Acts 20:1-16
If you want to see something grow, sometimes it is complex or complicated; it’s a long process that requires lots of time, investment and patient endurance. If you want to see growth, you’ve got to learn how to nurture growth.
In the same way, if you want to see Christians grow spiritually, you’ll have to learn how to nurture them. But how?
Christians need much encouragement, fellowship and support.
In order to fulfill the great commission, you can’t just make disciples, you must mature them as well.
Christians need much encouragement which requires spending lots of time with one another.
In this passage, Luke portrays Paul’s pattern as a something to imitate. We must take responsibility for others and their spiritual growth. We must make encouragement a consistent habit.
What is encouragement? It is speaking God’s word for the sake of Christian growth through ppeal, exhortation, comfort, consolation, warning and rebuke. Encouragement gets people of Christ going through faith and repentance, gas in the spiritual car so to speak.
“Our aim with encouragement is to strengthen faith, renew hope and stir up love for the glory of God.” -Ben Robin
Acts of love are not self interpreting, one must speak as well.
If you want to encourage, you’ll need endurance and steadfastness for the long haul.
One of our primary responsibilities before Jesus is to help the other Christians in the church to follow Him; nobody that you know is suffering from too much encouragement.
This text describes an early Christian church service - we should prize public worship and fellowship.
While only Christians can have fellowship, non-Christians can have community (which is a grasp at this concept of Christian fellowship.) One can not have true Christian fellowship without a congregation or church.
God's word is both audible and visible, scripture and the sacraments.
You won’t see the glory of the resurrection if you don’t understand the tragedy of the death; this child died during a church service, what does this teach us about God? Hard times do not mean we’ve fallen out of favor with God, for there is nobody that understands suffering quite like Christ.
There is something worse than death, hell (the worst enemy), and there is something better than human flourishing, eternity with God.
In Acts 20 we have a sermon interrupted with healing - in Acts, Paul is proclaiming the resurrection of Christ.
This mirrors 1 Kings 17 or 2 Kings 4 or Acts 9 - why? Because God wants us to listen to His word through prophets and apostles. He is confirming His word through miraculous works. The signs and wonders were always meant to be temporary for community takes over. (Re-listen to this bit lol.)
Romans 15:25-27
Paul is going to Jerusalem to provide aide to the Christians there or support
The Jewish believers are receiving blessings from the Gentiles as it was (but the inverse) in Acts chapter two.
Support is the way we take Christian encouragement beyond our local church.
The book of Acts is not about Paul but the risen Lord Jesus restoring the kingdom of God - Jesus continues to nurture His churches. He always knows how his people need to be encouraged. God always sees and cares for us even when it feels like we may never see Him.
It is Christ that uses each of us to encourage one another.
The full and final destruction of evil is of great encouragement to the Christians.