Mike Stone - Preaching Conference

you brother on so much for blessing us with that song and thank you for the Lord Jesus for giving us something to sing about amen let me invite you to go ahead and be taking your Bible and finding the book of Acts and the 20th chapter be finding please Acts chapter 20 as you're finding the 20th chapter of the book of Acts I want to say a special word of appreciation to the conference president dr. Tom Rush and all those who had a part in extending this invitation for me to be today's preacher now you may not know this but behind the scenes there was a possible schedule change and for most of the last 45 minutes to an hour I thought the dr. Mohler was going to come next and I was going to have to follow him the primary thing I've been doing is praying that he was not going to be preaching from Acts chapter 20 today from this twentieth chapter of Acts I want to bring a message that I am absolutely 100% t totally confident that God has laid on my heart for every person in this room the reason is this is not what we preachers would call a sugar-stick message in fact if I'm real candid with you I only preached this sermon one time about five months ago in the church where I'm privileged to be a member we were preparing for a new Sunday morning series we've recently started through the book of 1st Corinthians I thought it would be wise to go back and spend some time reintroducing ourselves to the Apostle Paul and not only is this not a sugar-stick message but if I'm very candid with you it didn't even go very well the Sunday I preached it at Emanuel guys have you ever had one that was hot as a firecracker on Thursday afternoon but cold as an igloo on Sunday morning I mean when I got home I told my wife I said that didn't go nearly as well that's what I had anticipated it was going to and she said well they can't all be homeruns honey I said thanks a lot but my prayer is that this message would be one that God would use to encourage and strengthen you as the Holy Spirit used it to encourage and strengthen me and from the 20th chapter of Acts I just want to move verse by verse through the text beginning in verse 17 a message that I want to present under the title a good good the text is familiar to us it's Paul's farewell address to the Ephesian elders in acts 20 beginning in verse 17 listen to the word of your God from my Letus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church and when they had come to him he said to them you yourselves know from the first day that I set foot in Asia how I was with you the whole time serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which came upon me through the plots of the Jews how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you publicly and from house to house solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and now the hold bound by the Spirit I'm on my way to Jerusalem not knowing what will happen to me there except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city saying that bonds and afflictions await me but I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself so that I may finish my course in the ministry which I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God and now behold I know that all of you among whom I went about preaching the kingdom will no longer see my face therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men for I do not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose or counsel of God may God add a blessing to the reading of his word as we consider a good goodbye because this is not that familiar text I'm going to be more limited to my notes than I like to be on such occasions but I want to just share with you what I believe is on the heart of God for this assembly in my ministry I have resigned from three different churches many of you perhaps each of us have had that experience of those three resignations two of them were good goodbyes you know have to be a math expert to know that means that one of them was not now given the average tenure of the servants of God in this room every pastor every staff member will most likely have several farewell addresses in your ministry and when we come to Acts chapter 20 we find Paul's famous farewell address to the pastor's of the churches in and around the city of Ephesus you know the historical context Paul is sailing by that way he knows he cannot make the journey doesn't have the time to go to Ephesus so he sends word and calls for all of the Ephesian elders or pastors to come to the city of Miletus and he gives what we might consider a first century pastors conference and the guest keynote speaker is none other than the Apostle Paul the title of his message might well be given how to have a good goodbye and brothers and sisters my humble prayer to this assembly is that God would use this message to show us how to have a good goodbye whether that goodbye is said after a long profitable successful ministry or whether that goodbye is said at the end of a cantankerous business meeting or a conflicted Deacons meeting may God give us wisdom to know how to have a good goodbye and more importantly when God calls us from this life into the life to come may we stand at the doorway of death and when we say goodbye to this world and hello to the world eternal may we hear of our Lord well done good and faithful servant in other words I pray for myself and for each of you that will be able to have a good goodbye at every stop on this missionary Road and at the end of our gospel assignment in full now there are three simple principles that I want to bring from Paul's farewell address for the Ephesians if we are to have the ability to say a good goodbye three things must be present in our ministries first I beg you today to have consistency in your service consistency in your service we know that Paul had ministered in the Ephesian Congregation for a period of three years and he begins his farewell discourse in the latter portion of verse 8 verse 18 with these simple you your selves know he describes a ministry with which they were familiar and he bookends it he says it was from the first day until now brothers and sisters on my last day as a pastor I want to be able to look my congregation square in the face and say you yourselves know on my deathbed I want to be able to say to my wife and to my children and God willing my grandchildren gathered around that from the day of my salvation from the day of my call into the gospel ministry until the drawing of my last breath you've watched me you've examined me you could scrutinize my life you've observed my testimony not a perfect man but you yourselves know how I've tried to preach and live out what I have preached Paul says you know I was consistent in my service brothers and sisters anybody can start a race but it takes some steadfast commitment to be able to say I fought a good fight I have finished my course anybody can start a race I had somebody ask me recently brother Mike how many of your church members can be counted on would it be real honest with you all of them can be counted on some can be counted on to serve some counted on to give somebody can be counted on to teach some can be counted on to witness some can be counted on to pray and some can be counted on to quit you got any church members like that some years ago a new staff member came and he had only been with us a couple of weeks and he came into a staff meeting he was so excited he announced that he had finally found a volunteer to fill that vacancy we said wonderful who is it and he named a woman's name and we all began to laugh and was drawing short straws to see who's going to tell him that lady that you think is going to head up this ministry she only comes about three times a year and the times that she comes she signs up to be a foreign missionary to head up the WMU she would think she had a call to preach if you were up where a man but then you can't find her for another three or four months Paul did not have that kind of ministry he said from the first day until now now as Paul speaks and testify the consistency in his service there is much we can learn from that three of them I want to bring to bear first I challenge you today to serve faithfully in times of triumph did you notice how the Apostle begins his testimony in verse 18 I was with you the whole time verse 19 serving the Lord with all humility now the idea of having humility carries with it of course the need for humility Paul that certainly had at times a difficult ministry but Paul also had a very productive and profitable ministry yes there were the days he was beaten yes there were the days he was accused yes there were the days he was maligned but there were also the days that he led a young woman made lydia to the feet of the cross of jesus there are also days when the Philippian jailer said brothers what must i do to be saved and he said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved in that night that man and all of the members of his household believed in Christ and testified to it in the watery grave of a believers baptism Paul needed to serve God even in times of triumph I know that many of those in this building today are struggling but also know many are enjoying good days and success and I want to talk to that latter group for just a moment if you're in a growing ministry if you're in a place of blessing now remind you the devil will use anything to sidetrack you and if he can't use decline and difficulty he will use increase and success to get your hand off the plough and your eye off the ball Paul would testify to you today that if there's anything good going on in your ministry bless God it's not because there's anything good going on in you it's because you've just gotten in on the good work of a good God who's still doing his good work in the kingdom of the world today Paul would say you need to serve in times of triumph he said I served with all humility a couple of years into my pastor God really began to bless the ministry where I am and humanly speaking is not because of me even humanly speaking it's because I inherited a wonderful healthy congregation from my predecessor dr. Don had a way we were just basking in the overflow of the ministry that he had for the better part of a decade we had moved into a new sanctuary and I mean people were coming and they were joining and the baptistry waters were constantly being stirred and I'll never forget tonight that I pulled into the parking lot at the Immanuel Baptist Church of Blackshear and not in a sense of self-loathing not in a sense of false humility but I began to weep as I stared at our steeple piercing the night sky and I said Lord I don't have any business pastoring this church I sort of expected that the Lord was going to say oh yes I was expecting some bumper sticker answer you know like I don't call the equipt I equip the called and that's true by the way but may I say to you what I sensed the Holy Spirit press on my heart god I don't have any business pastoring this church I sense the Lord say you're exactly right and if you'll remember that I will use you I confess there have been days I have forgotten that and it's on those days that the sovereign hand of God has removed his blessing from our ministry because God will not share his glory Paul would say serve faithfully and serve in times of triumph but notice also in verse 19 he would admonish us to serve in times of Tears do you see it there serving the Lord with all humility and with tears Paul was more than a preacher Paul was a pastor he had invested his life into the lives of the believers in Ephesus this word tears is a very picturesque word it's used in the Gospels to describe the grief of the heart of a the father of a demon-possessed boy it describes a deep agonizing anguish of soul down in verse 31 of the text Paul said he had Mohnish them with tears he speaks of this in first Thessalonians 2 when he says I imparted unto you my very life to the pastors in particular one of the blessings of long tenure of going somewhere and staying somewhere is you spend your life getting involved in and invested in the lives of the people in that congregation and once you have stood by the deathbed and walk to the cemetery once you have counseled the grief-stricken woman and the heartbroken man once you have ministered in the rigors and the toils of life listen it will just flat change the way that you preach Paul said I ministered there with tears when we realize that we are investing our lives in the lives of other people it will change the preaching of our ministry I'm not talking about the content I'm talking about the tone and the pay Falls of it I mean yes you'll still continue to preach that God created life within the womb and on sanctity of life Sunday you'll stand for the divine stamp of the creator but you'll do it realizing there's a woman out in the congregation who needs to be reminded that where sin did abound grace did much more abound yes we'll stand firm on the sanctity of marriage and the biblical doctrine concerning homosexuality but we'll do it knowing there's a new young believer in Christ who loves Jesus with all of his heart but he's still struggling and warring with his flesh yes we'll preach the truth about adultery but we'll do it knowing there's a backslidden church member under deep conviction who needs to be reminded there's still a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood can still lose all of their guilty stains Paul said when I was there I don't have to remind you you yourselves know I was faithful in trial I was faithful in times of Tears he would also encourage us today to serve faithfully in times of trials I'm still in the nineteenth verse we'll pick up the pace at a moment serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials the King James renders this word as temptations but it speaks more accurately of trials and of tests if you've been in the full time or even by vocational or volunteer lay ministry you don't need me to tell you that if you're going to live a life that matters for the cause of Christ you've got to get something straight not everybody's gonna like it Adrian Rogers used to love to tell the story of the woman that came up to him and said Oh dr. Rogers everyone in Memphis loves you and he would say to her ma'am don't slander me so Jesus said if they hated me they're going to hate you if they persecuted me they're going to persecute you Paul knew what it was like to be betrayed by men that he loved Paul knew what it was like to have the pain inflicted by an Alexander the coppersmith Paul knew what it was like to get a transfer of letter from brother Dimas Paul knew what it was like to have somebody desert the ministry like John Mark and yes we're grateful that ministry and relationship was later restored but don't you know how it hurt at the time Paul references the pain that was inflicted by the hands of the Jews maybe he has in mind the Jews who had come over from Thessalonica it wasn't enough that they ran him out of their own town they had to follow him to the next town maybe in our context these are the people who leave the church and we're grief-stricken that they leave the church but we wish they had left the church directory with them I mean if you're going to go over to New Bethel number seven quit calling all of our folks and trying to run me down yet again does anybody know what I'm talking about I don't have time or need to testify to you about some of the crazy things that a pastor can be criticized and put through the wringer for I mean you've just finished preaching the gospel you feel like you're across somewhere between Jarry vines and Billy Graham then you just stand up there and you just wax bold and you preach the gospel and people come down the aisle and they testify they want to be saved and people join the church and they men a still ringing off the wall when sister Beulah bends your ear out in the lobby and half cusses you out because you didn't announce the social for the sweet sister's Sunday School class God moved in a great Holy Ghost revival and it's the service is barely over before there's a deacon holding you personally responsible for all the little boys shoving their bubble gum wrapper in the communion cup holders again in the Apostle Paul's case it literally meant the threat of death and he would later tell Timothy all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution please understand I'm not talking about being rightly criticized rightly confronted and even rebuked for foolish things that we have done I'm talking about suffering for righteousness sake one pastor went home and told his wife he said honey I've got good news and bad news she said well give me the good news first he said well there's a group of Deacons that unanimously would like me to accept a pastor in Florida she said what's the bad news he said it's our deacons the simple admonishment from the apostle paul is in good times in bad times listen when they're coming when they're going when they're shouting as you preach when they stare at you like a wooden Indian at a cigar store outside of Havana Cuba stay with these stuff from the first day until the last have consistency in your service there's a second thing that we need to have if we're to have a good goodbye not just consistency in service but I beg you have convictions in your speech convictions now that's a word that we don't hear enough of anymore even in the Southern Baptist Convention the problem with the American Christian is we've got too many opinions and not enough convictions you say what's the difference well I define it like this an opinion is something you'll fight for a conviction is something you'll die for and if you don't have to die for it brother you'll at least be willing to get fired for it Paul had convictions in his speech in fact Paul had wrong ribs stainless steel conviction that ultimately caused his life and silence his voice but while he was living those convictions filled his heart and overflowed from his lips every time he got up to preach now I want you to notice three aspects of the conviction that came from Paul's speech notice now in verse 20 why he preached how I did not shrink back from declaring to you anything that was profitable Paul preached because he had a conviction that what he preached was profitable to them this is the word that would be used over in 2nd Timothy 3:16 that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is what profitable Paul says I'll tell you why I got up and preached what I preached whether it was publicly and what we would call a pulpit or privately from house to house I did it because I had a conviction that this is what you needed and even though it may cause things to not go well for me it took God would it be used to make things go well for you I had this Illustrated in my own ministry a few years ago I preached a Sunday morning message on what the Bible says about beverage alcohol and we don't have unanimity on that subject anymore even among Georgia or Southern Baptists the message that day was not some legalistic attempt to twist people's arm it was simply a call from the Proverbs they call to wisdom and on Monday morning when I came in I had two of the nastiest emails I've ever gotten in my life they called me everything but Mike backwood legalistic fundamentalist behind the barn ignorant crazy Fundy all these kind of things sullivan told me i didn't belong in a southern baptist church i belonged in a mean-spirited independent baptist church and that wasn't even the meanest sermon i had on alcohol and i'll tell you what I did I'm ashamed to admit it but I believe it may help somebody in this building today I'll tell you exactly what I did I found me a juniper tree over in the corner of my office and I started having me an old-fashioned pity party now I know you've never done that but I said to myself if they're going to talk to me that way write to me that way do me that way I've got some other places that I could go while I could go sell insurance I could go sell cars I could go do something else I don't have to take any of that and write along about that time my office phone rang my secretary said I know you're in your study you asked your calls to be taken but this sister is on calls to be held but this sisters on the phone and I really think you ought to take this one and I answered the phone and here's what this roughly 45 to 50 year old woman said she said pastor you'd never know this my teenage boy would never tell you but yesterday when we got home from church his daddy who works every other Sunday and one able to be there yesterday I heard my teenage boy slip off to the back bedroom and I heard him called the office and asked for his daddy and here's what he said with tears and trembling lip he said daddy daddy brother Mike preached today about alcohol and daddy I just want to call and tell you I'm so proud of you daddy thank you for giving up alcohol so that me and my little brother and our mama could have a better life and you know what I did I went back to those old nasty grounds and I clicked the upper-right-hand red X and I put them in the delete box in the trash can where they belong to start with and I made up my mind it may not go good for me but it's the only message that God has ordained to touch the heart stir the soul and transform a life Paul said I preach to you because I had a conviction it was gonna do you some good he said I didn't shrink back from declaring to you anything that was profitable there's a message about why he preached then we see indication of where he preached I'm still in verse 20 would you look at it with me please how it did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you publicly and from house to house now the first thing I want to point out just briefly is this speaks obviously of his personal soul-winning efforts Paul was a pastor Paul was an evangelist Paul was a soul winner he did not barricade himself in the confines of his study going over Strong's Concordance and online lexicons there's a place for that but Paul was out among and with the people but when he says I was preaching publicly and from house to house Paul as a Jew of Jews is using an old figure of speech that literally means I was the same everywhere I went and all under God how we need consistency and integrity in the ministry today Paul is advocating a 24/7 everywhere you go brand of Christianity could I say it like this to this social media age Paul was not an advocate of Facebook Christianity you know from time to time you see all these pseudonym accounts on Twitter pseudonym accounts on Facebook I see a lot of them from people who are still alive I think man who are you trying to fool who are you trying to pretend to be Paul wanted to have integrity in his life not long ago I got a facebook friend request from a city where I had preached and you know when you preach revivals these days that that often happens and when I clicked on it I didn't recognize the name of this woman and it always makes me a little hesitant to to click on it but I kind of held my breath and I clicked on it and there was a there was a collage of pictures from this woman as she had recently posted a facebook photo album and there were three pictures in that little collage and with heaven as my witness one of them was a picture of her in the skimpiest bikinis could ever imagine and the other was a little meme a jpeg of proverbs 31 and the it said strength and dignity are her clothing I thought sister you're wearing three band-aids I guess one is called strength the other is called dignity what's the other one's name Paul would say be the same wherever you go be the same whether at the church house or at the schoolhouse be the same whether in the choir room or the boardroom in the pulpit or on the Internet be the same whether everybody's watching or where nobody's watching Paul said my life was an open book before you there's why he preached and where he preached and then let's look at what he preached verse 21 what did he what would he declare publicly in house the house 21 solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ elsewhere in this address he would summarize his message as saying it was the gospel of the grace of God verse 24 in verse 25 he says he preached the kingdom and in verse 27 he said he declared unto them the whole purpose of God as a pastor in a local church the primary aspect of my pulpit ministry is preaching book by book by book through the Bible and preaching line by line and verse by verse and what we call expository preaching and I have learned what many of you have learned when you preach through books of the Bible not every message is going to be as spine-tingling and interesting as the one before it or perhaps the one to come our friend HB charles recently commented on this and said you know when you're preaching through books of the bible some passages are like a slow hanging curveball about to break over the center of the plate and they lend themselves to driving a home run over the centerfield fence and then some of them when you see them coming your assignment for that Sunday is to lean into the pitch get hit in the shoulder take one for the team and get on base Paul said he preached repentance unto God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can we be candid since it's just us in here if we're committed to preaching all of it we can't just skip around and preach our own pet doctrines and hobbyhorse stories I mean pastor when you go to a new place after you've gone through recycling that first year of all the best stuff from your previous churches at some point you've got to start preaching the whole counsel of God and if you do that you're going to run into some stuff that lost people at least will think your slap crazy and backslidden church members will think you have crazy I mean we believe some crazy stuff don't we we believe in axe heads that flows and sees that part and donkeys that speak they're called Deacons and I'm just kidding I love Deacons that's just junk we believe that blind people see and deaf people hear and dumb people can begin to speak we believe lame people can begin to walk we even believe that dead people can begin to breathe again but by far the craziest thing we believe in it was the centerpiece of Paul's preaching ministry we believe that the God of heaven and earth robed himself in flesh and blood not because he saw any good in us but because there was good in him he descended into this sin-stained world he lived alive we could not live died to death that we deserve to die and to show that his death paid the ransom for our sin God raised him from the dead and now we preach repentance unto God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that's what Paul preached it is generally believed that during his three-year stay in Ephesus Paul wrote the first inspired letter to the church Corinth and there he acknowledges that concerning the lost people that hurt him half his crowd would think his message was foolish and half his crowd would say it was a stumbling block but Paul would admonish us today wherever you are wherever you go God has not called you to be popular God has called you to be faithful brothers God has not called you to be cool hip or edgy but if you're any of those things that's fine too God has called you to be faithful to the text to have convictions in your speech to have consistency in your service one last thing is necessary if we're to have a good goodbye and that is confidence in your struggles confidence in your struggles Paul is leaving them and heading to Jerusalem and ultimately into the belly of the Roman beast he admits in this farewell discourse that he doesn't know everything that is waiting for him except that the Holy Spirit tells him there will be bonds and there will be changed how would you like to get that call from the pulpit committee the Holy Spirit just simply told Paul the truth can we lean in close to the text for just a moment in spite of all that Paul leaves a crowd that loves him to death to go preach in a place where they will hate him unto death what in God's name would make a man do that could it be a little more personal what will make a man leave the house on a Sunday morning and kisses the wife that loves him and the children who idolized him and go stand before a congregation that wants to meet after the service to chew him up spit him out and Ronny models it's because Paul was bound there's an interesting play on words that he uses here in the text he acknowledges that the Spirit of God has revealed to him that bonds and chain and afflictions await him every where he goes but he mentions that he is bound by another chain as they head back to Ephesus and Paul heads to Jerusalem and ultimately to Rome to die on the executioner's chopping block I ask you again what would motivate a man to do that three simple things as we close notice in verses 22 and 23 what I've entitled the motivation of his work verse 22 and now the hold bound by the spirit I'm on my way to Jerusalem not knowing what will happen to me there except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city saying that bonds and afflictions await me Paul's focus is not on the physical chains and the physical bondage his focuses on a spiritual chain and a spiritual bond in verse 22 he uses the same word and says he is bound by the spirit Paul would be able to testify as did the ancient prophet that if he ever tried to quit there was a fire that was shut up down in his bones on the day that I went in my pastor's office years ago and shared with him about my call into ministry I was in law school at Mercer law school at the time and my now wife was a student at Bruton Parker College right after we started dating one of the girls that had seen me come to campus she said who's that boy that's been showing up on campus to see you does he go here too Bruner she said no he's in law school at Mercer and and and the other girl said oh girl you know Mary law you gonna be rich well after our second maybe third date I shared with her that I was not gonna return to law school God had called me in a vocational ministry and I was going to head off to seminary and so a few weeks later that same girl saw my then-girlfriend on the campus she said girl you still dating that lawyer boy and she said well sorta same guy but now he's going to seminary he's going in the ministry and she said girl you gonna be broke well God has certainly been gracious to me but what would motivate a person to do that perhaps one of the best examples is taken from the life of Mother Teresa who ministered faithfully in a leper colony and the story says that one day a reporter was following her around as she spent the entire day touching the diseased and corrupted bodies of the leper on one occasion she was putting salve in the cavity of a man's face where his nose used to be and the story says the reporter said to her later I would not have done what you did for a million dollars to which she reportedly said neither would I now to my pastor friends in the building there's going to come a point in your walk with Jesus you've got to realize I've got an assignment that Fort Knox can't pay me enough money to do so when you try to starve me out when you try to cheat me out listen when you try to designate my salary to the van replacement ministry you can't run me off because of money because I'm compelled by the power of the Holy Spirit there's the motivation of his work notice also now carefully what I've called the consideration of his worth in verse 24 but I do not consider or I do not count my life of any account as dear to myself so that I may finish my course in the ministry wife which I received from the Lord Jesus to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God here Paul uses a couple of accounting terms and mentions that he's checked the books he's done in all that he's prepared a profit and loss statement and here's what he has decided are you still listening to me here's what he had decided my soul is of immeasurable worth before God but my life is worthless compared to the surpassing greatness of the risen Christ though he'll use a different word in Philippians chapter 3 he says the same thing there whatsoever things were gain to me those things I have counted as laws for the sake of knowing Christ Paul said I'll tell you why I'm motivated to go into a difficult place because my life is of no worth to me compared to fulfilling the assignment of Jesus some years ago I received a call from a pulpit committee you know pulpit committees today can check you out online long before you ever know that they're looking at you and so before I ever heard from them they had already decided I was their next pastor and I knew enough about that church to know that they had had a heyday that heyday was a long time ago they were back and forth in controversy and I politely answered the man I hung up the phone and here's what I said to God after a very brief conversation totally void of prayer god I'm not going down there listen at my age it take 2530 years to turn that church around like an old battleship all I would accomplish for the rest of my life is go down there and spend the rest of my days turning that old ship around so that maybe the guy that comes behind me could have a successful ministry and I'm telling you I was immediately rebuked by the Holy Ghost of God and I was reminded son I bought you lock stock and barrel I purchased you with the blood of my son Jesus Christ and if I want to use you on the back side of nowhere I can do that because you belong to me if some had tried to rebuke Paul as they would Paul don't go Paul don't go the spirit has revealed bonds and hardship are waiting on you Paul would have said you're killing me don't you understand anything I'm not worried about being killed I'm already dead for I have been crucified with Christ nevertheless I live not i but Christ lives in me what would motivate a man to do this there's the motivation of his work there's the consideration of his worth and then lastly pay attention now we're talking about how to leave a ministry how to end a life and have a good goodbye in verses 25 through 27 we read about the declaration of his witness and now behold I know that all of you among whom I went about preaching the kingdom will no longer see my face therefore I testify to you this day I'm innocent of the blood of all men for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose or the whole counsel of God here Paul says goodbye and you know the remainder of the text they weep bitterly the emotion is deep the pathos is great because they realize because of travel in that day they would never see the Apostle Paul in this life again as far as they are concerned Paul is a goner and here are his closing words to them if any of you die lost and go to hell it ain't my fault bad grammar good testimony and because I preached you the whole counsel of God if any of you have not been built up in the faith if any of you have not grown in the Grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ it will not be my fault I believe he has the prophecy of Ezekiel on his mind and the judgment seat of Christ on his heart that when I stand before God I will stand there absolutely innocent of any deficiency in your spiritual life I have done what God has called me to do from the first day until now and when I stand in the presence of the Lord I will stand there blameless on the day of judgment this truth was demonstrated in my life and ministry in a very personal way just 12 days ago some of you're familiar with the church that I'm blessed to pastor I've been on staff there 21 years now my predecessor had a great men three over nine years before me but the guy before him was a faithful servant of Jesus that was done as wrong and as ugly as any preacher has ever been done there was a 12 year period of time that we had seven pastors do the math and all of them were gifted and capable men but you can only put up with so much especially if you've got wives and children or do you hear what I'm saying but in the 1980s God sent us a pastor I want to honor him today and use his life to encourage you God sent us a pastor by the name of dr. Carol Phillips and he was a man who stood for the Word of God and when there was tumult in our Southern Baptists and even our Georgia Baptist Convention we had a local conservative resurgence at the Emmanuel Baptist Church of Blackshear this past weekend our deacons meeting as we were just reminiscing and honoring his life one of the Deacons remembered a time that after a deacons meeting they had to call the law because one of the church members was out in the parking lot with a baseball bat could I interrupt my own sermon and say thank God for deacons we'll call the law and slip the preacher out the back door but what we really need are some deacons who will walk arm and arm with the preacher out the front door and say if you don't put that baseball bat down and get off our property or get in the altar and get right with God we're going to bury you tonight behind the fellowship hall and tell God you died of natural causes [Applause] in the late 80s the church split by literally a vote of one going into the meeting his wife and said honey you've got to have a majority but do you have your own personal percentage that you've got to have he said God has not released me honey if it's 50% plus one we're staying and that's exactly what happened and God used his faithfulness to help lay a foundation of strong Bible preaching and Christ exalting ministry and I don't mean to boast or to brag but I'm telling you anything that God has done in the last 25 years in our church isn't doing large part to a man who ministered faithfully and some of the most wicked and hard times you could ever imagine on what was the backside of nowhere in a little town of 4,000 people in southeast Georgia and don't you know there had to be times that he went home and asked himself is it worth it don't you know there had to be times like some of you are experiencing where he just tossed and he turned don't you know there had to be times when he hated going to the office don't you know there had to be times he got up and prayed there was going to be a pulpit committee in the congregation don't you think there were days that he wondered is it all in vain but Thursday of last week after a long bout with cancer living with his family in Cypress Texas he closed his eyes in the Lone Star State and opened his eyes in the presence of God and I've come today to tell you that if we could talk to him right now he'd say it's not in vain when he saw the nail-pierced hands of his Savior welcomed him into the presence of heaven he would testify to us today it is not in vain when he heard the sweet voice of a Galilean carpenter say well done good and faithful servant he would say stay with the stuff Georgia Baptist it's not in vain and when the hands of the lovely Lord Jesus put a crown of righteousness upon his head one that's not just for him but for all those who love his appearing I bet he would say to us go ahead and preach brother because it's not in vain and when he casts that crown at the feet of the Lord Jesus and joined the cry of eternity saying worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive honor and glory and power and riches and blessing and majesty and Thanksgiving he'd say to us today my brothers and my sisters among Georgia Baptist be steadfast and immovable always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that your labor for the Lord is not in vain [Applause] you

Channel: Georgia Baptist Mission Board

Views: 2,273

Rating: 4.5294118 out of 5

Keywords: God, Jesus, Christian, Georgia, baptist, convention, GBC, SBC, southern, baptists, ministry, missions, church, churches, denomination, Mike Stone, Mike, Stone, Preaching Conference, Preaching, Conference

Id: VodRRqVbp3o

Length: 47min 29sec (2849 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 20 2017