It’s time for my final words to you. What do I say? They say before they demand execution, “Do you have any final words?” It doesn’t quite feel like an execution, but I still have to kind of pick my final words. I’ve actually chosen to spend four Sundays working through with you part of Acts chapter 20, and to make my final words to you the unfolding of those words.
They are the Apostle Paul’s speech to the Christian church in Ephesus as he says goodbye, and they’re recorded for us in the book of Acts because these are the things that Paul wanted to say to any and every church, to send it off in the right direction.
Now, the previous talks working through Acts 20—the other three talks that we’ve had so far—they’re all available on our YouTube channel, embedded in the various Sunday services over the past three weeks. So if you weren’t here, I do encourage you to catch up on those, because they’re very important words for us to be thinking about.
Let me offer you a brief reminder. Paul reminded them of his time spent with them in Ephesus, his priorities while he was with them. Paul reminded them that the church belongs to God—it was purchased with the blood of God’s own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ—and therefore human church leaders are appointed by God the Holy Spirit to care for the church, to guard it and to protect it, and they will be held accountable to God for what they did.
Paul reminded them that false teachers would come into the church—indeed, would include some of the very people he’s talking to, the church leaders in Ephesus, that Paul himself picked by hand. Some of them will become false teachers, distorting the truth to draw away people to follow them rather than the real Jesus.
Now it’s time for Paul to finish his speech and to say goodbye. And before they kneel down on the Mediterranean sand on the Turkish coast, what is the last thing that Paul wants to say? What is the final note on which he wishes to finish?
And he finishes by talking about God’s grace—God’s kindness, God’s goodness, God’s generosity. And so that is what I would like to talk to you about this morning.
Paul has two things to say to the Ephesian church about God’s grace.
1. Trust God’s word of grace
Verse 32: Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace.
As Paul hands over responsibility for the Ephesian church, note to whom he hands it. He does not hand the church over to his successor. It does not say, “Now I commit you to Timothy,” “Now I commit you to Silas.” I do not commit and entrust you to your churchwardens—excellent though they are. I do not commit and entrust you to the next vicar of Kemsing—good though I pray they will be. I do what Paul did and entrust you to God. Now I commit you to God.
It’s God that they need. It’s God who will look after them. It’s God who will lead them. Specifically, what they need is God’s grace. The grace of God is at the heart of the Christian message.
If we are honest with ourselves, we all know that we are sinful, that we fall short of the glory of God, that we do not treat God as he deserves. Now, because God is infinitely good and just, he must punish all rebellion, all evil—everything that is bad must be punished. Which leaves us in a very dangerous position, because it means there is a date in our calendar that we are hurtling towards and cannot stop, when we will meet the risen Lord Jesus and face justice for all the wrong things that we’ve done. And the just punishment for the sin of failing to treat God as God is to spend an eternity suffering his anger and displeasure.
That is an extremely bad place to be. But Jesus came. And Jesus died on the cross. He took on his own back the penalty for all the things that all of his people have ever done that is wrong. That’s why he died in such agony. And then he rose from the dead so that he’s alive today—for us to trust him, to believe in him, and to follow him so that we can receive from him the blessings that he purchased as he died.
Which means that it’s possible for God to give us blessings that we don’t deserve and could never earn. It’s possible for us to be forgiven for everything we’ve ever done wrong. It’s possible for us to be adopted into God’s family. It’s possible to be promised a wonderful future on this earth when Jesus returns and all pain and death and suffering is gone, and we can live with God and each other forever.
All of those things are now possible because of what Jesus has done. They are completely free of charge for us. As we just heard in that hymn: “Without money, without money, come to Jesus Christ and buy.” It’s free for us because it was paid for at great cost by the Lord Jesus as he died on the cross.
What we need is God and his grace. Even more specifically, what we need is the word of his grace. Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace.
You see, Paul may be leaving Ephesus, but they still have God’s word.
Now, if I write something down, the moment I’ve written it, the words on the page become lifeless. They reflect what was going on in my head at the time I wrote it. They are what I want to communicate, but once they have left my pen or keyboard and they’re on a bit of paper or on a computer screen, from that moment on, the words are detached from me. They are just words.
But with God, it’s different. When God speaks, what he said, he still says. God’s word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. And you cannot separate God from his word either. You can’t say, “I love God, but I hate God’s word.” Some people do try and say that. It makes no sense at all. No—God and his word come together. And the Ephesians need God and the word of his grace—both of them together—to sustain them.
And if they hold on to God and the word of his grace, great things will follow. Three great things will follow in verse 32.
1a. They will be built up
The first is that they will be built up. Now I commit you to God and the word of his grace, which can build you up.
I often say, when I teach about the church—do I not?—I hope you’ve heard me say this lots of times: the church is not a building. It is the people. This thing that we call the church is a rain shelter. We are the church that meet inside the rain shelter, which gets called a church by association.
However, having said that, let me be in danger of undoing it by saying that Paul often compares the church—the people—to a building. The foundation is the Lord Jesus Christ, and on that foundation a solid structure is to be built as we become strong and big and mature and stable. And the word of his grace will build them up.
1b. It will give them an inheritance
Not only that, it will give them an inheritance. Which can build you up and give you an inheritance.
Maybe you’ve had someone related to you—or a friend—who has died, and they’ve chosen to leave to you some of their possessions. Perhaps it’s something of very small monetary value but of great sentimental value, that to you is exactly the right thing to have been given. Maybe they left you their entire house and half of Cumbria. Or maybe something in between.
Maybe you’ve never had that experience of that happen to you, but we’re familiar with the idea.
God has a people that he loves, and he has an amazing set of blessings that he wants to give to his people as an inheritance. If you respond to God’s grace as set out in his word, you get to be amongst those who are named on God’s will. Become a Christian, respond to God according to his grace, and he will, at that instant, amend his will to write you into it. Which means that when all those blessings come to all the people God loves, you are numbered amongst the people he loves, and those blessings come to you.
An inheritance. Build them up. An inheritance.
1c. It will sanctify them
And number three: sanctified. Which can give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
Sanctified—it’s one of those posh religious words that lots of people have no idea what it means. So I’ll tell you what it means, because it’s really easy. It’s not hard. It just means set apart—set apart from ordinary use for something really quite special.
So maybe at home you have some things that are set apart from ordinary use. Maybe you have some towels that you don’t use every day—you just get those ones out when you have guests, because the towels you use every day get all scratchy and horrible and old. But if you have guests, you give them the nice ones.
Maybe you have a special set of china or dinnerware that you don’t use every day—you don’t eat your Weetabix off it before you take the kids to school, or after you get back from taking the kids to school. But when you have people round for a nice meal and you want to make it really special, out comes the really nice stuff.
Set apart from daily use—everyday use—to be something special. And in this case, it’s set apart from being ordinary, everyday people to being God’s chosen, special people.
Sanctified—that’s what it means.
And all of this comes free, by God’s grace.
So, we, as individual Christians—we, the churches of Kemsing and Woodlands—need to trust, hold on to God's word, which is all about grace. So, that's Paul's first message for them about grace: trust God's word of grace.
2. Obey Jesus’ word on generosity
Here's the second: obey Jesus' word on generosity. Obey Jesus' word on generosity. The ancient world was full of people who saw religion as a way to get rich—actually, not just the ancient world. I've mentioned before a conversation I had with a wedding photographer after a wedding, in which he was telling me how certain churches charge extra for particular views in photographs, or for a video, or something like that. And I said, "Well, we're just not interested in people's money." He just laughed at me. He thought I was just, you know, some dodgy car salesman trying it on. I said, "Really, we are not interested in people's money." He said, "Come on, get real—of course you are." See, the world, even today, is one of people who see religion as a way to get rich.
Back then, you had Christian preachers who would travel from town to town and charge a fee for the privilege of being in their audience. Or in Ephesus—there was a thing in ancient Ephesus where there was a legend that a statue of the goddess Artemis had fallen from heaven and landed in the city somewhere. It was probably a bit of meteorite. But because of that legend, what happened was all the silversmiths of Ephesus got really good at making little miniature silver copies of this alleged heavenly statue, that they could then sell for a substantial profit to the town city's residents and to tourists. They made a huge tourist trade selling these silver statues—until Paul turns up and starts preaching about Jesus. People start following Jesus and not Artemis, at which point no one wants to buy the statues, and the town's economy collapses. And there's a massive riot that Paul has to deal with, because they're all deeply upset—they've lost their way of making money.
The ancient world was full of people who saw religion as a way to make money. And Paul wants to point to his example as a complete contrast to that. Verse 33: "I have not coveted anyone's silver or gold or clothing." He didn't fancy anybody else's wealth. So, verse 34: "You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions."
Paul worked two jobs. He worked, as we heard a few weeks ago, night and day—every day teaching about Jesus, both in public lectures and then after hours, one to one in people's homes. But into that busy schedule, he also fitted a full-time job. He was a manual labourer. He worked with his hands and worked full-time to make sure that he had the means to support himself and his travelling colleagues, without having to depend on anybody else to sustain them.
And this is all a matter of public record. He says, "You yourselves know..." It is well known that this is how Paul lived. It's a matter of his integrity that he did so. But it's not just his integrity—it's also a deliberate example that he set. Verse 35: "In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work, we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’"
Now, people comb the four Gospels, trying to find where that quotation comes from. You won't find it. There's nothing in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John that has Jesus say exactly that. But that's not a problem, is it? Because Jesus said lots of things that didn't make it into the final cut of our four Gospels. But Jesus did say a lot of things that are very like that—including in the reading that we had from Luke's Gospel.
Paul wants them to follow his example and to follow the teaching of Jesus. He wants them to be people who give more than they receive, who contribute more than they take out, who are net givers.
Now, you might think this is an odd note for Paul to end his speech. He's got some really important things to leave the Ephesian church with, and his final push is all about giving. That's a bit odd. It's in danger of reinforcing the idea that the church wants people's money.
Well, here are three reasons why this is exactly the right note for Paul to end on.
The first is that he's still talking about grace. Generosity is a close cousin of grace. If you live by the grace of God, it transforms you into somebody who is generous. So, how does God make us generous? He doesn't scream at us, "You must give more money!" He doesn't stand in your path so you can't get down the stairs to Oxford Circus tube station without brushing past a money box. No—the way God makes you generous is, he gives you the most amazing grace and kindness, all for free. He treats you with generosity the like of which you've never seen—until you just can't help becoming a bit like that yourself. So, it's still all about grace.
The second reason why this fits here like a glove is, he's talking to church leaders. Now, I said two weeks ago that church leaders are supposed to guard and protect the church from two specific dangers. The first danger we talked about last week: the danger of false teaching. Here's the second danger, which is the danger of greed. So many people in church leadership have their ministries totally derailed because of their love of money—because of their greed. There are stories in the media about one every other month at the moment, of a leader of a large and well-known church who has completely collapsed because they have abused the position of power with which they were trusted.
We need leaders who are motivated by the desire to serve and to give.
And then the third reason why this fits here perfectly is that Paul wants churches that are like this too. So, just about every healthy church lives right on the edge of its finances. Okay, this worries the PCC when they, at the start of the year, have the budget for the next year proposed and it's a deficit budget. Okay, that is normal for a healthy church. That is healthy. If, the minute you say, "We could afford this, so let's shave five percent off and just play safe," that's the minute the church stops growing and pushing forwards and trying to reach new people. Okay, you want a deficit budget. You want to close at the end of the year, but you want a deficit budget.
But because churches live on the edge of their finances like that, there's this permanent kind of nagging thought at the back of your head: how are we going to balance the books? And it's so easy for that nagging thought to turn into something that shifts the church's culture away from being marked by generosity and into something that is trying to make sure enough comes in.
So, if we are a church marked by God's grace, we need to keep asking: what other ministries are there that we could be the ones to support? What could we give away? How can we get back to the point where our mission partners in South Africa, Dick and Caroline Seed, receive from us a committed, planned, disciplined, meaningful level of support towards their financial upkeep? What needs are there that we could be meeting?
Conclusion: Final words
So, like Paul, I want to leave you this morning with God's grace—three take-home things for each of you.
The first: make sure you have experienced God's grace for yourself. Do you—you personally—know and follow the Lord Jesus? If you don't, do so. If you do, enjoy it—because from him comes the goodness and the kindness of God that is meant to be just enjoyed. It was bought for you at great cost—the blood of the Lord Jesus himself.
Second thing for you: trust and entrust yourselves to God and the word of his grace. So, the Bible is God's word. God is a God of grace. The Bible is all about grace. You can't separate these things. So, really commit yourself to living out and sticking with the word of his grace, because this is what will build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
And third: be like Jesus. Be generous. Be full of grace. Be more keen to give than to receive. Be like that as individual Christians. Be like that as a church collectively, as you choose new leaders—both a new vicar, but also appointing one another to positions of leadership at various ministries within the church. Choose people who are marked by their generosity, their spirit of giving.
Be like Jesus—because Jesus is all about grace. He comes to give the goodness of God to poor and needy sinners, and he wants you to receive that from him, to enjoy that, and then to become like that yourself in the way that you relate to others.