If you will turn with me to Acts chapter 20. And we're gonna be reading from verses 17 to the end of this chapter. The Book of Acts is a record provided by Luke, the physician, of the apostolic age, the time period after Christ was ascended up into glory, and those first several generations of the early church. It's a standard that we should seek to emulate, it sets the goal, so to speak, which the church should be aiming at. We want to be an apostolic-minded church. And this section of scripture that we're looking at is from Paul, it is a record of his farewell to the church in Ephesus that he labored in for a number of years. And it also has in it his expectations for the future leaders. It's predominantly spoken to elders, but in our sermon we're going to apply some of this to the office of deacon as well. So let us hear Paul's final words to the church in Ephesus beginning in Acts 20, verse 17. Now from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. And when they came to him, he said to them, you yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews. how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and affliction await me. but I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself. If only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be alert. Remember that for three years I did not cease, night or day, to admonish everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things, I've shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all. They embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Can you flourish as a Christian apart from the church? Answer that privately within your own self. Let's be honest. The church is often a difficult place. People are cliquish. And oddly enough, if you go back and read Acts chapter six, you see that this problem has existed even in the days right after Christ was ascended and the apostles were in the church. The formation of the office of deacon. which happened in Acts chapter six, arose because many of the Jewish converts to Christianity, there were two groups of them. There were those who were the Hellenist. They were converted to the customs and the ways of the Greek world. And then there were the Jews who were the Hebrewists. They spoke the Hebrew language. They refused obstinately to embrace the Hellenist culture. There was a complaint that the Hellenists were neglected in the care for their widows. That's the church. That's always been the church. We can look back to the days of Peter and John, and those were the problems that they faced. They failed as apostles to meet the needs of the church, and they saw that it was important to start the office of deacon to make sure that they were faithfully discharging their duties. That's the church. Many leaders within churches domineer the flock. The church, if you think about it, is the seedbed of false teaching and heresy. All heresies came from the Christian community. Within the church itself, Paul says in verses 29 and 30, these words, And this is one generation after the apostles. He says, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you. Now remember who he's speaking to, the elders of the church in Ephesus. There will be wolves who are going to be appointed to the office of elder in the church. Paul says, I know this. Fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. That's the church. Wouldn't you be better off on your own? Just you, your Bible, and the Lord. Who needs the local church anyway? Well, to think this way, although it may seem logical, but it's to claim to know better than God and the apostles. The church, as both an institution and an organism, is divinely ordained and sustained by God himself. It is the sphere within which we can be saved. Look at what Paul says. He says in verse 28, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood. Christ shed his blood, yes for individuals, But yes, for individuals who are connected to the church of God and them alone. Could we point out exceptions to this? Yes, but those are exceptions to a divine rule or way of operating. The church is the body of Christ, mysteriously and eternally united to him. It is supervised by the Holy Spirit. It is uniquely gifted with spirit-filled elders and deacons to fulfill its divine purpose and the gates of hell will never prevail against it. Is it perfect? No. Is it protected by the very hand of God? Absolutely. Absolutely. I want to say a few things to this congregation, but also to the men who are coming forward to take on offices of leadership in this church. There's three keys There's more you could gather from this text, but I just want to look at three keys to successful church leadership. And the first key is this. Men who are in office, who are about to be in office, and really all of us, learn to value the flock of God. Learn to value the flock of God. the local church to which you are a member. Luke in this section narrates Paul's farewell address to the Ephesian elders. The Holy Spirit reveals that Paul's future will be full of difficulties. And Paul is preparing that next generation of leaders to take over in his absence. And I think that is a lesson in and of itself. If the church is under the perpetual care of God, we should never put too much weight in any particular leader or group of leaders in the church. No one, no pastor, No elder, no deacon is irreplaceable. That's to set men in a place of God. God will care for the church when Paul leaves. Isn't that a comforting thing to know? And we have a history of, since 1825, of the Lord sustaining his people in Columbus. Notice Paul's commitment to the Ephesian church. It is remarkable. These are difficult people. Consider their background with me for just a moment. They were converted, many of them, from a lifestyle of magic and the practice of the dark arts and idolatry. You can go back and read in Acts chapter 19 to see a little bit more about them. As part of their conversion to the Lord, they took these expensive magic books full of potions and spells, and they burned them in the city streets, a sign of true repentance and turning away from a life of idolatry and sin to the Lord. They worship the goddess Artemis. You remember the story of the man who drove Paul out of Ephesus, Demetrius, the silversmith. He was mad at Paul. He was really mad at Paul because his business of making these little silver images of this goddess was beginning to decline because people said, we're not gonna worship something made of stone or silver or earthly precious metals. No, we're going to worship the unseen God. who is the true creator of the heavens and the earth. These people are described by Paul in Ephesians chapter two as dead in sins and trespasses. They evidenced all manner of morally objectionable behavior. But remember this, Paul was a Hebrew of Hebrews, and these people were Gentile pagans. If you think that the black and white race divide was big, it pales in comparison to the hatred of the most orthodox Jews towards the non-Jew, the pagan, the Gentile. Difficult people. A difficult work. Paul was called to transform them into imitators of God, children of light, under intense opposition. He did it, he says in verse 18, or verse 19, through tears and trials, he says that he served the Lord with all humility, with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews. He suffered to minister to these people. who before his conversion, he would have had nothing to do with them. Think about that. The church draws people together into a unique community, a spiritual community of people who would never probably associate with each other outside of their union with Christ. It's marvelous. How important were these people to Paul? How did Paul value the Ephesian church? And I want you men preparing to serve for office or in office now to deeply think about this. There are probably people in this congregation who you have a natural resistance to. whose personalities may clash with yours, whose background may be very different from yours. Paul gets all of that, he knows. But he loves them. And he considers them extremely precious and valuable. What do you value most? Well, we probably value ourselves. Most human beings are innately self-involved. Our culture just really stirs that sinful quality up. Maybe it's our family. Look at verse 24. Paul says this, and keep that background in mind of who these people are. He says, but I do not account my life as of any value, nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I have received from the Lord to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Did you hear that? I pray that the Holy Spirit would deeply implant that into your souls. All of us, not just those who are serving in office, do you see what Paul says about the church? Look around you at these people. You may have had a clash with them in the past, but do you still value them more than your own lives? Only the Holy Spirit who gifts the church with these types of leaders can create that type of Christ-like affection. And if you're not a deacon or an elder, you should pray that that's how your leaders think of you, that that's how they value you, that that's how they love you. Speaking as a leader, I know that we would all covet such prayers. Paul wants to spend and be spent for the flaw, but why does he value them so highly? You know the car valuation guides that you can pick up in stores, I guess probably don't pick them up in stores anymore, it's all done online. They reveal to us the valuation of a particular car with a certain amount of mileage and wear and tear and particular makes and particular models. An older car may not look like much. It may be out of fashion, but you look in the valuation guide and although it doesn't appear something attractive to you, you're like, wow, you can get that much for that car? Or maybe you look at two cars online and you see that one is a Toyota, and one is maybe a lesser known make with a lesser reputation. The one with the lesser reputation is in pristine condition, lower mileage, but the Toyota, it's been beat up a little bit, and it's got more mileage, but it's $3,000 more. How does God value the church? How are we to put a valuation on the church? Look at verse 28. Listen carefully to these words. Paul says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock. in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseer. There's a lot of deep teaching in that. Care for yourselves, care for all of the flock, not just particular ones that you are naturally drawn to, care for all of them. because the Holy Spirit is involved in this process behind the scenes, so to speak. He's using you and empowering you and gifting you to care for certain people. And we go on, the Holy Spirit has made you overseer to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood. That's the valuation. You sit here as a people whom God has eternally known and predestined to set apart for salvation. Read Ephesians chapter one. The same people Paul says this very same thing to. These people who were practicing black magic and were worshiping a goddess, God set his eternal love on them And he demonstrates that love in sending his own dearly beloved son to shed his precious blood to redeem them. Do you believe that you're valuable to God? I get it, we don't feel that way. I get that. But we live by faith and we must take God's word at face value. He says it. I gave the blood of my son so that they could enter into the family of God. Value the flock. Lead the flock by example, that's our second point. As a general rule, the spiritual well-being of the church mirrors the spiritual growth, development, and maturity of the church officers, and particularly the elders. Verse 18, Paul says, and when they came to him, he said to them, you yourselves know, you know, you've experienced, you've seen with your own eyes how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia. You know. It's been exemplified in everything that I do. Elders, we're told in Ephesians 4, a lot of this is connected to the Ephesian church. In Ephesians 4, we are told that the elders are God's gift to the church to bring the church to maturity in Christ. The church usually, as a general rule of thumb, will only mature as much as the elders. Now sure, there are gonna be one, two, three, four, five, six people that surpass that, but as a general rule, that's often the case. Lead the flock by example. Paul exhorts the elders to take care of themselves in verse 28. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock. Now, that paying careful attention to yourselves may be the most difficult thing that you have to do as a Christian, but especially as a ruler in the church. you're going to go through highs and lows in your Christian walk. There are gonna be seasons where you are very intimate with God in prayer and seasons where you feel as if you can't get yourself to go before the throne of God and seek his face. There will be times when you are entrenched and saturated in the word and times that you're not. There will be times when you are leading your wife and if you have children, leading your children faithfully and devotedly in things like family worship and then there will be times and seasons where you're not. But you must constantly be paying careful attention to yourself. If the elder doesn't know the faith, he can't protect the church from false doctrines. If the deacon doesn't practice personal care for others, how will he mobilize the church to care for the widow and the fatherless, the needy and the poor? If the deacon and the elder doesn't personally give financially to the church, how can he encourage, with a good conscience, others to do so? Three spheres of responsibility. Personal. Cultivate fellowship with your Lord through regular reading of the word, keeping of the word and prayer. Family. We're told in both the qualifications of elders and deacons that a well-ordered family is a sign that you are qualified to rule, govern the people of God. Are you a spiritual shepherd of your wife? And if you have children, of your children. And then lastly, after those things have been cared for, are you fit for service to care for the church? Paul says, you yourselves have known how I lived among you. Are we, we're not perfect. Nobody should expect perfection. Paul wasn't perfect. But as leaders, can we say that to our flock? I strive to walk with God. I find it difficult at times, but I never turn my back and give up. It may be two steps forward, one step back, but I'm constantly pressing on. And as I do that, be imitators of me. Deacons, elders, pastor, can we say that? And then last and briefly, fulfill your calling in the Lord. You need to learn to value the flock. You need to lead the flock by example. And you need to fulfill your calling. In verses 26 and 27 we read this. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Paul testifies that he faithfully discharged his duties to the church in Ephesus. We're gonna look at some of the duties in a minute when we ordain and install these men. But the responsibilities of an elder, generally speaking, in broad categories are these three things. And I want you to evaluate yourselves Elders are to pray for the people of God. Elders are to proclaim the message of God. And elders are to protect the people of God. Pray, proclaim, protect. We as elders, are we fulfilling that responsibility? Deacons. are to know the material needs of the flock and to mobilize the church to care for them. Do we do that? Do we know who in this congregation we need to be reaching out to? who are the widows, the fatherless, who are those in financial need that we can come together and support and encourage and care for. The deacons are to cultivate a spirit of sacrificial giving in the church and care for the property of the church. How do we fulfill our responsibilities? It's daunting, overwhelming. We must seek the power of Christ. Remember, men, the Bible says you are gifted for this work by the Holy Spirit. Pray for the Spirit. to empower you and to enhance those gifts that he's given to you. Paul says to the Colossian church, towards the ends of chapter one, he says, him we proclaim, speaking of his word ministry, him we proclaim, warning everyone, teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. Paul says, for this I toil, struggling with all his energy, that he powerfully works within me. Now that should give you as a congregation confidence. I would not have much confidence if you were dependent on the energy of Brent Drown, Jay Nail, Roger Day, Frank Arnold. I wouldn't have much confidence in that. I wouldn't have much confidence if your spiritual well-being was entrusted to the energy of Gray Fleur or Todd Motoka, Danny Williams, Ray Kilpatrick, or Alan Brewer. But did you hear what Paul said? For this I toil, struggling with all his energy, that he powerfully works within me. Pray for that energy to be working through your spiritual leaders in the church. Man, you want to be able to serve God with a clear conscience that you're doing what you're called to do. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the example set by Paul and the charge that he gives to the elders in Ephesus. And we pray for the church that you love so much here at Main Street. We thank you, Lord. It's a sign of your love that you are appointing more men to serve as elder and deacon over this flock. It's a sign of your spirit working within us that you have not abandoned us. Oh Lord, we thank you. And we pray for these men who serve as leaders in our church that you would empower them with the power of Christ's resurrected flesh through the operation of the Holy Spirit to lead wisely this flock, to be a blessing and not a curse. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.