Love Your Faith Family Series

Life Lessons From The Chief of Sinners

Love Your Faith Family

Acts 20:17-38

Introduction

The amazing transformation of Saul the Persecutor to Paul the Apostle has so much to teach us about following Jesus. The Chief of Sinners teaches us:

-Discern the hope found in Jesus

-Accept the Truth when you hear it

-Partner up to find encouragement

-Open your Heart to Jesus

-Decide Now to follow Jesus

-Love Your Faith Family

If Paul was obsessive about teaching the gospel of Christ, he was just as devoted to encouraging the church to love one another. He promoted unity, strength, relationships in the church. There were many pressures against this hope: Family loyalties could get in the way. Empire pressures of loyalty and threats. Personal questions about the new faith they had. Periods of persecution against the Jesus people. Prejudices between Jews and Gentiles. Everything that could drive them apart was present in this age. Paul was determined to draw them all together as one body. That was what the church was supposed to be. He desired this love to exist because he loved the church. He was rescued from his own destructive path into the arms of Jesus - and the Jesus people. It was never lost on Paul how vital relationships were with the Christian people he encountered. He had a tender heart for the people of God and through his loving conversation with the elders of the Ephesian church, he teaches

us today 5 Ways To Love Your Faith Family.

1. Stand Together!

Acts 20:18-19 And when they came to him, 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 plots of the Jews...

Paul relates his presence among them with descriptive terms: Serving the Lord with Humility; With Tears and With Trials; When it was hard to do, he stood together with them. Humility, Tears, Trials - a description of the Christian journey. Philippians 2:3 "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves." There are challenges that we will all face - from within and from without - but Paul calls us by his example to stand together as the people of God. We love our Faith Family by Standing Together!

2. Share Together!

Acts 20:20-21how 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 toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul taught them what they needed to know to live Jesus Life. Taught them what was profitable; in public and in houses. Subject: Repentance and Faith. Christians work together to bring the light of the gospel to a dark world by proclaiming Repentance and Faith. Repentance is turning away from sin - sin that has caused so much misery and pain in our lives. Faith in the Lord Jesus is trusting God to save us and help us grow. All of our efforts should point people in this direction.

3. Stay Together!

Acts 20:22-24 And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.

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 was facing an uncertain future, but he knew that imprisonment and afflictions await. If we ever expect our commitment to Christ to be easy, we are not reading the Word. Finish the race; Testify to grace! (24) Every saved person has a testimony of the good news of God’s grace. It is our mission to share that with our world in every way that we can.

2 Timothy 4:7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

4. Serve Together!

Acts 20:25-31And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the 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 selves 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 every one with tears.