977. Loving God Through a Godly Life

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. We're continuing a study series called Loving God. Today's speaker is Dr. Sam Horn, former dean of the Bob Jones University Seminary. The title of his message is Loving God Through a Godly Life from Acts 20. I'd like to ask you to find the book of Acts in the New Testament this morning, and while you're turning there, it is a great delight to be here and to have this opportunity to address you this morning.

My responsibilities at the university require a good bit of travel, and unfortunately, one of the travel days for Dr. Pettit and I is on Tuesdays. And so I've had to miss a considerable number of our chapels together at the seminary, but I have been able to come to quite a few of them and have been challenged by what I've heard and encouraged by the fellowship that we have together. I just very much love the context in which we get to come together and talk about not just the Word of God, but really talk about a theme like the one we're looking at when we talk about loving God with all of our heart. So I hope this morning that you'll be encouraged.

I know that you'll be encouraged on the way out, because on the way out, there are a whole pile of Krispy Kreme donuts waiting for you. So if the Word of God isn't sweet to you, if you'll just endure to the end, there will be something sweet at the end. And I know Timothy and the folks who are tied together with his team have really been burdened to do this for you, and David Overly and others. So you are on their hearts, and you are on our minds. We very much appreciate what you're doing. We know that this is a busy time in your week, and a lot on you. So we wanted to do something for you today that would just express to you our appreciation for you, our love for you, and we hope that you have a great day. I want to begin by telling you a little story, and then I want to take you to a cameo passage in the book of Acts chapter 20.

So if you find Acts and find chapter 20 and begin looking, if you will, at verse 17, while I sort of set up the story for you that will sort of drop us into this text. When I pastored in Milwaukee, I was in the church office one morning, and I heard sort of a big noise coming from our parking lot, and I looked out the window. My office sort of pointed out to the parking lot, and so I kind of moved the blind a little bit, and I looked out, and here was this big 18-wheeler that was just sort of roaring up through our parking lot. And we had one of those traditional kind of church awnings, you know, I don't know what you call them, but it's sort of an extended area where you can park under and drop people off if it's inclement weather.

And up in Wisconsin, a good bit of the year is inclement weather. And so this truck comes roaring up, and right underneath that awning, and the next thing I know, this guy comes out of the truck, comes into the lobby of our church. This eventually ended up being one of the reasons why we got a security system at our church.

We didn't have it at that time. So he comes barreling in through the lobby of the church, and he comes up to the window. We had one of these little windows where there was somebody sitting behind that was sort of there to greet people, and he had a crumpled up piece of paper in his hand, and he kind of put it there on the ledge, and he said to the lady that was standing back there, I want to talk to the person who gave me this. And he handed her a gospel tract from our church. And he looked pretty rough, so I was so glad that she ended up getting the associate pastor to go talk to him. And so our associate pastor at the time was a guy named Dan. And Dan was, I mean, he was one of these guys that just was a very sort of frail looking guy, but he loved people, and he was our pastor for counseling, and he didn't intimidate anybody, and you could just go in there and tell him your whole life story, and he would listen to you for hours on end, and he would just nod his head. And so he was the perfect person to go talk to Chuck.

So Chuck told him this story. He said basically he had been in a park one day earlier that year in the spring, and he had been wearing the coat that he had on, and somebody had come up to him. He had just come out of prison. He had just been released, and he was sitting there in the park trying to figure his life out, and somebody came up to him from our church and handed him this gospel tract. Well, lo and behold, it was Pastor Dan who had actually handed him the tract.

We didn't know all this until a little bit later in the story. So he took this gospel tract, and instead of just throwing it out, he crumpled it up, and he stuck it in the pocket of his coat, and he went on about his business, and that happened to be one of the last cold days in the spring, so he didn't wear that coat again until the fall. And he had taken that coat off out of his closet earlier that morning, put it on, and his life had just gone from bad to worse, and so he was in his truck, and somehow he stuck his hand in his pocket, and he felt around, and he found this crumpled piece of paper, pulled it out, wondered what it was, saw that it was a tract, and on the back of the tract was a picture of our church, the address of our church, and God moved on his heart, and he decided to come to our church just to find out if there was any way God could reach into his life. And that day Chuck got saved, and he started to come to his church, to our church rather. And I'll never forget, he brought his wife Donna and their kids, and Donna did not want to come to church. But Chuck was the kind of guy you didn't say no to.

He was Italian, so you just didn't say no to him. So Donna would come to church, and I'll never forget, they would sit in the back, and so, and we had two services, they would come to the first, and Donna would just sit there, the kids were like all over, they loved our church, they loved the kids programs, and Chuck was like, Donna, you gotta get, I mean, he'd literally say, you gotta get saved today. And Donna would just glare at him, and we'd come up, and you'd say, hey Donna, I'm here because Chuck made me come. Now literally she would talk like this, I'm just here today because Chuck made me come.

And this went on for an entire year. Chuck, man, he was growing, the kids were growing, Donna just sat in the back, and every year we had a church picnic. And so about, I mean, literally, almost a year later, we were at our church picnic, and Donna, who was still coming to church because Chuck made her, was sitting at the table where I was sitting. And she sat across from me, and she finally, she just looked up, and she blurted out, Pastor Sam, I need to get saved. But is there anybody besides Chuck that could lead me to the Lord?

Because I don't want to have, I don't want to give him the satisfaction. So we had a lady that led Donna to the Lord, and Donna got baptized, and Chuck got baptized, and it was an incredible, their lives were radically transformed by the gospel. And I had an opportunity to sit down and talk to Donna and ask her what made the difference. And she started in her own way telling me about person after person after person, normal everyday people who came to our church week after week after week, who were displaying the gospel out of a heart and a life that had been transformed by it. So when we talk today about loving God, and we talk about using our life and preparing our heart for service for the gospel, it isn't so much about what you do in terms of what actual classes you take, although certainly that's a big part of what we're talking about.

It's about the preparation of a life to make a difference in the life of a person like Donna. So I'm going to take you to a portion of scripture, and we don't have much time this morning, so we're going to work very quickly through this text. But when we come to the book of Acts, chapter 20, verse 17, we come to one of the last times that we have an extended record of Paul's ministry in our New Testament. And in the course of Paul coming to this place where he is saying goodbye to a group of people that he had ministered to for a number of years, the Holy Spirit gives us in his word a cameo of what it was about Paul's life itself that I believe gave a great deal of power to the ministry that God allowed him to have. And that's the thing I'm interested in getting at this morning, is not just what do we say and not just the skills that we possess and that we hone, but what is it about our life itself that we need to be asking God to cultivate so that we, like Paul, can take our lives and make an impact with them in somebody else's life. Now notice in verse 17 we find the context. Paul is coming for Miletus, and as he comes down to this place, he sends to Ephesus and he calls for the elders of the church. And when they were come to him, he said unto them, Ye know from the first day that I came unto Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons. And I would suggest to you that the first thing that will give your life power and impact for the gospel is this.

It's what Paul talked about here when he described himself as having a consistent life and a consistent testimony. He says to them, now you know, you know from the very beginning when I first came in your midst, you know what I was like. You know how I lived. You saw my life. You experienced it. You were touched by it.

You know how I operated when I was in your midst. But from the very first day, I have been with you in all seasons. In other words, he's saying you saw every side of my life.

You saw me under every conceivable set of circumstances. And I would suggest to you that in the years to come, between now and the time that you stand before the Lord, one of the greatest things that you have in the arsenal of your ministry for the Lord is your own life testimony. The consistency of your life making a difference in somebody else's life. Paul's life preached as loudly as his words. And I want to be real clear that we do need words to preach the gospel. But those words will be severely hampered if we don't have a life that is consistently lived in a way that displays the radical transformation of that gospel. So one of the things that we see here is a consistent life and testimony.

Let me show you a second thing that Paul talks about. Notice as we keep reading in verse 19 where he goes on and he talks about having been with you at all seasons serving the Lord with all humility of mind. It's not just there was a consistent life and testimony. That life and that testimony were marked by a humble and gentle spirit. The word for humility here is the idea of lowliness of mind. This is not the only place in our New Testament where Paul talks about this concept of lowliness of mind. If you go to Ephesians chapter 4 and you start reading in verse 1 where he talks about a worthy walk. One of the very first things that he tells us will be necessary in living a life worthy of the gospel is the cultivation of the right kind of mindset that we have about ourselves. He learned to think properly about himself. He learned what it meant to develop a low sort of idea of humility here. The lowliness of mind and the graciousness of spirit that marked the Lord Jesus Christ. I think we've all been in circumstances where we have met people and the kind of people that sometimes you run into are people who never think that they ever have a bad idea.

I mean have you ever met someone like that? Nobody gets fist pounded on the table into the gospel. You need to get saved.

Bang! And I think that's a little bit of what Donna was saying about Chuck. And one of the things as we really got talking to her about Chuck was the fact that over the course of the year she began to see such a radical transformation in his spirit and she began to see such a radical transformation in his life that that's what began to break down her defenses as she began to see God working a graciousness in the life of her husband.

Paul developed not just a consistent life testimony but he demonstrated a humble and a gentle spirit. I'll never forget I was at a game one time a ball game one of my children was playing on a ball team and we were sitting there and I happened to come up on a group of teams and they were sort of sitting on the sideline and they were talking about a church that one of them had visited. And they were basically, the individual was saying I am never going to go back to that church. And she began to tell the story and they didn't know I was listening and I wasn't intending to listen until I started picking up on this story and I began to realize they were talking about our church. And she had been sitting on the sideline at a youth activity as a visitor and she was sitting there and somebody from our church came up to her and said, got in the game. And she said no. Which probably wasn't the smartest thing to do.

And he said then just leave. Now that's her story. The chances are very great that it probably didn't happen quite that way but that's what she heard and that's what she felt.

And several days later I'm sitting on the sidelines of a ballgame hearing this story being told. And all of a sudden you're realizing we just took a major step back for the gospel because of the spirit that somebody displayed to this young lady. It's not just that there is a consistent life testimony. There has to be a humble and gentle spirit. And then thirdly there is the cultivation here in verse 19 of a tender and compassionate heart. Notice what he says, serving the Lord with all humility of mind and with many tears. I want you to think about how you think about the people that God brings into your life.

I want you to think about really where they are in life and what their life is like. And at some point as you strive to reach those people for the gospel and as you do life together one of the things that starts to happen is you start to develop not just a deep affection for and not just a deep affinity with but really a deep brokenness over these people. I had the opportunity some years ago, many years ago actually of pastoring a little church in Pelzer, South Carolina. How many of you know where Pelzer, South Carolina is? Pelzer, South Carolina, basically the people in Pelzer call themselves the armpit of South Carolina.

It's a mill town. And I pastored out there in a little church called Christ Memorial Bible Church and the people had built the church themselves. And so my very first Sunday there I walk in the church and everybody, there were seven people in the congregation and everybody had brought their own chair from home.

And so here we are on Sunday morning and here is one of these lazy boy armchairs and there is a sort of elderly woman who is chewing snuff sitting in that armchair with the recliner thing up and just there she is in church. One of the deacons chewed tobacco and he came to me, this is an honest story. He came to me, he said, pastor? Well he actually said, preacher?

I don't believe it's right for a man to talk to God with tobacco in his mouth. So if you're ever gonna ask me to pray in church I need advance notice. That was her church. And there was a family that started to come to that church.

Well actually there was a lady that started to come to that church with children, little children that she would bring to church and she was a believer and she was married to a man named Doyle who never came to church. Basically he worked and he would go home and he would drink and he would get drunk. And I was at the time ministering here at the university and pastoring that church and every weekend or every Friday, every other Friday I'd get a call from Gail and she'd say, preacher Horn, I need you to go find Doyle because he's drinking up the paycheck and I've got little babies to feed.

Now I think I was all of 26. I was in my little suit with my Bob Jones tie on and I'd get my little car and I would drive down to the bars in Pelzer, South Carolina and I had a guy in our church whose name was Terry. Terry was a trucker.

I had these friendships with truckers. And I'd say Terry, we gotta go find Doyle and he would come and he was like my bodyguard because he was huge. And we would go in these bars looking for Doyle and I got to where the bartenders knew who I was. They'd say, hey, preacher Horn, he's not here. You probably wanna go down and then he'd tell me the next bar and so I'd go find Doyle and I'm gonna tell you, I got so broken for Doyle. We'd get him out of those bars.

When he got drunk, he got happy. And he'd come over and put, he'd tell everybody about it, this is my preacher. You all oughta come hear him on Sunday.

I'm like Doyle, you don't even come hear me on Sunday. And we'd take him to this little roadside cafe and we'd fill him up with coffee and to the best of my ability as a young sort of web behind the ears guy trying to pastor a little church of, you know, I called it the special ed church. We were out there in this little community and here we are and just trying to put the gospel and I didn't have a clue what I was doing. But I did know this, I was broken for this man. And about five years ago, I got a phone call. And on the other end of that phone was Doyle. He's like, pastor, I know you used to come get me from the bars and you used to tell me about the gospel and you didn't think I was listening.

But I was. And I want you to know I got saved. And two years ago, I met his grandson at a rooted and grounded conference. And last year I met the little girl that used to come to church who was his daughter.

And she drove over to where I was and she said, pastor Horn, I want you to know I don't know what happened to daddy, but he is a changed man. A compassionate heart. Number four, Paul cultivated and demonstrated perseverance in the midst of suffering and affliction. Look at verse 19. Serving the Lord with all humility of mind with many tears and temptations. The word temptation, there's a word for trial.

Many trials which befell me by the lying in weight of the Jews. Here's the Apostle Paul and if anybody, if anybody had reason to turn back from the ministry, if anybody had reason to turn back from the sharing and the continued proclamation of the gospel to people that he deeply cared about but who constantly turned away from him, it was the Apostle Paul. And I would suggest to you that you and I are gonna have to cultivate this in our life if the gospel is going to go forward. The gospel advances on the road of relationships and often that road leads in a relationship through a valley of trial or a valley of testing or a valley of suffering. And that's precisely what the Apostle Paul is talking about here. David Livingston who opened up the continent of Africa wrote a letter to his sister prior to going into the heartland of uncharted Africa and I want to just read you a portion of that letter. He said this, we have an immense region before us. Thousands live and die without God and without hope though the command went forth of old go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

And here's the part I want you to listen to. It is indeed a venture to take a wife and children into a country where fever, African fever prevails but who believes that Jesus would refuse to make a venture for such a captain? A parent's heart alone, this is him talking about his own children, a parent's heart alone can feel as I do when I look at my little ones and ask shall I return with this one or that one alive?

I can't even begin to imagine this kind of perseverance. However we are his and wish to have no interest apart from those of his kingdom and his glory. May he bless us and make us a blessing even unto death.

And then there was boldness in proclamation. Look at verse 20 and 21. Paul says in how I get back nothing that was profitable unto you but have showed you and have taught you publicly from house to house testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. As you think about using your life to make a difference for the gospel it isn't just a consistent life and testimony. It isn't just a humility of heart and a gentleness of spirit. It isn't just a tenderness and compassionate cultivation of your life toward another and it's not just endurance and suffering. It's the boldness to look at a person that God puts upon your heart and that God brings into your life and to tell them the truth about the gospel out of a life that has been impacting them because you have been consistent. Because you have had a tender heart. Because you have displayed compassion and care.

Paul said I leave nothing out. I testify to the Jews and to the Greeks. I include all of the components of the gospel and I proclaim it to the people that God brings across my path.

I mean here's a very very rebuking question for me and that is this. We talk a lot about the importance of the gospel and somebody like me will stand up in front of people like you and we will exhort you to do it but here's a very penetrating question that I have to answer fairly frequently in my own heart. When was the last time that you actually shared the gospel with somebody? Because you stand up and tell people to do this all the time.

You encourage people to do this. You pray for people to do this but when was the last time you took an opportunity that God brought in your path to share the gospel and you know that's a very very penetrating question when the spirit of God brings that to your mind and it's a question I hope that all of us face and then I want you to notice there was obedience in the face of expected difficulty. Look at verse 22 and verse 23. Paul says and now behold I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem not knowing the things that shall befall me there. Here's what I do know.

I do know one thing. Verse 23 save that the Holy Ghost witnesses in every city. The Holy Ghost is confirming this in every place that I have been on my way here saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. There is sure and certain difficulty and the spirit of God is confirming what Paul suspects. Paul you are headed for certain difficulty. You are going to be arrested and this is the first at the end of Acts we find that Paul is in what we call the first Roman imprisonment.

He's released for a brief time. There is a second Roman imprisonment that ends in his beheading. So the Holy Spirit is not exaggerating. The Holy Spirit is not lying to Paul when he says this. He is confirming in very very sure ways that Paul the way forward for you as you go on this mission is going to get very hard for you.

The Apostle Paul in verse 24 displays the final thing and it is this willing and joyful sacrifice. When you get to verse 24 it's not that the Apostle Paul is just blatantly ignoring the spirit of God. He is actually saying something very different. He is saying none of these things move me. Lord I know that what you're saying is true. I know that there is going to be specific difficulty ahead for me and it is going to be excruciating and limiting but I want you to know that I still am committed to this.

None of this moves me. Neither count on my life dear unto myself so that I might finish my course with joy and that the ministry which I have received of the Lord to testify the gospel of the grace of God. In other words Paul is looking at his life and he is saying here's what it's all about. I've received a ministry from the Lord and that ministry is to testify about his gospel and no matter what the Holy Spirit tells me is coming I still want to do it. I know that it's going to involve sure difficulty. I know that it is eventually going to cost my life and I still want to do it. You have a gospel that is changing your life. There are people that desperately need to hear it. It is going to mean for some of you sure difficulty.

Do you still want to do it? May the Lord help us to cultivate a life and a heart like this. Father thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for the way in which we see this example very practically laid out for us in a cameo right out of the book of Acts. Lord I thank you that we could come together today and observe this and allow your spirit now to take this and put it to work in our life. We love you and we thank you for the way that you've ministered to us. Now may we go and do that in our own lives and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You've been listening to a message preached at Bob Jones University by Dr. Sam Horn which was part of the series Loving God. Join us again tomorrow as we continue this series on The Daily Platform.