Our God Has the Power - Pastor Tom Loghry Rockland Community Church Download

In Acts 20:1-12, Paul leaves the Ephesians and travels back to visit many of the churches that he started. At the end of his time in Troas, he gathers with the Christians there and performs a miracle by the power of God.

Transcript:

The reading is from Acts chapter 20 verses seven through 12. On the first day of the week, we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting. Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead. Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him. Don't be alarmed, he said. He is alive! Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate. After talking until daylight, he left. The people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted.

Let us pray as we come before God's word. Dear Father, we pray that as we consider the testimony that you've given here in Acts 20, that you would use it to inspire our faith, our trust in you as our all powerful, awesome God. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. You may be seated.

We enjoyed some beautiful weather this week, didn't we? Yeah. Everyone liked that. Good to go. Yeah. Yeah, I know, right? I'd like to have that back. Another, another couple months. I, I want you to imagine that on one of those sunny days, you took an opportunity to go to a restaurant that offered some outside dining. The sun is shining, a light breeze is blowing, and the waiter asks if you want to sit inside or out, and you eagerly say outside among the tables. And there's some of these tables that have umbrellas and some that don't, do not. And you decide that you'd like to sit at a table that doesn't have an umbrella 'cause you just wanna soak up that sun. Now, I want you to imagine that after you've put in your order that the waiter comes out with your food and sets your plate before you, and that just as you're about to begin eating that delicious meal that's been prepared, a seagull flies overhead and poops in your meal. Your dinner is ruined. Who can make it right now?

It wasn't the fault of the waiter that the bird pooped in your meal, you chose the seat without the umbrella. And yet we can feel some sympathy for ourselves here. It's not entirely your fault, you couldn't have foreseen that this would happen. I mean, that's like some extreme misfortune right there. You paid for the meal that you have but it's been ruined. In one sense, it's not really the responsibility of the restaurant owner. He could expect that you would have to just order a new meal.

But of course that's not what we hope the owner would do. We are at the mercy of the owner. We, you can't prepare a new meal for yourself, nor can your waiter, but the owner, and let's suppose he's also the chef, can make you a new meal. He can make things right even when he's not beholden to do so. Even when the general rule, as far as it goes when you're going to a restaurant, is that you pay for every meal that you receive. He can make things right when you cannot, and so he prepares you a new dish because he has the power to do so.

Today's passage that we're looking at in acts gives us a fairly simple account that's easy to understand on its face, but I want us to take, I wanna take us deeper to contemplate the significance of the power that's revealed and to reckon whether or not we actually believe the power of God to perform the miraculous. So we turn to Acts 20, and we're first going to begin in verses one through six. Luke tells us, when the uproar had ended, in Ephesus, as you'll recall, Paul sent for the disciples and, after encouraging them, said goodbye and set out for Macedonia. He traveled through that area, speaking many words of encouragement to the people, and finally arrived in Greece, where he stayed three months. Because some Jews had plotted against him just as he was about to sail for Syria, he decided to go back through Macedonia. He was accompanied by Sopater son of Pyrrhus from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica Gaius from Derbe, Timothy also, and Tychicus and Trophimus from the province of Asia. These men went on ahead and waited for us at Troas. But we sailed from Philipi after the festival of Unleavened Bread, and five days later joined the others at Troas, where we stayed seven days.

So Paul is leaving Ephesus. He spent a little over two years there, and he's returning back to the churches that he previously established, so we can see the course that he's gonna take here. You have Ephesus here on the east coast of modern day Turkey. He's gonna go up and he's gonna go around and then he's gonna bounce back around and we're gonna ultimately end up in Troas there, you see that marked in red. And the reason why he goes over land on the way back is because he's again facing some persecution from some of the Jews that are living in Greece, who don't like the message that he's preaching.

Now, important to recall that, if, if you haven't been following with us, that Paul himself is a Jew. He's, he's as Jewish as they come. The reason why the Jews in Greece are opposing him is because he's saying that God is not only the God of the Jews, but he's in fact the God of all people and is inviting all people to himself in Jesus Christ without the stipulations of the Jewish law. He's preaching a message that we are saved by grace, not by our, not by our works. He's, he's faced opposition all the, all the way along. And here again, he faces some, some opposition. Now what what's really interesting is that his team that he has with him is drawn from all these areas, is from, from this general area here. And so you, you, you have a really great snapshot of the church in his own team as they're going back around ministering to these areas. Now as he's going, he's bringing words of encouragement to them, and it's a great reminder to us of the relationship that Paul has with the churches, and it's a great example to us of how we should think about our relationship with one another as we seek to grow in the faith together. It's not as though Paul just gives them a message, Hey, believe in Jesus, and then takes off and says, I'm never seeing you again, and we're not gonna worry about how you're gonna grow, you, you believed in the message and that's it. No, he's interested in them growing up into the fullness of Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has written a book, he was a German pastor who lived in the era of World War II and was ultimately executed by the Nazis. He wrote a little book called Life Together, which really contemplates the significance of the community of the church. And he says this, he says, Christians need other Christians who speak God's word to them. They need them again and again when they become uncertain and disheartened because, living by their own resources, they cannot help themselves without cheating themselves out of the truth. They need other Christians as bearers and proclaimers of the divine word of salvation. They need them solely for the sake of Jesus Christ. The Christ in one's own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of another Christian. The heart in one's heart is uncertain, the Word is sure. At the same time, this also clarifies that the goal of all Christian community is to encounter one another as bringers of this message of salvation.

And so as we think about what Paul is doing, he's, he's, he is creating kind of this gospel reaction again and again. That again and again the people are hearing the word of grace, the word of Christ. Apart from that, when we try to live the faith on our own, we can begin to kind of wither on the vine. We need the reminders of the truth that we each give to each other as we gather together as the body of Christ.

So Paul is traveling through here in the area of Macedonia and Greece, and he spends the Festival of Unleavened Bread in Philippi. Now this is, if you're not familiar with the feast, this is a feast that corresponds with the celebration of, of Passover, and so you have to imagine that they're also celebrating the resurrection of of Christ. That would mark, that would be a marker of that occasion. It also kind of places us in this time of year generally too. So it's interesting, we're reading this passage in, around the same ballpark as when a lot of these things are going on. And so after spending that, the festival in Philippi, he then goes on to Troas and Luke gives us an account of Paul's time there, which has already been read, but which I'll read again here in verses seven through 12. On the first day of the week, we came together to break...