and
He's now made me accepted in the Beloved. I'm accepted in
the Beloved. I don't have to provide any acceptance
of my own. I'm accepted in Him. I've changed
my mind about who God is. I've changed my mind about the
law of God. I thought the law of God was
like this whip over me, and I used to whip other people with it,
and I'd whip myself. and I think I have to keep this,
I have to do this and keep this obedience. All of a sudden you
change your mind, you realise the Lord Jesus Christ has kept
it. I've kept the law of God. I've changed my mind. I've changed my mind about God.
I've changed my mind about who I am. God has changed my mind
about who my saviour is. That's what the preaching of
the gospel is. Now Paul is witnessing, he's testifying to who God is. He's testifying to the glory
of God and the grace of God. It's a change of mind. You see, God's people have repented,
and they are repenting, and they'll continue to repent. And the evidence
of repentance is simple, isn't it? The evidence of repentance
is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the evidence of faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ is repentance. Paul goes on to say, And now
behold, I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the
things that befall me, that shall befall me there. Save the Holy
Ghost witnesses in every city, in all of our journey, all of
our journey since he left Ephesus, everywhere he's been. Someone
has witnessed to him, saying that bonds and affliction abide
me. But none of these things move
me. None of these things move me,
neither count I my life dear unto me." Neither count I my life dear
unto myself. So that I might finish my course
with joy. So how do you finish your course
with joy? Don't count your life dear unto
yourself. People are wanting to be happy
all the time. The Christian has another higher
aim and a higher reward than just happiness of flesh, isn't
it? It's joy. And what's Christian joy? Christian
joy runs much, much deeper than the happiness of flesh, isn't
it? Christian joy is being made nothing of myself and being lost,
being lost and swallowed up, as it were. Paul said it, didn't
he? He said, my life is hid with
Christ in God. God sees Christ and he sees me
hiding. He sees me hiding. The world
wants to exalt itself. The world wants to say, I want
to be happy, I want to be happy. The Christian joy is a joy that
comes from who the Lord Jesus Christ is and simply doing the
right thing. See, it's the ministry, he says, He wants to finish his course
and the ministry which I've received of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul
didn't put himself in the ministry. He was a pattern of all of God's
servants. God will put his people in the
ministry and he put his people amongst people in the ministry
who minister to them, because anyone in ministry needs to be
ministered to all the time. We are interdependent people,
which is what we see in this chapter so gloriously. the ministry I have received
to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. If you're a minister
of the Lord Jesus Christ, if you're made a minister, and if
you're in a ministry, you're going to be in a ministry where
it's going to be a testifying to the gospel, the good news
of the grace of God. If you've witnessed Him, you'll
preach grace. And you won't preach works. And you'll preach grace as the
Bible preaches grace, won't you? You'll preach sovereign grace.
You'll preach electing grace. If grace is ever preached, it's
always saving grace. It's the grace of God that brings
salvation. It's justifying grace. It's redeeming
grace. It's life-giving grace. It's
preserving grace. See, this grace, Paul can testify
to this, wouldn't he? What was he on the Damascus Road?
A murderer of Christians. How low can you go? As righteous
in religion as you could possibly be and as hateful of the Lord
Jesus Christ as you could possibly be. He was murdering Christians
because he couldn't get his hands on the Lord Jesus Christ. It
was as close as he could get to him. And he was saved. And he was loved eternally. So
that's what grace is, isn't it? Grace doesn't demand anything
from you and it doesn't look to anything from you at all.
Grace is free. This grace saved Paul. This grace
of God, this gracious God saved me. This gracious God in that
same activity and in that same pattern has saved all of his
people. Jesus did it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left
a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. It's testifying to this grace. Is that gospel to you? Is the
grace of God gospel to you? Grace is gospel to me. I love
reading about it. I love thinking about it. I love
the operations of grace. I love the fact of grace. I love
the promises of grace. And to finish, he says, I take
you to record this day that I am pure of the blood of all man.
He says, I'm clean. I'm clean, I'm blameless, I'm
innocent. Because he's kept back nothing
that was profitable. Or he says, I have not shown
to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. No matter what
the circumstances and no matter what the opposition, He was going
to declare to them, the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
The Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified saves sinners. In the
early days of our church I used to put a watermark across all
of my sermons, so I did them differently. And it was, the
Lord Jesus Christ saves sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ, I wanted
it on every page. I wanted you to hear it. I wanted
myself to hear it again and again. Paul preached the whole counsel
of God. The whole counsel of God is the Lord Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. He said to the Corinthians, there's
the two things I want to know amongst you is Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. And if our conversation with
people outside could be limited to those things, we'd be extraordinarily
more profitable than having any other debates. The Lord Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. See, to be saved, you need to
hear the whole counsel of God, is what Paul's saying. These
people have heard the whole counsel of God. A half gospel, a perverted
gospel, doesn't save anyone. You are saved by the belief in
the truth. The real gospel, the gospel of
the grace of God, it is, in the next verse, verse 25, it's called
the preaching of the kingdom of God. It's the gospel of the
grace of God. It testifies to the Lord Jesus
Christ and his salvation. It testifies to the glory of
God the Father. It testifies to the glorious
work of God the Holy Spirit bearing witness to the Lord Jesus. It's
all then bearing witness from the scriptures and that's so
scriptures come alive in the preaching of the gospel. So this
testimony that Paul has is the living reality for all regenerated
believers. All sinners saved by grace. All sinners revealed as real
sinners. It's the word of His grace. Let's
turn to verse 32 and we can close in that same chapter. He says,
brethren, I commend you to God. You see, they're in God's hands
always, and God had put them and Paul together in the ministry. And Paul had left them now with
the assurance that what God had promised to do, he would fulfil.
He commends them to God. I commend you to God and I commend
you to the Word of His grace. The Word of His grace, which
is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among
all them that are sanctified. The other part of faithful ministry
that Paul will go on to talk about is that it has necessarily
attended with the glory of the truth is the warnings against
anything that stands opposed to that. May God give us the
grace and grant us his spirit that we might rest in that Gospel,
that we might support each other in proclaiming it, that you might
pray for Norm as he preaches it to you next week, that we
might pray for each other, that we might find ourselves embraced
by each other, that we might find ourselves, because of the
love of God shed abroad in the hearts of his people, rejoicing
in this glorious Saviour. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
help us to commend each other to the word of your grace. Help
us, Heavenly Father, to stand in this world in the opposition
that's been promised for the glory of your dear Son. Heavenly Father, these things
are done in and by your Spirit's work in our lives, testifying
to your dear and precious Son. May that witness bear fruit amongst
us and through us, Heavenly Father, to the glory of your Son in this
world. Make His blood precious, make
His life precious, make His current intercession and His glorious
presence with us precious to us, Heavenly Father. Help us
to see ourselves and this world in the light of who He is and
the promises you've made to us. that we, Heavenly Father, like
your servant Paul, might finish our cause with joy. I pray these things for the glory
of your Son. Bless us for his sake, our Father.
Amen.