ACTS | When the Shepherd Leaves | Acts 20:17-38

Acts: Living by the Spirit, Following the Way

Text: Acts 20:17–38  | 
Preacher: Zach Schemmer  | 
The Way Church KC — Rosedale, Kansas City, KS

This Acts 20:17–38 sermon picks up with Paul standing on a beach at Miletus, about thirty-five miles down the coast from Ephesus. He has sailed past the city on purpose, because he knows that if he sets foot there he’ll get pulled into that church for weeks — and he’s racing to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost. So he sends a runner up the road with a message: bring me the elders. They walk two days to get there, because they know what this is. This is the only speech in our entire walk through the book of Acts where Paul is speaking to Christians — the closest thing we have anywhere in the Bible to Paul’s pastoral heart on paper. And it is a goodbye. Twice he tells them they will never see his face again. Which leaves a question a lot of us have lived: what holds a church together when the person who was holding it together is gone?

1. A Life Poured Out

Acts 20:17–24

Paul doesn’t open with his credentials. He doesn’t remind them he’s an apostle or that he saw the risen Christ on the Damascus road. He says, “You yourselves know how I lived among you.” That’s not a résumé — that’s a life they watched for three years. And he gives three words for what those years looked like: humility, tears, and trials. Luke mentions Paul crying three times in this passage, because he wants you to see a pastor who wept. That is a long way from the polished, unbothered, always-winning version of Christian leadership floating around out there. This is a man who loved people so much that he leaked.

His whole ministry compresses into ten words in verse 21: repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Turn, and trust. Same message for the Torah-memorizing Jewish man and for the Greek pagan with a shrine to Artemis in his living room. Then comes verse 24 — “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course.” Hear that carefully. Paul isn’t saying his life is worthless. Some of us have spent years around a voice that says exactly that, and verse 24 is not that voice. He’s saying his life has been spent on something worth spending it on, so whatever it costs from here, the math still works. Anybody who’s gotten sober knows the difference in their bones — the day your life stopped being something you were trying to survive and became something you actually had to give.

2. A Flock Worth Guarding

Acts 20:25–31

Verse 28 is where the whole passage has been heading, and there are four things packed into it. First, Paul calls these men elders (v. 17), then overseers, then tells them to shepherd — three words, one office, described from three angles: seasoned wisdom, watchfulness, and tenderness. Second, notice the order: “pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock.” Yourselves comes first. You cannot guard someone else’s soul while neglecting your own; you cannot give away what you do not have. Third, “the Holy Spirit has made you overseers” — not a vote, not a nomination. Leadership in the church is never a possession; it’s a stewardship. And fourth: “the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”

So why is the flock worth guarding? Not because it’s impressive. Ephesus was a handful of house churches in a pagan city, full of people who two years earlier were buying magic scrolls. It’s worth guarding because of what it cost. Then Paul names two threats, and the second one is worse: wolves will come in from outside, but “from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things.” Not flat-out lies — twisted things. Truth with a bend in it, because an obvious lie is easy to spot. And the goal is “to draw away the disciples after them.” Not after Jesus. A lot of the loudest voices teaching us about Jesus right now are on a screen, and some of them are excellent — but most of them have no flock. Nobody at that account has ever sat in a hospital room with you. A voice with no flock has no reason to be careful with your soul.

3. A Grace That Holds Them

Acts 20:32–38

Look at what Paul does not leave them. No succession plan. No building, no strategy, no brand, no five-year vision. Not even another apostle. He commends them to God and to the word of His grace — and says that is enough. Don’t let the word grace go soft here. “Able” is a power word: grace has the strength to do this. Grace isn’t the sentimental part of the sentence; grace is the load-bearing wall. When Paul’s ship pulled out of that harbor, the only thing holding the Ephesian church together was the grace of God in the Word of God. And it held. We’re still reading their mail two thousand years later.

Then he holds up his hands — actual, calloused, tentmaking hands — and quotes Jesus: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Go looking for that line in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John and you won’t find it. Luke preserved it here and only here, which tells you the early church was still passing His words around like treasure. And then Acts — the book of riots and shipwrecks and prison breaks — ends the scene with grown men kneeling in the sand, sobbing, walking Paul all the way to the boat because they can’t stand to let go one second early. That’s what the gospel does to people who were strangers three years ago.

“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”

— Acts 20:28 (ESV)

Who Is Guarding Your Soul?

In middle school I had a youth pastor named Matt Newman. He was the reason I showed up — calm and peace when it was chaos and strife at home. And when he took a job in Arkansas, I stopped going. There was no dramatic moment. The person I had actually been following walked out the door, and I couldn’t come up with a single reason to stay. For a long time I thought that made me weak, or fake, or like I never really believed it. I don’t think that anymore. I just didn’t know what verse 28 said. Nobody had ever told me that the church doesn’t belong to the pastor — it belongs to God, bought with His own blood. Nobody had told me I was being commended to the word of His grace, grace that is able to build me up whether or not any particular human being is still standing in the room.

Some of you left a church because a person left, or because a person hurt you. Some of you are one disappointment away from doing it again. Your faith can survive a leader walking out because it was never being held up by a leader in the first place. And if you’ve never trusted Jesus at all, look at verse 28 one more time — that’s what He thought you were worth. Not the cleaned-up version of you. There was a version of me that everybody had good reason to give up on. Jesus bought that guy with His own blood. He didn’t wait for me to get sober first; He came down into it. Turn, and trust. That’s the whole invitation, and it’s open right now.

Before you go, answer two questions honestly: Who is guarding your soul? And whose soul are you guarding? If you can’t answer either one, that isn’t a guilt trip — it’s an invitation. Come find me or one of our leaders, and let’s get you connected to actual people who will know your name. Because the church is safe even when the shepherd leaves. It belongs to the One who bought it, and He is still building it by His grace.

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Questions People Ask About Acts 20:17–38

What is Acts 20:17–38 about?

Acts 20:17–38 records the Apostle Paul’s farewell address to the elders of the church in Ephesus, delivered on a beach at Miletus as he traveled toward Jerusalem. It is the only speech in the book of Acts that Paul gives to Christians rather than to unbelievers, crowds, or officials, which makes it the clearest picture in Scripture of his pastoral heart. In it Paul reviews how he lived among them, warns them that false teachers will rise up from inside and outside the church, and entrusts them to God and to the word of His grace before praying with them and leaving for the last time.

What does Acts 20:28 mean?

Acts 20:28 says, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” Paul is telling church leaders four things at once: watch your own soul before you watch anyone else’s, recognize that the Holy Spirit (not a vote or a committee) appointed you, understand that leadership is a stewardship rather than a possession, and remember that the church is valuable because God purchased it with His own blood. The verse is also the clearest statement in the New Testament that the church belongs to God and not to its leaders.

Are elders, overseers, and pastors three different offices in the church?

No. In Acts 20 Paul uses all three terms for the same group of men in the space of a few verses — he calls for the “elders” in verse 17, calls them “overseers” in verse 28, and tells them to “shepherd” (pastor) the flock in that same verse. These are three angles on one office: elder points to seasoned wisdom and maturity, overseer points to watchfulness and responsibility, and shepherd points to tender, hands-on care for people. The New Testament uses the words interchangeably.

Who are the “fierce wolves” Paul warns about in Acts 20:29–30?

Paul names two categories of danger. The first is external — “fierce wolves” who come in from outside the church to exploit or scatter the congregation. The second is more sobering: “from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.” These are insiders who use recognizably Christian language with the meaning slightly bent, and whose aim is to gather a following for themselves rather than for Jesus. Paul’s remedy is not paranoia but alertness and genuine pastoral accountability — knowing who is actually responsible for your soul.

Where did Jesus say “It is more blessed to give than to receive”?

This saying of Jesus appears only in Acts 20:35, quoted by Paul. It is not recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. That makes it an “agraphon” — a genuine saying of Jesus preserved by the early church outside the four Gospels. Paul cites it while pointing to his own tentmaking hands, having worked a trade so that no one in Ephesus could accuse him of preaching the gospel for money and so that the weak among them would be cared for.

How does Acts 20:17–38 apply to Christians today?

Many people’s faith is quietly attached to a particular pastor, mentor, or leader, and when that person moves, fails, or dies, their faith goes with them. Acts 20:32 is the answer: Paul commends the Ephesian church to “God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up.” He leaves them no succession plan, building, or strategy — only God’s grace in God’s Word, and he says it is enough. Practically, this means asking two questions: who is actually guarding your soul, and whose soul are you guarding? Faith that rests on the grace of God can survive any leader walking out the door.

Where can I hear this sermon in Kansas City?

“When the Shepherd Leaves” was preached at The Way Church KC, a gospel-centered church plant in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas, as part of the series “Acts: Living by the Spirit, Following the Way.” The Way Church KC gathers Sunday mornings at 10:30 AM at 4326 Lloyd Street, Kansas City, KS. Sermons are also available as a podcast and on video — visit thewaykc.church to listen or plan a visit.