Acts 20:26-27
Intro: Blood matters. Had we never been told this, there would still be a sense of it.
I remember watching my son around age 2, when he would get a scrape. The pain wouldn’t be such a problem. He would be mostly fine, until he’d look down at the cut knee or finger and see his blood seeping out. Then, the sense of foreboding would come over him! He was bleeding! Blood doesn’t belong on the outside!
Then, we learn about blood. We learn that it can transfer viruses, like HIV, and we have to handle blood with special caution. We learn that we don’t cure fevers by draining the blood out of a sick person.
We learn that our bodies depend on blood. In fact, about 1 of every 7 people entering the hospital needs blood.
Blood matters. Lev 17:11 God said it matters because life is in the blood. When we talk about requiring someone’s blood, we’re talking about life. When we see pictures of the aftermath of some terrorist’s car bomb, the pools of blood on the street are sobering, because those pools were someone’s life.
Blood matters – from the very first animal death to make clothing for Adam and Eve
To the blood of Righteous Abel
To the 1st sacrifice that was made after Noah left the ark
To the blood requirement God said would be made for anyone who sheds man’s blood
To the blood of a lamb that the Lord Himself provided to Abraham on Mt. Moriah
To all of the sacrifices of the OT, rivers of blood around the altar from hundreds of thousands of animals
To the sacrifice of a pair of doves or 2 young pigeons at the temple when Jesus was an infant
To the Passover lambs, slain over the centuries all over Israel right on through to the Lamb of God, Christ, our Passover as He was beaten, crucified, and pierced. Blood matters.
Since it was first spilled, blood on the outside has meant 2 things: guilt and death.
Misplaced blood means life is lost.
Remember Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth? Act 5, scene 1, Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking, musing over her guilt in the murder of King Duncan. She envisions a stain of blood that can’t be washed off her hands. She calls it a “damn’d spot!” It’s true. Let’s call guilt what it is: eternity in Hell. Life, lost.
I’m speaking 1st to men. Men, we should lead. God has called us to be leaders in our homes, His Church, and in our communities. I’m also speaking to manly men who have driven to MI, who are sleeping outdoors, and some who have been doing this for years. So, I’m speaking to people on the frontlines when it comes to building up this thing which is the House of God, the Pillar and Foundation of the Truth – a situation very similar to the text of Acts 20.
It is a tender scene. Paul has spent 3 years in Ephesus – longer than any place where he preached. He has invested himself into the lives of the Ephesians. Now, passing through on his way to what seems to be the end of his race, he arranges a rendezvous with elders/pastors/overseers of Ephesus; the Leaders. There will never be another gathering of these same men on again on earth. Last words, for Leaders. Recorded by Luke, it takes just 2 ½ min. to read.
Acts 20:26-27 (HCSB)
Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of everyone’s blood, for I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole plan of God. Paul wanted this remembered – the fact that his hands were clean.
These 2 verses leave us asking and answering an important question: How can we, leaders of the Church, assure that we don’t have innocent blood on our hands?
The big answer: Don’t shrink back from declaring the whole counsel, the purpose, the plan, the will of God. So, I want to exhort us to follow Paul’s example and not shrink back. It’s what you do with a sail when you don’t want the wind to catch it.
I. Don’t Shrink Back From Leading
The Church of this generation needs leaders, and the lost of this generation need for the Church to be well-led.
Think about it…Paul purposely skipped passing through Ephesus because he was in a hurry, but he still made it a point to speak to the leaders. They were the key to the health of the whole church. He understood that the Church would be at her best only when her leaders were at their best.
This is you, men. Sorry if you don’t like that, but it happened when you were conceived and given male chromosomes, and you confirmed it by coming up here to sleep in the woods! And if you haven’t gotten what that’s about yet, read a book by John Eldredge or something!
There is a leadership vacuum crying to be filled. The reminders of it are all around us:
• In the last 20 years the number of missionaries overseas has dropped by over 40%.
• The role of women continues to be a hot and confusing issue – I think mostly because they’re tired of waiting around on men to do their part.
• So-called Christian colleges all across the country have leaders and professors who openly deny the details of creation as we find them in Genesis 1-2.
Why a leadership vacuum? Well, because leading is not fun. It’s not glamorous. It’s not full of appreciation, so many who should be leading are abdicating.
Ill – I was discussing getting a license to carry a handgun with a friend of mine who’s a police chief. After all, packing a piece carries with it a certain security. But there are some costs. Besides having to pay for and take the certification course, if you’re carrying a gun, you have to take care of it. There are certain places where you can’t have a gun on you, so you have to leave it in your car. You have to wear clothing that will adequately conceal it. You’re also taking on the potential of killing someone, no matter how guilty or not he or she may be. I’m not sure I want all that hassle. But wait! What if only evil people carried guns? I’m glad for good people who do carry them. That’s a leadership thing.
Leadership has its perks. Can’t think of any right now. Leadership also has its prices. The leader is the one who puts on the T-shirt that says, “It’s my fault.” It’s true. So, we’re tempted to shrink back from leading.
“I’m not enough” you say. Great! You just passed the entrance exam.
“What if I try and fail?” you say. What if? You mean “what when?” “What if you don’t try at all?”
“Someone else will do it.” That’s true. Someone else will lead. Are you sure God wants that? There are all kinds of people in leadership positions that shouldn’t be there. Have you heard of Congress?
The temptation to shrink back from leading is a temptation from the very pits of hell. When we help someone to start a relationship with Jesus, we say we have [led] that person to the Lord. I’m sure Satan wants us to shrink back from leading.
Paul wanted it called to mind that the Lord wants us to be leaders. I’m so grateful for those who answered the call in the past. History’s stories are built around those who led. That has always been true in the church and outside. Tomorrow’s history will be the same way.
How can you assure there’s no blood on your hands?
Ill – a man lies bleeding to death. What if you try to stop the bleeding but can’t? What if he has other injuries too? What if he gets an infection later? Can’t say for sure. Make your choice, because if you don’t step in and try, you can be sure he’ll die. “Oh, someone else will step in.” Really? Look around you. Who? Don’t shrink back from leading.
II. Don’t Shrink Back From Declaring The Message
We’ll be tempted not to say all that needs to be said.
Just think of all the trouble Paul could have avoided if he had just learned to keep quiet. He could have redone his list in II Co 11:23-27. Maybe it could have read, “I’ve not worked too hard, haven’t been in prison much, haven’t been flogged, was almost scared to death one time. One time I upset the Jews, but we got it straightened out. Three times I was beaten…to a punch line by some rude people in a crowd. One time, I was cut short because the guy who spoke before me used too much time. Three days I’ve spoken on a vacation cruise. I almost ran out of interesting stories once, but I used some old material and it was OK. I’ve had visits with all kinds of people – city, country, and sea-faring folks. I do face some daily pressure of saying just the right things sometimes. I mean, who is offended and I don’t feel bad? Who’s saddened by what I say and it doesn’t make me feel sad too?
That’s not what Paul wanted. Instead, he wanted it noted that he didn’t shrink back from declaring the message God had given him. Paul uses a lot of different words here: preach, proclaim, teach, declare, testify. He wasn’t just not shrinking back. He was pretty deliberate about getting this done. He wanted people to hear the complete plan that God has for them.
We will be tempted to shrink back – to not speak where we should speak.
• For some, it will be because the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.
• Maybe it will be because of peer pressure. After all, no one else is saying it.
• We may be tempted because of what we have made of the Lord’s Church in our current culture in No. America. You know, if you don’t preach what’s popular, people won’t come, and if they don’t come, you’ll soon be selling insurance or Shacklee products.
• Maybe you’re slow to say what needs to be said because deep down you have doubts about whether or not it’s true. After all, there are plenty of other people, with more letters after their names, who don’t believe much of what the Bible says.
• Maybe it would just take too much effort to do the digging, to face the objections, to answer the doubts.
• Maybe you’ve reached a point where you just don’t care enough.
So, you hold it back. You don’t address homosexuality, or racism in the church, or the inclusion of those “other Christians,” or maybe you back off from mentioning baptism as part of accepting Jesus, or suggesting that creation happened in a literal 6 days, maybe you drop the family name, or fail to teach repentance or to preach the Resurrection.
Oh, but what if they don’t listen? What if they don’t change? Can’t I leave out the hard sayings of Jesus? Can’t I just steer away from the hot issues? Sure you can… if you can ignore the blood on your hands.
Remember Ezekiel 33? (vv5-6) But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.'
It wasn’t just for Israel. God has called each one of us to blow the trumpet of warning to a world that is being taken away by the enemy. Don’t shrink back from declaring the message.
That brings us to a 3rd exhortation I see in these verses:
III. Don’t Shrink Back From Caring
The book is out. The votes are in. Rob Bell is a heretic. We wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but when someone publishes bad theology, especially about Hell, we don’t cut him any slack. So, we get to joke about and rail on Rob Bell, and we get to be right while he’s wrong, and we continue to feel secure in our position that people are going to suffer forever in hell, just like Jesus taught. Does anyone see a problem with that? I hope we do.
There is a danger here – that we would somehow take Paul’s words and just “attend to the disposition of our duties,” as if all that mattered were our own non-guilt in these matters. But the rest of Paul’s life, and the whole of his words here call for something else.
We will be tempted not to care about lost peoples’ souls.
Go ahead and cite Paul leaving the synagogue in Corinth and telling the Jews, “Your blood be on your own heads!” Cite Paul and Barnabas leaving the Jews in Pisidian Antioch, and Paul leaving the Areopagus.
I only know that this was more than just some clinical disposition of responsibility of Paul – that he shed tears as he recalled that there were still some who live as enemies of the cross of Jesus; that he rejoiced that the gospel was preached, even though the motivation was to trouble him; that he had great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart and wished that he could be cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of the people of Israel.
This was not some professional, just doing a checklist of things he had to do, requirements he had to meet in order to be innocent. The grander picture here is that Paul didn’t shrink back because, like His Lord, he cared about the souls of lost people.
Ill - There’s a touching scene at the end of the movie “Schindler’s list,” based on the true story of Oskar Schindler. Schindler is receiving appreciation from some of the 1,100 Jewish people whose lives he has saved, and he becomes overwhelmed with guilt for all the others who were killed in the Holocaust. He could have made more money. He could have wasted less; could have saved just one more person. All the good he had done couldn’t block out the fact that he could have made better choices and could have done more. And he felt remorse for those he hadn’t saved.
I found it difficult that Paul said to the Ephesian elders that he was “innocent of the blood of all men” here. This is Paul, who previously was Saul of Tarsus, who watched the coats for those who stoned Stephen, who by his own testimony had previously persecuted the Lord’s Church, torturing people to get them to blaspheme, and casting his vote against them so that they would be put to death.
Innocent of the blood of all men? The word “men” is assumed or added here. It really says, “clean of the blood of all.” And, I suppose that Paul might be limiting the field of vision here to just his work in Ephesus, where he never shrank back. Still, how could Paul be innocent of the blood of all? I see only one way: that while he had not shrunk back in Ephesus, the man who had persecuted the church was gone; that if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature, old things have passed away, new things have come.
I’m glad, too, because in my past is the list of times I failed – the times I didn’t lead, I didn’t say all that should have been said, I didn’t care like I should. Like Oskar Schindler, we all could look back and see that whatever good we did, it wasn’t quite enough. By all rights, I have a stain of blood on my hands. The only thing that will truly wash away that stain is the blood of the perfect Lamb of God.
Don’t go, “Oh, whhhew! This blood on my hands thing isn’t a matter of justification…so I don’t need to sweat it!” The grace of God calls us to do something higher.
You’re here today, in this relationship with Jesus, because someone declared to you the whole counsel of God.
You’re here because innocent blood was shed for you on the cross, and then because the blood of faithful people gave you this Bible, this freedom to meet, this heritage to continue. How could we even think of just ourselves?
I want to be able to stand and say I am innocent of the blood of all. So, I’m thankful for the blood of Jesus, and I will not shrink back.
