Sermon: The Weight of Glory and the Stain of Blood
Text: Acts 20:26
"Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men."
Introduction: The Echo on the Shore
Let us travel back in time. Do not picture a polished pulpit or listen for a gentle organ prelude. Instead, feel the damp, salty air on your skin. Hear the cries of gulls mingling with the sound of grown men weeping, unashamedly. We are on the beach at Miletus. A ship, bobbing in the harbor, is waiting to steal away a beloved father in the faith, knowing they will never see his face again in this life (Acts 20:38). The Apostle Paul, a man whose body is a roadmap of his ministry-scarred by rods, stones, and shipwrecks-is kneeling on the sand, surrounded by the elders of the Ephesian church. These are not mere acquaintances; they are his sons in the ministry, men he has poured three years of his life into, day and night, "with many tears" (Acts 20:19). This is his final, raw, and desperate impartation.
And in the heart of this tear-soaked farewell, he rises to his feet, looks into their eyes, and makes a legal, public, and astonishing appeal. He is not just speaking; he is entering a testimony into the eternal record. "Wherefore I take you to record this day"-he is calling them as witnesses for the prosecution or the defense when he stands before the judgment seat of Christ-"that I am pure from the blood of all men." What a staggering statement! This is not the casual claim of a man with a clean slate. This is the cry of a soul that has wrestled with the terrifying weight of spiritual accountability. To understand this cry, we must understand that for Paul, the world was haunted by the echo of blood-the blood of the unwarned, the blood of the untaught, the blood of the eternally lost. And his singular, driving passion was to be found unstained. This morning, let us go deeper and feel the full weight of Paul's words. Let us examine the anatomy of this spiritual bloodguilt, the divine antidote he administered, and the ultimate cost of a conscience so profoundly clear.
I. The Ancient Stain: An Anatomy of Bloodguilt
The concept of "bloodguilt" was no mere figure of speech for Paul's audience. It was a thread woven deep into the fabric of their spiritual DNA, stretching back to the very dawn of human history. It begins in Genesis 4, where the blood of murdered Abel is not silent. It possesses a voice; it "crieth unto me from the ground," God says to Cain. Innocent blood defiles the land and cries out for justice. This principle is then codified in the Mosaic Law. In Numbers 35, the "revenger of blood" is an established role, and the land itself can be polluted by the shedding of innocent blood, a stain that can only be cleansed by the blood of the one who shed it. Guilt was not just an individual feeling; it was a corporate reality, a stain upon the community.
This is the backdrop for the prophet Ezekiel. When God calls him a "watchman," He is tapping into this deep, primal fear of being stained by the blood of another. The watchman's silence is not passive; it is an act of participation in destruction. His inaction pulls the trigger. The blood of the slain is, quite literally, transferred to his hands. He becomes a spiritual accessory to murder.
This is the terror that gripped the Apostle Paul. He saw the world through this lens. Every person without Christ was standing in the path of a divine judgment far more terrible than any invading army. Every soul was teetering on the brink of an eternal abyss. And as a watchman for their souls, he knew that a polite silence, a convenient omission, or a softened truth would be tantamount to pushing them over the edge. His declaration, "I am pure from the blood of all men," is his solemn testimony that he did not collaborate with the second death. He fought against it with every fiber of his being.
II. The Unshirkable Counsel: God's Grand Purpose Revealed
What, then, was this mighty antidote that cleansed Paul's hands and conscience? What was the trumpet blast he sounded? He answers with breathtaking clarity: "For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." (Acts 20:27).
The Greek word for "counsel" here is boule. It doesn't just mean "advice" or "a list of doctrines." It means a purpose, a plan, a sovereign design. Paul is saying, "I laid before you the entire, eternal, unfolding purpose of Almighty God for the redemption of the world." This is the same word he uses in Ephesians 1, when he says God has made known to us the "mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure (boule) which he hath purposed in himself."
Declaring the "whole counsel" is not a theological checklist. It is narrating God's epic story, in which we are all actors. It is a story with glorious highs and terrifying lows:
* It is the story of a God so holy that sin cannot exist in His presence.
* It is the story of humanity's radical fall and total inability to save itself.
* It is the story of God's sovereign, shocking love in sending His only Son, Jesus Christ.
* It is the story of the bloody cross, where divine wrath and divine mercy kissed.
* It is the story of an empty tomb that guarantees our own resurrection.
* It is the story of a coming judgment where every knee will bow and every account will be settled.
Paul did not "shun" any chapter of this story. To shun something is to shrink back from it in fear or disgust. And why do we shrink back? We shun the parts of God's counsel that confront our modern idols.
* We shun the counsel of God's absolute sovereignty because it offends our idol of personal autonomy.
* We shun the counsel of God's wrath and Hell because it offends our idol of sentimental universalism.
* We shun the counsel of biblical morality because it offends the idol of sexual and personal freedom.
* We shun the counsel of Christ's exclusivity because it offends our idol of pluralistic tolerance.
Paul knew that the "grievous wolves" were coming to Ephesus (v. 29). He knew that the specific heresies that would later plague this church-as detailed in his letters to Timothy, Ephesus's pastor-would be subtle perversions of this grand counsel. A partial counsel is a powerless counsel. A partial truth is a whole lie. Paul's purity rested on the fact that he gave them the whole sword of the Spirit, not just a handle or a blunted edge.
III. The Agony of Faithfulness: The Cost of a Clear Conscience
Here the sermon moves from the ancient shore to the unforgiving ground of our own lives. Paul's clear conscience was not cheap. It was purchased at an immense price. Just before our text, he states, "But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy" (Acts 20:24). A clear conscience cost Paul his comfort, his reputation, his freedom, and ultimately, his life. And it will cost us something too. To be a faithful watchman today is to embrace a path of costly love.
* For parents: It may mean your child, steeped in a secular culture, calls you hateful or
intolerant for upholding biblical truth about life, gender, and sexuality. A clear conscience may cost you a season of peace in your own home.
* In the workplace: It may mean being overlooked for a promotion because your integrity is seen as rigidity. It may mean an awkward silence when you refuse to laugh at a profane joke or endorse an unethical practice. A clear conscience may cost you professional advancement.
* In your friendships: It may mean risking the relationship to speak a hard truth to a friend caught in addiction or destructive sin. It means choosing the agony of a difficult conversation over the false peace of complicit silence. A clear conscience may cost you friends.
* In the church: It may mean humbly and graciously questioning a popular teaching that has more to do with pop psychology than sound doctrine. It may mean being seen as "divisive" for standing for biblical truth.
There are two kinds of pain in the Christian life: the sharp, acute pain of faithfulness, and the dull, chronic, soul-numbing ache of compromise. Paul chose the first. Which will we choose? The world offers the false peace of a defiled conscience, a quiet life purchased at the price of silence while the city burns. Christ offers the profound, solid peace of a clear conscience, a peace that coexists with tears, with struggle, and with sacrifice.
Conclusion: Washed in His Blood to be Pure from Theirs
How then can we, flawed and fearful as we are, ever hope to attain to this Pauline standard? Here is the final, glorious turn of the Gospel. The only reason Paul, or any of us, can be declared "pure from the blood of all men" is that we have first been washed and made pure by the blood of the One Man, Jesus Christ. The entire system of bloodguilt, from Abel's cry to Ezekiel's warning, finds its ultimate fulfillment and its only solution at the cross. There, on Golgotha's hill, Jesus Christ, the only truly innocent one, allowed Himself to be stained. He became guilty of our sin. He bore the full weight of our bloodguilt, our cowardly silence, our shameful compromises. The blood that we should have had on our hands was laid upon Him.
Therefore, our call to be a watchman is not a call to self-righteous perfection. It is the grateful response of a pardoned criminal who now runs to tell the other inmates that the prison doors have been thrown open. We are not better than those we warn; we are simply beneficiaries of a grace so profound that to keep it to ourselves would be the ultimate act of treason.
Our hands are clean from the blood of others only because His hands were pierced for us. Our consciences can be clear only because His blood cleanses us from all sin.
So, the challenge today is not simply to "try harder." It is to first flee to the cross and be cleansed. Then, rising from that place of pardon, filled with His Spirit and compelled by His love, pick up the trumpet. Embrace the glorious, costly agony of being a faithful watchman. So that when you finally finish your course, you will not have to fear the echo of blood. You will instead hear the verdict of the one whose blood was shed for you: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant... enter thou into the joy of thy lord."
