Well tonight as we come to the ordination and installation of new elders, I want to direct your attention to a passage that is generally recognized as one of, if not the, clearest treatments of the work and ministry of the eldership in the Bible. So would you turn with me please in your own copies of the Scriptures or in one of our church Bibles, to the book of Acts, chapter 20; Acts chapter 20. And we’re looking at verses 17 through 38 where the apostle Paul gathers the elders from the church in Ephesus on the beach at Miletus to say his final farewells to them. If you’re using a church Bible, you’ll find that on page 929.
Now if you glance at the passage with me, you’ll notice three large sections. First, the apostle Paul begins in verses 17 through 27 by providing a model of ministry for the Ephesian elders from his own example. A model of ministry. Then in verses 28 through 31, he addresses the elders directly and gives them their mandate for ministry. Here is what they are to do. So a model of ministry. Then a mandate for ministry. Finally, 32 through 38, the means of ministry that is going to sustain them personally in the work and shape how they do the work. So the model, the mandate, and the means of ministry.
As we pray for our elders, both our existing elders and especially for the men, the ten men being ordained here tonight, here is a passage to shape our petitions and to guide our prayers. Here is what we are to ask the Lord to help these men do and be. And elders, as you take your vows for the first time tonight or as you renew your vows along with the ordinands now before us, here is a reminder of the work to which God Himself has called you and a fresh summons to renewed obedience and service in that work. And so, given the weight of the occasion and the gravity of the teaching in the passage before us, let’s turn together to the Lord and seek His face and ask Him for His assistance. Let us all pray.
Our God and Father, we are engaged in holy work as Your Word is read and preached and prayed and sung, and in obedience to its dictates, we set aside these men for sacred office. We bless You that they are being ordained in fulfillment of the command of Jesus Christ who told us to pray to the Father, the Lord of the harvest, to raise up more laborers. For the fields are white unto harvest, but the laborers are few. And we prayed, and You have heard and answered and been pleased to send us these dear brothers. And so now as we look to You and to the ministry of Your Word, we ask that You would instruct us as a church, that You would shape these men and encourage them and strengthen them as they take up this holy office. And we look to You now. Send us Your Spirit to open our eyes and open our hearts to receive Your holy Word. For Jesus’ sake, amen.
Acts chapter 20 at the seventeenth verse. This is the Word of God:
“Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. And when they came to him, he said to them:
‘You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’’
And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship.”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy Word.
The Model of Ministry
Well the model of ministry first of all. The model of ministry. Look at verses 18 through 27. Paul is about to exhort the Ephesian elders in their duty, but before he does, he reminds them of his own example while he was ministering among them in Ephesus. All the instruction he is about to give to them finds its concrete illustration in the apostle’s own life and work. So when these elders stand before the Lord to give an account in the judgment day, they won’t be able to say by way of excuse for having neglected their duty, “Well, Lord, we would have worked harder and we would have been more diligent in this or that area of our ministries if only Paul hadn’t been so abstract. I mean try as we might, we just couldn’t figure out what this was meant to look like practically.” There’s really no ambiguity here, is there? Paul shows us very clearly, he shows the Ephesian elders very clearly what it means to be faithful in the Lord’s service.
A Humble and Bold Ministry
Look at what he says. First of all, we learn that Paul’s was a humble ministry. A humble ministry. Verses 18 and 19. “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews.” A humble ministry. And secondly, verse 20 and again in verse 27, a bold ministry. A humble ministry and a bold ministry. You notice the repetition of the phrase, “I did not shrink” in connection with his labors. So verse 20, “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from house to house.” Or verse 27, “I testify to you this day, I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” The Bible sometimes has hard things to say and it calls us to do hard things in the Lord’s service, but the apostle Paul did not hide from any of it. He did not shrink back. He was bold.
And these two need to be kept together at all times in Christian service, don’t they? Humility and boldness. Think about it. Humility without boldness is ineffectual. But boldness without humility is just plain offensive. A shepherd who is humble but isn’t bold will not pursue the wandering sheep to bring them back. And a shepherd who is bold but isn’t humble will not care well for the wounded lambs. Paul has a humble and a bold ministry.
An Obedient and Sacrificial Ministry
He also has an obedient and a sacrificial, a costly ministry. Look at verses 22 through 24. “And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Holy Spirit” – so he’s going in obedience to the call of God on his life. He is under constraint, under obligation. He is bound to go. He must go. “Constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the same Holy Spirit,” who constrains him to go, in obedience to whose dictates he now goes to Jerusalem, “the same Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace.” That’s a remarkable statement, isn’t it? Obedience, knowing that obedience will be so very costly. The Holy Spirit who calls him and sends him and constrains him to go, tells him, “If you go, it’s going to hurt.”
Now, to be sure, elders, the call of God on your lives will not likely come with the kind of sufferings that Paul endured. But it will, it will still entail sacrifice. It will be costly. Paul’s journey, as you probably know, will take him through troubles of many kinds – shipwrecks and beatings and floggings and imprisonments. He will suffer greatly for the Gospel’s sake, but this is the path upon which the Lord Jesus Christ has set his feet and he is determined, resolved under divine constraint, whatever the cost, not to turn from it, to finish his course and the ministry he received. Oh may God help you elders, ordinands, to have that same resolve, that same sense of divine constraint knowing that obedience will yet also be costly. Paul, in a few verses, as we will see in a moment, is going to tell the Ephesian elders to “pay attention to yourselves.” And here is Paul’s testimony to doing exactly that in his own case. He was humble and bold, obedient and sacrificial, costly, ministry, willing to pay whatever price that he might fulfill the work he has been given.
A Comprehensive and Christ-Centered Ministry
But you’ll also notice when Paul says in verse 28, “Pay careful attention to yourselves,” he adds, “Pay attention also to the flock.” And we see Paul doing that here as well. In his own example, he is exemplifying what he is about to require from them. You’ll notice that his was a comprehensive ministry. Verses 20 and 21, “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” So whatever was spiritually profitable, both publicly, in larger groups, in house to house, in homes, among families, in small groups, he did it among Jews and among Greeks, ministering to all sorts of people without respect to class or color or background, in all sorts of contexts. He doesn’t play favorites. He doesn’t exclude anyone on any account from access to the Gospel of God and to the ministry of discipleship. This is a comprehensive ministry strategy. The whole counsel of God applied to the whole church of God.
And as comprehensive as it was, you’ll notice it was also a relentlessly Christ-centered ministry. Do you see that in verse 21? Paul testifies both “to Jews and to Greeks of” – here’s the content; here’s the core, the constant heartbeat and pulse of his ministry – “testifying of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul was not side-tracked by other things. He was not preoccupied with controversy, needlessly, or waylaid ever by mere novelty. He was always a Gospel man. He kept the main thing the main thing. Elders must be humble and bold. They must be obedient and sacrificial. They must have a comprehensive ministry. But above all, on all accounts, theirs must be a Christ-centered, a relentlessly Christ-centered ministry. What I need, what you need, what elders need, what the whole flock of God needs is Christ. Certainly not some formulaic presentation of the same standard facts about Jesus listed merely by rote, but a careful exposition of all the glorious facts about His person. A warmhearted, passionate application to our consciences of His finished work. A loving exhortation to rest in His all sufficiency, His perfect adequacy to save to the uttermost all who come to God by Him.
I am persuaded that to the degree that Christ is incidental to the work and the ways and the words of an elder, to that same degree, his ministry will be fruitless and ineffective. But God helping him, if he will fill his heart and his head and his mouth with Jesus Christ, he can be sure that you will feed God’s people, Christ’s lambs. You will shepherd His lost sheep back into His fold. Those are the kind of elders that we need. Would you pray for these men that God would make them elders like that? Pray for the elders that we have, that they would be, we would be men like this that Paul exemplifies so challengingly for the Ephesian elders here. Humble and bold, obedient and sacrificial, with a comprehensive and Christ-centered ministry. The model of ministry.
The Mandate of Ministry
Now look at verses 28 through 31 and notice in the second place the mandate for ministry that Paul issues. Here is the central command; the meat of Paul’s exhortation to the elders from Ephesus. Here is what he wants them to do. Here is their business. Verse 28, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.” That’s the elders’ work summed up. And I want you to notice two things about it. First, the order, then the urgency of the command. The order and then the urgency.
The Order
The order first of all. “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock.” You see the wisdom of that order? “Pay careful attention to yourselves andto all the flock.” If we do not attend to the welfare of our own souls, it won’t be long until we are of no use to the flock. What a disaster, brothers, if, as we seek to lead others to living water, we forget to drink ourselves. Paul wants the Ephesian elders to be godly, to cultivate holiness, to nurture their own spiritual growth. He wants them to be men who love the Bible, who keep short accounts with Jesus Christ. Men of prayer. Men who read deeply, who think theologically, who are devoted to the means of grace and to the worship of God. Men who keep the Sabbath holy. He doesn’t want lukewarm elders. “Pay careful attention to yourself.”
Do not dare busy yourself with the work of the flock and then excuse the neglect of your own walk with the Lord. That’s his point. He wants us to avoid hypocrisy, doesn’t he? An elder had better be striving after the same Christian growth that he seeks to commend and cultivate in the lives of the people, or else he risks being dismissed by them as a fraud. Elders are supposed to be living proof before the eyes of the congregation that the grace of God in the Gospel is mighty to cleanse our consciences, to change our hearts, and to sanctify our lives. We are meant to be able to look at our elders and recognize, while they are far from perfect, yet nevertheless, there’s real, observable growing personal holiness in these men. They want to be like Jesus. “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock.” The order.
The Urgency
Notice, secondly, the urgency. If you look at the text, you’ll see that urgency comes first of all from the price paid for the church but also from the peril facing the church. It’s urgent that we care for ourselves and the flock because of the price paid for the church first of all. Look at the last phrase of verse 28. Isn’t it a striking phrase? The church is the “church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” Now remember the teaching of Scripture summarized in our own theological standards – the Westminster Confession and catechisms, which these men will shortly subscribe before us – where we are taught that “God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable. He is without body, parts or passions.” Or in the children’s catechism’s language, “He does not have a body like us.”
The Price Paid for the Church
So God doesn’t have blood, but the person of the divine Son, the second person of the blessed Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ has two natures, doesn’t He? He is God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever. It’s true the divine nature cannot bleed. God doesn’t have a body; He doesn’t have blood. But in His human nature, the person of the Son bled and died for His people so that when Paul here talks about “the church of God which He purchased with his own blood,” it is as high a statement of the deity of Jesus Christ as it is possible anywhere to locate in the Scriptures. The man who shed His blood on Calvary is the same person as the God who made the heavens and the earth, who upholds the universe by the word of His power.
Now the blood of any human being is precious, but the shed blood of the God-Man is of infinite value and worth. What could possibly call forth from the heart of God a willingness to bear such a cost that He would shed His blood? Maybe we imagine something of incalculable value, some dazzling prize, so rich and so precious that every penny of the vast sum spent to purchase it, we would instantly recognize to be perfectly worth it. So we look to see for whom does Christ shed His blood? And we don’t find a treasure, do we? We see the church. You and me. Filthy in our sin. Grubbing around in the much of our constant disobedience. Unclean. Unlovely. Unworthy. Here’s the measure of the love of God for the church, His people from every tribe and language and nation. And here’s the index of how we ought to care for the church too. It’s not the church’s intrinsic worth that should draw our devotion. It is the price paid by the blood of God to make the church His own that should compel us all to give everything in her service. If God should shed His own blood in Jesus Christ crucified for His people because He loves His church, do we have any right to disdain her for her failures or dismiss her for her hypocrisy or disregard her for her inconsistency? We get fed up with the church sometimes, don’t we? We get bored with the church sometimes, offended, bent out of shape by the church. We sit in judgment on the church. But God loves the church, an unfaithful bride, and buys her back from sin and death and hell with His own blood, Paul says. So shepherd the flock of God. Do it with urgency and attentiveness because this is the heart of God toward His church.
The Peril Facing the Church
But also notice the peril facing the church, the danger. Not just the price but the peril. Verse 29 through 31, “I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.” Fierce wolves preying on the flock. He’s talking about false teachers isn’t he? Men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. And you’ll notice they “come in among you” from outside the church. But they also come, verse 30, “from among your own selves.” And so that’s why we need to pay attention to ourselves and to the flock. There are external and internal dangers. It’s possible, you know, to be so focused one external threats that we miss the internal drift that so easily takes place. There are elders, there are ravenous wolves who will not spare the flock. There are people out there who speak twisted things, seeking to draw disciples away. And you are called to shepherd the flock of God with a diligence and an urgency that belies the dangers of the spiritual warzone in which we now find ourselves. But while you stay vigilant for external threats, do not overlook the possibility of internal drift – “from among your own selves some will arise.” Watch your life and your doctrine closely. First Timothy 4:16.
The Means for Ministry
The model of ministry. The mandate for ministry. Finally and very quickly and briefly, the means for ministry. I was talking to one of the ordinands before the service, welcoming him to our session, to our body of elders, and he said, “I feel totally inadequate for this,” to which I replied, “Join the club!” Right? “Who is sufficient for these things?” It is an enormous challenge. So how are we going to do it? How are we going to do it? Look at verse 32. “And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” God and the Word of His grace – that’s the game plan. That’s it. No clever trick. No new angle. There is God and the Word of His grace. God working by the Word of His grace. That’s what will build us up, Paul says, and secure an inheritance in glory yet to come. So drink it in, he’s saying. Drink it in yourselves and then pour it out to others.
Do note, by the way, it is the Word of God’s grace to which we are commended. We need the law of God. We need clear thinking about the doctrine of God. We need theological rigor, don’t we, but you can have all of that and miss grace. But you cannot be built up in the faith, nor obtain the inheritance to come, much less can you shepherd the flock of God apart from grace. The Word of God’s grace. The promise from God in holy Scripture to give you Christ and all His benefits. That is the sine qua non – the one thing without which there is nothing. It’s the one vital thing of all faithful or fruitful ministry. Brothers, be men of God. Be men of the Word. But be men of grace, looking not to yourselves. No wonder when you look at yourselves you say, “I’m inadequate. Who is sufficient for these things?” Me too. There’s not one of us who is. Christ alone is sufficient for these things and He has grace, grace to support and sustain, grace to strengthen and direct, grace to equip and make you useful in His service. So you need to look to Him.
May the Word of God’s grace always be in your heart and often on your lips. May it fill your prayers and shape your motives and direct your decisions and tincture all your speech. The Word, the Word of God’s grace is the shepherd’s crook in the hand of the Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Himself, and He is going to wield it through faithful elders who pay attention to themselves and to all the flock of God.
The model of ministry – humble and bold, obedient and sacrificial, comprehensive and Christ-centered. The mandate for ministry – pay attention to yourself and to all the flock. And the means of ministry – I commend you to God and to the Word of His grace. May the Lord make the men being ordained here tonight shepherds who constantly put the flock of God in mind of the Good Shepherd Himself by the way they depend upon Him and serve you. Let’s pray together.
O Lord, we do cry with the apostle Paul, “Who is sufficient for these things?” and answer with him, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as coming from ourselves. Our sufficiency is from God who makes us ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter that kills but of the Spirit that gives life.” So we look to You and we commend these our brothers about to be ordained to You, our God, and to the Word of Your grace that is able to build them up and to give them an inheritance among those who are being sanctified. Bless them and strengthen them, their marriages and their ministries. May they be indeed men of God, men who depend upon Your grace, and men who will shepherd Your flock well. For Jesus’ sake we pray, amen.