A Farewell Address

Father, with all of these thoughts in our minds and much more besides, we turn now to the Bible, and we pray that you by your Spirit will be our teacher. Help us, O God, we pray. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

If you imagine that you gathered your children around you and they and you both knew that this was the last occasion that you would ever be together, what would you say? If you had one opportunity to speak to them for the final time, knowing it, surely you would pay particular attention to what you said. There would be no time for trivialities, no time for vague generalities. The words would have to be chosen purposefully; they would have to be stated as perfectly as they possibly could be. And you would want to ensure that you left them with words ringing in their ears that would be of benefit to them not only for time but also for eternity.

Well, the departure of an earthly father leaving behind his earthly, physical children is equally matched by the departure of a spiritual father leaving behind his spiritual children. And it is this scene which Luke records for us, beginning in verse 25—a scene that is full of pathos. It is marked by emotion. The words are marked with deep significance on account of their setting. Paul is taking his leave of the leaders of the church in Ephesus. It’s emotional, it’s significant, it’s purposeful, it is unrepeatable, and you would have noted in the reading how their emotions spill over in verse 37: weeping, embracing, kissing, grieving over the fact that they knew that he would not be with them in this way ever again. And so, provided for them was their last opportunity to pray together this side of heaven.

Now, in light of that, you would understand that the words that Paul speaks are purposefully chosen, they are precisely stated, and they are, I want you to see, peculiarly apt. Last time, we paid attention to Paul’s example by way of his transparency and his integrity and his sense of urgency. And this morning, I have four more words for us, and I’ll give you them as we go. I’ve used these words as the pegs on which to hang the outline of my own thoughts.

Declaration

And the first word is the word declaration. It comes from our English translation in verse 26: “Therefore, I declare to you today…” And what is his declaration? I’m going to show you that it’s a twofold declaration. But it is first of all, here in verse 26, a declaration of his innocence: “I declare to you that I am innocent of the blood of all men.”

Now, that may strike us as a strange statement, but it would not have been strange for these people. And those of them who were from a Jewish background would understand the context out of which Paul was speaking. And in order for you to understand it, you would need to turn to Ezekiel and to chapter 33. You needn’t necessarily turn to it, but let me give you it, and you can follow it up on your own. The word of God comes to the prophet:

Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, “O wicked man, you will surely die,” and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will [be] saved yourself.[1]

Now, those salutary words form the backdrop for Paul’s statement here. “Like the son of man,” he says, “like the servant of God as described for us by the prophet Ezekiel, I too have sought to warn you, to teach you, to proclaim the gospel of God to you, and I have done so by God’s enabling to the best of my ability, and therefore, my declaration of innocence is as follows: I am innocent of the blood of all men.”

Now, he is able to say so because of his commitment to the proclaiming of the gospel. We have watched all the way through his ministry, and he is involved in telling them that the Messiah had to suffer and die and then that Jesus is the Messiah. He has urged them concerning the kingdom of God, the majesty of Jesus, before whom they ought to bow. He has called them to repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus. Indeed, if ever you were to knock him or bump into him, he would bump back up, and his central position—his default position, if you like—or, mixing all my metaphors, his screen saver for Paul on his computer would come up: “the gospel of God, the gospel of God.”

No matter how Paul had been buffeted, no matter what he had endured, eventually, he always came back up to dead center. He was a gospel man.

You remember those toys that our children had with the low center of gravity, with the lead weights in the bottom? And they were clowns, I think, and you knocked them, but they always came back upright, no matter what you did to them. Intriguing to children. Well, there’s a sense in which no matter how Paul had been buffeted, no matter what he had endured, if he is knocked and buffeted and moved and prodded and punched, eventually, he always came back up to dead center. He was a gospel man, reminding us that gospel men are essential for the well-being of God’s people.

In the course of our routine months, we are on the receiving end of requests from all over the place for us to suggest to churches men who might be able to serve in their ministry. And amongst all of the observations and requirements that are contained in those cover letters, I still am waiting to receive a letter which begins, “Dear Alistair, we are looking for a gospel man to become the pastor in our church.” Now, it’s not that the other issues are irrelevant. They’re clearly not—the matters of education and leadership skills and background and prior experience and so on. But it is staggering the extent to which those things are focused in the minds of people thinking about their churches when in actual fact, what they need more than anything else—more than anything else—is someone who will declare the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Billy Graham is this weekend in New York City. You will have read of it in the press. Eighty-six years old, is he? Possibly in his last foray into the world of mass evangelism. He was, in his early years, in the Northwestern schools in Minnesota. It was 1952, fifty-three years ago, John Pollock tells us in the biography of Billy Graham, that he began to wrestle with his future: Should he continue in the school structure in Minnesota, or should he respond to the urgent prompting that he felt concerning itinerant evangelism? And he walked, the biographer tells us, the trails around his home, beseeching God to show him the way forward, reading in his Bible every Scripture that he could on the nature of evangelism. And then, quoting Billy Graham, he said, “I thought about Christ’s death on the cross. Above all other motives as a spur to service and incentive to evangelism is the cross of Christ and its irrepressible compassion.”[2] And as he walked home, he sang to himself,

Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o’er the erring one[s], lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus, … Mighty to save.[3]

And whatever else has been part and parcel of the journey of the last fifty-three years, he leaves behind a legacy framed in the simple phrase “The Bible says, ‘And ye must be born again.’” Why? Because at his core, he is a gospel man. So we rejoice in that.

The same is true when you read church history. You have benefited, I know, from our bookstore in the rich area of Christian biography. And there in that section you may find, if you’re fortunate, a biography of John Brown of Haddington. Haddington is in East Lothian in Scotland. And John Brown was born in 1722, which is quite a long time ago. He was born in a unique era in Scottish history when a number of significant men were born. David Hume was on the scene in 1711. Adam Smith, who wrote The Wealth of Nations, which provided essentially the economic framework upon which this nation was founded, was born in 1723. And in that context, this Mrs. Brown gives birth to a wee boy, who in the providence of God is to arise and to be immensely used in the early part of the eighteenth century.

He writes a closing letter to his congregation in the prospect of his death. And I was struck in reading it that no matter what he says, his great concern for them as a congregation is that they might in finding a new minister find a man who’s committed to the gospel. Listen to how he puts it:

With respect to your obtaining another minister,—let me beseech you, by much fervent prayer, get him first from the Lord. And let it be your care to call one whose sermons you find to touch your consciences. May the Lord preserve you from such as aim chiefly to tickle your fancy, and seek themselves rather than Jesus Christ the Lord.

And then, in a paragraph of selflessness, he says,

Oh, how it would delight my soul to be informed, in the manner of the eternal state [in other words, to learn in heaven], that Christ had come along with my successor, conquering and to conquer! How gladly should I see you and him by hundreds at the right-hand of Christ at that great day, though I should scarcely have my ten![4]

You know, I’ve said to you a number of times—and I actually believe this; that’s why I’ve said it—that the ministry, in part, which God has entrusted to me in this era at Parkside is, I believe, a ministry of keeping my foot in the door, keeping the door open, so that in a subsequent generation others may come through that open door of opportunity to be far more significantly used of God in the conversion of men and women. And I would like to be able to say with John Brown that I will rejoice to see my successor in heaven with the hundreds of his converts, even if I stand there with ten. Because the issue is the necessity of a gospel man.

Do you get this declaration? It’s a declaration of his innocence. “I,” he says, “have taken the whole gospel to the whole city by my whole strength. And I have done so diligently.” If you jump forward to verse 34, that’s where I get this second point from. It’s out of order in the verses, but I don’t think it’s out of order in terms of logic. What is he declaring? He’s declaring first of all his innocence: “I have not hesitated to do this, to proclaim to you the whole will of God.” And then he is declaring, verse 33, “I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing.” They could verify this. Has this just been a materialistic journey for Paul? Has he sought to use the ministry simply to line his own nest? No, look at his hands. He may even have held up his hands and said, “You can tell by my hands that I wasn’t just on the receiving end of stuff.”

He had determined to walk a certain path, to leave himself free from temptation on the one hand and accusation on the other hand. He had a tent-making ministry. It would, I suppose, be a very happy thing, to earn one’s living from another source so as to be free from the same potential accusation and to be free from the same sense of temptation. But he is not laying down a law; he’s describing his circumstances. He’s describing what he had done, verifiable by his listeners and observers. And he is making the point that Jesus’ words are helpful in guiding us: “It is [far] more blessed to give than to receive.”

He’s actually doing very similarly to what you will find Samuel does in 1 Samuel 12 when he makes his farewell speech. He says, “I’m out of here. Now you have your king. I’ve been a leader since my youth, but you can check: Whose ox did I steal?” “No one’s.” “Whose stuff did I take?” “No one,”[5] and so on. In other words, Paul is doing the same thing. He makes a declaration of his innocence and then a declaration of his diligence.

Giving is better than getting. It’s better for the person who can do so to give help to others rather than to amass further wealth for himself. Let me say that to you again. The principle is this: it is better for the person who can do so to give to help others rather than to amass further wealth for himself.

My wife and I just had breakfast with a young man we’d never met before. I say a young man; he’s in his forties, which is a salutary thought that that would even pass through my mind. But as we sat at breakfast and listened to his story, he told us of God’s blessing to him in the world of business. And he told us at the same time that he and his wife had already drawn a line on a sheet of paper concerning their needs in relationship to income and that no matter how much more money he made beyond that, everything on the top side of that line was to be given away to the work of the gospel. Well, I hope he meant it, and I hope he does so, because that’s quite a declaration to make.

It’s wonderful when you meet that. I know of an elderly man here in this country who has significant wealth which he regards as not being his own at all. He has retirement money that pays to him as a result of his journey through life, which he uses for his needs and for the benefit of his children. All of the rest of the money is used in the service of the kingdom of God. Not a penny accrues to himself. And he is enjoying the privilege of enhancing the work of the gospel while he is alive and while he can still see it, rather than doing what is customary in our country to do: die, and then leave it to everybody else to figure out what’s supposed to happen. Why not have the fun of contributing now and enjoying the benefit that attaches to it?

Exhortation

Well, he declares first his innocence and then his diligence. And then he brings an exhortation. His exhortation is equally clear in verse 28: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.”

Now, this word of exhortation is directed to the elders of the church in Ephesus, the leaders, these men—a group of men—appointed by God, recognized by the church, and having responsibility for spiritual oversight. The words that are used interchangeably in the English translations that we may have—words like “bishop,” “presbyter,” “elder,” “leader,” “shepherd,” and so on—fall under three words in Greek. One is presbuteroi, from which we clearly get presbyter; one is episkopoi, from which we get Episcopal; and the other is a verb, poimainō, which means “to shepherd.” And these words are used interchangeably of the leadership of the church. And it is this leadership of the church at Ephesus that is before him now. A plurality of these men had been appointed—often by Paul himself, Barnabas, Titus had responsibility for it, and so on. And these men had been entrusted with the responsibility of tending or shepherding the flock of God.

So he exhorts them, first of all, to watch themselves. “Watch yourselves.” “Keep watch over yourselves.” In other words, “Pay attention to your own spiritual condition.” If the leader in the church is neglectful of his spiritual welfare, then it follows almost inevitably that he will show little concern for the spiritual welfare of others. Last time, we reminded one another that the churches in various locations, in respect to local churches, they cannot progress beyond the spiritual progress of their leaders—which is… And that adjective is so vitally important: beyond the spiritual progress of their leaders. Not the business progress of their leaders, not the academic progress of their leaders, not the leadership skills of their leaders, but the spiritual progress of their leaders. And that is Paul’s first concern. And it is a right concern.

Although he doesn’t elaborate on the characteristics of leaders, he does so elsewhere, and for your homework you can read, for example, the qualifications and guidelines that are provided when he writes to Titus to get the leadership right in Titus chapter 1. The elders of the church, he said, are to be men who are not up to be blameworthy, who are one-women men, and so on.[6] And so the exhortation is clear: “Look after yourself.”

If the leader in the church is neglectful of his spiritual welfare, then it follows almost inevitably that he will show little concern for the spiritual welfare of others.

Incidentally, that’s why it’s so important that there are pluralities of these individuals, because one of the questions that is inevitable: Who pastors the pastors? Who’s going to help the pastors watch themselves? The answer is their fellow elders. I’m sure you pray for our eldership here at Parkside. I hope you do. In fact, I know you do, because we enjoy such wonderful unity and blessing together, beyond anything that I’ve known in any other place, for which we thank God routinely and take nothing for granted.

The exhortation is first to them as individuals and then in order that they themselves as a group might tend the flock: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God.” Now, this picture is a familiar one in the Bible, isn’t it? It’s a familiar metaphor. The psalmist says, “We are his people, [and] the sheep of his pasture.”[7] Isaiah 40 describes the Lord as a shepherd who gathers the sheep together; he holds the lambs close to his heart.[8] And Paul is reminding these individuals in the phraseology that he uses that it’s not their church; it’s God’s church. It’s not their flock; it’s God’s flock, a flock that is precious, which has been purchased at great cost: “Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood”—the centrality of the cross in Paul’s thinking, not only as it relates to the wonder of individual salvation but as it relates to the nature of what it means for God to put together a company that is his very own. Those whom God has redeemed the elders are to care for. Now, that is an awesome privilege, and it is a distinct challenge.

During the week in Denver—or Golden—Colorado, as I spoke to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of America’s national assembly, I had occasion to run into some old friends. I met a man. I met his wife. In the company of his wife, I said, “How is it now that X is back living at home, routinely?” Well, it’s not that he’d run away from his wife, but it was that he had been an itinerant evangelist, and he had come off the road, as it were, and into the local church. “Well,” his wife said, very honestly, “first of all, it’s wonderful to have him around most of the time. But it’s not all good,” she said. “Oh really?” I said. “Yes,” she said, “it’s not all good. It would be fine were it not for the people.” Now, there was something very sad about that. There was something very honest about it too. Most of our jobs would be fine if it weren’t for our work colleagues, right? I mean, they’re our problem, aren’t they? I mean, it could never be us! It’s always them.

I actually found the same thing in speaking with another man from Michigan and inquiring how he was doing. He said that he had come through a rocky and a difficult time, and in the company of another minister, he commended this pastor for his help in helping him and helping his wife, who in the previous twenty-four hours had been together in the company of this older pastor, breaking their hearts because of the nature of their ministry in Michigan, because the sheep had been so divisive and so cruel and so undermining that for the pastor to execute his ministry with any kind of effectiveness and usefulness was completely undermined by those to whom he spoke. And yet he cannot be relieved from the responsibility, along with his colleagues, to take care of all of the church of God which is in your charge—not the ones you like, not the ones you want to spend time with, but all of them. And that, of course, speaks to the nature of plurality in eldership, doesn’t it? Because no one individual can do all that is necessary.

Years ago, we had a children’s musical here. I still recall it with affection. It had something to do with sheep. I think it was We like Sheep, or the title song was “We like Sheep.” And a number of our children who now would be embarrassed to see the video cavorted around up front for a number of evenings declaring, “We like sheep, we like sheep.” And the prevailing notion amongst the congregation—the aunts and uncles, and the moms and dad and the grandpas and everybody—was, “Oh, it’s so sweet, you know, with the little lambie ears and the little sheepie-woos, and oh, it was so nice!” But you know, that only testifies to the fact that we don’t know anything about sheep, bunch of city dwellers that we are, most of us.

Now, my grandfather was a shepherd on my father’s side. I was going to bring his crook this morning, but I thought it may look a little threatening. I never had occasion to meet my grandfather, but my father used to take me to “the dippings.” As a small boy, I couldn’t imagine how excited my father could possibly get about “the dippings,” as he called them. “If we go to Farmer X’s place this afternoon, they’re doing dippings.” “Woo!” I said. “Can’t wait to see that!” But it actually was pretty impressive. Because the shepherd or his workers got ahold of one of these massive beasts and manhandled it down into a fiery bath of chemicals. Why? Because the sheep was stinky! Because the sheep was infested by unpleasant pests. It was full of lice and ticks and worms.

“We like sheep, we like sheep!” So we got a different picture now, aren’t we? “Take care of the flock that is in your charge.” Stinkers, full of unpleasant pests that regularly need to be dipped in strong chemicals—not to mention the fact that they are unintelligent, wayward, and profoundly obstinate. I speak as a sheep to other sheep: dumb, wayward, stubborn. Welcome to pastoral ministry! “Go ahead, tend the flock of God that’s in your charge.” John Stott says, “I hesitate to apply the metaphor too closely …. But some people are a great trial to their pastors.” Yes, and some pastors are a great trial to their people.[9]

Premonition

A declaration of his innocence and of his diligence, an exhortation to watch themselves and watch the flock, and, thirdly and quickly, a premonition. A premonition is simply an advanced warning. You know that, don’t you? Or a warning in advance. Admonition and then premonition. So he has this premonition which he provides, and he sees first of all, in verse 29, “savage wolves” attacking. “Savage wolves” attacking. It’s a dramatic picture. Of course, he’s using the imagery that was immediately understandable to the people then. When the wolves came, the sheep could do nothing to defend themselves. The sheep were incapable of fighting off the attacks of wolves. Therefore, the shepherd’s role was vital in securing the safety of the sheep. And he said, “I see savage wolves coming in, attacking you.”

Remember Jesus, in Matthew 7, spoke of those who were appearing as wolves in sheep’s clothing.[10] He made clear in the parables that he taught that the Evil One was constantly seeking to insinuate within the company of the faithful unfaithfulness, to sow false believers in the context of true believers. People ask from time to time, “So why do you have a membership class? Why do ask people to give their testimony? Why do they sit and talk with the elders?” and so on. Because we’re obeying the exhortation: “Watch yourself, watch the flock, and realize that the Evil One delights to sow unbelief, discord, wrong thinking, wrong practice in the heart of places that are committed not simply to orthodoxy but to orthopraxy.”

Remember Jesus said in the parable of the wheat and the tares, Matthew 13, “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.”[11] Notice the phrase “while everyone was sleeping.” It’s possible for a church to fall asleep—just to drift off, not paying attention. If you’ve ever nodded off at the wheel, what an alarming thing it is when you come to! Because in that moment, in that nanosecond, you were drifting into unconsciousness, and you had no thought of the danger that was before you. But as soon as you snapped to, boy did you realize, “That was a close one!”

When the church is tempted to fall asleep—when the church becomes naive like Little Red Riding Hood: “Oh, what lovely teeth you’ve got, Grandma! Oh, what lovely teeth you’ve got!” not realizing that the wolf says, “All the better to eat you with!” Don’t you love those little nursery rhymes? How did our kids ever go to sleep listening to that stuff? “Come on, let me read you a nice little nursery rhyme. Bah!” No wonder our children have grown up as whacked out as many of them are. It was those nursery rhymes that did it to them. Pigs and… Oh!

No, the call is clear. It’s a call to vigilance and to constancy, so that the leaders might provide sound instruction and be able to teach people to refute that which opposes sound doctrine. He saw this attack by the wolves, and then he sees, you will notice, not only attack coming from without but the emergence of error from within, verse 30: “Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.” “There will emerge,” he says, “even from among you those whose perverse and seductive teaching will draw folks from Christ and attach them to themselves.”

This, of course, is a mark of cultish activity, always—whether you reach back into our immediate past with a name like David Koresh or Jim Jones. Many of these individuals first of all invaded the realms of orthodoxy, drew to themselves people who were passionate and interested in things, often endeavoring to lure them in with esoteric perspectives on end-times theology: “I can explain to you how the world is going to end, I can explain to you how this works,” and so on. And these naive and devoted folks are drawn into that. Before they know where they are, they’re held in the viselike grip of someone who has distorted the truth and drawn people away from Christ and drawn them to themselves.

Calvin says this verse teaches that “almost all corruptions of doctrine flow from people’s pride; ambitious men will always turn away from the proper purity and corrupt the Word of God.”[12] You can write that down and take it to the bank: “Ambitious men will always turn away from proper purity and corrupt the Word of God.”

When I say to you, “You are sensible people, examine the Scriptures yourselves,” that is not simply an exhortation to you; it is a constant reminder to me. This is God’s church, this is God’s Word, you are God’s people, and I along with my fellow elders will give an account to God on the day of judgment for everything I taught you. And it is imperative that you do your homework; that you become like the Bereans, examining the Scriptures every day to see if these things are so;[13] that when I refuse to be drawn into your peculiar propensity for minute inventions of detail regarding obscure passages of the Bible, it is not because I am totally disinterested in it; it is because I recognize that it is totally useless, ultimately, to you. Because the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things. And if ever you hear me or any of my colleagues suggesting anything different and suggesting to you that “if you meet with me personally, I can give you the inside track on this or I can introduce you to that,” then you ring a large bell and run a hundred miles from here. For ambitious men will always divert from the purity of the truth and will distort the Word of God. It is a mark always of the activity of the cults.

Think about it in relationship to Joseph Smith. Who in the wide world did Joseph Smith think he was? Who did he think he was? Why didn’t somebody stand up and say, “Joseph Smith, sit down at the back of the bus. Shut up. You’re full of nonsense, Smith. There is only one Christ and one Lord. There is only one Word. There is only one final prophet, and it is Jesus of Nazareth. Sit down!” But an ambitious man, veering from the purity of the gospel, distorting the truth of the Word of God, has left a legacy with spires that stand in strategic places from San Diego to Orlando, Florida, to the key cities of North America, and the plan for the world standing there as a great testimony to the hidden and secret dimensions of a cultish endeavor that began as a result of the ambitions of one man.

Benediction

Finally, a benediction. “Well,” you say, “that’s good, because our time has gone.” Yes, it has. I know that. They’ve been charged with such a grave responsibility to take care of matters moral and doctrinal and spiritual. And now he comes with this word which must have been a real balm to their souls, a great encouragement to them: “I commit you to God and … the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” Because the average elder is going, “Oh dear, oh dear. I don’t know how I’m going to do this. This is dreadful. I have to look after myself—I’ve had a bad week—and look after the church? Oh dear, look at these people. What are we supposed to do? We don’t even know who half of them are,” and so on. And then, oh, what a lovely word this is: “I commit you to God and … the word of his grace.”

Paul says, “I’m not going to be here any longer, but God will always be here. You’re not going to be able to hear my voice, but you can always turn to the word of God’s grace. And what does the word of God’s grace do? It’ll do this for you in the present: it will build you up,” oikodomia, “and it will give you an inheritance amongst all those who are sanctified.” In other words, he turns them to their ultimate source of confidence. He turns them to the provision that God alone can make. And how desperately they needed that! And how vitally do we need that too!

And if I can quote for one final time from our new friend John Brown, we recognize the same thing. He, in writing this farewell letter to his congregation, says, “Having, through the patience and mercy of God, long laboured among you, not as I ought,—far, … far from it,—but as I could,—I must now leave you, to appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, to give an account of my stewardship.”[14] That’s quite a sentence, an opening sentence, isn’t it? “Having labored long among you, not as I ought—far, far from it—but as I could, I must now leave you, to appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, so that I might receive from him according to my stewardship and give an account of it.”

And then he goes on, and he actually, interestingly, follows the pattern of Acts chapter 20. I think he used Acts 20 as the profile for the opening section of his letter. And he describes what he’s done: how he’s endeavored to teach them and to encourage them and to call them to heaven and so on. And he’s able to go through quite a list of his pastoral activities. And then (and this is what struck me most forcefully, and with this I finish) he says, having outlined all that he’s done—“I did this, and I did that, and I taught you the Bible, and I tried all these things” —and then he says,

But I have no confidence in any of these things before God as my Judge. I see such weakness, such deficiency, such unfaithfulness, such imprudence, such [unfervency] and unconcern, such selfishness, in all that I have done as a minister or a christian, as richly deserves the deepest damnation of hell. I have no hope of eternal happiness but in Jesus’ blood, which cleanseth from all sin;—in redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of my sins, according to the riches of his grace. It is the everlasting covenant of God’s free grace, well ordered in all things and sure, that is all my salvation and all my desire.[15]

In other words, he says, “I’ve done my best. But God, who searches my heart, knows what an unfaithful wretch I really am. Therefore, I cannot approach the bar of God’s judgment on the basis of my service among you as an elder. I can only approach the bar of God’s judgment as I encourage you to do likewise: trusting solely in the work of Christ.”

Father, thank you that Jesus died that we might live. Thank you that commending one another to the word of your grace, it is able to build us up and grant to us the assurance of an inheritance amongst those who are being sanctified. Help us, Lord, as a church family to be as loving and as welcoming as we possibly can so that we might be as harmless as doves. Help us to be as sensitive and discerning as we must necessarily be so that we might be as wise as serpents.[16] Prepare us even now for the generations that will follow. Grant that we might, as it were, keep our foot in the door in order that those who come after us may know your blessing in greater measure, that countless souls will be won to Christ. And in the meantime, Lord, help us then to watch ourselves in the private place. And help us to shepherd God’s people, not because of how lovely and attractive they are but because you, Lord Jesus, purchased them by your precious blood. Thank you that while all we like sheep have gone astray and have turned everyone to his own way, that you have laid on Christ, your Son, the iniquity of us all.[17]

May the grace of the Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be our portion throughout the hours of this day and the days of this week and forevermore. Amen.

[1] Ezekiel 33:7–9 (NIV 1984).

[2] Quoted in John Pollock, Billy Graham: The Authorized Biography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 94.

[3] Fanny Crosby, “Rescue the Perishing” (1869).

[4] The Life of the Rev. John Brown, of Haddington (London: Religious Tract Society, n.d.), 66.

[5] 1 Samuel 12:1–5 (paraphrased).

[6] See Titus 1:6–9.

[7] Psalm 100:3 (NIV 1984).

[8] See Isaiah 40:11.

[9] John R. W. Stott, The Message of Acts: The Spirit, the Church, and the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1994), 329.

[10] See Matthew 7:15.

[11] Matthew 13:24–25 (NIV 1984).

[12] John Calvin, Acts, Crossway Classic Commentaries, ed. Alister McGrath and J. I. Packer (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1995), 339.

[13] See Acts 17:11.

[14] John Brown, 61.

[15] John Brown, 62.

[16] See Matthew 10:16.

[17] See Isaiah 53:6.