Leading God's Church

Acts 20:28 ESV

28 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.

Lately as I have been pondering more and more on my life, what I have been finding interesting is that when God assigns me with a certain responsibility, though that responsibility may not mean a whole lot to me initially, over time, it ends up meaning the world to me.

And isn’t it interesting how that happens sometimes? It almost seems natural to be extremely zealous about something, but then in time your zeal kind of fizzles out, and that something that you were zealous about doesn’t really seem all that important anymore.

But there are some things that for reasons outside of my grasp of understanding become more and more precious and meaningful to me as time goes on.

Being my wife’s husband is something that initially was received well, and has only became dearer, more meaningful to me as time has gone by. Being a father is something that I have experienced for just over 13 years now, but I recognize my responsibility as a father to my three sons to be weightier and more precious now than it ever has been.

But most of all, I have reckoned my God-ordained ministry to the spiritual wellbeing of a particular subset of God’s elect people to mean just about everything to me. And rather than my zeal for such a holy calling to be diminished as time has gone by, it has been inflamed more and more.

It is for this reason that the text that I have selected to exposit for you today has such great meaning to me, in fact, more meaning to me now than it ever has.

The book of the Acts of the Apostles is a book that is what its title suggests; it chronicles some of the most important early Acts of the Apostles of Jesus Christ in what we recognize today as the Christian Church.

But while the book makes mention of the Apostles in general and details specific acts of several of the Apostles, the book, I would say gives the most attention to the acts of Paul the Apostle than it does the other apostles.

And as we approach the section in the book of Acts that our reading is found in for this morning, we read of a specific act of Paul. And by the time that we arrive at the time that our reading takes place, a lot has happened throughout the course of Paul’s ministry, but the specific event that has taken place to make the narrative surrounding our reading unique is that God has called Paul the Apostle to go to Jerusalem.

And while Paul was unaware as to what exactly was going to take place when he reached Jerusalem, what he did know was that imprisonment and affliction awaited him, because, as he says in the 23rd verse of this chapter, the Holy Spirit testified in every city that he went that imprisonment and afflictions awaited him in Jerusalem.

And in our reading for today, knowing that he was going to Jerusalem where imprisonment and affliction awaited him, Paul knew that this was the last time that he was going to be able to see those he was addressing in our reading, the elders of the Ephesian Church.

Thus, Paul departs from the Ephesian elders, giving them the charge to authentic pastoral ministry.

When we look at the first three words of our reading, we read where Paul says:

Acts 20:28a ESV

28a Pay careful attention

Pay careful attention, that’s how the ESV reads it. Other translations say things like, “keep watch”, “take heed”, “be on guard”, thus what we see here is that what Paul is about to charge the Ephesian elders to do requires the utmost attention, the utmost effort, and most certainly the utmost care.

And when we continue on in the reading we see that Paul charges the Ephesian elders to pay attention, to keep watch over, to take heed

Acts 20:28b ESV

28b to yourselves

Now, what does Paul mean when he calls the Ephesian elders to pay careful attention to themselves? Well, in keeping with the context of our reading, I would have to say that it is in reference to one’s own spiritual welfare.

Now, being the good Reformed Christian that I am, I believe that the Bible tells us that our salvation in monergistic. That is, I believe that our salvation is fully accomplished by One, that One being God.

But I also believe that the Bible tells us that the progress of our sanctification, that is, our growing in holiness is synergistic. In other words, while it is God Who works in us to bring us nearer to Him after we are saved; it also requires cooperation on our part for what God is doing in our sanctification to be effective.

This means that while God could, if He wanted to, just make all believers extremely godly and devout, what He does instead is change our disposition toward Him now that we are saved, and call us to know Him better through pursuing Him.

This pursuit involves a willingness and desire to know Him more, to love Him more, and to serve Him in all capacities of life. And the way that we do this is by renewing our minds by seeking out and staying in the things of God.

That means pursuing God in prayer, the regular study of the Scriptures, the commitment to attend corporate worship service on a weekly basis, and loving our neighbor.

Paul tells us in Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 and 13:

12 work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Paul says, God is working in you to will and to work for His good pleasure, so work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. This doesn’t mean that we maintain or solidify our salvation, but that we grow in holiness and sanctification as we actively and willingly cooperate with God, recognizing that He is indeed God, humbly and lovingly obeying Him, filling our minds and hearts with those things that have to do with Him.

In 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 10, we are told to:

10 strive to make your calling and election sure

Now, once again, this is not saying that we somehow solidify or maintain our salvation, that is God’s job, and He is very effective at doing that. Rather, this has more to do with the believer’s assurance of his own salvation.

I can make my calling and election, my own salvation sure to myself, I can be convinced of it, when I do those things that further my sanctification.

In other words, what Peter exhorts is that believers pursue God more and more that they may be more sure of their own salvation, thus making them more confident and effective at ministry.

This is what Paul means when he tells the Ephesian elders to pay careful attention to themselves. He tells them to care for their own spiritual condition by consistently pursuing God.

Of course, this must be a prerequisite for one to be a leader in the Church. Leaders in the Church must strive for the things of God. But we as leaders have even more responsibility than that. We also have the responsibility of paying careful attention, urging the sanctifying growth of those in our individual flocks. Notice that Paul says to pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock.

This means that as leaders, we must urge those under our care to pursue godliness, to seek God and desire Him as He truly is, to consistently pursue and utilize the ordinary means of grace such as prayer, Bible study, and corporate worship.

And not only must we urge them to do this, we must provide them with the resources to do this, helping them in any way that we can.

After all, we have not been hired by the Session or the presbytery, the flock that we serve is the flock that Paul tells us is,

Acts 20:28d ESV

28d in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God,

We have no ordinary boss that we must answer to. No, the One Who has placed us in the position that we are in is God Himself, and He takes His commands most seriously.

He has called us to be overseers, to be those who lovingly nurture those He has placed under our care. And you do that by giving them that which is good, that which results in the furthering of their sanctification.

Paul reminds the Ephesian elders and thus reminds us that the Church is not my church or your church, it is God’s Church. It belongs to Him, it consists of those whom He chose to be members of it, and as the very end of our reading tells us, God’s Church consists of those He obtained with His own blood.

This is not just another gig, a paycheck, a career. This is what God has commanded and called us to. To care for the Church that He cherishes so much that He chose it before the foundation of the world and He shed His blood for it.

May we ever reckon this Church as God’s Church, this people as His people, and may we with the ever present help of God, work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, and be here for the flock as they do the same!

Amen?