“Look to the Mountains!”

Acts 20:17-24

“From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. When they arrived, he said to them: “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the plots of my Jewish opponents. You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus. “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!" (Isa 52:7). Such is the life of the Apostle Paul, but very few would see it that way. I can only scarcely imagine the hardships he went through along with the constant anticipation of it (v. 23). Indeed God has made this man suffer much for His glory (Acts 9:16), and yet this man persevered against the odds, against his personal history, over his acclaims, in the face of threats to his own life, which he considers nothing compared to the task of the Great Commission given him by the Lord he truly loves (v. 24), in fact he wrote to assure us now and all the saints then, that “this light, temporary nature of our suffering is producing for us an everlasting weight of glory, far beyond any comparison (II Cor 4:17).” Practically to us also that this is about living out our faith in public and in private, not dealing as the selfish, egoistic, covetuous, world does, but proclaiming Christ in word and deed, striving to love sacrificially as God did and still does, keeping His Word in our hearts and minds, journeying through life as living sacrifice with renewed minds and strength. Let us consider our lives well and live for God, to glorify Him where He has placed us, to boldly share His love and salvation to others, and to know Him, to somehow “want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:10-11), St. Paul himself wrote, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been perfected, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me (Phil 3:12).” The prophet Nahum reminds us to have faith in spite of all the possible difficulties we may face when we proclaim Christ in our lives and to others, “look to the mountains—the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace! Celebrate your feasts, O Judah; fulfill your vows. For the wicked will never again march through you; they will be utterly cut off (Nah 1:15).”