Leftovers - Acts 20

Happy Monday, we are back in with some ERC leftovers.

I'm Pastor Matt. Hey, Pastor Chris is here as

well. It's going to be a good.

Week it really is you know what actually, I I can't help it.

I don't think I've brought this up yet on any of the shows, but

as I hear like the intro music, I always do like a little chair

dance. I always do a little chair dance

and so hopefully if you're listening to this like in your

car, wherever you may listen to this, like I hopefully like the

little intro music, like it makes you wiggle a little bit

because it always does me. Going to need to move this to a

video podcast pretty soon for the for those little behind the

scenes Easter eggs. Yeah, yeah, no, yeah.

Weird weekend. It felt strange for summer,

obviously a lot of storms in the area, a lot of flooding and aid

and assistance going on. I mean, Dubuque all the way down

to Quad Cities, of course, things going on in in Texas.

So thoughts and prayers with those communities and people as

well. So and not to like equate that

with the same thing at all, but largely I've I've talked about

it before pool. Those are what pool is a common

activity for my family. We tried to, we tried to stick

it out Thursday evening and there were definitely storms

there. We were there for about 7

minutes I think before they had to clear the pool and lightning

habit. And I found out, fun fact, the

the shades at the pool like the umbrella and the Big Blue canopy

and the purple canopy, they are sun shades only.

Like there's no water in a rain. There's a like it's just cloth,

but it's not, it's not water repellent.

You can stand under that in a rainstorm and still get wet.

And just get soaked, yes. Interesting.

So I wouldn't have thought that I wouldn't.

Have thought that either. Found that out the hard way on

Thursday as I was, because for a while it was just raining and

not lightning so my kid and my kids were oblivious.

They're still playing in the pool but Emily and I are just

like, we need to go stand somewhere dry.

Found out there's nowhere dry to be found, it's just less wet.

You could. You could, I mean, just kind of

like hide out in the doorway of the locker rooms, I suspect.

That's the only that's the only truly safe place.

Yeah. Yeah.

So anyway, that was so so yeah, with all, it was a weird summer

week because I just, I feel like we usually go to the pool all

the time and we didn't because it was raining.

You know, the other side of this coin though, with the amount of

rain that we've been getting this summer, particularly in the

Midwest, like it's an amount of rain that like is actually

making a lot of people in the agriculture community pretty

happy. Like life is good, you know,

like because I remember last year, you know, we barely, I

don't know if it rained even once in the month of July.

And I kind of liked that because I never mowed the lawn.

That was great. I didn't mow the lawn for like 4

or five weeks. It was awesome.

But then again, it's like, wait a minute, all these people who

produce all of the food and everything else, like they're

not happy. Therefore, we ultimately will

also not be happy. Yeah, so.

Kind of need it. Definitely need it this week

after the message yesterday, I preached on Acts 20 and Paul's

kind of farewell sermon to the elders in Ephesus.

One of his. I don't know that you feel like

a favorite church in Paul, but it was.

He loved the church in. Ephesus a big investment.

There, yeah, that was that was a place that was near and dear to

his heart. So this sort of sweet goodbye

and we didn't even get towards the end of the chapter, there is

some recount from Luke of the the teary eyed nature of of

their embraces and their and their goodbyes there after his

sermon. So touching moments, a tender

moment here in in Acts chapter 20 as the end is seemingly near

Acts 20 · chapter mention

for Paul. And that just kind of got us

thinking about talking about how you how you say goodbye.

Like how do you exit? How do you exit a situation?

It was funny for me even yesterday at church I it's

always a funny thing to watch for me in the atrium afterwards,

how the couples never really seem to sync up.

Like a lot of the times there's a husband waiting while the wife

is still engaged in conversation, but a lot of the

time while he's waiting, he'll get caught up in a conversation

or, or otherwise, yeah, caught up in something else.

So then the wife is ready to go, but the husband and then, and

then it just kind of goes back and forth.

I was outside talking yesterday with, with a husband on the

sidewalk. And at some point of the

conversation, oh, here, here comes my wife.

And she did, she actually walked through the doors to let him

know I have one more conversation I need to have.

I'll be right back Like she can. It was like the false goodbye he

thought she was ready to go to. Like I got to talk to one more

person. And so I'm glad.

I'm glad we have that space. But for me, the church goodbye

is one that's like it goes on forever.

I think that's why we see people like duck out so fast because

they're like, I can't, I can't get caught by anybody.

So therefore, as long as soon as that last, no.

I'm. Here for more than 30 seconds.

I'm going to be here for 30 minutes.

That's exactly it. That's exactly it.

So yeah, the church can be tricky, especially with the

atrium there, and it just seems to be a natural place to gather.

But, you know, it can also be tricky if you're like, you know,

you had dinner at somebody's house and the conversation is

rolling, but you or your spouse are like, man, I'm ready to go.

But you don't want to say that necessarily.

I mean, some people are just open.

They're like, yeah, I'm ready to go out of nowhere.

And you're like, oh, OK, OK, sure.

My wife and I, we've developed a code and I don't know where this

code came from, but I think it's fairly subtle.

So if her and I are sitting next to each other, all we have to do

is you just put your hands again subtly on their like leg and you

just give a couple taps. It's like, hey, we're, we're

tapping out of this night. Like, and, and we did work it

out like in real time. We're like as soon as there's

the pat rub or the tap, you got 5 minutes and we are out.

That's it. You got 5 minutes and that's

your notification, you know, we're one or the other person.

You got 5 minutes. close this thing up.

It's pretty good. It's not bad.

It's not bad. But sometimes, like I've, I've

criticized her because, well, you know, I, gosh, I'm sorry, I

tend to be a person who just says what's going through my

brain and that's not always appropriate.

And so there have been a couple times where I totally sold her

out and she like gives me the subtle pat rub and I'm like, oh,

I got the pat rub. And people who don't know what

that means, people who don't know what that means, they're

like, they just look at you and I'm like, oh, Oh, no, it, it

just means that, you know, And then therefore I just told the

whole room, my wife wants to leave, you know, and that's,

that's not cool. Like I, I realize that's not

cool, but sometimes the filter just isn't filtering.

And so I've, I've, I feel bad. I've thrown her under the bus

before. Do you know anyone or maybe

maybe there's any of you out there that have like I've heard

of couples having like a code word for that they work subtly

in the conversation that if if one of the others says it like

that's their indication of I'm ready to go.

Like I'm ready, I'm ready to ready to leave.

And so I don't know if if any of you, I don't even know what

words that would be. I know a sitcom made fun of it

at one point and the word was like hippopotamus or something.

And and and the the wife worked it in the conversation

immediately. The husband who also like must

have just said what was on his mind like like you did, was just

like, we have to go. My favorite, my favorite Midwest

indication of it's time to leave is, well, I suppose.

And you know, like you hear that and you're like, oh, you're

leaving. OK, that's fine.

But yeah, well, I suppose like I don't, I don't know if that is

only in the Midwest, but it's definitely a thing I've heard a

lot as people are exiting. For sure one of my favorite

things from Harry Potter. Just the like the inventive

whatever universe of Harry Potter.

Do you remember Professor Slughorn's hourglass?

The the sand timer that it, the sand moves quickly if the

conversation is is stimulating and thought provoking and and

good, but this it moves really slowly if the conversation is

dull and uninteresting, that's pretty good.

I thought that would be like, that would be a cool thing to

have in a house if it actually worked that way, gauging the

quality of the yeah, of the fellowship, I guess.

That's pretty good. Have you ever?

Have you ever done the Irish? Goodbye.

The Irish goodbye so. Have you ever just, like, pieced

out you didn't tell anybody? And then, you know, and maybe

you even drive away in your car kind of chuckling to yourself.

Like, I wonder if they've gotten to the point, like, where'd Mac

go? I don't know that I've ever

executed the Irish goodbye. I've been there as others have

Irish goodbye. That's definitely happened in my

life. If you don't know, like if you

don't know what that is, that's just you, don't you?

You don't say, well, I suppose you, you don't say goodbye to

anyone. You just get up and leave most

perfectly without anyone really noticing.

And just like 10 minutes later, everyone's like, where's Chris?

And then they figure out that you're just gone like that, you

just left. I think that's the perfect,

perfectly executed Irish goodbye.

I mean, it's, I don't know if it's a classy move, but it's

pretty funny sometimes. It can be, yeah.

It can be the appropriate departure in some situations.

So yeah, I don't goodbyes. Goodbyes are weird.

Goodbyes are terrible for us because even at the point that I

don't, yeah, we have to do it seven different ways, really.

Like we have to wrangle each of the the children out of their

activity or conversation that they're having.

And then most often we're in, I don't know, it depends on where

we're going. Sometimes we're in the same car.

A lot of time at church we're in separate cars.

So like we have half the kids going with one of us and half

with the other. And even for us, we were.

It just takes so long to goodbye.

Like, even once you decide that we need to leave, that's like,

OK, maybe 20 minutes from now we'll actually be in the car.

Yeah. So.

It's hard. One of the funny things about

goodbyes is if you're a, if you're a particularly like, you

know, if you're a hugger, right? So like you like to give hugs

goodbye and stuff. I've been in a number of

scenarios where the goodbye process is starting and so you

you give the person a hug, but then there's the conversation

somehow continues for another 10 to 15 minutes.

And then there has to be the secondary goodbye hug because

it's been long enough that the first hug has now expired.

And so now we're on to the second goodbye hug.

That's a real thing. I didn't have the thought till

just now and I have. I really have not thought about

it before. I think I am more of a hello

hugger than than a goodbye hugger.

I don't. Yeah.

And I don't know if there needs to be a distinction, but I also

think that might be part of the problem.

Does does the hug indicate I want to spend more time?

Like I want to continue the time I'm spending or or enter into

the time I'm spending with you more than does that?

That embrace doesn't really facilitate a leaving right?

You might be right. I don't know, I literally have

never thought of it. Just popped in my head, but as I

thought about how I usually interact with people, it's

usually a greeting. It's usually a greeting, not a

goodbye. But I might be a weird hugger.

So I don't know. I don't know.

I haven't thought about that either.

Like on the entrance or the exit.

Which one is better, more appropriate?

I don't know. Oh my gosh.

You huggers out there, it's a well, I feel like if someone's a

hugger, they probably do it both, but right, it's it's a

greeting and it's a good. Buy and if you're having dinner,

maybe even somewhere in between because, oh, the food was great

and we're putting our dishes away and you know, Oh my, yeah,

it can. It can be.

About hugs left and right. It can be all over the place

just. Doesn't need a deep reason to

hug. It's hugging all the time.

Yeah, it's true. It's true.

It's true. All right.

What's your biggest goodbye struggle?

What's what's, what's the scenario, the situation that

it's most difficult to leave? I feel like a lot for a lot of

people, it might be church. I I feel like, and that's fine.

I like that. I like that people hang out at

church. I like that it's a hard place to

leave afterwards. We were at a birthday party

yesterday too, and that was with some other friends that they, it

finally was a nice day yesterday when thinking about going to the

pool. And but it wasn't, it was a

weird thing. I I felt like we weren't quite

at a place to leave where we had been there like appropriate

amount of time to get to that. Well, I suppose sort of like, I

feel like we haven't reached the level of time where it was

appropriate to be like, yeah, we're going to peace.

So I don't know. That was that was strange too.

So texting that would be like, we're at this place probably

need to be here for a little bit longer like.

Yeah. And that's the other thing.

Like what if you haven't been there long enough?

Like you just don't feel like so, yeah.

You show up to, that's when the Irish goodbye happens, right?

Like if you haven't, if you, you don't let them know that you're

leaving early. You're just gone.

And then they have no idea how long you were actually there,

really. That's true, especially if

there's a lot of people. If it's if it's a pretty large

gathering, then you can really get away with that pretty well.

But if you're having dinner with like, you know, two other

couples, like how I mean, that's.

Can't blitz out of that. No, you can't.

And if you do, then you'll probably need never be invited

back again because they'll be like, oh gosh, they hate us.

They hate us. We probably offended them in

some way or, you know, I I have no idea.

Yeah. The bigger the crowd, the the

better that. Right, yes, yeah.

And honestly, I don't yeah, I don't know that I could you

Irish goodbye as a couple. Feel like I've only ever seen

that done like in single and I guess you could you just gone.

Actually, no, I've been Irish goodbye by a couple.

So I guess you can, yeah. I think with the, with the

Irish, goodbye with the couple, you know, yeah, you have to

wonder, like, did they just not like us?

Or, you know, maybe, I don't know.

I don't know. No, I don't.

I didn't get that conclusion. I was, I was Irish.

Goodbye by a couple. We were, we were, we were

outside. It was a summer night.

It was years ago summer night, but we were having a bonfire at

their house. And after a while there were

just like 3 or 4 of us left around the fire and we were,

we're and they just, they just didn't come.

We were, we were never really like inside their house during

the evening. It was, it was literally just

like we had a cookout in the yard.

We were outside and we were on the bonfire and all of a sudden

they were just gone. And we're like, where are they

at? And they they were inside and

they didn't come back out. At their own house?

Who? Knows what it was good.

I mean, it was it was fine, but in that instance it wasn't a

like they were just done. They were just done for the and

they were fine with us hanging out around the fire, but it was

it was just late enough that they're just like, all right,

time's up. We turned into pumpkins.

Oh my gosh, you know, I would have assumed I would have, I

would have assumed that if a couple who owned the house where

we were hanging out and you know, maybe that center there's

campfire, whatever and they both leave.

I would assume that there were just, you know, maybe some

marital activities happening and that's and then you're going to

come back out whenever and at least say goodbye or oh, hey,

it's we're going to turn in or whatever, but to just never come

back out at all. Wow.

I don't think, OK, if that's the hypothesis, I don't think I

would come back out. I don't think I'd be like, hey,

yeah, we just. He's having a moment.

You guys have a great night like I.

Don't know. Yeah, OK.

First. And foremost in my mind to be

like, oh, let me make sure everybody's good outside still.

Sure. Yeah, and it.

Was fine. I didn't, I don't know.

I didn't feel like they were. So who put out the fire?

It's not their house. Yeah.

We, I mean, we stayed till it burned out or I, I actually

wound up, wait, a couple of us wound up hanging out like for

hours after that. The the sand in the the sun, the

sand dial would have been moving very quickly.

We actually had a very stimulating conversation that

evening, so. Well, but then you have to

wonder. OK, you have to wonder.

Wait, it's been like 3 hours since they've been out here at

their own house. Are they just, like, looking out

the window at us? Like these people will never

leave? And you're just like, yeah, I

don't know. That would make me feel awkward.

But they didn't, they didn't send any grounds.

They they didn't even acknowledge like, hey, we're

going in. You guys are welcome to hang out

as long as you want. Like they were just gone.

And no, we texted them. There was no communication after

the evening. It was, but also did.

Yeah, didn't feel like they. Now, did you continue to like

talk to the host people after that and everything?

Oh yeah, it. Was fine.

It was fine. It was funny, but and yeah,

probably your hypothesis is true.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, so it was fine.

I just, that was a weird scenario.

Irish goodbye on their own property.

So you can do it. You can find the appropriate

forms for him. All right.

Wow. We talked about goodbyes for a

long time. But that's appropriate because

Paul is saying goodbye, so it's very thematic.

Paul is saying goodbye. We are in Acts chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

I covered verses 17 through about 27.

Jumped around a little bit yesterday too.

Didn't talk about his warnings of wolves and paying attention

to the flock and being alert. We'll get into that a little

bit. But you had, I'll read, I'll

read some of the verses here, but you had some ideas of things

that were actually talked about in Bible study that I touched on

a little bit yesterday. So we'll read through some of

the passage here and touch on a couple different topics other

than I, I mostly focused on on legacy yesterday and what Paul

was leaving and what really mattered in that He had he had

three things. He had the, the surety of the

word, the surety of what Jesus did and the spirit going with

him and, and before him. And that was enough that that

was the things he needed to feel that he had a full life.

He didn't he didn't even need to fully see the church thriving or

growing or change. He says that he says at the end

of the passage, sort of I, I commend you to God into the word

of his grace who was able to build you up and give you the

inheritance like I shared these things.

You're in God's power. You know his word, it's it's not

my responsibility anymore to get you to live in this way.

You know the things, you know how you're supposed to live.

So it wasn't even he wasn't even gauging his success or the OR

the legacy of his life on how well the church in Ephesus did.

It was more that he preached them the whole truth about God

and didn't leave things out and and taught them to walk in the

ways of Jesus. So.

Well, and actually thinking of not leaving things out, you

know, Acts 2020, I did not shrink from declaring to you

anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from

house to house. And he goes on.

But this one of the things that we definitely talked about that

I thought was really interesting that I think probably touches

most believers at some point, unless you're just really,

really bold, is like, yeah, how many times have we thought about

like in in any given moment with a person who maybe isn't a

believer or who needs something that we have to offer them

spiritually? And for some reason, we hold

back those words and we just kind of keep it on the surface

because we're like, I don't know if I want to get into all this.

Like, you know, that shrinking back, that's pretty real.

And I know that like, I'm probably most likely to shrink

back from like speaking biblical truth, actually, when it's like

my own family. And I had to, and I had to admit

that. And then we have to, you know,

we were kind of talking through. Why do you think that is?

Like, why do we shrink back from speaking the gospel to our

family? But, you know, for me, it's

really easy to talk to strangers about it.

And I don't know why. Maybe it should be the other way

around. But for me, like I tend to

shrink back when it's my own family.

There's a little irony there because I mean, with the

strangers, we have the safety net of potentially, possibly

probably never seeing them again, right?

So we can, you can have that conversation and leave it and

it's never really circled back to, but you don't in most

instances. You don't know how that played

out in their lives with family. That's where like awkward

holiday dinners happen, right? Like politics and religion is

where all the feelings come out, right?

And by and large, those things don't always bother bother me.

But I'm really not off put by conflict too much or yeah, or

whatever awkward situation, it's fine.

But for most, I mean most humans, most people don't like

that. We don't want to be in conflict.

We don't want to bring up something potentially

contentious or even just in regular conversation.

I mean, we bring up things that we bring up things that we know

the other person's going to like, right?

Like you don't. I wouldn't I wouldn't go up to

someone, man. OK, now I'm trying to think of

an example, but like, I don't play tennis.

I would not go up to a tennis player, I guess.

And it makes it sound like there's just tennis players out

there. You're.

Just walking around. But like, I wouldn't go up to a

tennis player and be like, Hey, do you know how to play this Led

Zeppelin riff? Like, can we do you want to you

want to work on this guitar solo with like, I wouldn't, I

wouldn't expect that person to have that same exact shared

interest that that I had musically, right?

So like we, we usually have some sort of common ground.

And I think that's where the awkwardness, even the family

comes. If we know personal experience,

life experience has told us they don't want to hear it or it's

not for them, then it's then it's like we already have that

resistance. We already have that blowback or

push back from that. But that's not Paul's.

Paul's not allowing that as an excuse here.

Really. Right.

He said how I did not shrink back.

The the Greek Greek word is way too long for me to actually say

hoopestailaman. Woah.

Yeah, that's a good one. But so shrink is actually, I

think a really good modern translation.

Most literally it's it's to draw back is is this hoopestello the

the root of that? So to so to shrink back, to draw

back to, to restrict and kind of mute that that sort of phrase

he's, he's saying I didn't do this.

I told you everything I I talked about yesterday how he didn't,

he didn't edit, he didn't take out the harshness of the law.

He didn't take out the bad things.

He gave them the whole of God's word, right.

He didn't make it more palatable And I.

And I love that you mentioned that actually, because it's

true. Like there's, there's nothing

about the Bible that we need to apologize for.

You know, there are things that we need to explain whether hey,

you know, it sounds like this because actually that's poetry.

You know, that's that kind of genre that we're reading right

now. We're not reading history, we're

reading poetry or whatever. So there are things that we have

to explain, but never things that we have to apologize for.

Right. And I think that's more of what

he's getting at. And I think it's, I think that's

part of the tension in wrestling with sharing these things with

friends or family that may be resistant to it too.

We feel like we have to apologize.

We feel like we have to say, I know you don't want to hear

this, but it's what I believe. So I'm going to share it with

you. We somehow need to stop short of

that and just be bold about what we believe, right?

And you, you, I think you mentioned you were talking in

Bible study on Thursday about that fear, Like what it, how

does, how does that fear come about?

And it sounds what I'm going to say is it, it sounds really

harsh and cold. But if you're shrinking back, if

you're holding back the word of God or what you believe and and

thereby not sharing the opportunity of eternal life with

that person for the sake of their earthly life here or your

earthly relationship with them here, you should be willing to

sacrifice the earthly relationship here for the sake

of their eternal life, right? And I know that sounds terrible

and. Harsh no.

And I, and I hear that and I receive that as somebody who

like has again, I, you know, full confession.

Like I've shrank back in moments where I knew I should have

gotten bigger and bolder with what I was going to say.

And so I, I've had those thoughts of just saying, man,

like, what am I doing? Like, wouldn't it be worth it to

put this thing on the line or, you know, And then so the law

feels very heavy in those moments of saying, like, do I

not trust God as much as I should?

And, and you start asking those questions and, and I think those

are valid questions to ask. Those are good reflective

questions that maybe, you know, even brings about some sense of

repentance. But those questions, if we allow

them to Burrow so deep, they can.

Yeah. They have the potential to bring

about a lot of shame. And you know, we don't want to

live in shame because we have the gospel, we have forgiveness

inside Jesus Christ. But like, there is a line there

where it's like, you know what, maybe I do need to feel the

weight of like falling short and, you know, pray for a new

opportunity and pray for a new sense of boldness and courage

the next time I I have the opportunity.

And I think that's the chief part of the fear in that maybe,

maybe to some degree, we know their resistance to it, but

there's also an element of uncertainty in there to how how

they will react or what they how they might respond to it,

especially if we think that they already hate it or or aren't

going to want to hear it. Paul, though, speaks to that

uncertainty specifically though, to now, behold, I'm going to

Jerusalem. This is verse 22 in chapter 20.

Constrained by the Holy Spirit, not knowing what will happen to

me there, so compelled by the work, the ministry that is

before him, so compelled by his relationship with the Holy

Spirit that he's just certain he has to go.

Not certain what's in store, what the response, what the

acceptance or reception of Him is going to be there.

Certain He has to go to battle back that fear like we should,

we should be certain. I'm not supposed to keep this in

right? It's it's the, it's the city on

a hill, the light of the world, the the lampstand.

We talked about that in Revelation too, right?

Jesus warned the churches, if you're covering this thing up,

I'm going to take away your lampstand.

If if you're not shining this light for me, you don't deserve

to have it. So I know it's not.

It sounds sitting in an office across from each other on

microphones. It sounds so simple in words.

I know it's very different than in person across the table from

a person you care about, from a person that you want ongoing

relationship with. But how do we get our how do we

recalibrate our minds to a level of attraction, a level of

relationship with a person that is first and almost informed in

Jesus like that? Whatever relationships you have

on earth, I'm not saying don't hang out with non Christians.

That's not what I'm saying. But do you have relationships in

your life that you really like and love and you know that they

don't know Jesus? You should want them to know

Jesus. You should, you should care

enough. Do you have that level of care

about them that you want them to have the same opportunity of

eternal life that you have? Like I'm not saying that

relationship is wasted, but to some degree.

Well, it's the classic and I you, I, I think I've probably

heard this, you know, four or five different ways is, you

know, if they were about to drive off the edge of the Cliff,

would you tell them to hit their brakes?

You know, and there's a there's a hundred different little

sayings like that and, and, you know, everybody looks and says,

well, of course I would. Well, if.

We don't always feel that urgency in the moment.

I think that's what it. And maybe that's part of The

thing is the urgency. We're like, well, you know,

somebody else can do it or I could just kind of probably

invite them to church on Christmas.

And so they'll hear it there if I can get them, if I can get

them there on Christmas. And, you know, the pastor will

do that work for me or whatever. And so I mean, I, I can

understand all those things. I think, you know, there's some

legitimacy to, to that kind of stuff.

But at the same time, like the word urgency that you used,

like, yeah, urgency is an important word.

And, you know, the Bible's pretty clear.

Like, hey, don't put off. Don't put off.

You know, the Spirit today. Don't do that.

You know, because we just, we just don't know.

We just don't know. We don't, and I think, I think

we can get ourselves in danger a little bit of, of justifying

that urgency of feeling like we have more time with or, or maybe

that we even need more time to sort of, well, I'll keep, I'll

keep hanging out with him and then sort of finesse this

relationship. And once I feel that they're

comfortable or I'm comfortable enough for them or they trust me

enough, then, then I'll share Jesus with them.

But at whatever point, if your relationship with them isn't

founded in any shape or form about Jesus, that's there's,

that's always going to be an awkward wall to break down

right? If if that's not an active part

of how you hang out, that or why you have relationship with them,

there's never going to be like a perfect moment for that.

Right. Am I crazy for?

Saying it's true. I mean, you know, I don't know,

maybe maybe a lot of adults, I know they haven't made a new

friend in probably like 15 years, but you know, maybe he

needs it's hard or we make it harder than what it is.

But anyway, you know, let's say, hey, your kid is in this sport

or activity. And so, you know, you end up

hanging out with these parents a bunch of different times and you

know, that progresses into something else.

And so, you know, eventually have dinner, whatever.

And, you know, you've been hanging out with them off and on

for six months, and then now finally, after six months,

you're going to drop the Jesus bomb on them when it's like, I

had no idea you were a Christian because I couldn't tell by your

life. I couldn't tell by your words.

I couldn't tell by any of this. And now all of a sudden, like,

you feel this weird urgency to like, try and give me Jesus over

dinner. Like, that's, yeah, that's weird

too. So, I mean, to some extent, like

to some extent you would, you would like to think or hope that

like the life we're living or how we interact with people.

Like it does make get even mildly obvious that like there

is something about this Christian life that sets us

apart and makes us look and interact differently.

And so if we are perfectly like the rest of the world, which I

have done a great job blending into, you know, which is

troubling sometimes, you know, like, yeah, then it then it does

feel weird and it does feel, feel out of left field.

It's kind of like, have you ever, have you ever had a person

that you've met but you don't really know them, but you've

seen them enough times that like you can't go up to them and be

like, what's your name again? Like like, like you've seen,

you've seen them enough, maybe even had enough conversations

with them that like, it would be so crushingly offensive for you

to be like, who are you? Matt, it's not fair for you to

ask me that because somebody's going to come up to me on a

Sunday and they're going to be like, so Pastor Chris, I've been

coming here for six months. What's my name?

Thanks a lot, Matt. Really appreciate that.

The pressure's on now. But I wonder if that's kind of

the point. Do you get to a point in a

relationship with friends or family where it's like, Oh, I

should have talked to you about Jesus a long time ago?

And now it's like, why didn't you care enough about this back

then to to talk to me about you're bringing it up so

urgently now or so importantly now.

You should have brought something years ago if you

actually believe. I think I think that could be

part of it too. We kind of maybe missed that

window and then it feels weird. The other thing I was I was

thinking of it brought back AI. Don't remember which speaker it

was at exponential, but on on the idea of of urgency.

And that's what I was so convicted by.

And I hope, I think it came out in the sermon yesterday.

I hope it did just how little Paul needed for his life.

He's that's he's going from city to city.

He's going from town to town preaching Jesus and building up

the believers there. And that's it.

And he's kind of he's kind of in a hurry to get, but he's so

convicted that the Spirit needs him to go to Jerusalem is

compelling him to go do it. Like he barely has time to stop

off and talk to these elders, but he knows that he's never

going to see him again. So he takes the time to do it.

And he has nothing else. He doesn't have family, he

doesn't have friends. He's just it like it makes me

feel like a terrible Christian because he's living a fully a

fulfilled life in this as the apostle Paul.

And that's it. He he's preaching the gospel and

building up churches and that's way more than enough for him to

be fulfilled. And he's doing it while I'm sure

the churches and the elders are grateful for it, but the rest of

the world is actively fighting against him for it.

And so that was convicting for me this week.

But also, I don't remember which speaker it was at Exponential,

but they used the phrase phrase God's not the one who's not in a

hurry. And, and I know and I know

that's a double negative. Yeah, that took me a second to

wrap my head because of that. Yeah, I get it.

Though, but I, I, I think we can, we talk about that in

church works of, of not being in a hurry.

Ivan, I opened with the words of Isaiah yesterday of, of, of

waiting on the Lord. I think sometimes we kid

ourselves that, oh, this, this feels like a really good idea.

I feel really compelled by this. But I'm going to wait and pray

about it. And maybe a month from now, like

if this, if this itch is still, if this, if I'm feeling

compelled, but if I'm feeling led by the Holy Spirit, we'll

answer into that. Maybe that was a thing for like

today for for like right now. And I think that's what the

speaker is getting at. God, God's not the one who's not

in a hurry. If we could reach and preach and

teach each person in the world about Jesus today, we probably

should do that. Right.

Like God would be good with that.

I don't. I don't think God's up there

saying, you know, that. Give him, give that neighbor 100

days from now. Sure, go get him.

Yeah. I think it's.

I think it's probably. That makes sense.

Maybe today. Maybe today go get him right?

So God, God's not the one who's not in a hurry.

And we somehow give ourselves this.

We feel like that. We know we're mortal.

We feel like we have forever. We feel like we have this time.

Until you don't feel that way and you know, you, you interact

with enough people and then, and then as soon as you realize, Oh

my gosh, I'm not bulletproof or whatever.

Like then in comes the, the hurried regret.

And that's, that's one of the more painful things I've seen

people go through quite honestly, like emotionally, you

know, just working with people and talking with people.

It's, you know, and then they look backwards and they say,

gosh, what, why was I so afraid? Why was I so worried?

Like it seems like it seems so small now to do or say that

thing or to give forgiveness. Like I feel like such an idiot,

you know, like what a coward I was.

And and so when we look backwards, you know, they always

say it's 2020 vision going back. But like those things happen and

that's real for a lot of people. And so, you know, not that

that's the reason to speak is because I don't want to have

regrets later. But like, those things are real

later on. And having watched a lot of

people go through that stuff, like, yeah, I would encourage in

any way, shape or form possible, even if you're a completely

selfish person in some ways and you're like, well, I don't want

to feel that because that's really bad.

Yeah. Well, maybe you need to lean

into that because it's it's going to happen if we're not

really honest and open about the thing that we believe in for

salvation. Yeah, because even in those

moments, if whatever someone close to you of a friend or

family member, if they have one of these mortality moments, I

said earlier, there's there's probably no perfect condition to

talk to them about Jesus. Their heart might be ready in

that moment, might be searching. Oh, it might have a brush with

death sort of mortality experience in their in their

life and I don't know, it still doesn't feel like the perfect

moment. Like even with that, even when

their heart is probably ready and searching for, Oh my

goodness, there has to be more than what I'm going through

right now. I don't know, that still doesn't

feel like the moment. I guess to to bring that to

them. I just, I just don't think there

is a perfect moment. There really is.

We imagine one like, Oh well, when they say this or when they

go through this, I'm definitely going to have the nerve to do it

then. If you don't have it now, you

may not have it then either. Don't don't fool yourself.

You know, So like I do think too amongst all this kind of

conversation, you know, and I and there was I've heard studies

of this the more you are and we. It feels like we're harping on

it, but the more you're in God's word, the more often, the the

deeper you are, the easier those conversations are because it's

just God's word just becomes a normal part of your vocabulary.

But how can God's word and how can you know his grace, his

mercy, all these things? How can that be a normal part of

your vocabulary if you're just taking in the word on a Sunday

two or three times a month or whatever, Like that's not going

to be a part of your normal vocabulary.

So, you know, again, same thing to the, to the extent and to the

degree and you know that we're actively in God's word

regularly. Those things are just going to

flow out pretty naturally. You know, and I, and I heard it

said once like, I don't know if it's totally true, but it's a

good saying. The things that change.

You are the people that you hang out with in the books you read,

you know, And so like, if, if I'm in God's Word, that's going

to change me, that's going to change my vocabulary, that's

going to change the things that I think about regularly.

It's going to change how I address certain situations and

on and on and on. And so again, as an

encouragement, if if you're listening to this and you've

ever shrank back, you know, just take a moment to examine like,

OK, in those moments where I shrank back was I was I really

invested in God's Word And not saying that that's the reason

why you may have shrank back, but I know for me it was part of

it. It was certainly part of it in

those moments I can think back to.

Yeah, and I just we've we spent a lot of time on it.

But Paul does speak harshly against it.

I think he says it couple different times. 2020 he says

again in 2027 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the

whole council of God. And then and then he warns verse

28. Pay careful attention to

yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has

made you overseers. Again, He's, he's speaking to a

group of leaders, group of elders here specifically.

But generally, I think it does apply to, to all of us, to to

Christians, to churchgoers. 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 cells will arise men speaking twisted

things to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore be alert remembering that for three years I did not

cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears.

Now he's he's using the same did not shrink back language for

disagreements happening in the church for false teaching

happening in the church. He didn't he didn't see it

happen. I was just like, whoa, let's,

let's see how this is going to play.

We'll talk about it at our meeting this weekend.

And then like a month from now, we'll see how it plays out and

if we have to take action. No, he was in this moment.

That doesn't line up with the word of God.

That needs to be squashed right now.

And yeah, it's going to be he says, he says he admonished them

with tears. He didn't enjoy it.

He didn't relish it. They were tough, hard

conversations, but it was family conversations, It was household

conversations for the church, and it had to be that way unless

the church body was going to get twisted and corrupted and

ultimately not be a church after God's heart, right?

Yeah. So, I mean, you know, he's so

right when he talks about, you know, fierce wolves will come in

among you. Like he doesn't say, hey, if you

don't do this and this, they're going to come.

He says, Nah, this, this is inevitable.

Like as soon as, as soon as the leaders even like, you know,

close their eyes for a minute, the wolves are coming in and

they're coming in with a false gospel.

They're coming in with something that is not Jesus.

It's going to be Jesus plus this or Jesus minus this and and it's

not going to be correct. And so, yeah, that's the other

part of like, you know, being bold in, in how we speak and

what we say and our willingness to just share what the Bible

says has truth capital T Truth is that if we don't, there is

going to be any number of people who come in and they're going to

be more than happy to boldly proclaim that which they see as

the going philosophy of the day that, oh, everybody should bend

towards this now because it. Yeah.

And so I mean, like the word has to say at center, but like we

also have to be bold in keeping it there no matter what that

looks like, even amongst conflict.

Right to stay vigilant in is the main thing, the main thing, and

I shared it a little bit in in the message yesterday.

Just reflection on our elder board meeting over the weekend

and thinking about mission, vision, vision and how we go

about doing things. What the culture of our church

does that does that reflect our house for the broken home for

the healed language? We started talking about more of

mission and vision, kind of the filter that we're doing things

are doing ministries are doing community outreaches.

Is it, does it grow us in knowing Jesus and making him

known to others? But part of the root of that

conversation, I said yesterday in the message, one of the first

things was that the elders asked, are we encouraging the

people that come to our church to be in the Word of God?

That has to be the first thing. That has to be the common

ground. If, if, if we want to have

healthy children's ministries, if we want to have healthy

marriages and families, if we want to have healthy believers,

are they in the Word of God and are we encouraging them?

Are the things we're doing as a church, as as ministries, as

outreaches, whatever it may be, is that encouraging the people

of this church to be in the Word of God?

I was immensely encouraged by that, that that's where their

focus is. Do we do that perfectly?

I don't think we do. I don't think we do it

perfectly. But for that to be what our

elders measure of success or legacy, I think that's right in

line with Paul here of that. That has to be Box 1, otherwise

what are we doing? Otherwise, what's the rest of

anything? It doesn't even mean anything if

that's not where we're starting in the Word of God.

I think it is possible to become, you know, and I'm not

saying that churches that have big cool buildings, I'm not

saying that they're doing anything wrong, but it is

entirely possible to be the coolest church on the block with

all the great kids stuff and awesome facilities and you've

got the best coffee in town and all these kinds of things.

And you know what? You're never actually giving

them any anything meaningful and you're not challenging people

either. You know, it's a challenge.

Somebody is to say, you know, have, I'm sorry, I know you.

I know I saw you on Sunday. But like, how is God moving the

rest of your week? And how do you know if you

weren't praying and you weren't in his word?

You know, because, and we talked about this maybe a couple months

ago, like we're not trying to make a cool club.

Like that's not the idea. The church is not the cool kids

club. And in fact, it is usually the

opposite when we're doing the right things, right?

So I, I just think like, yeah, centering everything on God's

word and, and just keeping us tight right there.

That's going to be the thing that whether you have 40 people

or whether you have 200 people, this is the thing that the

church is called to do. We are called to know Christ and

to make him known. Period.

Yeah, Yep. And that's that's what I hear in

this text too. It actually it comes from some

of his writings in Philippians where he where he Paul talks

about the the best thing, the greatest thing.

I think it's Philippians 4 that he talks about is OK considered

all loss for the sake of knowing Christ.

That's that's first and foremost his his life is second to

knowing Christ that the whatever, whatever that might

be, life, family, job, whatever it might be, is secondary pales

in comparison to knowing Christ. So it has to come from that.

And then if you know Christ and you truly know Christ well, then

you should, you should want to make him known.

If, if you truly know him right, then then the ones, especially

the ones closest to you, you should want to make sure that

they know him too. And I think so it's it's just it

was a really cool week for me to see this ministry of Paul and

what he wanted to leave this church in Ephesus with just

aligning with. We say sometimes that like

Scripture interprets Scripture and when we talk about parallel

passages and things, but just the consistency with which we

have, we have this theology. I brought up Christology and

ecclesiology things, the things that we believe about Christ and

things that we believe about church.

Just the consistency in that, in the theology that we have from

Paul in, in the New Testament, those those things just all

align and inform each other. By the way, not to just drag

this conversation to a weird place, but you just said the

word Christology. So let me share a fun fact with

you. My wife heard you say

Christology. Yesterday.

And she's like, is that a joke? Like, because I think at one

point the Gospel Schweitzer or whatever.

New podcast segment. Christology and I'm sure there's

a lot of that, but she thought like she missed it and she

thought you were going to be making some kind of joke about

like the things I say or how I do things.

And she's like, oh, the Christology of this because she

did not hear the T in that word. So like she said that I was

like, oh, I need to come up with some Christology here to just

like, yeah, we need there. There needs to be a segment or

something. Yeah.

So anyway, I thought you should know that.

You should know that she thought you said Chrisology.

That's awesome. Speaking of that, I feel like I

don't, I don't know if we just scared it out of you or what,

but back when we started the leftovers podcast back in the

revelation we brought up both of both of us have our ticks,

right, Like I, I'm, I'm, I'm on the emotional side.

You have that that pause and that the non.

Verbals. Yeah, I feel like you've cleaned

up the the like I don't. Do you think people miss it?

I no one's said that to me. No one's been like, when's Chris

going to start like, like I haven't, I haven't had anyone

come up to me and let me know what, when's Chris going to

bring those back. But.

Yeah, yeah. Oh.

So I don't know. If now I'm sad that it's not.

Been out and it just like it just like.

Now I'm sad that. Tracking you into the the.

The IT did, apparently. Oh boy, that would definitely be

in the in the Christology textbook.

I think that would be one of the things.

Well, you have to communicate through just noises, not actual

words. That's a part of Christology.

OK. Because you know that that kind

of communication is sometimes highly effective.

I've I've, I, I, I'm sure it is. I heard.

That next week, whole sermon, no words, just only emotion only

only non verbals. If anybody signs up to listen to

that, oh man, I don't know. That would be so bad.

Don't do that. That would be terrible to be

gone this Sunday. Don't.

Don't do that. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right.

You, you and you and Kristen and others are not here this

upcoming Sunday. Yeah, you're flying solo.

That'll be great. Not solo, there's.

No, there's so many people. Very capable band and

connections, people and nurseries cover.

Children's church covered. Yeah.

It's great. It takes a village, but I but I

was I did tell Lissa. Maybe I didn't share this with

you, but I will now. I did tell Lissa.

There are moments where like, you know, maybe I have a

squirrel moment and I say some stuff and then I see you

somewhere in the room and you've got, you're just like shaking

your head. And I'm like.

I do that it. Happens from time to time.

And so I will miss that you not being here.

I miss you on Sundays when you're not here because it's

like I have I have no, because other people like you guys in

the audience, some of you are so good at just like, and I brought

this up before the poker face thing, like I could say

something ridiculous and there's just no reaction, but Matt

reacts when I when I fly off the.

Handle. So like so then I know like

that's when I know like I better clean this up like all right,

tighten, tighten up, Chris. Yeah, someone else is going to

have to sit front row this week and keep you in line.

Either nods of approval or shake your head no and be like dude.

You got to stop condescending. What you doing, man?

Yeah. So I need somebody sitting in

the front row for that this week.

That's awesome. All right, Anything else from

this passage? I think I've said my piece on

the things that I think we missed or I just, yeah, just

didn't include in yesterday. This was just a remarkably

encouraging passage for me from Paul.

They have this tender moment. I just want to read it out

because we haven't covered it. We talked about it a little bit.

The end of chapter 20, verse 36 through 38.

When he said all 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 he they would not

see his face again. And they accompanied him to the

ship. Sails off there from Jerusalem.

So sweet moments, but not notice that it's not because it it's

not any sort of despair for him not being involved in the work

of the church anymore. It's it's genuinely they're sad

to not see his presence again. There's there's no sort of

what's that, What's that joke with a the, the pastor who's

just announced his resignation. The the the lady St. who's been

there forever comes comes out and he just consoles her and

says, oh, the the next one will be just as just as good as I

was, don't worry about that. And she said, but they just keep

getting worse, which is an insult to him.

And also, yeah, that he was worse than the guy that was

before him, but terrible. But that's, I'm just like,

that's not, and this isn't, we're not shrouding any sort of

announcement. We're not going anywhere.

There's there's no parallelism here between Paul's journey and

our journey. But even we have, we have a

couple pastor friends who have who've had to go through this

recently, even in the past year, saying goodbye to a dearly

beloved congregation, congregation that they've seen

growth and change and health in. But they're they're called on to

something else. They're called on to the next

thing to a new body, to a new place that I think at times are

broken, sinful human personhoods can get selfish and and church

has become about a person or pastor more than about Jesus and

and we don't see that here. I get that we're relational

beings. We like we try to have

relationship with as many of you as as we can.

We want to have that personal that we think that's just that's

encouraging. That's how to that's how iron

sharpens iron. That's how believers build each

other up is by knowing each other and doing life with them.

But we have a really good picture here of that's there's

not despair because they don't have Paul, and it's because it's

because of what he said a couple verses earlier of I commend you

to the Word of God and to the word of his grace, Commend you

to God and the word of his grace, which is able to build

you up and give you the inheritance.

That's what matters. I know that you're rooted in the

word of God. You as a people are rooted in

His grace. So you're good.

You're going to be OK. You're going to be.

OK. And I'm OK leaving you and you

should be OK with me going because you have these things.

Yep. And then all of this, as we, you

know, it feels weird to hear we're wrapping up because we're

not, We've still got several weeks left.

But you know, he's triggering what you might call the end game

now, you know, because the decision that he's making or the

decision that the spirit is moving him into, it's

triggering. The countdown is now on for

Paul. Yeah.

So we'll jump back into more of Acts when the last quarter here

of the book, 6-7 weeks left, I think.

Yeah. So we'll keep going with that

and finish out the the story of Paul in the early church in

Acts. But thanks for hanging out,

continuing the conversation with us here.

If you have comments or questions, drop them below the

show notes here in the podcast feed or on the Facebook page

comment section there. You're welcome to engage with us

either questions on this episode or this sermon or little Ice

Breakers you'd like us topics you'd like us to share our

wisdom about for for next week. So much wisdom.

Yeah, I feel like we covered the goodbye conversation really

well. I think we covered all our

bases, but maybe not. You can let us know how we

didn't. So yeah, until then, have a

blessed week, Church.