Please open your Bibles to the book of Acts, chapter 20. We'll read verse 17 at the end of the chapter. From Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church. And when they had come to him, he said to them, you know from the first day that I came to Asia in what manner I always lived among you, serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears and trials which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews, Now I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you and taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying to Jews and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And see, now I go bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me. For none of these things move me, nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy. And the ministry which I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And indeed, now I know that you all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, will see my face no more. Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. Therefore, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among whom the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, and shepherd the church of the Lord and God, which he purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also, from among yourselves, men will rise up speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore, watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone, night and day, with tears. So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I have coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities and for those who were with me. I have shown you in every way by laboring like this that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus that he 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. Then they all wept freely and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spoke, that they would see his face no more. And they accompanied him to the ship. In verses 17 to 20, Paul says that he kept back nothing. He taught the whole counsel of God publicly and from house to house to everyone, Jew and Gentile. And he did this even in the face of opposition. In verses 21 to 24, he says that he goes bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, where he knows he will see change and tribulations. And he's unmoved by the fact that he knows he will see change and tribulation. He does not count his life dear. He wants to finish the race, to do the work of ministry to the end of his life with joy. testifying to the gospel of the grace of God. This is him expressing his desire to accomplish the goal, to reach the objective. He finds the work, accomplishing the goal, reaching the objective, to be of greater value than his own life. And so he also, in addition to his own life, is acknowledging that he is going to not see his friends any longer. And so he is giving up his own life, he is giving up his friends, his comfort. And even while he was there, he was already giving away his comfort, his pleasures by suffering, working hard, giving away his money to be able to seek their good. He'll see them no more. And then he tells them he is innocent of their blood, because as a watchman, he warned them. He gave them the whole counsel of God. There's a lot of emphasis here on giving the whole counsel of God. He accomplished his work of giving them the whole counsel of God, and that also makes it so that he is without blame if any of them should fall. And he then tells the elders there to therefore watch, to guard, to work, to keep, to take heed to themselves and to the flock. over whom the Holy Spirit has made them overseers. And you might think, well, didn't Christ make them overseers? Because there's a passage of the office. And that's true. There's an office from Christ. But also, there is gifting to be qualified for the office that comes from the Holy Spirit. So these men who fill legitimate offices, who are qualified, They have been made overseers by the Holy Spirit. These men are now called to shepherd the church of the Lord and God, which He purchased with His own blood. That one line is worthy of a sermon by itself, but let me not do that and instead simply say we need to remember that Christ is both Lord and God. He is the Christ, He is the theanthropic mediator. He is the God-man. And he, by dying in his humanity, paid with his blood for the church. He purchased the church with his own blood. But this is also called the blood of God. And that is because of the union of the human nature with the divine nature in one Christ. So there's one legal person. So that this is the blood of God in a special way. He owns all of our blood. But this is his blood in the sense that it's his in his human nature that's associated differently than his possession of all of humanity. It's his in the same way that your body is your body. It is distinctly his. And so it is the blood of God. It is the blood owned by God in a special way through the hypostatic union, the personal union between the divine nature and the human nature. So there is a value to that blood that is greater than just the value of the blood of the innocent, the blood of the righteous. It's the blood of the innocent, the blood of the righteous, the blood of God. And so that emphasizes the great worth of the church, the great value of the church, that that purchase, right? When you buy a house, there's a shorthand where you think about, you know, how good is this house? Is it a million dollar house? House purchased with a million dollars. It makes you think this is a great house. House purchased with $10 million. This must be an extraordinary mansion. What would you think of a house that was purchased with the blood of God? And so the church, the temple built without hands, the household of God, that is an expensive house. And this is the house over which these men are made watchmen, overseers, guardians, shepherds. So this call is a call to me. This call is a call to every elder, every man that aspires to the office of elder. There's a value in the church of God. So Paul is more concerned about that than his own comfort, than his own life. He is concerned for that. He wants these men to be ready. And he warns them that after his departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. So there will be enemies from without. And then also savage wolves will rise up from among you, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves. So there's an effort here of enemies to attack. There's the offensive. There's the initiative of the enemy to take the objective of destroying the seed of the woman. These enemies rise up from within, which destroys the operational security of the church. And they seek to take away the power of concentration in battle, the power of consolidated force to draw disciples away to reduce the mass of forces that are assembled together and to do them individual harm they speak perverse things to draw away so if you care about the individual sheep if you care about the flock as a whole then there is this call to watch therefore watch And remember that for three years, I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears. It's called to watch is a general call to watch. And then there's an example. Okay, remember, we talked about the Word of God is profitable, right? And it's profitable because it gives us what's needful to be able to be instructed in righteousness, to be rebuked for our wickedness, to be corrected, to be shown how to do what is righteous. And there's training in righteousness. And that training includes the example and the walking with. And we have God is with us. And there's historical examples laid out for us. And there is in conscience itself amongst also the way that God has constructed all of reality. There is discipline for sin, and there is also rewarded enjoyment and righteousness. So there's that discipline. Well, Paul gave them an example and he walked with them. He's giving a prophetic work of warning, and he did it for three years. He was diligent in a work of love, a kingly work of love. He did it for three years. He didn't stop. He warned them day and night. Diligence. And he was zealous about it. Priestliness here is on display. He did it with tears. So he is worried that he is leaving. And he's doing it for a reason. We'll focus on that towards the end, the reason again. We need to think like Paul does. Why would Paul leave this church behind when he knows it's going to be attacked from the outside and from the inside? And he knows he is going to suffer persecution. And he won't see them again. Now, he gives another piece of instruction in verses 32 to 35. He says, to support the weak. Now, before saying that, he reminds them of their strength. He commends them to God, who has providential care over them. And he commends them to the word of his grace, which is the main weapon of our warfare. And he says that the word of God's grace is able to build you up and is able to give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. It's able to build you up. It's able to make you complete so that you can do the fighting. I've given you the whole counsel of God. You have the word. I commend you to the word. He's reminding them of God's providence. And also the fact that it's able to give them an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Paul's concern is to get that inheritance, to get the knowledge of God, to spread the knowledge of God. His concern is to see that the nations are obtained as an inheritance for Christ and for all those who share that inheritance, the people of God. Those whom Christ has redeemed with his own blood. Now, because he comes from this place of strength and this place of a sense of wealth, of the inheritance, of the whole earth, he does not covet their silver, their gold, or their apparel. And he says, here's the example I gave to you. I worked with my own hands to obtain my own material goods. I provided for myself. And I've given away material goods to provide for the weak. And he did this working to provide for himself so he could do more work to teach them. He did work to enable him to do more work. This is the example. He showed them in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. He was teaching them in the midst of trial with constancy. He's on his way now to go face suffering. So he's showing them that he is going to support the weak. What is he trying to do? He's trying to get to Jerusalem by Pentecost so that he can preach to these people who do not know God, who do not know that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, or who perhaps already know God but do not know what has been accomplished and therefore are failing to be of use on the battlefront. So he wants them to be aware of what has happened. So he's leaving behind his friends He is losing pleasure. He is not seeking to gain power. He served them humbly, he said before, and it's true. He commends people. who search the scriptures to see if what he's saying is so. He is not seeking to be taken as though he is God, but as a servant of God. And he's not sticking around, having made the place comfortable, having a large, powerful church that's shaping the culture around them, that's even causing the trade of idols to be dramatically reduced in a way that causes the workmen of idols to be angry about it. He is instead leaving behind this comfort leaving behind the power that he could have, the influence that he could have, the honor that he could have there. And he has been working for his own money, not seeking to have theirs, to provide for himself, and then giving away that money. So this is the example. And so he now gives an argument to remind us of the doctrinal basis for this kind of life. The Lord Jesus said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And that blessedness is because giving helps us to increase in knowledge and in joy in this life. When we act in accordance with the law of God, it helps us to be reaffirmed in what the law of God teaches. It reaffirms the truth. It reduces our enslavement in this life to the things that could be false gods. When we use our power to serve others, when we use our money to bless others, when we give up pleasure in order to help others, It reduces our enslavement to those things in this life. Taking those things and putting them to the service of God increases the dominion of Christ and it increases discipleship of the church. It makes it so the goals of dominion and discipleship are accomplished faster than they would otherwise be accomplished. It increases our reward in the next life. These are the ways in which it is more blessed to give than to receive. In response to this teaching, these elders, these overseers, these bishops of Ephesus, they kneel, and they pray, and they weep, they embrace, they kiss, and they sorrow. Remember, they walk Paul to the ship to steal the last few minutes with him. Paul, having left these men to the care of God, having left these men to the word of God, He now prays with them. The providence of God, the word of God, and prayer are central to the way you ought to think and wage war. Now they leave him to God when they pray with him. They leave him to the word of God. They pray for him. They're sad to not see Paul, but they don't stop him from going. They are also giving up something. for the goal, for the objective. They're giving up Paul. So I'll be spending the rest of my time trying to help to lay out application here for you. I've tried to show you the text. We've spent time on this. I've tried to draw doctrine from it. I believe the way to understand this text, to understand why Paul would behave in this way, why he would boldly, briskly, and impetuously set his face towards Jerusalem and seek to skid along the coast of Asia Minor to get to Jerusalem fast enough. Why does he skip along like a stone on the surface of a water? He is doing this because he wants to take an objective. He wants to accomplish something. He is not like Socrates, going around as a gadfly, enjoying his place as a critical philosopher. You can point to Socrates ultimately being killed for his principles. Paul here is far more decisive in his choice of engagement. He is purposeful. Our objective as Christians is to see God glorified. Our objective as Christians is to see the earth filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. Our objective as Christians has been given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ and the Great Commission, Matthew 28, verses 18 to 20. One of the great principles of war is called objective. It is laid out in this idea that you need to know what you're trying to do. You need to know what the goal is. You need to have victory in mind. If you don't know what victory is, then you're not going to fight towards victory. Victory is the goal. Sun Tzu famously said, the goal in war is victory, not long campaigns. Sometimes we just kind of think, you know, as a Christian, My goal here is to kind of last, to grimace and stick it out until I die. The goal is victory. The principle of objective, of knowing what the goal is, having victory in mind. Paul has that in mind. And so the Great Commission tells us what victory looks like. Jesus says in Matthew 28 verses 18 to 20, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen. Now, this commission, Christ is King. He has all authority in heaven and on earth. We are commanded to teach the nations, not just Israel, all of the nations. We are to baptize not just Israel, but all of the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. We are to teach them to observe all things that Christ has commanded us, the breath is like the breadth of the sea, it is broad. And the depth is like the depth of the sea, it is deep. We teach all of the nations, broad. All of the things that Christ has commanded, deep. Paul did that at Ephesus, and he's moving on. He's concerned about the Jews as one of the nations. He's concerned about those who are gathering from throughout the nations that are Jews there. And he wants to teach them and he wants them to then go scatter out again and spread that knowledge. His concern is to strategically, effectively pick places where he can not accomplish all the goal all at once, but decisive points where he can make a difference. Intermediate objectives. They will advance the overall objective. And so you're called to keep the goal in mind and to think about where you can be effective and then to make striving efforts, bold, brisk, impetuous efforts to take intermediate objectives that are decisive. We can take these risks because we've been left to God. We've been commended to God. Lo, I am with you always to the end of the age. He is with us, He goes before us to fight our battles. His power is upon us. At Pentecost, He gave us spiritual powers. The Holy Spirit indwells us. He is with us, even to the end of the age. And He ends the thing with Amen, which means truly, or let it be, or so be it. This is an emphasis that this is real, this is important, this has to be acknowledged and emphasized. And so Paul has chosen a decisive point, a point of the battlefield that is both obtainable and significant in obtaining the ultimate objective. He has chosen to go to engage in spiritual warfare, taking the Word of God to the Jews at Pentecost. and they're praying about this. The major weapons are the Word of God and prayer. The Word of God being projected out. Paul is using everything he can to get the Word of God out there. He's writing letters and having it sent. He's training men to get the Word in them so they can go out and talk. He is talking. There's projection out of the Word of God with power. We have tools that he didn't have. Right now, the internet is broadcasting this message. Right now, it's being recorded. And we're able to be handed off to other people. We have tools that he didn't have. And so we should be able to accomplish more. We have to not be overwhelmed by the overarching greatness of the war. we need to think about intermediate objectives, choosing goals that will help us to accomplish the ultimate objective. Setting intermediate objectives requires the identification of intermediate objectives that are worth getting, decisive points. These decisive points are points that are obtainable, we have the resources to get them, and they're also significant, they matter enough that they're worth getting. Getting intermediate objectives Accomplishing goals requires a commitment of time and resources to obtaining those intermediate objectives. The desire to accomplish things that bring glory to God, it requires commitment of time and resources to obtaining the intermediate objectives. And Paul is seeking to capture many souls at Pentecost in Jerusalem. Now, his concern, and the Lord Jesus Christ's concern, is to make sure to train people up In order for any operation of warfare to be effective, there has to be obedience to lawful commands. And this obedience to lawful commands requires an ability and a willingness to obey. The ability requires you to be trained so that you understand them, so that when you receive orders, they're simple enough to be kept in mind and followed. Discipline in terms of honor and dishonor, reward and penalty, helps with willingness. This obedience is required of individuals and of units. Individuals, heads of households, wives, children. These individuals have to be able to obey or they can't fulfill effectively their purpose. They have to obey the Lord Jesus Christ They have to obey lawful authority. Households are small units. Elder represented groups, 10 households together. Local churches, regional churches. These are the units. And so this principle of obedience, following lawful orders in a timely manner, completely, and with good morale. Our children, we teach them all the way, right away, with a cheerful heart. It's a timely manner. fulfilling the orders completely and with good morale. The training that's required, there's a positive and a negative element to the training, right? There's encouraging skillful obedience. That's what training's about, encouraging skillful obedience. Discipline is about swift obedience. You gotta, there's the skillful, which is doing the whole of it. And then there's the swiftness, the right away. So the training is about encouraging skillful obedience through instruction, through rebuke, correction, example, positive and negative discipline, walking alongside the troops. Skillful obedience is primarily skillful use of the word and prayer. Word and prayer. We emphasize word and prayer here. That's the principal set of tools. Discipline, encouraging swift obedience by building a willingness to follow lawful orders, honoring good behavior, dishonoring bad behavior. These are the kinds of things we do. So this idea that obedience is encouraged through the positive training and the negative training. We could talk about discipline having a positive and negative side. I'm just using the word training for the positive side and discipline for kind of the negative side. Now, when you train people, You make it so that things that previously seemed complex start to seem simple. New believers find the Bible to be complex, difficult to navigate. They don't quite know how to pray well. They fumble around in prayer. A new soldier, when they're learning to use a sword, or a spear, or a musket, or a modern rifle, they feel like the thing is cumbersome in their hands. They don't know what to do with it. And so training takes something that at first seemed complex and it makes it simple. And the reason for this intensive training is because simple things are difficult in war. Simple things are difficult in war, and things that are complex are impossible. Because you just fumble around, you fall apart. And so by training and repetition, you take things and make them simple so that it becomes simple and something you don't even have to think about much to accomplish it. We are engaged in a spiritual war. You have to be familiar with your sword. And you have to pray and be familiar with how to use prayer. Now, these weapons, the amazing thing about these weapons is the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. It separates the things it targets. It splits them apart. It eliminates the concentration of power. It divides. It shows truth from error. It is a powerful weapon and it can be projected in many, many ways. The written word, the spoken word. We have all these technologies to put it out there. Now, prayer. We can pray and target things all over the place. You can pray for the men that Modi Bakun is training in Africa right now. And that support goes in immediately. It is greater than dropping in supplies by plane. It's faster. It is more effective than air support. It's faster. It's more accurate. It doesn't miss its target ever. The weapons of our warfare are powerful. And so the obedience of taking up these weapons and using them and trying to use them in coordinated ways. Now, that obedience, that training, that discipline, helping these men to be ready to fight the battle, to take what was once complex and make it simple for them, because the simple is difficult in war. He accomplished that by spending three years there training them up. And now he's leaving and telling them, I've trained you. You're responsible for fighting this war. And so he has this principle that he's trying to accomplish the objective. And he can't accomplish the objective by just being on the defensive forever. He can't just stay there and guard these people he's trained. He has to rely upon them to guard their own posts, to do their own duty upon training them. And so what he's doing, because of his desire to accomplish the objective, he's taking up a principle of warfare called offensive. So far we've talked about objective. And we have also talked about the idea of obedience, which relies upon training and discipline and simplicity. Okay, so objective and obedience. The third one is the offensive, the principle of the offensive. It comes down to this, you can't take new objectives without attacking. You can't take new objectives without attacking. We have to have intentional efforts to go and put effort into taking new intermediate objectives. You have goals in life. You have ways in which you think you can advance the kingdom of God. You have to target your efforts on a limited set of objectives and seek to accomplish that objective. And you do that by concentrating effort and moving your resources to focus on that place. That might be something in your private life with a sin you need to overcome. That might be something in your household to get your household in order. That might be something in the local church. It might be some need to go and evangelize out. That's an order of things, right? If your life's not in order, you're not going to be effective at evangelizing and discipling. If your household's not in order, you're not going to be effective at public service. If your local church isn't in order, you're not going to be an effective place to be able to evangelize and disciple people coming in. These are intermediate objectives. decisive points that have to be accomplished. They have to be taken. You need to put the men into the battle to fight and take those decisive points until the victory is won. It can't be left unfinished. It is possible to be overwhelmed by the grand picture. Disciple all the nations. We can't disciple this nation. We can't disciple this state. Our city's a mess. Our local church, small, weak. My household, me individually. It's like a soldier on a beach being told to take the next sand dune so that the troops can get off the beach. And then all of a sudden he remembers the overall objective, which is to liberate the whole country. He goes, I can't liberate the whole country. I'm pinned down, I can't even make it to the next sand dune. Your job is to focus on getting to the next sand dune. You fire back, and you move to the next sand dune. Get your life in order. Get your house in order. Make it so you can be useful in the public assembly. Go and evangelize. And then we help the next guy to get his life in order. To get his house in order. So he can be a part of the, working usefully in the public assembly. That offensive allows us to capture new things, and then we seek to consolidate the position, to concentrate force, to be ready for the next offensive. Paul, I'm sure, was tempted to not leave to go to Jerusalem, to stay in Ephesus, where he had friends, and there was a lot of concentration of force available. But instead, he says, this position is strong. It's in good order. It can afford now to send me out for the offensive. And so, he uses the principle of mobility to take his force to Jerusalem. He doesn't go alone. He has a band of well-skilled users of word and prayer who have confidence in the sovereign God of the universe. Now, these are basic principles of war. There are more. But just those three, objective, obedience, and offensive. Making it so that you have the goal in mind, you seek to be ready to skillfully pursue the goal, and then you go and engage in an offensive effort to capture the next intermediate objective. That is enough to keep us busy for some time. One thing I want to point out about what Paul did when he left to go on the offensive, he was concerned for the operational security of Ephesus. Operational security, in large part, is how do you avoid being surprised by the enemy? Because surprise is a very powerful tool to conquer people. So operational security comes down to You are trying to get reconnaissance so that you know where the enemy is, who the enemy is, what their capabilities are, so you can avoid being surprised. And so that you can, in fact, also engage in warfare and surprise them on the offensive. That makes the offensive far more effective. Okay? So operational security. This speech, as Paul is about to leave, and the speech of every one of you Puritans before you die, you should be reminding people of operational security. Watch out for the enemy. Paul reminds them to keep a watch. He reminds them that they attack from outside. There are wolves that will come in and seek to destroy the sheep. And there are wolves that will rise up from among you and seek to draw people away. And you see how drawing people away, it takes away from the principle of concentration. You need to concentrate resources and people in order to go on the offensive. The enemy is seeking to destroy our capability and willingness to go on the offensive. We give in to sin. We are giving in to giving up our ability to go on the offensive. And so operational security is about preventing the giving out of unnecessary information. Gossip is a great destroyer, for example, of operational security. Uncovering unnecessarily negative things, all that. But operational security is also about gaining information about our threats and guarding them against common threats, known threats, and probable threats. And so that's what Paul does. He commends them. He commends them to God to protect them. He commends them to the word to use as their weapon. He prays with them and for them. And he reminds them of the enemy and what the enemy is able to do, how destructive and dangerous the enemy is. And that will encourage them to go out, seek out, and seek a victory over the enemy. Comments, questions, objections from the voting members? Mr. Cordova? Thank you for your teaching, Dr. Ruiz. Quick question. On the topic of skillful obedience and also a swiftness, I understand skillful obedience being primarily a skillful use of the word of prayer, is that correct? The most basic? Yeah, that's the most basic. So you as an individual, you want to have a skillful use of the word and of prayer, and that's how you can have skillful obedience. Yeah, swiftness, you know, I said, you know, proper obedience is obeying all the way right away with a cheerful heart. So Calvin's motto was promptly and sincerely, Lord, I give my heart to you. And so the, the idea of obeying quickly, right, if you if there's a threat, and you call men to, to come and deal with the threat, and they dawdle, You know, that's a form of treason, right? And so it's not really obedience. It's rebellion when we delay. So swift obedience, having our response be swift to do what we're commanded at the appropriate time. All right. Then let's pray. Father, we ask that you would bless the teaching of your word. We ask that you help us to keep our objective in mind. that have been given to us in the Great Commission that we would seek to be obedient, thoroughly, swiftly, and with a good attitude. We ask, Father, that you would help us to be able to concentrate our resources and effort to be able to direct it specifically in an offensive way to seek to capture intermediate objectives as a way of advancing the kingdom. And you would help us with operational security, to be concerned, to know the threats that we have, to not give out unnecessary information to the enemy, and to be ready to not be surprised, but to be able to instead surprise the enemy. as we go on the offensive. We ask that you would help us to resist the enemy, Satan, the world, our own flesh. We ask that you would help us to be able to overcome these. We ask that you would help us to surprise the enemy with the use of prayer and the word that you would govern all things in such a way as to bring about our victory, the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray these things in Christ's name.