I. Look, first, at the fact that a man was able to say of all the afflictions of life, "None of these things move me." There are three thoughts that stand out conspicuously in these words. (1) Calmness. Self-possession is a great secret of life; and I know no road to real self-possession but true religion. (2) Elevation. He looks down on "these things," and says "None of them move me." They are little things; they are down beneath me. Elevation getting nearer to the grandnesses of eternity makes the things of this little world seem what they really are. (3) Independence. The man who wishes to be independent of external circumstances must be dependent upon God. Depend somewhere this leaning heart of man must; and if you wish not to depend upon the creature, you must depend upon the Creator.
II. "Neither count I my life dear unto myself." To the natural man the external joys and sorrows of life are all, for he knows no other. But when, by union with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit enters into a man's breast, and he begins another life, that life of Jesus within him becomes to his perception so predominant it becomes so all-important to him that the other gradually sinks away and away into a distant insignificance. He stands, as it were, on the margin of a river, and he rejoices to see it flowing out; he rejoices that that which separates him from the land beyond shall cease to be, because he looks for the time when he shall take his wing and fly away and be at rest; and when he contemplates all the affections and fellowships the rest, the services, the pure, unsullied joys of that life that which was once to him exceeding precious becomes a thing of little worth, and he can say, "None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself."
J. Vaughan, Sermons,1865, p. 1.
References: Acts 20:24. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxix., No. 1734; J. S. Pearsall, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 251; Ibid.,vol. v., p. 254; Preacher's Monthly,vol. vi., p. 14; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 3; Homilist,2nd series, vol. ii., p. 29. Acts 20:27. W. Gresley, Practical Sermons,p. 1.Acts 20:26; Acts 20:27. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. vi., No. 289.