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You're listening to the teaching
ministry of Harvest Fellowship Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. You can find out more about us
on the web at www.harvestfellowshipchurch.org. We pray that through our teaching,
we may present everyone mature in Christ. Father in heaven,
we bow before you on this Wednesday night. Oh, Lord, what a joy it
is to gather with the saints and to primarily be around your
word. As much as we delight to be around
each other, Lord, we have this unchanging truth that we hold
in our hands, that we read, that we hear. We pray, Lord, even
as we look at a passage that I would confess often overlooked,
that you would take these words of Luke and use them very fruitfully
in our lives. We pray these things tonight
in the name of Jesus. Amen. All right. Can I do a recap of
last week? I kind of liked what I did last
week. I decided I'm not giving the
recap because you know what I've noticed is 75% of people will
shut their brains off for the five minutes that I give the
recap. And if you think that you're probably not in that 75
percent, you probably are. So what I did was I wrote down
some questions that I would like for you to answer. From and you
can cheat, you know, you can open your Bible to Acts chapter
19. We did verses 21 through 41 last
week, which, by the way, Bob puts us at 69.81 percent. having completed chapter 19.
But what places, question one, what places did Paul purpose
in the spirit to travel to? Jerusalem's one. Macedonia and Achaia. What man
led the major disturbance against the way in Ephesus? Demetrius. What arguments, this is a little
bit longer of an answer, maybe you can just call out one, what
arguments did Demetrius use to stir up the craftsmen or the
tradesmen? Okay, gods made without hands
aren't gods. like deposed of her glory, come
to nothing. Yes, this is how we get, men,
you know this is how we get our money. Was he successful? Yes, very successful. What was
the enraged chant of the mob? And I'll just give you a clue.
It wasn't two plus two equals four. Great is Artemis of the Ephesians."
Now, who did the Jews put forward to try to speak to this assembly
that was in the theater? There we go, Alexander. And when
he did try to speak, how long did the Ephesians chant in favor
of their goddess, Artemis? Two hours, about two hours. And
who was the person who eventually quelled this uproar? Yes, Mr. Town Clerk. And what
rationale did he use to soothe, to calm, and then to disperse
the crowd? Well, and especially a city that
had its own autonomy, like Ephesus did. Yes, or even to have a lawful
assembly. And he also named Demetrius,
and he probably shut his mouth pretty quickly after that. I'm sure if he was a rabble rouser,
it was not his first interaction with him. Correct. He said that they were
not temple robbers. He said they had not personally
defamed Artemis. That's right. Undeniable truth. He said, we all believe this.
Only a few of them shook their heads no. But we talked about
if they had been charged with rioting, a lot of bad things
could have happened. But what was evident through
all this was that Paul was preserved by God throughout this ordeal.
Because God still has plans for Paul and whatever satanic Things
are going on to try to disrupt God's plans. God is using and
overruling. And so this brings us now to
chapter 20. Chapter 20, and tonight we're
going to cover verses 1 through 16. So let's read those verses,
and then you're going to have more participation. Hear now
the word of the Lord. There he spent three months,
and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about
to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia.
Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him, and of the Thessalonians
Aristarchus and Secundus, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy,
and the Asians Tychicus and Trophimus. These went on ahead and were
waiting for us at Troas, but we sailed away from Philippi
after the days of unleavened bread, and in five days we came
to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days. On the first
day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread,
Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and
he prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lamps
in the upper room gathered, and a young man named Eutychus, sitting
at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep,
he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul
went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said,
Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him. And when Paul had
gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with
them a long while until daybreak, and so departed. And they took
the youth away alive and were not a little comforted. But going ahead to the ship,
we set sail for Assas, intending to take Paul aboard there, for
so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land. And when
he met us at Assas, we took him on board and went to Mytilene. And sailing from there, we came
the following day opposite Chios. The next day we touched at Samos,
and the day after that we went to Miletus. for Paul had decided
to sail past Ephesus so that he might not have to spend time
in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible,
on the day of Pentecost. And may the Lord write the eternal
truths of his word to our hearts on this Wednesday night. There's
a lot of details, there's a lot of names, there's a lot of numbers,
but what we're beginning here In this 47th Teaching and Acts,
I've called this Paul's Farewell Tour, Ministry of Encouragement. So he's on his farewell tour,
so to speak, and it's happy and troublesome all at the same time. I think I have about... 12 to
14 questions written down, but I will allow and defer to my
esteemed audience, and you can give me any questions that you
may have come up with. Yes, Mr. Parsons. Is Luke back
with them at some point and start saying we again? Oh,
okay. I actually didn't write that down, but good question. Is Luke back with the boys? OK, so you want to know more
about the comfort. So why did Luke mention that
there were many lamps? Yes, Grace. Oh. Now we're adding on to questions. Does anybody want to add on to
that? Okay. Was Paul boring? I have that. Well, I didn't have
that as a question, but that's in the notes. Okay. Is it common for Paul to
speak that many hours? How many hours did he speak?
Yes. Okay. That's one of my questions. Did Eutychus really die? Commentators are divided. Okay. I don't know that we're really
going to get to that since it's one of the last, it's the last
word. We just know that that's what
he wants to do. But we are going to talk a little bit more about
this Feast of Unleavened Bread. And that's one of the questions.
Why or how would Paul have celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread?
And I'll give you a few other. What kind of plot was made against
Paul? What's the significance of these travel companions, where
Luke gives us their names? This is my favorite question,
by the way. Since Luke mentions a secundus, was there a firstest
that we didn't know about? That's in my notes. That's question number three. You've lost the floor now. What
kind of meal was the breaking of bread What does it mean that
Paul prolonged his speech? Is there significance in the
many lamps? Why did Luke include this story about Eutychus? Have
you ever thought about that? Why did Paul travel alone at
that one juncture while his travel companions all traveled together?
And why did Paul plan to sail past Ephesus? This seems like
a place he loves. sailing past it. And then what's
the main theme of this passage, or you could say even chapter,
and I'm going to give that to you right now because it's in
the title. Paul's ministry of encouragement is the main theme
of this whole chapter, and it's going to be continued in his
address to the Ephesian elders, which we're going to cover next
week and the following week over two parts. Do you still have
a question, Bob? Yes. Is there something that Paul
did when he takes this young man in his arms? Maybe he did
one of his magic incantations. Now, we will get to that, yes.
All right, so after three years now in Ephesus, Paul's eyes are
finally focused on his goal, which is his eyes are fixed upon
Jerusalem. And this is not going to be an
identical comparison, but I want to draw this comparison even
though it's not exact. And that's that Luke here in
his writing, and remember he's writing to Theophilus, he's drawing
somewhat of a parallel here between Jesus' final journey to Jerusalem,
which he wrote all about in his first treatise called The Gospel
According to Luke, And he's comparing that to Paul's journey to Jerusalem,
which is described here in the second treatise, Acts. Now, of
course, what the God-man does in his mission is unique. Paul's
not going to do something anywhere near as marvelous. I'm not trying
to say that. His mission was unique, but both Jesus and Paul,
let me give you some of the comparisons here. They both traveled to Jerusalem
with a group of disciples. They both are opposed by Jews
plotting to take their lives. They both make claims at their
readiness to lay down their life. They both teach people along
the way. They both are determined to complete
their ministry. And they both have their face
set steadfastly toward Jerusalem. And we don't really get into
it into the text here, but they both have some dramatic confrontations
within the temple. And we'll see that with Paul
very shortly. Now, as we get into the verses here, as we talk
about these travels of Paul, and this is semi-speculative,
but his travels here may have included a venture into a place
called Illyricum. But he begins in Ephesus, and
of course, he's going to end up in Miletus, which is pretty
close to Ephesus. It's kind of interesting. But
again, his ultimate goal of Jerusalem is in view. Now, if you say,
what or where is Illyricum, where did you get that from? Well,
that comes from the words of Paul himself in Romans 15. In
Romans 15, 18, he says, For I will not venture to speak of anything
except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles
to obedience by word and deed by the power of signs and wonders,
by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and
all the way around to Illyricum, I have fulfilled the ministry
of the gospel of Christ. Now, you might ask the question,
where is Illyricum? Because you're not going to see
it on the map that I gave you. But if you just look at where Macedonia
is on the map, it's northwest of Macedonia. If you remember
when Paul talks about Titus going to Dalmatia, Dalmatia is part
of Illyricum. And there's another territory
called Pannonia. At least that's what the map
showed when I looked at it earlier today. Let's go to verse 1. I was just thinking about this
today, actually. It's amazing how much information
we glean from all the epistles that Paul
writes, and how all these things intersect, where he is when he's
writing one, who's carrying them, because Luke doesn't give us
all this information. Luke is a very brief writer for things
that we probably wished he would have been more expansive on,
but we do have a lot of other information that comes from a
lot of Paul's writings himself. But here, Luke describes, he
says, after the uproar ceased, and what he's conveying there
is basically saying when this crazy noise died down. The word
here denotes noise. The noise ceased when Ephesus
finally returns to orderly quiet, Paul summons for the disciples
of Ephesus. And I hadn't thought about this
before, but maybe Paul's in hiding. when he, you know, maybe he wasn't
just prevented from entering into the theater, but maybe they
said, no, you need to go into a very safe place. We don't know
that, but he summons for them. He doesn't go to them. He calls
them to him and they come to him. And here we see right away
what the theme is. And we're going to see it continually.
He encourages them. He encourages these disciples.
He gives them departing words of exhortation. We might even
call this a departing blessing. Now, what did he say? We don't
know, but we could have some ideas. Maybe he urged them to
walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which they had been
called with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing
with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the
spirit and the bond of peace. Where does that come from? Ephesians. This is the letter
that he's going to write to them, Ephesians 4. So he encourages
these believers and then he leaves. He says farewell, just as he
had resolved in chapter 19 verse 21 to go to Macedonia and Achaia
and to reconnect with Timothy and Erastus. Remember in chapter
19 verse 22, he sends them on ahead. But here's something to
consider, which is not in the text of Acts. But as Paul leaves
here, does he go straight to Macedonia or did he possibly
go first to Troas? The reason that I ask that is
when you get to 2 Corinthians 2, verse 12, this again, this
is where we're trying to connect all of the books together. He
says, when I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ,
even though a door was opened for me in the Lord, my spirit
was not at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I took leave of them and went
on to Macedonia. So we can't say this for sure,
but this seems like there's a pretty good probability that he first
goes to Troas and then on to his destination of Macedonia. Verse 2, when he had gone through
those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to
Greece. There he spent three months,
and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about
to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. So here he goes through these
regions or districts of Macedonia, and this probably would have
included communities like Philippi, like Thessalonica, and even Berea,
perhaps others. And we're pretty confident that
while he's here in Macedonia, that this is when he writes that
letter, 2 Corinthians. So this is when he writes 2 Corinthians. Of course, We know from 2 Corinthians
chapter 7 that it's in Macedonia that he is reunited with Titus. Remember I just read to you that
he was upset because he couldn't find Titus? Well, in chapter
7 of 2 Corinthians he says, we found him. And not only did we
find him, but he brought us a great report of God's work in Corinth. Titus had a very difficult job.
He carried Paul's letters to Corinth and had to rebuke those
people and see that they carried them out. And so he sees Titus,
he hears about God's grace upon the Corinthians. He's also, while
he's here in these regions, he is through people who help him. He's collecting money for what
I call the Jerusalem Relief Fund. And you see him talk about that
in Romans 15, 1 Corinthians 16, and also 2 Corinthians 8 and
9. But it wasn't just from one region,
but this is also going on. And so while he's there, Luke
records that he gave these saints in these Macedonian communities
much encouragement, many words, long speeches of things that
were going to help them. And there's something to be said,
or to remember, I guess you could say, is how often do the saints
of God need encouragement? How often do we need encouragement?
And the answer is, a lot. A lot. But we should also note that
Paul's mission, and we've seen this time and time again, it's
not to just go plant churches and say, good luck, guys. He
doesn't leave them to their own devices. He knows that persecution
is going to come upon them. He knows that the powers of darkness
are going to rise up against them. And so, he comes back for
encouragement. And what's the best way to encourage
people? The Word of God. And that's what he's primarily.
It's not the only thing he's doing, but the Word of God is what will
primarily encourage people. And so, he comes then to what
Luke calls Greece. some debate over this because
really this word could also just be translated Achaia and probably
primarily Corinth. And there in this area of Greece,
or Achaia, he spends three months. And he had in Corinth, he now
had an open door for ministry again because of the effectual
work of Titus. And while he's in Corinth, while
he's in Achaia, what book is he writing? Romans. He's writing Romans.
So he's writing Romans while he's here, and it's very probable
that he's waiting these three months because it's wintertime,
so they're waiting for favorable spring weather. So he's holed
up here, and while he's holed up, he's doing a lot of good
things. He's not just wasting his time. And when a plot of
evil, this is a plot to cause harm to Paul was made against
him by the Jews, this would have likely been the Jewish leaders
and probably the same Jews who took him in front of Galileo
and were outraged when Galileo wouldn't punish him. But they
come up with this plot to kill him. Now, was this plot to kill
him as he was on his way to the ship? Was this plot to kill him
on the ship? There's a highly plausible idea
that some of these Jews were going to pretend to be pilgrims
going back to Jerusalem, kill them at sea, throw them overboard. That's the end of Paul. And perhaps
if they can drown Paul, maybe they can effectually drown this
movement of the way with him. And maybe also steal the money
that he's been collecting. But he wanted to go to, it says
here, to Syria. And that's a reference to Antioch,
and we've called it Antioch in Syria before, Syrian Antioch.
And we saw that he stopped there in chapter 14, verse 26, and
also chapter 18, verse 18. But he becomes aware of this
plot. I've lost count of how many plots
that he's become aware of. against him. It started right
away in Damascus, if you remember. But he now decides to go a different
way. He's going to return through
Macedonia instead of just taking this direct sea voyage. And so
Paul's plans change yet again, but this is God's providential
care for Paul. And as one very old commentator
from 500 years ago wrote, he said, Paul doesn't tempt God.
He slips away from present danger. He knows there's a plot. He doesn't
say, I'm Paul. Nothing can happen to me. I'm
getting on this ship anyway. He's aware of the danger, and
he avoids it. But consider this, as we just
talked about him writing Romans, in the face of such hatred, what
is Paul's disposition towards his countrymen? He said in Romans
10.1, which providentially I just read this morning. It's amazing
how God works that. But he said, brothers, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for them, and this is his countrymen,
is that they may be saved. That was his objective. And I
wonder if we'd be able to say that if we knew that there was
people who literally wanted to murder us. Verse four. Sopater, the Berean
son of Paris, accompanied him, and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus
and Secundus, and Gaius of Derbe and Timothy, and the Asians,
Tychicus and Trophimus, these went on ahead and were waiting
for us at Troas. So you have all these names listed. You've got this Berean travel
companion of Paul, Sopater. Is this, and you can make the
determination, is this the Sosipater in Romans 16.21 that Paul calls
one of his kinsmen, meaning a relative? But then we have Aristarchus
and Secundus here, two companions from Thessalonica. Again, I'll
leave this for your judgment. Is this the same Aristarchus
who was just dragged into the theater or was it a different
one? But Aristarchus will be mentioned again in chapter 27
verse 2. He's also mentioned by Paul in
Colossians 4.10 and Philemon verse 24. Was this Gaius the
same Gaius dragged into the theater in the last chapter? We don't
have to wonder who Timothy was. We talked about him on Sunday.
This is Paul's beloved son in the faith. And then we have these
two other men, Tychicus and Trophimus. Tychicus was a man who is very
well thought of by Paul. We see how favorably he talks
about him in Ephesians 6, verse 21, in Colossians 4, verse 7,
2 Timothy 4, 12. and our new favorite book, Titus
3.12. Trophimus, who's going to actually cause some problems,
and it's not because he was trying to, because we're going to see
him mentioned in chapter 21, verse 29 here of Acts, is a resident
of Ephesus. So he is an Ephesian man, and
he's also mentioned again in 2 Timothy 4, verse 20. But these
men here, These men are traveling with Paul to Jerusalem, and what's
the point? Are they just friends? Are they
just ministers, partners in ministry? I think it's a little bit more
than that. I think they're coming along as representatives, or
you could say delegates, of the churches in Macedonia and Achaia
that had contributed money to the Jerusalem church. They're
coming along as representatives of those communities. So, not
only did they give money, but they're here on a mission trip
of sorts to provide help to Jerusalem. Now, there's one other person
who probably was part of this group, but we don't see him mentioned,
and that was Titus. So Titus was probably in this
group. And so we would have to ask ourself
the question, why would Luke not have mentioned Titus? And
there are some historians who have suggested, which I really
hadn't encountered this before, but there are some who have suggested
that Titus was Luke's brother. And notice Luke never mentions
his own name that much either. But perhaps if it was his brother,
he's modestly avoiding personal family references, you know,
the same way that John writes about himself in the gospel according
to John. You know, he calls himself the disciple that outran Peter.
He's the guy who got there first. The disciple whom Jesus loved,
but he never calls himself John. But at any rate, this group here,
they also represent something else, and they are representative
of the completeness of Paul's Gentile mission. Paul had successfully
gone everywhere that God wanted him to go, and so their representation
here shows that this mission has been complete. There's seven
named men, And they are the fruit of God's mission. So these seven
named men who are the fruit of God's mission, what do they go
on to do? They go on to become agents in His mission. So they
weren't just content to just be converted and to do nothing. They became agents in God's mission. And we could ask ourselves, what
about us? Are we agents in the mission
of God? In verse five, we have a bit
of a confusing phrase here. He says, these went on ahead
and were waiting for us at Troas. Who are these? Was it all seven
guys? Was it just Tychicus and Trophimus? Did he mean these seven or these
two? But as Luke pointed out, it says waiting for us. Oh, us. Luke is back. Luke's back. And so, if you remember, though,
here where he mentions Troas, what significant event happened
in Troas? I'll help you. The significant
event that happened in Troas was where Paul sees the Macedonian
vision. They're in Troas. They don't
know where they're going. They've been forbidden to go
here, forbidden to go there. He receives that vision. And
so they go into Macedonia. That's back in chapter six, the
beginning of chapter 16. In verse six, Luke records, but
we sailed away from Philippi. And, you know, remember, where
did we leave Luke? in Philippi. That was where we
left him. Remember after the jail house
conversion, Paul goes on, but Luke stays there. At least we
believe he stays there in Philippi, but here they're leaving Philippi
and it says, after the days, or we could say the festival
of unleavened bread. Is this where the group separated?
Is the we here referring to just Paul and Luke? And again, we
can't fully answer those questions. But what about this mention of
the festival or Feast of Unleavened Bread? What do we know from Scripture
about the Feast of Unleavened Bread? What was it in one word? Right, it was the Passover. So
it was the Passover. We see that in Luke 21, the Feast
of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover.
We go to verse 7, then came the day of unleavened bread on which
the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. And then in this book, in chapter
12, you remember when Herod killed James, and then he goes on to
arrest Peter, and Peter's kept in prison to be executed after
the days of unleavened bread. And so I asked myself, what kind
of Passover would Paul be celebrating? Now, if you were to go over to
1 Corinthians chapter 5, I think this helps give us an answer
in verses 6 through 8, where he's writing to the Corinthian
church and he says, Do you not know that a little leaven leavens
the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that
you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened. For Christ,
our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. So you think Paul is just going
to go about celebrating Passover the way that the unbelieving
Jews do? No. So he can celebrate it in a whole
new way, understanding that Christ, the true Passover lamb, has been
sacrificed once for all time. He says, So that's my answer.
That's how I think he was able to celebrate it, and in that
way. So, 1 Corinthians 5, verses 6-8,
and of course that comes after him talking about the man caught
in a very bad moral condition. It says, after the days of unleavened
bread. So they wait for that. And in
five days, or really, you could say within five days, and this
was when they were going the other way earlier in the book,
it took them two days. And so if it takes five days
here, that means they're hitting unfavorable headwinds here. But
they get to Troas. And they stay here for a solid
week. And so everybody now is regrouped
back together. Paul and all of his traveling
companions are here. together in Troas. And I don't
know if this has jumped out to you in this passage or maybe
some of the other passages as well, but Paul's not a lone ranger. Paul does not work alone. There
was a couple periods of time when he was alone, like when
he first gets to Corinth and he didn't want to be alone. He
calls for other men to come to him. Paul was a team player. Paul was a team developer. He
was constantly investing into the lives of other people. people
who would share in the work of ministry and who would also continue
it after he's gone. We're seeing that in this letter
that he's writing to Titus. Titus is going to outlive Paul. Shouldn't we be doing the same
thing today? Can any one man, can any one woman do any work
of ministry alone? No. Verse seven, now we're getting
to the On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together
to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on
the next day. And he prolonged his speech until
midnight. There were many lamps in the
upper room where we were gathered, said Luke. Now this is really, and this
is even why I pray that I've often overlooked this, but this
is a really significant passage that shows us the development
of the church over time. And so Luke tells us this is
the first day of the week. What's the first day of the week?
Sunday. Or as John will say in Revelation,
he calls it the Lord's day. And they are gathered here, we
know, evening, which if you go to John chapter 20, when Jesus
appears to his disciples on the first day of the week, they're
actually gathered at night. He gathers with them at night.
Now, Luke doesn't tell us, is he following Jewish calculations?
Because when does Sunday begin for the Jews? 6 p.m. on a Saturday night is already
Sunday for them. And, of course, the Romans, where
our 12 a.m. starts the day, from 12 a.m.
to 12 a.m., but the Jews calculate it from sunset to sunset. But
this is the first day of the week. This is the day of creation,
and also, of course, very importantly, the day of resurrection. And
so when he says that we gathered, the word that Luke uses there
isn't just saying like a few friends decided to hang out.
The word means to be called together in assembly. This is the assembling
of the church. And so it's a clear reference
then to us from Luke that this was the practice of the early
Christians by now, that they had begun to meet on the first
day of the week in order to worship God. And as part of their worshiping
them, we see that phrase to break bread. Now, when I gave an overview
of sorts of the Lord's Supper on Sunday, we went to First Corinthians
and we talked about how they had what was called a love feast. And so they would gather and
they would eat together a regular meal and then they would celebrate
the Lord's Supper after that. And for the regular meal, the
richer people would bring food and so that the poor people wouldn't
go unfed. And he had to rebuke them because
it got really bad. What was really great got really,
really bad and it affected the Lord's Supper. So here, I think
they're doing the same thing. I think they're doing a fellowship
meal or a charity meal, including the Lord's Supper. Of course
in Acts 2.42 we see that this was one of the things they devoted
themselves to, to the breaking of bread. But Paul here talks
with them. Now, I don't think that here
he's initially that he's just dialoguing. I think he is preaching
to them. He's instructing them. This is
his last chance to pour as much wisdom. And maybe he's even giving
them, hey, I just wrote this book, this letter called Romans.
How would you guys like to hear it all in one night? So he breaks
down Romans for these. That's just my idea there. But
he's also doing this because he knows I'm determined to leave
tomorrow. I've got to leave tomorrow. And
so he prolongs, or we could say he extended or he continued his
message. And I was thinking earlier today,
I think there's, with what we see in the narrative here, there's
pretty good probability that by extending the message, he
extends or pushes out the meal and the Lord's Supper. And maybe
that has some sort of effect on this young man. I don't know.
But think about this as well. Just because it was the Lord's
Day and the first day of the week, did the Greeks or the Romans
care? No. They didn't care about that. They said day of rest. You get
no days of rest. And so they didn't believe in
this at all. And so a lot of the people who had been coming
here, they would have had to work all day. So they're working all day,
whether they're slaves, whether they're artisans, they're working.
And then they're going to come and they're going to gather when
they're available. And so they're here at night. And just possibly,
this is again speculative, this is possibly where the idea of
Sunday night services came from, from people who they had to. They wanted to worship on the
Lord's day, so they met when they could. And this was obviously
a unique opportunity for them. We get to meet with Paul. But Luke says there were a good
many of lamps or torches here in this upper room. where they're
at, this is going to, these torches that'll allow them to meet in
this room long after the sun goes down. We see an upper room
mentioned all the way back in chapter one, if you remember
that, when they were meeting to pray over the replacement
to Judas. So this was a typical – you had
apartments that were on the top two floors, and on the first
floor, the ground floor, there would have been shops. That was
very common. So instead of a house church,
maybe we could call this an apartment church. Where did these lamps
come from? Well, it's very likely that the
people brought them. You're coming, and you're probably
going home in the dark, and guess what they don't have? They don't
have street lamps. So you can walk home in complete darkness,
or you could carry a little lamp with you. So it serves more than
one purpose. John Gill said, perhaps also to remove all grounds
of suspicion by having the place well lit, or occasion of reproach
as if it was a midnight society met for wicked practices. They
didn't want to have people think that, so it was well lit. But just as a bit of an aside
here, As we think of the lamps burning, the light of this place,
it may cause our minds to think a little bit of that tabernacle
or that temple theme. Remember, according to Exodus
27 and Leviticus 24, what did Aaron and his sons do or what
were they commanded to do? It was to keep the lamps burning
all night. From evening to morning. Remember, it wasn't from morning
to evening, it was from evening to morning, which means they
were burning those lamps overnight. And when they come along to the
temple, 2 Chronicles 13, 11, they're doing the same thing. They're doing the same thing.
What did that light represent? Was it just in case the priest
got afraid of the dark? Maybe it was a fringe benefit,
but this was a representation of the continual presence of
God, the light of God's presence continually among his people.
It's light dispelling darkness. And what did the tabernacle and
the temples have? They had a table for bread, the
bread of the presence, and the bread of the presence is placed
regularly before the Lord. And so the bread would have been
placed in an elevated place of light, an elevated place of light. Your temple was an elevated place. And here, in a very small, mini
way, it's elevated. They're on the third floor. Verse nine, a young man named
Eutychus sitting at the window sank into a deep sleep as Paul
talked still longer and being overcome by sleep, he fell down
from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went
down and bent over him and taking him up in his arms said, do not
be alarmed for his life is in him. So how young is Eutychus? Well, from the first word that's
used here, you could be thinking that he could be, you know, 20s,
early 30s. But the word then that Luke uses
in verse 12 seems to give the indication that he probably would
have been no older than 8 to 14 years old. His name meant
either fortunate, good fortune, or lucky. which one commentator
wrote, which was sheer coincidence. And I was like, there's no sheer
coincidence anywhere in scripture. And I was going to try to figure
lucky into the title, and I decided not to. But he's sitting here at the
window. And of course, this is a precarious place for him to
be sitting. But what does the window provide?
Fresh air, fresh air. And so he sinks into a deep or
profound sleep as Paul continues to talk. And notice as you look
at this narrative, Luke doesn't condemn Paul for speaking long,
but he also doesn't condemn the young man for falling asleep.
This is a no judgment zone by Luke, you could say. And it seems
the way that he words this about being overcome by sleep is that
he's struggling to stay awake. He's trying to stay awake. He
really would like to stay awake, but he nods off. Did you ever
think about the fact that maybe he wasn't the only one who nodded
off? He's just the one that happens to be sitting in the danger seat.
Maybe other people are as well. But what's causing this? Well,
maybe the heat of the room. Maybe the smell of the room.
Maybe the room's super crowded. Of course, the time. Maybe he
actually worked that day. And Paul just keeps talking. Exhaustion. You can name all
the factors here that he's struggling with. But consider this. While we're not saying anything
negative about him, how does the Bible often portray sleep? It's often portrayed as an abject
failure. What happens to Samson when he's
sleeping on Delilah's lap? How is Jonah able to sleep in
the boat as he's outright disobeying God? The disciples fall asleep at
Mount Transfiguration. How is it even possible? And
of course, as Jesus also rebukes them in the Garden of Gethsemane,
could you not pray with me for one hour? And in Nahum 3.18,
it's even used as a rebuke of the failed leadership of one
of the countries. Your shepherds are asleep. In
Luke chapter 12, verse 37, we see the words, blessed are those
servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. And there's
a sense that Christians must be spiritually awake, praying
that they enter not into temptation. Paul's going to say, when Ron
teaches next week, or maybe it'll be me, I don't know, verse 31,
I can't remember where the breakdown is, but he says, therefore be
alert. But this boy here, he falls out
of the building, down the three stories, and even though we don't
blame him, there is this vivid reminder to the reader, and even
to the people of Troas, that God's people must maintain alertness. And that's what Paul's going
to tell those Ephesian elders. Wolves are going to come in,
you've got to be awake. But Luke records here that they
picked him up dead. This is the sense of carrying
a corpse. He's dead. There's some commentators
who don't believe it, but this boy is dead. And guess what? They have a doctor there to pronounce
him dead. Luke is a physician. He records
him as dead. But as I just gave you that temple
tabernacle motif, there's this picture then of Eutychus falling
from light or from life into death or darkness. There's this
picture that's there. They immediately have to suspend
the sermon. He can't talk any longer, Paul. I'm sure he stopped
it himself. Does he take his time? Did he run? I feel pretty
confident that he raced down the steps to this young boy.
And I really don't love this translation here, which says,
bent over him, because this is the sense of throwing himself
on top of this boy. Now, where have we seen that
in Scripture before? We see it with Elijah in 1st King 17 with
the widow of Zarephath's son. And not to be outdone, Elisha
said, I can do that, too, with the Shunammite woman's dead son.
But they both did the same thing. They threw themselves upon the
young boy. And of course, Peter wasn't going
to do that with, who was it, Dorcas? It had been quite inappropriate. He kneels by her bedside. But
here, Paul, he takes this boy and perhaps even calls out to
the Lord as Elijah did. In 1st Kings 17, 21, Elijah calls
out, Oh Lord, my God, let this boy's life return to him. And
so he embraces this dead boy in his arms. Of course, this
is a demonstration of his compassion, his care for him. And this is
what we do. when we proclaim the gospel.
What do we do? We descend down to people who
are in spiritual darkness. We embrace them. We point them
to the light. We point them to eternal life
through Jesus. There's a picture of that and
what Paul's doing. And while he's doing that, he's telling
everybody else, stop being alarmed. Stop being distressed. Make ye
know ado. Four, here's the reason, his
life is in him. And essentially he's saying he
was dead, but now he's alive. This has been a resurrection
miracle through the power of Jesus. And so his resurrection
of Eutychus, it's symbolic of how God had used Paul in this
same way, that Paul had been used by Jesus as his chief ambassador,
not to just take the light, but really to reflect the light of
the world to this dark Gentile world. All these men who are
here representing this huge geographic region, and Paul has reflected
the light to this darkness that had been all over the Gentile
world. It also, this event confirms
Paul as an authentic prophet in the same vein as Elijah and
Elisha, as an authentic prophet, apostle, spokesman for the Lord. Verse 11, And when Paul had gone
up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long
while until daybreak, and so departed. And they took the youth
away alive and were not a little comforted. Paul goes back up. He goes back to this elevated,
lit place of worship, and he eats. They finally partake. I
don't think they partook of this meal until now, the Lord's Supper,
and perhaps what we would call a farewell meal. And so in this
narrative, you've got the breaking of bread mentioned by Luke at
the beginning. You've got breaking of bread
mentioned at the end. You could say that it sandwiches
the resurrection story. You've got two jokes and one
night. But if that's the only thing
you remember next week, when Ron asks for what you remembered,
that won't be good. And so he conversed, Paul converses
with these people for a long while, all the way until the
sun starts to come up and then he leaves. Was this one of Paul's
many sleepless nights in ministry? Remember, he talks about all
the things that happened to him. Maybe it wasn't just in fear
of something, but it was, hey, you know what? I'd rather be
sleeping right now. But ministering to these people
that I'm probably never going to see again is more important
than my sleep. A sleepless night. And so these
people here, and Luke doesn't say, is it just the believers?
Is it his relatives? Is it people who were his relatives
who are also believers? But they take him away alive. I was reflecting today about
You know, there's this sense of not only was he brought back
to life, but whatever injuries he had were probably also healed.
What good would it have been if he had been brought back to
life but was now a quadriplegic from this fall? So they take
him away. He walks away. And this is one
of Luke's litotes, this understated expression to mean a very big
thing. This was a major consolation to them that the young man was
alive. And so this theme of comfort
and encouragement continues. Not only does Paul do it through
words, but also through his actions. Now, as we examine a story like
this, we don't need to try to look at this and say, we need
to be exactly like the people of Troas. We're going to meet
on Sunday nights. We're going to go to a third story room and
all those things. But we should recognize what
the early church was doing. And those are the things we should
be doing. And what are those? The word. So you've got the audible
preached word. Sacrament, which we've talked
many times, is the visible word that we hold in front of us through
the elements. And when? On the Lord's day,
the day of the word, capital W word. And so Paul, what's he
going to do? He's going to leave. Paul's not
going to be there to celebrate with them every Sunday. Paul
will leave. But those concrete elements of
worship, the word and sacrament and the Lord himself would be
with these believers in Troas. This would be their ultimate
encouragement. And now Paul is in a hurry. Verse
13, But going ahead to the ship, we set sail for Assas, intending
to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending
himself to go by land. And when he met us at Assas,
we took him on board and went to Mytilene. Or really, it's
Mytilene. So they go on this ship. Luke
and Paul's other travel companions, they get on this large seafaring
ship. They go out to sea. Assas is 20 miles southwest of
Troas. This is a coastal city in Mycenae. And they wanted to, or they intended,
that's where we're going to meet up with Paul again, because this
is what Paul's plans were, which means Paul wasn't going with
them on this ship because he was going to take an overland
route. He was going to walk to get there. Now, why did Paul want to do
that? We don't know. I'll give you a few possible
ideas. Maybe he wanted to spend more
time with the believers. Maybe he thought, I really need
to make sure that this kid, Eutychus, is OK, so I'm going to stick
around for a little bit longer. Maybe he wanted some alone time,
just as Jesus did. In Matthew 14, we see that Jesus
dismissed the crowds and he went up on the mountain by himself
to pray. When evening came, he was there
alone. Was this the individual time
that Paul needed to set his face towards Jerusalem? But he does
meet up with them. He gets on the ship. They travel
to Mytilene. which is the chief city on the
island of Lesbos. This is 44 miles south of Assas,
and we get to the final two verses. Sailing from there, we came the
following day opposite Chios. The next day we touched at Samos,
and the day after that we went to Miletus, for Paul had decided
to sail past Ephesus so that he might not have to spend time
in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible,
on the day of Pentecost. So they go past these two other
places, Chios and Samos. Samos was a strategic maritime
hub in ancient times. But Paul had already planned
ahead of time, I'm not sailing to Ephesus. Now, was this a strategic
decision? Did he think about what that
town clerk had said? Oh, maybe Demetrius is going
to take me to the courts and I'm going to get stuck there
for two weeks and I will not get to Jerusalem on time. Maybe
he had to choose between two different ships. Hey, my ship
stops in Ephesus and my ship stops in Miletus. And he says,
well, the one in Ephesus, I'll never get to Jerusalem. So maybe
it's more of a navigational decision or for any other reasons. But
he needs to get to Jerusalem, so he is not going to stop at
Ephesus. And his desire is to be in Jerusalem,
if possible, to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. And of course,
he also has financial aid with him that he wants to bring to
the Jerusalem believers. More importantly, his eyes are
set on the place that ended Jesus' life and will also terminate
or end his ministry as a free man. From this point on, Paul
is not going to be a free man once he gets to Jerusalem. And
it's in the midst of giving life, we saw he gave life even in that
miracle that he's headed towards his enslavement, towards his
imprisonment. But by way of closing, let me
point out a few things here. As he journeyed to Jerusalem,
how did Paul encourage believers all along the way? And not just
in Troas, but all along the way, all these places, Macedonia,
Achaia, et cetera. Well, one, he encouraged them
through his presence, through his personal presence. He was
there with these believers. He was identifying with them
in their afflictions, in their trials. Paul's not the only person
going through trials. They are too. And he's there
with them. And they see, how does he live?
How does he work? How does he speak? How does Paul
endure persecution right in front of us? How does he treat us as
friends? And even how does Paul feel emotions?
Paul was not a brick wall. We see that in his writing. 2
Corinthians is an incredibly emotional book. So they were
encouraged through his presence. Secondly, they were encouraged
through his words. As I've already said, proclamation of the word
is a vital component of spiritual encouragement. You can say all
the nice things you want to someone, but telling them the word of
God will have ten times that effect. And so their faith was
nurtured through the many hours. They didn't care if Paul was
going to preach for four hours. And thirdly, and finally, it
was through his actions. He interacted with these people
in personal ways. He ate with them. He fellowshiped
with them. He worked alongside them. He
cared for them. He healed some of them. And he
served God's people. As I ask you tonight, Do we desire
to encourage the believers that are around us? And if so, if we say that is
our desire, are we willing to commit in these ways that Paul
did? Are we willing to do that? And we can see what an enduring
impact Paul had on these people. We're seeing that enduring impact
that Paul had on a man like Titus. But we serve and are indwelt
by the same God that Paul was. And we're not specially called
apostles, but what kind of impact might we have for Christ's kingdom
if we also give ourselves to the people of God so selflessly
as Paul did? That's my admonition to you.
That's my admonition to me. And so as you think of that story
where Eutychus falls to his death and then is raised to life, let
that be a reminder to be an encourager. Paul wasn't just a bold person,
just loudly proclaiming the gospel. He was that kind of man, but
he was also a man of encouragement. And as I said at the beginning,
the saints of God need a lot of encouragement. Who can you
encourage tonight? I pray for each person in this
room tonight. And I think, Lord, of the many opportunities that
you give to us to encourage one another. And I pray that you
will provoke our hearts to do that. And as we consider this
passage as a whole, Lord, let this affect us deeply, both in
our sense of being an encouragement to the body of Christ, but also
to descend to those who are groping about in blindness, in spiritual
blindness, and to put our arms around them spiritually and to
share the love of Jesus Christ with them. Help us in these ways.
We pray tonight. Oh, Lord, in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
Acts 20:1-16
Series Acts
Teaching on Acts 20:1-16
| Sermon ID | 9524117346024 |
| Duration | 1:02:58 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Bible Text | Acts 20:1-16 |
| Language | English |
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