Understanding the True Nature of Church Community

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

All right, we're going to go ahead and get our Bibles and we're going to turn to Acts, chapter 20.

Acts, chapter 20.

Can you believe we are already to chapter 20 in the book of Acts?

If you were here with us when we started, you were, you were here a long time ago because we've been in Acts for a long time now, but we've gotten all the way here to chapter 20.

And the, the whole premise of studying the Book of Acts really, at the very beginning of the study was to analyze what real church is, what is church, and the, the acrostic that we have used a C T S.

Acts, authentic church through scripture.

So where do we find what the church is?

Scripture.

Right.

We go to scripture to tell us what church is all about.

And, and the first question that, that I want to ask you here this evening and, and tonight's going to be hopefully at the front end, a little bit more interactive.

And so I know this is sometimes awkward, especially in like a Sunday service.

We're not used to responding, but I want that to kind of happen.

It won't really transfer over to the live stream or the podcast, and I do apologize for that.

I will try to repeat what people say.

But, but so far, what have we learned about the church?

Number one, what or who is the church?

I know I've kind of led that question a little bit, but what is the church?

Non rhetorical.

Call it up the believers.

Right.

So is, is the building the church in definition of scripture?

No.

Is a program the church according to scripture?

No, according to scripture, it is the body of believers, the believers collective.

Even the word church.

There's a Greek word called ecclesia, and that's where we get the word church from.

Maybe you've heard of something that, you know, someone was studying an ecclesiastical idea that's studying the church.

Ecclesia means assembly, assembly, specifically of believers.

And so the church, first and foremost is a body of believers aligning under Christ.

Okay, he is the head of the church.

The pastor is not the head of the church.

We can see that through scripture.

Some people go, yeah, but, but you're the main guy.

No, the Bible says that Jesus is the head of the church.

God does set up a hierarchy of authority within the church.

And we've seen that already in the book of Acts.

There, there in the case of Acts, there's apostles and then there's pastors and then there's deacons.

We even saw deacons at the very early part of the book of Acts.

But yet at the same time, none of them are the head of the church.

It is Jesus who is head of the church.

So where do we get the ground rules for church?

Where do we get our marching orders?

Well, the Bible, right.

Acts, different areas of scripture, we, we understand that this is the blueprint.

This is the framework for why and how we do church.

And what's happened over the years is we have allowed certain definitions, certain cultural norms to absorb into the church.

And like I said before this morning, norms and, and traditions aren't necessarily bad things, but if they become the first thing, and it's because we do what we do, because this is how we've always done it can be problematic because of the fact that if it contradicts scripture, we've, we've deviated from scripture.

Now, did the church and multiple churches in Acts have it all together?

No.

We've studied the church of Corinth.

Certainly the church of Corinth didn't have it all together.

We say the church at Ephesus, they didn't have it all together.

But we do know that early on there were certain things that the church focused on.

And, and we got to Acts chapter two and we looked at verse 42 and we've realized that there are really four elements of the church when they got together.

There was, there was the apostles doctrine, the teaching of the word.

And in formal settings and informal settings, there was the Bible said in breaking of bread.

And, and you could talk about that being observing the Lord's table or just fellowshipping together over a meal.

There was fellowship, which is again another aspect of the church.

And then there was prayer.

And so if those elements are there, along with making disciples, as the Great Commission has said, we have a church.

What if we have this ministry?

A church must have fill in the blank.

And if it's not in scripture, it's not a necessity.

It's not a necessity.

I, I, I know of churches that say a church is not a church unless there's pews.

Well, I always make a joke that we're the compromising church.

We have pews and chairs, so we make everybody happy.

Okay?

But the truth is, is that there, there are elements of society.

There are elements of Western culture, there are elements of Eastern culture that have drifted into the church and sometimes taken precedent.

And so the reason why we're going through the Book of Acts is we're looking at really what is church.

It's the people, it's not the program.

It's an organism, not an institution, it's not a business.

It's not.

It's not an entity that we now, in many ways in the.

In our country, we have to make stances upon.

Okay, we're claiming this, and we're claiming this so that we're official and that we're legal.

But at the end of the day, it is God who makes the rules for the church.

And so when we're looking here in the all of the Book of Acts, we're learning what the early church looked like and we're getting a snapshot or a biography of the early church.

And I don't think that we should go back exactly necessarily how the early church was working, because we are not in first century Jewish culture.

Okay?

So there are some differences.

Like, by the way, I wouldn't want the men to start dressing like the men that did.

They did back then.

I don't expect all of you to come in with robes and things like that.

Okay?

That's not what I'm expecting.

Now, if you're in a culture that had those things, that would be totally acceptable.

But in this case, what we're seeing is it's the core, it's the essentials.

It's what.

It's what matters.

And so we're going to get here to Acts chapter 20.

And Acts chapter 20 is very interesting because it isn't necessarily a topic of scripture that we would look at and we would say, wow, there's a lot of theology here in these first verses, specifically in the first 12 verses.

But there's a lot here that I think we can glean from.

And I wanted to review just a little bit here tonight because I want us to understand the purpose of why we're studying the Book of Acts.

The Book of Acts is not just history, even though it is history.

I know that sometimes for me, I can get so caught up in the history of the church or the history in the Bible that I miss out on the spiritual truths that are there.

And.

And though the Bible is a history book and we can look back to that and we can claim all these things to be true, it's more than just a history book.

I like to read history books.

I don't know if Any of you maybe are like World War II buffs or civil War history fans or world, you know, World War I, if you go back even farther than World War II.

And there's nothing wrong with studying history, but we read a history book different than we read the Bible.

The Bible is not just a history book.

The Bible is the truth of God extended to all of us so that we can learn and grow and, and believe.

And so Acts, chapter 20, verse 1.

We see a really interesting story here tonight, and I hope that it'll be a blessing for you.

So Acts, chapter one, or excuse me, Acts chapter 20, verse one.

And after the uproar was ceased.

Now you're saying what uproar?

Well, if you were here before, there was a big uproar in Ephesus and essentially Paul was, was chased out again.

And there was all of this stress about them worshiping the goddess Diana, if you remember that they were praising the name of Diana, and they were fighting against Paul and fighting against the Christians there.

And so there was this huge uproar.

And, and I read verse one of chapter 20, and I thought that sometimes characterizes the church today.

Right?

And after the uproar was ceased, for some of you, that's after VBS week.

Okay?

After the uproar ceased.

Okay.

We're, we're, we're alive.

And, and the reality is, is that there are going to be trials in the ministry.

It's not going to always be smooth sailing for the church.

There's going to be ups and downs, there's going to be naysayers, there's going to be even schisms and divisions within the church.

And so I think it's important to notice that even Paul and these apostles and all these people that we highly look up to in Scripture dealt with stressors.

They dealt with conflict, they dealt with opposition, they dealt with persecution.

And it says here, and after the uproar was ceased, Paul called unto him the disciples and embraced them and departed for to go to Macedonia.

So, so he's going to leave there in Ephesus after all the uproar.

And he calls together and the disciples there, he embraces them, which I think is so important because this speaks of the compassion within the church.

We should embrace each other.

Church should be seen as a place in which we can be transparent, in which we can be loving, in which we can be compassionate.

So many times you might walk into a church and it seems cold, it seems distant.

And we never want to be that within the church.

We want to be a church that's warm and caring and loving.

People can be different.

Certainly people express their compassion and their love in different ways.

But the Bible clearly teaches here that Paul embraces them and before he leaves, he.

He gives them his love and then he departs to go to Macedonia, which obviously is.

Is.

Is across there the water of the Aegean Sea.

And it says verse two.

And when he had gone over those parts and had given them much exhortation, he came into Greece.

And it would be so easy to look at verse two as a transitionary verse.

Okay, that's just Paul traveling.

But you would miss something there.

What?

What do we miss?

There's a word there that we've been really harping on for the last month or so, and that is the word exhortation.

What does Paul do when he goes there?

It says that he had given them much, much exhortation.

What is exhortation?

Exhortation is encouragement, specifically encouraging by challenging them, coming alongside of them and equipping them and.

And challenging them in the truth of God.

And I think that's so much more the reason why we as the church must look to exhort each other.

If you go to the Book of Hebrews, again, I would still consider the book of Hebrews written in the time of the early church.

It speaks of in chapter 10, the necessity and the call to assemble together, right?

To be the assembly, you got to assemble.

Now, I know that in our culture today, there are obviously more opportunities to not assemble, right?

You can watch TV from home, and for some people, that's the only option because of health reasons and maybe because of travel and maybe because of other limitations.

And we certainly understand that.

But if we can, if we can, the Bible says to assemble together.

It doesn't say that we have to assemble on necessarily a certain day of the week, even though we're actually going to see here, interestingly enough, in the Book of acts, acts, chapter 20, they're meeting on a Sunday.

And some people don't know that there are actually different instances of scripture where they do meet on Sunday.

But the Bible actually speaks of the meeting daily.

But.

But nonetheless, the Bible does speak of assembling together with the body of believers.

And so we're in Hebrews chapter 10.

And I want you to see what it says here in verse number 23.

We're going to read verses 23 through 25.

This speaks again to the exhortation and the necessity of exhortation within the church.

It says verse 23, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering for he is faithful.

That promise, meaning stand true to your faith.

Why?

Because God is faithful.

And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.

The Bible says that we are to provoke each other, but not provoke each other to anger.

Right?

The Bible says that I shouldn't provoke my children to wrath.

The Bible says that we shouldn't provoke each other in the church to anger and bitterness and confusion.

What are we to do?

We are to provoke unto love and to good works.

And so we talk about good peer pressure and bad peer pressure.

Some of you that had teenagers growing up in your house, I hope that you talk to them about peer pressure.

Don't allow someone to make you do something that you know you shouldn't do.

That's bad peer pressure.

But the Bible actually speaks of what we would call here good peer pressure in the concept of provoking them or challenging them to love and good works.

And so my actions, your actions, should stir the hearts of others to want to have that love and good works within the church body.

And so it says there in verse 25, not forsaking the assembly, assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is meaning this.

Some people are already forgetting the importance of assembling together.

I don't need to get together with other people.

And maybe you have heard this.

I have certainly heard this.

People say, you know what, I can have church anywhere, so I don't need to get together with other Christians.

It's not a church if you're out on your own.

Okay, that's one Christian alone.

Now, that doesn't mean that you can't be a saved Christian on your own.

And that God, you know, can only, you know, be there if there's more than two people.

You know, even if you're isolated on an island by yourself, God is still there because he lives within our hearts.

But the Bible speaks of the benefit and the blessing of coming together, but not just coming together and sitting in a pew and going home.

What does it say here?

Don't forget the assembly of ourselves together as the manner of some is.

But exhorting, there's that word, exhorting one another.

And so much the more as you see the day approaching.

So the Bible calls us as a church to not only assemble, but to exhort.

And Paul understood that challenge.

And so therefore, as Paul understands that challenge from God, though he.

Though there are struggles in this, he does challenge others.

Now, they don't always follow him.

They don't always follow God.

I mean, if you look at Paul and his ministry, there are certain people that he stirred and then there are other people that he tried and they rejected.

And even we would even say with Jesus, right?

If we look at Jesus in his ministry, we would say, man, if Jesus walked the streets of the usa, everyone would believe.

Everyone would believe.

The truth is that isn't the case.

Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem.

Jesus walked the streets of Israel.

Not everyone believed.

Why?

Because it wasn't a matter of them understanding that he existed.

It was a matter, like we talked about this morning, of accepting him as Jesus Christ the Messiah and understanding his message.

And so even if Jesus walked the streets of the usa, there would be still people who would not believe because of their pride and because of their rebellion.

And, and so therefore what we have to do is we have to challenge people and not worry about whether or not they are going to obey or they are going to follow, because that's not up to us.

It's up to us to sow the seed to, to, to show them the truth of God, to demonstrate to them what it means to be a, a Christ follower.

And so Paul there exhorts, and then it says, verse two, he came into Greece and there abode, and there abode three months.

And when the Jews laid wait for him.

So, so this is a common thread for Paul's ministry.

As Paul goes to a place, there are those religious Jews that are ready to stir the pot because they don't agree with what Paul is preaching.

It's contrary to what they're used to.

Same thing with Jesus.

Remember, Jesus preached and the Pharisees were upset, the Sadducees were upset.

And so Paul even being a Pharisee himself before, understands where they're coming from, but yet still they're laying in wait to catch him.

And it says as he was about to sail into Syria, he purposed to return through Macedonia.

So he goes through Macedonia.

And the reason why he wanted to go to Syria, we won't get into the geography of all this, but Syria, Antioch was Paul's home church.

And so no doubt he wanted to go back to Syria where his home church was.

But it says there that he returned through Macedonia and there accompanying him into Asia.

So potter of Berea, where Paul had seen the church there, in Berea, remember the Bereans, they were more noble than the Thessalonicans because they sought the Scriptures.

And so this is a reference to one of the churches there that Paul had ministered to and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus Angaeus, of Derbe and Timotheus, and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus, you would say.

Why are those names there?

Well, a couple of those names you probably are familiar with, at least Timotheus or Timothy.

But we see these individuals there to show us, I believe, to show us that Paul was not alone.

Obviously, we know he was not alone in the concept that God was with him, but also Paul had help.

When Paul was doing these missionary journeys, he wasn't doing it alone.

He wasn't a man on an island, so to speak.

At least in the case where he was serving and ministering, though, you don't hear a lot about those that helped him.

It definitely was a group effort.

And so why do we need to know that?

Because anytime we're trying to do something in the ministry, we're not the only one that is qualified to do a work of God.

There are a lot of people around us that we need to call out for and accept help from.

And I know it's sometimes hard to ask for help, especially some of us men.

We've got our ego and we got our pride.

And.

And I'm the first one to say this.

I.

I'm the first one to say, you know what?

I'm just going to go ahead and do it myself, because I know it's going to get done right.

But the truth of the matter is, is that there's times in our life where there's benefit to bringing people along to the work of God.

With you, I won't say who it is because I don't want to embarrass him.

But there.

There was someone up here at the church doing some work, and, you know, I was like, do you want to do it?

He goes, no, I did it.

You saw me do it.

You.

You go ahead and do it.

And.

And I was like, oh, man, I'm nervous about doing this.

I'm not.

I'm not great with my hands.

But.

But he showed me how to do it, and then he trusted me to do it, and I didn't mess it up.

And that was.

That's part of discipleship, right?

We show people what it means to follow Christ.

We show people what it means to study the word of God.

We show people what it means to serve in certain capacities and maybe to pray and maybe to sacrifice.

And then we allow them to do it.

And then when they mess up, we come alongside of them with grace and with mercy and say, hey, look, this might be a better way to do it, but.

But we don't just say, nope, you're done, you're cut off.

Right.

That.

That's sometimes our first step is, you know, or maybe we're on the other side.

I could never be used like, that's pastor's job.

And what we have done.

One.

One of the travesties that we have seen within the church in America is that we see this diet.

You basically the diagram of the pastor is the one who is vocational.

The pastor is the one who is qualified.

The pastor is the one who is the professional Christian.

And then all of us just sit out there and pastor basically does all the work of the ministry, and we sit in and we are beneficiaries of that, or we want to get a part of that.

But we can't do those things.

We can't give the gospel the way a pastor does or the way the evangelist does.

I don't see a distinction in the great commission to pastors, deacons and then the church.

It's all of the church right now.

There.

There are certain elements of a pastor's role or a deacon's role that is distinct from other elements of the church body.

But everybody is a member of the church body.

Therefore, all of us have a call to serve God.

All of us are ministers.

And so I.

I want to go on record to say this.

Pastors are not any better than anybody else.

We are not on a higher echelon of God's love.

We are just believers that are serving at a certain capacity because of God's preparation in our lives.

But everyone in the room has an opportunity to know God in a personal way and to serve at the capacity of evangelism, of discipleship.

And so it's all of our jobs, and it's my job as Ephesians Chapter four as a pastor, and Pastor John's job and Pastor Carlos's job is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.

And so it's me to say, it takes upon me the understanding to say, I know I need to show these folks what it means to look at the word of God, to dissect the word of God, to have a lifestyle of prayer.

If I'm.

If I'm encouraging you to raise your children for you that have children still in those young years, if I'm encouraging you to raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, I got to do the same thing.

If I'm encouraging you to read your Bible, I got to do the same thing.

If I'm encouraging you to have integrity in your workplace, I've got to do the same thing.

I'm not above anybody else.

And so that's what Paul is doing here.

Paul is working alongside of these folks.

And really what we see is that.

That.

That they're coming alongside of him.

They're encouraging Paul, and ultimately he is encouraging them, and they're reaching people for the gospel.

So it says, verse five, these going before tarrying for us at Troas.

And we sailed away.

And I love.

In verse six, it has.

It has shifted.

Intense.

And when I say intense, meaning, you know, some of you that are big into grammar, you have first person, second person, third person.

Well, in this case, we see now Luke is the author of the Book of Acts.

He is now again with Paul because that's why he says, w.

We.

Right?

He says, and we sailed away.

So this is Luke the physician, writing about how he's traveling with Paul and his associates.

So we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread and came unto them to Troas.

In five days will we abode.

Seven days.

Now, this is where the story gets really interesting.

And I would.

This was one of my favorite stories to learn about when.

When I was in Sunday school, because I don't know about you.

Again, this is no judgment to anybody.

I don't know about you, but there was time in my life where, you know, I was.

I was having chapel three days a week.

I was having church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, we were coming, and.

And I fell asleep in church sometimes.

Okay, now, again, this is no judgment upon anyone.

I know everyone's got different things going on in their life, but this is actually a story of a guy that falls asleep in church and actually dies because of it.

Now, I.

I've heard some preachers warn against the fact that this is a passage of scripture that says, you better not sleep in church or you're gonna die.

But that's not what he's talking about here.

Okay, this is something else.

But.

But it's.

But it's somewhat humorous when you read it.

Now, I.

I was.

I was looking through this today, and I was thinking, how am I gonna.

How am I gonna talk about this?

And I came up with few jokes, and I'm like, man, I don't know if that's going to go over well.

It usually never does, so I'm not going to go there.

But verse number seven, it says this.

And upon the day, the first day of the week.

Again, we had referenced that, you know, they met all the time within the church back then.

They met daily in their homes, but in this case, they meet corporately on the first day of the week.

And so I, I've heard some people say actually that it's wrong to meet on, on Sundays.

You have to meet on Saturdays because that's the true Sabbath.

Uh, but we see here is there's an example of them meeting on the first day of the week.

So there's nothing wrong with doing that.

And I believe it's actually appropriate because of Jesus's resurrection.

So they meet on the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread.

So, so again, there's that breaking of bread in the fellowship there.

And as they're fellowshipping and they're breaking bread, Paul preaches unto them.

It says, paul preached unto them.

Now I, I've had a lot of people tell me that, hey, Pastor, we love you, but, you know, sometimes you preach too long.

And I, I, I heed that.

Okay, I understand that.

I, I, I love preaching, but, but I'm very cautious of time.

But let's see here.

Paul is not cautious all the time.

Let's see how long.

Actually, Paul preached here.

Okay, so it says verse number seven, Paul preached unto the, unto them ready to depart on the morrow.

So he's got a big day on the next day.

It's a travel day, right?

So none of us really want to do a lot on the day before we travel.

Paul says, well, I'm actually going to preach and I'm going to preach into midnight.

Okay, now, we don't know when they started their worship service.

Most people actually, if you read the commentary, say they probably started in the evening because Sunday was still a work day in their culture.

It would have been Saturday that they were off.

So regardless of when they started, it's a long sermon.

Okay, so he preaches, as it says there, until midnight.

He says he continued, I like how it says there.

He continued his speech until midnight.

And so whatever Paul had to say to them, no doubt it was about the Gospel and about the truth of God, but whatever he had to say to them, he felt like there was a lot to be said.

And I don't know about you guys, I don't know if, if I preached into midnight, how many people would actually stay?

My family probably would because they rose me today.

But about that, I understand that, that that's a difficult thing.

And it says verse 8.

And there were many lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together.

So I, I read that Multiple times.

And I'm like, why is that there?

The only thing I can think of is that's just describing the setting.

Okay?

There's a lot of lights in there.

They wanted to see what they were doing.

Verse 9.

And there sat in a window a certain young man named Uticus being fallen into deep sleep.

And the actual Greek phrase there for him falling into deep sleep actually has the connotation of him fighting against it.

Okay, he's fighting against the sleep.

Okay.

So as, as Paul is preaching, he's fighting against his sleep, but he gives into it, or the deep sleep overtakes him, as it says there.

And as Paul was long preaching.

So if, if anyone had a critique on Paul, it might be that he is preaching a long, long time.

Also.

I, I, Peter even said that Paul's writings are kind of difficult to understand.

So, so even though we think that Paul is this great preacher, he, you know, obviously had his human nature to him, and so he preaches a long time.

And by the way, I don't think long preaching is necessarily bad as long as there's good content there.

But it says he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third lot, third story.

And it might not be exactly three stories, but he falls down from a high distance and it says, and was taken up dead or he died.

Now, there are some people that read this passage, and they interpret it to be that he fell and he looked dead.

Because of what we're about to say, they try to remove the supernatural from the situation.

Now, remember, who wrote.

Who is the human author of the Book of Acts?

Luke.

Okay?

If what, by the way, what was Luke's profession?

He was a doctor.

He was a physician.

So if anyone would have known that this guy actually had passed away, it would have been Luke.

Okay?

There would have been no confusion with that.

So.

So this guy falls out the window.

And, you know, he was a young man, he was a youth, classic youth group.

They fell asleep and they.

Good thing we don't have someone, by the way, don't have them sleeping near the windows.

Okay?

That, that would not be good.

But, but he falls and he dies.

And you would say, well, what's this?

What.

What's the point of this?

Well, we're going to see here that God is at work, and Paul, he's allowing himself to be distracted with something that happens here.

And there are certain things in life that are good distractions.

It was good to see Pastor Spicer here this morning with his wife Jackie.

Love, love those dear folks.

And I remember Pastor Spicer had a sermon one time.

He was preaching about God's interruptions.

And I think that so many times in my life, I have the characteristics of be busy about it.

I got my list.

I got to take care of everything.

I got to make sure I get all my things done.

But sometimes God sends things in the way that, hey, you know, that's going to take over the importance of that moment.

And this was pretty important, all right?

There would be, like, someone in our service having an emergency, okay?

They maybe had a heart attack and they fell over.

I don't think it would be wise for me just to say, I'm going to keep preaching.

Everyone just keep listening, okay?

That think it would be important to.

To deal with that situation.

That's the heart of God.

And I know that that would be what we should do.

But anyway, what we see here is this.

Paul goes down.

He leaves his preaching, he leaves his pulpit, so to speak, and it says, and fell on him, embracing him, and shows his love and his compassion.

And we don't know how well Paul knew this guy.

He couldn't have been that well.

But he shows compassion to him.

He embraces him, and then he responds to the people.

He says, trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him.

Now, again, if you read that on the surface there, it kind of seems like he didn't really die.

He still has life in him.

But again, in the original context, it's the idea that he's going to come back to life.

He is going to come back.

So there's faith there.

There's faith that God is going to restore this situation.

Now, there are very few times in Scripture where someone is actually brought back to life.

You can count them on a very short list, Old Testament and new.

And the question that some people have when.

When you read the story or when they read the story would be, why did God choose Eutychus to be brought back to life and not Stephen or.

Or somebody else that was a noble person.

And I.

I have this really great theological answer that I want to give you.

And it's.

I don't know.

I don't know why God chose this situation to bring Uticus back to life and not others.

Ultimately, it's God's prerogative and it's God's will and he's sovereign.

But ultimately, what we see here is the.

The picture of God's power to bring people back to life.

And so says there in verse number 11.

Excuse me, verse number 10, trouble not yourselves.

And so there's no Trouble needed.

God is still at work.

And again, Paul is an apostle.

And so in Paul's apostleship, there's going to be things that are happening that are outside our understanding, the supernatural.

And God allowed Paul and the other apostles to have these supernatural gifts to validate the message of the gospel.

Mess come up again.

And had broken bread and eaten and talked a while, even till, till break of day.

So he departed.

So the Uticus comes back to life.

They get a little food and he goes back to speaking.

And it says that he spoke there until the morning and then he departed.

And so man Paul was like, okay, we're going to preach till midnight.

We're going to work this miracle and then we're going to preach into the morning.

And, and so we see their great dedication from, from Paul to preach the word to these folks.

He wanted to give everything that he could to them before, before he left.

And, and so Paul receives the gift of faith from God.

He, he sensed that God would raise this boy up from the dead.

And obviously God did.

And Paul obviously gets their attention by doing this and continues preaching unto daybreak.

Now again, I, I have to insert a little bit of my, my interpretation on this, okay.

I guarantee you a lot of them, I think would have got.

They, they woke up after that, okay, if someone, if someone died in the middle of the service and, and God brought them back to life, I think all of us would be a little bit more attentive to what was going on.

But nonetheless, we see that God is still at work there.

And I think that's obviously, it's obviously a literal picture of God bringing Uticus back to life, but I think it's also a symbolic picture of how God brings us back to life.

When it comes to our salvation, all of us are dead in our sins and ultimately God brings us back to life.

And I think it's important to notice that when we talk about salvation, I might be taking a little bit too far of a stretch here, but I do know that God uses the analogy of death to life, not bad life to good life, you know, making a mistake and now being forgiven for my mistake.

The Bible speaks of, in our sin, we are dead.

We are dead in our sins.

Now, I don't believe that means enabled to respond.

Some people teach that when we're dead in our sins, we're not able to respond.

God forces us to be saved and therefore we have no choice.

I don't believe that, but I do believe in the fact that we are dead in our sins means that that is our end.

Our, our, you know, our what if.

Whatever you want to call when you're going to jail, your.

What is it?

When you're going to jail and they give you a time frame that you're going to.

Some of you, some of you that went to jail, tell me.

Sentence.

Sentence.

That's the word I'm thinking of.

Sentence.

Just kidding.

Now I know who the sentence.

So, so when it says that we are dead in our sins, it's talking about our death sentence.

When we are sinners, we are on the way to destruction, we are on our way to death.

The Bible says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So when we have salvation, we are taken from a death sentence through a life sentence in the concept of eternal life with Jesus Christ our Lord.

And I think that's an awesome picture to see there, even in the life of Eutychus being brought back to, to life.

And so that's an interesting story that I think a lot of times we skip over as just this one off miracle that Paul works.

But I think there's so much to be learned about that in the concept of exhortation, in the concept of fellowship, in the concept of the emphasis of the word of God.

I do know that there are certain aspects of the church that are more than just preaching.

I was having a conversation with someone today.

Preaching should not alone be the only intake of scripture that you should be receiving throughout the week.

Okay?

I don't care how good a preacher is, I don't care how much he brings out from scripture.

If you only eat one day a week, you're going to be starving.

You're not going to be healthy.

You say, well, Pastor, I eat a really, really, really good meal on Sundays and then I fast for the rest of the week, every single week.

That's not a healthy way to live physically.

It's not a healthy way to live spiritually.

And I do believe that the preaching ministry from the pulpit of the church is vital.

I think it's one of the elements of the church, but it's not the only element of the church.

And so what do I mean by that?

I mean that we should be taking in scripture throughout the week in various aspects through our own scripture reading, through different Bible studies, through good books that point people to the truth of scripture through other preachers.

Okay?

I don't, I, I don't have, I don't have a monopoly on the market of the sermons that you intake.

Okay?

I would caution you to take in sermons that are aligned with scripture.

I would caution you to be very careful about what the content of the messages and the podcast and YouTube videos that you're taking in.

Because just as much as there are really, really, really good preachers out there, there are a lot of bad, false preachers out there.

We have to be very, very cautious.

But what I would say is this, you as the church member, you as the fellow believer in Christ, can have access to the Word, just as I have access to the Word there.

You know, there's other elements of studying the Word of God.

There's elements of understanding some of the Greek words.

And some folks go, I.

I cannot do that, Pastor.

I don't know Greek.

I.

I don't speak fluent Koine Greek.

I'm just going to tell you that I don't.

I would like to.

I would like to believe that.

I know some Greek, but I'm not good in coin.

A Greek.

There.

There are apps, and there are resources that can help you understand the Word and allow it to jump off the page and, and when.

We've got the church library coming up here soon, but there's.

There's.

There's apps on your phone and, And I would encourage you to embrace those things to the point where it helps you.

Some of you that work in the field, maybe it's, you know, I don't know, maybe it's a field of technology or maybe it's in.

In the field of.

Of, you know, construction or something.

You want to use the right tools for the right job.

I.

I remember all the time, I remember calling my dad.

I'm an only child, and my dad did a lot for me when I lived in Florida.

So I would be like, my car would break down or I'd have issues.

I say, dad, help me out.

And he'd drive over to the house and he fixed it for me.

And then I moved to Delaware.

And I said, dad, he's not going to fly here every time I had a problem.

So I would say, like, okay, I've been down underneath this trying to fix this for like, three hours, and I can't figure it out.

He's like, first thing, he asked me, what tool are you using?

I said, well, I'm using this wrench over here.

He's like, that's not the right tool.

He's like, you're going to be all day trying to figure that out.

Just get this tool over here.

And I would get that, and it would pop right off, and I'd be Like, well, that was easy.

He goes, yeah, son, if you have the right tools for the right job, it's going to be a lot easier.

It's the same thing when it comes to scripture.

If we're trying to go out into the world and try to figure out all these things and live a Christlike life, and live a godly life according to the Bible, but yet we're not using the tool that God gives us.

We're not using the sword of the spirit.

The Bible says the sword of the spirit and many times we use the sword of the spirit in the concept of like battling.

And that is the case.

We, we do use it as an offensive weapon.

But the, if you actually study the swords that that's talking about in the Bible, it's not just about a battle weapon.

It's actually they would use those for surgeries like on the battlefield.

If they needed to take care of something, they would use these swords, these sharp swords to, to cut themselves and to do surgery.

And sometimes surgery is difficult, but sometimes that's what the word of God is for us too.

It's not just a tool that we use to fight against Satan, but it's a tool that we use to, to get rid of things in our own life.

And sometimes the Bible tells us to cut this out, cut, cut this cancer out of your life, allow this to be removed so that it doesn't plague you more.

And so just as much as the sword of the spirit is used to fight against the enemy, so the sword of the spirit is used in our own life for an opportunity to grow into to.

It even says in Hebrews chapter four that, that the sword of the spirit, it's alive, it's quick, it's powerful, sharper than any two edged sword.

And there's this idea in our life that we need to allow the word of God to inspect us.

And even in the book of James, it speaks of us looking at the word of God and not responding to it.

Like someone who looks into a mirror and sees all the things that they need to take care of, but then they just reject it and walk away.

And that's what the Bible is.

The Bible is a mirror to show us where we need to be and how we need to grow.

And so I would encourage you to think about that when it comes to the aspects of church and exhortation and even fighting the battles that you might fight in your own Christian life.

The reality is, is that church and discipleship and evangelism is not always a cut and dry clean Business.

Sometimes there is messiness in discipleship.

What do I mean by that?

Means this.

I can sit and I can invest in someone's life, and I can see growth in their life, but yet there's going to be some times where there's going to be setbacks.

Sometimes there's going to be times where you feel like, what in the world was I doing?

Because they didn't obviously get it.

But that's the point of discipleship.

Did Jesus quit on Peter the first time?

No, he didn't.

He kept discipling, kept discipling.

And so we as Christians should do the same.

It's our family.

I don't give up.

I don't.

I don't give up on my children the first time they make a mistake.

Sometimes I'm tempted to give up, honestly.

But the truth is, is that if I'm a good parent, if I'm a loving parent, I'm going to be patient with them.

I'm going to come back and I'm going to try to.

I'm not going to be easy on them.

There's going to be a challenge there.

And that's the same thing when it comes to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Loving somebody does not mean accepting somebody's wrong actions.

Okay?

So if I love somebody, I don't go, well, I know they're doing wrong, but I love them so much, I just can't tell them that they're doing wrong.

Okay?

That.

Don't equate biblical love to acceptance.

And I would even say, don't equate biblical love to empathy.

Empathy means I feel for you.

You know, sometimes we don't need to feel the same way someone else feels.

Even though sometimes some of us are just naturally empathetic to people and we just feel their emotions.

Well, sometimes their emotions might be wrong.

And we don't need to, like, commiserate with them.

We need to wake them up and say, no, you're thinking the wrong thing.

That's against the Bible.

I love you and I understand why you feel that way.

I might even feel that way if I was in your shoes.

But here's what the Bible says.

And so if I love someone, it doesn't mean that I accept them.

It doesn't mean that I condone their wrongdoing.

It doesn't mean that I empathize with them.

It means that I lead them to truth and what's best for them.

And that's what it means to be a church.

It means we're going to go through Ups and downs.

We're going to be in verse one, when coming off of the uproar.

There's going to be times in our life where we need to go back and realize that we need a Timothy, we need these helpers.

There's gonna be times in our life where we need to understand that, hey, I need to be the exhorter.

There's gonna be times in my life where I need to realize that I need the exhortation from somebody else.

I need to be open to exhortation.

And that's the church.

And there's gonna be times in our life where we just need to go back to say that it's really ultimately God that holds life and death.

And, and he is the one that extends salvation to us.

And therefore we wash our hands of our responsibility in the concept of saving ourselves.

All we do is we're responsible to come to him in faith and trust in him and allow God to do the work.

And that's what Paul did there for Udus.

So next week we won't have an evening service, but when we come back in, in two weeks, we're going to be talking about Paul.

He calls the Ephesian elders or the Ephesian pastors together and he's going to give them this long discourse.

He's going to address, address the Ephesian elders.

And he actually says at the very end of all this, I might not see you again.

I'm ready.

I'm joyful to come to the end.

Now, we know that Paul inevitably understood that there was going to be a point in his life where he would have to pay for his faith.

He would have to be a martyr.

And when you read Paul's writings, you can definitely see it kind of getting to that.

So even when he gets to second Timothy, there's a.

There's an understanding that, hey, I'm.

It's.

It's my time is near.

But nonetheless, you know, he, he definitely shows joy.

Rejoice evermore.

And again I say rejoice.

There's the idea that Paul is going to encourage to the very end.

And I think that he's a great example for that.

So when we come back, we're going to study the end of chapter 20.

And, and he essentially ends some of his thinking there with, it's better to give than receive.

It's better to give to others than just sit there and try to be a receiver of that.

And that's actually going to be a principle that we're going to talk about within the church.

There is a principle that it's better to give than receive.

Now we usually tell that to our kids around Christmas.

Like it's better to give than receive.

So you should give some gifts.

And that's true, but it's a bigger picture than just getting a gift at Christmas or your birthday.

It's better to give than receive as a concept of how we should live as Christians.

It's better to give love to people than just expect it to happen to me.

Like, why doesn't anyone love me?

Well, when's the last time I've demonstrated love to somebody else?

No one ever sacrifices for me.

When's the last time I sacrificed for somebody else?

I have to ask my question, that question to myself all the time because I get so focused on myself.

I get so focused on the things that I have and I forget that this church thing that we're doing, this thing that God has instituted in our lives as his method of his gospel message being furthered is the point of coming together and being, being a body, a unit.

And, and so I, I know that we are, I would say, overemphasizing that, but I think to a good degree that we need to understand what the church really is.

And as, as I continue to study the book of Acts and other aspects of the early church, I realize how easy it is to get off track and how we can miss the mark and how we can get to a place in our life where we're so caught up in the day to day that we miss the bigger picture.

And so let's be the church that God has called us to be.

Let's show the love of Christ, let's show the grace of Christ, let's show the forgiveness of Jesus, but let's also show the truth of Christ and the concept of like not condoning the wrongdoing, standing out in our society.

I mentioned this last week.

I think there's two elements to our church that I think that we should take with us as marching orders.

We should preach, come and see, come and see Jesus, come and see the difference.

But we also should go and be the church to people that might not come and see.

And you've heard me say this, and I'm not the first one to bring this up, but you might be the only Jesus that someone comes across in their life, you know, you might be the only Christian that they know.

Are they going to understand the truth of Jesus Christ through you, or are they going to understand, hey, they just go to a place on Sunday mornings and come back and they just do that every single week.

Or is it, hey, they're different.

Jesus has changed their life.

On Easter Sunday, we're going to talk about how Jesus's disciples and his followers, their lives were changed because of who Jesus was.

We know that because all of the apostles went to great persecution.

All of them, except for John, were killed for their faith.

And, you know, if they knew it was a lie, they knew it was a lie.

And they knew Jesus really wasn't who he said he was, they would have not gone to the end and died for it.

There are people who have been deceived and died for things, but they were there.

And so they knew that Jesus conquered death.

They knew that the resurrection was a real thing.

And so we're going to talk about how Jesus truly changed the life of his inner circle and how Jesus can truly change our lives if we understand him for who he really is and what he has done.

So, anyway, come back on Easter and we'll.

I'll talk about that.

Go ahead and close in a word of prayer.

And then after that, I have a few announcements and you guys can be dismissed.

Lord, I thank you for this time that you've given us.

I thank you for the opportunity to come together tonight as the church to fellowship, to encourage and to exhort and to edify.

Lord, I pray that you can allow us to grow closer to you through studying your Word, through speaking to you, through spending time with you, through the opportunity to serve you.

Lord, I thank you for many ways in which you have revealed yourself to us through in your word and in your creation, really and through just circumstances in our life, you.

You have opened the door of truth to us.

And, Lord, I pray that we can utilize that truth for the cause of the gospel.

I pray that you be with our families this week.

I pray that you be with the folks that aren't able to be here because of various illnesses and surgeries.

I just pray that you be with them.

I pray that you work in the hearts of those that aren't necessarily physically hurting, but spiritually hurting.

Lord, I pray that you can and be the great physician to them as well.

And so, Lord, I pray that you be with us as we go our separate ways tonight.

Lord, help us to be the church that you called us to be.

Help us to be the salt and light.

Help us to go and be and invite people to come and see.

Lord, we thank you for all that you do and love you, Jesus name.

Amen.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church and this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro Middletown BaptistChurch.com if you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and follow along for future podcast and updates.

Thank you so much.

God Bless.

Have a wonderful day.