Dennis Tuuri

God has invited us to his house today. We’ve come here to meet with him to have dinner with him, Sunday dinner. And as we’ve come before him, we’ve scraped our shoes off at the mat at the entryway to the house. We’ve washed ourselves. We’ve confessed our unworthiness to sit in the presence of the king in his parlor as it were as he speaks with us. And he now does speak to us. Speaks to us through his word.

Please stand for God’s command word. Acts 20:17 and following.

Acts 20, beginning at verse 17. “And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church. And when they were come to him, he said unto them, ‘Ye know from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, with many tears and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews.

And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.

But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear to myself so that I might finish my course with joy in the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. And now behold, I know that ye all among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God shall see my face no more. Wherefore I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men.

For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also, of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them.

Therefore, watch and remember that by the space of three years, I cease not to warn every one night and day with tears. And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. I have coveted no man’s silver or gold or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that are with me.

I have showed you all things, how that so laboring you ought to support the weak. And remember the words the Lord Jesus how he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ And when he had thus spoken, he kneel down and prayed with them all. And they all wept sore and fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the word which he spake that they should see his face no more. And they accompanied him unto the ship.”

We thank God for his word. We pray that he would illuminate it to our understanding rather, that we might amend our lives on the basis of it and might have faith that we might indeed live a life marked by repentance, of turning away from sin and toward the life of righteousness. Let us sing that prayer of illumination.

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You’re going to die. I’m going to die. We’re all going to die. You know, we prayed in one of our intercessory prayers a couple months ago about our death. What kind of death would you like to die? And our culture today, people want to go quickly because they don’t want to have to think about it. They want to get killed in a car crash, boom, over. Heart attack, boom, over. No suffering for our generation. But no thought either of communication to the next generation that we live in the context not just of our individual lives, but of generations.

What kind of death would you like for yourself? While it may seem a little odd, a somewhat long lingering death is sort of what we pray for in that intercessory prayer. We pray that God wouldn’t cut us off quickly. Why? If you knew you were going to die in two months, if you had cancer and your doctor said, “Well, you’re going to probably die in two months. You don’t know for sure.” What would you do? What would you do?

Well, the Apostle Paul is on his way to Jerusalem. The disciple following in the steps of the master goes to the city that has become a picture of iniquity in many ways, the city that has killed the Savior. And he knows the Holy Spirit has told him, not all things, but he knows that bonds and afflictions await him there. He goes to the cross, and whether it’s physical death or not, he doesn’t really know, but he knows that in reference to the Ephesian elders, it may as well be the literal cross because he will see their face no more.

Bonds and afflictions await him. If Apostle Paul knows that he has x amount of time as he travels to Jerusalem and he uses a significant portion of that time to deliver an address to the Ephesian elders. Paul goes to the cross and he uses that time to prepare for the transition of leadership for the Asian church. You know, death is a time of intensity. Death gives people reason to listen to someone that’s dying and it gives the person that’s dying a reason to speak.

I hope that every one of us before we get too old memorize at least this portion of Psalm 71:17-18. “Oh God, thou hast taught me from my youth and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works. Now also when I am old and gray-headed, oh God, forsake me not until I have showed thy strength unto the generation and the power to everyone that is to come.”

Well, Apostle Paul knew that psalm real well. And in his approach to death, he uses the time to speak of the grace of God and the strength of God into the next generation and the power of God to everyone that is to come. If you know anybody who have died and you had time to speak with them in their deathbed, you know the intensity of that. You know, you want to listen real carefully because as people approach their physical death, eternal truths get very real. Particularly Christians of course because they don’t shun away from that stuff and they’re—whatever they’re going to tell you is important. They know that they don’t have much breath left in them and they want to make it good.

They want to make it efficacious. They want to make it able to build you up in some way or to warn you about something. And you want to listen real hard when people are dying. And we want to listen real hard here to the Apostle Paul as he moves to his cross of affliction and troubles and chains.

He brings together the Ephesian elders. Matthew Henry in his commentary says an interesting thing. He says, “Well, some people think these were the 12 men that were converted and baptized and spoke in tongues, foreign languages, the Ephesian church. I don’t know, Matthew Henry doesn’t give footnotes as to what commentators he’s talking about, but some people think that’s what this was, the 12. And if it was, it’s really a striking picture to us of the similarity as I said of the disciple walking in the master’s steps.

Our Lord Jesus went to his cross and as he went to his cross he met with his disciples. He met with his extended family. He met with his 12 disciples. And so Paul here speaking to the Ephesian elders is a picture of that. It may actually be a very literal picture of these 12 men. The 12 men that converted to Christianity at Ephesus under the instruction of Paul. Paul and had been prepared before that through others.

These men, the number 12 is given to us to show us the transition from the old Israel to the new Israel, from the apostate church being contrasted with the faithful church. Who’s going to kill Paul? Who’s going to imprison him and afflict him? It’s not the Roman government. It’s the Jews. It’s the false church. And who afflicted our savior? Pontius Pilate didn’t want to do it. It was the Jews who cried out, “Crucify, crucify.”

And so we have here the apostle Paul in the steps of the savior speaking to the 12 on his deathbed so to speak, a farewell speech and what he has to say has significance to the kingdom. In fact it’s the very essence of the kingdom that is he speaks of primarily in terms of his going forth to where he knows not where but he certainly will see their faces no more.

Jesus Christ at the last supper you could call it a commissioning event. He taught them at the last supper. He taught them important things about the leadership of the church that would now come to them upon his death and resurrection and ascension. He spoke to them in that way. He commissioned them. And hopefully one of the things we’ll want to do on our deathbeds and prepare for that well before then is to commission our children, our sons and our daughters, and to give them instructions what we’ve learned the Christian faith.

Last week we in our unconditional surrender study out at the house talked about time and actually we’re talking about the family relative to time and how if you haven’t saved up enough money by the time you’re 40 or 50, it’s not time to start gambling to try to win the lottery to get enough money by the time you die. It’s time to start putting away small amounts of money that you can pass on to your children who can accumulate more wealth.

See, our culture thinks just in terms of us, just in terms of our generation. No thought of intergenerational truth. Now we speak that truth but here I want us to see that one of the things that Paul is doing, he’s taking the lessons of his life, what he has learned, what he has done, and he’s giving it to the Ephesian elders. He’s pouring himself into them so that they can continue working on the basis of that and be faithful, faithfully commissioned rulers of the kingdom.

Paul, as I said, says in the context here that it going away is linked to the kingdom. In verse 25, it’s when he says specifically, you shall see my face no more. And in relationship to that, He says in verse 25, I know that you all among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God shall see my face no more. It’s a transference of authority and rule and the manner of that rule in the kingdom that Paul is affecting with this speech to the Ephesian elders to the new Israel of God.

Now this is as I said before there are indications here that help us—well more than help us, that clearly point out to us the correlation between the Apostle Paul and Samuel back in the Old Testament. Remember the people wanted a king and Samuel in the transition of government that occurs for Samuel, he talks to the people and he says some of the same things Paul does.

I wasn’t covetous. He says now he speaks about beasts. I didn’t take these things from you. I’m pure from the blood of all men. He says the same sorts of things. The Bible wants us to think of Samuel in reference to the greater Samuel, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his kingdom. Then he wants us to see the transition of that kingdom to the church through the work of the apostle Paul.

Death is among other things marks a transition of leadership, a transition of authority whether it’s in the family or the church or in cases of kings, etc. in the civil state as well. And Samuel and Paul’s sermons or talks are very similar. Let me just give you a quote here. I still further likeness in that is said by Paul and Samuel comes to the fore when we notice that both devoted themselves to the continuation of the recognition of God’s kingship.

The verse I just quoted and then 1 Samuel 12:12 is a corollary. Both partially surrender their responsibility. Paul departing to Jerusalem gives his responsibility to the elders of Ephesus and Samuel his governmental authority to the new king. Both call to memory the great deeds of God in the past. Based upon these great deeds. Both call for obedience to the Lord and both use the characteristic formula “now then.”

And you can look at those two speeches in the scriptures and see they both use that formula of “now then.” It’s about kingdom here. And these last words of Paul are about transition of authority and they give us a model for the transition of authority in our households as well and in the various spheres of influence that God has called us to operate in the context of.

What we’re seeing here is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ as said many times that the Acts are the acts of the Lord Jesus Christ through his church. I turned to Luke 12. I was listening to some tapes this week by Mr. Jordan on the book of Acts and he pointed out a very interesting interpretation of Luke 12. And let me before I say this, preface this with another remark as you’re turning to Luke 12.

Again, Mr. Jordan frequently talks in his talks about the significance and remember I quoted last week about small things and large things. How in America we’re all concerned with itty bitty little things. If we’re sick, it’s because itty bitty little germs have invaded our body. To get well, we put little itty bitty medicine, herbs, homeop—whether it’s homeopathy or traditional medicine, we use little tiny things to go into that body and kill bugs off.

And if we, whoever we are now, we’re said what way we look, the way we act, it’s a result of itty bitty little genes, genetic structure. The scriptures say well the little things are important but God is one but he’s also many, he’s also plural and so the big things in life are important as well so in the Bible sin is related to ethical behavior, rather sickness is related to ethical behavior frequently and it makes those correlations how does that work which comes first the germ or the sin we don’t know but God wants us to think of all those things together.

Now I give you an outline today and that outline is based on itty bitty little substructures of the talk of Paul, we break it down to itty bitty little points. And I do that on the outline for you. And that’s good and proper. Helps to understand what’s being said to see the flow of what’s being said. But if all we ever do is look at the itty little bitty things of a text, then we end up being proof texters. All we know is individual verses that apply to individual situations and we miss the whole flow of biblical history.

What Paul is doing here, what I’m trying to do is set this in the context of a much bigger pattern or structure in the scriptures.

Having said that, now in Luke 12. It helps us to see a little bit of the relationship of what’s going on here to the rest of scripture. Luke 12. And I’ve never heard anybody say this before. I don’t know that it’s true, but it certainly sounds true to me, that this may well be the correct interpretation of this text in Luke 12.

And now remember that the book of Acts is written by Luke as well. And so you can sort of see Luke and Acts as you know a multi-volume set of Luke’s writings here. Luke 12:8 he says, “I say to you, whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the son of man also confess before the angels of God. He that denieth me shall be denied before the angels of God. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him. But unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven.

And when they bring you into the synagogues, and under magistrates and powers, taking no thought how or what thing you shall answer, what you shall say, for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what you ought to say and Mr. Jordan posits the fact that what he’s talking about here in the first application is that the generation he’s speaking to, the men he’s speaking to, the Jews that will put him to death will get a second chance when the Holy Spirit comes. Holy Spirit comes, Holy Spirit moves the works of Jesus Christ acts through the church of Jesus Christ and where does the gospel go after the Holy Spirit comes? It goes back to those same Jews that crucified our savior.

And he’s saying as he said on the cross, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they do.” And they receive a second opportunity and the grace of God through the preaching of the ascended Lord Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit through the secondary means of the church. And Israel can either repent and believe or it can suffer the failure of forgiveness at all. Be forgiven the first time, the second time with the Holy Ghost comes and moves through the church in the preaching of the gospel, he will not be forgiven.

And Jerusalem is judged mightily in A.D. 70. And what do we see going on? Jesus didn’t go before the synagogues in the context of this thing and make a presentation to them, a defense of who he was or before the courts. But these last two verses we read about being in the synagogues and magistrates and powers and the Holy Ghost telling you what to say. Remember when Peter is in front of the magistrates in Israel, the synagogue leaders, the Holy Ghost tells him what to say and they marvel at the fact that he makes such a great defense of his ministry.

Apostle Paul’s same thing. We’ve seen it over and over. We’ll see it more in the last chapters of the book. Paul testifies to rulers and authorities in the Roman Empire. The Holy Spirit tells him what to say. And so Luke sets us up for the application of the life of Christ by watching the disciples walk in the footsteps of the master.

We could go on in Luke 12 to talk of other important correlations as well. He goes on, for instance, in the next couple of verses, the parable of the rich fool to warn against covetousness. The very thing that Paul closes his address to the Ephesian elders with a warning against covetousness. He tells them to seek the kingdom of God. In verse 31, he tells them to fear not little flock. It’s your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell that you have and give alms. Remember Jesus said it’s more blessed to give than to receive.

Where did he say it? He never said it directly in the gospels that we know of, but this is a very similar statement. Sell what you have and give alms. Don’t be covetous. And in fact, it’s more blessed to give than to receive. So give alms. The father will give you the kingdom. And the father has given the kingdom over unto the apostles. And the apostles transfer the kingdom over to the institutional church.

And the apostle Paul transfers control and authority of the kingdom to these Ephesian elders, maybe 12, representing the new Israel of God, the old Israel becoming apostate. And what does he go on to say in verse 35? He tells them to be watchful servants. Wait for the Lord. Lord, watch, watch, watch. And what does Paul tell the Ephesian elders? Watch, watch, watch. Don’t be covetous. Give. Don’t try to receive.

Serve. Feed up the flock of God to the flock. And be watchful and diligent in what you’re doing.

The Apostle Paul’s last words are words of commissioning. And they’re words that echo the words of the Savior and apply the words of the Savior in the context of the situation in which the Apostle Paul found himself in. And in the context of that, looking back at your outline now, there’s a lot of little things in here, but he tells them to be a particular way. He tells them to talk it—think about their Christian character first.

He lays before himself his life, the way the Lord Jesus Christ lays his life before us as the model. Isn’t it amazing that the Apostle Paul can say, “Here’s the way I’ve been. Be imitators of me. What you see in me do,” he says. Why is he saying that? Is he hung up on some ego trip? No, it’s just the reverse. He has true humility of mind, but he knows that God has called him to this task.

And he’s speaking the words of the savior and God says we can speak those words of the savior and in fact we have to at the end of our lives. We should find ourselves in the same position. Look at the character God has built into my life we can tell our children look at the ministry I performed in the context of this household or the ministry of the church or maybe a calling to vocational calling in the state or look at the ministry I’ve performed in the context of the business I’ve been in involved with look at my character look at my actions.

The apostle Paul says he says, “Be sacrificial.” He goes from his character to his ministry to saying, “I don’t count my life worth anything to complete the mission. I’m going to Jerusalem. If I die, I die.” And the Lord Jesus Christ said, “I’m going to Jerusalem and I will die to complete my mission to save the elect community that belong to me and to the Father and to the Holy Spirit.”

And then he tells them, he warns them. He warns them. So he tells them what his character is. He tells them what his ministry has been. He tells them to be self-sacrificial and then he warns them that there’s going to be dangers in the context of the world in which they live just as Jesus warned the disciples and he told them what kind of provisions to make for the kind of persecution and tribulation that would come upon them.

And then he goes back to the theme of giving again at the end when he says he’s not covetous be self-sacrificial he’s not just talking about money there it’s more blessed to give than to receive and if you learn that lesson in life and you pour yourself out in service to the Lord God and as a result of that service to your wife or to your husband, to your children, to your church, to your friends, to your community, that at the end of your life, you will have the same confidence the Apostle Paul had to face death if necessary for the fulfilling of your ministry and to face the death that will surely come to us all and to be able on your deathbed to tell your children, “This is the way it should be.

Look what God has done in my life.”

We were several of us were talking earlier this week about Thoreau and Thoreau said that all men live lives of quiet desperation. And I know that we all, well, maybe not some of you young guys, but all of us older fellas, we can feel that occasionally as we look around and see that didn’t turn out quite like we expected. It’s easy to identify with such a statement.

But Paul wouldn’t have identified with such a statement. He wouldn’t at the end of his life say that my life has been a life of quiet desperation. He said, “My life has been a life of being transformed into the character of the Lord Jesus Christ and fulfilling the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ in the calling that God has given to me.”

Those words may strike resonant chords with us—lives of quiet desperation in our fallen state, but it’s a lie. It’s a lie from the pit of hell that tempts men into an abandonment of the calling God has given them to do. God says that our old age should be marked by a desire to show to the generation to come the power and strength of God and sustenance and the effectiveness of ministry no matter what that ministry is.

So Paul then gives his sermon as it were to the Ephesian elders and we should pray to God that we are able on our deathbed to have both the time and the truth to tell our children and to commission them to take on what we’ve learned into the next generation and into the next spin of this world and into the history.

Things don’t end with us. It’s a lie to say that they do. They don’t. There’s progression and transition. If the Lord Jesus Christ offers a second gospel, as it were, through the book of Acts to the Jews, to the Greeks, and if the Apostle Paul moves in the in the context of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done, so do we 2,000 years later, built upon the foundation rock that is the work of our Savior, speak of that work and of that character to our children and to ourselves and to each other.

And what does he say? Paul says, “Service, humility, tears in the midst of trials.” What did our Lord Jesus Christ do at the last supper with his disciples? What action did he perform? Do you remember what he did? The action, he washed their feet. He talked to them about service and humility. That was his point. Don’t think who’s going to be greatest, who’s going to exercise authority. The one who is the servant is the one who is exalted to authority.

And the kingdom of God. Service precedes calling the formal call to office. We’ve said that over and over and over. Men must be tested because you don’t want hirelings in the context of the church. You don’t want hirelings in the context of the family, fathers who only do their duty for money or some kind of reward like that. You want men who know how to serve. And they can only truly serve with the humbleness of mind that the scriptures say we are to put on.

It’s not something that we either have or don’t have our old man dead but living on through patterns and customs as a man of pride and we’re told to take that and throw it aside and to humble ourselves to God. Humility is a key mark as I said last week Ephesians 4:2 we’re supposed to serve each other’s all humbleness and meekness with longsuffering forbearing one another in love not through strife or vain glory but in humbleness of mind let each esteem another better than themselves and were to put on that humility before God.

Apostle Paul has given his last supper speech here and he says just what the Savior said, serve each other, serve the flock and do it with humbleness of mind and if need be cry tears as you fulfill the trials and go through the trials and temptations that God has called you to do. What did the Lord Jesus do? He went out into the garden then after giving the speech on service and humility and he suffered through the trial.

and the tribulation. Sweating as it were, drops of blood, physical manifestation of persistence in the context of tribulations. Keep on keeping on is what the Lord Jesus Christ did by example and taught the disciples as well. And so Paul instructs them here to punch through, to don’t hold back when things get tough. You can cry, that’s okay, but keep doing what you’re supposed to doing.

That’s what it means here. Tears are in the context of trials and tribulations. There’s only one thing that will enable you to do that and that’s love for the Lord Jesus Christ and love for his people. Where does our savior cry in the context of the gospels? Cries over the death of Lazarus, weeps over Jerusalem as a heart for those he ministers in the context of.

And so the Apostle Paul also has tears referenced later on that he’d warned everybody with tears publicly and house to house because he loved the church. The Ephesian church was to be a church that the apostle Paul has his way that images the Lord Jesus Christ in orthodoxy orthopraxy—what they believe and what they do their love for each other motivated by the love for the Lord Jesus Christ and so Jesus is the context of Paul’s message here in context of his ministry he said that he did this ministry by three different ways he speaks of specifically he preaches he teaches and he attests.

Now that first word there in this text when Paul actually talks about how he went about serving them and moving on from the character qualities he says that verse 20 I have showed you I have taught you publicly and I have testified both to the Jews and the Greeks. Showed means to preach the same word essentially a little different than another word but frequently can be translated to preach for instance in the context of very importantly John 16:14 Jesus says that he that is the Holy Spirit shall glorify me for he shall receive of me and shall show it unto you.

That same word is used here. So when Paul says he shows them, what he’s saying is the Holy Spirit has come and he is showing the things of the Lord Jesus Christ unto you. Earlier in Acts 14:27, this same word is used. And when they were come and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them. They preached about the great glory of God. preaching the gospel to the Gentiles and the success that God had given to them.

He preached, he showed them, and he taught them as well. Preaching and teaching is talked about here. And then he attested or testified to them as well. He gave this legal terminology. Acts 10:42, he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the judge of the quick and the dead.

So there Paul says that what we’re supposed to be doing is we’re supposed to be preaching unto the people and testifying. And the testifying is that the that Jesus Christ is ordained of God to be the judge of the quick and the dead. The testifying has is legal terminology and it calls the legal effect of the kingdom into the conversation.

And we could look at that the preaching, the teaching and the attesting and say that when we instruct members of the church or members of our family or our neighbors in Bible studies etc. we want to appeal to their volition to their will. We want to preach. We want to show things that call forth response from them. We want to appeal to people’s intellect that they might have the mind of Christ as well as his volition, his intellect as well.

And so we teach and instruct them on the basis of God’s word. And we want to appeal to their judicial sense by attesting and testifying that these things are true and that Jesus Christ is the judge of the quick and the dead. So we appeal to each one of us in the body of Christ, our nature is prophets, instruction, intellect. Our nature is priests, volition, calling, our wills, and our nature as kings, rulers in the context of the judicial sphere and our particular callings.

And Paul says that’s what he did. Then he tells us the content. What is the content of what he preaches, teaches, and testifies to. He says in verse 21 that context, what that message is twofold: repentance to God, faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, the first thing he says is repentance. I was reading Matthew Henry’s 1828 dictionary in Richard Store this week. I’d heard that there was a real good definition in there. You remember how some of you were at our constitution had a household meeting a few months back and we had a phrase in there, evangelical repentance. That when people are restored back after being suspended from the table, they have to demonstrate evangelical repentance.

And there was discussion about what that meant. So we just scrapped the word. Well, in Matthew Henry’s 1828 dictionary, he talks about repentance and he says there is a repentance that is a sorrow for the effects of what has happened to us as a result of what we’ve done. You know, Esau sought the birthright later with tears, but to no avail. He repented. He was sorry. But he would have what they used to call, according to Matthew Henry, legal repentance.

That’s legal repentance. Repentance because of what the effects of what we’ve done. But then Matthew Henry go on to define what evangelical repentance is—that’s repentance toward God. That’s what Paul’s talking about here. He testifies of repentance to God. Not being sorry because your sin has made you such miserable, put you in such a miserable state, but to be sorry because of your offense to God. See, that’s evangelical repentance.

Move to sorrow for your sin based not upon the results to you, but based upon what you have done to spit in God’s face with your sin. And so, that’s the first thing that Paul says is that we testify to repentance toward God. And then secondly, we testify to faith, but not Jiminy Cricket faith. Not just hoping and a wish and a praying that things will turn out okay. Faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the object of our faith.

And he puts these things together. These things are very much linked. And please listen to this. As you raise your children, these this is really can be said to be the sum of what the gospel teaches. Let me read you what J. A. Alexander said about these two. “These two together constitute the whole of practical religion and comprise all the lawful and obligatory themes of evangelical instruction. He who preaches the repentance and the faith here spoken of in all their fullness and variety will need to seek no other topics and may humbly boast of having kept back nothing that was profitable to his hearers.”

This is it he’s saying J. Alexander the whole thing is wrapped up in this little phrase that Paul says here. Now it’s one aspect of it we’d have to say. I mean, he talks about the kingdom. He talks about the gospel of grace. And those are aspects of this. But as you instruct your children, this is what you need to get them to do. And this is what you try to do.

The first thing you try to teach your children to do is to repent, to be different, because they come out of that womb kicking and screaming and fighting against God and rebellion toward him. And you want your children to change, don’t you? And if I, if you’re a parent here, you think about it a little bit and you know right away the areas in your children’s lives that you want them to change in. You want them to turn. That’s what repentance means. Repentance means to turn.

You want them to turn. But remember, you want them to turn toward God. If all you do is teach them to turn because it makes them a better life, try Jesus and you’ll have a happy marriage or a good business. That’s not evangelical turning. See, that’s turning to get something. Even what you might be getting might be good. That’s moralism. That’s teaching our kids to be good because it profits them somehow.

But if you’re teaching your children to turn, you’ve got to teach them to turn relative to their sin against the holy God that they offend with their sin. See, and you know, even if you get that part down, you’re not you but you fail in the second part, you’ve left your children in terrible shape.

If all you teach them is repentance toward God and offense for their sin and a feeling of that offense toward God and a sorrow for it, and a desire to change, again, you’ve let them short of the mark, haven’t you? Rather obvious when I put it that way. Because they can’t change in and of themselves. They have no ability to move beyond that sorrow for their sin and do what’s right.

The way they accomplish that is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And where does the faith come from? Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The Lord Jesus speaks through his word and he speaks through his ministers in the family and church. And you want to bolster your children up and point them toward the Lord. Jesus Christ and have them pray to God that God will give them and have them exercise faith.

It’s only through the exercise of faith that truly repentant true repentance can actually occur in the life. We either leave our kids as moralists or as hopelessly failing all the time unless we direct them toward faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.

John Calvin wrote on the relationship of faith and repentance in this particular context here. Let me just quote this now. It says commentary in the book of Acts. “Repentance is a turning unto God when we frame ourselves in all our life to obey him. But faith is a recognizing and a receiving of the grace offered us in Christ. For all religion tendeth to this end, that embracing holiness and righteousness, we serve the Lord purely. Also that we seek no part of our salvation anywhere else, save only at his hands, and that we seek salvation in Christ alone.

Therefore, the doctrine of repentance containeth a rule of good life, it requireth the denial of ourselves, the mortifying of our flesh, and meditating upon the heavenly life. But because we are all naturally corrupt, strangers from righteousness, and turned away from God himself, again, because we fly from God, because we know that he is displeased with us, the means as well to obtain free reconciliation as newness of life must be set before us.

We fly from God. God is burning sun. Talking about that this morning in our cars driving to church. God brings us into his light, but his light reveals our sin. That’s why we come to worship and we confess our sin. We fly away from that. And our children will fly away from that blinding light unless we point them to the means of residing in the context of that light, which is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith that he has forgiven us our sins, that those sins have been atoned for once and for all, and he has given us his righteousness so we can stand in that bright light and we can see our sins and we can know that we’ve been accepted in the personal work of the savior regardless of those and can move to an amendment of life.”

Then as a result, Calvin went on to say, “Therefore, unless faith be added, it is in vain to speak of repentance. Yea, those teachers of repentance who neglecting faith stand only upon the framing of life and precepts of good works differ nothing or very little from profane philosophers. They teach how men must live, but for as much as they leave men in their nature. There can be no bettering be hope for them.

Until they invite those who are lost unto hope of salvation, until they quicken the dead, promising forgiveness of sins, until they show that God doth by his free adoption, take those for his children who were before bondslaves of Satan. Until they teach that the spirit of regeneration must be begged at the hands of the heavenly father, that we must draw godliness, righteousness, and goodliness from him who is the fountain of all good things and hereupon followeth calling upon God which is the chiefest thing in the worship of God.

We see now how that repentance and faith are so linked together they cannot be separate. For it is faith which reconcileeth God to us. Not only that he may be favorable unto us by acquitting us of the guiltiness of death by not imputing to us our sins, but also that by purging the filthiness of our flesh by his spirit, he may fashion us again after his own image.

He does not therefore name repentance in the former place as if it had wholly gone before faith. For as much as a part thereof proceedth from faith and is an effect thereof. But because the beginning of repentance is a preparation unto faith. I call the displeasing of ourselves the beginning which doth enforce us after we be thoroughly touched with the fear of the wrath of God to seek some remedy.

It is not without cause that the scripture doth everywhere make Christ the mark whereof our faith must attain and as they say commonly set him before us as the object for the majesty of God is of himself higher than that men can climb there unto therefore unless Christ come between all our senses do vanish away in seeking God again and as much as he is the judge of all the world it must needs be that the beholding of him without Christ shall make us afraid but God does not only represent himself unto us in Christ’s image, but also refresh us with his fatherly favor, and by all means restore us to life.

For there is no part of our salvation which may not be found in Christ. By the sacrifice of his death, he has purged our sins. He hath suffered the punishment that he might acquit us. He hath made us clean by his blood. By his obedience, he hath appeased his father’s wrath. By his resurrection, he hath purchased righteousness for us. No marvel, therefore, if we said, that faith must be fixed in the beholding of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

That is the essence of what Paul taught the Ephesians for three years as our savior ministered for three years and then went to Jerusalem. And so we also in the raising of our children must point them toward repentance toward God and faith with its object the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul went on from that to say that you must in this task of fulfilling our ministry in teaching, preaching and testifying to these things, lay down our life, count it as no effect if necessary. And then we must warn our children, we must warn the flock as well. Pastors must warn the church. Paul warned them. He used the context of the obvious reference to Ezekiel chapter 33 in the context of warning the people of God.

And you know, it’s interesting. I won’t bother to read you the text, but if you turn to Ezekiel 33, the watchman illustration that’s used there has two contexts to it. One is the watchman set in the city who sees the enemies approaching and the second is the watchman who tells the body of Israel, you have sinned and offended God. And so it’s just as the apostle Paul here, remember he warns this Ephesian elders, this Ephesian church, that they’re going to have wolves from without.

They’ve got to be a watchman to the flock about those wolves at the door. And they’ve got to be a watchman also to watch for the perverters, the turners as it were. That’s what the word means to turn again. Repent means to turn toward God. People that pervert the truth turn it back away and twist it and distort the word of God. And their purpose is ambition. They draw men after themselves.

And so Paul says that as watchmen in the context of the church, the elders must watch for external dangers and warn the flock. And they must warn the flock of the dangers from their own sin as well, lest they become these perverters or twisters or turners. So we see that Paul has us warn the Ephesian elders of this very thing. And so is the importance of warning.

He does this in the context of his own desire not to be covetous in his in his ascription to his pastoral duties. Jesus warned again here. He’s just simply saying what Jesus said. He Jesus said that the false shepherds hurt the flock. They want to devour and destroy and they do it for filthy gain or filthy lucre. They’re hirelings as it were.

And if the truth were to be told, churches across America are filled with hirelings today. They go from church to church every couple of years. A lot of them move here, move there. Advancement of their career. They’re not interested in the flock of Jesus Christ at that particular location. Is it any wonder the churches are in such a mess?

And what did Jeremiah say? Well, these people prophesy falsely and my people love it. So, there’s an unspoken commitment in most churches. A lot of churches that is. We give the pastor a good life for a while as long as he’s with us. Give him nice house. Give him a nice food to eat. Give him some respect. and all that sort of stuff. And he preaches sermons that don’t bother us very much. And we certainly don’t want him in our home warning us about how our sins going to bring judgment from God.

We don’t want that. So the pastor’s happy he’s got his filthy lucre. And the congregation’s happy because they’re not bugged too much. And that’s the way it goes. And that’s why we have the church in the state it is today.

Calvin said that ambition is the mother of all heresies. And in their ambition, many of the false hirelings today have created any number of heresies in the context of the church. So Paul warns. I said before that the book of the speech to the Ephesians elders can be seen as a manual of pastoral theology. What is the job description of elders?

Well, here it is. Let me just go over very briefly in closing here several points. And think about these points relative to yourself and your calling if you’re a head of a household. Very applicable.

First of all, the elder in the context of Paul’s address here governs the church. That’s what we’re talking about. The transference of the kingdom from one ruler to another, so to speak. All in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit has come. He the acts of Christ are accomplishing through the spirit. There’s a transference of authority here from Paul to the to the new rulers of this church.

And he tells them the elders govern the church by being aware of dangers to the flock. He tells them you’ve got to be aware that there are dangers to the flock. And so in the context of your family, your children, your wife, your household should note there are particular dangers that threaten you as a family.

And he warned them again to review that there were two kinds of dangers. Those externally and those internally and you may not have a lot of external dangers to your family. You may today actually the government can be seen as grievous wolves to the CSD, ESD, etc. And probably even more than that, your children need to be warned and your wife needs to be warned and you need to be warned of the dangers from inside that you don’t twist the doctrine of Christ in the context of the family.

So the elders must first be aware of the dangers that exist in the context of the church. And just as Jesus warned of the false wolves and the hirelings as well, he tells the Lord Jesus said these same things. He said, “Take heed to yourselves that anytime your hearts be overcharged with surfing and drunkenness, and the day come upon you unawares.” Luke 21:36, “Watch you therefore and pray always that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass.” Watch.

Watchfulness is the first way that the elders guard the church of Jesus Christ and perform their responsibility. Secondly, the elders guard the church by teaching the whole counsel of God’s word. Talk more on that a little bit next week. But Paul says here in the context several times he says, “I didn’t hold back anything. I preached the whole counsel of God’s word.” And churches today, you know, that’s one of the big problems again is the short Bible, the New Testament teaching without the Old Testament understanding.

No law preached, no repentance preached. Therefore, it’s interesting again. I won’t turn to the text. If you read Ezekiel 33 and we read about the watchmen, and that famous phrase, “How shall we then live?” comes out of Ezekiel 33. Who’s asking that question? Are the men who say, “Okay, Ezekiel, you’re telling us with all this sin in our lives. How should we then live then if we’re so sinful? We’re going to die.

There’s no sense in trying to do anything here.” That’s where the question is phrased. And the answer is Paul says, “If the wicked man turns from his ways, I’m not going to punish him for his wickedness. I’m going to forgive him.” The way we should live is a life of repentance. That’s the answer. the question, “How should we then live?” By repentance. By what Paul said, repentance to God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.

And every day is a day that we should have some degree of repentance in our lives. Repentance isn’t a one-time thing when you’ve done some terrible thing with somebody. Repentance, according to Ezekiel, this watchman talk, is a way of life for the Christian. Remember, it’s repentance to God, sense of him, and