Now we go on to the 14th chapter. Paul returns from his missionary journey, "And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how He had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles." Is that not significant? When they got back, it was the Church that Paul sought. It was there he unburdened his heart and told out the story of God's way with him on that eventful missionary journey. Yes, Paul was an assembly man, a Church man; and I trust any of us here tonight in our service for Christ will never get beyond the place where we feel the need of the assembly.
I pass on the little illustration given me by a brother. He said, Some brethren seem all gospel-minded. They do not seem to get much beyond the gospel to discover the importance of the assembly, and others are so church-minded that they seem to lose sympathy with the gospel. Neither is in accordance with the mind of God. The brother went on to say, In our ministry we should be like a pair of compasses-one leg planted in the middle of the assembly and kept there, and never wandering away, and the other leg of the compass wandering as far in gospel testimony as it may, consistently with the Word of God.
When the Apostle had finished this evangelical tour, he was back with the Church in happy fellowship, telling them what God had done and how He had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles. "And there they abode long time with the disciples." This man was a great servant, entrusted with the highest truth God ever committed to man; but he never became so infatuated with saving souls that he forgot or neglected assembly life and testimony. Here Paul abode a long time with the disciples. How easy it is to put wrong emphasis on things. I was thinking about Peter's commission in John's gospel. After his restoration, what did the Lord tell him to do? Send him out to preach the gospel? Not a word about the gospel. He says, "Feed My sheep." He is a shepherd-"My sheep." It all had to do with the house of God. How the Lord loves the sheep, and when we put the gospel above ministry to the saints, when we discount teaching in order to elevate preaching, we have not the mind of God. The greatest preacher and evangelist who ever lived is this man Paul, but he did not think he was wasting his time by staying there a long time teaching the disciples.
Now we go further, to the 20th chapter. Here he is making his farewell address. The 25th verse: "And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men [this is Paul's last visit to Ephesus]. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." Now, if you are going to be in the good of Paul's ministry, you will desire the whole counsel o God; and if you deliberately refuse it, you are cutting yourself off from what God has for you. And if you refuse it to others, you are like a man who wraps a cord around the arm of another and stops the circulation. If you rob the saints of some of the truth of the counsels of God for them, you are doing damage to them. Paul said that if he had done it that way he would be guilty of the blood of those people. He means to say that he would be responsible spiritually for their being left lame, sickly, and puny, and lacking in normal growth; but he says, "I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." Should we seek less? Should we be satisfied with less than the whole counsel of God?
Now going to the 22nd chapter, 14th verse. We are back to Paul's conversion, but it comes in here in an orderly way. Ananias said to him, "The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know His will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of His mouth." Now the expression one desires to emphasize is this: "That thou shouldest know His will." That is more than simply going out to preach the gospel. From the very start of his commission, Paul was to know God's will.
Now we will go to the last chapter of Acts, last two verses: "And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him." We see the double character of Paul's ministry there- teaching and preaching. They both went together. And what was the theme? The theme was the kingdom of God and all that concerned the Lord Jesus Christ. Now when you have those three titles put together in that way, it means God is seeking to bring before us all the range of truth that has to do with the Person of His Son-as Lord, as Savior, as the Anointed, as the crucified Man up there-our Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the sad things that one notes in conversations with Christians at large is that you seldom hear them speak of "our Lord Jesus." They will talk about "Jesus," about "Christ," about "Christ Jesus." But how seldom do you ever hear Christians speak about the "Lord Jesus," and even more rarely do you hear them speak about the "Lord Jesus Christ."
Paul in his ministry and teaching filled out the whole of God's thoughts as to Christ, and he would have us do the same. Now let us connect that expression in the 22nd chapter of Acts: "that thou shouldest know His will," with what we find in Eph. 5:1717Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. (Ephesians 5:17): "Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is." Does not that connect beautifully with Paul's commission at the start-"That thou shouldest know His will"? How important it is, young Christian, to be instructed in the will of God. God does not want us to be unwise. Sometimes you hear Christians say, shrugging their shoulders, "You know some of us do not have time to study these things out. We do not know much about the Bible. There is brother so-and-so, we will let him handle that." We shrug our shoulders and eliminate ourselves from the richest possible discoveries we can make in God's Word. It is not just for the old brothers to enjoy: it is for every child of God. God does not want us to be unwise. He wants us to stand complete in Him. The Word of God is written for you—"Be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is."
Now compare that with Col. 1:9, 109For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; (Colossians 1:9‑10). We find ourselves on familiar ground. "For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled With the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing." I take from those two verses that you cannot walk correctly as a Christian unless you understand the calling of a Christian as given to us in the ministry of Paul. I see this demonstrated all around me as I look on the Christian world that has given up the ministry of Paul. Everywhere I go I see contradiction to the heavenly calling of the Christian. I find them with apparently good conscience mixed up in all sorts of worldly connections that deny their heavenly) calling. Seemingly they would ignore the, coming of the Lord as though there was no possibility that it could interfere with the orderly run of affairs down here. And so men plan and scheme in a religious way for years to come; establish great and permanent institutions; they throw themselves wholeheartedly into political and social reforms, and so the doctrine of Paul, which leaves the Church expecting any moment the return of the Lord Jesus, is so completely lost sight of that it is seldom mentioned.
One remembers visiting a family in Louisiana. The father was a dear child of God, a Methodist, and we had some good talks together. But when I tried to interest him in the blessed fact that the Lord Jesus is coming back again, I found my friend utterly indifferent. I could not see that there was the slightest response. His attitude was this: "If He is coming, He will come, and when He comes, why, I am ready. But I do not think that should form any part of our thinking or planning. We will go on in our gospel efforts as though He is not coming, and when He comes, He will come. That is all there is to it." The pulsating hope in his heart's affections was totally missing. Why? Not a Christian? No, he was saved, but he had had bad teaching; not wicked teaching, but poor teaching. He was not instructed in the will of God. How much had he heard of Paul's ministry? How much did he know of the epistles, those precious parts intended for the saints of God—bread upon their table. How much? Very little! He knew the gospel; he traced the life of our Lord; he preached John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16). He knew about Christ and His death, but what did he know about the marvelous epistles that have to do with the glorified One up there and our vital union with Him; that any day the Church may be called to meet Him in the glory? It made no part of his thinking.
So, we cannot expect to walk rightly, we cannot expect to be right in anything in our Christian activity if we are not instructed in the will of God as we have it in the Word of God, including the fourteen epistles of Paul.
Further on in this chapter, verses 23-25, Paul receives a double ministry: "If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul amt, made a minister; who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which is the church; whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God." What verses those are! What a wealth of truth is contained in them! Here is this special instrument of God who receives a double ministry, a ministry of the gospel, which he calls "a gospel of the glory." Paul's gospel included John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16), but it took in the whole range of all that is ours as a consequence of Christ's having suffered and died and risen again and having taken His place at God's right hand.
Not only so, Paul says that God has committed to him another ministry of the Church, the ministry of the body of Christ. "That I might fill up that which is lacking and complete the word of God." What does it mean? Well, saints, in Paul's ministry you have brought out all that God has for man; and after Paul lays down his pen, the whole SCOPE of the truth of God is now revealed. Now, that does not mean that other men did not write after Paul. John wrote long after Paul; and after Paul had written this to Colosse, he wrote other things. That does not mean that this was the last thing that God was going to pen to the Church-definitely not. We know there were other communications, but in none of those communications was the Spirit of God exceeding the borders that have been explored in Paul's ministry. Paul had to suffer for that ministry; so he says, "Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which is the church." Paul's ministry has always necessitated suffering on the part of the saints of God. Paul says, "I am filling up what was lacking in the suffering of Christ." It was not atoning suffering- not that! Paul was proving that he was so in fellowship with the mind of Christ that he was sharing the same kind of rejection that his blessed Lord had had in this world. If you and I go on with Paul's ministry, his doctrine, with the full circle of the truth of Christ and the Church, we are going to find it costs something. It never has been possible in this world, and never will be possible, to escape rejection by this world if we testify to all the truth—especially the heavenly truth brought out by Paul. If you adopt Paul's ministry in its full character, and accept its consequences, you will find that it is not wanted even in Christendom. "Even the mystery... God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." As it were, Paul exhausted the vocabulary when he got into that subject-Christ and the Church! How much does it mean to us? How much does it mean to you? Are you satisfied to be just taken up with the gospel, or are you definitely interested in the truth of the Church, and order your life accordingly? If you do it may cost you something. "Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." Now I understand that that is the highest ministry. How many of our ministries go that high? You cannot go higher than that: "present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." Any ministry that has less than that for its object is ministry that is too limited; it cannot have the full sanction of the Spirit. It is only a partial ministry.
Do we in our ministry seek to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus? Not to just present the old brothers, or the leaders, or the gifted, or the preachers, or just the brothers and leave sisters out. No, God wants every one of us to be perfected in the range of truth that is brought out in Paul's writings, as well as the truth ministered by the other New Testament writers. Paul's heart was burdened right down to the end that they might stand complete in all the will of God.