Well, good morning. This is the most awake we should have ever been in the history of our church right here. Who got an extra hour last night? Anybody get an extra hour? Are we ready? Well, let's open our Bibles to Acts chapter 20. And we're going to study about a man who falls asleep during a sermon and dies. So, it's a good thing we're all very awake here this morning. Acts chapter 20. Verses 1 to 16 will be our text as we're going to go along on the Apostle Paul's encouragement tour, and I do hope you will be encouraged here this morning. And I want to welcome everybody who's watching online, or out front, open your Bibles with us to Acts 20:1-16. And out of respect for God's word, I'm going to ask if we would all stand for the public reading of Scripture. And let's give this our full and undivided attention. This is the very Word of God. Please follow along as I read Acts 20:1-16.
“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.”
That's the reading of God's word, please go ahead and have your seat. And if you were with us, last time, we were in Ephesus, and there was a riot because in Ephesus, the name of Jesus was made mega, it was made great. And so, they had a riot saying, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. And when the uproar ceases, Paul says, I'm going to leave Ephesus. And so, he gets the disciples there, and he encourages them. And then he begins to go through Macedonia. And as he goes through the region, you can see there, the key word of the day is encouragement. It's in verse 1. It's how he leaves Ephesus, encouraging them. And then as he's going through these other regions, he's giving them much encouragement. And if you look back at Acts 19:21, this was the idea of that Paul had; this is really the rest of the book of Acts. After these events, Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia to go to Jerusalem, saying, after I have been there, I must also see Rome. So, Paul gets this idea, he's going to go back through all the churches that have been planted. He's going to give them to get given offering, and he's going to bring somebody from that church, and then they're all going to go to Jerusalem together by Pentecost, and they're going to just encourage them, look at all the churches that have been built up. Here's a gift of money to help the original church in Jerusalem. And then after he does that, he's going to go to Rome. And we're going to go along with him through the rest of the book of Acts. That's our outline. But the key word here is parakaleo. This is the Greek word, you might have heard of it before if you've been going to church. It's the word that is translated, “to encourage.” Parakaleo, the verb, paraklesis is the noun. And if you want to write down this definition to call alongside of, okay, kaleo is to call and para means with. So, it's like you're speaking into somebody's life, you're alongside of somebody, you're with somebody and you're calling to them. That's the idea of encouragement.
Paul, he doesn't just plant churches and evangelize like we might think of on his missionary journeys. He also goes back to the churches, and he speaks into the people who've become believers, because he wants to build up their faith. He wants their faith to be strong. So, we get to think together for a few moments this morning about Paul's ministry of encouragement, to speak into the believers’ lives, to build up their faith. And if you saw Paul come around on his encouragement tour, if you were in one of these cities, and you remember the day that Paul came to town, and he preached in the synagogue, maybe you heard Paul preach, and you believed in Jesus as the Christ. And now Paul is coming back to town. These people must have been excited; they must have been ready to hear Paul. But Paul is not a one man show. Paul is not a solo act. I know we call them Paul's missionary journeys, but it's clear that Paul, he travels with a crew, and we get that crew, seven men are listed here in Acts 20:4. His travel plans are redirected by the Jews, chasing them around, so he goes through Macedonia once comes back through Macedonia, but he's got these seven guys. And notice how they're even associated with where they came from. Sopater, the Berean. Maybe you remember when we went to Berea, where the Jews were more noble-minded because they received the word. And then we've got these, these guys here, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessaloniki, where there was that big division, and that's where the Jews really started persecuting him there. And well, there are those guys then… There's Gaius of Derbe, Timothy, perhaps the most famous of Paul's travelling companions, and a couple of guys from Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus.
So, you can see the picture. Paul's going around to encourage the churches, and he's going around with a whole crew. It's like he's taking somebody from every church, and they're going to go bring the encouragement all the way back to Jerusalem. And if you look at Acts 20:5, it doesn't just say that Paul's doing this, but it says they were waiting for us at Troas. And verse 6, “but we sailed away.” So, the guy who wrote the book of Acts, Dr. Luke, he is now traveling with Paul again at this point. So that's why we're getting to all these details. We stayed here, we went over here, we were here this many days, because Luke, the writer of the book of Acts is actually along for this part of the adventure. So, we want to really think about Paul going around to encourage the believers, and even bringing a squad of encouragement, a whole crew, a team around with him. This is the mission that we're on now. We're not going into places to plant new churches, we're going back through the churches, and we're bringing a team of people. We're going all the way back to the original church in Jerusalem. We're going to get there by Pentecost, and we're going to encourage as many Christians as we possibly can.
And so, turn with me to Romans chapter 1, because he wrote the book of Romans somewhere around this time when he's on his way to Rome. Okay? And he says that here in the book of Romans, his masterclass on the gospel. I want to come and see you. So, he's writing to a group of people that he has not really seen. He knows some of them from other places, but he hasn't been there yet to Rome. And this is what he writes. This is going to be the last stop on his encouragement tour. And look what he writes in Romans 1:8. He says, “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.” So, he's thankful for the faith of these believers in the church in Rome. Romans 1:11-12, “For I long to see you.” He's hoping to get there “that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.” So, here's how Paul thought about his encouragement tour. I'm going to go to other churches, and I'm going to end up in Rome. And I'm going to go encourage them. And what did Paul think? What happened is, he was giving some strength to their faith, that he would also be encouraged, that encouragement is a mutual experience. When you go to encourage another Christian, you actually see their faith, and you end up encouraged yourself. This is how Paul thought about it. If he's the super apostle in your mind, if he's like, whoa, Paul, he was the man. Well, Paul thought I could go to any town, and I could meet believers I haven't even met yet. And I could speak to strengthen them. And you know, what would happen to me? My faith would be encouraged, because encouragement is mutual among Christians.
Let's get this down for point number one: Encouragement is mutual among Christians. Paul's hoping to bring encouragement and as he shares it. He's hoping that it will be experienced back. And this is something I want to make very clear here at Compass HB. I'm so glad that you're here today, because we need you to be on our encouragement team. And the goal of encouragement is that you would give encouragement, and as you give encouragement, you receive a mutual benefit as you see other people's faith. Can I get an Amen from the congregation here today? Okay, so Paul's not like, well, I'm going to encourage you because I'm up here, and you're down here, so you need me to encourage you. Paul was up here, he’s the Apostle Paul, but he's not acting like he's above anybody else. He's like, I can't wait to see you. I hope I can strengthen your faith. And I know what will happen is, I will be strengthened by your faith, “both yours and mine.” He's expecting encouragement to be a mutual experience.
And I can testify that that is true here at our church, because we've got some brand new believers here at our church. We've got people who are new Christians as of this last summer, and they are going through some hard trials, some broken relationships, and yet you can see them trusting in Jesus Christ. Now, we’ve got some people here in the room right now who've been Christians for years, we’ve got people who haven't even been a Christian for one year, but when you see a brother or a sister, and their faith is being tested, and really bad things are happening to them, but look at them, through the trial they keep on looking to Jesus. You can tell that they believe in Jesus. Oh, when you talk to them, and you feel their faith, even though you're trying to encourage them as a brand new Christian, you walk away pumped up yourself. That's how it works because encouragement is mutual. I don't know what you've done in encouragement so far, how you've tried to build up other people's faith, how you've tried to call alongside and speak into their life, but one thing that I have found over and over again is, when I'm supposed to be encouraging other people, I don't end up remembering what I said to encourage them. But I sure do remember what they ended up saying to me. That encouraged me.
I remember one time I got to go on a trip to Hawaii and live the Aloha life for a week. Anybody ever been to Hawaii before? I think we got some people watching in Hawaii right now, actually. And I got there for this was the first time I'd been to Maui went to Kaanapali, and I walk into this resort that our friends invited us to be at, and there is a pool, followed by another pool, followed by another pool. And then there's the ocean. Have you been there? Do you know what I'm talking about? And I was like, yes, I'm hitting all of this up right now. Right? I'm in full tourist mode right now. And I'm like, I'm doing all these pools all the way over there to the ocean. And I'm in the water of the first pool. I know I'm on vacation. Here we go. And somebody comes and says, hey, Bobby Blakey, there's a phone call for you. I'm like, what do you mean there's a phone call from me? I'm in the pool. I'm on the first of three pools right now. What do you mean, there's a phone call from me? And it turns out that there was another couple from our same church that was there on the island and the husband had suddenly died. They're on vacation in Maui, and they're like, you need to go over to this other hotel by Black Rock there at Maui. And now this older woman in the faith, now she is suddenly a widow, and you need to go encourage her. And I'm thinking, what am I going to say to this lady, right? So, I go into the hotel where her husband just passed away, and I'm like, coming to encourage her and her faith. And I cannot tell you one thing that I said to her, but I can remember that this woman had faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And she may have lost her husband that she clearly loved. But she knew where her husband was with the Lord, and she was committed to trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, no matter what happened to her. And I became friends with that lady that day, I've known her ever since that day, and her faith has encouraged me ever since. In my life, I don't know if I encouraged her, but I promise you, she encouraged me. I recently had the same experience with this woman at our church named Raquel branch. Have you heard of Raquel branch? We can praise the Lord for her. When she got COVID, she ended up getting intubated. And she was on the ventilator. She was in the hospital for over fifty days, recovering from COVID. Many of us were praying for her. And finally, she was feeling better. She got moved to a recovery facility. And this was the first time we were going to be able to go see her in almost two months, the first time she's going to have her own husband or people from church being able to come and visit her. And it's like, what are you going to say to somebody who's been in the hospital for fifty days to encourage them? And again, I don't know, I don't remember what I said to Raquel. But I remember Raquel speaking to me. And she said, hey, I didn't know if I was going to live, if I was going to die, but here's one thing I came away knowing is soon we are all going to be there, and it's going to be awesome. We're all going to be there. He's going to be there, we're all going to be singing, it's going to be better than we've ever known. And I can't wait. I walked away, very encouraged. I walked away like that is faith.
And when you see faith, doesn't matter how long somebody has been a Christian, doesn't matter how well you even know him. When you see their faith, the encouragement is always mutual. And so, I want to just caution everybody, because I think one of the ways that people can think today at church is they can think, well, I'm not really going to encourage that person. Or I even hear people say things like, well, that person really can't encourage me. I really want you to think about that here today. If you're going to look at somebody else who believes in Jesus, and you're going to say that they can't encourage you, what do you mean by that? Are you saying they're not a Christian? Or are you saying you're not a Christian? Because people who have faith in Jesus can encourage one another through the mutual encouragement of your faith and my faith, we can be built up in the body of Christ. So, I think sometimes people are maybe being judgmental and thinking, well, I'm only going to encourage certain people, or only certain people can encourage me. Well, that's not how the apostle Paul thought when he was going on his encouragement tour. He thought he was bringing encouragement to all the believers, and you can tell he is thinking about where he's going to end up in Rome as he begins his whole tour here. He's thinking, oh, this tour is going to be great, because when I see you, people he doesn't even know and a place he hasn't been, but he knows they have faith, and that encouragement, it's going to be mutual by your faith and my faith coming together. We're going to build one another up.
Now go back to Acts chapter 20. And you'll see, as they set out on the tour, and they're going through the places, they got to redirect their plans because of the Jews coming after him, well, eventually the kind of the place we get to zoom in here in Acts 20:7-12 is Troas. And it's like we get to go to the service, to the gathering of the believers there on the first day of the week in Troas. So, this is the kind of scene that I'm guessing happened in a lot of these cities. But because something amazing happens here in Troas. We get to hear about this one, but I'm guessing this is the kind of thing that happened every stop on the tour. And it says in Acts 20:7 “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them.” So, the church in Troas, here we go. And Paul talked with them intending… because he's leaving the next day, he's “intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until…” How long did he preach everybody? “Until midnight.” Okay. I’ve just got to tell you, this is my favorite part of our text right here. Okay. I really liked this part. Okay. Because basically, he preached for a long time, a very long time. He preached till midnight, and the only reason he stopped preaching at midnight, is because he preached so long that somebody fell asleep and died. That’s how it went, Okay.
Now, today, if we preach here at the church, we have this expectation… I want you to kind of think why do we do what we're doing right now? Why don't we get together on the first day of the week? Because that's what they're doing. That's what we're doing. Why do we think, oh, this is what we do? We get together, we sing a few songs, we hear a sermon. It's like an hour and 15, hour and a half. That's kind of a longer one at this church. That guy up there, he can go kind of long sometimes, you know. Well, let's just make it very clear. According to the Bible, we ain't preaching long sermons here. All right? I mean, he's preaching till midnight, somebody dies, minor part of the story. Oh, then we get back. Oh, right where I left off everybody, let's get back to it till daybreak. That's what happens here. This is an all-nighter sermon, everybody. And you got to get the logic here. I'm going to leave the next day; I can't stay for a long time. I can't just preach to you once a week over a period of time. I'm only here right now. So, we're going all night long. That's the thinking here. If I'm leaving tomorrow, how much time do we have today? I need to preach to you or speak to you from the Word of God as much as I can because encouragement is going to come from speaking the truth of God's Word into your life. So, you got to follow the logic here of Paul, I'm leaving tomorrow, so I'm preaching all night tonight. And then we're all going to be tired in the morning. But we're all going to be revived in our souls because we all just got encouraged through the study of the Scripture. So, I'm guessing this is the kind of like late into the night preaching that he was doing throughout the encouragement tour. But we hear about it specifically in Troas because a guy falls out of a third story window to his death. Now I just want to encourage everybody, we’ve got no windows in the auditorium. So, you're good. We're on the ground floor here. All right? So, it doesn't matter how long this goes. Everybody's going to be okay. All right? But notice, this is a miracle, a miracle of resurrection is what happens, because you can see in Acts 20:9, he's taken up dead, but Paul comes and bends over him, almost like maybe Elijah doing the miracle of resurrection, where you kind of put your body on top of the person who's dead. And Paul says, hey, don't be alarmed. His life is in him, his psuche in the Greek, his soul, his soul is still in his body. Hey, Eutychus is still with us. Hey, he's going to be okay, Eutychus is. So, it's kind of an interesting way to describe the miracle that this man fell out of a window died, and then is resurrected right there. And he comes back in, they break some bread. And then we get into the second half of the all-nighter sermon, apparently. And so, the famous miracle of the resurrection of Eutychus is told here, and we just got to make sure that everybody that gathers together in the name of Jesus today, let's all affirm together that we believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Can I get an amen? When we read about a resurrection in the Scripture, we're not surprised because the whole foundation of our faith is that we believe on the third day, when they went to the tomb, it was empty, just as he said, because Jesus has risen from the dead. And Jesus did the miracle of resurrection. Apostles and prophets resurrected people, and we believe that every one of us who puts our faith in Jesus Christ, we are now dead to sin, and we have the power of resurrection in our own lives. Just as Jesus rose from the dead, we also walk in newness of life. That's what we believe here. So, when we read about Eutychus being resurrected, we say, Praise the Lord. We believe in that.
But I want you to see the response of the people. Look at Acts 20:12. It says, “When they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted.” Okay, so you can see even look back at Acts 20:11. “And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and had eaten, he conversed with them.” Notice again, it says another “long while.” So, there was a long while till midnight, Eutychus falls, gets resurrected, then there's a another long while till daybreak, almost as if Paul's like, okay, well, I don't want you to forget anything that I taught you. So, let's get right back to it, everybody. Eutychus, you alright? Okay? Let's move away from the window. Point number twenty-seven, everybody, here we go, we're going until we're going until daybreak. And so, at the end, people walk away it says, not a little comforted. Now in the Greek, it's the same exact word. It's the word for encouraged. You might want to take a note of that if you got it there on your handout, or maybe even write that in your Bible. That word there in Acts 20:12 is the same word there in one and two parallels the verb paraklesis, the noun So, it's saying, the people and was it because of the resurrection of Eutychus, I'm sure that was encouraging. But I think it's not just the fact that they saw Eutychus raised that encouraged them, it's also the all-night encouragement they heard from the Word of God. Can you imagine going to an all- nighter sermon? Like it's Monday morning now, you're coming out, you're exhausted. Like you're tired or rubbing your eyes. Whoa, it's daylight out here. But in your soul, you are fired up because of what you just heard from the Word. See, this is the encouragement that comes from the Scripture.
Let's get that down for point number two: Encouragement comes from Scripture. It is when God speaks his truth into our lives, whether it's through us reading the Word or, or hearing somebody preach the Word, or whether it's a friend of yours telling you the Word themselves. It's as you hear God's Word, and that's what really encourages your faith. That's what really revives your soul; the life of God now fills you up. It's like, you just got a free refill of the life of Jesus inside of you. That is encouragement. And that transformation comes from the renewing of our minds in the Word of God.
So, turn with me, everybody, to Romans, chapter 15, and let's see what he says towards the end of the letter to the church in Rome. He said he wanted to come there and encourage them, and he knew they would encourage him. Well, now he says how encouragement works. This is Romans 15:4. So if Paul came to our town, and Paul preached to us, and he would take as much time as he could to teach us as much as he could, because he thinks the more we would understand the Word of God, the more encouraged we would be. And he says that idea right here in Romans 15:4, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Okay, so if you are feeling rundown, if you are feeling weary in your soul, if you are feeling downcast under some heavy burden of a trial in your life, I understand that when we get tired, we want rest, and rest for the body is a good thing. I'm enjoying an extra hour of sleep last night. Everybody with me on that? Right? The Bible has a lot to say about rest, in a physical sense, even being a good thing. But you’ve got to see that more important than sleep for your body is getting God's Word into your soul. If you want to be encouraged, if you're feeling weary and worn down, and you're wondering, how will I have the strength to keep going, if a Scripture is what will encourage you and give you hope, it is the Word of God that does a powerful work to give you the energy of God to revive you in your spirit. So, even though you feel weary, physically, your soul is on fire and it's almost like you’ve got eagle's wings, it's almost like your energy is restored, and you're able to keep going. This is why believers throughout the history of the church, wake up early in the morning and sometimes stay up late at night, when it would be helpful to some degree to get sleep. They're thinking sleep alone, physical rest alone is not going to be enough. I need God speaking into my life. I need his Word in my heart. That's what's going to really encourage me to keep going. If you're lacking hope, I got to ask you, are you getting into God's Word? Are you meeting with other believers to let them speak God's Word into your life? Are you really paying attention when you hear the word preached and really thinking about it through the week so that the word can dwell in you, and you can be filled with the Spirit, and that can encourage you in your soul? That's what we need. I think people think we'll all feel better if the pressure would just go away. Or I'll feel better if I could just be entertained. Or I could just relax, or I could just understand. It's nice when you're not working so hard, and the pressure gets taken off of you. But if you want to be encouraged so that you can remain under the pressure and keep going. You don't just need a break. You need the Bible. That's what you need. You really need to make sure that when you're getting rest, when you have times in the morning, in the evening, and you feel like the days are long, the days are full, the days are busy, well, how much of the Bible are you getting in your soul?
That's where encouragement comes from. It comes from the Scripture. Paul's like, hey, I know everybody's going to be tired tomorrow morning, but I'm here for one night. I'm leaving tomorrow. And I need everybody here to be encouraged. And so how much can I teach you in one night? That's what he's going for. And they came into the next day, physically tired but they went away, “not a little comforted.” That's how Luke likes to write when he says, “not a little comforted,” and he means they were very encouraged. Troas, check. We encouraged a lot of people in that all-nighter sermon, and the resurrection of Eutychus, those people they went away encouraged. They didn't have sleep, but they felt the life of God working in their soul. So that's what we're trying to do here at Compass Bible Church, we're trying to preach the Word. We want our fellowship groups to meet together so we can speak to what we're learning from the Word. Whether it's the book of Acts from the sermon, or the book of Job that we're reading, we want to speak the Word to one another because, as we're all sharing the Word with one another, that's what's really going to encourage everybody here at the church. See, so people ask sometimes here, they're like, hey, I want to get plugged in, I want to have a position where I serve. And it's awesome that people want to get involved in what God's doing here at the church. It's awesome. Like Pastor Taylor was saying, at Fall Fest so many people want to serve, we want to do a better job of getting people plugged into the right places to serve. But here's a way everybody here can serve. If you're a part of this church, we need you to do this, we need you to join the encouragement team. That's what we need everybody on. You've got the Word working in you, you're being encouraged by the Lord yourself, and then you go and speak what you're learning from the Word to other people. And it becomes like an endless cycle of life, this process that's just like being passed on, of people being built up. Like I learned this from the Word, and it really encouraged me, and let me share it with you. And then you receive it. And you're like, wow, that's super encouraging. And then you go and share it with somebody else. And they're like, wow, I hadn't heard that from the Word before. And then they go, and they're pumped up, and they go and share it with somebody else. And it's like, God's raising up an army of encouragement that we all have the Word in us, we all speak it to one another. And, wow, look what he's doing here. That's what we need everybody doing. If you're a part of a fellowship group, if you're speaking the truth in love to other people here, and you're trying to have the Word in you so you can encourage other people, that's the main thing we need everybody doing at this church. And I think God is raising up a real army of encouragers. And if we're encouraging one another in the Scripture, God's going to do something here at this church that cannot be stopped. It will overflow out of our souls because the Word, the Word of God is powerful when it is working. And it will encourage us. We will experience the revival that comes from the Bible.
Look at what it goes on to say here in Romans 15:5, “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus.” See, notice what it called him there, the God of encouragement. He's the one who encourages you by speaking through his Word, whether you're reading it by yourself, whether you're hearing it from a brother or sister, God is the one encouraging you, and he's bringing all of us together. He's bringing us all together, people coming from different places with different backgrounds, but we're all coming together to the same mind. We're coming together in harmony, because God is encouraging all of us when we get on the same page of Scripture, like, this is something I'm praying for you, this is an experience I want every person here today to have, that you could have a moment when you're tired later on this week, and you decide, well, I'm going to go over those notes from that sermon again in Acts 20. Or I'm going to go read the book of Job right now. I mean, my alarm just went off way too early. I mean, this is going to be a weird week, because it's going to be like nighttime at three o'clock in the afternoon or something like that. Right? So, it's going to feel like we're all messed up, one hour of sleep that I enjoyed on Saturday night, messed up my entire week. What's going on around here, right? So, you're feeling tired, but you're like, no, I can't just get physical sleep. I need that encouragement. See, this is something I wish you could experience where it's like, it's dark outside, it's like, you're thinking I should be sleeping right now, but instead, you get in the Word, you spend that time with God, you pray, and you come away from that like alive in your soul. That's a real experience that you can have through the power of the Word of God. And when you have that experience, whether it's by yourself, or whether it's like hearing it preached in a sermon, and then you go, and God's filled you with his life, and you go and you share what you've just heard from the Word, you go and share it with somebody else, that's encouragement right there. It's God encouraging you through the Scripture, and then he uses you as the vessel of encouragement, tired, weary, but here you are, fired up in your soul and you've got something to say. Fellowship group time comes around, and you've been reading the Word, you've been thinking about the sermon, and it's on your heart, and you show up and you've got something to say, everybody in that group is feeling encouraged because they're hearing the Word flowing through you. I love to see this here at our church, because for some people this is their first church they've ever been to. Some people, they've been to so many different churches, people that grew up in so many different parts of the world in so many different places. And here we all are in Huntington Beach in 2021, and we come from different various backgrounds, but as we open up this book, we all get on the same page, and it's like God's bringing us together in harmony, that he could use us with one voice to encourage one another. It's a beautiful thing, what he's doing here among us. As you get encouraged, and you speak what you're learning about the Word to somebody else, it builds them up, and they go and share it with somebody else, and the encouragement just continues to spread and to spread. And it's got to come from the Scripture.
You’ve got to make sure that getting that Bible into your soul is a priority in your life, or you will find yourself downcast and needing encouragement, but encouragement is never very far away. The God of encouragement is speaking to you through his Word. And one of the ways I hope you will continue to be encouraged is, as we gather together on the first day of the week, I want to just take a moment to talk about how it said that in Acts 20:7 that this whole event, where he preached all night, and where Eutychus was raised, it happened on the first day of the week. I just want to make it clear. What day of the week is the Sabbath, the Sabbath where they would meet in the synagogue, everybody? What day of the week is the Sabbath? Saturday. Okay? So, this is not the tradition of the Jewish people where they… remember the Jewish calendar the day start in the evening. And so, the seventh day of their week was the Sabbath, which really begins on Friday night, according to the Jews, and they would go to the synagogue, and they would read the Scriptures on Saturday. But here we see the believers in Troas, they're assembling together on the first day of the week. And so, we're starting to notice the tradition that becomes what we're doing right now. Why do we gather on Sunday morning, the first day of the week? Well, that's what they did in Troas. And the reason that the believers started to gather on the first day of the week is because that was for third day, that was the day Easter Sunday morning, when they ran down to the tomb, and they found it to be empty. That's why they call it the Lord’s Day, resurrection day. Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week. That's why Christians gather in the name of Jesus. Whenever we get together on a Sunday morning like this, we are proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that's what they did in Troas. So, there's not a command to do that. We just start to see the church doing that. And we've been doing it ever since.
Look at First Corinthians 16. I want to show you a couple more references to the first day of the week. Because when Paul's going around, that's when the believers are gathering together. And you see it there in Acts, we see it here in First Corinthians 16:1-4. “Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me.” And so, he's expecting that the church in Corinth, which we saw get started in the book of Acts, well, he's now writing them a letter. He's expecting that they're getting together, you can see there, on the first day of every week. So, this becomes the standard operating procedure of the work of the church.
We meet on Sunday because that's the day Jesus rose from the dead. And he's thinking that they're taking a collection, this is where the idea of taking an offering comes from. Right? That people are even giving because he's starting to get this idea that I'm going to take men from every city and we're going to go to Jerusalem and give them a big gift. And so, he's like, hey, you guys need to take a collection that I'm going to bring from your church to go bless the original church in Jerusalem. So why don't we meet on Sunday mornings? Why have we traditionally done things like an offering, well you're starting to see them right there. now we haven't been passing an offering around ever since COVID. People have been generous to keep giving a lot of it online. There are a few baskets here, but where does all this idea come from? Well, it's coming from references like this, that the believers were gathering together on the first day of the week.
Go to Revelation chapter 1. I want to show you one more example of this, where John, and we know he writes Revelation like in the 90s AD, towards the end of the first century there. He says this in Revelation 1:9… He's been exiled to the island of Patmos. Basically, they took John, and he didn't end up being a martyr quite yet, but they put him on a rock in the middle of the Mediterranean, so he couldn't keep telling everybody about Jesus. So, he's exiled out on this little island. And he says in Revelation 1:9, “I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” Basically, I got exiled to a little rock out in the sea because I was telling everybody the Word of God and telling everybody about Jesus. Then he says this in Revelation 1:10, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day.” So, basically, you get the idea that John was in the Word on the first day of the week. We're calling that now the Lord's Day. So even though he was by himself on this island, he was like, basically, doing his own time in the Word, his own little time of worship, and he was filled up with the Word, he was in the Spirit, he was by himself. So, you can tell it's become kind of the practice. He's expecting the seven churches that he's writing to here in Revelation, he's expecting them to know what it means to be in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, on the first day of the week, when we gather together, and we hear the Word being taught. He's doing this by himself. And what an amazing life John lived because he was there on that first day of the week when they ran to the tomb, and he ran a little faster than Peter, and he looked into the tomb, and there was no body there because Jesus was risen from the dead. And now here he is, many Sundays later, by himself, for the testimony of Jesus, exiled on an island, and he's worshipping in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and he ends up having this glorious vision of the unveiled Risen Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what he sees one day when he's worshiping on Sunday.
He says in Revelation 1:10-18, “I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, ‘Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.’ Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” I mean, what an amazing thing that happened to John, when he was worshiping there on what became known as the Lord's Day. So, when we go on this encouragement tour, and we see hey, Paul, he's getting together with the believers on the first day of the week, and he's speaking the word to them all night long. Well, that's where the tradition that you and I are still practicing this very day, of gathering on the first day of the week comes from. We're seeing it in Troas, we're seeing it in Corinth, we're seeing it here on the island of Patmos. So, if you wonder why do we do what we do? That's why we do it. But I’ve got to tell you, it doesn't say how long you should preach for.
Okay, I'm just telling you that people act like our sermons at this church, they are regularly referred to as long sermons. Okay. I hear it. I hear it. All right. I understand. I understand. Long sermons like, whoa, fifty minutes, an hour-long sermons. Whoa, these are long. Whoa, go back to Troas with me, and let's just say, no, they're not, everybody. Okay? And, not only during this encouragement tour, but one of the commentators, a guy named Howard Marshall, he said this about how he preached until midnight or then even after what happens with Eutychus, he goes all the way till day-break, means you're talking about chunks of time that are our hours, in the plural, long. And Howard Marshall, he gave us a little perspective here. He said, this may seem a long time by modern Western standards, but in some countries, especially in the third world, services lasting for several hours, with correspondingly long sermons, are quite common. Thinking that sermons are long is a First World problem. It might actually be a very modern American phenomenon that people think forty-five, fifty minutes is a full length sermon. If we were worshiping with brothers and sisters in other parts of the world, no, you worship all morning long. You don't just sing five songs, you sing all your favorite songs; you don't just teach a little bit, you teach everything you’ve got. So, this is actually maybe consistent with how brothers and sisters have been gathering throughout history, and in other parts of the world.
So, one of the ways that we need to be encouraged is by opening up the Word of God together when we assemble on the first day of the week. And God of encouragement will speak to you through the Scripture, and he will lift up your soul. We can have that experience all together, we can have it when we get in our smaller groups with our one-anothers, you can have that experience by yourself. Encouragement comes from the Scripture, let God speak into your life. Make sure you're hearing God speak to you through his Word. Now, in Acts 20:13-16, we get some of the specific places that they go, and I want you to just try to see Paul's travel plans here, okay? Because he wants to go to Jerusalem on his way to Rome. If you've looked at a map lately, Jerusalem is not on the way to Rome, everybody. Okay? So, this guy, he lives a very others-oriented life. He's thinking that, wow, it's so awesome what God's done to build all these churches in all these cities, I want to take representatives, and even an offering, I want to take them from all these other cities to Jerusalem, I want to show up on Pentecost. And I want to encourage the original church with what Jesus is doing to the ends of the earth, and I want to really bless them. But I also need to get to Rome because Rome is kind of the big place on planet earth right now. And I need to get over there. So, you can see Paul's not thinking about where do I want to go in my life? What do I want to do tomorrow? He is setting his itinerary based on other people. That's how you live when you live a life of encouragement, you start planning your life around other people's lives, because life is not just about you being encouraged. It's about you being encouraged so that you can pass on encouragement to others. So, his goal is to get to Jerusalem by Pentecost. And then he wants to get all the way over to Rome. And we're going to go with him on that whole journey.
But what about Ephesus, because we just spent the whole chapter in Ephesus. And now he's going back by Ephesus. And it's like, we can't even go past Ephesus without talking about Ephesus. I love those people and Ephesus, but I can't go there. Because if I go there all stay too long talking to them, and we’ll encourage one another too much. And then I won't make it to Jerusalem by Pentecost. So, let's sail past, don't let me go to Ephesus. I’ll encourage them way too long. And then we'll never make it to Jerusalem. So, I can't encourage them. But I can't just pass Ephesus. So, here's what we're going to do. We'll stop at Miletus, and we'll have the elders from Ephesus meet me in Miletus, because I can't stay in Ephesus, but I can't pass Ephesus. So, let's talk to them there. That's how this guy thinks. I mean, it's all based on, oh, but these people need to be encouraged, but Rome, what about getting over there all the way over? He's just thinking, where can I go to encourage and make the maximum impact. And so, what's going to happen is, while he's going to Jerusalem to get there by Pentecost, because he really wants to encourage them, he can't skip Ephesus. So, he calls for the elders, the men that have been put in charge of the church in Ephesus that we just left in Acts 19, even in verse 1, that he left Ephesus, and he says, bring those men to me. And so, the rest of Acts 20 is going to be him in Miletus, giving the Word to the elders of the church in Ephesus. And this is a passage of Scripture that's completely different than the rest of the book of Acts. All the other speeches in the book of Acts are evangelistic. It's always the point is to believe in Jesus, to present that Jesus is the Christ who died and rose again, and you need to put your trust in Jesus. Well, this is now, he's going to speak to elders who already believe, who are leaders in the church, and he's going to say, here's how the believers need to be, the church of Jesus Christ. So, he's going to be speaking straight to a church like us in the rest of Acts 20.
So, we're going to do a series called How to Be the Church, and we're going to go much slower through the rest of Acts 20. We're going to go through line by line because he's saying, here's how church needs to go here in the rest of this chapter. But I just want you to see that, as he's deciding who he's going to talk to, and where he's going to go, Paul is not thinking about himself and what he wants to do. He's thinking about other people and how can he encourage them. And it's somewhere around this time that he writes 2 Corinthians. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. So, we're getting to see where Paul goes, but then by turning to his letters, we can also read what Paul thinks. And he writes Roman somewhere around this time, maybe a little before, in the third missionary journey, but when he knows he's wants to go there, he writes Romans, and then he writes a second letter to the Corinthians somewhere around this time. And what he wants to do, you can tell what's on his mind right away here in 2 Corinthians 1:3. Look what he says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort.” What if I told you that in the Greek it's the same exact word we've been studying, parakaleo in the verb, paraklesis. So sometimes they're translating encouragement in English, sometimes comfort. If there's something bad that has happened, if there's a trial or suffering, they usually use the word comfort. And if it's just people being built up by the Word, they use encouragement, but in the Greek, it's the same concept. We have a God of all encouragement, a God of all comfort, and look what he says here in 2 Corinthians 1:4, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. That's one of the most comforting verses in all of the Bible right there. Okay? So, look how he says, this is how encouragement works. When he's going on his encouragement tour, he writes this somewhere around this same time, and he says, we have a God of all encouragement, and he encourages us. And the whole point of God encouraging us is not just so that we will be encouraged, the point of God encouraging us is so that we can go and comfort someone else. Okay?
Encouragement is passed on. let's get that down for point number three: Encouragement is passed on. If you think the point of Jesus saving you is that he could die for all of your sins, and so that you could live a new life of encouragement, you are correct, Jesus died for you. He loves you. He wants to encourage you. But it's not just about you. The point of God encouraging you is he wants to use you broken down weary old you, he wants to encourage you in such a way that you would then encourage others also. That's the point. It's not just for super apostles to be on encouragement tours. All of us should be living a life that is designed to encourage other people. Do not make your Christian life about you when Jesus died to save you from you, so you could live your life for other people. Can I get an Amen from the congregation? Do you realize that something bad is going to happen in your life? And you're going to be like, God, why is this happening to me? And one of the answers to that question is so that you can go find somebody else who has the same bad thing happen to them, and you can be their encourager. That's part of why things happen. And so many people, they waste their cancer, they waste their joblessness, they waste their broken relationships, feeling bad for themselves, when they could be encouraged in such a way that they could be a blessing to other people, as well. That's what it's saying here. It’s saying, yeah, hard things happen, but we have a God of all encouragement, and we can find comfort in the Lord. If you have faith, if you pass the test, if you endure through the trial, if you keep trusting in Jesus, no matter what happens, you will be encouraged, you will find comfort. In fact, your soul will be overflowing to the point where you will be like, hey, that bad thing happened to me. Let me tell you what God did in my life. Let me tell you how Jesus brought me through. Let me tell you the Scripture that I learned that changed everything in my perspective, and God encouraged me. And you'll be a blessing to many people. That's what he's saying.
Now, Paul, he's writing 2 Corinthians and we already know from 1 Corinthians that there was division in the church where some people were saying they would rather follow Apollos than Paul. There were people in this church who were talking bad about him, there was division about him. And so, he's now writing another letter to them. And look what he says in 2 Corinthians 1:8. I need everybody to look at 2 Corinthians 1:8. He says, “For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.” I don't know if you knew a bunch of people were kind of like not sure about you, they were divided about you, some of them were even saying bad things about you, would you start your next letter to them by sharing with them that you were so burdened, you wished you were dead? See, this is an interesting way that Paul approaches things. A lot of church people, their ideas, when I go to church, I’ve got to act like I have it all together. I’ve got to act like everything in my house is sorted, and I'm doing fine. And so, people are like, how can we pray for you? Or how can we encourage you? Hey, don't worry about me, I'm good. I'm good. I got it all good over here. Don't worry about me. It's like people want to wear a mask when they come to church. They don't want to well, I was tempted this week to do this. Or I actually even did this, or I had a really hard time this week, I felt super burdened about this thing. People for some reason, they feel like they can't share that with other people because we're supposed to have this idea like, look at us, we’ve got it all together. The super apostle didn't have it all together, everybody. And he wasn't afraid to write it in Holy Scripture. See, he wasn't afraid to say that he had such a burden that he felt like he was going to die. He kind of even wished he were dead. But in that place of feeling overwhelmed, God comforted him in his affliction. And now because he got encouraged by God, he's got something to pass on to other people. See, if you're just fine as you are, well, first of all, my question for you would be, are you living in the same world I'm living in right now? Because things are not fine. Things are far from fine around here. I mean, there's some hard things going on. There are some big decisions that people in this room are making right now about their life. And sometimes, when people go to fellowship groups, they're trying to bring the right answer. What we need around here is people bringing the real answer. That's what we need. What's really going on in your life? And how, when you're having a hard time, how is God encouraging you as you're going through that trial? How is God comforting you, because with the encouragement and comfort that you receive, that something, that by being honest and open, you're now in a great place to encourage many other people. See, people who are fine to I'm good, don't worry about me, they're usually not very encouraged themselves, and they're not very encouraging to others. But people who are having a hard time they find encouragement in the Lord, and they've got something to pass on to other people.
So, I'm just saying, if the apostle Paul can get real when he's writing a book of the Bible, we can get real when we get together to talk about the Bible. Can I get an Amen from the congregation on that? Anybody going through a hard time, anybody tempted to sin? Am I speaking to anybody here today? It's okay to say that, because when you go through that, when God gets you through that, when God strengthens you through that, when God actually encourages and comforts you through that, so you're actually looking at that bad thing, and you're saying, no, God worked that for good in my life. Here's what God did in my life. As you're honest about how hard it was, that encourages other people who are going through that same hard thing in their life. In fact, it encourages everybody who's going through anything hard, because when they see your faith, they experience mutual encouragement in their faith. And if everybody here could just go and be real with other people here at this church, share what's really going on in your life, share how the Scripture is really encouraging you to keep going, we will see God raise up here among us an army of encouragement, and what Jesus is building at this church will not be stopped. This is what we're here to do. We're here to have hard times, to experience burdens, to see how God is so awesome, he can get us through, and then to go and share that with as many other people as we possibly can.
Now there is comfort to be found. There is encouragement in a God of all encouragement, and I found it when it was hard for me, and please let me share with you so you can be encouraged too. That's why we're here. We're here to experience trials that test our faith and as God gets us through them, who can I share that with? Encouragement is meant not just for you It is meant to be passed on to other people. And it becomes this endless cycle of life where I'm hearing something from God's Word that's encouraging me, and I'm passing it on and that person is taking it and passing it on. And it keeps going around and around, building up the faith of the people of Jesus. Go over to a passage that's not as famous look with me at 2 Corinthians 7:5. So Paul talks about encouragement in a general sense there towards the beginning of the letter, but now he gives us a little more detail here in 2 Corinthians 7:5. He says, “For even when we came into Macedonia,” which is where most of Acts 20 just took place, in Macedonia, look at what how he describes it, “our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn—fighting without and fear within.” I mean, he's saying, hey, I was so tired when I was in Macedonia, and I had real trials. We read kind of briefly, that he was going one way in Macedonia, and then the Jews came to get him, which is going to become a common thing in these last chapters, here come the Jews to try to kill Paul. So here come the Jews. Oh, I guess we're going through Macedonia again. So, he goes through Macedonia once, then he's going to sail away. No, here's the Jews, can't sail away; go back to Macedonia. What did that feel like when the Jews are chasing you through Macedonia? I was really tired, and it felt like there was fighting on the outside, and I was afraid on the inside. That's what he says. I mean, it was a tough time when the Jews were after me. And then he says this, “But God, who comforts the downcast,” what a great phrase right there. Put that somewhere, you're going to see it this week. “But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus.” So, he was saying, at some point, Titus showed up, and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoice still more. So how did Paul get comforted, he said, God comforted him so he could pass that on. But now he says more detail, I was going around in Macedonia, I was tired, I was being chased, but Titus came, and when Titus came, I was so encouraged, you want to know why, guess what Titus said. He told me about you, right into this church in Corinth. Titus was in Corinth, and you guys, your faith is enduring, your love for me, I can tell you guys actually really do care about me, you're not divided about me anymore. When I heard from you, that's what God brought comfort to me. And so now I'm writing this letter to comfort you. It's like an endless cycle of encouragement that we can experience with one another. God wants to encourage you so that he can use you to encourage others. God wants you to be on the encouragement team here at Compass HP. He wants you to follow in the example of Paul and many other men who went around to give encouragement, and what did they find? They found comfort for themselves. I hope that you will join us on Apostle Paul's encouragement tour. Let me pray for us.
Father in heaven, we worship you right now is the god of encouragement. And we thank you that you speak into our lives, that you call alongside of us through your Scripture. And God, I pray that you would even use this word that we heard right now today, to encourage us, and that we would leave here ready to talk about it with other people, that we would think of your word from Acts 20 and from Romans and 2 Corinthians, that we would think about these passages all week long, ready to share them with one another. That we might, that we might spread this encouragement here at our church. And so, God, I just thank you for so many people at this church who have faith and what a blessing it is, to talk with them to interact with them. I thank you for so many people who come here to listen to your Word, to receive it. For so many people right now who are reading through the book of Job, and God we pray that you will raise us up as an army of encouragers to spread your love to one another. God we pray that you will speak to us through your Word in a mighty way, that even when we're going through the burdens of life, even when we're facing afflictions without, and fears within, even when we're weary and tired in our body, that we would be able to say it is well with my soul because I know that God of all comfort, and he has encouraged me by speaking to me through his Word. So, encourage us Father, so we can be your encouragers. God, please let everybody get a glimpse of what you're doing here at this church, where there are groups of people who are going to get together this week, and if everybody shows up with something to say, for everybody has something they've heard from the Word, if they have something hard they've been through, that you got them through that they can share. If everybody keeps encouraging one another, we will see Jesus built his church. So, God, please do your work of encouragement here among us. We asked you to do this in Jesus’ name. Amen.