Acts chapter 20 and as we've gone through this over the last several weeks of course I told you I'd take more time with it just because this is a very personal passage for me as this is Paul's exhortation to those elders in Ephesus and over the last couple of weeks we came to the part where Paul was giving the charge of or the charges, three different responsibilities that he gave to the Ephesian elders given in three different verbs. The first two were imperatives, the one that we'll look at this evening is not an imperative but it's the word that implies something that is necessary or something that is incumbent on you, the word itself is an expectation and that's the word you ought. in verse 35, or the words ye ought, it's one word in Greek but we'll get to that in a little bit. But just a reminder the first expectation that he gave them began in verse 28 and that was to feed or shepherd, but I gave you the word feed there, 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. And that was the first expectation or the first charge that he gave to the Ephesian elders. The second one for the sake of alliteration but also it fits the thought here is to fight and that's the idea of guard in verse 31, therefore watch. And so he gave three different thoughts there, there were the wolves from without in verse 29, for I know this that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock. And then the one that was probably very very difficult for Paul or grievous for him because of the fact that these were men from within, also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. And then the third thing that I gave you by way of guarding or watching or fighting was apathy, not only the wolves from without the men from within but apathy all around. Therefore watch and remember that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn everyone night and day with tears." And he was of course expressing his ministry towards them then. And so we've already looked at fight and we've already looked at feed or we might say to do the work of shepherding and then also guarding. The third charge comes from the words in verse 35 there, ye ought, and this is what you need to be doing. Then if you notice verse 35 there it says, I have showed you all things. how that so laboring, and he's referring to his own labor back in verse 34, you ought to support the weak. And what he's telling them there is that as I have done and as Jesus exhorted, then you need to be doing the same thing. And so I'm giving you the word follow, that's follow the example of Paul and really follow the words of the teaching of Jesus. And so in this idea, the third one to follow here, there are several thoughts. It's not just that they're following Paul's example in everything, but they're also following Paul's exhortation. And that they are to be growing, they're supposed to be making sure that they're following his example, not only in their labors, but also in their own growth. And we see that first in the first verse, especially verse 32, which we'll come to in a moment. But you have on your outline there in your bulletin and also in the notes you'll have in just a few moments as we go through them three things that Paul illustrated by his life and which he desired for the lives of the elders of the church in Ephesus. The first one is seen in verse 32 and this is what he desired for them, he didn't necessarily say follow me in this, this is what he desired for them but his life had certainly demonstrated it. And the first thought that we'll see here as far as in their following the example of the Apostle Paul was his desire for their, number one, sanctification. And that's verse 32, so I'll read it and then explain several different things about the verse and keep moving through this. So verse 32, Paul says, 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." Now you notice down in verse 36, and they accompanied him onto the ship. Those verses show the depth of passion, the emotion, the connection that they had where they're weeping because Paul has said, you're not going to see my face anymore. Now, historically, there were likely a few of them that left Ephesus at some point and probably saw him laboring in ministry in other places. But all of that to say that at this point in Paul's ministry he had no expectation of being back in Ephesus with most of these people. But they had such a close connection after three years of ministry with the Apostle Paul and with all that he had taught them, with all that he had experienced and done with them, there was a very close connection. And the idea here when Paul says that they would see his face no more was very difficult for them. And that's the kind of emotion that is here in verse 32 when he has told them, I'm not going to be able to see you anymore, but he's handing them, if you will, or he's committing them, commending them to God and to the word of his grace. There is a depth of passion and emotion, which I think we probably don't experience a lot. in our local churches. So whenever we're getting ready to go, we'll say, I'll see you on Wednesday or I'll see you on Sunday. And even, for instance, I'm just going to say this, whenever we left Paxton, and that was the middle of August in 2020, whenever we left there, there were tears. We had a meal together as a church family. They gave a bunch of testimonies. They did many things for our family for the 15 years that we had spent there. And yet, there was no thought that we're never going to see you again. My in-laws live in that town. I owned a house there at the time, so I knew I would be back. I've preached there several times since then. We saw several of them yesterday and through the last couple of days. We have interaction with them on a regular basis, but they didn't have Facebook. They didn't have Instagram. They didn't have telephones. The means of communication that they had were far different than what they are now. And so this was a serious thing whenever they think we're not ever going to see him again. And so there's an emotion, there's a passion that is a part of this that is not necessarily normal to our lives. It may be a little bit. I saw, I think I mentioned to you a few weeks ago, whenever my brother Steven had flown down to Aruba and seen my sister, that was a surprise. And they took a video as they were walking into the airport and they just showed my sister, she has her particular stance where she crosses her arms and just kind of stands there. And they took a video of her as they were walking into the airport and you could see that she was just in essence weeping. Aruba is a lot different than just even Illinois. There's a difference there, the frequency of travel and so forth, that probably plays a little bit more into what is seen here with this. So Paul has a depth of emotion that is a part of this and he's pleading for their sanctification and committing it into the hands of God in verse 32. He says, and now, okay, and that's how verse 32 begins. That's following the challenges to shepherd the flock, knowing that they would have to guard against the wolves that would come from without and those men who had been twisted in their thinking. or of the scriptures that would come from within, the apathy with which Paul was concerned. With all of that, okay, now Paul is saying, and now he's finishing his challenge to them, it was necessary that they be strengthened. It was important that they were prepared for everything. And so he says, and now brethren, I commend you to God. And I'll talk about that in a moment, but I don't want to overlook the word brethren. This word gives the evaluation of them. Think of what that word means. Paul often referred to his brethren after the flesh, that's how he referred to Israel and the people of Israel in 9 through 11 of the book of Romans. But here these are Ephesian men and we know from the context of the book of Ephesians that they were Jews and Gentiles that were joined together in one spiritual body. And so he's referring to them as brethren. That's his evaluation of them, the reality that he viewed them not only as spiritual kinsmen, but I think also as peers. These are the elders of the church in Ephesus. Though he was the apostle, Paul, though he was the one who, if you would say it this way, he was their He referred to Timothy, his son in the faith, but he was the one who had birthed them into the family of God. There was a connection there, but he still realized that he was just, as Peter said, a fellow elder. In 1 Peter chapter 5, Peter didn't exalt himself any higher than the other elders. I think Paul would have had the same demeanor as he referred to them as brethren. We're co-laborers in the work that God has given to us. So they're spiritual kinsmen as well as equal peers, they're people that will be taking over the work of the ministry that is being left there in the church in Ephesus. And so with that, and now brethren, and here's what he told them, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace. Two different things here that he says I'm commending you to. The word commend means to set before or to place before something. It's the idea that Paul has almost imagined that these Ephesian elders have been in his hands or that they are in his hands and he says I'm commending you to God, I'm setting you before God. recognizing that he's not the one who will sustain them. He's not the one who is going to make them effective in ministry. He's not the one who's going to be able to enable them to guard against those wolves or to guard against those who are the false teachers from within. He's not the one who's going to be able to spiritually strengthen them. That's going to be the work of God. And so he says, I'm commending you or I'm setting you before God, I'm placing you before God. And so his picture is here, I'm commending you, first of all, or setting you before, giving you to God. That phrase, I think, is one that we probably as parents or grandparents should make a regular part of our thinking. And this is, by the way, just application. I'm commending my children to God. I'm setting them before God. I'm giving them to him. We often have a ceremony where many times Christian parents will have what they call a baby dedication. And that's often the picture that is there. We watched the baby dedication of Jack six or eight months ago. Jeb and Laura doing that publicly in the church there in North Carolina. And that's the picture of what Paul is doing here, I'm dedicating you to God, I'm commending you to God, I'm setting you before him. They are not his to sustain, they are God's to sustain, they are God's to grow, not Paul. So he says, I commend you or set you before God or give you to God and to the word of his grace. And I gave some thought to this particular phrase here, to the word of his grace. There's a couple of different ways that this could be looked at, is the emphasis on grace or the emphasis on word, to the word of his grace or to the word which is of his grace. And so the emphasis I think grammatically comes back to because the word word here as far as in its case is the same as God if that makes sense. In other words the two parallel ones when he says I commend you to God and to the word. Those two words are parallel in their Greek case and then grace is a modifier of word. So the word of his grace and so it basically be this, I'm commending you or I'm setting you before God and to the word which is of his grace or which is from his grace, the way that we have the word is from his grace, the means by which his grace is expressed, the way that we learn of God's grace is through his word. And so really the simplest context would be to say the Bible. Now obviously the Ephesian elders did not have the completed scriptures as we do. They would have had the Old Testament, they would have likely had some of the early writings of perhaps the Apostle Paul and maybe a few of the Gospels. But I think that also whenever Paul would speak of the scriptures, for instance when he did in 2 Timothy, Even though that was the last one that he had written and not all of the epistles were written yet, whenever Paul said, all scripture is given by inspiration of God, I think he was referring, even in prospect, to what would eventually be what we call the completed canon. And so with this we can make application of this and say that it was the reference to the Bible, I'm committing you to God and to his word or to the word which is of his grace. And what else would be the thing upon which these elders would stand? Paul whenever he wrote the second epistle to Timothy later on he told him to preach the Word, okay? Give attendance to reading and to doctrine, okay? Those are the words that he gave to Timothy. Where was Timothy whenever Paul wrote the second epistle to Timothy to him? The same place. He was in Ephesus, okay? So with this, when Paul says, I'm commending you to God and to the word of his grace, we can look at that. Just the simple interpretation was I'm committing you to God and to his word, to the expression of his grace. with that and so this context here is showing his desire for their sanctification and when he speaks of that, I'm commending you to God and to the word of his grace. He describes it then with the next phrase, which is able to build you up. Okay, now likely he's referring to the word of his grace, but God would also be the one who's empowering that through his spirit. But the word of his grace, which is able, meaning it has the ability, it has the power to build you up. You remember what Paul was referring to Timothy's testimony in 2 Timothy chapter 3, very close to the same The passage of Scripture, the same paragraph actually, verse 14 of chapter 3, starts with the idea that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation. That's the same idea here when he says of the word of His grace, which is able to build you up. Okay, the same power that the Word of God has to bring understanding of salvation, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. The same power, the same ability that the Word has to bring salvation to one's soul, the Word has that same power to edify or to build up or in this context to sanctify. And so Paul is committing them or commending them, setting them before God and to the word of his grace, which has the ability or has the power, the means to build you up. And this is the idea of edification, to strengthen you. You think of a building, my brother Daniel, we're all pretty proud of him for this, but Daniel, has been for the last several years. I worked for him in construction in North Carolina, but he was working for another man at the time. He also had his own construction business, which was limited because he did not have a general contractor's license. About two weeks ago, Daniel just completed all of the tests I mean, it's a massive test. I don't know, Brother Mike, if you're familiar with what it is, but it's five different manuals, about 5,000 pages worth of stuff. It's an eight-hour test for the state of North Carolina, and he just passed the certification to be a general contractor in the state of North Carolina. And so we're all pretty tickled with that. So now we're all thinking of all these big houses he could build in North Carolina. But anyways, all of that to say that you think of the idea of building. Okay, I've watched Daniel and I'm 10 years older than Daniel. And I started working for him a couple years ago. I thought I knew more than him because I had done a lot more building or so I thought up until that point in history. But I remember specifically, we're working on a house and he started doing the crown molding. And he started using a coping saw. Okay, now I use a compound miter saw, which has all of the stuff built into it, but to use that little coping saw and have to figure out the angles on that and to do it, that takes skill, okay? That's craftsmanship. And I remember standing there with awe as I'm watching my younger brother by 10 years, who I remember as a little boy, with all of this skill, okay? All of that to say, okay, where he is in North Carolina now, half the houses are built on hills, okay, or on mountains. And so they have to have a very secure foundation. And many times you've got 12 feet of foundation because the house is not sitting on a level place. And if you don't have a good foundation, the edifice is not going to be secure afterwards. And the building process, it has to be very, very thorough. And what Paul is saying here and using that same word that I'm using is in relationship to building, to build up. And as Daniel has to be wise in his knowledge of how to do it, he's got all of these manuals that have all of the different codes and the formulas and the angles and everything that is a part of the mathematical process and figuring everything. He has to be aware of all of that if he's going to have a secure foundation and then a secure building on top of it. And Paul is using this particular word to describe the building of an edifice to refer to what the Word of God does for these Ephesian elders and also to what the Word of God does for you and I, you and me, that we have to have the Word of God if we are going to be built up. There is not going to be any genuine and lasting building if it's not coming from the Word of God. The secure foundation is the word of God. What did Jesus say about the man who was building his house on sand or on the rock? And of course that's the reference to Jesus, if a man build his life on that. But this word is what we have that tells us of Jesus. Paul is here. exhorting them to grow in their sanctification, I'm commending you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able, he says, or which has the power, the ability to build you up, to edify you, to make you secure, to form you into what you need. And then he finishes that sentence in that verse with, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. Now, When we think of this, again, there's several different ideas that some may look at in relationship to the word inheritance. They already have the secure inheritance in heaven if they're believers. I think that this idea here that we have is to give you an inheritance or to apportion you, if you will. When you think of an inheritance, my parents have six children and so whatever they have, whenever the Lord takes them home, will just be divided six ways. Okay, that's the apportion or it will be allotted and that will be our inheritance if you want to say it in that particular way. Here the idea is to give you an inheritance or to apportion among you, apportion you among all them which are of the sanctified or the holy ones. And so in other words, when you are built up, then you are going to be counted among the holy ones. You're going to be counted among or you're a part of the inheritance of those who are the sanctified ones. And really that is a picture of that you are marked with the holy ones. You are with the sanctified ones. as those who have then been built up and grown into what they should be. And so his desire here was for their dependence upon God, their sanctification through his word. Apart from either of those, the things that have been challenged of them to both feed the flock and to guard the flock, to watch for them, apart from their being sustained by God and edified through his word, they're not going to be able to accomplish that. This is absolutely essential for them that they, and this is how verse 28 started out, take heed to guard for yourselves or to watch yourselves. Take heed, therefore, he says, unto yourselves. And so verse 32 is essentially doing that. 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. That brings us and that was number one, their sanctification was his desire for them. And verse 33 is really the second point or beginning the second point and this one there is more of an example, he doesn't necessarily exhort them to be as he has been yet, he does that in verse 35. But here there is the picture, the example of selflessness, the example of selflessness and it carries over though there's both the physical and the spiritual aspect I think that is seen. beginning in verse 35, but in verse 34, he says, I have coveted no man's silver or gold or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered to my necessities, excuse me, and to them that were with me. And so in this, we have then Paul demonstrating a spirit of selflessness, and that's what they should have as well. Several things about this. Verse 33 starts with the three words, I have coveted. And the word coveted there is the normal New Testament word for usually a negative context, though not always, the word for lust or the desire or the idea of a desire, a strong desire or craving, a lust for something. That's usually in our context, that's not a good word. There is a place in the New Testament where Jesus used it in a positive sense when he was speaking of the Passover with the disciples. He said, with desire, I have desired to have this meal with you. And that was the same word here, epithumia. And so he's speaking of the idea that he desired that, he had a craving to spend that time with him, Jesus did. But here, this would of course be in a negative context. Paul says, I've lusted after. no man's gold or silver or apparel. I haven't been covetous of any of those things. They're very basic and specific words for gold, silver or clothing. The obvious inference is that he has not lived with a materialistic mindset. I haven't been working among the Ephesians thinking of what I can get out of you. I haven't been looking at this thinking that I can enrich myself. As Paul is saying this, I haven't coveted. Anything, any man's silver, gold, or apparel. I haven't been looking to enrich myself. I haven't had a materialistic mindset. Verse 34, he goes further and says, Yea, ye yourselves know. Okay. And that word there is you have experienced, okay, or you have come to realize it's been demonstrated to you. You have seen it empirically. Ye yourselves know. It expresses the reality that the Ephesian elders knew of his own tent making work. They knew of how he had supported himself. They had observed and perhaps some of them had even experienced the provision as he stated in the next phrase. Notice the next phrase in verse 34. You know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, he says, and to them that were with me. So he's saying I've not only provided for myself by my labors but for those who have been laboring with me. Some of them, these people to whom he's writing, they may have even experienced some of his provision themselves. In my mind I think of the Apostle Paul as being very much like George Mueller, the Lord has not enabled many people to live as George Mueller did. George Mueller never did anything to prepare for the future. He viewed everything that he had at any particular moment as being intended for God's service at that particular moment. If someone gave him a large amount of money, which happened often, I don't remember the exact specifics, I think in the 1800s, the late 1800s, I think it was the equivalent of over $3 million and I'd have to check my numbers on that. But they had millions of dollars, they were pounds, of course, but were given to him over the course of ministry. And anything that came, he viewed as being used by God at that particular moment. I'll use it today. I may not have anything tomorrow, but the Lord will take care of tomorrow. It was the way he looked at it. I view Paul as being the same way, that any time that he had what he had, it was for today's needs. He probably prayed, Lord, give us this day our daily bread. It's the way he functioned. George Miller was that way and I view the Apostle Paul as being that way as well, especially in light of Philippians chapter 4 where he said, one or the other from day to day, and that was the way he went through life. But he says here, ye know these things, ye yourselves know this, you've seen it, that these hands have ministered unto my necessity. In verse 34, when he says these hands, that these hands, the word these is a near demonstrative, and I love grammar, I didn't used to until I learned Greek, I hated English grammar, then when I learned Greek grammar, then English grammar made a lot more sense. But anyways, a near demonstrative would be the word these, okay, or something near. If I said those, what would that indicate? That's called a far demonstrative, okay? So when Paul says these, in my mind, I can see him as he's speaking to these men, holding his hands up to them and saying, these hands, okay, is a very visual object lesson. These hands have ministered unto my necessities. He's holding them up, I think, and gesturing. These hands have ministered. The word ministered is interesting here, it's an uncommon New Testament word, it's only used in the book of Acts which Luke does that every now and then that he's the only one who uses a word in the New Testament. It's used three times in the book of Acts, it's used in Chapter 13 and verse 36 of David and Paul's message reminding them that David had died and his body was corrupted after he had served his generation. Okay, that word served there is the same as ministered to my necessities. After David had served his generation the indication there is that David had used his life to minister to his people. Speaking of the people of Israel, the nation of Judah and of Israel as they were later combined. And so that word uses it. It's also used in Acts 24 and verse 23 when Paul was imprisoned in Caesarea that his friends were allowed to come and minister to him. In all three places, this one included, as well as chapter 24 and chapter 13, it indicates the meeting of physical needs. Okay. And so Paul in this he is saying that you know, you've seen that these hands have ministered unto my necessities or to those things which were my needs. The combined words of the phrase indicate that the daily necessities were met by the labors of his own hands. that Paul was laboring with his own hands, as well as, of course, doing the work of the ministry as well. Now, even going further in this, his selflessness, that he is not only meeting his own needs, and by the way, that's indicating that he, as he has said this at different times, he didn't want to be a charge to anyone else, but to them that were with me. And so he takes it a step further and states that those who were with him, likely, you can turn back to chapter 20 and verse 4, referring to these, or men like them, chapter 20 and verse 4, who had been in Ephesus with him. As he left Ephesus, this is the beginning of chapter 20, there accompanied him, in verse 4, into Asia, Sopater of Berea, and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus. Okay, so there you have several men that were with him. And Paul is saying, not only have I met my own needs by laboring with my own hands, but I have also met the needs of those that were with me. This thing when we think of the Apostle Paul we know enough about him that he was not one to permit freeloaders, you remember what he said in first Thessalonians, if a man doesn't work He doesn't eat. What does that tell you about these people that were with him? As Paul is doing the work of tent making, okay, that more than likely these six or so men were probably all involved in full time ministry. That he's saying, look, I'm able through my tent making, okay, or through his labors, he was able to secure the needed funds for all of them to have lodging, to have clothing, and to have food. That means that his work was multiplied in those particular men. Let me ask you this, how many of us would like to say, you know what I'll take on the supply of six different men, I'll take care of meeting their needs. When the government forces it on us we're really upset about it but Paul is essentially saying I have the ability and I have the means to supply for their needs as they are implied doing the work and the labor of ministry. You get how selfless this is that Paul is saying I can work, I can labor, in his tent making responsibilities, I can do that and I can meet the needs, the necessities of my own life as well as those who are laboring with me. And so it all demonstrates the selflessness of the Apostle Paul, that was number two. Brings us then to number three, in verse 35 we see his example of service. In verse 35 the Apostle Paul says, I have showed you all things how that so laboring You ought to support the week and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. and several things about this, but it does give us this example, follow the example of service. First of all, in verse 35, he says, I have showed you all things. And that's I have demonstrated in every way. When he says in all things, I've given you a comprehensive picture of what ministry should be. Okay, I have showed you in all things, this idea of showed is demonstrated. I have set it before you, I've placed before you, I have worked before you in all things. And here's what it is, how that so laboring And that so laboring is referring back to the previous verses where he's referring to by these hands I have ministered for my necessities and those that were with me in such a manner. How that so laboring, toiling as it is, that I have done and demonstrated, the toiling that I have done, I have demonstrated for you. what you should be doing. How that so laboring, and then he goes on in verse 35, you ought to support the weak. And so there is the example, okay, where he has said here, I've showed you all things, how that so laboring, you ought to essentially do the same thing. But he says, you ought to support the weak. The word ye ought, it's the word it is necessary or it's binding that you take part and participate in helping and supporting those who are weak and sickly. Now, we can look at this and the context of both weak and sickly sometimes refers to a spiritual weakness or it refers to a physical weakness. And probably Paul would have had both of those in mind as we look at this. It could have been either one, that there are some people who are weak physically As we've gone through the Pilgrim's Progress I don't remember exactly, I think there was actually a man named Mr. Week, I don't remember exactly all the different ones but there are some who were just worn in the journey. There are some like that I think that we could also consider even when we think of First Corinthians chapter 8 there are some who are weak and Paul was there referring to their tender conscience that they couldn't eat that meat that was offered to an idol. And so there was a weakness that was a part of their lives but in all of this he says you ought to support the weak, it's binding on you or it's a necessary part of life and ministry that you participate in helping or supporting to helping to meet their needs or to take care of those who are weak. And then he says, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus. And here's literally what this is, also, okay, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, and that's an infinitive. In English, we have the word to there, which is usually refers to an infinitive, but to remember, and that's never cease to call to mind. Okay, so as long as you're living, don't ever stop thinking of what Jesus said. is exactly what that phrase is, okay? Don't cease to call to mind or to remember the words of the Lord Jesus. By the way, it's important sometimes just to emphasize that he refers to Lord, which is the master, Jesus. What it is that he said, and here he says in this, you have it in red, probably if you have a red letter Bible, it is more blessed to give to receive. Interestingly, these are not a direct quote of any of the recorded words of Jesus in the Gospels. Okay, there's nowhere in the Gospels where Jesus says it's more blessed to give than to receive but that doesn't mean that he didn't say that. The commentators would say of this it represents an oral tradition passed on in the early church. By the way, based on the fact that Paul said they were the words of Jesus, we know that he said them because Acts is an inspired book. So even though Matthew, Mark, or Luke, or John did not record that Jesus had said these, the reality is because the Holy Spirit inspired Luke to quote Paul saying this, that he said this, we know he said it. But let me ask you this, do you remember the last verse in the Gospel of John? It's only a few pages back in your Bible, turn back to John chapter 21. verse 24 of chapter 21, this is the disciple which testifieth of these things and wrote these things and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, and he said it did not said but did, the which if they should be written every one I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. So would it be normal to assume that if Jesus did so many other things that the world could not contain everything that was written about him that we could say there are many things that he said that we don't necessarily have record of and this just happens to be one of them. And so Paul says that Jesus said and tells them to remember the words of the Lord Jesus how he said, it's more blessed to give than to receive. Now, This phrase is fascinating to me. I love the word blessed, and I like to often emphasize the synonym of blessed, okay? Whenever we think of the word blessed, for instance, in the Beatitudes, as we call them, Matthew chapter five, the first 12 verses or so there, whenever Jesus is speaking, he kept saying, blessed are, blessed are, blessed are, okay? We have a tendency, I think, sometimes to think of that as though someone is blessing someone else. OK, the word there in that context is the same meaning as in Psalm 1, the blessed man. OK, it's the one that is happy, satisfied and content. OK, that's the picture that is a part of this particular word, blessed. It is sometimes the one where someone is pronouncing a blessing on someone else. But here, this particular word is the idea of happiness, that there is more happiness, if you will, or more satisfaction in being a giver than a receiver. And he's saying that's what Jesus said and he's telling these Ephesian elders that in their service to other people you're going to find more spiritual satisfaction in serving people than in being served. Did not Jesus say that that was his ministry that he came not to be ministered to but to minister? Okay. And Paul is telling the Ephesian elders always don't ever stop remembering or calling to mind what Jesus said. It's more blessed, you're going to be happier, there's more satisfaction in giving than in receiving, in serving than in being served. And so the apostle Paul is finishing this by reminding them that look Jesus taught and I gave the example of service and there's more satisfaction in that than in being served or in being a receiver or being a taker. So Paul concluded his challenges to the Ephesian elders by encouraging them to follow his example and that of Jesus. He desired their sanctification, verse 32, 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. He also gave them the illustration of selflessness. 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 were with me. and he also gave them not only the example but also the expectation. Number three of service, I have showed you all things how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus how he said it is more blessed to give than to receive. And so you see there follow the example, sanctification, selflessness, and service. Father, thank you for this passage of scripture. I pray that you would use it in our lives. I pray that as we affirm into selflessness and that we would use those things which you have entrusted to us as an opportunity to serve others. And Father, I pray that we would be servants and that we would remember the words of the Lord Jesus. It's more blessed to give than to receive. And so we pray that by your grace and by your spirit you would empower your word in our hearts and our lives and that we would grow in these areas. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Let's take our hymn books as we stand.