Real Life Community Church Richmond, KY

Acts Part 40 | Finish Your Course | Acts 20:17-38

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Paul summons the elders from Ephesus to Miletus and delivers a final farewell address, reflecting on his ministry among them and preparing them for his departure. He reminds them that he served with humility, endurance through suffering, and faithful teaching, declaring repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ. Though warned by the Holy Spirit that imprisonment and hardship await him in Jerusalem, Paul declares that his life is of no value to himself compared to finishing the course and ministry he received from the Lord Jesus—to testify to the gospel of God’s grace.

Paul then charges the elders to watch over themselves and the church, which God purchased with Christ’s own blood. He warns them that false teachers will arise from both outside and within the church, and he urges vigilant, sacrificial shepherding grounded in the Word. Commending them to God and to the word of His grace, Paul affirms his integrity and selflessness. The passage ends with an emotional scene of prayer, tears, and affection, as the elders grieve knowing they will not see Paul again, highlighting the deep bonds of Christian love and shared mission.

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Back in Acts today, our study on the book of Acts. And so go to Acts chapter 20. We're going to pick up in verse 17. I'm not going to read it in the beginning. I'm going to uh read the text as we go throughout the message. So when you have it, say amen. With the turn of the new year, many people are setting goals and deciding what they want to accomplish and how they want to transform and who they want to be. And I'm all for that. One of my heroes, uh, talk about him a lot, Dr. Jordan Peterson, best-selling author, clinical clinician or psychologist. He says this quite frequently that the goal in life is to aim at the highest possible good. Like if you want meaning, if you want to live a fulfilled life, he says, aim towards the highest possible good. And he would even say that you have a moral obligation to do so because when you aim for the highest possible good, it doesn't just transform your life, but everyone around you. And he says, so you aim towards that highest possible good, and then you pursue that aim, that goal, with everything in you. And I quite like that. But the question I want to pose this morning is what should the aim, that highest aim of the believer, be? So I asked ChatGPT what some of the uh past and current theologians might say is the highest aim. And I know a lot about these theologians, and I think this is pretty good. Pretty soon you're not going to need me. You're going to have Chat GPT preaching to you. But here's what Chat GPT said. What would these theologians say is the highest aim of the believer? John Calvin might say the chief aim of a believer is to glorify God by living holy for him in grateful obedience, if he chooses you to do so. John Wesley, the chief aim of a believer is to love God with all the heart and to love the neighbor through a life made holy by grace. All right. Jonathan Edwards, the chief aim of a believer is to delight in and display the glory of God as the soul's highest good. John Piper, I know this is right. The chief aim of a believer is to glorify God by enjoying him forever. N. T. Wright, the chief aim of a believer is to live under the lordship of Jesus as part of God's renewed people for the life of the world. And finally, saving the best for last, uh, the late Tim Keller. The chief aim of a believer is to live out the gospel, loving God and neighbor with humility shaped by grace. I think those are all excellent answers. But today I want to point you to Acts chapter 20, in which I believe Paul gives his summation of the Christian's highest aim. And so I'm going to point you in just a moment to verses 22 through 24. I really want to hone in on verse 24. But here's what's happening in the text. Paul has completed his missionary work. He's on his third missionary journey, and he has completed his work throughout Europe and now throughout Asia Minor. Now, led by the Spirit, Paul begins to travel back to Jerusalem to the mother church. And it's not going to be easy. So as he's traveling, Paul ports in Miletus for a short time, the city that is about 30 miles south of Ephesus. And when he gets there, he summons. It's funny, he actually passes up Ephesus, goes to Miletus, and then he summons the elders from Ephesus, the pastors, the elders, the church leaders to come to him. So he wants to give, he wants to bid them farewell, and he wants to give them some final instructions because Paul spent three years in the city of Ephesus. He saw thousands of people come to the Lord, and he cares deeply for those people, and he's leading them in the hands of a plurality of elders, just like we have here: elder, pastor, overseer, uh, synonymous titles. So when a leader is going to give some last words, like if you're leaving, retiring from a company and you're talking to you know your former team, what you say is going to be really important. And so as Paul bids them farewell, he gives them some very important words, and he starts by recounting his own ministry with the aim of it being an example for these elders to emulate. So let's look at verses 22 and 23. Paul says to the elders, now behold, I'm going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit. That's the Holy Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. Wow. But I do listen to this. Here it is, but I do not account my life of any value, nor as precious to myself. If only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Paul's highest aim is to finish the course that Christ has laid out for him, or you might say, to finish the race. So let me give you a summation of that verse, and I think we have this on the screen. It'd be worth remembering, writing down. Here's the summation, I believe, of our highest aim as believers. The Christian life aims to glorify God by joyfully finishing the course Jesus sets, whatever the cost. Let me say it again. The Christian life aims to glorify God by joyfully finishing the course Jesus sets, whatever the cost. The course that Christ has given you. Why should you listen today? Well, to pursue this aim will give you the most meaningful, blessed life you could ever imagine. Not an easy life, but the most meaningful, full life you can imagine. And to not pursue that highest aim, it is the road to hell. And I don't just mean eternal hell, I'm talking hell on earth as well. It's to live an unfulfilled life. So I hope you'll listen today. Now, once you aim towards something or set a goal or objective, you've got to figure out, Bob, you know this, how to get there. You set a goal in business, you've got to make a plan. Does it just happen? No, it doesn't happen. You've got to you've got to come up with a strategic plan on how to reach some particular aim. For instance, you're on a health journey. You say, let's say one of your aims for 2026, and this is not a bad aim. You say, I want to be the healthiest, feel the best that I've ever felt in my life for the glory of God. Well, that's not just gonna happen. You're gonna have to set aside the Doritos and Oreos in 20,000 calorie star butt drinks. Come on, somebody. I'm preaching to somebody this morning because you stopped on the way here to get one. You're gonna have to decide. There you go. Confess your sins one to another, brother, and you may be healed. Listen, you got to decide uh how often do I want to work out and how do I want to increase my cardiovascular health and my muscle mass and so on and so forth. How much sleep am I going to get? My point is this you've got to have a plan. And if you are going to finish the course that Christ has set for you, you've got to have a plan. You've got to, in other words, let me say it like this: you've got to be intentional about it. You've got to think about it, you've got to pursue it every moment of your life. And so I'm going to point out from the text three qualities needed to finish your course. And here they are humility, obedience, and community. Number one, finishing your course requires humility. Let me point you to verses 18 and 19. So, Paul, um, it says that when the elders came to Paul, he said to them, You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time. From the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility, and with tears, and with trials that happened to me through the plot of the Jews, plots of the Jews. Think about what all Paul has accomplished in his Christian life. He is now finishing up his third missionary journey. He has planted churches all across Asia Minor and Europe. I mean, the gospel is reaching the ends of the earth in large part because of Paul's ministry. He has witnessed thousands of people, thousands upon thousands of people come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through his ministry and preaching. Paul has performed many miracles. He has drawn large crowds. Do you know today that that it is well, I I think it's inarguable that Paul, apart from Jesus, is the most influential Christian in all of Christian history. Is that fair to say? He wrote most of your New Testament. So a resume like that can make you pretty arrogant. Think about that. Like I I've been in ministry a long time, and I know preachers who've drawn big crowds and are and and are really, really gifted, and it often causes a big head instead of a big heart. I I've I've been in music ministry for many, many years, and I've seen uh singers who can, oh my goodness, uh, I mean, you could put them next to Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey, and I'll tell you this many of them have become divas on the worship team. Because a resume like Paul's can cause you to have the big head, but Paul is determined to stay humble. He's never too good for anybody. He doesn't isolate himself, he's just a servant of the Lord. That's how he sees himself. But there's another sense in which Paul is humble. Despite his success, Paul is quite aware of his past and current and future utter dependence on the grace of God. Paul recognizes anything that I have accomplished is by the grace of God. And 1 Corinthians 15, 9, talking about his apostolic office, he says, I am what I am by the grace of God. Why am I up here today? It's not because I'm a great speaker. Don't say amen to that. It's not because I'm the most trained theologian in Richmond. It's not because I'm God's gift to the world. It's because of grace that I'm up here today. In spite of my flaws, in spite of my own depravity, because I'm in Christ, Christ has called me and he has blessed me, and he has given me this position, not because of merit, but by grace. In 2 Corinthians 12, 9, Paul says, But he said to me, My, the Lord said to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. You know, Paul had this thorn in the flesh. We don't know exactly what it was, but it was given to keep him humble. Here's what the Lord said, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. How has Paul continued to serve the Lord and have ministry success through all that he has been through? One reason the grace of God. Dr. Busky, why did you make it 70 years in ministry? The grace of God. Why am I here in this church almost 12 years later? The grace of God. And one of the questions he asked was this what if I don't how how do I know I still love Jesus and want to follow Jesus in a year from now? I mean, this guy is head over his heels for Jesus right now, and his heart is this. I don't ever want this to go away. And that's a question worth asking. How do we persevere as the Bible calls us to? Let me tell you, it's by the grace of God. Any success you have, at work, in the church, whatever it is. I got my wife by the grace of God. Listen, whatever we do, it's owing to God's grace. Don't let your success and whatever it is God's called you to do give you a big head. And keep on depending on God's grace. Don't think whatever it is God's called you to do, don't think you can do it on your own. I don't care how experienced you are. Rely upon the grace as Paul did. So to finish your course, you've got to have humility. But secondly, finishing your course requires obedience. In other words, you might think, oh, the grace of God, man, that's what's going to help me. That's what's going to carry me. Well, that's true, but it doesn't mean you can sit back and twiddle your thumbs. Paul says it like this in 1 Corinthians 15, 9, and 10. For I am the least of the apostles unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God, but by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain. Now listen here to verse 10. On the contrary, I worked hardy harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God in me. Do you see the relationship here between grace and works? Paul says this. He says, Listen, I'm only successful. I'm only an apostle by God's grace. I'm the least of the apostles because of what I did to the church before being saved. But he said, I want you to know I've worked harder than any of them. And Paul saw perhaps more fruit than any other apostle come from his ministry. And he worked hard. He traveled relentlessly. And he stayed faithful. He's worked hard, but yet he says, Yet not I, but Christ in me. So we've got to let the God's grace say it like this God's grace in us produces the work that bears fruit. In obedience to God's call, to go where God calls us to go, to say what God tells us to say, and to do what God tells us to do is not always easy, is it? It's generally not easy. And so there, if we're going to obey the Lord, there are three requirements. Number one, obedience requires courage. In verses 19 through 21, Paul says, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews. He says, I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance towards God and of our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul started his journey. Jesus immediately after being saved, Jesus said, I want you to go to the Jews and to the Gentiles, and you're going to stand before kings. And I want you to preach me. I want you to preach the gospel. So Paul does it. But what happens from town to town? I mean, he is beaten, mocked, scorned, ridiculed, left for dead from city to city. Like it, that's the pattern. He goes, he loves people, he preaches the truth to people, but he's persecuted from city to city. Why? Because he's preaching a message that many people don't want to hear. Do you see what he says? He's calling people not just to accept Jesus Christ and ask him into your cute little heart. Sorry, that burns me up. He's calling them to repentance. Yes, receive Jesus Christ as your Savior. But to do that, you turn to Him as Lord, which means you turn from your old life. People don't like that. Following God's will takes courage. Secondly, obedience requires sensitivity to God's Spirit. Look at verses 22 and 23 again. Behold, I'm going to Jerusalem. What's he say? Constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except. Here's what the Holy Spirit reveals to him. That the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. That is wild. I'm going to Jerusalem because the Holy Spirit told me to. I don't know of anything that's going to happen except imprisonment and afflictions. Every believer has a what we might call a universal course in life that the Lord calls us to. In other words, we're called to stay true to Christ. We're called to obey Christ. We're called to persevere. We all share that, right? But then every Christian has a distinct course. The universal course, we don't have to pray about much. We don't have to have pray that the Holy Spirit would reveal it to us because it's in the Bible. You want to know how to live? You go to the God's Word. But your distinct course is not spelled out in the Bible. The unique course that God has for you, the purpose that He might have for your life. So I want to point you to verse 24 again. And Paul says, I do not account my life of any value or it's precious to myself, if only I might may finish my course. That's interesting. He's not saying this is something I've conjured up. It's God's course. But in other words, it's my course, elders. It's not your course. Listen this morning, God has a course for my life. It's to pastor this church. It's to serve you and walk with you. Most likely, that's not most of your courses to be a preacher. Some of you, your course is to be a missionary. I am convinced of this. And you just haven't listened to God yet. But we all have a distinct course. Well, how do you know? You've got to be sensitive to the leading of God's Spirit. Sometimes the Holy Spirit, we're going to talk more about this, God willing, next week. The Holy Spirit will speak through other people to give you a word. But even when that happens, you will have that word confirmed in your heart if you're sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Am I telling the truth, Christians? All right. So how do you sense the Spirit's leading? Like that's a question worth asking. Well, number one, you've got to ask. You've got to ask. Matthew 7:7. Jesus says, Ask and it'll be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you. You know, imagine if I one night on the way home from work picked up food from a restaurant, and I take it home, and Nikki, I opened the bag and put a dish before Nikki, and she goes, Well, that's not what I wanted. And I'll say, Well, I didn't know what she wanted. And her response would be, You didn't ask. You know, a lot of the times the reason that we don't hear God's Spirit, we don't sense his direction, is because we don't ask. Every day we're supposed to pray in the Lord's Prayer. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. How often are we asking, uh, you know, at the start of the day, Spirit lead me? Where my trust is without borders. Sorry. We ought to be seeking the will of God, but but we don't just have to ask, we've got to listen. So in the text, Paul says, again, I don't know what's going to happen. The Holy Spirit hasn't told me. He's just telling me to go to Jerusalem. That's the will of God for my life. But all I know is it's not going to be fun. Imprisonment and afflictions. Now, let's just put you in that situation. You're praying, God, tell me where to go. He says, Well, I want you to go to California. All right. And you go, Lord, I'm not so sure that I'm here for the Lord. I'm not so sure that's you. Well, Lord, what's in California? Well, Gavin Newsom's going to meet you when you get off the airplane. Is that his name? Newsom. Is that right? All right. And people there, they're going to hate you because of what you preach. And some of the things that I tell you to say, it's going to be considered hate speech, and you're going to get imprisoned. And the Lord tells you nothing good. Here's what you would do. Probably you would say, This cannot be God. You know what? Lord, I ask, but I won't keep on asking because you know? It's like a kid who, you know, you give them an answer. They ask you a question, can I do this, such and such? And they give you an answer, and you say no, but they keep on asking until they get the right answer, right? The answer that they want until you give in. So if the Holy Spirit calls us into something, matter of fact, let me just be really honest. When I came here, I felt God calling me to this church. This church, and I'm so grateful for the legacy that the founding pastor left. And there are many good things have happened here. But the church had split. Um, it had no money, it had very few people, most of whom did not like each other. When I walked in, the church smelled of bacon and cat pee. And uh it was a mess. And literally, when I got voted in that Sunday morning, my heart sank because I all I knew, and just one other note, I walked in, and the first thing I see is a Kenneth Copeland Believer's Voice of Victory Magazine in the foyer. I thought, dear God, they're gonna kill me. And they almost did. Uh, the pastor before me lasted what, Carol or Randy, nine, nine months, a year. Oh, there you are. About a year. He came to see me, and when he walked in the building, his face turned blood red. But you know what? The god the ones that God called stayed here, and you've been so faithful. And God's done a great thing in this church. But my point is this I didn't want to come. Matter of fact, uh, Winston, the pastor before me, met with them on Saturday, did the interview, and just called back and said, This isn't for me. So Winston just stood in the corner and wouldn't talk to me unless that happened again, right? Listen, I didn't want to be here. I thought, surely God can't be calling me to a place where the believer's voice of victory is in the foyer. And when a church is so hurt and broken. This is my first, I've been in ministry a long time, my first lead pastorate. The district called me and said, Pastor, I just want to warn you, don't change anything as soon as you get there. I thought, dear Lord, where am I going? So I wanted to plug my ears and say, This can't be God. But it was God, and I'm so grateful standing here today that I took the call of God. It's difficult. It was a bit all I knew was it's gonna be hard. And so here's what I would say to you. When you pray and ask the Spirit to lead you, we we have this misconception sometimes. We have this misconception that God is calling us into a comfortable life. That's the message we hear on from TV preachers a lot. He's calling us into perfect wealth and perfect health and you know, cupcakes and rainbows. Just put your feet up, you know. Well, you think Paul thought that? And so what happens this, and even, and I'm not just talking about the extremists, I'm talking in churches like this, we can begin to believe that because we have it so comfortable in America. And so when God calls us out and we know that it's going to be difficult, here's what happens: we often say that can't be God. Oh, yes, it can. You want to be sensitive to God's spirit, you've got to ask and you've got to obey. One final requirement of obedience, and this is the essence of the Christian life, and it is abandonment. So Paul has just heard from the Spirit go to Jerusalem. You're gonna be imprisoned. By the way, Paul ends up being arrested, going to Caesarea, spending time in prison there, going to Rome, and this is a few years, spending time in Rome in prison. Well, he will eventually be executed. That's what the Holy Spirit tells him. This is what's gonna happen. But here's Paul's reply verse 24. I do not account my life of any value, nor as precious to myself. If only I can finish my course and the ministry to which Jesus has called me. I do not account my life of any value, nor as precious to myself. That's the Christian life. See, a lot of people in America they want to tack Jesus on to their life. They're trying to reconcile serving the Lord and still pursuing the American dream. And oh, beloved, that's not how it works. If you're truly in Christ, He doesn't become part of your life, he is your life. And you abandon your hopes, your dreams, your aspirations to wholly and fully follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Not all of us, thank God, are willing to give up everything, but some of us are, and all of us must be willing. What if God calls you to some remote village in an unreached place in a third world country, and you've got to sell your home? What are you gonna do? You got you got to take your family in a place that's dangerous, that doesn't have modern medicine and all of that. What do you do? Do you say, Oh, Lord, I love you, but no, here's the key here in Paul's life. Paul treasures Jesus Christ so much that he counts everything else as garbage in comparison. That's the key. Not just to follow Christ, but to treasure him above all things, even your own life. Jesus said in John 12, 25, whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Say it like this you can't have your cake and eat it too. That's what many people in the church are trying to do. They're trying to say, come in and worship on Sundays, and not even every Sunday. Listen, most Christians won't even give God their Sundays if there's anything else on the calendar, much less their lives. I'm gonna stop right there. C.T. Studd was a uh British missionary. Before becoming a missionary, he was a famous English cricket star. Any cricket fans in here that recognize that name? Oh, Charlie. Oh, Charlie Brown. If you're new here, his name is truly Charlie Brown. But uh he was an English cricket star and he inherited a very, very large uh fortune. He was of celebrity status on the other side of the pond. He had wealth, was guaranteed a comfortable life. But God gave him a course. God put a call on his life. And stud gave away his entire inheritance, every bit of it, to follow God's call to be a missionary. He went first to China, then to India, and finally he ended up in later years in the deep jungles of the Congo. What did he get for this? Chronic illness, long separation from family, and he died eventually. Not he didn't retire, he died of absolute exhaustion. But here was his conviction if Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him. To finish your course requires obedience, requires which requires then courage, sensitivity to God's spirit, and ultimately abandonment of everything else you hold dear. Finally, finishing your course requires community. Let me say this again. The Christian life is not meant to be lived in isolation. In our culture, which is again very, very isolated, very, very individualistic. I don't need anybody else. That is that idea, that culture is crept into the church to where Christians feel like they can live their lives apart from Christian community. And that's about the stupidest and most dangerous position you can have. The devil goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. If you've ever, I've said this many times, but if you've ever watched the nature channel, the discovery channel, a lion is a ferocious beast, but also a very wise and patient beast. So it will stalk its prey and it will often wait for the isolated, the vulnerable, and the sick before it pounces. Oh, the devil loves it when you sit at home and watch online. Sorry, online people watching right now. The devil loves it when you just come into church and leave without forming relationships, without any accountability. He loves it. Because he wants to make shipwreck of your faith, and that's one sure way he can do it. There are two dynamics of Christian community that every believer must have present in their life if they're one to finish their course. This is it's the grace of God that helps you persevere, but God uses what we call ordinary means of grace to accomplish that. So Paul speaking to elders in verse 28, he's leaving the thousands of Christians in Ephesus under their care. And he says to these men, pay careful attention to yourself. So we got to look at ourselves first, right? And to all the flock. That's you, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Men don't call people to church, don't call pastors to a pulpit. God calls them by his spirit. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care. It's a pastor's job is to care for the church of God, which Christ obtained with his own blood. Beloved Jesus loves his church, he cares for it, and he is positioned pastor, shepherds, elders, overseers to lead and to care for the flock. It's interesting, Paul didn't have security guards that kept him separated from the people, like many pastors today. And uh he harps on mega churches, which I'm not against mega church, by the way. There's some really good ones, but um he calls this one church that does a prank call and calls this one church that you would know. I'm not gonna call it out. Actually, I like this this pastor very much. And he asks the secretary, the pastor is like extremely buff, right? So he asks the secretary, hey, um, do you know the pastor's workout routine? I'm wanting to buff up. And the secretary says, I have no idea. He says, Well, do you know the pastor? This is secretary. Do you know him? She said, I met him once, beloved. You don't just need a preacher in your life, you need a pastor, a shepherd. In this church, if you make this your church, our five pastors here, you will have our cell phone numbers. Please don't call me to pray for your cat, okay? Like use it while, but listen, one of my pet peeves is when one of you call me and you say, I'm sorry for bothering you, I'm here for you. And I love it when you call me and ask me questions about the Bible, or ask me to pray for you, or ask me to visit you in the hospital. It's the joy of my life to serve you. If you go to a large church, that's fine. But make sure they have multiple pastors on staff. You don't have to necessarily connect with the lead pastor, but make sure that you have a pastor who's speaking into your life, who's holding you accountable, who's shepherding you. You need a pastor who is accessible. Paul lived amongst the people. He didn't have this entourage around him while he left everybody else to themselves. No, he did life with the people. You need pastors who will be accessible, but secondly, you need pastors who will protect you. The psalmist said in the 23rd Psalm, you know this, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And a little bit further down, he says, His rod, you know this, and his staff, they comfort me. The shepherd had a rod and a staff. The rod was a heavier, shorter club, and it was used to beat off predators. Now I want you to listen to what Paul says again. He says in this um text, in the go with me to verse 29, he says, I know that after my departure, he's talking to the elders. He said, I want you to watch and care for the flock. He says, Fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. The devil doesn't want you to finish your course. Right? He wants to make shipwreck of your faith. And one of the primary ways he does it is through false teachers. There's a lady in our church who lives. I won't I won't say her name, but uh she just started coming to church, and immediately the Mormons come about every day knocking on her door. I said, ma'am, get me their card. I called them. I did. They didn't answer. I left a voicemail. I said, Hey, I'm the pastor of this lady's church. Leave her alone. Because I've got a rod and a staff, and I'm not afraid to use it. I was a little nicer than that. They've not come back, as far as I know. All right. I am jealous for the people God has put me shepherd over. I care for you. Oh, beloved, I care for you. You know, one of the most challenging obstacles in pastoring in this modern day is the internet and the myriad of resources available to you. Because we've got hungry people in this church who want to grow and want to hear preaching. And there are millions probably of sermons and books and podcasts available for. For you. And most of it is garbage. And there's a little bit of truth. There's always a little bit of truth, right, Dr. Busky? Always a little bit of truth to get you going. All right, they're using scripture, but it's taken way out of context. And the text taken out of context makes it a pretext, which means it's wrong. And it is meant to lead you astray. It happened to me early on in my Christian life through the TV preachers. I make no apologies. We are very strict about what we let our small group leaders teach. And I make zero apologies. Zero. Well, you just want to micromanage. No, I want to protect the flock like I'm called to. I make no apologies. I don't care if you're with our denomination. I don't care who you're with, who you are, how many accolades you have, if you don't preach truth, you're not standing behind this pulpit to be a preacher. I I listen, I micromanage what conferences we go to. Why? Because I've seen people led astray by the garbage that's spit out at some of these things. And I will tell you if I hear you watching something on YouTube, a particular pastor, I will gently, I won't condemn you, but I will say you might want to be careful because it can lead you astray. And you ought to want that in your life. You ought to want a pastor and pastors who care that much about you. So we need, I'm sorry I'm preaching so long, but Ernie's here. Uh he came from all the way from Mount Sterling, he and Sheila, and he requires that I preach at least 45 minutes, or he wants his money back. So uh preaching 41 minutes and 45 seconds. Is that what I'm at? All right. You time it, don't you? I preached like what, 30 minutes one time. He drove all the way here. He said, I didn't get my money's worth. And he hadn't been back. This is the first time in like months, so I learned my lesson. Anyways, you need community, and partly that means you need a pastor, but here's the other thing you need: you need brotherly love. You need brotherly love. I want you. This is one of the most beautiful scenes in all the book of Acts. Look at verse 36. And when Paul has said these things, he knelt down and he prayed with them. Prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all. You just sense the love. They embraced Paul and they kissed him, being sorrowful most of all, because of the word he had spoken. That they would not see his face again. Paul says, This is it. And they accompanied him to the ship. When my kids were young, I did one of the worst things you can do to your family, and that is, Shirley, I took your grandkids away from you and took them all the way to the other side of the country to follow God's call to Tucson. And we were talking about this the other way, and I don't think Wally would care me saying this, but I remember when he would come visit my father-in-law and mother-in-law. Um, he would ride, you know, my I would take them back to the airport, and Wally, who is a man's man, would literally sob before he had to say goodbye because he knew it would be months before he saw his little grandkids again. And uh that's what's happening here because there is a special connection amongst the people of God that is inexplainable. That you this becomes your family. It doesn't replace your blood relatives. This becomes your family. It's interesting, you can go to another place, you can go to another country and even meet other Christians whom you don't even share the same language with, and you will feel this wonderful connection with them, like you've known them your entire life. It's a beautiful thing. Now we are called to love everybody, yes? This was a discussion in youth a few weeks ago. We're called to love everybody. Jesus said in Sermon on the Mount, love your enemies. The word love there is the word agape, and it's the most sacrificial, self-giving type of love. It's the love in which Jesus loved us at Calvary, right? So we're to love everybody with that. That means that when you serve, you're doing this on Tuesday nights, you're loving the homeless population with agape love. You don't know them from Adam, but you are serving them and you are loving them and you are giving up your evening. You're having compassion upon them. That's agape love. And we ought to have agape love in the church. But there is a special love. There's a special love in the church, and it's another Greek word. It's the word in which we get Philadelphia, brotherly love. There's one verse in Hebrews that says, love one another, talking about within the church with brotherly affection. So there while we love everybody, there is a unique love that only happens, it's a reciprocal love that only happens by the Holy Spirit. When you come into the family of, when you come to Christ, you are come being born into a new family. We've named this church real life community church very intentionally. And I will tell you this: we've got our flaws, but you will never, you would be hard pressed to find a more loving church. Can I get a witness than these people? And you say, Well, I don't feel that. Well, there's only one reason. Either you're weird, no, I'm just joking. Um the the reason is this you're not trying to get involved. Because I promise you, our leadership team and our people, they have open arms. The mantra here is not us four no more. We've got people here who've been there a few weeks and they're already serving and helping, and it's amazing. You need that if you're gonna finish your course. I uh several years ago, Ernie, you're getting more than your money's worth. Several years ago, I uh decided as part of my fitness journey, I was gonna start riding bicycles again, road bikes. So I went. anybody remember around the corner on third and main, there was Mike's hiking bike, and so bought me a beautiful Bianchi bike, and I was pumped. And so I started riding, and and Mike, the owner there, he said, Chris, he said, we'd love you to join us. He said, There's a group of us that ride every Tuesday and Thursday, and we ride about 30 miles around Richmond. And I thought, well, I rode bikes everywhere as a kid. This is I can do this. Oh my goodness. Richmond's not flat. I don't know if you notice. Like, so I remember this one particular ride. This one particular ride. I was um really struggling this day. Well, most rides I was struggling, but particularly this day. And um I was slowing down the group. Uh guys, I'm sorry you can leave me. They wouldn't leave me. Thought I was gonna have to humble myself and call my wife to come pick me up, which I had to do when I was riding by myself once. Um, they said, We're not leaving you. So Mike stayed behind while the group went on. I said, I don't think I can make it. It's probably 25 miles in. I said, and we had gone up one of the most treacherous hills. My legs were burning, my lungs were out of air. I felt like I was gonna black out. He said, You can do it. You can do it. So we started making our ascent up one more hill, which would be the final difficult hill. And I was pedaling, I was in the the the easiest gear to pedal, my legs burning. I had I was I had my eyes closed, just trying to, I mean, just make it to the top. I was about to give up, and all of a sudden I felt it get really easy. Matter of fact, I could start pedaling and I was moving, stop pedaling, and I was moving. And I look over, I feel something on my back, and Mike, this professional rider. But he had his hand on my back, and he was pedaling his heart out beside me, and he was pushing me along, saying, You can do it. I'm gonna help you. And I made it all the way back to the shop, and then I almost died. That's what the church is for. Because Ron, there's gonna be a day, as spiritually stout as you are, that you're gonna need somebody. There's gonna come a day when somebody needs you. I'm so grateful. The last 11 years in this church, not perfect, but I've been through some tough things. One season in particular that I wanted to give up, but I had so many of you around me going, We're here to help you. Finish your course, set your aim on the course. At the very end of Paul's life, he's writing as he's imprisoned, he's writing to his apprentice Timothy, and in chapter four, he says these words as he looks, he considers his current state. He says, I fought the good fight, I finished my course, and I've kept the faith. If those could be the words on your epitaph on your tombstone someday, you've succeeded. If one day charity, hopefully way into the future, your tombstone says, Charity Price finished her course. Tony, if your tombstone way in the future can say he finished his course, you have succeeded in life. And you will hear those words when you stand before the Lord Jesus Christ, but well done, good and faithful servant. By God's grace, may you finish the course He's laid for you.