Please take your Bibles and turn with me this morning to the book of Acts. Acts chapter 19. Our text today will begin in Acts chapter 19, verses 11 through 20. We are, of course, continuing our study and our journey with Paul on what we identify as his third missionary journey, and in particular today, and at least for a couple of weeks ahead, in Ephesus. You may recall last week as we began this chapter that we recognized that Ephesus became something of the hub or the gospel outreach center to the Gentiles of Asia Minor. Previously, we considered Paul's encounter in the earlier part of this chapter, last time that we were here, Paul's encounter with those who identified themselves as having received the baptism of John. And we addressed the difficulties and the problems with that, probably not recognized as a viable baptism because they had not been properly taught what the baptism of John was. And we also saw that Paul moved from the synagogue as a center point for teaching when opposition arose to the school of Tyrannus, and that became his teaching center here in Ephesus. Now today's text, beginning in verse 11, describes to us the nature of God's work in Ephesus and the results that take place among this culture that is steeped in paganism as well as various forms of spiritism. But most importantly, we see the power of the gospel. the power of the gospel to deliver those who have been enslaved to great spiritual darkness. So begin reading with me. Follow along as I read. In Acts chapter 19 verse 11 through 20. God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul. so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out. But also some of the Jewish exorcists who went from place to place attempted to name over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches. Seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. And the evil spirit answered and said to them, I recognize Jesus and I know about Paul, but who are you? And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified. Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone. And they counted up the price of them and found it 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing. Well, it has often been said that the best way to determine something's purpose is to examine the end product. This truth has been applied to, for example, you see a large building that you would recognize as a manufacturing facility. If you want to know the purpose of that building, the purpose of that facility, you can go to the back door and see what comes out. See what is produced, whether it be a particular textile, perhaps it be a part or even an entire automobile. The best way at times to discern what it's all about is to go to the end of the line and see what in fact comes forth. I want us this morning to consider the purpose of the church as we see here in our text and applying that same principle as presented here in our text of what is the end product. What's accomplished by the church here in our text? Part of the problem we have today in many churches, in much of evangelicalism, that there is much uncertainty about the purpose of the church. And there's muddled results about what the goal is, what is the church trying to accomplish. And so you have a variety of opinions and you have a variety of results. Well, the remedy for that is, as we find many times is the case, to go to the scriptures. Where that which is oftentimes unclear in our day and in our culture is made more clear by what we find in the scriptures. In particular, considering what is or what are God's purpose or purposes for the church. And again, the answer to that is we look to see what is accomplished. What's the end result? What's produced? And in particular for our our our focus today, as we look at this text, what does Luke emphasize as the writer of the book of Acts? What does he emphasize in our text as being the important work? of the church. We always recognize and we always affirm that there is a sovereign God working in His church. A sovereign God who is accomplishing all of His purposes, all of His intent, all which He designs the church to do. And if that be the case, to examine the results of His work. to examine what is in fact coming out. What is the end product? What's the end result? And so this morning we want to consider what our text reveals to us about God's intent, God's design, God's purpose for the church. And I want to set before you three things from our text today. that will help us to see something of God's intent in His design and His purpose for the church. First of all, we see from our text the church as a place of divine exhibition. The church as a place of divine exhibition. That first and foremost, as in all of creation, that the church's purpose and design and intent is a display of God's glory. It is the place where God shows forth Himself. Where God shows forth His work. So that the focus of the church is always that God is at work through His chosen people. We see, first of all, in verse 11, that God is the agent at work here. Chapter 19, verse 11, as Luke begins to address and describe what takes place here, where does he begin? He begins in verse 11 with God, doesn't he? That God was performing extraordinary miracles. God was the God was the agent. and that where God has his church, that he is at work accomplishing his will, his purposes. But again, the focus here is the display of God, God exhibiting himself, God working mightily. Secondly, we see here that Paul is the agency through which through whom God works, that God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul. God is the agent. Paul is the human agency that God accomplishes his work through human agency, through human hands. That's not to bring praise through that or bring praise to that agency. Doesn't bring praise and glory to Paul. The marvel is that God accomplishes what he accomplishes. That God accomplishes marvelous things. God accomplishes things that only God can do through means such as us. That His purposes, that His work, that His will is not thwarted even through fallen people. That it is God working through Paul. However ordinary or extraordinary the work may be, the means is through people. And thirdly, we see in this, we see the agenda, and that is that what God is doing here is the miraculous. That God was performing extraordinary miracles. Now, to some degree, we ought to think, well, any miracle is extraordinary, isn't it? Now, if God does anything, then that is an extraordinary thing that we look at and say, well, this isn't what we typically would expect. This isn't the way that God typically works. We understand in the context, though, in the book of Acts, that we have seen the New Testament church being established and oftentimes accompanied by signs and wonders. And we've gone through the book of Acts many times and and noted how the terminology of signs and wonders is used by Luke. in reference to the works of Jesus, in reference to the works of the apostles, in reference to those who go forth expanding the Gospels, taking forth the Gospel. So there have been these signs and wonders which we would, in fact, identify as miraculous works. There have been the speaking in tongues, the manifestation of tongues. There have been healings. There have been exorcisms of evil spirits. And on and on it goes. But when Luke speaks here of the miracles that take place at Ephesus, compared to what has been going on before in the book of Acts, Luke describes these as extraordinary miracles. These are not your ordinary run of the mill, typical miracles that have been witnessed time and time again. They're not the normal. They're not the ordinary miracles that have been taking place. The one thing to note about. Ephesus and the part of Asia in which Ephesus was found, that it was an area that was full of various superstitions. Magic, and by that we do not mean mere, mere sleight of hand, but engaging spirits, charms. And those types of things were well known in Ephesus and in this culture. And so what you see taking place, and he describes in verse 12, the extraordinary nature of these miracles, such that handkerchiefs or aprons, pieces of cloth that were paused from his work as a tent maker, that they were carried from his body to the sick and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out. Extraordinary miracles beyond what had typically been done as the gospel advanced throughout the book of Acts. that there were the taking of these claws, and as those claws were taken, diseases departed, evil spirits exercised, compelled to go away. So what we find here is that God choosing to show forth His glory and His power in this particular culture in extraordinary ways, in extraordinary manner. Things that Only God can do things that are beyond the resources and the abilities of man. God working. Hence, in the end, God glorified. God on display here. And so it is a truth for us to take to heart as we consider this, that the church is first and foremost, first and foremost about the display of God and His glory for Him to show Himself as He would be pleased, as He desires to do so in any given place, under any given circumstances. the church as a place of display for the glory of God, the very existence of the church as a testimony to the grace and the mercy of God, is it not? What's the makeup of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ? What type of people make up the church of the Lord Jesus Christ? Those who are once the enemies of God, Even as Josh read just a few moments ago from 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and the list of sins that were named there by Paul in this letter to the church at Corinth. And where does he go when he gets into that list? Of such were some of you. You look at that list and you think, boy, this is pretty wretched. But that's the kind of people, that's the kind of people that make up the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sinners. rebels, the enemies of God. So the fact that there is a church even existing is a testimony to the grace and the mercy of God, that God calls forth a people to be his own. And that people is called the church. Not only by the church's existence. is God glorified, but also by its continuance, that the church continues. The church continues to exist today a testimony to the sovereign power and the plan and the purposes of God. How many times through church history have there been those who have risen up and have declared that the church is dead, the church is irrelevant, the church is outdated, the church will simply cease to be, cease to exist in a matter of years. But what do we find? We find that the church continues, doesn't it? And those who have proclaimed the church's death and irrelevance have gone on. And they will continue to go on and pass away. But the church will continue to go forth because it is God's entity. It is God's church and is according to his glorious purpose and his plan. So the fact that the church continues in a display of the glory of God, it is a divine exhibition. God's purposes here, as we've seen, accomplished through human agency. Again, not to bring glory to us. That's not glory to us, but it is a testimony to the unsearchable wisdom and the enabling power of God's grace that he accomplishes his work through such weak and fallen creatures. It's a display of the glory of God. that God is on exhibit in the church and what he does. And that God remains free to work as he pleases in the church through human agency by means of ordinary as well as extraordinary works. The church is about what God is doing. The church is about God being on display, His glory displayed. And may there be more and more of those things that we see that we are compelled to testify this is of the Lord. The Lord is doing these things. And after week, after week, after week, as we pray, Lord, do a work at Cornerstone that is disproportionate to who we are. Do something that it's clearly the work of God. That it can't come forth from our resources, from our finagling, from our mere planning, but our being cast upon the Lord, waiting upon Him, being a people that are willing to be used by Him. And that it be the extraordinary things. So many times we become much too content with the ordinary, don't we? We get content because it's easy. It doesn't take much faith in the ordinary things of life. But to be before the Lord and say, Lord, what would you have us to look to you for? What extraordinary ways would you choose to show forth your thing? Show forth yourself here. God has ways of doing that, doesn't he? But to be reminded as Luke sets before us here, that God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul. May God be pleased to work in such a place as this, and that what He does, that it be a divine exhibition, a display of the glory of God. Second thing we see in our text, that the church is a place of Christ's exaltation. Christ is exalted. Now we have an interesting accounting of things given to us beginning in verse 13. Some of the Jewish exorcists, and exorcists are those who cast out evil spirits, who went forth from place to place attempting to name over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, I adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches, in particular, seven sons of one Sceva, who is a Jewish chief priest. Most regard that he was not necessarily of the Jewish priestly line, but rather he had taken something of this title upon himself. He had identified himself as a chief priest. Some have suggested that if the punctuation of our day were available to Luke, that he would have put it in quotation marks, chief priest. So these seven sons of Oneskiva, this Jewish chief priest, they were doing this. Well, how do we interpret this and how do we understand this group of exorcists? I think we must look at it this way. These groups of exorcists, those who would cast out evil spirits, are simply those who claim this ability. They claim to have the power to deliver victims from evil spirits. And again, particularly these seven sons of Sceva, who was a self-proclaimed type of chief priest. And F.F. Bruce notes this for us in understanding something of what may be going on here. That among practitioners of magic in ancient times, Jews enjoyed high respect, for they were believed to have specially effective spells at their command. In particular, the fact that the name of the God of Israel was not to be pronounced by vulgar lips was generally known among the pagans. So they understood the principle that the Jews wouldn't speak the name of God, as best we can determine Yahweh, that they would not speak the name. for fear of violating the command of taking the Lord's name in vain. Well, the pagans knew that, and they misinterpreted that according to their regular magical principles. several magical papyri which have been preserved to our day. Now, they're not papyri that had magical powers. They're papyri that related some of the magic that was believed in this day. Some of those that were preserved to our day contain attempts to reproduce the correct pronunciation of the ineffable name. So what happens here? You have these seven sons of Sceva. They've witnessed Paul's power, Paul's power over evil spirits, what he does, again, in the name of the Lord Jesus. And so having witnessed Paul's power, these attempt to imitate his success. And so they simply adjure these evil spirits, command these evil spirits, taking the name of Jesus. And so you have. Verse 14, they attempted to name over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus saying, I adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches. What apparently happens in this particular scenario is this. That they have a genuine encounter with an evil, demonic spirit, probably for the first time. That they're encountered, perhaps they had been in situations where there were those who had been possessed by evil spirits, but they had no power over them. There is no power over them, apart from the name of God, the true and the living God, and of course, His Son, Jesus Christ. And so, these are challenged. These seven sons of Sceva attempted this to, I will adjure you by the name of Jesus, who Paul preaches. And the response in verse 15 was, and the evil spirit answered and said to them, I recognize Jesus and I know about Paul, but who are you? You've no authority. You've no place of importance. You've certainly no right to name the name of Jesus over us. And so they challenged their authority and their power. And in verse 16, And the man in whom was the evil spirit, he leaped on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them. so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded." Well, that's the story of what took place, but that's not where it ends here. Look then to verse 17, and this is where we're going. This is where Luke's emphasis lies. This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus. and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified." Here's the result. Here's the end of things here. Here is the goal. The name of the Lord Jesus is magnified. Now we need to understand that when we speak of the name of the Lord Jesus, that the name is representative of the person. It's not that this name is exalted. It is the exaltation of the person of Christ. He is exalted. He is highly esteemed. So that's the reason that you find that there is no power for those who attempted to merely take the name of Jesus and use it in some type of a superstitious manner as well as some type of a mantra you carry. You place the name of Jesus and you can do these things. It doesn't work that way. It was to take the name of Jesus in vain. for them to attempt to do so, because they had no connection with the name. Most importantly, they had no connection with the person. That the name must indicate the presence of Jesus. To speak of the name of Jesus is to speak of the presence of Christ. It is His power over the spirits. Not a power in the naming of a name, but the power in a person. The power of Jesus Christ. And so what's shown forth here is that the name or the person of Jesus Christ is far superior to the superstitious spiritism of this pagan Ephesians. And it's certainly far superior to the fraudulent works of these Jews who claim to be exorcist. There was true power. There was true deliverance in this name of Jesus, in the person of Jesus. So there was no question, no question in the minds of these people about the reality of an unseen spiritual realm. There wasn't a debate among these. They knew it was real. And in that spiritual realm, they saw the power of Jesus. The person of Christ. Jesus who has been given the name above every other name. That name is Lord. Lord God Almighty, before whom every knee will bow. That's His name. He is exalted to the highest of places. We find even the language of Isaiah 52 in speaking of the servant who is the one who is exalted, speaking of Christ Himself. He is the Lord God Almighty and so Christ is set forth before them as the true power in this spiritual realm. Christ is exalted and so the end result in verse 17 is that fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified. So that's the name that we proclaim. Again, not just the stating of a name, but the person. It is the person of Christ. And we seize every opportunity to see Jesus exalted. And we speak with clarity of God's work in the person and the work of Jesus Christ. I've always got my ear tuned when someone is speaking about God in their lives. They're speaking about the things that God is doing, the things that God is showing them and giving thanks to God. I always have my ear tuned and listen. Is the name of Jesus ever coming out of this? You see, that's what we must do is we must speak with clarity of God's work in the person and in the work of Jesus Christ alone to clarify that God's redemptive work that the saving of those God saves is through Jesus Christ alone. We exalt Christ. We want Christ to be magnified. We want His name to be known. So we speak of Jesus, not in some vague terms about God, very particularly speaking of Jesus. On the other hand, we must also guard against superstitious and unbiblical understandings, even within Christianity, that many who bear the name of Christ, sad to say many I think are not truly converted, but will approach Christianity in a manner that's more similar to ancient superstitions than biblical Christianity. to guard against that, to affirm the reality of a spiritual realm. We recognize that that's true, to affirm that there are spiritual beings with real power, but also to know that there is no power in merely saying or chanting the name Jesus, that the power lies in the person of Christ, in the presence of Christ. There is the power. So that we must have a connection with Him. So we confidently take up the name of Jesus. The name through whom all are saved. If they are to be saved. The church as a place of Christ's exaltation. And finally we see from our text here, The church as a place of gospel expansion. Luke describes for us here in verse 20 the advance of the gospel. So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing. If we back up just to see a bit of what he's describing to us here in verses 18 and 19. It says, many also of those who had believed kept coming. confessing and disclosing their practices. Many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone. And they counted out the price of them and found 50,000 pieces of silver. And it's in regard to that that Luke says, so the word of the Lord was growing mightily. and prevailing. What is this word of the Lord? It's simply this. It is the gospel. It's the gospel message. It's the gospel regarding the true nature of God, who is the one that has created the world. It is the gospel regarding man, man's condition, man's fallen state. It is the gospel regarding sin. true explanation of the corruptive power and the pervasive influence of sin within us and the corruption of the human nature. And it is the gospel of Jesus as the Christ, the only Savior. That is the Word of the Lord here that is described as growing mightily and prevailing. In what sense? Growing mightily. It's described almost as an unstoppable force, isn't it? And you see that in the book of Acts. As we've gone through, it's as though there's a wave that has been set in motion, and that wave goes forth, and it is the advance of the gospel. It is the advance of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, God working as He wills, and it cannot be stopped. Who would ever have thought? Who would ever have thought that a message about a man named Jesus in Jerusalem would have swept the nation of Israel and the surrounding nations as it did? Who would ever have imagined that? But it is the word of the Lord. It is the gospel growing mightily. This unstoppable force that extends to an ever-widening sphere just goes on and continues to go on and on. But it's also described here in verse 20 as prevailing. That the gospel going forth is a conquering power. And the idea that's conveyed here by the word that's translated prevailing is the idea of conquering over adverse foes such as any one of us. Folks, the Gospel conquered our hearts. It's not as though that we were kind of on the right track and the gospel came along and finished the picture for us. That's not the picture you get from the scripture. That we were the adverse foes against God and against His kingdom. We're the enemies of God, the enemies of Christ. And the gospel by the grace of God sent forth by the Spirit of God came and it conquered, came and prevailed within us. Just as we see described here, God's prevailing word, God's truth in His kingdom advancing, conquering the foes as He wills, winning some, lying aside others. It's evidenced by the deliverance from evil and the darkness that's described for us there in verse 18. Those who believe, they kept coming. kept confessing and disclosing their practices. You know, the beginning point of conversion was just the beginning. As they began, the gospel began to penetrate deeper and deeper into their hearts and their understanding, they realized that there's no compatibility between the Christian gospel and these things, and so they brought their books, they brought their magic charms or whatever else they had, and they began to burn them in the sight of everyone, renouncing them. that the total price of it all is 50,000 pieces of silver. That's some significant value. Linsky notes in his commentary that it is the word that grew and prevailed in the double sense. It grew and prevailed in the double sense of extending to more and more converts. In other words, more people are coming into the kingdom by regeneration, but also more and more filling their hearts and their lives. See, the gospel continues to prevail in our hearts, doesn't it? It's a continual process. Yes, there is the point of regeneration, but the gospel continues to expose to us sin, expose to us areas of our life that we need to bring before the Lord, so that the gospel is not stagnant. The gospel is a power, it's the power of God working in the hearts of those who hear, both believer and non-believer. First in our hearts is those who are non-believers, but continuing in our hearts as those who believe. And so we see the importance and the necessity of the gospel as we've talked about before. The necessity of the gospel for the believer. The gospel is still working in us. And so we see gospel expansion here. The gospel going forth. And in Luke's summary, the important thing to note is this. Verse 20, the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing. It's a mighty word. It's a prevailing word. in the hearts of men. So we determine, as the people of God, as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, to determine to make God's gospel message known for His truth to advance and to conquer in the hearts of whom He wills. You know, so many have determined and declared that the gospel today, it has no effect. It needs to be made more relevant. It needs to be brought up to date. But it's the same gospel that's always won. It is the same gospel that's always prevailed. It is the same gospel that goes forth growing mightily. It's God's gospel. So let us be bold, not in our abilities, not in our resources, but in God's purpose and in God's plan to save through the proclamation of the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ alone. To be confident of that. That that's the means that God has ordained. To be bold in that message. So what then are the divine purposes of the church that we see here in our text? We see this. It is a place of the display of God's glory. It's a divine exhibition. And may God show forth Himself. May God show forth His works, His power in His church in this day and in this place. It is the place of exalting Christ. That the name of Christ being magnified through the church. It is a place of gospel expansion, the gospel going forth from the church, the gospel going forth, growing mightily and prevailing in the hearts of people. That's what the church is about. Granted, we have other things that we do. But this is the heart of what the church does. And so when Luke describes to us the things that are taking place in the church at Ephesus, this is what he gives us. That God is working here. That Christ's name is being magnified. And the Word of the Lord is growing mightily and prevailing. If that's being accomplished through the ministry of Cornerstone Chapel, we're doing well. See, we can look at our church and we can look at our size and say, you know, we can't do a lot of things or we're not doing a lot of things a lot of other churches are doing. This is something any church, any size, any place can do. And it's called to do. And if we're doing these things, we are doing well. God help us. Help us to be faithful in regard to these. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word to us. We thank You for what we see of Your work in Your church, in the New Testament. And though it may not appear in the eyes of men of that which is glamorous, that which brings great attention to itself, it is that which You are pleased to do. And so, Lord, we ask for that here. Lord, that You would work. That You would show forth Your glory by what You accomplish. That the name of Christ would be magnified through Your people. And that the Word of the Lord would grow mightily and prevail. Lord, to be faithful in these things that in many ways would be despised by the modern church. But these things that you are quite content and satisfied to accomplish within your people. Lord, help us not only to be content with these things. Lord, help us to be faithful in these things. This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.