Sermon Tone Analysis

It’s Almost Apple Season

The trees are heavy w/ new apples.

I’ve seen many trees where the owners have propped up the branches w/ 2x4s b/c there is so much fruit on them.

Slide (Trees)

I can’t wait.

Apple sauce, apple butter, apple pies, apple cobblers, carmel apples, candied apples,

We’ll have boxes and bags.

Just like the citrus we get from the valley, some of you will be carrying a lot down the mountain when you go.

Hopefully, we can beat the elk to them.

I’ve heard that the elk have an amazing sense of when the fruit is ripe.

Person will think “tomorrow they’ll be perfect to pick.”

Only to come out the next day to find 1 bite taken out of each apple on the tree.

Slide (Red apple)

You pick the apple and it looks beautiful.

What do you assume?

What do you expect based on what you see?

You cut it open and you find this.

Slide (Rotten Apple)

We can’t see everything that is going on.

Whatever the apple looks like on the outside, we have to cut it open to see what’s going on on the inside.

The opposite can also be true.

What we see can look bad but there are things we can’t see that are going on at the same time that are good.

Like, cancer.

We can see ultra-sounds the results of needle biopsies.

But that doesn’t mean we can see everything that’s going on.

Life-line scening at the church in July.

Needle biopsy in August.

Surgery in September.

In the mean time, God did something we couldn’t see until the surgeon opened her up.

Here’s the message God has for us today:

Slide

God is always at work in ways we can’t see even when we don’t like what we can see.

This is the message of .

Paul had been arrested because of a riot that sprung up by the temple in Jerusalem after he spoke there.

As a Roman citizen he would be given the opportunity to defend himself in a Roman court.

First, the commander of the Roman army needed to understand what was the root of all this trouble.

If Paul could convince Rome this was strictly a religious matter they would leave him alone.

The commander understood that at least most of it was a religious issue, so while in Jerusalem he asked the temple leadership to convene and discuss all this.

This amounted to a ‘pre-trial’ hearing that he could observe to better understand the whole thing.

So, as he watched, here’s what he saw.

Something is Rotten

Contrast

Acts 22:30-23:

The Sanhedrin was the ruling body of the temple.

They were in charge.

They were made up of 2 groups, Pharisees and Sadducees.

The Pharisees were responsible for the interpretation and application of the OT law.

The preachers and teachers.

The Sadducees were responsible for the rules and enforcement.

They filled the key offices and ruling authority.

The 2 groups would work together on larger issues like this one.

As Paul made his opening statement, he said he’d been called by God to do this.

He was representing Jesus to whomever would listen.

And, accordingly, his conscience was clear.

Obviously, if he had been disobedient to God in any way his conscience would not be clear.

So, here he is, on trial, opposed to, in conflict w/, the religious leadership that he used to be a member of and who claimed authority on these matters and claimed to be God’s representatives to the world.

Ananias ordered him to be hit in the mouth.

Tradition allowed this to defend God’s honor.

Paul defended his actions, teaching that Jesus is the Messiah and offering equal status and full participation w/ God to Gentiles.

Which, the Sanhedrin wholly rejected.

To an observer, Paul didn’t look good.

He looked like he was in trouble on the outside but he said he was clean on the inside.

Contrast that w/ Ananias the High Priest.

He accused him of being a whitewashed wall.

IOW, he looked good on the outside.

Gold and purple robe, holding a fancy cane-looking staff, and a cool pointy hat.

But, on the inside, what no on could see, he was rotten.

Like a fresh coat of paint covering deck-boards eaten w/ dry-rot.

Or, that red, shiny apple that’s rotten inside.

Hard wood floors vs. a thin veneer of oak glued onto particle board.

Ananias, and the rest, were just a thin veneer.

No substance.

No character.

No depth.

They were able to hide their rotten cores w/ a little spit and polish.

Gold and purple.

Paul accused Ananias of violating the very law he claimed to represent and defend.

The entire OT; law, prophets, and poetry pointed to Jesus as the Messiah.

Not only did the Sanhedrin miss it, they prosecuted and persecuted everyone who saw it.

And, Paul was #1 on their list to shut down.

But, the commander brought him in to give him the chance to defend himself first before this group before he was in a Roman court.

Here is his defense.

Paul’s defense

Paul’s strategy was more than just the story of Jesus.

He focused on a flashpoint of disagreement between the 2 groups of the Sanhedrin.

He was a Pharisee and called on his roots and ID’d w/ that half of the leadership group.

There had always been a sharp disagreement regarding the resurrection and any hope for an eternal future.

So, he got them into an internal argument leaving him out entirely.

Half the group, the Pharisees, were actually defending him.

He was on trial for defending Jewish teaching, according to the Pharisees.

The OT teaches an eternal kingdom inhabited by those who came to faith while they were here.

The question they were fighting over was, “How could Jesus speak to Paul and commission him to do anything?

He was dead.”

So, is there a resurrection?

Does Jesus speak to us today?

Irony!

Irony

The argument grows in its intensity among the Sanhedrin.

The potential for violence is real so the commander ordered Paul t/b taken out immediately and brought to their barracks where he’d be safe.

Picture in your mind, while the violent argument continues over whether or not there is a resurrection, Jesus (the risen Lord) meets Paul in the Barracks, speaks to him and assures him he’ll make it to Rome to testify there before the most powerful people in the world.