Moving on

SERMON: 2017-07-02--ac17175--moving-on-part-3 SOURCE DURATION: 00:44:55.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with the editor setting up the topic (Sermon) and concludes with a formal prayer/benediction (Prayer), both of which are integral parts of the sermon structure. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- I want to come back this morning then to where we left off a month or so ago in our regular study of the book of Acts, looking this morning at moving on part three from Acts chapter 20. Quick review of the background. You will recall that Paul is on his third missionary journey. He started in Antioch, which is his home church in Syria. We've got to back up. There's Antioch in Syria. So he visited his hometown of Tarsus and then the places that he visited in his earlier missionary journeys, then took a side trip to Ephesus. He had not previously been to Ephesus, had not previously established a church there, spent the better part of three years in Ephesus, and then decided to continue forward with the rest of his missionary journey. I'll talk more about that in a moment or two, but that's where we pick it up. Reading Acts chapter 20 beginning at verse one, there was a big riot, you will recall, in Ephesus because the gospel was so effective. Verse one, when the uproar had ended, Paul sent for the disciples and after encouraging them said goodbye and set out for Macedonia. He traveled through that area, speaking many words of encouragement to the people, and finally arrived in Greece, where he stayed three months. Because the Jews made a plot against him, just as he was about to sail for Syria, he decided to go back through Macedonia. Pray with me. Lord, as we pick up where we left off a number of weeks ago, I pray that you will bring back to our hearts and minds the privileges of following you and how life is a journey. And that in that journey, sometimes we leave behind things and people that have been part of the journey along the way. And often that is scary. Sometimes that fills us with terror. But Lord, you've promised to go with us, and you've also promised to equip us so that we make those moves and do them well. And so as we look again at the subject for a bit this morning, I just pray that you give me the words that I need, and all of us the ability to put ourselves into the situation, so that in every way, our lives will honor you and bless you. We pray that, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, when we first started this little series on moving on from these verses in Acts chapter 20 that we have read, I began by reading you a quote from a book by Dr. Henry Cloud called Necessary Endings. Want to read that quote once again because it so captures the theme of moving on that we have been talking about. Here's what he says, "Endings are not only part of life, they are a requirement for living and thriving professionally and personally. Being alive requires that we sometimes kill off things in which we were once invested, uproot what we had previously nurtured, and tear down what we built for an earlier time, refraining, giving up, throwing away, tearing down, hating what we once cherished, all are necessary. Endings are the reason you were not married to your prom date, nor still working in your first job. But without the ability to do endings well, we flounder, stay stuck, and fail to reach our goals and dreams. Or worse, we remain in painful and sometimes destructive situations. Endings are crucial, but we rarely like them." And I added, and I'll do it again, we rarely do them well. When we talked about this some weeks ago, I pointed out that in my experience when it comes to making changes in our relationships, friendships, careers, and jobs, we often make them on the fly and in moments of frustration. We have a falling out with our friends and so we stop seeing each other. I'm not happy with my boss, I'm not happy with my work situation, and so I start looking for another job and as soon as I can find a way out, I serve notice and I go to another place of employment. We get tension in our marriages, we find, we start looking around for people who meet our needs better than our spouse does, and before you know it, we're into the middle of an affair and life is taking us in painful directions. We're part of a church community and somebody hurts my feelings or things happen that I don't like, and so I just quit coming and pretty soon I start drifting into other places all without words of farewell, all without a due exit strategy, and the result of course is that in all of these situations, other people are left holding the bag. They can't help but wonder, did we do something wrong? Did I cause that person's departure? And when that happens enough times, what happens is that hearts get wounded and who wounded hearts begin closing down and closed down hearts cause further alienation and you get the kind of chaos that we experience as a society where more and more people are incapable of forming deep and lasting relationships. And the question then that we've been considering together is how can we do that better? Is there a way of moving on to the next phase of life and the next phase of relationships and do that in a redemptive and a God-glorifying way? And that's why we've been looking at this story here at Acts chapter 20, because it's a good case in point of Paul moving on from where he has been. The background, as I mentioned a moment or two ago, he's on his third missionary journey. He's been in Ephesus for some time and verse one of this passage gives us a good indication of how Paul brings closure to the situation. Come to it again, in verse one, if we can get that up, Paul sent for the disciples and after encouraging them, said goodbye and set out for Macedonia. And notice he's doing four things here, just very quickly, leave that verse up. He sent for the disciples, he encouraged them, he said goodbye, and then he set out for Macedonia. As I mentioned a moment or two ago, he's on his third missionary journey. He stopped it at Ephesus, he resumes his missionary journey, and at the end of the paragraph that we're dealing with, he ends up in Greece in Corinth. And you may recall that his original plan was to leave from Corinth and make his way back to Jerusalem, which is where the Holy Spirit was leading him. And just before he left, he discovered that the Jews were still hot on his tail. So he retraced his steps, and at the end of this paragraph, his companions end up in Troas. And then from Troas, he takes the shuttle service, if you will, all these little stops, and he comes to a place called Miletus. And not only does he bid farewell to the Christians in Ephesus in verse one of this passage. If you read the rest of the chapter, when he gets to Miletus, he invites the elders to join him, it's quite a little trip, and then he spends a lot of time with them, warning them and instructing them because they're not going to see him anymore. And then the chapter ends with these verses, verse 37 and 38, "They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him, and what grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again, and then they accompanied him to the ship." See Paul didn't just abandon his people, he brought closure to the relationship. And if you and I are to be God-glorifying in our relationships and in our jobs, if we want to leave the past behind, move forward into new places and things that sometimes we have to do, then we have to be prepared to bring good closure. And so the question that we want to try to consider in the time that we have this morning is how can we best do that, and I have three very quick practical suggestions for each of us. The first is we need to identify the nature of our relationships. Relationships are valuable, they are one of the most important parts of life, and part of moving forward is that our relationships are going to be impacted. Now as best as I can figure out, relationships, broadly speaking, can be reduced to three specific categories. Let me try to walk you through them. The first is friendship. Friendship, dictionary definition, a person with whom you have a mutual bond of affection. Or as somebody else put it one time, I really like this, someone who can tell you that you're being stupid without making you feel stupid. Friendship is equality. Friendship is being there for each other, and as we've seen previously, we can identify at least four levels of friendship, each of which needs to be clearly understood. The first is acquaintance, casual friends, close friends, and then intimate relationships. All of those are different. Don't need to spend a lot of time on it, an acquaintance is somebody that you just casually know. It may be your mailman, it may be your neighbor down the street, you know each other's names, maybe a little bit about your jobs, but that's about as far as it goes. A casual friend is somebody that you have a closer relationship with. The person that you sit next to in church or who is part of your section probably could qualify as a casual friend, you know some things about each other. Close friend, those are the people that you hang out with more closely, maybe invite them over periodically to your house for a barbecue or a game of board game or a game of cards or whatever activity that you do together. And then there is an intimate relationship and an intimate relationship is where you can be yourself truly, you don't have to hide things, you can wear your heart on your sleeve and you're going to be accepted by them no matter who you are or what you do. And of course as I've pointed out previously, the idea of growing is that you move from acquaintance to intimacy, but when you do so the circle of people in your life diminishes. You can only be intimate with a much smaller group of people than you can be with acquaintances. So there are friendships, we all have friendships, even the most unfriendly person has at least an acquaintance or two, maybe even a casual friend. Now the second category that I think we need to identify is what I would call contractual. You can take that slide down. A contractual relationship is a relationship that is based on an agreement between two parties to accomplish a particular goal or purpose. A contract is typically time bound, it's typically focused on a specific goal. My factory has a contract with you to supply you with X number of widgets at a certain time. I may enter into a contract with you to build my house or to build my deck or to take care of my lawn. I contract out to you certain jobs that need doing, you promise to do them. A contract is based on mutual responsibilities. It may be informal by word only, it may be duly legalized by a lawyer, but a contract depends on fulfilling the requirements of the contract. And if one party or the other fails to fulfill the contract, then often the contract will be broken, it will be declared null and void, and there may be penalties imposed in that process. It may or may not involve personal relationships. Many business dealings that we all do are in the form of contract. I will do this in return for this, I will pay you this much if you will do this for me. A third area of relationship is what I like to call covenantal, and a covenant can be defined as an elected as opposed to natural relationship of obligation under oath. Let me say that again. A covenant is an elected as opposed to natural relationship of obligation under oath. Without going into a lot of detail, it tends to have at least four components. It has a component of election, obligation, solemnity, and relationship. That is to say, somebody chooses to enter into covenant with me. Out of that choosing, there is an exchange of obligations. Those obligations are formalized in a solemn fashion, usually with an oath, and they establish the nature and the degree of our relationship. Now the clearest example in scripture of covenant is God's relationship with his people. Under the old covenant, he entered into a relationship of law with the people of Israel. I will be your God, and you will be my people. I will do this for you, and you are required to do this in response. It was solemnized at Mount Sinai. Under the new covenant in Christ, God also promises to be our God, and he will be our people, but it's a unilateral agreement in the sense that he takes upon himself our sin. It is solemnized in the sign of baptism, and God will be our God, and we will be his people. The closest thing that we have to covenants, I think, in human relationships is the marriage covenant. I will be faithful to you, and I will love you in good times and in bad times until death do us part. Membership in churches or membership in other organizations are covenantal in nature. We invoke the presence of God as we make promises to each other. A contract and a covenant are different in the sense that a covenant is far more solemn and may only be broken under the most unusual of circumstances, because you have in fact invoked the name of God in making the promises that you have made to each other. Now, there may be more to relationship than what I've just summarized for you here, but I think most every relationship that you can think of falls into one of those three categories. Some people are your friends, anywhere from casual to intimate. Some people you are in contractual relationship with, I will do this and you will do that, and if either of us doesn't do it, we're done. And some relationships are covenantal. I will be to you faithful even though this may now cost me. Read a piece just this past week by Matt Chandler. He is a well-known evangelical pastor. Pastor is a church I think called Village Church, and he talks about the difference between contract and covenant in the context of his marriage to his wife. He says when he came down as he did some years ago with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and wasn't able to be there in any significant way for his wife, she just didn't bail on him as if she was in contract with him in marriage. She stuck it out with him in the good times and in the bad times because you see they were in covenant together. Covenant is solemn business. And any time we talk about going forward in life, and any time we don't want to leave a mess behind us relationally, then we need to ask ourselves the question, what is the nature of the relationship that's going to be affected by my steps forward? That's where it begins because each of these situations needs to be handled differently of course. Leaving a casual friendship versus an intimate friendship is an entirely different matter. Breaking a contract versus breaking a covenant is a world of a difference. So we need to know what those differences are so that we don't inadvertently do damage in ways that we can avoid. Second thing then is we need to determine what love demands. We need to determine what love looks like in the context of this relationship. If the greatest commandment is to love the Lord my God with all of my heart, soul, strength and mind, then what's the second commandment? Love your neighbor as yourself. So one of the best ways to determine what does love demand in this situation is to apply the golden rule. What's the golden rule? Love your neighbor as you love yourself. We can do better than this. Let's say it together. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. So whenever you're in a situation where moving forward is going to impact somebody that you're leaving behind, then ask yourself the question how would I want to be treated in that situation? How would I want to be treated when I'm the one who's being left behind? Well three very quick suggestions. Number one, you're going to want to find the reason why you're being left behind or the other person is moving on. Think back to the earlier messages that we did in this particular passage and we saw there were three reasons Paul moved on from Ephesus. Do you remember that? Of course you all remember that because you're good listeners and you have good memories. Number one, he was led by the Holy Spirit. He had to get back to Jerusalem because God had other plans for him. Christian plans, not very nice plans but other plans. Secondly, he left because his work was done. He established the church. And number three, why did he leave? It got too hot for him to stay. Now all of those situations or any of them can be applicable in a situation when somebody else has got to move on, but it makes a world of a difference to you who's being left behind what the reason is. If somebody moves on from you because God is calling them to move on, that's very different than that he is moving on because he can't stand your guts and he never wants to see you again. And you might just want to know the difference, not true? So you've got to have a conversation. Why are you leaving? And that would be the next step in this then, and that is to engage the reason for moving on. And this is incredibly tough because most of us would just like to live in lala land and avoid the confrontations and the things that are difficult and just hope that somehow or another everything lands on its feet, isn't that true? Canadians are nice people. How many times haven't you heard that this weekend? There may be other people who are in your face, maybe the Dutch a little bit. But by the time we're Canadianized, we're nice. And we don't want to hurt other people's feelings. But sometimes when you don't say anything, you hurt other people's feelings more. So we have to engage, why are you doing what you were doing? And so if the person says, well, I feel led by the Lord, then let's talk about that. Is it really the Lord who's talking to you in this situation? As well he might be. Or are you spiritualizing a reason to get out of this relationship because you can't handle the heat in the kitchen? That's an entirely different picture. And maybe if there is heat in the kitchen, you want to stay and learn to fight through that and not be spiritual and say, well, the Lord told me I can't be your friend anymore. Now maybe the Lord did tell you, but let's make sure it was the Lord and not your unresolved issues in your own life. And if the person says it's time for me to move on from this job to another job or from this relationship to another relationship because I've gone as far, you know, my work is complete. Let's talk about that. Is the ceiling that you were reaching, remember we talked about this before, is the ceiling that you were reaching in your life a God-imposed ceiling? Have you filled your space and is it time for you to find other space where you can prosper better or grow more? Let's talk about that. Or are you coming up against a ceiling in your life because there's stuff in you that the Lord is trying to flush out, places of brokenness or wounding that you need to deal with where you need to learn to persevere and push through so that you can bear more fruit in the kingdom. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. And if you're bailing or moving because the opposition has become too great and the fire and the heat in the kitchen is too strong, what's the Lord telling you in that situation? Is he telling you, "Yes, the door is closed here. It's no sense in beating your head against the wall because nothing is ever going to change these people. Your boss is never going to be different. The culture is never going to be different. You're just going to get yourself killed so get out of there." Is that what the Lord's saying? Or is the Lord saying to you, you know, you need to look at yourself a little bit here. First of all, are you contributing to this tension in the workplace or to this tension in the relationship? Are there things the Lord is flushing out in you that you need to do differently, that you need to deal with? Or is the Lord calling you to learn how to persevere and overcome knowing that in the Lord there will be victory? We need to have those kinds of conversations. And obviously the more intimate our relationship versus the more casual, the more serious is that kind of conversation. If you're just my casual acquaintance, you know, there's only so much that I can do or I can say because I don't have control over your life and you don't have it over my life and that's all good and well. But if we're intimate friends, if we've been in business for a long time together and we're knit together and if we're in covenant relationship and we have committed ourselves to walking this out, don't just tear it up, don't just walk away from it, don't just pretend nothing is the matter. Engage and try to find out if this situation can be redeemed or not. It can't always be redeemed. There are times to move on. There are times to walk away. Not every employee that worked for you yesterday can work for you tomorrow if your company is changing. Everybody reaches their ceilings and that's okay. That's good. That's natural. But let's talk about it so that we don't have misunderstanding and to the degree that it depends upon us, a situation can be resolved because sometimes it can be. Sometimes it's opportunity for correction. Sometimes it's opportunity for change. Sometimes it's opportunity to learn things together. Sometimes it's opportunity to move forward in ways that are mutually redemptive. You with me? Any of this make sense? In terms of where you find yourself in life or all the different stages. So love demands that I find a reason why that person wants to move on, want to have an honest conversation about that reason, and then having discovered that it's time to move on nevertheless, we need to bring appropriate closure. Appropriate closure looks different in each of these categories that we're talking about. In friendship areas, it means determining what this relationship is going to look like going forward. Maybe we can stay friends and we will see each other periodically. My wife and I still have very close friends in each of the earlier congregations that we've pastored. When we go back to the area where they live, it is like picking up the relationship like there are no years in between. It's a phenomenal thing. There are other people that we have no relationship with and probably no interest in having a relationship with because our lives have gone in very different directions. So in terms of friendship, you have to decide what does going forward look like? Do we drop our friendship altogether? Do we stay in touch? Does the door need to be closed? What does that look like? In terms of business relationships, are we done? Are you fired? Will I tell you that I no longer need your services because this, that or the other thing? And in covenant, now let me be very blunt about covenantal relationships because covenantal relationships are different to some degree because they are a mutual obligation under the face of God. And just to use church membership as an example because it's a good way of sort of addressing that issue. When you become a member of a church, you publicly pledge your membership. You publicly declare that you're submitting yourself to the leadership of the church and to the authority of God through the church and you are prepared, as God gives you grace, to let yourself be discipled and to move forward. It's a covenantal relationship just like a marriage, does that make sense? You don't just unilaterally walk away from a covenantal relationship. You need permission to be released. Do you hear me? You need permission to be released. When Mark came to us a while back and said, "You know, I feel the Lord is calling me to the village of Hope in New Brunswick," and he was not only on council but he was chair of council. He couldn't just come to us and say unilaterally, "I'm out of here. Take care of your own problems. I've had enough of it." Now he had to come to council and he had to say, "This is what I believe the Lord is calling me to do. Will you support it not only, but will you release me from my obligations to this community?" And council sat around the table and they said, "Yes, we believe this is a call of the Lord. We support you in it and we release you." Years ago when Bill DeVries came to us and said, "I believe the Lord is calling me to go to Grace Chapel in Stirling to help them in their worship," we sat down and we talked about it together and we said, "Yes, we believe that is the Lord's call and we bless you." That is the way to leave a church community. Unfortunately, what happens most of the time is people don't have the courtesy to do that whatsoever. They just disappear and they leave everybody else wondering, "Are they gone? Are they not gone? Where are they and why are they not here?" That is destructive and it is hurtful. And in a similar fashion, if you're volunteering for a ministry in church, that ministry depends on you. And so if you cannot make it or if your life situation has changed, don't just disappear and let people wonder what in the world happened to you. Ask to be released. Live out your commitment. You see how important that is? Because you see, you may think you don't matter, but the place that you're filling is like a cog in a much bigger machine. And when you're not doing your job, the rest of the machine grinds to a halt. Somebody else has to step in there and do your job and that is not loving your neighbor. Now, we all have emergencies and we all have situations that we have no control over. We're talking about a regular way of life, covenantally. Covenant is serious business. You don't just walk out of it. You need to be released for the glory of God. Are you hearing me? You know, one of the differences between, I'm going to pat the older generation on the back here and you younger ones, you can listen to this and learn. Everyone raised in the 30s and 40s grew up with loyalty to institution and took covenant faithfulness extremely seriously. And if you've ever tried to throw a party for the younger generation, you will know the frustration in terms of getting a commitment out of people because nobody wants to sign up until the very last minute. Why? Because one of their friends may come up with a better idea. And if I commit myself to you, then my options are limited. Well, guess what? Covenant obligations are serious business. Grow up. Grow up and recognize that other people depend on you and that love demands proper closure. All right. One more point. You're done and you go eat soup. Here's an important thing to keep in mind. And this is what it is. Closure brings new opportunities. Closure brings new opportunities. One of my favorite cartoons in the newspaper these days is a cartoon called Retail. Any of you familiar with it? Retail is the story of four people who work in a department store. And in a recent series of strips, Marla, who is the manager of the store, has just lost her assistant manager, which wasn't much of a loss anyway because he was a bit of a jerk. But she's in the process of hiring a new one. And so she is going through old resumes, going back to people that she had previously interviewed, and here's how this story goes. I don't know if you can read that, but I'll read it for you. Marla speaking. She says, "Hello, may I speak with Carlos? Hi Carlos, this is Marla Garrison from Grumbles. I interviewed you for a management position about a year ago. Oh, you found employment elsewhere. I see. Google? Wow. That sounds like a great opportunity." And then here's the closing caption, "I've never had anyone thank me for not hiring them before, but you're welcome, I guess." Love it. Because as the saying goes, if God closes one door, what's the rest? He often will open another. Y'all know the story of Colonel Sanders and Kentucky Fried Chicken, how in the '30s in North Corbin, Kentucky, he had a very successful restaurant, developed his KFC recipe, and was doing really well until the mid-1950s when Interstate 75 bypassed his little community and his business went down the tubes. He could have thrown in his hat in despair, but he had already begun to franchise the secret 11 herbs recipe, which is carefully guarded in somebody's vault, by the way, still to this day, even though people think they haven't figured out, he says they haven't or he said they haven't. And out of that then came what is now known as the KFC chain of restaurants worldwide, the first one to go into China when China opened up to Western establishments. But it never happened if the door had not closed. In the late 1800s, cotton was king in the American South. Then came the cotton, what's it called, the cotton weevil, the Mexican bowl weevil, crossed over from Texas into the American South, killed off the cotton. People went broke left and right, front and centered, until one enterprising farmer discovered, "Why don't I try growing peanuts?" And peanuts revived the agricultural industry, it diversified, and the American South was able to get beyond, they would have never gotten beyond cotton if the bowl weevil hadn't destroyed their harvest. And the same thing is true here to bring it to a conclusion, in Acts chapter 20, what would have happened if the Apostle Paul had said to the Holy Spirit, "You know, I like it here in Ephesus, there's such nice folks and such great things are happening, I want to retire here." Or if he had said, "Well, you know, my work is looking pretty good and you're really blessing it, but you know, there's always more to be done, I mean this church can grow into a pretty significant major church," and what if he had said, "Well, you know, the opposition will die down and I'm just going to stay here because I like it here." He would have never gotten back to Jerusalem, he would have never gotten to Rome, he would have never been in prison for X numbers of years, and who remembers what he did while he was in prison? He wrote four of the major epistles that we have in the New Testament, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. God closes one door, he will open up another, but it takes faith. And faith means believing that God loves me, that I'm in Christ, that my life matters to him, that I'm his workmanship, he has good works prepared for me from before the foundation of the world, and he will empower me to do it as I step out in faith. So as one author said, "When God closes the door, don't keep pounding on it. Don't try to keep on yanking on that. Don't keep trying to revisit it for the rest of your life." I know people for whom God has closed the door who have spent 20 or 30 years complaining to the rest of the world how wrongly they were treated by whoever closed the door on them. You know that? Let it go, indeed, and trust that if you're faithful to God in what he's trying to accomplish in your life, the closed door will lead to a new door and you will have new opportunities that you never dreamed of because God is an incredibly creative God who calls us to move on in Christ to the fullness of our destinies. And all God's people agreed and said amen and amen. Let's stand as we conclude in prayer. Father, we acknowledge that it's often only afterwards that we can see your leading hand and when we're in the middle of a situation, terror overtakes us. We wonder where you are and we get angry and we complain about the friends that have dropped us and the bosses that have fired us and the relationships that have betrayed us and we burn bridges and we sometimes spend years in anguish and frustration. And all of that, Lord, is understandable but help us to move beyond that. Help us to know that man proposes but God disposes and that indeed if you do close one door and we've walked through that whole process in the way that we've just been describing it when the time is right, you'll open the next door and you will enable us to flourish in your kingdom because you only prune so that we can bear more for it. So thank you, Lord, for this time together in a little bit. We're going to go out and have a meal and in preparation for that, Lord, we thank you for it. We thank you for the people that have prepared it. We invite you to bless it and to bless our fellowship and our time together. Thank you for being a good, good father and thank you that you lead our lives and may we each have a heart that says if you go, if you call me to go, I will go because I want to be faithful to my God and to my Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. We pray it, Lord, in his name, amen. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:44:50.520; remove through 00:44:55.000] [BLANK_ [CUT]AUDIO] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:44:55.000; resume after this marked segment]