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Paul, The Apostle Of The Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:18-32) - A Sermon by Elise Beatrice

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  1. TRANSCRIPT

  2. Paul, The Apostle Of The Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:18-32)

    Acts 20:18–32

  3. A Sermon by Elise Beatrice - Thursday, 19 June 2025

  4. I trust You, Holy Father, for I know that You always give us what You plan to give us. Thank You for Your Son Jesus and for Your Holy Spirit.

  5. Lord, please bless us with Your knowledge and wisdom and what exactly You want us to understand from this passage.

  6. Lord, we love You. Thank You, God.

  7. Thank You for Your Holy Spirit to guide us and bring us the truth You want us to receive today.

  8. Thank You for Your teaching and Your inspiration. In Your Holy Name, Lord Jesus, I pray. Amen.

  9. (Acts 20:18-32)

    Acts 20:18–32

  10. “18 When they arrived he declared, “You know that from the day I set foot in the province of Asia until now 19 I have done the Lord’s work humbly and with many tears. I have endured the trials that came to me from the plots of the Jews. 20 I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes. 21 I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike—the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus.

  11. 22 “And now I am bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. I don’t know what awaits me, 23 except that the Holy Spirit tells me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead. 24 But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.”

  12. 25 “And now I know that none of you to whom I have preached the Kingdom will ever see me again. 26 I declare today that I have been faithful. If anyone suffers eternal death, it’s not my fault, 27 for I didn’t shrink from declaring all that God wants you to know.

  13. 28 “So guard yourselves and God’s people. Feed and shepherd God’s flock—His church, purchased with His own blood—over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as elders. 29 I know that false teachers, like vicious wolves, will come in among you after I leave, not sparing the flock. 30 Even some men from your own group will rise up and distort the truth in order to draw a following. 31 Watch out! Remember the three years I was with you—my constant watch and care over you night and day, and my many tears for you. 32 “And now I entrust you to God and the message of His grace that is able to build you up and give you an inheritance with all those He has set apart for Himself.”

  14. Wow! That is truly a word from someone who cares, someone who truly cares for the flock of Christ Jesus, someone who knows what it is like to be in the darkness, and who knows what it is like to be in the Light. Someone who knows the difference between the joy of the Lord and the joy from worldly things that are meaningless. Someone who knows what real peace is like, what the life of serving Christ is like, and what the life of doing our own way is like. This is a perfect example of everyone who considers themselves an elder of the church. If at the end of our days on this earth, we sound like this, we give speeches like this, we have succeeded in doing the Lord’s will.

  15. The Lord Jesus knew He was going to be arrested, and the flock would scatter, because a flock without a shepherd scatters. The Lord sat down with them at the Last Supper to prepare them morally and spiritually. He prayed for them. So, the Apostle Paul is following the example of His Saviour, our Saviour. The same way that anyone who is truly a child of God and a devoted servant of the Lord follows the example of the Saviour, the only Saviour we have, our Lord Jesus Christ.

  16. So, the Apostle is preparing them. Those ones have now become the elders of the church in Ephesus, and he has been with them for three years. He preached the Gospel to them. When he was called, that was one of the places he was sent. He himself, as the elder, had gone there to train them for a period of three years, to bring many people to become the elders.

  17. “Remember the three years I was with you—my constant watch and care over you night and day, and my many tears for you.”

  18. So, he watched them, as a watchman, and cared for them, and wept for them, as anyone who loves the Lord’s flock does. So, for three years, that must have been an intense period of preparation and teaching, and he was also blessed, the Apostle, to turn those individuals into elders in just a short time, three years, and they became faithful elders, for they were willing to listen. If they had been trained by someone else, the Apostle would not say, “I watched over you and wept for you.”

  19. So, he has done an intense job during those three years with them. Those elders have become like his spiritual sons, because he brought them to Christ. And now that the Holy Spirit had told him he would be continuing his journey to another destination, he had to see them, instruct them, prepare them, and remind them of what he had taught them, just as our Lord Jesus did with His disciples when He was leaving them.

  20. So the Apostle was deeply sad, for he knew that many would come, false teachers, like vicious wolves, would come in among them after he left, not to spare the flock, but to deceive them, to distort the truth, in order to draw their own followers. So he’s reminding them to watch out and not forget the teachings of our Lord Jesus, which he taught them. To remember the three years he was with them—his constant watch and care over them night and day, and his many tears for them. And he is giving them this instruction, which is what any elder of the church should be able to do. He says, “Guard yourselves and God’s people, feed and shepherd God’s flock, His church purchased with His own blood, over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as elders.”

  21. He’s right. This applies to all leaders and elders of the church. He had prepared them; he had taught them well, he had worked hard, he did not quit, he did not grumble, he did his job well. Now it is up to them to do their parts right, and if they fail and end up in hell, it would not be because of the Apostle Paul, because he taught them well.

  22. He’s spoken to the church of Ephesus and to the elders, and this applies to us all today.

  23. Many nowadays call themselves elders and leaders of churches, yet they do not guard themselves and God’s people from evil and evil spirits, and from false teachings. Because they still conform to the pattern of the world, they fail to guard themselves and God’s people; they fail to feed and shepherd the Lord Jesus’ flock, His church purchased with His own Blood. They fail the Holy Spirit who appointed them as elders, for there is not a true elder on this earth without the help of the Holy Spirit. And if we don’t obey our Lord Jesus Christ and let Him give us the Holy Spirit, we all fail.

  24. But those who welcome the Holy Spirit and listen to Him, because He is the Spirit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, He is the Spirit of Father God Almighty, and those who listen to Him and let Him guide us, according to the Lord’s will, we don’t fail.

  25. So, here’s an apostle of Christ, who did not fail. And I can even say now, he was Paul, an elder pleasing to the Lord Jesus Christ. So yes, it serves as a great example for all elders today, for all the church leaders today, and everyone who’s truly sincere and genuine about wanting to be a true disciple of Christ.

  26. We need to listen to the Lord in order to become a true disciple of His. We must listen to His Holy Spirit in order to be guided well with the right teaching that saves lives, that nourishes the flock of God, that guides them and tends them, and builds them up. For if we do our own way, we expose them, we scatter them, because that is what the evil shepherds have done. They have all scattered the Lord’s flock, abandoned them to be brewed like wine by the devourers, satan and his demons.

  27. What kind of father wouldn’t be extremely worried when leaving their children behind in such a ferocious, dungeon-like world? He just had to pray to God, he had to trust God with them, and he had to pray that they would not fall. Just like the Lord Jesus said, “I prayed for you so that satan will not sift you like wheat.”

  28. And now, the Apostle knows that what they do after he’s gone, it will not be because of him, and what he can only do is to entrust them to God and the message of His grace that is able to build them up and give them an inheritance with all those he has set apart for Himself.

  29. I pray that this helps you. I’m amazed that in three years he has built up so many people. Because it does not take a long time when people are ready. Three years, and they have become already church elders. And the Apostle, giving his experience and the Holy Spirit in him, would have judged it and qualified them fully equipped to be elders because of the message they have received and have welcomed, and he would have seen that, as his students, as his spiritual sons, they have shown a perfect example of being an elder. And this is a great joy when things succeed in such a short time.

  30. That is the difference between them and some people, who give their lives to Christ, and after many years, they are still in the same place, because they have never really given their lives to the Lord. They have never really let go of their ways. Though they believed in the Lord and claimed to give their lives to the Lord, at the same time, they still held on to their own lives, they still held on to their own ways, they’ve still taken things from other masters. Whoever gave them, they took; whoever came with what they wanted, they took. For this, after many years in their relationship with the Lord, they are still in the same place with no change.

  31. But it does not take ten years to truly change when a church leader listens to the Lord and is guided by the Holy Spirit, and when the student is willing to listen to the Lord Jesus and to the servant assigned to care for them.

  32. It does not take the Lord a year to transform someone if they are ready to

  33. obey and do their part, and are eager to let go of their ways.

  34. Our ways are the obstacles that prevent us from drawing closer more rapidly to Christ.

  35. We must make a choice and truly ask ourselves if our own ways are worth it to take us away from the One true God, the One who made us, the One who put us here, the One who holds a future in His hands, and the One, even our future depends on.

  36. I pray this helps you. We see the Apostle Paul doing this. It is possible because of the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

  37. So beware of counterfeiters. We must be willing to listen to the Lord before He blesses us with His Holy Spirit, who convicts us of all sins and helps us to get rid of all the lies from our lives, given that we’re listening to Him.

  38. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your servant, the Apostle Paul, and all the other Apostles, and all Your servants in all generations.

  39. We thank You for Your teachings and for Your Spirit of Truth in Your servants who listen to You. We love, Lord God, we thank You for Your Father. We thank You for teaching us always well, Lord. We thank You for Your forgiveness, for Your restoration. We thank You for drawing us near to You. We want to be drawn near to You. We want to live in You, we want to remain in Your Love. Because we are in You, we will always teach well and remain in the truth that You taught us. So, we love You, God. Your truth sets us free from all the lies of this world. Thank You for being with us and for living in us. In Your Holy Name, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.