Title: A Model for the Mandate

Text: Acts 20:17-21

Textual Idea:
Dominating Theme: God has given us a mandate and a model for carrying out the Great
Commission.
Introduction: This year Graham got a little foam / cardboard miniature Dale Jr.
NASCAR car from the Dollar Store. He was excited about it when he first saw it, but it
ultimately got pushed to the side, I think given that it came unassembled. Well, after a
few days, Graham got that car out and laid it on the desk, he wanted to play with it, and
he knew he would have to put it together first. So, he gave it a shot, but it proved to be
more difficult than he was expecting. So I told him that I would take care of it and that
we could build it “together”. So one day, I took all of the pieces out and broke them all
apart into their individual shapes and I laid it all out. On the front there was a picture of
what this thing was supposed to look like, so I had a pretty good idea of where I was
going, but when I flipped the package over and looked at the back, I noticed that it didn’t
really have any directions, just brief diagram showing the 20 – 30 some odd pieces in
place. I realized right away that I knew where I was going, but had no real idea of how to
get there.

In the church, we recognize that God has given us a clear mandate in the Great
Commission. Matthew 28:18-20, “And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in
heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with
you always, to the end of the age”. We understand that the call to follow Christ by faith
is the invitation to join the kingdom of God and to begin to invite, and to compel others
to join by faith as well. We are to be like the Master’s servant in the parable of the great
banquet who was commanded to “Go out to the highways and hedges and compel
people to come in, that my house may be filled” (Luke 14:23). As undeserving guests
ourselves, and now as residents, our primary focus is to be outward. But as the
commission goes, our command is not only to invite them, but to teach them; to teach
them obedience to all that Christ commands.

By and large we are ok with this so long as it is to be taken in a general sense, in

that the church as a whole is to do this and so long as it is doing something about the lost
in the world, then just going there and maybe giving there is enough. But this is a
personal, individual command given to individual disciples, not to a Pastor, or to a church
as a whole. It is clear that God has told us where we are supposed to be going. That’s
why we say that we exist to be “making disciples to the glory of God”. But here is the
real problem, that isn’t what we are all saying, or doing. In many ways the church acts
like a car in neutral, with the engine running, the music on loud, the windows down, and
a postcard of the kingdom of God on the dash, with no Garmin to tell us how to get there.
And the real problem is that hardly anybody has a problem with that!

Back to the car. So I started to try my best to decipher that obscure diagram and
found myself doing more damage than good. I had to bend those pieces in too many
ways that they were not intended to bend for it to work and it just wasn’t coming
together. At one point, I looked up at Graham and told him that it just wasn’t going to
happen, and I blamed it on the fact that the directions were not clear enough. As you can
imagine, he didn’t like that a whole lot. Well, in the church today, we all know where we
are supposed to be going, yet few seem to heading in that direction. I guess if asked,
some those half way concerned would say that we don’t have clear enough directions on
how to get there, on how to do it. And like I did with the car initially, many in the church
have just given up, satisfied that we are in the Kingdom ourselves. Well, is it because we
lack information? Is God like the maker of that little Dollar Store car with no clear
directions? Or has He given us both a mandate and a model; that is a destination and the
directions on how to get there? And if He has is there a place where we can find those
directions? Is there a person that followed them strategically that we can model? Is there
a way that we can all be on mission with God individually fulfilling the Great
Commission?

In our text this morning we can turn to the Apostle Paul, one who took the Great
Commission seriously and in fact dedicated his life to it. We can look at his work and
understand that he followed a strategy that we can all get behind and all begin to follow.

Interrogative: What does this passage teach us about the way that we are supposed to
carry out the Great Commission?
Transition: This passage reveals the Apostle Paul’s two-fold strategy for accomplishing
the Great Commission.
Motivating Thrust: To challenge believers to consider how they can follow God’s
model for carrying out the Great Commission in their lives.
 Context Points:

• Acts 18:19 – Paul stops by Ephesus on the tail end of his second missionary
journey. At that time he left Priscilla and Aquila behind to give a Gospel witness.

• Acts 18:21 – Paul does not stay, but promises to return if it be God’s will.

• Acts 19:1 – Paul returns to Ephesus at the beginning of his third missionary
journey.

• Acts 19:8 – Paul spends three months preaching and teaching in the Jewish
synagogue.

• Acts 19:9 – Paul got run off form the synagogue by hostile unbelievers and set up
a preaching and teaching center in a place called “the school / hall of Tyrannus”.

• Acts 19:10 – Paul taught there for two years, and Luke records that “all of Asia”
heard the Word of the Lord through that ministry.

• Acts 19:21 – A riot breaks out in Ephesus among the pagans over the influence of
this new Christian movement upon the people.

• Acts 20:1 – Paul survives the riot and after encouraging the church, left Ephesus
and went to Greece.

• Acts 20:3 – Paul spent three months there until they plotted to kill him as well.

• Acts 20:6 – Paul went on to Troas where he stayed for seven days.

• Acts 20:7 – Paul preached a sermon late into the night and Eutychus fell asleep
and fell out of a window to his own death.

• Acts 20:10 – Paul went downstairs and Eutychus was raised form the dead.

• Acts 20:15 – Paul and his crew left from there and after a few stops they landed at
Miletus.

• Acts 20:17 – Paul called for the elders of the church at Ephesus which was about
thirty mile to the north as he did not have the time to spend with the whole
church.

• It was in this context, a very personal, and a very critical meeting between the
Apostle Paul and the Ephesian elders that our text is found.
Point #1: The Pulpit
Text: Acts 20:20, “how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was
profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house”.
Explanation:

• Chuck Swindoll tells an interesting story that describes our predicament. He

writes, “This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody
and Nobody. There was an important job to do and Everybody was asked to do it.
Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but
Nobody did it. Somebody got angry because it was Everybody's job. Everybody
thought Anybody would do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody
could have done”.

• I’m thankful that the Apostle Paul wasn’t that way.

• We can see here in our text that his approach to accomplishing the Great
Commission was very strategic, and intentional. It started in a public setting, with
pulpit proclamation.

• Let’s go back to the context for a minute. Paul was meeting with these Pastors,
because he was rushing back to Jerusalem, hoping to get there before Pentecost.
He wouldn’t have time to meet with the church, but he needed to pass something
important on to these folks he had already spent three years with. So what did he
say?

• In the beginning, we hear him reminding them of his testimony among them
during those three years. Luke records his first words in verses 18-19, “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”.

• Let me point out that these verses are very much a part of our text this morning, as
in the Greek, it is all one big sentence from 18-21.

• Paul appeals to his motivation behind coming to Ephesus in the first place. He
came there in obedience to the call of God in his life and he did it with a humble
and obedient heart.

• Then in our verse he begins to indicate how he fulfilled that call on his life, and I
want to focus on one particular aspect.

• Acts 20:20 (King James Version) “And how I kept back nothing that was
profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publicly, and
from house to house”.
 • First, he said that he preached it all, all that God gave him.

• KJV - “And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you”. John
Phillips suggests that the Greek word here for “kept back” is a word that comes
from the medical field referring to withholding food from patients.

• John MacArthur writes, “Shrink back is from hupostello, which also appears in
verse 27 and means “to draw back”, or “to withhold”. Paul held back nothing of
the wise counsel and holy, sovereign purpose of God; he withheld no doctrine,
exhortation, or admonition that was profitable”.

• In just a few verses he clarifies what he means here when he says, “26Therefore I
testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, 27for I did
not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God”. He preached all of
God’s Word, and remember all he had was the Old Testament at the time!

• His message focused upon what? “21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of
repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ”.

• Paul wasn’t an ear tickler. He was obedient to preach what God called him to
preach. He wasn’t a man pleaser. Church’s are slam filled with folks that have
preferences and desires. They are quick to tell you how they want to worship, or
how they have always worshipped, or what they like to sing, but do they ever ask
God what kind of music He likes? Folks love to hear it when you preach about
heaven, or healing, but they are seldom interested in hearing EVERYTHING else.

• Now, notice that Paul said that He did not shrink back from “declaring”
something to them. The KJV translates that word with the old English verb
“shewing”. That word means to announce, or to report, and isn’t that what we do
with Good news?

• We see Paul doing just that in Acts 13:13-41, when Paul preached there at the
synagogue in Pisidian Antioch. We just read it in our reading. We heard him
actually say in verses 32-33, “And we bring you the good news that what God
promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising
Jesus”.

• This was Paul’s pulpit ministry; that which he taught “in public”.

Illustration:
Theodore Epp, founder of Back to the Bible radio ministry, realized something was
wrong when he stopped receiving critical mail. Convicted that he was not challenging the
flock enough, he changed his preaching. "I'm afraid that when I'm pleasing everybody,
I'm not pleasing the Lord," he later said, "and pleasing the Lord is what counts."
This is not to suggest that a pastor is only successful when he is upsetting people! But he
must be certain that he is first and foremost faithful to the One he serves. He is fulfilling a
divine commission when he preaches. Just as an ambassador is entrusted not with his
own message but with his superior's message, so the minister is entrusted with the Word
of God. Before it is delivered, therefore, every message should be laid at the foot of His
throne with one questions: "Is it faithful to You, my Lord?" Or as one German pastor
would always pray in the pulpit, "Cause my mind to fear whether my heart means what I
say."
Charles W. Colson, The Body, 1992, Word Publishing, p. 121.

Early in his ministry, when he was pastor of the Congregational Church at Rugeley,
Campbell Morgan studied hard and preached often. He was discovering and developing
the gift of Bible exposition that later made him the prince of expositors. His preaching
made him popular. One evening, as he sat in his study, he felt God saying to him, "What
are you going to be, a preacher or My messenger?" As Morgan pondered the question, he
realized that his desire to become a "great preacher" was hindering his work. For several
hours Morgan sat there struggling with God's call and human ambition.
Finally he said, "Thy messenger, my Master--Thine!" He took the precious outlines of his
sermons, messages that he was proud of, and laid them in the fireplace where they burned
to ashes. That was when the victory was won. As the outlines were burning, Morgan
prayed: "If Thou wilt give me Thy words to speak, I will utter them from this day
forward, adding nothing to them, taking naught away. Thine whole counsel I will declare,
so help me God!"
W. Wiersby, Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching & Preachers, Moody, 1984, p. 212.

The Preacher must be a waiter and not a cook. If at the end of my message, you are not
convinced that I stole my entire message straight from the Word of God, then it was in
fact, not a Word from God!

Application: Just as the Apostle Paul had a focus on public ministry, that is on
proclaiming the Gospel to groups of people, we in the church, if we are to be obedient to
the Great commission, must do the same, both here in our church, and wherever else God
will open a door for us to go. A public preaching ministry is critical to the life of the
church, it is necessary, it is God’s design. The power resides in the Word of God.
Point #2: The Pack
Text: Acts 20:20, “how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was
profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house”.
Explanation:

• Well, Paul’s first strategy for fulfilling the Great Commission is clear; a public
pulpit ministry that he carried out in varied settings, but often in the synagogues
that he visited.

• But, if you are still with me this morning, you are probably thinking, “Now I still
don’t know how I can individually carry out this task, I don’t have a pulpit
ministry, I don’t preach, so there I am left to let Mark do the preaching and since I
am too shy to share the Gospel with others, my attendance and my giving will
have to be enough”.

• Well, there is more. Paul did more than preach in public settings. Remember,
when Paul was in Ephesus things went pretty good in the synagogue for a while.
Sooner or later they got tired of his preaching and he had to leave. So he set up
something of a Bible college in a place called the “hall of Tyrannus” and Luke
tells us that he taught there and preached there for two whole years. His ministry
was so comprehensive that Luke tells us that “all the residents of Asia heard the
word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks”.

• So we see that his public ministry, which was just Paul making disciples to the
glory of God, armed with the Scriptures and empowered by the Spirit, played out
in two phases, in the pulpit and in the classroom.

• But notice that Paul reminded the Ephesian Pastors of something else. He said,
“And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed
you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house”

• Did you see that? He went from house to house. Now we assume that there were
many churches in that area and they met in these homes. The idea here is that his
second strategy was not in the pulpit, but in the pack, in the small group setting,
where he could take those truths and make specific personal application of them
to individual people’s lives, right in their own homes.

• They lived the Christ life out together in these homes, and Paul was there as a
visiting teacher.

• Sounds like the combination that we learned about in Nehemiah chapter 8. Do

you remember how when the people were gathered, Ezra stepped into the pulpit
and began to proclaim publicly the Word of God to the people? And do you
remember how right after that the Bible says, “7Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah,
 Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad,
Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the Law, while the
people remained in their places. 8They read from the book, from the Law of
God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the
reading”.

• So the second part of Paul’s strategy involves a small group setting, where the
Word of God is applied, and people are invited and encouraged to come, the body
of Christ is built up and equipped for the work of ministry, and where the people
can live and grow together, ministering to one another’s needs.

• Does that sound like something that we already have in the church?

• It should. It sounds just like Sunday School. At least what Sunday School is
supposed to be like, and what we want it to be like.

• Jerry Vines says, “Sunday School is the church organized to accomplish her
mission”.

• Sunday School is much more than a Bible study time, or another Bible study time.
Working as it should, it is the way that each individual member and attender of
this church can plug in and do his or her part in carrying out the Great
Commission.

• Unlike that car Graham got that didn’t have any instructions, didn’t have any
directions, we have directions; we have a way for you to personally be obedient to
God’s calling on your life by being a part of a Sunday School community.

• What is the purpose of Sunday School and how does it help us to fulfill the Great
Commission?

o Reach
o Teach
o Minister
Application:

• Reach – The first purpose of Sunday School is an evangelistic one. Sunday

School first began in Britain and were designed to educate the poor working
children. In America, this same pattern was followed in the 1800s. Many
churches began to offer classes, educational classes for working men and women,
and their textbook was the Bible. Their goals were evangelistic from the start.

• Think about it. What is the biggest organization in the church? Which one is
tasked with evangelism? It isn’t the choir. It isn’t discipleship. It isn’t even
visitation. Sunday School is the only organization that includes everyone, and it
 is everyone that is under the Great Commission. Think of it this way, you got to
reach them before you can teach them right? How can we be a “Great
Commission” church if the biggest organization in our church isn’t?

• Maybe you aren’t sold yet. Well, think of it this way. We have some gifted
teachers in this church no doubt. But imagine if the Lord Jesus Christ was your
Sunday School teacher. Let me ask you, what would His number one priority for
your class be? See, Sunday School must be more than just a meeting on Sundays
and the occasional get together, it must be the church organized, and equipped,
and turned loose to accomplish the Great Commission. This is a battleship, not a
cruise ship!

• Teach - Most folks think this is all that Sunday School is for, teaching the Bible.
Well, that is a primary focus, not THE primary focus, but certainly one of them.
It is critical that we do focus our attention on God’s Word in Sunday School
during that Sunday morning meeting. This is the time where the teacher’s prior
preparation comes into play.

• Your teacher should be studied up, and prayed up, and ready to teach each
and every Sunday. By the way our Sunday School begins at 9:00 am each
Sunday. The more time we loose on Sunday the more ground we loose in
accomplishing God’s calling on our lives. Your teacher’s lesson should come
straight from the Bible. This is why we use the Life Way curriculum. It
intentionally walks us through the Bible over and over again. This is what we
need to live and to grow in the Christ life.

• Minister – We often overlook this very important aspect. The Sunday School
ministry is how we can grow bigger and smaller at the same time. Your Sunday
School class is the place that you are connected to the bigger body. You are
connected with folks your age that are experiencing similar things in their walk
with Christ.

• Think about it. On your bulletin this morning it is reporting that we had 322 in
worship last Sunday morning. That doesn’t include the 75 or so folks that were in
South Carolina and North Carolina on the retreats. On average we see something
between 350-400 every Sunday morning. And if everyone that comes once a
month would come every Sunday along with the regulars, we would have to go to
two services immediately with folks we have already reached! Well, consider
them and their families. If you count just their immediate families, which we
generally minister to more than that, but just count them for now, you are looking
closer to 600 people. Ok, there are three Pastors and 9-12 deacons, do you think
we can effectively minister to all of those folks? Do you think we will know
when they are hurting, or sick, or depressed, or struggling, or in need of prayer.
That is what deacons are here for, to minister to and to serve the church, but even
they, working full steam ahead can’t minister to everyone. There is only one
small group that can make that possible, and that is the Sunday School group.
 • The Sunday School ministry is more than just a class, it is a strategy for
accomplishing the Great Commission that involves everyone. Everyone gets a
chance to learn, to invite, to reach, to share, to grow, and to serve.
• SBC Average Sunday morning attendance: Worship – 137 / Sunday School – 93

• In 2008 Sunday School enrollment suffered an overall drop of 55,142 across the
entire convention. At the same time our churches are shrinking and winning
fewer and fewer people to Christ each year. So if Sunday School is supposed to
be where we carry out the Great Commission, what is wrong? Is Sunday School
broken, or is it operator error?

• Growth requires two things:

• 1. Change: If you keep doing the same thing you should keep expecting the same
thing.
• 2. Commitment: Ideas and intentions are good, but they lead no where without
commitment.

Conclusion:

The pulpit and the pack. Those are the two sides to our strategy for fulfilling the Great
Commission. Ask yourself this morning if you are doing what God has called you to do
in Scripture? If you aren’t working on the GC, I can make that a simple answer for you
this morning; you aren’t.