A Life Lived on Purpose
“A Life Lived on Purpose”
Acts 20:17-38
June 22, 2008
This was a difficult goodbye for Paul. Notice how it came about:
• Prologue: Arranging the Meeting - :17-18a
The apostle Paul was a passenger on a merchant ship making its way slowly down the Aegean Sea toward the Mediterranean, stopping with regularity. At Miletus, the boat docked to load and unload cargo. Paul saw and seized an opportunity here, sending word for the elders from the church at Ephesus to come and meet him. And for us, his words to them illustrate a life lived on purpose.
Purposeful Living: The Testimony of Paul
I. Serving God - :18b-19
Paul had opponents of the gospel of grace who would use the opportunity of Paul’s absence to not only teach false doctrine, but also to deride the character and work of the apostle. Thus Paul begins his words to the elders with a defense of his life and ministry among them.
Paul lived “among” the Ephesians, and we can say he served them, certainly, but it was God Whom he ultimately was serving—and while it was a blessing and a spiritual experience he’d not have traded, it wasn’t a picnic! A life lived on purpose, for the follower of Christ, is a life lived ultimately for an audience of One. It’s a life that takes its queues from Jesus, is concerned with pleasing Him, even if no one else is pleased or impressed. Paul had his priorities straight: while he loved people and toiled among them, it was God Whom he served.
II. Telling the Truth - :20-21
Here was the message that Paul preached, the message opposed by his (likely) Jewish opponents: repentance and faith in Christ. This is the salvation equation, of course; trust in that Christ-centered gospel saved then, and it saves now.
“Repent, or you will all perish”, Jesus said (Luke 13:3), and that word is still vivid and critical for us today. If there’s no repentance in our message, our message is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Repentance means a change of mind, in the case of the gospel a change of mind about sin, about Christ, about the way of salvation itself not being through human effort, but through faith. It involves a turning from our own way, a desire to follow His way.
And thus a life lived on purpose, as a Christ-follower, is a life committed to telling the truth. Our means may not be the same as Paul’s, nor our abilities, but our commitment ought to be. Who in your life needs to hear the truth of Christ from you?
III. Following the Spirit - :22-23
It is the Holy Spirit Who is moving Paul toward Jerusalem, and it is that same Holy Spirit—likely in this case speaking through the mouth of prophets in the church—Who is warning Paul that he’s going to really face a hard time once he gets there, including prison and pain. Why was Paul so set on going to Jerusalem? The spiritual answer is that the Spirit was leading him; the practical answer was that Gentile Christians in different cities had taken up a financial collection to minister to the needs of the poor and persecuted Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, and Paul’s concern for both their squalid conditions, and for the promotion of unity between Jews and Gentiles in the body of Christ, prompted his resolve to go to Jerusalem. Paul followed the leading of the Holy Spirit. Such is a life lived on purpose!
IV. Keeping Focus - :24-27
Paul was concerned to keep his focus, to finish his course, to complete the ministry God had entrusted to him, and the ministry centered on the message of the gospel, part of the “whole counsel of God”. Like a laser Paul zeroed in on the task God had granted him. Self-preservation was not at the top of the list of Paul’s priorities; there were some things worse than death to him, and disobeying the Holy Spirit’s leadership was at the top of this list
V. Leaving a Legacy of Leaders - :28-35
Paul would soon be off the scene for good, and he knew that the success of the Christian enterprise, from a human standpoint, would hinge upon one generation passing the faith along to the next. Listen to what he writes young Timothy, his prize protégé:
“2:1 You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” II Timothy 2:1-2
A. Attending to self - :28a
28 Pay careful attention to yourselves
This is the first word to leaders—and one that is utterly timeless. In his characteristic colorful language, C.S. Lewis said, “The true Christian’s nostril is to be continually attentive to the inner cesspool.” We are saints, to be sure, but we are saints who are nonetheless prone to sin, and the moment we believe we’ve got sin licked is the moment Satan will trip us up for sure.
Robert Murray McCheyne was a young pastor fully devoted to Christ, and his comment on this point is that “my people’s greatest need is my personal holiness.” If you want to pray one thing for me, pray that I’d increasingly be the kind of pastor whose life never dishonors Jesus.
B. Attending to others - :28b
Then, making sure that our lives are before God what He desires them to be, we care for those entrusted to us. It is God’s Holy Spirit Who has given the charge to church leaders, to the elders. Some translations render this verse “shepherd” the flock of God, and that’s an accurate picture; it encompasses, as Daniel Akin points out, “tending, caring for, feeding, protecting and leading.” Our example is Christ, the Good Shepherd, and the example of the Good Shepherd is that He lays down His life for the sheep (John 10:11-15), and He calls on us to lay down our lives as well (John 15:12-13). And the reason the church is precious is because Christ (lit. “God” here!) “obtained (it) with His own blood”.
C. Warning about false teaching - :29-30
Note the actions of false teachers:
• They have no concern for the flock of God
• They will speak twisted things
• Their motive will be to make disciples, not of Jesus, but of themselves
And they will arise, sometimes, from within. How did Paul know this would happen? I believe that it’s because Paul knew human nature, and it always tends away from God’s truth and toward error, sinful selfish motives, and compromise of the truth.
We are told, in some quarters, that we need to emphasize the “positive” at all times in our teaching/preaching ministry, that we shouldn’t concern ourselves with refuting falsehood. People who say such things either have never read the New Testament, or they are determined not to believe it, because Paul says that there is a critical place for the refutation of lies, and we live in a world full of lies today. The foundation of the church is Jesus Christ, the truth of His gospel. Jesus is Truth personified (“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” – John 14:6). Without the truth, we have nothing upon which to build our lives, our churches.
D. Calling to alertness - :31
Getting lax, getting lazy, getting complacent: these are some of the symptoms of the violation of Paul’s word to the Ephesian elders.
E. Entrusting to God - :32
Paul could only do his part—and he had. Now, he had to entrust them to God. And he entrusted them to God’s Word.
F. Encouraging selfless hard work - :33-35
His final words were an encouragement to guard their motives and actions. The motive of money can trip up many an individual in ministry. Further, Paul’s example was one of hard work in ministry to the churches.
• Epilogue: Farewell - :36-38
Finally, after an affectionate farewell and prayer, Paul boards the ship, never expecting to see his friends and co-workers again.
And there we see him, the man of God, sailing off into the sunset, having done all within his power to prepare the church at Ephesus to carry on, to go to new heights in its fulfillment of God’s commission. He’d been focused; he’d been faithful; he’d been filled with love for God and the church. In short, he’d lived a life with purpose. Have you found the purpose to which God has called you? It’s in His Word, in part, to be sure; beyond this, God has gifted you and burdened you to do a work that I can’t do—that others maybe can’t do either. Are you living your life on purpose—God’s purpose?
5 Good Questions
1. Is it possible to get so caught up in serving and meeting the needs of others that we can forget that it is God Whom we ultimately serve? If so, how can we keep from this happening?
2. Does the topic of repentance seem to have almost disappeared from Christian sermons? Why do you think this is so?
3. Read II Timothy 2:1-2. How many “generations” can you find there? Why is the development of new leaders so critical to Christian faith?
4. There are those who argue that what is important is simply the way we live, that knowing and understanding doctrine are of less value. Is this correct? Why or why not?
5. When you consider the various tasks of elders and Christian leaders, which do you think rise to the top in importance? Why? And how can you be supportive of elders in their functions?
Looking Ahead
Ken Chaney will be sharing this coming Sunday about the faith of Abraham demonstrated in obeying God’s command to sacrifice Isaac on the altar. Read together Genesis 22:1-19, and consider this question: what is the relationship of faith to obedience?
