A Farewell Address (Part 1 of 2)

You've no doubt heard the quote, Departing is such sweet sorrow. It's a line from Shakespeare, from Romeo and Juliet, and today on Truth for Life we'll see that sentiment in action as we witness the Apostle Paul's final farewell as he leaves the Christians in Ephesus. As Alistair Begg walks through Paul's departing speech, we'll learn what weighed foremost on the Apostle's heart. Father, with all of these thoughts in our minds, and much more besides, we turn now to the Bible, and we pray that you, by your Spirit, will be our teacher. Help us, O God, we pray, for Jesus' sake.

Amen. If you imagine that you gathered your children around you, and they and you both knew that this was the last occasion that you would ever be together, what would you say? If you had one opportunity to speak to them for the final time knowing it, surely you would pay particular attention to what you said.

There would be no time for trivialities, no time for vague generalities. The words would have to be chosen purposefully. They would have to be stated as perfectly as they possibly could be. And you would want to ensure that you left them with words ringing in their ears that would be of benefit to them not only for time but also for eternity. Well, the departure of an earthly father leaving behind his earthly physical children is equally matched by the departure of a spiritual father leaving behind his spiritual children. And it is this scene which Luke records for us, beginning in verse 25, a scene that is full of pathos. It is marked by emotion. The words are marked with deep significance on account of their setting. Paul is taking his leave of the leaders of the church in Ephesus. It's emotional, it's significant, it's purposeful, it is unrepeatable. And you would have noted in the reading how their emotions spill over in verse 37, weeping, embracing, kissing, grieving over the fact that they knew that he would not be with them in this way ever again.

And so, provided for them was their last opportunity to pray together this side of heaven. Now, in light of that, you would understand that the words that Paul speaks are purposefully chosen, they are precisely stated, and they are, I want you to see, peculiarly apt. Last time, we paid attention to Paul's example by way of his transparency and his integrity and his sense of urgency. And this morning I have four more words for us, and I'll give you them as we go.

I've used these words as the pegs on which to hang the outline of my own thoughts. And the first word is the word declaration. It comes from our English translation in verse 26, therefore, I declare to you today. And what is his declaration? I'm going to show you that it's a twofold declaration, but it is, first of all, here in verse 26, a declaration of his innocence. I declare to you that I am innocent of the blood of all men.

Now, that may strike as a strange statement, but it would not have been strange for these people. And those of them who were from a Jewish background would understand the context out of which Paul was speaking. And in order for you to understand it, you would need to turn to Ezekiel and to chapter 33.

You didn't necessarily turn to it, but let me give you it, and you can follow it up on your own. The Word of God comes to the prophet, Son of Man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel, so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you will surely die and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways. That wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways, and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will be saved yourself. Now, those salutary words form the backdrop for Paul's statement here. Like the Son of Man, he says, like the servant of God as described for us by the prophet Ezekiel, I too have sought to warn you, to teach you, to proclaim the gospel of God to you, and I have done so by God's enabling to the best of my ability, and therefore my declaration of innocence is as follows.

I am innocent of the blood of all men. Now, he is able to say so because of his commitment to the proclaiming of the gospel. We have watched all the way through his ministry, and he is involved in telling them that the Messiah had to suffer and die, and then that Jesus is the Messiah. He has urged them concerning the kingdom of God, the majesty of Jesus, before whom they ought to bow.

He has called them to repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus. Indeed, if ever you were to knock him or bump into him, he would bump back up in his central position, his default position, if you like. Or, mixing all my metaphors, his screensaver for Paul on his computer would come up, the gospel of God, the gospel of God. Do you remember those toys that our children had with the low center of gravity, with the lead weights in the bottom?

And they were clowns, I think, and you knocked them, but they always came back upright, no matter what you did to them, intriguing to children? Well, there's a sense in which no matter how Paul had been buffeted, no matter what he had endured, if he was knocked and buffeted and moved and prodded and pumped, eventually he always came back up to dead center. He was a gospel man, reminding us that gospel men are essential for the well-being of God's people. In the course of our routine months, we are on the receiving end of requests from all over the place for us to suggest to our churches men whom I'd be able to serve in their ministry. And amongst all of the observations and requirements that are contained in those cover letters, I still am waiting to receive a letter which begins, Dear Alistair, we are looking for a gospel man to become the pastor in our church. Now, it's not that the other issues are irrelevant—they're clearly not—the matters of education and leadership skills and background and prior experience and so on—but it is staggering the extent to which those things are focused in the minds of people thinking about their churches, when in actual fact what they need more than anything else—more than anything else—is someone who will declare the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Billy Graham is this weekend in New York City.

You will have read of it in the press. Eighty-six years old, is he? Possibly in his last foray into the world of mass evangelism.

He was, in his early years in the Northwestern schools in Minnesota. It was 1952, fifty-three years ago, John Pollock tells us in the biography of Billy Graham that he began to wrestle with his future should he continue in the school structure in Minnesota or should he respond to the urgent prompting that he felt concerning itinerant evangelism. And he walked, the biographer tells us, the trails around his home, beseeching God to show him the way forward. Reading in his Bible every Scripture that he could on the nature of evangelism, and then quoting Billy Graham, he said, I thought about Christ's death on the cross. Above all other motives, as a spirit of service, an incentive to evangelism is the cross of Christ and its irrepressible compassion. And as he walked home, he sang to himself, Rescue the perishing, Care for the dying, Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave, Weep o'er the erring ones, Lift up the fallen, Tell them of Jesus, Mighty to save. And whatever else has been part and parcel of the journey of the last fifty-three years, he leaves behind a legacy framed in the simple phrase, The Bible says, And ye must be born again.

Why? Because at his core, he is a gospel man. So we rejoice in that. The same is true when you read church history. You have benefited, I know, from our bookstore in the rich area of Christian biography. And there in that section, you may find, if you're fortunate, a biography of John Brown of Haddington.

Haddington is in East Lothian in Scotland. And John Brown was born in 1722, which is quite a long time ago. He was born in a unique era in Scottish history, when a number of significant men were born. David Hume was on the scene in 1711.

Adam Smith, who wrote The Wealth of Nations, which provided essentially the economic framework upon which this nation was founded, was born in 1723. And in that context, this Mrs. Brown gives birth to a wee boy who, in the providence of God, is to arise and to be immensely used in the early part of the eighteenth century. He writes a closing letter to his congregation in the prospect of his death. And I was struck in reading it that, no matter what he says, his great concern for them as a congregation is that they might, in finding a new minister, find a man who's committed to the gospel.

Listen to how he puts it. With respect to your obtaining another minister, let me beseech you by much fervent prayer. Get him first from the Lord, and let it be your care to call one whose sermons you find to touch your consciences. May the Lord preserve you from such as aim chiefly to tickle your fancy and seek themselves rather than Jesus Christ the Lord. And then, in a paragraph of selflessness, he says, oh, how it would delight my soul to be informed in the manner of the eternal state.

In other words, to learn in heaven that Christ had come along with my successor, conquering and to conquer. How gladly should I see you and him by hundreds at the right hand of Christ at that great day, though I should scarcely have my ten. You know, I've said to you a number of times, and I actually believe this—that's why I've said it—that the ministry in part which God has entrusted to me in this era at Parkside is, I believe, a ministry of keeping my foot in the door, keeping the door open, so that in a subsequent generation others may come through that open door of opportunity to be far more significantly used of God in the conversion of men and women. And I would like to be able to say with John Brown that I will rejoice to see my successor in heaven with the hundreds of his converts, even if I stand there with ten.

Because the issue is the necessity of a gospel man. Do you get this declaration? It's a declaration of his innocence. I, he says, have taken the whole gospel to the whole city by my whole strength, and I have done so diligently. If you jump forward to verse 34, that's where I get this second point from.

It's out of order in the verses, but I don't think it's out of order in terms of logic. What is he declaring? He's declaring, first of all, his innocence, I have not hesitated to do this, to proclaim to you the whole will of God. And then he is declaring, verse 33, I have not coveted anyone silver or gold or clothing.

They could verify this. Has this just been a materialistic journey for Paul? Has he sought to use the ministry simply to line his own nest?

No, look at his hands. He may have even held up his hands and said, You can tell by my hands that I wasn't just on the receiving end of stuff. He had determined to walk a certain path, to lead himself free from temptation on the one hand and accusation on the other hand. He had a tent-making ministry.

It would, I suppose, be a very happy thing to earn one's living from another source, so as to be free from the same potential accusation and to be free from the same sense of temptation. But he is not laying down a law. He's describing his circumstances. He's describing what he had done, verifiable by his listeners and observers. And he is making the point that Jesus' words are helpful in guiding us. It is far more blessed to give than to receive.

He's actually doing very similarly to what you will find Samuel does in 1 Samuel 12, when he makes his farewell speech. He says, I'm out if now you have your king. I've been a leader since my youth, but you can check. Whose ox did I steal? No one's. Whose stuff did I take?

No one. And so on. In other words, Paul is doing the same thing.

He makes a declaration of his innocence and then a declaration of his diligence. Giving is better than getting. It's better for the person who can do so to give help to others rather than to amass further wealth for himself. Let me say that to you again.

The principle is this. It is better for the person who can do so to give to help others rather than to amass further wealth for himself. My wife and I just had breakfast with a young man we'd never met before.

I say a young man, he's in his forties, which is a salutary thought that that would even pass through my mind. But as we sat at breakfast and listened to his story, he told us of God's blessing to him in the world of business. And he told us at the same time that he and his wife had already drawn a line on a sheet of paper concerning their needs in relationship to income, and that no matter how much more money he made beyond that, everything on the top side of that line was to be given away to the work of the gospel. Well, I hope he meant it, and I hope he does so, because that's quite a declaration to make.

It's wonderful when you meet that. I know of an elderly man here in this country who has significant wealth, which he regards as not being his own at all. He has retirement money that pays to him as a result of his journey through life, which he uses for his needs and for the benefit of his children. All of the rest of the money is used in the service of the kingdom of God.

Not a penny accrues to himself. And he is enjoying the privilege of enhancing the work of the gospel while he is alive and while he can still see it. Rather than doing what is customary in our country to do, die and then leave it to everybody else to figure out what's supposed to happen.

Why not have the fun of contributing now and enjoying the benefit that attaches to it? Well, he declares, first his innocence and then his diligence, and then he brings an exhortation. His exhortation is equally clear in verse 28, "'Keep watch over yourselves and all the flunk of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.'" Now, this word of exhortation is directed to the elders of the church in Ephesus, the leaders, these men, a group of men appointed by God, recognized by the church, and having responsibility for spiritual oversight. And these men had been entrusted with the responsibility of tending or shepherding the flock of God. So he exhorts them, first of all, to watch themselves. In other words, pay attention to your own spiritual condition. If the leader in the church is neglectful of his spiritual welfare, then it follows almost inevitably that he will show little concern for the spiritual welfare of others.

Although he doesn't elaborate on the characteristics of leaders, he does so elsewhere. And for your homework, you can read, for example, the qualifications and guidelines that are provided when he writes to Titus to get the leadership right in Titus chapter 1. The elders of the church, he said, are to be men who are not up to be blameworthy, who are men who are one-women men, and so on. And so the exhortation is clear.

Look after yourself. The exhortation is first to them as individuals and then in order that they themselves as a group might tend the flock. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God. Now, this picture is a familiar one in the Bible, isn't it?

It's a familiar metaphor. The psalmist says, We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Isaiah 40 describes the Lord as a shepherd who gathers the sheep together.

He holds the lambs close to his heart. And Paul is reminding these individuals in the phraseology that he uses that it's not their church. It's God's church. It's not their flock. It's God's flock—a flock that is precious, which has been purchased at great cost. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. The centrality of the cross in Paul's thinking, not only as it relates to the wonder of individual salvation but as it relates to the nature of what it means for God to put together a company that is his very own.

Those whom God has redeemed, the elders are to care for. Now, that is an awesome privilege, and it is a distinct challenge. During the week in Denver or Golden, Colorado, as I spoke to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of America's National Assembly, I had occasioned to run into some old friends. I met a man. I met his wife and the company of his wife. I said, How is it now that X is back living at home routinely?

Well, it's not that he had run away from his wife, but it was that he had been an itinerant evangelist, and he had come off the road, as it were, and into the local church. Well, his wife said very honestly, First of all, it's wonderful to have him around most of the time. But it's not all good, she said. Oh, really, I said?

Yes, she said, It's not all good. It would be fine were it not for the people. Now, there was something very sad about that.

There was something very honest about it, too. Most of our jobs would be fine if it weren't for our work colleagues, right? I mean, they're our problem, aren't they? I mean, it could never be ours.

It's always them. I actually found the same thing in speaking with another man from Michigan in inquiring how he was doing. He said that he had come through a rocky and a difficult time, and in the company of another minister, he commended this pastor for his help in helping him and helping his wife, who in the previous twenty-four hours had been together in the company of this older pastor, breaking their hearts because of the nature of their ministry in Michigan, because the sheep had been so divisive and so cruel and so undermining that for the pastor to execute his ministry with any kind of effectiveness and usefulness was completely undermined by those to whom he spoke. And yet, he cannot be relieved from the responsibility, along with his colleagues, to take care of all of the church of God which is in your charge—not the ones you like, not the ones you want to spend time with, but all of them. And that, of course, speaks to the nature of plurality and eldership, doesn't it?

Because not one individual can do all that is necessary. If you're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg, we'll hear more about Paul's farewell address tomorrow. As Alistair pointed out today, the apostle Paul was clearly a spirit-filled gospel man. If you'd like to take a closer look into Paul's remarkable story, I want to recommend to you a book from Nancy Guthrie titled Saved, Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Acts. This is a book that offers a detailed study of how God worked through Paul and others to tell the world about Jesus and about his plan of salvation. Nancy goes chapter by chapter through the book of Acts, pointing out key events and important themes. She even provides a timeline in the back of the book. You'll see how the saving power of God back then is the same power that works in us today.

Here's a brief excerpt from the book. Nancy says, the same spirit that filled them with boldness lives in you and can fill you with the same boldness. So let's be bold. Let's be unafraid to declare the name of Jesus.

Let's be unwilling to water it down or use euphemisms or more socially acceptable forms. Today's the last day we're offering this book, so be sure to request your copy when you give a donation to Truth for Life through the mobile app or online at truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow we'll hear Paul's warning about the greatest threat to the church then and now. It's often from within. I hope you can join us. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.