People and Places Matter
February 7, 2021
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
Acts 20:1-16
1 After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia. 2 When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece.3 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. 4 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. 5 These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas, 6 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.
7 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.8 There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. 9 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. 10 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.” 11 And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. 12 And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted.
13 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. 14 And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene. 15 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.16 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.
In this passage Paul preaches a long sermon, and a kid falls out of a window and dies. So, right out of the gate, from the standpoint of a preacher, I’ll tell you that the meaning of this passage is clearly “do not fall asleep during a sermon.” Some of you, however, might suggest that, as those who listen to sermons, the clear meaning is “do not preach long sermons.” So which is it? Maybe it’s both.
A few years ago a book on preaching was published called Saving Eutychus: How to Preach God’s Word and Keep People Awake. Look at the cover of the book. It has a window and the shadow of a kid falling to the ground!
Acts 20 is not necessarily for or against long sermons, nor does it encourage us to be sleepy or not sleepy during sermons. None of these are the main point, or even a point of the passage. But that raises the question of what is the point of the passage? The main point is that that people and places matter. People and places matter to God, and people and places matter to God’s people—and people and places should matter to us.
We have something of a sandwich in this passage. In vv. 1–6 we read of Paul’s “strategic and Spirit-led travels,” and then in vv. 13–16 we read of more “strategic and Spirit-led travels.” These are the outside of the passages. In the middle we read of a church service in a city called Troas on the Sabbath where there is preaching, a breaking of bread, and, of course, the saving of the sleepy boy named Eutychus. So, travel plans sandwich a church service.
My guess is that we should start in the middle because that’s what caught your attention, right? This passage is both humorous and serious. Acts speaks of palaces and capital cities and philosophers and temples and governors and Caesars and church leaders and Apostles whose prayers shake the walls of prisons. Acts also tells the story of one sleepy pre-teen. The Greek implies he was likely between eight and fourteen years of age.
Paul travels to Troas and stays for seven days. The Sabbath day was Sunday for these early Christians, the first day of the week. The Sabbath day in the Old Testament had been Saturday, but because Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday, early Christians adopted Sunday as the day for gathering. In fact, v. 7 in Acts 20 is one of the first occasions where we explicitly read of this pattern of Sunday gatherings. And it does seem to be the pattern. We read, “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread . . .” When they gathered. This is their pattern. (I’ll come back to this at the sermon.)
Because Sunday was a workday, they had to meet after the workday. Their Communion service also involved a full meal, which we read of as “breaking bread.” Because Paul is passing through, they take advantage of this great missionary visiting them, and he preaches and teaches well into the night. And this combination, food plus emotional goodbyes plus late at night plus darkness plus flickering lamps, causes a young boy to become sleepy. I’m sure he was not the only one. In v. 8 we read of the repetition of the phrase “sank into a deep sleep” and then “being overcome by sleep.” It’s the same phrase in the Greek. The point is to say that the boy was trying to stay awake, perhaps hoping that fresh air by a window would help.
If you do any study of this passage, you will quickly learn, because people often point it out, that the name Eutychus means “Lucky” or “Fortunate.” So here we have the story of “Lucky” who falls a long way to the ground during a long sermon. I’m sure no one teased him about that. But he is lucky and fortunate Paul was there. And God was gracious to answer Paul’s prayers for healing for this boy.
The prayers are not recorded by Luke, though we assume they were prayed. We are told the boy did die. Remember, Luke, who narrates this passage, was a physician (Col. 4:14). Luke wouldn’t have written that someone died if they hadn’t died. Luke, like all physicians, knew death. Paul rushes down the stairs, leans over the boy, takes him up in his arms, and we presume he prayed, and then he looks up, declaring that the boy’s life is back in him. These were the sorts of miracles God was doing in those days to validate the gospel’s message as it expanded across the Roman empire. God was gracious—not only to the boy and his family and the church but to Paul.
Reading over this caused me to think how such an event, had God not given the miracle, might have scared me as a pastor. I think of the young Charles Spurgeon. On October 19, 1856, the twenty-two-year-old Spurgeon was preaching to 10,000 people in London. He would become the most famous preacher in the world, and already at just twenty-two was quite famous. But on that night, someone yelled, “Fire” although there was no fire. A stampede resulted, and seven people died during his sermon. There were no resurrections. Spurgeon was newly married and had just become a dad of newborn twin boys. Some twenty-five years later, when he was preaching, something triggered in his mind a memory of that event, and he was unable to speak for minutes (Mark Batterson, Win the Day, 43–44). Yes, God was gracious to this boy, his family, the church, and Paul. The story is both humorous and serious.
After everyone knows the boy is okay, they go back upstairs, and we read that “when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed” (v. 11). So, his long sermon got longer. They never got around to Communion or the Lord’s Supper. But eventually they do, as the miracle seemed to give them all a second wind, and so they continued until daybreak.
As I said, I don’t think the point of this passage has anything to do with preaching or not preaching long sermons. The main point is that that people and places matter.
A few weeks ago I gave you one metaphor for reading and preaching long passages, the metaphor of driving along a highway. You have to pay attention to what matters most. There’s another metaphor I’d like to share with us as we consider the whole of the book of Acts. Going through the book of Acts, they way we are doing it, is like riding an elevator up a fifty-story building. When we hit Sunday, May 23, we’ll have preached nearly fifty sermons through the book of Acts, one floor or one passage at a time. And each week, some characters get on the elevator, and some get off. Some stay on the elevator for several floors. Some who get off get back on later and some do not. You get the idea. Each week, our preaching pastors have focused our attention on the action taking place in the elevator and what God wants us to see on that particular floor. That’s the right place for us to focus.
But what if nearly every week there is background music playing. By definition, background music is in the background, so it doesn’t occupy our attention; it’s in the background. If each week, however, a very similar tune is playing—as some characters get on the elevator and some get off and some stay—then that song might be important too. And this week, in fact, all those travel details in the passage, while they feel kind of random to us, are actually singing harmony, so to speak, with the background music. I’ll explain.
I want us to notice that people and places matter in the book of Acts. They matter in the book of Acts because people and places matter to God, and thus people and places should matter to God’s people—they should matter to us. Rootless religion withers. Without roots and without grounded-ness and without soil and without people and without place, Christianity withers. In fact, Luke mentions a hundred people and a hundred places in the book of Acts. This reminds us that to be rootless—to be place-less, to be people-less—is actually to not be participating in Christianity. Jesus, after all, was Jesus of Nazareth; he had a place and a people (see Zack Eswine, The Imperfect Pastor). Christianity, when rightly practiced, is rooted not only in God and his Word and the gospel but also with particular people in particular places. In other words, the idea of an individual relationship with God that is disconnected from a local church and from the people of a local church would have been crazy to the early church, and it should be crazy to us.
In this light, all these travel plans of Paul don’t seem so out of place. Paul goes to this city and meets with these people; then he goes to that city and meets with other people. He’s trying to get back to Jerusalem, but he’s not doing it in the most efficient route possible. He’s going here and there visiting—sometimes visiting people in places he’s been before and sometimes with new people. He’s doing this because people and places matter. Look at vv. 1–2.
20 After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia. 2 When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece.
The word encouragement is used twice in these verses. Encouragement requires other people. The last word is Greece, which was where Corinth was. Paul had a rocky relationship with this church because this church had a rocky relationship with the Lord. So, Paul spent time there. As we piece together the timelines and details from other letters, Paul likely wrote the letter we call Romans during this stay in Corinth. So even when he’s with one group of people, he’s trying to write to another group to encourage them too. I’ll read v. 4 again.
4 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.
More people. More places. This isn’t said explicitly in Acts, but likely something special is happening here. Many years before this, when Paul was a new leader and was commissioned into ministry, he was encouraged by the other leaders to remember to care for the poor (Gal. 2:10). From other letters, such as 2 Corinthians, we know that Paul is gathering money to bring to Jerusalem to help the poor Christians there. And most of these names in v. 4, which seem obscure to us, are leaders tied to specific regions so that when Paul and these other Christians do make it to Jerusalem, from these largely Gentile regions, they will be making a wonderful show of unity with the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. “All these Gentiles—all these people from all these places—care about you,” he’s saying.
So, again, the background music in the book of Acts keeps singing that people and places matter. Jesus lived and died and rose and ascended. From Heaven he is building not simply individual Christians who worship him but people who worship him within the context of local churches, like the local church in Troas so many years ago and like our local church here: people in a place mattering, in Troas and Harrisburg.
Speaking of Harrisburg, let’s talk about us. In almost every meeting I’m having with leaders of our church over the last few weeks, I keep bringing something up, and I’m going to keep bringing it up for the next few months. I want to bring it up here.
There are many things that encourage me about our church, but there are a few things that worry me. I’m worried about those who are missing from our fellowship. As the lead pastor of our church, I’m telling us that one of the most important things we can do over the next three months is to join together on a search and rescue mission for lost sheep.
I have an image in my mind. It’s of a long rowboat, one of those skinny boats that has the long oars. The people sit facing backward and in sync with each other they row. The water is like glass. They call it crew.
I’m in the boat with you. And over the next three months, I could train hard. I could lose weight. I could take supplements. I could build my fitness. I could become a better rower over the next three months. That would be helpful to the rowing team. Maybe I even improve my rowing by 15%, which is a lot of athletic improvement between now and May. All of you could do the same.
But I want you to picture this rowboat, not with four or eight people, but like a long centipede on top of the water. It’s the longest rowboat ever made. It holds several hundred people. Now, if we wanted to become a better rowing team between now and May, again, all of us could train harder. But here’s the deal: We are missing rowers. There are a lot of open spaces. And more important than me becoming a better preacher or developing the perfect system for children’s ministry or small groups or music worship or fine-tuning our website and making better Facebook posts and videos and so on—more important than all of that; more important than each of us getting 15% better—what we need to do, instead, is go get missing rowers. You and me pulling harder isn’t going to help if we’re missing one or two hundred people.
Now, I’m not saying everyone missing from church is sinful and lazy. I’m not saying everyone missing from church is sinful and lazy. I’m not saying that. I’m not saying that. But I am saying that if the world starts to go back to normal-ish by July or October, but people missing from our church don’t return to the regular gathering, that’s a deadly pattern. I really believe that there are people missing, right here in our church, not just from some vague place out there in the Christian world. And some who call this church their home and who today feel themselves to be Christians, won’t be Christians in ten years if they don’t re-engage with the gospel and the local church.
This is a critical time for our church. To say it more positively, lost sheep who return to church might change the course of their family tree for the better, leaving a legacy of faithfulness to the coming generations because they continued to follow the Lord here among us.
Again, there are many legitimate reasons to not be at church. But there are also many not-so-great reasons, even sinful reasons, to be missing. And I’m worried.
Some of you will know the name Alistair Begg. He’s a famous and faithful pastor. He has a Scottish accent, so you might know him for that reason. He pastors a church named Parkside in Ohio. He’s well-known for his radio preaching and conference speaking and books. I like him quite a bit. The ministry that promotes his teaching is called Truth for Life. Recently Alistair Begg and Truth for Life announced that they would no longer be streaming the Parkside church services on their Truth for Life website, instead only leaving it up for 24 hours on the church’s website.
The reason his “side” ministry was going to stop playing his sermons is because during pandemic too many people are watching his church services, not, he fears, as supplemental to participation in the local church but as a way of avoiding the particular people and particular places God had called them too. In other words, Covid has been so good for his side ministry that he’s worried about detracting from local churches, so he’s making his ministry less available.
I want to close by reading part of the letter Pastor Begg wrote this Tuesday, February 2, to the supporters of Truth for Life. Pastor Begg wrote,
The reason for our decision lies in the growing number of listeners who, by their testimony, are growing quite comfortable with a digital experience. Life has changed dramatically during the last year, and changes that initially felt temporary are beginning to become settled patterns. A year ago, most of us thought that “Zooming” was something that happened in an open-top car. Now our family rooms have become venues for our virtual church experiences. Let me hasten to say that we recognize the difference between convenience and the necessary and valuable benefit of online church for those who are housebound either temporarily or on a long-term basis. It is a special privilege to stream the service and to be welcomed into your homes.
My concern is with those who are forsaking their local gathering for the comfortable option of the spiritual equivalent of DoorDash and Uber Eats. These unusual days provide us with an opportunity to examine what we understand and believe about the local church. The English word church translates the Greek word ekklesia, which means “the called out together.” Sometimes in our Communion service, we remind ourselves of the wonder of having been given new life in Jesus and having been made members of God’s family. . . . None of our natural families are perfect, but they are where we belong and where we should want to be. Zoom calls with my son, daughter-in-law, and new grandson are fine but a poor substitute for being in each other’s company. We should feel the same way about our church families.
We have yet to see what things will look like when everything returns to normal. Will there be a resurgence of commitment to the gathering of God’s people, or will the COVID habits have taken hold? Moms and dads must take the lead in seeing that their children are learning the importance of our gatherings by resisting the temptation to drift into a settled pattern of individualized religion.
Near the close of the letter, Begg quotes from Hebrews 10:24–25, which reads, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Notice the phrase, “let us.” It’s only not the job of the lead pastor and the staff of a church to reach everyone. I want to set an example, for sure. But the job is too big. We need each other. Who do you know that’s drifted from the Lord? Go get them. Call them. Text them. Have coffee. Brainstorm with your small group people who are missing. Reach out. Make phone calls. Invite them back to church. Listen to their concerns. Don’t assume you know why someone is missing.
When Eutychus fell from the window, Paul didn’t say, “Please turn with me to the next page.” No. He went to get him. They stopped what they were doing because something wild and tragic had happened. I want to encourage us that right now something wild and tragic has happened and we need to check on people and pray for them. They might be okay; they might not. You might be okay; you might not. Let us help one another.
The passage says that they celebrated Communion together, the Lord’s Supper. They used the words “breaking of bread,” meaning they probably had more than a little cup of juice and a cracker. That’s all we have this morning. But when we celebrate Communion, we celebrate that when something tragic happened, Jesus came to rescue lost sheep. He came to rescue us because people matter.
I’ll invite the music team back up as we pray . . .
