Citizenship

Sermon on Acts 22:22-29

Title:  Passport

Theme:  God gave his people citizenship at great cost.

Goal:  to encourage Christians in that while they were born citizens of this country, the citizenship in the kingdom of heaven came at great cost.

Need:  Often we live like it took nothing at all to become citizens of heaven.

Outline:

1. Introduction
2. Persecutor to Persecuted
3. Powerful Passport
4. Price Paid
5. Conclusion

Sermon in Oral Style

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

          I need some census data before we start off the sermon for this evening.  Who here is a citizen of this country?  Is there anyone here who is an alien?  Maybe a few people that don’t have their Canadian citizenship.

          My dad, many of you have had a chat with him in Dutch of Friesian, my Dad lived most of his life as an alien.  He never got his American citizenship, even though he has lived in the US now for over 50 years.  He is still officially a Dutchman.  He said this always came in handy when he was called up for jury duty.

          We always made fun of my dad for being an alien.  Mars, Jupiter, Tatooine, the Netherlands.  Didn’t matter.  My dad was an alien.

          We gave my dad problems for being an alien.  God loves irony, doesn’t he.  After the hard times I gave my dad, here I am.  Many of you know this, but I too am an alien. 

          Canada Day is the day where we get to celebrate the country that we live in.  It’s a day that we can thank God for the benefits of living in such a wonderful place.  It’s a day when most of us as citizens of this country can be thankful for protections that follow us no matter where in the world we go.

          It doesn’t take much to see why I chose the passage for this evening on Canada Day.  Citizenship is key in this passage.  What it shows us more than anything is what a blessing citizenship can.  When you are a citizen of a country that stands for justice, it is something God uses to protect the people and spread the good news of Christ. 

       What we find first in this passage is just one more example of the way God loves irony.  In verse 22 it says, 22 The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”

23 As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, 24 the commander ordered Paul to be taken into the barracks.[1]

          The irony is so quick in the passage, it is so easy to miss.  Paul has gone on many missionary journeys and now he finds himself back in Jerusalem.  Back in the city where he was a Pharisee above all other Pharisees.  When he is at the temple with some other Jews, some people from Ephesus, hundreds of miles away, recognize him.  And they think that he has brought a Gentile friend into the temple.  That is a huge no-no.  It is punishable by death.  It’s blaspheme against God.

          Paul had to have known this.  As a Pharisee, he knew the law backwards and forwards.  In fact, as  Pharisee, he took a special interest in invoking capital punishment on people.  We find out earlier in the book that when Stephen, the first Christian martyr is stoned, Paul is the one hanging on to the cloaks of those hurling the rocks.  And remember what Paul’s mission before he was converted.  The whole reason he was on the road to Emmaus when Jesus talks to him in a blinding light is because he is going out to kill Christians. 

          Ironically, or maybe more providentially, God puts Paul in a situation where people are calling for his death.  “Rid the Earth of him.  This sinner doesn’t deserve to live.”

          The crowd is so upset they are tossing dust up into the air.  And, did you see what it says happens just before they throw the dust up in the air?  It says they throw their cloaks off.  Everything is flipped on its head.  The one who was their having cloaks tossed to him while Stephen was being stoned, was watching others throw off their cloaks, ready to kill him.  This is a sign of absolute anger at this affront to God

          Life is completely different for Paul.  The Persecutor is now the Persecuted.  The cloak collector is now the reason for tossing off cloaks.  Before he was proud to be a Jew among Jews.  His first and most important identity was in being a Jew who was so passionate about his nation and his nations God.  Now, he doesn’t belong to them any more.  He has a new identity as a Christian.

          Paul finds himself in the position that so many others that he persecuted were in.  And Paul finds salvation in a very unlikely place.  He is saved from this Lynch mob by a commander in the Roman army.  Instead of allowing the crowd to carry out this immediate justice, the commander follows Roman law.  He arrests Paul.  Takes him to the barracks.

          Phew.  Paul is safe.  He isn’t going to be killed by the Jewish mob in Jerusalem.  Right?

          Wrong.  You see, what happens next.  Verse 24.  “the commander ordered Paul to be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and questioned in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this.[2]  We need to save this man from the beating he will get from the lynch mob.  Arrest him, then beat him until he tells you why they wanted to kill him.

          Nice salvation.  It sounds even worse when you realize that this flogging that is ordered by the commander is often done with one of the worst devices of torture they had.  A flaggelum.  A stick with leather straps at the end.  And to make it especially brutal, each strap has either metal shards or bone fragments on the end of it.  Often people flogged like this, if they were lucky enough to live, they would have permanent damage, maybe even paralyzed.

          Saved by Roman justice only to suffer the judgement given to any Hebrew who was disturbing the peace.

          But Paul will be saved again.  Again it is by Roman justice.  As he is being stretched out to be flogged, he looks over to the centurion in charge of the flogging.  He says, is it legal to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t been found guilty?”  We don’t know for sure what all the rights of the Roman Citizens were, but its obvious from this passage, that one of the rights of a citizen was to have a trial before they were flogged.  The centurion runs off, gets his commander and the commander finds out for sure.  Yes Paul is a Roman citizen.  They could get into big trouble for putting him in chains.  It could have been much worse if they would have actually flogged him at all.

          Its remarkable how much weight was put on the Roman citizenship.  Enough that it saved Paul from being scourged and killed.

          We live in a society here that continues that respect for citizenship.  When there is strife outside of Canada, you will sometimes here of the Canadian military doing what they can to take the Canadian citizens out of harms way.  Citizenship in Canada means something.  It means rights and protections. 

          My older brother tells the story of how important his American Passport has been for him.  When he was going to Calvin College he was able to spend a semester studying in Germany.  He was over there when the first Persian Gulf War broke out.  It was not a good time to be an American traveling over seas, no matter what you believed about that war.  But that passport was so important because even when they were being told to look as European as possibly, they were able to go to the US Embassy, flash their American passports, and they could enter and be given safety.  It is so important.

          Our God is incredibly gracious.  He is incredibly creative.  He didn’t just chose anyone to spread his message to the Gentiles, he prepared Paul as both a Pharisee and a Roman citizen by birth.  God made sure the truth about his son Jesus Christ was carried throughout the Roman empire.  In spite of persecution, and pain, God made sure that he had a person who at the right moment could hall out that Roman citizenship and save himself, and give himself the chance to bring hundreds or thousands more to saving faith in Christ.

          We are such a privileged people.  We can be amazed at the way God has ordered the universe to make us citizens of countries that protect our freedoms and don’t allow us to be persecuted because we know Jesus is the Way to eternal life.  

Then we need to ask ourselves, what are we doing with the gift of safety that God has blessed us with.  Have we made use of that wonderful gift of God.  Have we made a difference in the life and soul of someone else.  Or have we shied away, embarrassed, worried.  Think, “That’s just not me.  I don’t make a difference in the world.  I just do my thing.”

A country of freedom is a gift that we shouldn’t take lightly.  We shouldn’t take it for granted.  Use your freedom to bring the kingdom of God into ever part of your life and every part of our culture, business, entertainment, family, whatever.  Freedom is a gift.

          The crazy thing is, is the example that Paul gives is not one that uses his citizenship and his rights to immediately free himself from persecution.  As a Roman citizen in this situation, he could have said something and been released from his chains without every being brought to the barracks to be beaten.  He could have told them immediately that he was a Roman citizen and enjoyed the rights he had.

          And also, in Acts 16:37, he is in Philippi and he doesn’t tell them that he is a Roman citizen until after he has been imprisoned and beaten and put in stocks.  Paul didn’t use his citizenship rights to free himself from being persecuted for the sake of Christ.

          The gift of freedom is not to ensure kingdom work for God is easy for us.  It is to ensure that we have every opportunity to bring the message of salvation to every person God has called us to reach.

          Our passage mentions how the commander of the army had to bribe corrupt leaders to get his citizenship and his protection.  Paul was born a citizen.  But however you find your self in this country, on this holiday where we shoot off fireworks and wave flags and sing the national anthem, think about the value of your citizenship.  Thank God that his grace works even in belonging to a certain country.  And make sure after you have reflected and recognized what an awesome gift it is.  Show God you love this gift, by using your friend of religion to bring others to believe in the freedom of eternal life through Jesus Christ.

This is God’s will from his word.  And all God’s people say.  AMEN!

----

[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. Ac 22:22-24

[2] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. Ac 22:24