If you would turn in your Bibles with me, please, to the Book of Acts, Chapter 19. We're going to read just one verse, and then I'm going to mention a bunch more. But most of them will be here in Chapter 19 and Chapter 20 of the Book of Acts. I want to talk to you about Ephesus, the church that was at Ephesus. So here we begin in verse 1 of chapter 19, and it came to pass that while Apollos was at Corinth, all having passed through the upper coast came to Ephesus and finding certain disciples. A little background, when Paul went out on his second missionary journey, and he made it to Asia, what he calls Asia, we would call today Asia Minor. It's much smaller than the overall continent of Asia. It was part of the old Roman Empire. I believe Paul wanted to stay there and preach, but for whatever reason, God chose for him to move on. He tried on at least three or four occasions. And every time he tried, the Holy Spirit said, no. No. Finally, he said, well, I'll just stop and preach right here. And the Holy Spirit said, no, you will not. And he ends up in Troas. two young preachers with him, Silas and Timothy. And then Luke, the physician, will join him there as well. And so there'll be four men in this team. So they have a great team going out. They just don't know where to go. And so they settle in and Paul begins to pray. And finally he hears from the Lord. He saw a man from over in Macedonia that said, come over and help us. And assuredly gathering that the Lord had called them to preach the gospel unto them, immediately they made ready. And they went down and took ship and sailed over the first town that they're going to stop in. Neapolis, once they cross the water, will be the first town they come to, but the first town they will stop in will be Philippi, and he'll preach there, and he'll make his round, own up to Corinth, and then he'll take sail and make his way back to his home church in Antioch of Syria. Then he gets ready a good while later to go on his third journey. And this time he takes the same direction that he did the first time or the second journey. And when he gets to that same spot again, God gives him a bold green light and allows him to go into Asia Minor. Ephesus was specifically where he wanted to go and he'll end up in Ephesus. As a matter of fact, he'll spend two full years in Ephesus. As far as we know, the longest period of time that Paul ever spent anywhere, usually it was just, you know, he started the church in Thessalonica in just four weeks and then went on down the road and the church kept going. Other places, he would go for a few days, a few weeks, maybe a month or two. He did go for a year and a half in Corinth, and now two years in Ephesus. But from Ephesus, he could reach out to where all of the seven churches of Asia would be. And so he had a wonderful ministry there of teaching, and he ran into some difficulties as well, but God blessed his ministry. Now, after the two years were up, Then he's going to continue his journey just like he did on the second journey over to Philippi and then to Thessalonica and on to Berea and up to Athens and from Athens to Corinth. And as the last time when he left Corinth, he went back over to the Mediterranean and he sailed, but this time he'll not do that. He'll just make a a big circle and come back around. He has a rather large entourage with him that are traveling with him. They're listed in Acts chapter 2 and verse number 4. That could be the reason that he didn't sail. I don't know. The Bible doesn't tell us. But we do know finally he makes his way back to Philippi. And when he gets to Philippi, he's going to send the entourage on. He says to them, go to Neapolis and find a ship and go over to Troas and wait in Troas for me. Now, Paul is going to stay in Philippi for a week with Dr. Luke. So we're not told why he stayed. It could be simply because he wanted to spend some time with these folks thinking he'd never see them again. Or it could be he's having some physical problems because the only person he kept back with him was the doctor, Luke. For whatever reason, we know that the week of April the 7th, AD 57, Paul spends a week with the church that was at Philippi. And then he and Luke will go down to Neapolis, set sail over the Troas. And you might remember that's the occasion where he will have that all night church service. He'll preach until midnight. Nobody ever says amen right there. ever. Now the truth is, I don't know how long he preached. He could have started preaching at 1145. We don't know. But at midnight, Eutychus, a young boy, falls out the window, falls three stories and is killed. That will kind of mess a service up. And so, you know, they're all clamoring. They go downstairs, and finally Paul reaches there, and he asks everyone to step back, and he falls over Eutychus like a prophet of old, and God brings life back into him. Now, I don't know about you, but if I had preached until midnight and killed a boy, and God raised the boy up, I think I'd go to bed. But they didn't. They stayed up all night. And after staying up all night, he's going to put everyone else on a ship and they will sail to Asos. But he will walk alone 20 miles. After preaching till midnight, being up all night, God raising this boy up that was killed, he's going to walk 20 miles. I think there's good reason for that. I think he wants to reflect over the last 16 years. Because Paul, in less than 16 years, is going to evangelize 1500 square miles. No car, no fast boat, no cell phone, no computer, not even a completed copy of the Bible. And in less than 16 years, he evangelizes 1,500 square miles. He will travel 13,350 perilous miles during that time. I'm sure he wants to reflect some on that. I also am confident that he's thinking about what is ahead, because already he's being warned not to go to Jerusalem. Evil will befall you there. but he presses on and he makes his way to Asos, gets together with the rest of them. He will sail right past Ephesus. Now, he just on this same journey spent two and perhaps even up to three years, he spent in Ephesus and you would think he would stop off and maybe say howdy. No, he doesn't. He sails right past Ephesus to Miletus. And when he gets to Miletus, he will send some runners back to Ephesus and tell the pastors in that area to meet him in Miletus, and they will come and meet with him. And when they come, then he's going to teach the pastors. Undoubtedly, he's gonna teach them things that he wants them to know, but that he wants them to go back and teach in their churches as well. Those things also, you will find in just a moment, are very important to us as well. I want you to think with me as we go through these things for the next two or three hours. Oh, now you're awake. I want you to think on how much God invested in this church at Ephesus. through Paul's ministry, through John's ministry later, even Timothy will go and minister there as well. And I'm sure there were others also. So he's finally got all of the elders from Ephesus and the surrounding area. Now they are with him in Miletus and he's going to teach them. We don't have time tonight to do anything but just skim over it. But let me just give it to you and I'll give you the verses if you want to take a look at them. Acts chapter 20 and verse 19, he talks to them about serving. You might remember earlier this week I told you that the thing that attracted me to independent Baptist churches was the fact that everyone, it seems, wanted to do something. They didn't want to just come to church. They wanted to be busy. They wanted to be active. They wanted to do something. Paul will say to them, serving the Lord with all humility of mind and with many tears and Then he talked to them also about strengthening in verse number 20. He says, I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you. I wanted to strengthen you. I wanted to help you. Wouldn't that be something if we made up our minds every Lord's Day when we come to church? I'm going to church today and I'm not going to withhold anything from the believers that will be profitable to them. Now, I don't want to be offensive to anyone. I don't think I never read the book on how to win friends and influence people, but I still don't want to be rude and crude. I love sports. I do. I am probably for all the wrong reasons. I love football because I want to see a fella get hit. Helmets fly off shoes. So it's not even Christian. I love NASCAR. I don't care who wins. I want to see the wreck or that car jumps up into the air and starts to flip, burst into flames and lands. And the guy gets out and walk off, walks off without a scratch. The cars we drive, you can have a 10 mile an hour fender bender and you're in the hospital for two months trying to recover. I love boxing again. I don't even know who boxes now. I just want to see a knockout. If I wanted to watch dancing, I'd go to a dance floor. I want to watch somebody hit somebody. I want to say boxing all the, all the wrong reasons. I enjoy sports, but when I come to church, this one hour that we set aside, Couldn't we talk about something else? We have all week to talk about who won the ball game or how they won the ball game or what the Super Bowl is going to do or any number of things that we can talk about, about sports. Why couldn't we come to church and say to someone standing around us, let me share a verse with you that God blessed me with this week. Let me share with you an answer to prayer that I had this week. Let me share with you a witnessing experience that I had this week. Oh, I have someone here with me. Pray that they will be blessed with faith and trust the Lord and be saved today. Paul said, I don't want to hold anything from you that might be profitable to you. And then he talks to them about soul winning in verse number 21, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And so he's challenging them. I want you to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others. I don't know where I heard this story, but I know it was probably sometime in the early 1700s that I heard it. It's been a very long time ago. But there was a fellow that listened to his pastor preach one Sunday night and after the service he went to him and he said, preacher, I want to do more. What can I do? I come to church, I read my Bible, but I want to do more. And he said, well, you can go out witnessing anytime you want to. And he said, pastor, he said, I can't show anyone verses in the Bible and lead them to Christ. He said, if you wrote my name on a piece of paper, I couldn't read it. I can't read nor write. And the pastor reached at the rack and pulled off a handful of tracts and gave them to him and said, take these and pass them out and invite people to come to church. And the fellow took the tracts from his pastor and was respectful, but he was not satisfied. So he thought about it and thought about it and thought about it and finally came up with this idea. He would go out on the street and find someone that didn't look terribly busy and he would take one of those gospel tracts. And he would walk up to that person and say, do you have just a moment that you could spend with me? And if they said yes, he would say, I have a gospel tract that my pastor gave me. It's only four pages. I can't read. Would you take just a moment and read it to me? And they would start, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And he would say, wait a minute, could you read that again? And they would read, all have sinned come short of the glory of God. He'd say, oh my, do you believe that? And he would walk them through that gospel tract and was able to lead many people to the Lord Jesus Christ. We can all do it, can't we? We can all do it. You say I'm not good at it, then be a poor witness. But we all ought to be a witness, hadn't we? He's talking about serving and strengthening and soul winning. Then he talked to them about sacrificing in verse 24. He said, but none of these things move me, neither count on my life dear unto myself so that I might finish my course with joy. So as has been mentioned here tonight a couple of times already, he was dead to self. He said, I've died to myself. And so they were telling him, Paul, don't go to Jerusalem, don't go to Jerusalem. And he said, these things don't move me. Neither count I my life dear unto myself. He said, I want to finish the course that God has established for me. And he said, I not only want to finish my course, I want to finish it with joy. I think was mentioned Matthew 11. The last few verses there, I think it's 28, 29, and 30. Well, the Lord said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. He says in that passage that his yoke is easy. Was that in the song? Yeah. Says my yoke is easy. Now let me ask you, when you watch the average Christian live his Christian life out today, do you get the impression that it's easy? Shall I demonstrate? Where are you going? Church. You got the victory? Oh, yeah. You can see the same fellow a couple of days later going to the ballgame. He's got a spring in his step, a smile on his face. I oftentimes said for the average Christian today to try to share his faith with someone else is like trying to share a brain tumor. They must undoubtedly look at us and say, my soul, if it's killing you, why should I want it? I mean, nobody, nobody went through what Paul went through. And yet he said, I want to finish my course with joy. So he talked to them about sacrificing. He talked to them about separating in Acts 20, 25. He says, you shall see my face no more. You shall see my face no more. As we have been reminded even tonight, there's coming a day there'll be no goodbyes when we get home. The other side. I'm more sure than I am standing here that I'll see my dad again. I'll see my mom again. Oh yeah. I buried a little five-year-old down syndrome boy. I used to walk by him going out of the church to shake hands with folks, and he'd sit on the end of the aisle by his dad, and he'd hold his nubby little fingers up, and I'd lean over, and he'd take my face in his hands and kiss me. Yeah. I'll see him again over on the other side. I'm going to tell you, heaven's going to be wonderful. I mean, heaven's going to be wonderful. when we get together on the other side, there'll be no more separating. And then he talked to him about settling in verses 26 and 27. He says, wherefore I take to you to record this day for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. The pastor preached some things sometimes that won't set easy, but he has to preach the whole counsel of God. We can't pick and choose. the whole counsel of God. And then it talks to him about sustaining, and he says in verses 28 through 31, feed the church of God. Feed the church of God. I don't have hardly any time to spend on this, but I have to stop here and ask you, if it is the pastor's duty and responsibility to study and pray and feed the church of God, Does it not stand to reason that it's the congregation's responsibility to eat? Yeah. What if someone invited us over for fish? Brother Nick cooked us some fish today. Invited us over and said, hey, be at the house at five o'clock. And I said, okay, we'll be there. Well, five o'clock we show up. If it's normal for me, I'll show up 10, 15 minutes early. On time is late. And so I show up, there's a spread set, beautiful, wonderful meal prepared for us. Obviously, somebody has been working quite some time to make this available to us. And we sit down at the table and the food is passed and I don't take anything. And maybe Nick says, what's the matter, you're not hungry? I said, I was about an hour ago. So I whipped into Burger King and I got me a double Whopper and a large fry, a large vanilla milkshake and a Diet Coke. We do, we do. And I tell you, I'm full. I just don't think I can eat another bite. Now, he might be kind to me. Of course, he might run over me with his truck, but he might be kind to me. But we won't hardly, I mean, our taillights will still be in sight. And he'll say, this is the last time I'm inviting him over here. He knew that we were going to be working to prepare this meal, and he went off and filled himself with junk when we had this good food here to eat. He'd have every right to feel that way. Well, don't you think a pastor that has prayed and labored and studied and comes to church on Sunday morning and preaches to a congregation of people that stayed up so late on Saturday night that they can't concentrate on what's being said, so full of the world that there's no room for spiritual things. I say that to say this, as surely as the pastor ought to prepare to feed, we ought to prepare to eat. And we can do that, reading our Bibles on Saturday and praying and asking God to empower the pastor and bless the singing and bless the service that we're going to today. Don't wait until you get here Sunday morning to start getting ready. No. We used to sing that song, Fill My Cup, Lord. And then there's another one about drinking from the saucer. Some of you might be, old enough you can remember. My daddy, he made his coffee on top of the stove in an old percolator. It was so hot when he'd get it made and strong. And he would pour him some in a cup and then he would tilt that cup and pour some in the saucer, set his cup aside, and then he'd hold it up with both hands and go, and you could hear him all over the house. And you knew by the way he slurped that coffee, it was good. That's the way we ought to enjoy. Our cup ought to already be full and we come here, we ought to be drinking out of the saucer. Yes, but we can't do that if we don't prepare to do that, you see. So he talked to them about sustaining. And then he talked to them about sanctifying in chapter 20, verse 32, among all them that are sanctified, set apart. If you're saved, you've been sanctified. You've been set apart as this piano has been set apart. You wouldn't loan that piano to a bar room. Why? Because it's been sanctified. We had a nice piano in the church that I pastored, and I was downstairs in my study, and we had a Christian day school, so everything was opened up, and I heard that piano wumpity-wumpin'. And I went upstairs, and there was a fellow there, just walked in off the street, and was wumpity-wumpin' it. I said, wait just a minute, that piano, it can't play that kind of music. He said, why can't it? I said, it's been sanctified. Yes, of course, where we would not send the piano too often we go. You're welcome. Yeah. We've been sanctified. And then he talks to him about supporting. He said in verses 33 through 35, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And if you'll go to places in the world where I go, you'll say it is more blessed to be able to give. than to be in their condition and have to wait for somebody to come and give to you. Now, pretty good message he preaches to them, isn't it? And very applicable to us today as well. I don't have time to preach too much on this, but now Paul, of course, after he preaches to these guys, he's going to go to Jerusalem. There's some guys going to bring false accusations against him. He's going to end up imprisoned. And finally, he's going to be sent to Caesarea where he'll be in prison for two years. and he will appeal unto Caesar and take that arduous trip over sea and finally he'll get to Rome. In Rome he'll be under house arrest and while under house arrest he will write four epistles that we have in our New Testament. One of those epistles will be the book of Ephesians. And he will write to them, and he'll say, For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And he would say to them, Because of this great salvation now, we're sitting together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And he just builds them up to the heavenlies. And then He says, because you have this place in Christ, now I want to tell you how you ought to walk. And then he's going, let me just give them to you. In Ephesians 5, 1 and 2, he'll say, walk in love. Excuse me, in chapter 4, verse 1, he'll say, walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. And then in chapter five, he'll say, walk in love as Christ also has loved us. Do you know the one badge that says we are Christians? Jesus said, Jesus said this, Jesus, not a Bible school teacher, not a preacher. Jesus said this, by this shall all men know that you're my disciples because you have love one for the other. Oh yes. Then he says, walk in the spirit. in chapter five, verses eight through 13. And then he says, walk carefully. Actually, he uses the word circumspectly. Circumspectly, 25 cent word means to be careful. If I said to you tonight, we have them set now. They weren't set when you came in, but they are now. All the aisles have landmines in them. Y'all be careful now, you hear? That's what Paul was telling them, walk circumspectly, walk carefully. So now he says, you've been saved by grace and you're sitting together in the heaven places in Christ Jesus. Now on your journey to get there physically, he says, I want you to walk very carefully. And then in the closing chapter, he'll tell them how to put on the whole armor of God. He says, this is the way you ought to get dressed up to go out to face every day, the whole armor of God. You've recognized, of course, in the armor that he lists, there's nothing for the back. If we turn and run, we're open game. We've got to face the enemy. We've got to press forward. Now, I want you to turn over, if you still have your Bibles there handy and are awake, for just a moment to Revelation 2. The final message to the church that was at Ephesus. Now keep in mind all that's been invested in this church. In Revelation chapter 2 and verse number 1, Revelation 2 and verse 1, unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write, These things saith he, that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand and walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. So the seven stars, the Lord is holding in his right hand. Those are the pastors of the churches, the messengers, the angels of the seven churches. And then the candlesticks represented the churches. And so he's holding the pastors in his right hand and he's walking in the midst of the seven churches of Asia. And now he's having John to write each of them a letter. And the letter to Ephesus, he says in verse number 2, I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil. And thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars, and hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted." I'm going to tell you it's a great commendation that the Lord is giving to this church, that he has invested an awful lot in through men like the Apostle Paul, and John, and Timothy, and others. And now, and has written a letter to them as well. Now, he says to them, you're doing a good job. You're working. But he said, not only that, you're laboring, meaning to toil to the brink of exhaustion. He said, you can't put up with sin nor sinners, especially those of a religious nature. And he said, you have not fainted. Nevertheless, he said, I have somewhat against thee. because thou hast left thy first love. You see, the church at Ephesus was doing all the right things. They had just forgotten why they were doing them. Can you reflect, can you remember when you first got in church, got saved, Can you remember how wonderful that was? And maybe you didn't have a lot of knowledge, but you were filled up with zeal because you were so in love with the Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah. Everybody around you might wish you'd quit singing, but you couldn't. No, you had to. Joy bells were going off in your heart. You were hungry for something to do simply because you loved the Lord Jesus. But have we through the years nailed down the technique? We now know how to talk like a Christian. We know how to read the Bible and discern. We know how to teach Sunday school classes and we learn, we know how to preach and we know how to sing. We've learned all these amazing things, but I'm afraid too often we've forgotten why we got started doing it to start with. Jesus says, you've left your first love, but he gives them a remedy. If you look, he gives them a remedy in verse number five. He says, I want you to remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent. and do the first works or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place except thou repent." So he says, I want you to remember, I want you to repent, I want you to return, or he says, I will remove. Remember, remember. He's walking around, he's holding the pastors in his right hand. He's walking in the midst of the candlesticks, which represent the seven churches of Asia. He's walking through them and he says, all right. He says, you're going to repent because you're going to remember that you started serving me because you loved me. And he says, if you don't, I'm going to take your candlestick and I'm going to set it aside and I'm not going to walk in your presence anymore. Tell me, tell me there aren't hundreds if not thousands of churches all across America that still meet and call themselves a church, but God hadn't been within a hundred miles of them in years. You know it's true. I'm telling you, if God chooses to meet you here, you can't take that for granted. You remember when Solomon built the temple? He thought the meeting was over. Everybody had left. That is, everybody except God. And he said, Solomon, I want to talk to you a few minutes. He said, I've heard your prayer. And notice this. He said to him, I have chosen this place as a place of sacrifice. What's that? He said, I have chosen this place as a place of sacrifice. God chose it. You see, you can build God a house. That doesn't mean he has to show up. How do we know he will continue to meet with us? Because we will continue to love him. God has invested a lot in Gospel Baptist Church. Let's not forget why we started doing what we're doing. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, And thank you for your great love wherewith you have loved us. Thank you for this great salvation which we possess. Lord, it is so easy to learn the ins and outs of anything and just become mechanical. But help us to remember that before we knew anything, except the fact that we had trust in you and were saved. We loved you. Our desire to learn, our desire to do more was born out of an unbelievable love that we had in response to your love for us. Help us, I pray tonight, if there's one among us, that our hearts have grown cold, hard. I pray, dear Lord, that it would be warmed by the ministry and power of the Holy Spirit and that we would fall fresh in love with you again this night. And for all that you do, I'll thank you in Jesus' name. If you would like to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ, you may contact us at the church website, gospelbaptistchurch.com, or you can go to Facebook and type in Gospel Baptist Church, Bonita Springs, Florida. Also, you could call the church office at 239-947-1285. Thank you and God bless.