You're listening to audio from Faith Church located on the north side of Indianapolis. If you'd like to check out more information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindy.com. Now here's the teaching. Well, if you're here last week when Jeff preached, you know, we watched as the Apostle Paul gathered a group of companions around him to begin the end of his 3rd big missionary journey. He's he's on his way back to Jerusalem and he's got representatives from each of the regions where he's planted churches over the last decade or so that are all along with him.

These are people who can personally testify in Jerusalem to the unity that the church is experiencing, unity among the rich and the poor and the slave and the free, men and women, Jews and Gentiles. He's in a a rush to get home before the the big holidays, but he has time to to make a few stops, a little bit of teaching, a little bit of training, kind of some some last minute, like, I I want you guys to know this sort of stuff, and and as we saw in today's story, not even death can get in the way. Now a question as we begin, how many of you saw the solar eclipse last April here in Indianapolis, or maybe you went somewhere where you hoped there would be better weather? Yeah. There's most of us.

Indianapolis, if you don't remember or or you're new to the area or hello, Swifties who are in the room. Thanks for visiting. Indianapolis was in the zone of totality, which means if you lived here, you watched it here, you got to see something incredible. 3 minutes 42 seconds of the sun completely blocked by the moon. It was it was awe inspiring, and it's it's even more awe inspiring when you consider the the relative size of the sun and the moon.

Because, you know, when you look up at the sky, they they look like they're the same size, obviously, or one wouldn't, you know, perfectly block the other. But the sun is the largest object in the solar system. It's so much larger than the moon, 64.3 1,000,000 moons could fit inside the sun. In fact, if the sun were a basketball, then the moon would be the size of where is it? There it is.

The size of the point of this needle. How is it that something this tiny can obscure something this big? Well, if you get the, you know, small thing close enough to your eye and and and the big thing kind of far enough away, then size doesn't matter. Go ahead and roll that farther away here. Yeah.

Yeah. See? Get it far enough away and get this thing close enough, and it works. Smallest pinprick in the world can obscure the biggest object in the universe. If you allow the the small to get big and the big to get small.

So I have this print on the wall in my office at home. Print this is of the solar eclipse from last April, and I love this this picture because the photographer took 21 images of the eclipse all on the same piece of film. It's not the digital composite. This was all done in the camera, and it is precisely timed. Right?

So there are 10 images of the sun being slowly obscured and 10 more images of the sun being slowly revealed again, and right there in the middle is totality. I love this picture because with with that image of totality in the center and the corona of the sun shining around the moon, it it reminds me that at at the very moment when the sun appears to be just completely blocked, totally obscured. It's like the sun fights back. It's like, yeah, watch this. And then suddenly you can see more of the sun than you could have ever seen without it being blocked.

So before we even jump into the story this morning, I wanna frame it with one one big question. What in in your life right now, what's obscuring Jesus? What's getting between your vision of Jesus in your your life right now? I mean, is there something in your life, anything right now that's making it hard to believe? Maybe Jesus knows what he's doing, that he's in charge, that things are gonna work out.

I don't know. Something happening on Tuesday or something like that. Or or if not that, it's an illness or a crisis or a loss or a tragedy. All of these things are big to be sure, but they're big like the moon is big compared to the sun. Because there's there's nothing in life, there's nothing in this world that is bigger than Jesus.

There's nothing that's that's bigger than Jesus. And maybe you're wondering how I got that out of this story. Well, let's jump in. Acts chapter 20, beginning in verse 7. And while you're turning there, let me set the scene, for us for a minute.

See, at the at the beginning of this chapter, at the beginning of chapter 20, Paul has called together representatives from each of the major areas he's planted churches. Now Luke doesn't include the the reason why. It's not a a key part of the theological history of the church that he's telling us. For Luke's purposes, he he needs to get us to Jerusalem. He's gotta get Paul to Jerusalem, so he can get Paul arrested, so he can get Paul in Rome.

But we know from the letters that Paul has written, that each of these guys who've come together are bringing with them their part of a collection that Paul has been organizing for the church in Jerusalem. If you don't remember the history, at about this point, Jerusalem and the surrounding area had been suffering from just a full on famine for about a decade, and they have at least 6 more years to go. Of course, I mean, no one there knows that at this point. So for a couple of years now, Paul has been organizing an offering to bring relief, to kinda show solidarity between the gentile churches and the Jewish, sort of mother church, and we're finally at the point where he can get it all together and and take it to Jerusalem. Of course, back then, you can't just deposit it in one bank and withdraw it from another.

That system doesn't exist. So the money had to be, you know, personally transported, carried on these these guys, these individuals, either as bags of coins or maybe more likely traded in for small bars of silver or gold, stuff you could kinda hide in your pockets or under your tunic or whatever, and so hopefully nobody knew. I mean, because a donkey with, like, bags that jingle makes the trip more dangerous. Right? So you're trying to to to to and you keep stay safe.

Right? And and so these 7 guys, they're all together both to stay safe, but also so each of them can go back home and say, yeah. I I was there all the way to Jerusalem. Don't worry. You know, all the money made it.

Well, anyway, the the last member of the party joined the team when they hit Philippi. And after the feast of unleavened bread, they are headed towards Jerusalem. And first stop along the way is Troas. It's where we pick it up in verse 7. Verse 7, Luke writes on the 1st day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, the church in Troas, intending to depart on the next day.

So he prolonged his speech until midnight. So this this party has been in Troas for for most of a week when the scene takes place. It's Sunday night. Back then with the church largely composed of the working poor, they didn't have Sunday off, right, to meet in the mornings like we are. So at the end of the day, after work, the normal gathering was in the evening.

Though it didn't usually go on as as late as this one will, but they would get together on Sundays, eat a meal together. That's what breaking bread refers to in this verse. But they'd almost always pause at the beginning and at the end of the meal to take a minute to think about and and remember the sacrifice of Jesus on their behalf. Right? We call that the Lord's supper, But for them, it was almost always in much smaller group than this one and with much larger loaves of bread and glasses of wine than what we're gonna use later.

Also, we use grape juice, just FYI. Anyway, Paul knew he didn't have much time left with them before he was going to leave and and that he didn't intend to be back anytime soon, so he kept speaking well until midnight. And whether this was a sermon slash lecture or a dialogue slash debate, it's up to interpretation. The Greek word that's used here kind of encompasses the whole range. But we do know that just a few months before arriving in Troas, Paul had sent one of his key leaders, a woman named Phoebe, to Rome to take with her a copy of the letter to that church, the letter that's now in our Bibles under the heading, you know, Romans.

So a lot of commentators say, you know, it's likely he's spending the week here with the church in Troas walking his way through the arguments, the ideas in that letter and that all surrounded it. So it's easy for us to imagine Paul walking through the whole story of the Bible again over the course of this week and into this last evening, from from Adam to to Abraham, and then from the Exodus through David to the exile, and then Isaiah, and the coming of the Messiah, and then that twist in the story that nobody saw coming of the Messiah actually crucified, killed, and resurrected again. And then back to the the promise to Abraham that he would have a worldwide family, and how that promise is coming true in the church, and the the people with faith like like Abraham's. And so we can imagine questions going back and forth, and Paul's answers are ranging from all over scripture, and he's telling stories and lessons he's learned kind of along the way. People are interrupting him, they're asking him, could you explain that again?

I'm not sure I got it, or, you know, I have another question maybe from a different angle, or could you tackle that that topic again? Like this could you slow down? This is really dense stuff. And so on this last Sunday night, the guest preacher is going on and on and on, and the room is just flickering with firelight from the lamps. You know, everybody had to bring 1 if you're gonna walk through the streets at night, unlit streets.

You gotta have your own torch. And so the light's dancing across the room, and the temperature is just getting a few degrees warmer and warmer, and it's getting later and later and later. So people are packed into this room, and there's this young guy sitting in the window, a guy named Eutychus. It's a it's a Greek nickname. It means lucky.

He's lucky because he has the most comfortable seat in the house. Right? Sitting on the edge of the window, he can feel the cool breeze from the night air outside against his back while the warm, the warm air in the room is just sorta he's leaning against the edge of the window frame, half listening to Paul, kinda watching the way the shadows are dancing. And much like some of you right now, sleep is slowly creeping up on him. If you're picturing this, by the way, don't picture, you know, a nice single family dwelling in the suburbs.

This is more like an apartment building or something like a, you know, a low income public housing block. And windows are just openings in the wall. Glass for windows isn't gonna be invented for another 55 years, and that'll be down in Egypt, not up here. And so as Paul talks still longer, going on and on, sleep overcame him and he fell right out that window, 3 stories to the ground below. It's the kind of scene that's really easy to picture in your mind's eye.

Right? If I put myself kind of, like, where Paul would be in this room, Eutychus is in the back of the room. He's he's back there by the window and everyone has turned facing Paul, so nobody notices as Eutychus is slowly falling asleep except for probably his wife is like, dude, come on. You know, Paul's only here for a couple more hours. He's just poking him, but but he's he's slumping and slumping, and his center of gravity is shifting and shifting, and then all of a sudden he, you know, he falls back out of the window, which doesn't make a loud noise until you hit the ground below.

And but the person next to him, you know, is turning at him and there's a cry or a shout or something, and everybody's standing up and looking around, and Paul who's, like, seen it out of the corner of his eye just bolts for the stairs. Luke tells us in in verse 10, Paul went down, threw himself down, and bent over him, threw himself on him, and taking him in his arms, throwing his arms around him, this is how the Greek goes, said don't don't be alarmed. His his life is in him. It's interesting that Luke doesn't really glamorize this miracle. You know, Paul doesn't say, alright, everybody, stand back.

Give me a second here. Watch this. There's no prayer. We don't have anything like, you know, in the name of Jesus, get up and walk. There's nothing like that.

It's so underplayed that some commentators wonder if if it's not really a miracle raising Eutychus from the dead, maybe the miracle is just that he survived the fall. But no, he he's he's dead. It's not like people can't tell until Paul gets down there. He's like, no, I'm pretty sure he's still alive. But I think the real reason Luke underplays the miracle so much is that at this point in the in the narrative, we're 20 chapters in.

At this point in the in the narrative, we're 20 chapters in, at this point in the big theological history of the early church, we're at the point where more important things are happening than miracles. Miracles aren't really the point anymore. No, I mean, the miracle is definitely not not important. It's just that it's it's not the focus of the story. In fact, Luke doesn't tell us that people were astounded.

He says the people were comforted, verse 12. So anyway, look look at 11. When Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them then a long while until daybreak, and so departed. And it sounds kind of ridiculous. Right?

Doesn't it? A guy just fell out of a window 20 something feet to the ground below. He snapped his neck or something so that he died on impact. And then after a bear hug from Paul, he's miraculously healed and brought back to life, and Paul goes back upstairs saying, you know, kind of thinking, where was I? And then he says, you know, maybe it's a good time for us to take a snack break.

Right. Let's let's just stretch and I'll wake up a little bit so this doesn't happen again. And then he continues teaching, talking, dialoguing, lecturing until until the the sun comes up. And it's like this is the point where you kinda wanna interrupt the story. Right?

It's like, Paul, like, don't you know a miracle just happened? Are you really gonna pick back up teaching where you left off? Like, what could you possibly have to say that's more important than a death and a resurrection? But, again, I I think that's the point. That's why Luke tells the story this way.

Paul only has a limited time with the believers in Troas, and there are important things to discuss. This isn't a church that he planted. He didn't spend 3 years here. At most, he spent a couple days waiting for a boat 8 years ago and talked to a few people about Jesus. Now there's a church, and there's stuff he's gotta get across.

There's there are insights into how Jews and Gentiles live together in the worldwide family of God. There there's lessons about how to read the Hebrew Bible in light of Jesus as the Messiah. There are calls to faithfulness and obedience, to holiness and unity that he's desperate to share with them, and there's just not enough time to get it all in. And I took 4 years of Bible college classes and 4 years of seminary classes, and did 2 internships, and spent thousands of hours volunteering in churches. And when I graduated, I still felt like I didn't know anything, and I was not ready to lead.

Paul has a week with these guys. He's not gonna waste an hour of it. It's almost like no matter what happens in the world around them, no matter what distractions pop up, no matter what anxieties arise or concerns come up or even no matter what miracles occur, his time is short. He's gonna stay focused, and there's nothing more important, there's nothing bigger for him to talk about than Jesus. There's nothing in this life, nothing in this world that's bigger than Jesus.

Now I hope, like Paul, that you have a person in your life who loves to tell embarrassing stories about you. For me, that person is my wife. For my wife, that person is me. You know, neither of us really likes missing the opportunity to poke a little fun at the other by recounting the really dumb things we've done. Jenna would love the opportunity to tell you about the many, many embarrassing things that I have done.

She doesn't have a microphone right now. I do. So I'd love to tell you about how she used to think that T Rexes were vegetarians because of the short little arms. You know? I mean, how could they possibly grab anything that's moving?

In her defense, we watched Jurassic Park for the first time last year. Also, I'm the one who told her that T Rexes were vegetarians to see what she'd believe, and I didn't realize she still believed until, like, a decade later when she was trying to convince someone else that, you know, it's the short arms. They can't possibly catch anything anyway. I think for Paul, Luke was that person. He was the guy who loved to tell Paul's embarrassing stories if those stories had a point, unlike my story about Jenna and the T Rex, which did not have a point.

I just had a mic. And I could just picture Luke showing Paul an early draft of this section of acts and and Paul reading and saying, come on, Luke. Do you really have to tell people about that time my preaching, like, literally killed someone? And Luke's responding, well, I mean, yeah. Because come on, Paul, if you read it closely, it's really not about how your preaching can sometimes knock them dead.

So actually, people need to know that God has used you in the same way he used Peter, in the same way he used Jesus, in the same way he used the greatest prophets in the Old Testament to raise someone from the dead. But at least the way the conversation goes in my head, it looks like but more importantly than that, this story is in here because people need to know that as great as the miracle was, like, the real point of that night was that not even a resurrection could distract you from talking about Jesus. The story is almost a comedy, you know, but like the greatest comedy, there's a really serious point. Not even a death and a resurrection could derail Paul and his listeners. It's not like they all left after this.

Not even a death and a resurrection could keep Paul from an all night discussion about Jesus, about who he is, about what he did, about what kind of life comes from being part of the movement that he started, from being in the church. This is there's just nothing in this life that's bigger than Jesus. Even if at that, you know, that moment of totality where the sun is completely obscured, when the the crisis in your life just perfectly blocks out Jesus, even then, it's like he fights back and shines brighter in a completely unexpected way, showing you something you could have never seen without that crisis getting in the way. So, you know, whether it's the election on Tuesday, or the diagnosis that you you just received, or the job you just lost, or the friend you just said goodbye to for the last time, or the dreams that you let go of, or the crisis you're in the middle of, or even the miracle that just happened. You can't let the things of this life obscure just how big Jesus really is.

It's like the head of this pin. It's tiny, but if I put it right here, it blocks out everything else, no matter how big Jesus really is. But even if he does get obscured, remember, it's in that moment when he is perfectly blocked out that you see something you could have never seen otherwise, Because there's nothing in this life that's bigger than Jesus. Nothing. So let's pray.

Father, we can say we believe that there's nothing in this life that is bigger than Jesus, And yet, at the same time that we acknowledge we say that that is true, we also have to repent and confess that we have actively put infinitesimally small things before our eyes so that they block you out. It's not just that we have allowed these things to drown you out, shout you down, block you out, it's that we have invited these things to become the biggest thing in our lives. We've done it because it makes us feel welcome, like we belong, like we have something to to fight about, a place to to really invest our energy, or people to hate. So, father, we pause to confess and to repent and to turn back and to turn our eyes off of the things in this world that are blocking our vision of you. And we ask you to draw our gaze back to Jesus.

Turn our eyes back to him. Help us look around the things in our lives that are obscuring him and to see Jesus, maybe again, see him in a new way again, or see him for the first time. Because, Lord, we want to believe and live as if Jesus is the biggest thing in this world. Would you help us to live as if that were true? Because we know that our savior Jesus, the one who bled and died and rose again for us, reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever, no matter what happens here.

Help us keep our eyes on him, we pray. Amen.