a personal, practical, intense, realistic description of Paul's ministry among the Ephesians which, at least for a portion of the time, he shared with these very elders and then as an example, a model for them as they move forward into the future without Paul and yet endeavoring to build upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. We'll read the same verses we read again this morning, beginning in verse 17. Now from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. And when they came to him, he said to them, you yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews, how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me." But I do not count my life of any value or as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care or shepherd or feed the church of God which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands minister to my necessities and to those who were with me. And all things I have shown you, that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He Himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And when He had said these things, He knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all. They embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship. There are clearly things in this passage of Scripture that apply very, very specifically to Paul as an apostle, and would not necessarily be directly transferable in every era of the church after that. Paul was a foundation layer as one of the twelve apostles, and therefore, for the sake of that, he chose not to insist upon the right of financial support. Paul faced wolves in a manner that most generations of God's people will not. In many respects, Paul's life was a fulfillment of Revelation chapter 12. where John, in very symbolic language, speaks of Satan being cast out of heaven and then running down to earth to try and persecute and destroy the woman, the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and her child, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus. So Paul faced, perhaps, a level of intensity because of the foundational error in which he worked that we don't. But at the same time, there's a lot of things here that are directly applicable. And it's clear as Paul's teaching that as he appeals to the Ephesians, he's hearkening back to his own example to them repeatedly to say, this is what I did, this is what you're going to have to do. This is how I did it, this is how you should do it. I've set you a pattern in this, now go do it. We saw this morning some of those things in Paul's own life. His selflessness, his intensity, his humility, his boldness. We also saw his attitude toward God's Word. Tonight I'd like to turn now, beginning in verse 28 more specifically, to the incentives that he gives to faithful eldership. The incentives that he gives. It's important to have incentives. The Bible is filled with encouragements and incentives for us to be faithful. God never says, I want you to do this, shut up, don't ask any questions, I'm not going to give you any encouragement, just do it. Now He could, and sometimes in our hardness it may seem like that's what He's doing, but usually He gives us encouragements. He says, do this because if you do, I will bless you in this way, or I will be with you," or whatever the specific promise might be. Jesus, this is how He pastored. This is how He taught as the Son of God and Savior of sinners. In Matthew 6, chapter 21, He gives this fundamental incentive obedience connection. He says, where a man's treasure is, there will his heart be also. Now you might think, where's the incentive? The incentive is to make sure your treasure's in the right place, to make sure that you value the things that are most important at the level that you should, and if you do, your heart will pursue after it. So this relationship, this connection between incentive and obedience, incentive and faithfulness, incentive and motivation is found throughout Scripture. And Paul mentions three here. He mentions in verse 28, He says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Here's our word episkopos in Greek, from which we get the word bishop. It's very clear from this address that Paul doesn't know anything about two different offices, elders and then the bishops who are over them. Because he's talking to the elders and he tells them to bishop. So again here, what does the word bishop mean? It means an overseer. But the point that I want to draw from verse 28 is notice he says, the Holy Spirit made you overseers. Now they needed to let that sink in for just a second, because after all, most of them had probably been converted through Paul's ministry. They had been trained by Paul. They, at some point, had been recognized, elected, nominated, whatever word you want to use, by the congregation. And yet Paul would have them remember, even though I'm leaving, that doesn't impact what you're doing. Because I didn't make you. I didn't create the church. This doesn't belong to me. You are not elders because I bestowed something on you." He says here, the Holy Spirit made you overseers. Now again, we've already studied some in the last couple of weeks, the gift of rule and the gift of government. And yes, I think that's clearly in Paul's mind here. But something more, to remind them, listen, you're in office with the gifts that you have at this particular time. because the Holy Spirit has raised you up, called you, equipped you in order to serve in this capacity. And there's at least two or three things, I think, by way of implication, they were to take from this. First of all, confidence. Confidence. Because, after all, Paul's leaving. They clearly loved him. And they weren't going to see him again. Now, he'd already left previously to go on some other missionary journeys. He's back again. He says, this is it. I'm not going to see you again. Why did he tell them that the Holy Spirit had made them overseers? To remind them, listen, this is the work of God in the world. It's not your work. It's not a particular sect's work. It's not a particular man's work. It's the Holy Spirit's work. He's the one who gifts and calls and equips and raises up and leads the congregation to recognize these things. So be confident. Be confident in the duties that you need to exercise, which we'll talk more about in just a second. It also gives boldness. You know, one of the things we see in Scripture is that leaders have to have a consciousness of the fact that their ultimate level of accountability is God. Now granted, there's a mutual accountability that we all have within the body of Christ. But, as you also know, not all believers at all times are equally faithful. We have to correct each other. We have to correct our children. We have to confront one another within the body. We all sin a hundred times and a hundred ways every single day. Well, the elder faces these things. The elder faces the responsibility of having to oversee, having to confront, having to rebuke, And he's going to, at times, have some stubbornness that he meets with. And so by reminding them, listen, the Holy Spirit has made you an overseer, it gives great boldness and confidence. It also encourages perseverance because there's the tendency at times to give up. I mean, we see that in our day, you know, the older, more conservative, reformed congregations, many of them have finally said, well, We're just not going to grow the church this way, so we better become a little bit more relevant, a little bit more seeker-friendly. whatever the case might be. But again, Paul's words come ringing through the ages. Listen, the Holy Spirit's put you in office. And therefore, His gifts are sufficient. His grace is sufficient. His presence is sufficient. His power is sufficient. His ownership of you as His leaders is sufficient. So be faithful. Depend upon Him. Trust in Him. This was very important. Elders today have to have the exact same attitude and same memory. We're not naturalists. I wonder sometimes if naturalism has not infected the congregations of the Lord Jesus today more than we might realize. Meaning, for example, that the Holy Spirit is present among us. That's a simple fact. We might say it. But He's not present among us because we feel a slight tingle in the small of our back, or somebody's jumping in the aisle, or this kind of thing. He's here by the promise of God. He's here gifting. He's here leading. and elders as partakers of one of the gifts of the Spirit need to remember this as they face difficult issues in our time. For example, as they try to lead and maintain everything from a proper emphasis upon Christian education in the home and Christian school, to faithfulness in worship, to practicing church discipline. Listen, Jesus said, listen, the world hated you because it hated me. And to the degree that the spirit of worldliness enters the church, ruling elders are going to face opposition here and elsewhere. They need to remember their divine appointment to give them confidence, to give them boldness, to encourage them to persevere. There's a second thing in verse 28 that was undoubtedly meant to be an incentive. He says, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which he purchased or obtained with his own blood." Now, not only is this phrase, church of God which he purchased with his own blood, one of the clear New Testament references where Christ is called God, because clearly God, strictly speaking, doesn't have blood. So this is Jesus being called God. And you may have some silly notes in your margin. Well, some texts read Christ or Lord. The best, the oldest, the most pervasive texts read the Church of God, which He purchased with His own blood. Now, why did Paul throw this in here? He's trying to fill out space in his address? No. He's trying to remind the Ephesian elders of some important things. Number one, Jesus owns the flock. Ownership. He owns it. He shed his blood for it. You're not free to be creative. You're not free to be lazy or indifferent. You must be vigilant shepherds because it's a flock that belongs to someone else, the Son of God. I think also love is implied. Love. Jesus loved His own to the end and gave Himself on the cross for our sins. It stands to reason by implication that elders must remember this as they deal even with the hard-headed or even with difficult disciplinary cases. That the underlying motivation is to remember Christ shed His blood for this flock and therefore There must be concrete, heartfelt, sincere love. There's also a motivation here, I think, that Christ is going to keep the flock. He purchased it. This is a very important verb. It means He obtained it. He obtained it. Now this gets into some of those precious biblical doctrines. Sometimes they're the subject of dispute. Mostly they should be the object of our veneration and thankfulness. Things like particular atonement or particular redemption, or limited atonement, whatever you want to call that. I don't really like all those words. But the point here is that when Jesus died on the cross, He died for His sheep. And when He died for those sheep, He obtained, past tense, their redemption. So that His death was not a potential sacrifice, the difference being made up by my faith. No, it was the shepherd giving His life, as it says in John 17, for the people that God the Father gave Him out of the world. Now think about this for just a minute. Jesus said in John 10, 28 and 29, and no one can pluck those sheep out of my hand. And no one can pluck them out of my father's hand. And he's even greater than I. speaking, of course, in his lowliness, in his humiliation, as our mediator. The point here I'm trying to make is, Paul was reminding them, Christ purchased this sheep, Christ will keep them. And He uses you as a means to keep them. So be vigilant. Be faithful. There's a third incentive that we see in verse 29, and it's more negative. And, of course, this is the wolves that we mentioned briefly this morning. Wolves. grievous wolves is the adjective there. He calls these men, these doctrines, these philosophies, wolves, I think for several reasons. Number one, the enemies of the gospel are ferocious. Wolves are usually not kept as pets, they're usually not friendly, they usually don't play ring around the rosies with sheep. Wolves eat sheep. They always have, they always will, more than likely. And Paul's reminding them they're ferocious, they're destructive to the flock, and they must not be given any quarter. He mentions two kinds of wolves here. He mentions wolves that come from without. He says in verse 29, after my departure, wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And of course, Paul may have been thinking of the Judaizers that had hounded him in Corinth. Oh, the other cities. Antioch was the one I was thinking of. He may have been thinking of the Gnostics that had begun to twist the Gospel to their own end. False philosophy. Persecution. Whatever the case might be, Paul says there are real enemies out there that are dedicated to the destruction of God and biblical religion. Now, of course, there are also, Paul says, wolves from within. He says in verse 30, from your own selves. which could be a reference to the body of leadership. It could be a little bit more broader internal reference to the church, which it probably is, and then it would include the other. But the point here is, he says in verse 30, it comes from within. And men will arise speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. Not many years after this, Epaphras would come to Paul when he was in Rome and say, Paul, you've got to get to work. This Gnostic thing has blown up. And it would give rise to the books of Ephesians, the books of Colossians, and it's referenced also in 1 and 2 Timothy. In other words, false doctrine, false piety in the church advocated by people within the church as supposedly the way a church can be faithful and consistent with God that's really twisted and draws away the people of God. from the truth of His Word. Interestingly enough, if we can take what John will later write about the Ephesian congregation in Revelation chapter 2, at one level, these elders and the congregations heeded Paul's warning. At another level, they didn't because they lost their first love for whatever reason, and so Jesus had to condemn them on that level. But Paul gives the warning here. You know, it's very interesting the mention of wolves, this is like right away, this is within 20 years after Pentecost, 25 years when this event initially occurred. So much for the idea that the early church was utopian, it's very clear that from the get-go the believers were in a pitched battle to contend earnestly for the faith as Paul commanded them to. It was a constant battle. We've seen this from the very beginning. And we see it in our day. We see many wolves that have come from within that are operative right now. At one level, the whole seeker-friendly movement. Under the guise of relevance and let's reach them, it's really a perversion of the gospel because it doesn't confront men for their sins and encourage Christ alone and proclaim His Word alone. The Word of Faith movement, which is still very alive and well in churches today. You know, under the guise of faith and the Holy Spirit, it's man is God. Man setting the course for what God can do by His formulas. We mentioned this morning liberalism. Liberalism. In the early church, what was the covering? The covering was we need to be scientific. We need to bring in the findings of the Darwinians. And of course, what was it really? The religion of humanity. Humanism. Denying the authority of the Bible. We see it a little bit now even in the reformed communities. In the Auburn Avenue type stuff that comes out there. Under the guise of covenant, covenant, covenant, if we scream it loud enough it'll stick. Really what we have is a hyper-sacramentalism. Baptismal regeneration when some Judaistic errors thrown in there. The point here is, Paul warns them, as I tried to get across this morning and it always sounds, I know, a little bit shrill, when you bring these things out, we are in a battle. And Paul mentioned that from the very beginning to the elders, to the leaders of the church. Wolves from without, wolves from within. We need to recognize them in our day. Now again here, I'm not advocating that we have some kind of bunker mentality or we have an exaggerated sense of our own self-importance. We don't need to have any of these things. But we do need to be alert. We do need to be awakened to the fact that there is a world out there that hates God and hates His Word. and will do what it can through outward force and even within through deceptive scheming. Satan has always done his best work within the church, not by huge ugly Frankensteins from the outside, but by crafty seminary professors and slick preachers from the inside. Always. Always. Roman Emperors come in. Nero's got his pitch and his torch. They take it manfully. They take it bravely. Men, women, young people. And the church is stronger. When those outside pressures come in and they're hideous and they're ugly and you see them for what they are, most believers are able to say, you know, we're just going to have to resist this, we're going to have to take this, it's just the way it is. No matter how hot they heat the gates of hell, we know Christ is going to prevail. But boy, let those errors come inside. Let them be from a favorite preacher. Let them be from a seminary. Let them be in a book by someone who's reputable. And you began to see things that look close to what God says in His Word, but are really corruptions and abuses of it. the Roman Catholic era that enslaved the church for 500 years. We could go on and on. I won't keep listing all the wolves of the past, but I simply bring it up to remind you the wolves are not dead. They're still active today. You are called to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ, and elders and pastors, you are called to be leaders in Christ's great campaign. And that's what he gets to in verses 28 and 31 when he talks about the duties. They're duties of faithful elders. Now, I'm just going to highlight three words. Clearly, even in a week of sermons, we couldn't look at every detail in these verses, but three words really stand out here. He says in verse 28, very first phrase, pay careful attention. It means to give heed to. It means to watch, to be vigilant. And notice they are to be vigilant to themselves, to watch over their own life, to watch over their own doctrine, as well as to all the flock. They are to watch. They are to be vigilant. And of course, the men that you select and nominate when we begin this here in a couple of weeks, you need to make sure these are sober-minded men able to watch and faithful on guard. He mentions more specifically there, pay careful attention to, to care for, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. Here the word means to feed like a shepherd, to feed like a shepherd. The idea here, of course, certainly would involve the word. It would involve personal knowledge of the sheep. It would involve an awareness of exactly what their needs are, things that as elders we have to labor to obtain. The important things about pay careful attention to, give heed, watch, see, is that all of these verbs are in the imperative. They are commands. Just like an earthly shepherd is on guard for wolves in the fly. I saw this again at my stepfather's house when we were up there a few weeks ago. Of course, he's got a sheep dog to help him. And I hadn't been around a sheepdog before. Now, normally speaking, this dog is big and drooly and dirty. And everybody's always saying, get out of here, whatever his name is. But brother at night, that dog comes alive. And you can hear howling in the distance somewhere in the back 40 or the back 600, whatever it is. And off this dog goes like a bolt of lightning in the dark. In many respects, that's the picture here Paul gives of a faithful elder, faithful pastors. They're vigilant. They're alert. They know how easy it is for the sheep to be scattered. They assume the personal vigilant oversight responsibilities and they move quickly. The verbs are emotional. They're very personal. expressing not only personal involvement, but a personal, this is what I am, an embracing of that role, to watch over, to give heed, and to feed the flock. And again, I would simply encourage you, encourage the ruling elders here now, encourage those who might feel God is raising them up for that, to remember that we do face a real enemy. I know you've heard me say that several times today. You face the enemy of sin within. You face the enemy of those who hate Christ without. And there's not going to be any detente between these two. It's not like we could all sit around a big political table together, discuss our differences, and agree to live together happily ever after. It's never happened. It never will. Because Christ's claims are comprehensive. His lordship is exclusive. His kingdom is the only one that there is. And there's something we have to remember as Christians. And that is the unbelieving world at one level, even those who haven't been exposed, hardly any, to the gospel at one level, there's an inner war in their own hearts against God and against His Word. We have totally forgotten that in our day. Totally. We assume men are neutral. We assume everybody's basically friendly, basically good. And we forget, no, there's light and there's darkness. I listened to some out on the radio the other day. You know, well, there's gray. I mean, there's really nothing black and white. It's all gray. Again, that's the lie of the devil. There's God's Word. There's Satan's Word. There's faith. There's unbelief. There's sheep. There's goats. We've got to get back to the Bible's way of thinking on this in our own lives, in our understanding of leadership within the church, that there is a real enemy that hates God. But, here's the encouraging thing, there's real weapons that we have. And notice Paul didn't say here to these elders, listen, I'm leaving, you're doomed. Okay, because I'm an apostle and you're not, and therefore these wolves are going to come in, they're going to eat you alive, they're going to have a sheep barbecue, and they're going to start with you. Paul didn't do that. Paul did not assume an attitude of defeat, because he knew there was not going to be a defeat. Now he knew that there might be suffering, but as real as the enemy was, Paul was equally persuaded, but our weapons are more real and stronger. And therefore, to the degree that we use those weapons, remember like we talked about this morning, the whole counsel of God, publicly from house to house, Paul talking to the elders here, holding back nothing that's profitable, the sheep will be protected. They will be. And I guess that's the thing that I get left with every time I read this passage of Scripture, is that as realistically as Paul describes the dangers the Ephesian elders were facing, he doesn't walk away from it with a defeatist mentality, there's no hope, everything's doomed. He assumes here, his very commands assume, that if the pastors and elders of the church will do their job, the sheep will be protected. because Christ has purchased them with His own blood. The Holy Spirit has raised up you to be overseers within the church. And for the people of God, you ought to take great consolation from this. Great consolation, because everybody out there today, well, not everybody, but a good number of people are saying, run for the hills. We can't do anything about this. Secularism is going to win. Get out your generator, grow your wheat, whatever the case might be. This thing's over with. But remember, that's not a biblical attitude. Christ says, these are My sheep. I gave My blood for them. I've sent My Spirit to raise up overseers. You use My Word, you will be protected. Here's the thing that we need to remember is that Christ has raised up the men in the church, elders, to beat off wolves. And as long as you stay under that oversight and that protection and seek it and don't wander off, you will be protected. And there's great encouragement on that. Great. Now, you know, you think to yourself, you know, how do I know, somebody said this to me, again, I think it was a younger person not long ago, you know, how do I know that God's going to keep me to the end? And there's a variety of ways you can know that. You can remember God's promise. You can remember how powerful Jesus' blood is. You can remember what He said, nobody's able to pluck you out of the hand of the Father. Nobody, nobody. You can remember what Paul said in Romans 8, that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Nothing. You can remember that. Well, here's something else you can remember. Jesus has raised up leaders in the church to beat off the wolves. And so if you stay faithful and stay under the authority structure that Christ has ordained, He will protect. Because the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty to the demolishing of strongholds. And that leads me to verse 32 where Paul gives to, could be one, the empowerment of the office. Now this is kind of toward the end of the address. He says, And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace who is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Now, we can't begin to do justice to all these words and with just a few passing comments, but I would call attention there. He says, I commend you to God. That's a very interesting, it's an old Greek verb that means to entrust or to deposit, to deposit. Paul used this word, I believe, in 1st Timothy, maybe 2.8 or 2.18, where he says to Timothy, I've entrusted you to God at the end of Paul's ministry. He then, I think it's in 2nd Timothy 2.2, where Paul says, you commit the word to other faithful teachers who will instruct the rest of God's people. The idea here is, is Paul saying, listen, you were never mine to begin with. God led you to me, me to you, you were converted, you were trained, you've been watching over the congregation, but you're the Holy Spirits. You're not mine. This isn't my church. Remember, Paul would take great offense to having any church called after his name. What does he say here? I'm giving you to God. I am depositing you with God. Now, when they heard this, okay, again, God, why is depositing to God? What does that mean for him to entrust us to God? Well, the obvious meaning is, again, ownership, also protection, also power, also vindication of their work as elders that the apostle. Now, I'm going to just go a little bit farther in the way of application. I look at this not just as applying to the Ephesian elders, but I see Paul the Apostle, the great Apostle to the Gentiles, putting his imprimatur upon this office and saying, I entrust this office to God. This office has gone all the way back from before Moses. It was sanctioned by long use. It was sanctioned by our Savior. It was practiced in all the apostolic churches. I'm moving off the scene now. In every church, I've demanded the training, the ordination, the installation, the election of elders, and now I deposit this institution with God. I think that's what he's saying here. Powerful. He's saying this isn't temporary. He's saying it's not, well, you know, throw the dice. Maybe it'll come up, you know, lucky whatever, and you'll make it to the end. No, he's saying I'm entrusting you with the power to the power of God. I'm depositing you with Him. And there was a day, and there have been days, and there are many churches now for which I give God thanks, where elders have that sense of compulsion. That I'm not doing this for me. This isn't about me. This isn't about do I retain popularity to people like me? Do I feel good about what I'm doing? I have been entrusted. This office has been deposited. I've been deposited to God. And therefore, there's a sense of courage that comes from that, a sense of patience, a sense of perseverance that flows from that, a sense of joy that Jesus is building His church. And one, it's not the only, but one of the means He uses is a faithful, active, vigilant group of elders who protect and watch and feed the people of God. He says, I commend you to God and the word of His grace. Very interesting phrase. The word of His grace. Grace, of course, is God's undeserved kindness to us through the Lord Jesus. Paul says, I commend you to it. Paul says, remember how my life and ministry focused around the Word? Not shrinking back from declaring to you anything that was profitable. Preaching God's Kingdom. Giving the whole counsel of God publicly and house to house. I'm commending you. I'm depositing you to God and that same Word. So as you are faithful to God's Word and you rule in terms of God's Word and lead in terms of God's Word, God will be with you. You know, it's basic, I know, and not overly dramatic, but I would simply say that our great security in the time in which we live right now is something no one on this planet can touch. Now, there may be all kinds of schemes to bring religious affairs of all nations under the oversight of the United Nations. There is. They've openly talked about it. We need to have all Western European nations, and the United States included, we need to have all religious concerns and affairs under a United Nations oversight to cut down on prejudice, to cut down on religious wars, discrimination, hiring and firing policies, dealing with homosexuals or whatever the case might be. There's probably that kind of stuff being talked about. There's court cases right now pending about people's right to express Christ in public, whether it be through picketing at an abortion clinic or whether it be reading the Bible at government schools. There's all kind of efforts out there. And you know, those guys are so deluded because they think that court cases are going to stop the Word of God. They think that a judicial oligarchy is going to silence the truth of the risen, exalted Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, at some level God's people have gotten all trembly. They've gotten all, oh no, if we don't win this, we're going down. But we're not going down. We're not going down. We can't go down. Because we're not the ones who are standing up. It's God's Word that is standing up. It is God's Word that will be vindicated. And the tidal wave of secularism before God is really just a trickle. That's all it is. And to the degree that your family builds on the Bible, lives in terms of God's Word, that you make sure you have elders, and if you have to move or you go to a different church, you select another congregation that's built around the truths of God's Word, you will be in the depository of the saints. That is apostolic succession. Apostolic succession is not we can follow the line of bishops from one to the other, from pope to pope. That's not apostolic succession. Apostolic succession is faith to faith, word to word, across generational lines. There's encouragement in that. Let the enemies of God rage as they will. Let the wolves howl, says Paul. You are deposited to God. and to His Word. So build on that. Live in that life. Young people, you know, you wonder, how am I going to survive? You got me scared to death. Temptation's coming and going. My daddy's got me scared. My mama's got me scared. I feel like I'm in a huge box. Well, listen. Listen, some of that's good when you're young. You've got to be in a box. There's no good in just giving you free reign to roam wherever you want to. But you will survive. Because nothing can overthrow a young person, a young girl, a young boy, a marriage that is built upon God's Word. Nothing. Nothing. Well, in verses 33 through 38, Paul concludes by giving a few characteristics. We won't spend a great deal of time on these because we looked at them earlier in one of the earlier messages on this subject. But they are worth considering here in passing. He mentions in verses 33 and 34, again, his own example, you yourselves know, excuse me, verse 33, I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. What is Paul commending here? Selfless service to them. Selfless service. Selfless service. The great enemy, the great idol of our day is the self. You know, Freud, if nothing else, was a builder of idols. And the idol that he erected was the sovereign self. And we need to look for in church officers, pray for in elders and pastors, seek in our own lives that kind of disinterested, others-directed service and love and commitment. He mentions in verse 35, In all things I have shown you that by working hard In this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of our Lord Jesus. There's a sense of sacrificial, hard work He commends to the elders. And notice particularly, it's a supportive ministry for the weak. You know, I have to confess that I've probably thought this. I know I've heard others mention this. I thought about myself at times in terms of how Christ must think about me of being high maintenance. But yet notice too, that's exactly what Paul says to them. He says, we must help the weak. remembering what Jesus has said. I mean, there's really no such thing as, well, these are sheep we can leave to themselves, and these are sheep that require our attention. It is that some sheep are weaker and do require more attention, and the pastors and the elders of the church don't look at it in terms of, oh boy, now we have to do it again. It is more of a, we're supposed to be like Jesus, and we're supposed to support the weak. And I'll just conclude with this, in looking at this in verses 36 through 38, a tenderness. And notice it includes Paul. And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all, and there was much weeping on the part of all. They embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship. I think at one level, a lot of people have been burned in the church. If you were to raise your hand, you may think of occasions in which you've been burned. Maybe you've been burned by me at times, or some of the other elders here. Maybe you've had to leave other churches. These things happen. We are sinners. But I do want to call your attention. I want you to think about it. I want to stay with you more than just for two seconds before we conclude this evening. What a picture here of how pastors and elders relate and should relate to one another and should relate to the sheep. And the sheep should relate to them. A tenderness. A kissing, if you will. Hugging. Sorry to see them go. Now, where does tenderness come from? Where does love come from? Well, it comes from thinking the best of each other. It comes from not hearing somebody said something, well, I want to tell you something this person said, and boy, you just go out there and you believe it. I believe that. I want to find something on him if I possibly can. No. As Christians, what do we do? We don't do that. Our responsibility is to think the absolute best about a fellow believer within the body of Christ. We don't gossip. We don't talk about people behind their back. We don't harbor grudges. We don't think of ways that we can get dirt on people. That's one place tenderness comes from. Tenderness also comes from shared life together, worshiping together. When you sing on Sunday mornings or Sunday evenings or at other smaller groups during the week, You look at each other's face, you're not embarrassed because, well, that was me and I sang an F or whatever the case might be. You remember, I'm going to be singing with that sister in heaven. I'm going to be singing with that brother in heaven. Our earthly sorrows and trials are going to give way to an eternal weight of glory, and so you begin to look at people differently. Now, we may not always agree on everything, but you know what? In heaven, our disagreements are going to be Non-issues. Non-issues. They're just not going to matter. And so at some level, that should, within the body of Christ and among those who profess and practice godliness, that should influence our relations with one another now. Again, that promotes tenderness. Kind words. Watching what we say. We all do it every day. We say things. We don't mean it. We think about them later. We were harsh. We were unkind. You know, what did you do to your hair today? You know, or we say something like this, or you know, we say something just a little bit, you know, bitey. It quickly goes away, often times, but again, those things cut down on tenderness. And again, let's bring this back to point here. Within the church, this is one of the things that we've got to see again. We have got to see tenderness take root. between the leaders themselves and then between the leaders, the elders and the pastors that God raises up, and the congregation. And I'm not just talking here, I'm talking about across the board. Because love is the tie that binds. And we are supposed to, says Paul in Ephesians 4, to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And in many respects, we can go through a lot together, we can deal with hurt feelings, we can put up with a lot of, you know, whatever the case might be, if there is a root, I know this person loves me, he cares for me, I know that he has my best at heart, he's not going to be perfect, I'm not going to ask him perfection that I can't give myself. And that's a real problem we have within the church today, particularly within Reformed churches. We ask of one another a perfection that if our lives were held under the microscope would be seen as sadly deficient. Now that's not an excuse for, well, great, now we can just let go and let God again and forget all this stuff. No, but it is supposed to modify, it is supposed to ameliorate censoriousness, impatience, and having unrealistic expectations. Whereas, notice here, Paul kisses. As I said this morning, kind of half-heartedly, you know, here's Paul, he's leaving, and they're sorrowful. And that should be the goal that we should have in building relationships with each other. When we go, we're sorrowful. When we have to move away, there's tears. There's kissing. When something happens and somebody dies, there's tears. There's real, I'm going to miss that person. They benefited me. They were a blessing to me. I love that person. And see, that bond is one of the powerful things that will keep the church together and that will enable it to persevere during difficult times. And it's something that we've got to work on. Some of us are not as loving as we need to be. I'll say I'm not. I don't know if you'll be as honest, but we're not as loving as we need to be. We're not as affectionate toward one another as we need to be. I heard a sermon one time on that verse, greet all the brothers with a holy kiss, and so I went up to this elder in the church and I puckered up to him after the service and he said, I'll never be that sanctified. And it was kind of a joke at the time, but there's a sense in which there ought to be strong life bonding, physical bonding, appropriate of course. Don't read modern canons of what's acceptable, touching, and not in terms of what's acceptable in the Bible. In the Bible, people who loved each other, they hugged each other, they kissed each other, they were involved in one another's lives. Again, I would encourage you as elders, think about these things. As congregants, think about these things. Do I have it in my own life? Do I appreciate the battle? Am I promoting love? within my own life and for the elders? Am I placing myself under the watch care? Am I seeking it? Am I asking for it? Paul's example will go a long way toward, I believe, restoring the church. I won't go as far as saying it would bring a reformation because I think really it will flow from reformation, but this is my passion. You might think, why in the world has he spent six sermons? Actually, I've got three more sermons on the ruling elder as well that I want to preach for the sake of we have to move on. This will be the last words I'll say about this. I may send it to you out in another format. But this is important. Body life, it's organization, the authority of Christ, elders, oversight. These things are not like, well, that's just a Presbyterian thing. No, it's a biblical thing. And Jesus has instituted it because He loves us and it's for our good. And if the church but practiced it today, how much stronger she would be, how much holier, how much purer in doctrine and in life, how much more would our light shine before men? Well, we may not control what happens elsewhere, But let's pray as we turn to the Lord now. Let us pray that these things will be present here and that where we are weak and sinful, the Lord in His glory and majesty will humble us and enable us to make progress in biblical religion. Let's pray together.