Partnership in Love and Insight

Guest Speaker Harold Ebersole

Sermon Transcript:

Good morning. Good morning. It’s wonderful to be back with, y’all can tell where we’ve been lately. Yep. We’ve been down living in Tennessee for the last three years, but it’s wonderful to be back here and it’s kind of like really old homecoming to be back in this building here. My first sermons at Fellowship, were in this building.

And so it is a bit of a homecoming to be back here where we are great to see what God is doing among you, and I hope today to be able to share what a bit, what God is doing with us. God gave me a wonderful passage actually, pastor Mark, uh, God used Pastor Mark to give me the wonderful passage, but it’s in Acts chapter 21, starting in around verse 16, and in it we see Paul finally gets back to Jerusalem after lots of warnings about bad things that might happen there, and he says, Hey, no way, I’m going.

I’m ready to suffer. I’m ready to die. I’m going back to Jerusalem. He felt it was crucial for the unity of the church for him to get back there with this gift from the Gentile believers to the Jewish believers going through rough times. And to be able to show that they were one. Paul went back there because he loved the people and he loved God, and he said, Hey, my life is worth nothing to me if only I can finish the work God’s given me to do.

So he goes back to Jerusalem knowing that trouble and hardship are going to be there. And he makes his report. He makes his report so that the people there can have love with knowledge and depth of insight. And that’s what we’re going to look at today. All the things involved in Paul’s report to Jerusalem, the issues that come up, his response to that.

And it all revolves around loving with knowledge and depth of insight. But before we get started on that, I thought it was only appropriate that I give a report. Now, Paul gave a long and detailed report we’ll see in the passage. Fear not. I will not do that. I will give a short report that we pray will give praise to God for his work in our life for the past few years.

I want to start with Psalm 66, verses eight to 12, and then 16, and that’s not on a slide. So you can either listen or just turn there quickly. Praise God. All peoples let the sound of his praise be heard. He has preserved our lives. He’s kept our feet from slipping. Oh God, you tested us. You refined us like silver.

You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let people ride over our heads. We went through fire and water, but you brought us out to a place of abundance. So then verse 16, come in here. All you who fear God, let me tell you what he’s done for me. That’s what I’d like to do. Now, God’s brought us through some fire.

Through some water. Been in, uh, prison of long covid and he is brought us into a place of abundance and we would like to share that so you can praise God with us. Just like the people in Jerusalem. Praise God when they heard of Paul’s work and the way so many people had come to Christ, first thing I wanna praise God about is that my cancer’s still in remission.

This is my longest remission yet. So praise his name. He has allowed me to be here with you, and that is wonderful. Three years ago, God allowed us to return to Bangladesh for a short visit, and that was a huge answer to prayer. While we were there, I could see one of the reasons why I’d gotten sick with cancer.

People had open ears to hear everything we had to say. They wanted to hear how God had raised us up. They wanted to hear how he had, in a sense brought me back to life. And it was exciting to be able to share with people of all religious backgrounds, people who came from an Islamic background, a Hindu background, were asking for my testimony on little memory cards so they could put it in their phones and share it with their families.

So I praise God for that opportunity that we had, and we pray that there will be fruit of many coming to Christ through that. Three years ago, well, I got ready to leave, but we got ready to leave Bangladesh the day before. I got my little covid test. You had to get back then. And guess what? Oh yes, it came out positive.

I got Covid in Bangladesh and so I didn’t leave for a while. I. At first I had no symptoms and they got worse and worse. And soon I was getting all kinds of infusions in the hospital. But God used that. And five weeks later I was feeling better and I got a negative test and they were so anxious to get rid of me that they made special phone calls all over the place and got me flying outta the country that very day.

So we made it back to the us. I never got another negative test for Covid for eight months. God gave me that one test to get back. I got back and within two weeks I had the fevers and everything again. I had it for eight months and by the end of that eight months, my lungs were shot. They had to come pick me up in an ambulance and carry me ’cause I could not get outta bed.

Had 70% oxygen. And the I got in and the doctor said, you have got some very sick lungs. He said, they are 90% destroyed. We have no idea if you’ll get better again, but you know what? Don’t be afraid. Don’t worry about it because we can give you lung transplant. Oh, that was encouraging. But we serve a God who’s a lot more powerful than a lung transplant, and to their surprise, slowly I got better.

Eventually, I could walk out to the mailbox again. Eventually I didn’t need to use oxygen. Finally, about a year ago, I went back to my pulmonologist and he said, you don’t need to come see me again. Your lung function’s normal. Praise God for that. So God has given us breath, breath to even be up here and be able to speak to y’all.

And that is a very great gift. While we’ve been going through this time, God’s given us another gift. My last couple of several years in Bangladesh, I prayed, God, this administration stuff I’m doing is great and all, but you know, I would love to be back into Bible translation. That’s what I came here to do originally.

Haven’t been able to do it in 20 years. God, before we retire, let me be involved in Bible translation. It was not happening. We couldn’t get anyone to take my place in administration. So you know what God did? He answered my prayer in a way I wouldn’t have chosen. He gave me cancer. We returned to the us.

They had to do administration there without me. And you know what I was able to do in the US via? Internet streaming. I was able to be involved in the Bible translation project working at, in the Tipa Bible translation, a revision of the one my dad had started out there 30 years, 40 years. Oh my, I’m older than I think, uh, 60 years earlier.

So God answered that prayer and enabled me to be involved in Bible translation. Now we’re to stand still in it. Please pray with us that God will break through the barriers that appears that some of the original work has been too literal and it’s hard to understand. And I’ve been working on checking and it became clear, pretty obvious that more work is needed.

So pray that God will break through those barriers and get that translation out to the people who need it. You can also pray for our ministry to the tribal groups in Bangladesh as a whole. God’s been doing great things. Reaching out to an ungroup unreached group called the Chamas. Two new education outreach centers have been built.

People have been being baptized, and you know that’s gonna bring a response from Satan. Well, the leaders of that association have gotten into disunity. There’s court cases, there’s fights. Pray that God brings unity. God’s doing great things. Praise his name. Pray for unity among the leaders. Another thing that’s happened recently there is our hospital almost shut down the hospital I was administering when I was there, almost shut down because the only doctor and surgeon was forced to leave.

We prayed and it came down to a matter of, you know, it looks like we’ll have to close the hospital in a few weeks. God opened the doors and brought the surgeon back. So the hospital is now functioning, but you know what they need? They need a team. God built this gorgeous new building for them. They could have 6, 8, 10 doctors there, and they need at least five or six.

There’s one. God’s got to have great plans for that place to reach out with the gospel into the unreached people, groups around them. There’s Buddhist, Muslim, and Hindu all around there, but they need the people to do it. Pray that God will raise up both doctors and nurses for the hospital that he has miraculously kept open while we’ve been here.

My wife has been able to stay involved in work in Bangladesh too. She’s involved in producing literature. She simplifies texts for translation. She works on checking them. They, she works on getting donations. They’ve gotten some great donations to print some great books, but they need more people to check them.

They’ll just pray that God will break through those barriers too and enable them to get these books out to the people who need them. She’s also involved in encouraging and coaching language students there in as they learn the Bangla language, and that’s a hard and discouraging time. We recently had one couple leave the field.

It was so hard. They just got discouraged doing the, the studies of the Bengali language. This can happen. You need to pray for your missionaries while they’re in language school. That’s a time when Satan really attacks because you’re not seeing fruit of ministry. You’re just seeing difficulty in even communicating.

So pray for folks as they study the. Bong the language, and for other missionaries around the world, missionaries that you’re supporting. I want you to be able to pray with knowledge and depth of insight. I want you to be able to praise God for all that he’s doing, for all he’s done in our life and all that he’s doing around the world, so that as you pray, you can pray with knowledge and depth of insight.

We love each other, we love outreach workers, but you know what? Love can get us in trouble sometimes if we don’t have knowledge and depth of insight. Let me read you a wonderful passage, and this is my prayer for myself, for my family, for my team in Bangladesh, Philippians 1 9 2 11, and this is my prayer that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.

So that me able, you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. It may be that love never fails, but love can get us into trouble if we don’t understand the situation we’re in.

When we first got to Bangladesh, my wife went with a woman who worked for us out to her village, and this was a really poor village. It was so poor that there was one chair in the village and they would carry that chair from house to house when she visited people so she could have a place to sit. It was so poor that most of the kids had nothing to put on their feet.

So when she took a picture of the families, they would run, get little rubber flip flops from the house next door. So it would look like they had shoes in their picture. So when Sean went to these villages, she thought, I don’t wanna look like some rich person who’s trying to be better than them and wear all my fancy shas.

So, or the, which is the dress, the women they wear. So she said, I’m gonna take my most common cotton shas along. Our worker who was with her was appalled. Every house we went through, she apologized. She said, I’m so sorry she didn’t understand. Because you show honor to someone by dressing up to go see them.

That’s how important are you when she wears something common, that means. She doesn’t care about them. So she had wanted to reach out in love, but at that point we didn’t have a whole lot of knowledge and we didn’t have a whole lot of depth of insight. Well, that got us in trouble again because we went to a funeral.

And so we dressed up to show honor. Well, guess what? In Bangladesh, you don’t dress up to a funeral. You wear real common kind of raggedy clothes to show your sorrow. It’s like, you know, you read about in the Bible where they tore their clothes and put dust and ash cloth, uh, dust and ashes on their head so you don’t dress up to a funeral.

’cause then it shows you’re happy and you have to show that you’re sad. By not really dressing well. So that got us in trouble. Again, thank God we work with gracious people, but you can see love is crucial, but it’s also crucial that we have knowledge and depth of insight as we reach out in love to those around us.

I’ll never forget, my nephew came out to see us, and again, they thought they were going to a poor country, so they just brought t-shirts and raggedy old clothes and shorts. Oh my word. Because in Bangladesh, like I said, when you go out to see someone, you, you can’t wear a t-shirt. Okay. T-shirt. Uh, well, you always have to have a collar and you always have to have long pants.

They didn’t have either one. So the young man who worked in our home, first thing he saw, he said, is their mother punishing them or why didn’t they bring any clothes? I am gonna take them out shopping. So the first thing he did was take them to the nearest town and buy them a sport shirt and some slacks so that they could fit in to the people around them.

Anyway, Paul, this was important, Paul, to love with knowledge and depth of insight, and that’s important to you. It’s not just when we go to another country, we have to love our family, those around us and our neighbors with knowledge and depth of insight so we can understand their situation so that we do not create barriers to the gospel and misunderstandings.

That was a characteristic of Paul’s ministry wherever he went. Here’s how he described it in one Corinthians nine, nine to, uh, 19 to 23. I. One Corinthians nine 19 to 23. We see this characteristic of Paul’s ministry. Though I’m free and belong to no one, I’ve made myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible to the Jews.

I became like a Jew to win the Jews to those under the law. I became like one under the law, even though I myself am not under the law so as to win those under the law to those not having the law. I became like one. Not having the law, though I still wasn’t free from God’s law, but was under Christ’s law so as to win those not having the law to the weak, I became weak to win the weak.

I’ve become all things to all people, so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel so that I might share in its blessings. So Paul, Was always aware of the cultural background of the people he was working with, the religious background of the people he was working with, and he did his best to fit in with them when he was with the Jewish people.

He behaved like a Jewish person. He followed their dietary rules when he was with Gentile people. He was free to eat with them, to do whatever they did to have their food, and he did all this for the sake of the gospel. He was free to live however he wanted in Christ, as long as he obeyed God’s law, but it would’ve created barriers Sometimes in Bangladesh.

I’m free to wear shorts if I want to, but you know what? I’d better not do it when I’m out. That’s gonna make people less ready to hear God’s word. I could give my wife a hug in public if I wanted to. I’m free to do that, but that would make me a not a very respectable person. She’s free to walk ahead of me if she wants to, but she better not.

She’s gotta walk behind me to show submission if she’s going to have a good ministry with the women there. When we pray in church, you just better cover her head and the women there let her know that real quickly. So we learned not to use all our freedom so that we could reach out in love. This applies everywhere.

It applies as we go down to Tennessee and you better not shoot quite as straight in Tennessee as you do here. When someone asks you if you like something, you better find a way around lying without. Offending them because there, in a way, it’s a little like BF relationships are very important and my how I love that hairdo.

Well, I don’t know. Anyhow, find a way to say something nice and there I found another thing after we moved there. You know what? It is really hard to get a good bagel in Tennessee. What do you get there? Anybody know? It starts with a B biscuits. That’s right. They got some great biscuits, but don’t go looking for bagels.

So we’re getting used to a new life down there in Tennessee and trying to fit in so that we can reach out and not offend those around us as we serve and as we. Uh, share the gospel when we have the opportunity. So this characterized Paul’s ministry. He had cultural awareness and he made adaptations. His purpose was to keep away any extra barriers other than the gospel for people to accept Christ.

He wanted to behave in a way that made the gospel inviting, and that’s what we need to do with those around us. As you’re reaching out to your neighbors, what is it that offends them? What is it that they love? I remember when Fellowship was first getting started here. We did a check around the neighborhood.

What is it that you need? What is it that you want? How can we reach out to you in love with knowledge and depth of insight? And we found out what did the people want here? They wanted programs for their kids. Safe place for their kids to go. It’s one reason people moved to Mount Laurel, good school system care about their families, and that was the start of our summer ministries program.

Why? So we could reach out in love with knowledge and depth of insight, as Paul talked about saying, by all means that some may accept Christ. And that is one of the big reasons why we’re here. That was the goal of Paul’s ministry. And as a result, there were thousands of churches or thousands of believers around the Mediterranean.

So Paul’s been ministering and adapting to all different cultures as he goes. Whether it was the Jewish culture, the Greek culture, the Roman culture. Finally he gets back to Jerusalem, maybe thinks, whew, now I can relax. He had lived in Jerusalem for a long time. It wasn’t his home. But remember when Steven was killed?

Paul was there, called Saul back then, and he did a lot of work out of Jerusalem. Actually. His work persecuting the church was based outta Jerusalem. Anyway, he was very familiar with Jerusalem, so he’s probably thinking, wow, it’s gonna be great kind of to be back in my home territory. So let’s see what happens as he goes back and let’s see how the church responds to him, how they loved him with knowledge and depth of insight.

We’ve seen that it characterized Paul’s ministry. Now we see that love with knowledge and depth of insight. Characterize the church’s response to Paul in verse 16 before our passage really starts. Acts 21, and we’re going to verse. 16, then 17, and we’ll go down to 25. You’re not gonna have slides for all of this, I don’t think, but it’s Acts chapter 21, and starting in verse 16, you see that they arrive at the seacoast, go in and on the way to Jerusalem, they found a house, found a place.

Invited Paul in with Manson, was his name, the, and here, I’ll read that to you, verse 15. After this, we started on our way up to Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Caesarea accompanied us, brought us to the home of Manson, where we were to stay, and he was a man from Cyprus in one of the early disciples.

So the first thing we see here is, hey, they provided his needs, they provided housing for him, verse 17. Then when we arrived in Jerusalem, the brothers and sisters received us and welcomed us warmly. So you see that they were accompanying him, they were providing housing for him, they were welcoming him.

And these are things that you have and fellowship have done for Sean and I. I know every time we’ve come here, we’ve had a place to stay. We’ve had a vehicle, we have had our needs met. We have felt welcomed. Praise God. I just want to thank you for that. You make us feel at home every time we have come back here, and you have made sure every need was met.

So you have loved us with knowledge and depth of insight and we appreciate that. And that’s what the church was doing for Paul. And now let’s see in verse 18, what happens the next day? Right away when they got there, Paul and the rest of us went to see James. He was head of the church there and all the elders who were present, Paul greeted them and reported in detail what God had done among the Gentiles.

Through his ministry. So the first thing that happens, he gives a furlough report. You might say he’s back ministering in his home place and he shares all that God has done. Remember, he’s brought a big gift to, I’m sure he gave that to them at that time, and he shares, Hey, there’s believers all over the Mediterranean now.

Here’s how God worked and here’s the gift that they have given to help you folks in their time of need. And what did they do? They all praise when they heard this. They praised God. They were able to praise God together for the ministry Paul had had and for the fruits of that ministry because Paul had reached out in love with Insight.

Many came to Christ. And the people there in Jerusalem are able to praise God about it. But they didn’t stop there. They explained the situation in their church to Paul in the city there. Let’s read about that and that we see in, uh, the end of verse 20. There you see, brother, how many thousands of Jews of belief.

So while Paul is out ministering to the Gentiles, they were working among the Jews in Jerusalem and thousands there have come to Christ. All of them are zealous for the law. And they’ve been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses telling them not to circumcise their children or to live according to our customs.

So right away we see what we got a problem here though, Paul, God’s been working in great ways. You’ve come back with this great gift to show the unity of the church and the love of believers for each other. But you know, sometimes when you minister, sometimes when you serve, sometimes when you reach out, no matter how hard you try, you get misunderstood.

And Paul was misunderstood. It was thought that he was running around telling all the Jews, Hey, you don’t need to obey the law anymore. That’s all over. That really wasn’t the emphasis of his ministry. He, it was very important to him to tell the Gentiles, you don’t have to live by that law. You all you have to do is believe in Jesus Christ and you’ll be saved.

But he wasn’t telling Jews, Hey, you don’t need to worry about that stuff. You can change your culture. Remember Paul said to the Jews, I become like a Jew. So that I can win the Jews. Now, I’m free from that, but I don’t wanna cause offense, so I will live according to the Jewish customs and the Jewish rule.

So he really was in Acts chapter 18, verse 18, we read that he took a vow and he shaved his head. He was still practicing some of the aspects of Judaism and he certainly didn’t wanna offend anyone. That was his philosophy of ministry. When I’m with the Jews, I live as a Jew. When I’m with the Gentiles, I live as a gentil.

And you’ll remember he also said to the weak, I become weak. If someone feels that they should follow a certain thing and that’s a command of God, I’m not gonna tell ’em not to do it, because if they disobey their conscience, they’re sinning. It may or may not be wrong to do it, but if I think something’s wrong and I do it, that’s a real problem.

I have just sinned because thinking it was wrong, I did it. And we are not to do that. If we believe something is wrong, even if others don’t, we need to live by that conviction. So Paul had been misunderstood. He was not telling Jews, Hey, throw all that overboard. He was telling Gentiles, you don’t have to get involved in this.

You’re free to come to Christ as you are, though he’s been now, he could have just gotten kind of huffy about that, couldn’t he? And said, oh, come on. I’ve been out adapting to all these cultures. Just give me a break, you know? But remember what his purpose was. See people come to Christ, see the church united.

See the Jews and the Gentiles united together as one body for the praise and the glory of God. Well, they gave him some needed insight and the leaders there had a plan for him that would show that he still did respect the law there. And we see them. He, they tell him about their plan. So what are we gonna do?

All these Jews who have heard wrong things about you, they’re going to hear that you have come. So do what we tell you. There’s four men with us who’ve made a vow. Take these men, join in their purification rights and pay their expenses so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everyone will know there’s no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law.

And then they said, now, as for the Gentiles, don’t worry. We’re not asking you to compromise your principles. As for the gentile believers, we’ve already written to them. Our decision that they should abstain from food sacrifice to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.

In other words, they don’t have to abide all the ritual law. They have to keep a few moral standards, you know? And he said, this does not affect that. We’re just asking you to show that you still respect the Jewish law, because there’s people here who don’t believe you do. And so if you can take these guys and pay for their purification rights and join them in that, that’s gonna show everyone that you still have respect for our cultural rules.

And so we read here on the very next day, Paul went in, in verse, um, 26, the next day, Paul took the men and purified himself along with them. And he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end, and the offering would be made for each of them. So he fit in. He did what he asked, they asked him to do.

Now he could be pretty offended. What are you guys talking about here? He’s gathered this huge gift from gentile believers all over the Mediterranean. He’s brought it back to Jerusalem. He’s been in prison, and the first thing they want him to do is, Hey, you’ve got a show. You’re still okay? Like, oh, come on.

Give me a break. What do I have to do? Well, I guess you gotta get your head shaved. I remember when I went to candidate class with A B W E many, many years ago, they didn’t wanna offend some of the real conservative churches. You can tell it was a long time ago. I didn’t have to have shave my head. I had to shave my beard.

I was not happy about that one. I told them they were a bunch of hypocrites. But anyway, know what I did though? I did it. I did shave my beard and I survived. Well, Paul shaved his head. He didn’t have to do it. He was free not to do that. But why did he do it? He loved the believers. He did not wanna create a barrier to the gospel.

He didn’t wanna create a division in the church. He wanted to preserve their unity. He so he loved with knowledge and depth of insight. He made this ADD adaptation. He fit in. He’s been out serving God and dying to self for years, and now he comes back and he still has to do it. You know what? The same is true of us.

We don’t get a day off from dying to self. We don’t get a day off from loving one another with knowledge and depth of insight. You may have had that happen when you come home, you’ve been out at work trying to share the gospel, trying to live as a believer in a tough place, and you get home and things are not what you had hoped.

You know, you’ve gotta do this, you’ve gotta do that. You’ve got to show your wife or your husband or your children that you love them and make an aada adaptation to their schedule so that they know that you love them. We’ve got to love with knowledge and depth of insight in every situation. For Paul, it wasn’t just when he was out on the missionary journeys, it was when he came back to Jerusalem as well.

We aren’t slaves to anyone, but we do get the opportunity of giving up our rights and dying to self in order to show love. And to reach out with the power of the gospel. And so that’s a question that faced Paul. How do I love with knowledge and depth of insight so that I can be blameless, so that I can discern what is best, be kept blameless and pure, and then have a whole lot of fruit that comes as a result of that.

And folks, that’s a privilege each of us have. That’s a prayer. Each of us needs to pray that we can follow Paul’s example in adapting to those around us. There are all kinds of different viewpoints, all kinds of different cultures. People who get offended easily about all kinds of different things.

Believers, non-believers. It may be due to racial distinctions, cultural distinctions, political distinctions, you name it. And it’s very easy to get offended, and it’s very easy to offend others. We don’t want anything to stand in the way of the gospel. We don’t want anything to destroy the unity of believers of those who have truly placed their faith in Jesus Christ.

So let this be our prayer, the prayer that Paul had for the believers in Philippians. I pray that your love. May abound more and more, and knowledge and depth of insight so that you can discern what’s best and maybe pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

I pray that for each of you, I pray that for us, may we be filled with fruit as we love others with knowledge and depth of insight, and I hope that as you go from here, you’ll ask yourself some questions. First is in what is an area where I need insight in my love? I love this person. I love this group, but it’s not coming through.

I need knowledge. I need depth of insight to know how to reach out in this situation. What do we do when we need knowledge and depth of insight? We go to God. He gives gen. If anyone lacks wisdom, let him go to God, who gives generously to awe without finding fault. So we go to God, we say, God, I need wisdom to love you.

Well, it may be you need to ask for love first. Sometimes we’re lacking the love as well. So we ask for the love, we ask for the knowledge, the wisdom, the depth of insight so that we can be pure and blameless. So what’s an area where you need knowledge and depth of insight? And then what does God want you to do?

How does he want you to die to self? How does he want you to adapt? How does he want you to reach out to these people who are around you, people to whom he’s given you the opportunity of reaching out? With the gospel. So brothers and sisters, let’s go to God and ask for knowledge and depth of insight as we seek to reach out with the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray together. Dear God, I just want to thank you for these lessons that you’ve given us from the life of Paul, and I wanna thank you for the work that you’ve done in our lives. I pray that you would pour out your Holy Spirit on us, give us your love for others, for others who differ from us. I pray that you would allow us not just to love, but to love with knowledge and depth of insights, that we can be filled with fruit, and that the name of Jesus Christ will be glorified.

We pray these things in the name of Jesus our savior. Amen.