And They All Wept

Passage: Acts 20:36-38

II Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Really?  What about our text this morning?  How can these few details from Luke’s travel dairy train us in righteousness, help us be more like Jesus and equip us for every good work?  What does this have to do with the Gospel and salvation and eternal life?  Are good byes really that important?

I love God’s Word for how often it surprises me.  I can read the most mundane, boring text of some factual details like this morning’s text and discover God has important lessons to teach us from every page and every passage of Scripture.

These three verses are a prime example.  There is more here than meets the eye, more here than just some tearful good-byes, more here than just parting is such sweet sorrow.  When you come to passages like this in your reading through the Bible, passages that don’t seem to give up its treasures easily, stop, pray, ask the Holy Spirit what does this mean, what does He want to say to me in this text.  Pause, pray, wait patiently, reflect, meditate, listen.

Let’s consider three practical lessons for our daily living from this text about practical daily life.

I will sum up these three lessons in three verbs: Pray, kneel, weep(love).