A LAST SERMON

“However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” —Acts 20:24

As Paul continued his journey, he had a deadline he was trying to meet in Jerusalem, so he sent a message asking the church leaders in Ephesus to meet him at Miletus, the nearby seaport where Paul’s ship was docking. He admitted his uncertainty regarding what he was about to face, but he understood that there were trials ahead. “I only know,” he said, “that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me” (Acts 20:23).

But he expressed his commitment to the mission he had been given, the work he had done, and his determination to be bold with the opportunities that still lay ahead. “I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God” (Acts 20:27).

Paul had words of warning and encouragement for the Ephesian believers. Like him, they would experience attacks from without and challenges even from among their own group of believers. But Paul used himself and his ministry as an example, including the courage and commitment he had demonstrated during the three years he had spent in their city when many of those leaders had first become believers. But their real assurance—both Paul’s and what he offered to the Ephesian believers—was not their work or courage; rather, it was the grace and goodness of the God he had taught them to serve. “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32). As Paul prayed for those leaders, they wept and embraced.

It was a scene of tenderness and courage, of gospel comradeship and common humanity, of shared history and an uncertain future, of grief and hope.