Summer Road Trip (Part 11): Paul in Miletus - The Giving Gospel

Let us pray. The grass withers and the flower

fades, O God, but Your Word will stand forever.

So as we hear Your Word, we pray that by the

power of Your Spirit we might hear Your voice.

Speak to us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Our

second reading is from Acts chapter 20, starting

Acts 20 · chapter mention

with verse 17. Let us listen together now for

God's Word to us. From Miletus, Paul sent a message

to Ephesus asking the elders of the church to

meet him. When they came to him, he said to them,

you yourselves know how I lived among you. The

entire time from the first day that I set foot

in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and

with tears, enduring the trials that came to

me through the plots of the Jews, I did not shrink

from doing anything helpful, proclaiming the

message to you and teaching you publicly and

from house to house. as I testified to both Jews

and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith

toward our Lord Jesus. And now, as a captive

to the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not

knowing what will happen to me there. Keep watch

over yourselves and over all the flock of which

the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd

the church of God that He obtained with the blood

of His own Son. I know that after I have gone,

savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing

the flock. Some even from your own group will

come, distorting the truth in order to entice

the disciples to follow them. Therefore, be alert,

remembering that for three years I did not cease

night or day to warn everyone with tears. And

now I commend you to God and to the message of

His grace, a message that is able to build you

up and to give you the inheritance among all

who are sanctified. I coveted no one's silver

or gold or clothing. You know yourselves that

I worked with my own hands to support myself

and my companions. In all this, I have given

you an example that by such work we must support

the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus,

for He Himself said, It is more blessed to give

than to receive. The Word of the Lord. Thanks

be to God. So today's the last of our series,

summer road trip, where we have been following

the travels of Paul in the book of Acts, starting

with Acts chapter 13 and now through Acts chapter

Acts 13 · chapter mention Acts 20 · chapter mention

20. He's been to Cyprus and Antioch, Iconium,

Lystra, Derbe, Jerusalem for a council of the

church, and then Macedonia, Thessalonica, Athens,

Corinth, Ephesus, Troas, Miletus, and then he

will go again to Jerusalem. And on these journeys,

he has confronted a number of challenges. He

had a confrontation with a magician, a fortune

teller. He had to deal with the intramural dispute

over circumcision with other leaders of the Christian

church. He's had to contend with pagan deities

and the devotion and practices that surround

those other deities. He's had conflicts with

Jews. There have been mobs and riots. He's been

to prison. He has suffered beatings. There have

been assassination plots. And he has lived and

traveled and worked under the constant threat

of death. After this point in the story, Acts

goes on for several chapters following him as

he goes to Jerusalem. But there, there's another

mob. He gets arrested. He stands trial. Even

standing trial, he proclaims the good news of

the gospel. He appeals to the Roman emperor and

so then has to travel to Rome. will be wrecked,

and they almost all perish, but he will eventually

make it to Rome. In all these places, and through

all of these challenges, to many different people,

and in response to a variety of different kinds

of situations and demands, Paul steadfastly proclaimed

the gospel. I think we should just pause and

consider how remarkable a thing it is that Paul

did this, that the gospel that Paul preached

remained the same through all of these things.

There's a song lyric I heard a while back that

I love, and it's this, have you ever seen an

idealist with gray hairs on his head? Time and

experience, especially experiences that are difficult

and challenging, they have a tendency to grind

away at our ideals and even sometimes our principles.

When I finished seminary, now almost 20 years

ago, I had all kinds of big ideas about the church.

What the church was, what the church should be.

I was so full of ideas. In fact, I was full of

only ideas. Ideas that needed testing. They needed

proving. I'm going to need to do this a lot this

morning, sorry. Ideas that needed recalibrating.

Ideas that needed contact with reality. Just

in time for that one. Some ideas even that needed,

perhaps, My sense of the church over the course

of my time in ministry has changed. It has changed

in ways that it probably needed to. It has probably

also changed in ways that maybe it shouldn't

have. That maybe I have let go of some of those

ideals, those big ideas that I should have held

on to. This process of change isn't necessarily

a corruption of ideals. It's a negotiation. It's

a constant, ongoing negotiation as our ideals

and reality come together between the world as

we imagine it and the world as it really is.

But in this kind of negotiation, in this kind

of process, there is always a danger that our

ideals, our principles, will give way to reality.

To the possible. And that those things that we

should hold on to, the things that keep us anchored,

the things that keep us centered, they are gradually

given up or ignored. And we drift. At so many

junctures in Paul's ministry, it is easy to imagine

Paul choosing to just slightly adjust. his outlook,

to just slightly recalibrate his principles,

compromise just a little his ideals. He gets

embroiled in conflict with his fellow Christian

leaders over Gentiles and the question of circumcision.

I can imagine him just softening his position

a little bit to keep the peace of the church.

These fledgling Christian communities try to

make their way when no one has done this before.

He tries to help them get out of their own way

and all of the problems that they bring. The

Corinthians. The Galatians. I can imagine Paul

being tempted to soften his position a little

bit. To ease up on the whole notion of divisions

within the church, that maybe divisions are okay.

Maybe there are different classes of Christians,

just like there are different classes of people

in society. Paul works throughout his ministry

to earn his own keep. He's a tent maker. It's

not because the church doesn't offer to support

him. It's because he refuses the offer of support.

And I can imagine Paul along the way thinking,

you know, my back is tired. and I want to preach

the gospel, but he doesn't. He endures mobs and

riots and the constant threat of death, and I

can imagine Paul saying to himself, maybe I should

present the gospel in a more affable way, in

a way that doesn't cause people to get angry

and all exercised and want to come out to the

streets and throw stones. Any one of these challenges

would be enough all by itself. Maybe just to

nudge Paul a little bit. Just nudge him slightly

off course. But you put them all together and

it amounts to a kind of irresistible pressure

to change, to accommodate all these different

challenges, to compromise, to lose his center.

But he doesn't. And the reason that Paul doesn't

bend or break as he proclaims the gospel is that

the gospel that Paul preaches has a rock -solid

core. The gospel he preaches is built around

an unchanging, immovable idea. And here in Acts

20, which is more or less the end of his missionary

journeys, though as I said, you can't stop him

from proclaiming the gospel no matter where he

goes. Here at the end of his ministry, his journeys,

Paul says farewell to some of the leaders of

the church for two reasons. He gives them rather,

he reminds them, he uses this opportunity to

remind them. what the core of the gospel is,

so that they can continue to preach it faithfully,

but also so that they can recognize those who

don't. Now, this is a question that has confronted

the church throughout the ages, from its very

beginning. Maybe it was less of a problem when

the church was truly Catholic, meaning universal.

This idea that there are true and false Gospels.

But even when the church was more or less Catholic

in that universal sense, there were different

ideas about Jesus and the work of salvation that

He brought about. There were heresies. There

was orthodoxy. But since the Protestant Reformation

500 years ago, there have been a wide variety

of expressions of the Christian faith. A wide

variety of ways of articulating the truth of

the gospel. And these different expressions of

the church are not just competing for adherence

so that they can grow and endure, but also they

are presenting competing views of the gospel.

Leading the church throughout the ages to ask,

what is the true gospel? And what is the false

gospel? So this question is as important today

as it has ever been. How do we know what the

true gospel is? And how can we recognize a false

gospel? How can we spot what Paul calls the savage

wolves who distort the truth in order to entice

us to follow? And Paul's answer to this question

begins with a few reminders for his leaders about

how he carried out his own ministry. He says

that he lived among the people, serving the Lord

with all humility and with tears and enduring

trials. He says he did not shrink from doing

anything helpful. He did not count his life of

any value to himself. He says he coveted no one's

silver or gold. or clothing. He worked with his

own hands to support himself and his companions.

He offered an example so that those who emulate

him would live in such a way that they support

the weak. And then, when he boils it all down,

and he quotes the words of Jesus, it is more

blessed to give than to receive. Now, this is

a familiar phrase, such a familiar phrase that

it is, a little bit trite, but if we reflect

on it for a moment, we realize how profound it

is, how revolutionary it is. For one thing, it

runs completely counter to our basic human inclinations.

We would rather receive than give. I think we

can all admit, but it's much deeper than that.

It's deeper even than the shape of Paul's own

selfless ministry, of God's many actions in the

world. Of all the things that Scripture tells

us that God has done, the one that is most self

-revelatory, the one that tells us the most about

God's nature, the one that shows us God's character

most clearly is the incarnation, Jesus taking

on flesh, God coming to be among us. It is an

act of sacrificial self -giving. When Jesus describes

His own ministry to others, When he tells them

what he is up to, he says, the Son of Man came

not to be served, but to serve and to give. His

life is a ransom for many. When Jesus invites

people to follow him, he says, whoever wants

to save their life will lose it. But whoever

loses their life, whoever gives their life for

my sake, will find it. And when His ministry

comes to an end, when Jesus is staring death

in the face, if there was ever for a time, if

there was ever a time for Him to choose to receive

rather than give, to receive, help, protection,

rescue, power from on high, if there was ever

a time for Him to receive rather than give, this

was it. But He gave fully all the way to the

end. He gave all that he had to give because

giving is the heart of the gospel. And if at

the last he decided that there was a limit, yes,

it's extreme, but here there is a limit to what

he was willing to give, then he would have undermined,

he would have undone, he would have erased his

ministry and his purpose. He would have hollowed

out the call that he issued to his disciples

and to us. And he would have contradicted the

very heart of God. You see, it is more blessed

to give than to receive is not a cute message

for a Hallmark card. And it is certainly not

a fundraising slogan. It is the key that unlocks

the gospel. It is the acid test that helps us

to know the real thing when we see it. And helps

us to see the cheap imitators. for what they

are. It's the true north in our journey toward

truth and goodness and beauty and faithfulness.

It is who God is, and it is how God is, and it

is how Jesus has called us to live. There's a

story told of a rabbi in a little Russian village.

There were fantastic rumors told about this rabbi.

During each morning of the high holidays, was

nowhere to be found, and his followers took to

claiming that he was, every morning, ascending

to heaven to be with God. But there was a skeptic

in this town who didn't believe the hype, and

he decided to put an end to this silly story

about a rabbi ascending into heaven, so he took

it upon himself to investigate. The skeptic sneaked

into the rabbi's home. and hid under his bed

one evening. And by morning, when the rabbi woke,

this was the time that he was supposedly supposed

to ascend to heaven, the rabbi gets up, recites

his morning prayers, and then he goes to his

closet. He takes out an old jacket, worn trousers

and boots, and puts them on. Then he took an

axe and an old sack from the closet. He looked

like a woodcutter. about to set out for the forest.

The rabbi left the house, and the skeptic followed

him at a safe distance. Eventually, they came

to the forest at the edge of town, where the

rabbi gathered some wood, chopped it, filled

his sack, and then he walked deeper into the

forest. And the skeptic followed. The rabbi came

to a small house. He knocked, and the weak voice

of an old woman could be heard behind the door

saying, Who is it? It's the woodcutter, answered

the rabbi. Oh yes, said the voice, but I can't

get out of bed. Never mind, said the rabbi, I'll

bring the wood in. Could you light the fire too,

the voice asked. I suppose, answered the rabbi.

And the skeptic saw him light a fire and heard

him recite the morning prayers. The rabbi left

the forest, left his woodcutter's clothes at

home, and went about the normal activities of

the day. Then an amazing thing happened. The

skeptic showed up at the synagogue for worship.

He joined the congregation. Whenever anyone would

tell the story of the rabbi ascending to heaven,

the skeptic no longer laughed. He would add quietly,

yes, if not, even higher. As complicated As religion

gets, and it gets complicated, it tends to remain

very simple at its core. This is the reason for

the enduring beauty of the words from the prophet

Micah that we heard before. What does God want?

What sort of religion is pleasing to God? What

sacrifice, or if you like, what doctrine, what

denomination, what gospel? God has told you what

is good, and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk

humbly with your God? This is, in fact, the heart

of the gospel, self -giving love, love of God,

love of neighbor, expressed through a humble

willingness to give of ourselves. And this gospel

can be found in many forms, in many places, many

expressions, Christian or otherwise. And anyone

who claims otherwise, anyone who claims to be

in sole possession of the true gospel is, as

Paul says, distorting the truth. So which is

the true gospel today? Is it the gospel of the

American church or is it the gospel of the church

in the parts of the world that are growing the

fastest? Which one's the true gospel? Is it the

gospel of the evangelical church or is it the

gospel of the mainline church? Which one is the

true gospel? Is it the gospel of the conservative

church or is it the gospel of the progressive

church? Is it the gospel of the mega church or

the gospel of the small church? None of the above.

And all of the above. And more. Because at the

end of the day, the gospel is not the possession

of any one tradition, any one theology, even

any one religion. The gospel is found wherever

people live lives of self -giving love, wherever

people embody The truth that it is more blessed

to give than to receive. So may the gospel be

found here. May the gospel be found in us. May

it work through us. Let us pray. God, remind

us that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Remind us of that again and again because we

want to receive. We're not so interested all

the time in giving. But remind us that in giving

of ourselves, we give expression to something

much greater than ourselves, you and your love

that has been poured out on this world, the very

good news of your gospel. May we bear living

witness. to that gospel. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.