We trust, Lord, that has been our prayer, that You would show us Christ, help us to meet Him in the pages of the Word that His Spirit has inspired. We pray that we would see Him more and more in our lives, reflected in the character of this church. We pray that You would speak to us. Give us ears to hear. You would show us Christ. Give us eyes to see. We pray this in His name. Amen.

We come this morning to Acts chapter 20. A few more weeks as we hit some of the highlights in the book of Acts before we turn to some Advent messages come December, and then Lord willing pick up again in the New Year with John. We come this morning to Acts chapter 20, beginning at verse 1 through verse 16, and then I hope next week to do the second half of Acts chapter 20. We have been looking at, to a large degree, God’s vision for the Church. We have our own vision document, which hopefully reflects some of these, but much more important than what we have written down, is what God has written down, and so we’ve seen God’s vision to be a teaching church, a praying church, a mission-sending church, and now this week and next week we will hear something of God’s vision for what pastors and elders are to do in a church.

Follow along as I read from chapter 20, and though it is a record, you’ll see, of Paul’s missionary journeys, yet I think this gives us something of Paul the pastor as he comes and he visits many of these congregations again and seeks to strengthen them.

Verse 1. “After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia. When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece. There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus. These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas, but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days.”

“On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, ‘Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.’ And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted.”

“But going ahead to the ship, we set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land. And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene. And sailing from there we came the following day opposite Chios; the next day we touched at Samos; and the day after that we went to Miletus. For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.”

Now what to do with a passage like this? Most of the other passages we’ve gone through you may recognize as high points in the book of Acts and they’re very famous stories, and this one may have some recollection, but it doesn’t look on the face of it to be one of 12 or 13 that I ought to have chosen.