Looking Ahead When It's Hard
Acts • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 4 viewsPaul has his eyes set on Rome. No matter our circumstances, we are done when God says we are done.
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it. We are back on track after we took a bit of a detour last week and now we’re scheduled to start our new series on the books of 1-2 Thessalonians on the first of March. Last week we finished up chapter 20 so tonight we’ll be looking at 3 chapters 21-23 but I will have us mainly focus on one statement that is found in the middle of chapter 23. Before we get to that though, I want to ask: Have any of you ever found yourself in a situation where you have felt totally hopeless? Or maybe a better question is: Has there been something that has happened in your life where no matter how the outcome might fare, you can’t find a silver lining? Like no matter how you cut the thing, you can’t find much of a positive outcome at all? When we find ourselves in these situations, we often feel like we should just give up right? Like what’s the point of putting forth all this effort if no matter what happens, I’m gonna come out the loser so to speak? There are times in our lives where we really feel like giving up don’t we? Times where it seems like we give up all hope? I can’t remember his name but I remember reading a few years back about a Holocaust survivor and he was asked pretty much how he made it and his answer was pretty shocking. He said that the reason that he survived was because he had hope and those that didn’t have hope were often the ones that died first. You see it is possible to die from a broken heart. Charles Spurgeon, believe it or not died from a broken heart. He was so broken hearted over the state of the church in his day that his body pretty much shut down. Johnny Cash, who in my opinion is one of the greatest musicians of all time, died mainly of a broken heart. His wife June preceded him in death by just 4 months and many think that once June died, it was only a matter of time before Johnny would. For many, sadness and depression come in so rapidly that the body basically just shuts down. There’s actually a name in the medical community for this and it’s called broken heart syndrome. Many of you that have lost both grandparents have probably seen this based on the closeness of their passings to one another. How easy it is to just give up when the going gets tough. How difficult it is to look ahead to things unseen when things get hard. I think in some ways, we are going to see this in the life of the Apostle Paul as we look at these chapters but as we will also see, Paul was able to look ahead when things in his life were hard. I’m going to pray for us and then I’ll sort of summarize chapters 21-22 for us and then we will read Acts 23:1-11. Let’s pray.
Summary of Chapters 21-22
Summary of Chapters 21-22
So, what has happened for the Apostle Paul since we last saw him saying goodbye to the Ephesian church elders at the end of chapter 20? You might remember that in chapter 20 Paul stops to speak with the leaders of the church in Ephesus and he has made it known that he is on his way to Jerusalem and there is this sense that his life is in danger. Paul didn’t leave Jerusalem on the best terms the last time he was there, he is known as the former pharisee that has left behind the life of being a pharisee and has embraced this newfounded religion, and there are several Jewish people as we have seen in the last few months that can’t stand Paul so he obviously has a target on his back from those within Jerusalem. Paul ends up in Tyre at the beginning of chapter 21 and spends a week there with the believers and while he is there, the disciples in Tyre warn him repeatedly to not go to Jerusalem because the way that they understand the situation is that the moment Paul steps into Jerusalem, he’s a dead man. From Tyre, Paul and his traveling companions go to Caesarea and they stay at the house of Philip and this is the same Philip that we read about in chapters 6 and 8. While there, a prophet by the name of Agabus comes to them from Judea and we read in Acts 21:11-13
Acts 21:11–13 (ESV)
And coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘This is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’ ” When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”
Paul is not letting the threats of the world to get to him. As much as it pains him to see his closest friends weep for him, his eyes are set on Christ. To die for Christ is far greater than to live for the world. Paul is about to see firsthand what the Lord meant when He spoke to Ananias in Acts 9:15-16
Acts 9:15–16 (ESV)
But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”
It was A.W. Tozer who said, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.” We see this in the lives of not just Paul, but all the apostles. We see this in the lives of some of the greatest saints throughout history in the lives of Martin Luther, John Knox, John Calvin, John Owen, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, all the John’s I guess, Samuel Rutherford, Charles Spurgeon, George Whitefield, and the Wesley Brothers. This is part and parcel of the Christian life. When Paul gets to Jerusalem he’s warmly welcomed by the church and the day after he arrives, he goes to James and tells them all about what God has been doing on Paul’s journeys. James again warns Paul about the threats of the Jews and gives Paul instruction to go to the temple to purify himself in the eyes of the Jews in the hopes that they would see that the charges laid against Paul were all false. As Paul goes to the temple, we read in Acts 21:27-31
When the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, seeing him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place. Moreover, he even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.” For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. Then all the city was stirred up, and the people ran together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut. And as they were seeking to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion.
So Paul is arrested and there is so much confusion surrounding what is happening that those that arrest him have no idea what is going on or what the charges are. For Paul’s own well-being the officers remove him from the crowd and at the end of chapter 21 and going into chapter 22, Paul delivers what is the first of many defenses that will come between now and the end of the book. For the first 21 verses of chapter 22, Paul pretty much just recounts his conversion and the events that are recorded in Acts 9 so we won’t spend really any time with this section. In verse 21, he informs the crowd that Christ has sent Paul far away to the Gentiles because the Lord knows that the Jews will not accept what Paul has to say. All of this of course happened around chapter 9 and this is not a new development or a new message that the Lord is presently giving to Paul, that will come later in chapter 23. As Paul is delivering his defense, the tribunal learns that he is a Roman citizen and this grants Paul certain rights as a prisoner that were not allowed for non-Romans. They have Paul bound and on the very next day, they have Paul appear before them again because they want to know the real reason why he is being accused by the Jews because up to this point, they still aren’t sure what to charge him with. What I want to do now is read Acts 23:1-11 and verse 11 is really where we are going to spend the bulk of our remaining time together.
And looking intently at the council, Paul said, “Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day.” And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” Those who stood by said, “Would you revile God’s high priest?” And Paul said, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’ ”
Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.” And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. Then a great clamor arose, and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and contended sharply, “We find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?” And when the dissension became violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away from among them by force and bring him into the barracks.
The following night the Lord stood by him and said, “Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.”
Lessons on Verse 11
Lessons on Verse 11
Verse 11 is such an amazing verse because it shows the humanness of the great man that is the Apostle Paul and the greatness and the sovereignty of our Loving Savior. With the time we have left, I want us to look at 5 lessons from verse 11. There are certainly more lessons just from this one statement but these are 5 that I think are most pressing for us today. The first lesson is that we are commanded to have courage.
The command for courage
The first words out of the Lord’s mouth to Paul as he is sitting in those barracks is for Paul to take courage. This isn’t a recommendation and this isn’t just wishful thinking. This isn’t thoughts and prayers commented on a Facebook post. This isn’t a, “Just try your best and everything will be fine” kind of message. This is a command straight from the mouth of God to His servant. Christians are to be a people of great courage because their lives are not entrusted to the hands of man. The courage of the Christian stems entirely from the hand and heart of God and we will talk about this more a little bit later. If someone like Paul needs to be reminded to have courage, surely all of us need to be reminded of that as well. This is the same Paul that wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Keep in mind that Paul likely wrote this prior to Acts 23. Paul has seen the anger of the Jews, he has been beaten and yelled at, he is stuck in this horrid prison, and it makes perfect sense that he has this moment of fear and uncertainty. Paul knows the sovereignty of God, he knows the fraility of man, and even Paul needs this message preached to him again and again, do not be afraid! Do not fear! You know of all the commandments in the Bible, I can’t think of one that I break more frequently than that one. Time and time again in Scripture, God tells His people to not be afraid but time and time again, fear creeps in! We need to remind ourselves that we are to be a people of great courage because it is God that holds the universe in His hands and it is God that is sovereign over the little things as well as the big things. We are all commanded to take courage, not in our own strengths and our own abilities, but in the God who saves. The second lesson we can learn from this verse is the proximity and facts of Jesus Christ.
The Proximity and Facts of Jesus Christ
At the beginning of verse 11, we read that the Lord stands by Paul and speaks to him. Paul has the Holy Spirit living inside him but for this one special moment, Christ Himself stands by him in the prison and reminds the man of God what he is to do. We see the closeness of Christ to His people. We see the love that He has for His people. Solomon writes in Proverbs 18:24
A man of many companions may come to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Jesus is that friend that stands closer than any brother. Jesus has access to us that no one else does. He can stand in the prison cell just as easily as He can stand in the church house. Paul needed that reminder that Christ was there. He needed the reminder, as we all do, that Christ is with us at the mountain top and in the valleys and everywhere in between. Jesus is the friend that we need at every point of our lives. Also we know that Paul preached the facts about Jesus Christ. This is what we need in preaching and in the church. There are far too many opinions and not enough facts in the church today. Paul in his preaching preached the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The message of the Gospel is not a message of opinions. It is tried and true. It is factual. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ was a true event in human history that altered the course of human history like nothing else. Paul knew the truth of his message, do we know the truth of ours? As we share the Gospel are we stating the facts or are we stating that which the world would prefer to hear? There are no tricks in our message, there is no slight of hand, there are no persuasive words according to man’s wisdom, there are simply the facts of who Jesus is and what He has done. That’s the message that must never change!
The “Musts” of God
The third lesson that we can gather from this verse involves the “musts” of God. That which God declares shall be done. God in His sovereignty sees to it that His will is done. The Lord says to Paul, “Paul, just as you have testified about me in Jerusalem, you must testify also in Rome.” For God to say must means that nothing in the course of time, nothing based on the power of man could possibly stop God’s will. For God to tell Paul that he must testify in Rome is for God to say that it is as good as done. J.A. Alexander in his commentary on Acts said that for God to give this message to Paul was as if He were saying, “Be not troubled or discouraged by this opposition and rejection of your testimony; it is enough that I approve and will reward you.” Understand this: If God wills something for you in your life, it will happen. If God says to you, “You must witness for me at this time or this place” it will happen. This is why I say that if God has called you to ministry, He will provide you with the will, abilities, and joy to do that ministry. I have heard several Christians that have said that they are afraid that God will call them into the ministry and I have always said that if God is calling you to that, He will not only see you through it, He will walk it with you and give you the desire to do it. Sometimes all we need to do the task that is before us is a clearer view of God’s sovereignty. John Stott wrote, “In this moment of discouragement Jesus comforted him with the straightforward promise that, as he had borne witness to him in Jerusalem, so he must also bear witness to him in Rome. It would be hard to exaggerate the calm courage which this assurance must have brought to Paul during his three further trials, his two years’ imprisonment and his hazardous voyage to Rome.” Let’s look at our fourth lesson and this is pretty closely related to the third: It is God who directs our steps and it is God that brings us exactly where we are supposed to be.
God directs our steps
It was the hopes of the Jews for Paul to die, it was the hopes of the leaders for Paul to be quieted, but it was the will of God for Paul to get to Rome. While man often wants one thing, God often brings forth another. Proverbs 16:1 says “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.” and then later in Proverbs 16:9 we read “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” Derek Kidner in his excellent commentary on Proverbs said that for all his freedom to plan, man only advances God’s designs. In the book of Psalms we see this same message repeated by David. David writes in Psalm 37:23-24
The steps of a man are established by the Lord,
when he delights in his way;
though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong,
for the Lord upholds his hand.
Charles Spurgeon wrote on this verse, “All his course of life is graciously ordained, and in lovingkindness all is fixed, settled, and maintained. No reckless fate, no fickle chance rules us; our every step is the subject of divine decree.” There is no such thing as chance, no such thing as fate, no such thing as luck. All is orchestrated by God’s sovereign hand and just as Paul was directed to Rome by what many would call a series of unfortunate events, God often uses that which seems unheard of to deliver us exactly where He wants us to be where we can make the greatest impact for His name’s sake.
We’re done when God says we are
The last lesson that we can take from this verse is that we’re done when God says we are. Or maybe to put it another way, we’re invincible until God says we aren’t. In the eyes of the world, as Paul sat in that jail cell, they likely would say, “He’s done! What further use could he have?” Yet, that is not how God operates. In a way, Paul is just getting started. He would still have several years of ministry ahead of him, several beautiful letters still to write that we read to this day and the Holy Spirit still uses those letters to bring about change in people. Don’t let the world say when you are finished. If God has called you to something, He decides when you are done. The doctors don’t, the world doesn’t, your family doesn’t. It is God and God alone that puts the period on your life. It is God and God alone that brings your life to a close. To steal a phrase that I’ve heard a number of times, don’t put a period where God has put a comma. The ministry of your life, while there are often times where we wonder if it might be over, is never truly over until God says that it is. You may be alone in a jail cell for preaching the Gospel and while the world may say, “that’s the end of that” they don’t get to make that decision. As I mentioned earlier, there are moments in the lives of some great Christians that mirrored exactly what Paul went through here. John Calvin, the great reformer, was banished from his church in Geneva and went to a small town called Strasbourg and as he was forced to leave his church in Geneva, there was no way that he would have guessed that his name and his works would still be known and read today. Think of someone like Martin Luther, after being slandered by the Church of Rome and ordered to stand before the great high council at the Diet of Worms, after his books were demanded to be burned and after he fled to Wartburg castle to escape imprisonement and likely death, that some of his most important works would come after 1521: It was after this moment that he translated the New Testament into German and just a few short years later that he would write his most popular book, The Bondage of the Will. Jonathan Edwards, the great American Puritan preacher and one of the minds behind the Great Awakening was actually fired from his church in Northampton after several years of service and instead of saying, “Guess I’ll retire” took his work to Native Americans and started ministering in Stockbridge and while he was there, he wrote his greatest book, “The Freedom of the Will”. Or think of a man like John Bunyan, one of the greatest Puritan preachers, maybe one of the greatest preachers to ever live. He spent 12 years imprisoned for preaching the Gospel and instead of wallowing those years away in self pity, he wrote 2 of the most important books ever written! One was his autobiography, Grace Abounding in the Chief of Sinners and the second is the second highest selling book of all time, only behind the Bible, The Pilgrim’s Progress. These are just a few men who faced circumstances that looked like it would be the end for them, only to go out and do more than they ever thought possible. These men would not have done these things, if God had not first wounded them greatly. These men would have never done these things if they relied on their own strength and own will to accomplish them. If the eyes of these men were only on themselves and on their circumstances, it would have been impossible for them to look ahead. But with their eyes set on the God of all creation, they took what the Lord brought them and did incredible things for the Lord. I don’t know what you are going through today, I don’t know what prison you may find yourself in but know this, the fact that you are here today is proof that God is not done with you. The fact that you are here today is a testimony to God’s grace and His patience. Don’t squander it. Don’t let the circumstances of your life dictate what God is able to do through you. Remember what Paul writes in Ephesians 3:20-21
Ephesians 3:20–21 (ESV)
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Let’s pray.