ACTS "The Right Approach to Ministry"- Acts 20:17-21 - Part 2

Brett Meador: Throughout the New Testament, the word bondservant, doulos, slave, servant, is applied metaphorically to someone who's absolutely devoted to Jesus Christ.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador, reflecting how a servant of the Lord is one who is serving by choice.
Brett Meador: And the reason this is so important is because all these guys used the doulos word. "I am a doulos." Paul used it, Timothy, James, Peter, and Jude all said, "We are a doulos of Christ," describing themselves as a bondservant of Christ.
Guest (Male): In Acts chapter 20, we find Paul reminding the elders of Ephesus how he served, taught, endured, and faithfully proclaimed the gospel. As a matter of fact, various New Testament disciples all thought of themselves as servants of the Lord by choice. And that's just one aim of many in Today's Word that Paul would encourage for all believers devoted to living a life for Christ.
Brett Meador: One of the things that we've been studying in the book of Acts is we've been watching Paul the apostle and his ministry. He's going from town to town, loving on people, preaching the gospel. He's going through all kinds of troubles and trials, but he's there because he's wanting to share the good news. That's one of the main ministries you all have is to share the gospel. That is repentance—that we repent of our sin and believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God, who died on the cross for the sins of the world. That's your number one ministry. "Brett, that's your job. You're supposed to preach the gospel." I'll do that, but do you understand all the people that you engage during the week will never set foot in a church? And you're the only person maybe that is a Christian around some of those people. The Lord has ordained you to be in that place. He's fixed you there to be a light in a very dark world. Well, Paul ministers to the people. And then what happens here is Paul, after seeing the whole town of Ephesus, which was a completely pagan city, turned upside down. Paul had literally changed the whole city by preaching the gospel from house to house. Paul would go from house to house and he set up elders in each house. And these elders, they were laypeople. They were not professional clergymen. They were just volunteers saying, "We'll lead what the Lord's doing in the church here in Ephesus." So there was a bunch of elders that were established by Paul's ministry. Then our story here, where we come to our text, Paul then calls all these elders to come and visit him in Miletus. And Paul says something that's going to be super important for you and me because you are like those elders who are not professionals but are just called and ordained to bring forth good fruit. Paul's going to give them a little lesson on how to minister to people. How do you minister? How do you become effective in ministry? Oh, there's podcasts that will try to tell you this. There's books that have been written that'll attempt to give them their two cents' worth. But this is Paul the apostle saying, "Here's how I came to you in Ephesus before you were even Christians. You were all pagans, and I came. Here's how I ministered to you guys." And this is a treasure trove for anybody who wants to be a good minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's here in Acts chapter 20, verses 17 through 21. Let's take a look. And it's our goal to look at Paul's seven attributes of the characteristics of his ministry that I think you and I would do well to note. In fact, this would be worth memorizing. Seven things of how to minister. And then also we end with what you're supposed to minister. It's all right here in these few verses. So let's go with that. The first thing that Paul says, he says, "You know what manner I've been with you," verse 19, "serving the Lord." Stop right there. This is giant. Number one on your list, if you're taking down notes, number one: serving the Lord. I was fortunate enough as a young minister to have a mentor come to me and say, "Brett, whatever you do, don't serve the people, don't serve the church, don't serve this, that, or the other thing. Your job is to serve the Lord." And I thought, aren't we supposed to have a servant's heart toward the congregation? He said, "Listen, if you're serving the Lord, then do whatever the Lord calls you to do. And if that is to serve the Lord by serving this congregation, that's the key." But the reason he was giving me this admonition was because of something he'd already known that I didn't. What do you do when you're serving people for the purpose of serving people and the people end up hating you? What happens there? Well, that's called "church hurt." It's a term that people really popularized this last 10 years. You've poured your life into them. Consider Jeremiah the prophet. Question: how many people actually listened to or did anything Jeremiah ever said in his 42 years of ministry? For 42 years, Jeremiah did heartbreaking, heavy-duty, life-threatening work. How many people listened to him? Zero. Not one person in 42 years ever listened to or did anything Jeremiah ever said or did. Now, you say he was a failure. Well, I think not. Why was Jeremiah not a failure? Well, he wrote his prophecy of Jeremiah in the book there. And guess who Jesus quoted more than any other prophet than the Old Testament? Jeremiah is the one Jesus quoted more than any other prophet. But it was Jeremiah who was serving the Lord, and so he stuck with it. He didn't bail out of ministry. And my mentor said, "Hey Brett, when you're ministering to this classroom of kids, it's okay to love these kids and care about them, but don't do it for the purpose of serving them. You need to be serving Christ because what happens if this youth group, some of these kids blow off your messages and some don't get saved? What if some of these kids later on become drug addicted and move in a direction of their life that's so heartbreaking and sad?" And you know what's kind of interesting is that happened. I've gone to jails and bailed out old youth group kids from my youth group from jail. That's disheartening. "Didn't I teach them all those years in Sunday school? What happened?" But I realized I've got to be faithful to the one I'm serving. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. I just need to be faithful like Jeremiah in serving the Lord. You're not serving a church, a ministry, or an organization. You've got to consider it, "I am serving the Lord in a way that is going to be pleasing to him, the Lord himself." And when somebody's unappreciative for what you're doing, if you're watching the kids downstairs and you've got the nursery over here and parents say, "Come on, give me my diaper bag and give me my child," and they're like, "Man, they're not appreciative. I just wiped your snotty-nosed kid for an hour and a half." You'll be hurt by mean-spirited church people. That goes with the territory. But if you're serving the Lord, you'll rejoice in your tribulation. You'll rejoice when parents are not appreciative of all the work you did watching their kids. It's so funny how if we're looking for accolades of men, you will be disappointed. You will leave. Paul, this is huge. I can't stress this enough: serving the Lord. Now, the word "serving" here is the Greek word, and you might even recognize this, it's douleuo. Douleuo, which is a verb, an action word, but it comes from the noun doulos. Doulos. You say, what's that? Well, douleuo is the verb; it means the act of serving. So Paul says, "You know how I came. I was serving you." But I want you to know that root word douleuo comes from the noun that we read, like when Paul says in Romans 1:1, "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle." The word "servant" there is where that original word doulos is. And that's an interesting word. It means, literally, a slave. And most of the time it just means a slave. But the word doulos in the New Testament also has another thing that's kind of cool about it. In the Bible, did you know that God never condones slavery? The reason I want to say that is because you'll hear your college pipe-puffing, cardigan-sweater-wearing professors say the Bible condones slavery. Well, that's just not true. God never once condoned slavery. But God did seek to regulate slavery because humanity is sinful and wacko and we have slaves. So God says, "I'm going to regulate that." Now, let's be clear on this one because the kind of slavery we Americans think about is the slavery of our early America in the deep south. It was horrifying. What we did there was nothing but horrifying, sinful behavior, obviously. And really slavery all around the world has been around the world in a horrible way through all the cultures and all the people. But when we're talking about biblical slavery, we have to remember something that's kind of important. In Bible times, let's say you're in Jerusalem and then you're attacked by the Amalekites. So the Amalekites come and attack you. And let's say you prevail over the Amalekites, you and the Jewish army. What do you do with your prisoners of war? Well, in Bible times, you either killed them all because they'd come back and slit your throat later, or you would enslave them. I'm not saying that's right. I'm just saying if you're in those days, what's the alternative? Do you just let them all go so they come back and kill you again later, get their army bigger? So what they would do is enslave people. So what God does in his word, he says, "When you have slaves, you have to treat them nicely. If you don't treat your slave nicely, then you are in sin. In fact, there's even huge penalty for treating a slave badly in the Bible." God's not condoning slavery. He's saying, "But if you have a slave, you need to treat him nicely. And then ultimately, after seven years, you are required to let them go." If you follow the biblical model of slavery, all slavery would have been abolished eventually. What was that? Well, this is the way it was. You could tell your slave, "Okay, you've been working for me for six years. It's the seventh year now, so you're free to go. Or you can stay with me by choice. You can be a slave by choice." This is where that word doulos comes in. That's why we call it a bondman or a man of servile condition. The bondslave is different than just a regular old slave. A bondslave is a slave by choice. Now, you might say, who in the right mind would want to continue being a slave when you're being let free? Well, this happened all the time in Bible times. If you were an Amalekite and you attacked Jerusalem and you're the only one you're alive and so a person takes you into their home and you're a slave, if they treat you kindly for six years and almost make you like part of the family and win you over, there were many instances where that person would say, "Man, I don't want to go anywhere. I want to be part of this family the rest of my life, and I'll work for this family. I'm part of the team." So they would take the person, put their earlobe on the doorjamb, and they'd put a nail through the earlobe. And then they would put a ring in the ear of that person. That would mark them as a doulos, a bondservant by choice. And they would stay with that family by choice. And the reason this is so important is because when Paul uses this word "serving the Lord," the same real word is this slave by choice. Throughout the New Testament, the word bondservant, doulos, slave, servant, is applied metaphorically to someone who's absolutely devoted to Jesus Christ. It's interesting. Paul, all these guys use the doulos word. "I am a doulos." Paul used it, Timothy, James, Peter, and Jude all said, "We are a doulos of Christ," describing themselves as a bondservant of Christ. So this is what Paul's saying. Now, this is really huge because when you're serving the Lord, you have to realize I'm a slave by choice. Pastors need to get away from the idea that we're a minister of the gospel and suddenly we're this lofty reputation kind of thing. We shouldn't be about that. We should be here as pastors to serve, to be a doulos, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, to do whatever Jesus is calling us to do. And I believe anybody who's an ordained servant of Christ, you should consider yourself a slave by choice. It's up to you. Am I going to be a servant of Christ? You say, "I don't want to be burdened down." Remember what Jesus said? "My burden is easy, my yoke is light." The work that Christ has for us is so much better. To be a worldling, sinner, wacko person—way more work. But to follow Christ, to be a servant of Christ is that of real joy. Paul, the perfect example. He was a doulos. I am a slave of Christ. And then he goes on, and it really goes in hand with the second thing. So, number one, you need to have that serving the Lord, not serving a congregation or people, having that humble servant. But it goes right into the next thing. Number two, he says, "serving the Lord with all humility of mind." There's a difference between having humility externally, but really true humility that's in your mind and heart. That means having an accurate assessment of oneself—that you're humble, that you know you're a sinner. Serving the Lord with humility of mind. Humility's a tricky topic, isn't it? Because once you have humility, you've lost it. "I think I'm humble now." As soon as you have humility, it's gone. So humility of mind—it's not humility in your actions as much as it's humility in your words, in your mind. It's a real genuine humility. It's an accurate assessment of oneself. Our culture is against this, by the way. Your elementary school tells you you're a good person, you're smart enough, you're good enough, you need to build your self-esteem. No, the Bible says no, no, no. The Bible says no man ever hated his own flesh. We all love and nurture it and cherish it because we care all about ourselves. But the Bible says think on the things of others, prefer others before yourself. Humility of mind means truly esteeming others better than oneself. Philippians 2:3 says humility of mind does not find fault in other people but realize you're the one with the fault. You're the one with the sins. Instead, the humility of mind finds fruit and whatever they can approve what's excellent in others. I'm not talking about not calling out sin and lovingly speaking truthful things. I'm just saying, you know, you don't fault-find. Are you a fault-finder or a sin-sniffer? Are you an iniquity inquisitor? I hope you're not that because that's not this humility of mind. You need to pick out the beam that's in your own eye before you pick out the speck in your brother's eye, Jesus said. There needs to be a real humility of understanding that, man, I'm a wretched, miserable sinner, and I'm not better than anybody else. This is really important to understand that. By the way, if you're in ministry, which you are, congratulations—don't believe your press clippings. If somebody comes to you and says, "Wow, you're amazing, you're a servant of the Lord Most High," don't just go, "Thank you. I like to think so." Don't do that. Don't believe your press clippings. But if somebody comes up and says, "You're a loser. You think you're a man of God or a woman of God? I think you're a wacko," don't believe that either. One thing I've learned in ministry is you just don't believe your press clippings—good, bad, or ugly. The only one that matters is, remember who we're serving: Christ. We're serving our Lord, and what he thinks about what I'm doing is the only thing that matters. Everybody said Jeremiah was a loser and they hated him, but the Lord loved what Jeremiah was doing. That's all that matters. So the idea is not worrying about your press clippings, your clicks, your likes, whether you're an influencer or all that nonsense. What matters is what does God feel of your service? Are you doing well, bringing forth eternal fruit? That's why we were taught in James chapter 4, verse 10, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up." You don't need to lift yourself up. That's what the world says: lift yourself up, self-esteem, you're good enough. Look in the mirror, self-affirmation: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and people like me." No, they don't. What matters is what Christ thinks about you. You're serving Christ. So, things on this list that are tricky. But I love it. So far we have number one: serving the Lord. Number two: with humility of mind. Number three: with many tears. This is Paul explaining his ministry and how he came to the church, the people of Ephesus. He came with many tears. Why? Was he crying because they beat him up so much? No. He was weeping over the city because he was heartbroken for a pagan city. When he'd walk into, Ephesus was a giant city. It was a beautiful, wealthy city. It's the first archaeological dig where they found a giant bank vault. Why did they have a giant bank vault in Ephesus? Because people traveled from all over the world with tons of money so that they could worship the goddess Diana, which brought so much money to town. They were just stinking rich there in Ephesus. But Paul comes into Ephesus and he's heartbroken seeing the paganism and the ugly sinfulness of Ephesus. And he had a tearful entry. He says, "You know how I came to you. I came with you serving the Lord, humility of mind, but I was shedding tears for you guys." What do you do? Do you shed tears or do you scream, "You're a bunch of idiots, imbeciles!" One thing I'm really saddened by—there's this thing as Christians, yes, we need to stand on what is true. You can try to be loving to everybody, but if you don't have truth, it's not real love. So I get there's another side of this coin. But I also see that a lot of so-called Christians—maybe they are, maybe they aren't, I don't know—but how we've become so politicized with our ideologies. "You're wrong, I'm right." And there's a real hatred and vitriol toward people that disagree with you in your worldview. Question: did the Ephesian people agree with Paul's worldview? Not even close. The Ephesians hated Paul's worldview. Remember Demetrius, the silversmith? He comes out in the big theater in Ephesus, 25,000-seat theater. And he gathers all the silversmiths and the people that are into Diana and all that. And he says, "This Paul has ruined our city. And it's because we don't sell any more goddesses. We're going broke because of this Paul. He's turned the whole city upside down." And they wanted to kill Paul. But Paul saw those people and didn't say, "You guys are on the wrong side of the aisle. You guys are a bunch of idiots." He didn't call them, you know, "Ephesus-tards" or anything like that. It's funny how, and I see Christians jumping on this bandwagon to just be spewing vitriol. Now again, I'm all about what is true. But when it comes to this choosing your side, question: is Jesus a Democrat or a Republican? I've got a news flash for you guys: Jesus ain't even an American. Do you understand that? And the thing is, if we're serving the Lord, who's not an American, what's our heart? So we're talking about Paul walking into Ephesus with tears flowing. How did Jesus come to Jerusalem? He came with tears flowing. That's what Jesus did. It says there in Luke chapter 19, verse 41, "When Jesus was come near, he beheld the city of Jerusalem and wept over it." He didn't say, "Jerusalem-tards." He didn't say that. The reason I say that is because I hear Christian people use language like that, and that's not Christ-like at all, not even close. The people that are on the opposite side of you, you're called to be a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you have a tearless ministry? I hope. Now I say that as a guy who I can hardly muster up a tear. I'm not a tearful person, generally speaking. I can count on one hand how many times I've shed a tear like in a public situation. It's very rare. And I used to think pastors that cried all the time were wimps. The longer I've seen this, I kind of go, "Man, I probably could use a little bit of that compassion because Jesus was one who wept over his city." Do you remember, by the way, when Jesus was with his disciples and said, "Who do men say that I am?" Do you remember all the guesses that people were making? "Some say you're John the Baptist." Good guess. I give them about a B-minus for that guess. Why? Well, because it's a good guess. John the Baptist was preaching, Jesus was preaching. John the Baptist preached out in the wilderness, Jesus was often in the wilderness preaching. Jesus and John the Baptist were cousins; maybe they looked alike. It's a good guess, but it's wrong. "Some say you're that prophet. Some say you're Jeremiah. Some say you're Elijah." There were all these guesses. And there's reasons why you'd guess those guesses. But you say, what about the Jeremiah one? Why would they think Jesus was Jeremiah the prophet come back? Does anybody remember, you Bible students? What was Jeremiah's nickname? The weeping prophet. Because he went around weeping all the time. Was he just a big crybaby? No. Jeremiah was not weeping because they threw him in a dungeon half full of mud where he's waist-deep in mud, soaking in mud for months. Jeremiah wasn't weeping because they tried to beat him up and run him out of town. The reason Jeremiah wept is because the people of Israel were in rebellion against God. And his heart was broken that the people rebelled against God. In fact, this is a typical Jeremiah scripture, Jeremiah 13:17: "But," Jeremiah said, "if you will not hear it," that is the word of God, "my soul shall weep in secret. In secret places for your pride." What is he going to weep over? The pride of the people in Jerusalem. Question: when you see a Gay Pride, do you go, "Oh, that just breaks my heart," and do you weep? Because you know that's hurtful, that lifestyle, that choice. We're being truthful—it is sinful. The Bible calls it sin. And it's a sin that is often unrepented of. But instead of yelling at a bunch of LGBTQ people and being mad and stuff—they might be that way toward you. But what should you have? What kind of heart should you have for people that are pagans, in rebellion against God, doing everything they can to fight against God? Well, that's what the people of Israel were doing. And Jeremiah said, "Oh, my soul will weep in secret places for your pride. And my eyes shall weep sore and run down with tears because the Lord's flock is carried away captive." Because you're an ordained minister, you can't afford to go around calling people names. You need to go around with a heart that's broken for the unsaved, and so do I. Churches need to do that.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador, illustrating how standing for what is true can reveal a prideful worldview that opposes a life lived in service to the Lord as proclaimed in today's world. And I want to mention that if you missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com. Well, Pastor Brett has joined me now. You know, I'm sure that there is somebody listening who may have tuned in and they might be feeling a sense of hopelessness today, possibly because of something that just happened to them or they could be feeling lonely or even depressed in life. Brett, can you share some hope for that person today?
Brett Meador: Boy, Kurt, I know there's a lot of people out there that do feel that. And if someone's out there that feels hopeless, I just would say, just remember you're not alone. More importantly, God sees you, he knows you. Sometimes it's the darkest seasons of our life that's the very place where God does his deepest work. So try to remind yourself that maybe it's the Lord who's going to do a great work because I'm going through this season. I've known people that were convinced their story was over, this is the end of the road, but the Lord often has a whole other chapter and purpose for you. I've found that when we get in despair, we can often have a perspective that everything's really bad, but if you know the story the way God works, if you're a follower of Christ, a believer in Jesus, all things are working together for good. And you have to remind yourself. So that's the truth: your feelings are real, but they're not final. God's got the final word on what's going to happen to you. And so you just have to put your trust in him, and that's where you really find true hope.
Guest (Male): It really is worth repeating that no matter what troubles we're going through, if we put our faith in God and trust him, he does indeed have the final word and he wants the best for us. Thank you, Pastor Brett, a good reminder. And one more time, if you missed any portion of this study, you'll find this message from Pastor Brett and more at todayswordradio.com. Well, that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett will continue our verse-by-verse account from Acts chapter 20. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.