Walking In The Way Of The Lord

It's good to see you all here this morning, and at this point our children can be dismissed down to our children's church right now if you want to go out.

Our teacher is waiting for you patiently to go downstairs for a Bible story this morning.

I'm finding that it's it's really pretty weird being the same age as old people.

I I you know it's it really is weird.

Um, you know, when you think about it.

Uh I was born in the 1950s, I grew up in the 1960s, went to school in the 70s, got married in the 80s, worked and raised three kids in the 90s, survived the 2000s and the 2010s, and tried to catch up in the 2020s.

Come to think of it, I am pretty old.

I've lived through seven different decades, two different centuries, and two different millennia.

That's getting old.

It starts to get to you after a while.

Um, but today, I may be getting older physically, but like the Apostle Paul and his team and those early believers, I'm still growing strong and being renewed spiritually day by day, as the Apostle Paul once encouraged the Ephesians and the Corinthians, Ephesians 4, if indeed you have heard of him, Christ, and have been taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, that in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

And I would add one more passage that's not on the PowerPoint.

Second Corinthians, Paul writes to the Corinthians in chapter three, he says, But to this day, whenever the Old Testament is read, Moses is read, a veil lies over the Jewish people's heart.

But whenever a person turns to the Lord, that veil is taken away.

And now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, liberty.

But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit.

Good news.

We could get old physically, but the Bible promises us we can keep growing spiritually more and more every day.

We've been following the Apostle Paul on his first two missionary journeys, and today we'll begin his third missionary journey.

Um, we left off in Acts chapter 18.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

If you have a Bible you want to turn there, and also if you didn't get an outline, um just raise your hand, our ushers will be there to help you soon.

So we left off with uh in Acts 18, where Paul was in Corinth.

Okay, right here.

He's he met uh Achilla and Priscilla here, and now uh they're gonna travel to Ephesus, and Paul's gonna leave Achilla and Priscilla there while he travels back to Caesarea and then begins really his third missionary journey from Antioch, where he travels through the Galatian region where he was, and then he's gonna make his way back to Ephesus.

That's kind of the picture for today.

And uh the lengthy passage we're gonna look at from beginning in Acts 18 uh 23.

Um Luke is giving us four different scenes about what's happening with Paul and his team.

And uh there's a lot of details here, but I'm not gonna cover it all.

I'm gonna look at it from a broader perspective, focused on what Luke is trying to emphasize to us about what's happening, the lessons uh we're to gather from it.

Luke repeats four words and phrases that connect these stories and give us really one overall theme for the whole thing.

Connected to his focus on disciples during this time, Luke repeats the phrase, the way of the Lord, uh, or and the word of the Lord four times each in this passage.

And he repeats the name Jesus seven times.

So those become the his emphasis.

What does he want us to learn from these three, four things?

The way of the Lord, uh, the word of the Lord, and Jesus, hooking it all together.

Putting it all together, what is he trying to say?

I think you could boil it down to how disciples of Jesus learn to live according to the way of the Lord from the Scripture.

It's really the theme.

If you keep that in mind, you won't get lost in the woods.

But I've got three points we can follow today.

First of all, learning the way of the Lord, how the disciples begin learning the way of the Lord, and then they're being launched in the way of the Lord, and then finally how they're living in the way of the Lord.

First, let's learn about the way of the Lord.

This first scene, Paul opens, traveling through the Galatian region, and uh let's see it again if you want.

It's right there.

He's left Antioch, he's traveling through the church, visiting the churches in the Galatian region, and he's on his way to Ephesus.

That's the third missionary journey.

Suddenly, uh we break away from Paul, and Luke introduces us to this guy named Apollos, who was speaking about Jesus in Ephesus before Paul got there.

And Luke tells us that Apollos had been instructed in the way of the Lord.

So I want to stop there and say, well, what is that?

What's the way the way of the Lord?

You need to know that the way of the Lord is an often repeated phrase in the Old Testament.

For example, in the book of Judges, chapter 2, 22, uh, the Lord says the Lord did this in order to test Israel, whether they would keep the way of the Lord to walk in it as their fathers did or not.

Judges 2 · chapter mention

Our 2 Kings 21, 22, King Ammon abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord.

And finally, I'll end with Jeremiah 21, 8, but they're all over the place in the Old Testament.

Jeremiah 21 says, You shall also say to this people, thus says the Lord, I set before you um the way of life and the way of death.

That's pretty solemn.

Um, the way of the Lord in the scripture is contrasted with the way of the wicked.

And you see that come up in things like Psalm chapter 1, verse 6.

Psalms 1:6

The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

The way, if we could summarize it this way, refer refers to our view of the world and the way we choose to live in it as a result.

Either a view of the world where God exists and is to be feared, obeyed, and ultimately be rewarded, or a view of the world where God does not exist.

And if he does, he's irrelevant, and I can do whatever I want.

That's a simple summary of the way of the Lord and not the way of the Lord, the way of death.

And so the a way in the Bible refers to the choices we make in life that are either in line with God's way or opposed to God's way.

The way of the Lord lives, in other words, is living in light of God's real existence, our accountability to Him, and our hope in what He's promised us.

Let me repeat that.

He was mighty in the scriptures, and uh don't think I read it, did I?

No, I didn't.

Um let me uh Acts 18, verse 23.

Acts 18:23

Let me read the passage, then you'll hear it.

And having spent some time there in Antioch, he left.

This is uh he he left and passed successfully through the Galatian region and Prygeria, strengthening all the disciples.

That was Paul.

Now, a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus and he was mighty in the scriptures.

This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John.

And he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue where Priscilla and Achilla heard him, and they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

And when he wanted to go across to Achaia, the brethren encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him.

And when he had arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.

And so we understand Apollos uh was uh he was a scholarly Jew, educated in Alexandria, which at that time was the Harvard of the day, and he was familiar only with the baptism of John.

That's Luke's way of telling us that Apollos had still more to learn about Jesus and the gospel.

It's not yet complete.

And the Old Testament scriptures were basically the basis of his knowledge of the Messiah and Jesus and the way of the Lord.

And when Achilla and Priscilla heard him teach, they took him aside and explained the way of God more accurately.

What they're doing is updating his understanding of the truth of the gospel now.

And when they were done, Luke points out a change in how Apollos speaks.

Apollos now is preaching not just the gospel of repentance from John's baptism.

He's preaching now a gospel of grace through faith, demonstrating from the scripture that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah.

Acts 18, 27 to 28.

And when Apollos wanted to go to Achaean, the brethren encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him, and so on.

And he demonstrated by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.

The point Luca's making is that the disciples learn the way of the Lord from the Scriptures.

Very important point.

And that way now is all focused on Jesus.

If you want to learn the way of the Lord, uh you must consider what it means to follow Jesus.

We receive God's grace through faith in him.

That brings us to the second scene, Luke gives us of how disciples are now launched in the way of the Lord.

Um, in Acts 19, let me read it, beginning in verse 1.

It happened while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus, and he found some disciples.

He said to them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?

And they said to him, No, we've not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.

And he said, Into what then were you baptized?

And they said, Into John's baptism.

And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling people to believe in him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.

Well, when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying, and there were in all about twelve men.

And he entered the synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning, persuading them about the kingdom of God.

But when they were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the way before the people, he withdrew from them and took away those disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.

This took place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

This is an interesting passage as uh in the scene in Paulus goes to Corinth, and Luke turns his focus back on Paul, who arrives in Ephesus.

This time Paul encountered some disciples there who, like Apollos, were only familiar with the baptism of John.

They had not yet received the Holy Spirit.

Apparently, these men were familiar with Jesus, considered themselves disciples, but Paul discerned something's not right.

Um, so he asked them if if they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed.

Somehow it just looks like Paul could tell there's something missing.

Um they're they're saying kind of all the right things, they're uh focused on Jesus, uh, but there's something missing.

John's baptism was a baptism of repentance, but he's pointing to Jesus, he's trying to tell them, who would then baptize them with the Holy Spirit?

And I have to tell you, there'd been a lot of ink spilled from commentators on this passage, discovering whether, discussing whether these disciples were in Ephesus were actually really believers, uh, or another way to look do believers need a second baptism of the Holy Spirit?

A lot of controversy in this passage.

Uh, but I'm just gonna step away from it.

So, I mean, it it's um I I can tell you in my view, and you'll kind of pick it up here, Paul would later write a letter to the Ephesians affirming that when you hear the gospel and believe in Jesus, you are automatically sealed with the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 1, verse 13.

Ephesians 1:13

In him, to this is to the Ephesians.

In him, Jesus, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise.

So after explaining the gospel, they were baptized in the name of Jesus, signifying their true faith in Jesus.

And when Paul laid his hands on him, the Holy Spirit came upon him.

Now, why would that happen?

It's almost as if you see a second mini Pentecost to confirm, yes, they understand the gospel, they've been given the Holy Spirit, and uh that launched then these disciples into the way of the Lord.

Luke's point is this you cannot walk in the way of the Lord without the Holy Spirit present in your life.

Impossible.

You can't do it, you can't do it in the flesh, you can't do it on your own.

You have to have the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus as his disciple.

The takeaway today, for those who do believe in Jesus, is that like John's disciples, we could end up thinking that it is enough to follow the way of the Lord by being religious.

That's what they were doing.

That it's good enough.

Uh I'm just a good person.

And I I love Jesus, I'm a good person, I follow the teachings of the Bible.

That's what they were.

Paul has to say, wait, something's missing.

As John's disciple discovered, like Apollos, they needed to understand the way of the Lord more accurately.

That Jesus has promised to send his Holy Spirit into every single person who believes in him.

Until that happens, we're unable to walk in the way of the Lord.

Paul then takes these men who've just received the Holy Spirit into the Jewish synagogue and they begin preaching about Jesus.

After the Jews reject the gospel, Paul takes those 12 disciples to the school of Tyrannus to reason every day with anybody who is there about Jesus and the Word of God.

And he we're told he taught there for two years.

And as a result, Luke tells us the gospel spread throughout all of Asia.

I mean, just took off.

Um as we move on to Luke's next story, the scene turns a little darker as we talk now about how the disciples begin living in the way of the Lord in the context of evil.

When you read the passage in Acts 19, uh, beginning verse 11, in Ephesus, God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, the diseases left them, and the evil spirits went out.

But also some of the Jewish exorcists who went from place to place attempted to name over those who had the evil spirits in the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, I adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches.

Seven sons of one Skeva, a Jewish high priest, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.

And the evil spirit answered and said to them, You know what?

I recognize Jesus.

I know about Paul.

Who are you?

Who are you?

And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on these sons of Skeva, subdued all of them, overpowered them.

They fled out of that house naked and wounded.

Um, this became known to all, both Jews, Greeks who lived in Ephesus, and fear fell upon all of them, and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified.

This scene begins, Luke's final scene here begins with Paul doing extraordinary miracles.

All the commentators say, you don't usually see miracles like this, they're extraordinary and defying explanation.

But one of the things he's doing is casting out demons.

And then, as you heard, watching Paul cast out those demons, having the power to do that, the it prompts the seven Jewish exorcists to try to cast out demons using the name of Jesus.

Again, Luke shows us people who are trying to imitate the way of the Lord, thinking that, you know what, if I just say the right words, if I if I just uh maybe do the have the right posture or something, uh God will act on what I say.

There's a religion of superstition, magic, manipulation, spells.

If they just say the right word, do the right thing, God will bless, God will answer.

False.

The way of the Lord cannot be lived in words only or by religious exercises only, but only by faith in Jesus Christ.

We discover quickly in this humorous encounter, really, with the demon that the Jewish exorcists are trying to cast out, they do not have the power or the authority in Jesus in themselves.

And they're savaged by these demons.

They're not Jesus' disciples, but are trying to use Jesus' name to harness its magical power to get results, but are overpowered by evil spirits.

The next scene Luke chooses to give us basically he's giving us two powerful ways disciples of Jesus can follow the way of the Lord by overcoming evil that those Jewish exorcists could not.

And here's where here's where it gets, here's where the rubber meets the road, so we can.

Understand, walk in the way of the Lord, determining.

I'm going to choose to live as if God really exists.

I'm accountable to Him and believe the promises He's given.

I'm going to be launched in the way of the Lord when I believe in Jesus and receive His Holy Spirit, which gives me the power to live according to his word.

Now, that power is in us to overcome evil.

One of the ways, one of the things is the Holy Spirit's in us is to help us overcome evil in our lives.

Now, listen to what happens next in this scene.

Luke's focus is now on those who believed in Jesus and have received the Holy Spirit.

Here's what it says about them.

As it became known to everybody about what the evil spirit did to those uh Jewish exorcists, uh, this became known to all, both Jews, Greeks, who lived in Ephesus, and fear fell upon them all.

And the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified.

Jesus' disciples aren't being magnified.

Jesus is being magnified.

Very important point.

If you're trying to bolster your image, you're not walking the way of the Lord under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

They magnified the Lord Jesus by turning away from evil.

Actually, they burned away from evil.

Listen to the the account.

Many of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices.

Many of those who practiced magic brought their books together, began burning them in the sight of everyone, and they counted up the price for them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.

So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing over the evil in Ephesus.

Look, fifty thousand pieces of silver thrown into the fire, their precious possessions.

They burned these costly books in order to walk in the way of the Lord.

It cost them.

They burned the bridges to their past lives that wasn't in the way of the Lord.

They had to do that to overcome evil.

Had to.

That's what a disciple of Jesus does.

Okay.

I can remember my burning ceremony when I first came to faith in Jesus as a freshman in college.

God led me to the Lord.

I'm one of those Apostle Paul conversions.

Whoa, I know exactly what happened to me, and I know exactly what I need to do right now.

I took all my drugs, all my awful posters off, tore them off the wall, took everything that didn't reflect a godly life, and I took it, marched them down to the incinerator and burned them.

That's what I needed to do.

Why?

To overcome evil.

You know what's what we need to do is burn all the bridges.

Don't leave any bridges.

You know, we we leave bridges just in case, oh, just in case uh, you know, we need a little comfort or a little something to uh dangerous.

Don't do that.

Do whatever you have to do to burn those bridges.

I know I did.

I do not regret one aspect.

There were other bridges I had to burn as I grew as a disciple.

It just started there in my room.

I said, wait a second, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I don't want to go back that route.

There's a lot more detail there, but I'm saving you the pain.

Um the point is, Lucas saying, a disciple of Jesus who's walking in the way of the Lord lives a surrendered life and makes no ground for evil.

No ground.

None.

That's what they did.

50,000 shekels of silver or whatever, pieces of silver.

This gotta go in the fire.

I don't want to go back to that with Jesus in my life.

Think about it, pray about it.

Because to walk in the way of the Lord begins by magnifying the name of Jesus in your life, surrendering to him, and overcoming evil.

There you have it.

The way of the Lord lived out by born-again disciples of Jesus.

Like Apollos, we learn the way of the Lord by having an accurate view of Jesus and the gospel from the scriptures.

Like John's disciples, we learn that a disciple of Jesus isn't just practicing a religion, but living with Jesus in the power and presence of his Holy Spirit.

And like the Ephesian believers, we learn that a disciple of Jesus magnifies the name of Jesus by overcoming evil through our complete surrender to Jesus as Lord of their life.

Let me read you a passage from the book of the last book of the Bible, Revelation, chapter 12, 10 to 11.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

John says, I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now the salvation and power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come.

For the accuser of our brethren, referring to the devil, Satan, has been thrown down.

He who accuses them before our God day and night.

But they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.

And the word of their testimony.

You know what?

They didn't love their lives even unto death.

Full surrender.

Nothing held back.

They conquered, overcame.

That's the key.

Like John's disciples, who were very religious but not born again by the Spirit.

I don't know where you are spiritually.

You could identify yourself as a Christian who believes in the basic facts of Jesus, uh, but may not have the presence of his Holy Spirit in your life.

I know I did.

I called myself a Christian.

You know why?

I believe Jesus existed.

I went to church.

I believe he taught, Jesus taught a lot of great things.

I believed in his miracles.

He walked on the water and he healed people.

I believe he died on the cross and he rose again from the dead.

I was missing one thing: a personal relationship with Jesus, not just a historical knowledge of him.

Extremely important.

I didn't yet connect with the most important fact.

Jesus died for my sins.

I'm a sinner.

I failed God.

I messed up.

And he died for me so I could know him and have eternal life.

I didn't yet understand that getting to heaven was not based on my efforts, but Jesus' work and my trust in him in his sacrifice for me.

As Peter kind of points out in 1 Peter 3.18, for Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he did that, so that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.

You and I need to understand Jesus is the way of the Lord.

John 14, 6, Jesus said to Thomas, I am the way, the truth, the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

Okay, I don't know where you're at, but uh I invite you to become Jesus' disciple.

Learn to walk in the way of the Lord uh first by believing in Jesus if you haven't and receive the Holy Spirit and the gift of eternal life.

And once you've received him, if you have received him, abide in his word, living a life of surrender so that you might overcome evil, just like these early disciples did.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you.

Thank you for the fact that Jesus changes everything.

You sent him to seek and save us who are lost in our sin or separated from you.

And he made it pretty clear, he's the way, the truth, the life.

Thank you that Jesus died and rose again to bring us to you.

Help us to stop striving to gain your favor by our own good works, our own moral behavior, and admit we failed and we need Jesus.

Help us then to walk in the way of the Lord, being constantly aware of your presence and being fully surrendered to Jesus in all that we do.

I pray.

Amen.