Acts 28: The Gospel Reaches Rome

In this episode of The Morning Charge, Joshua walks through Acts 28, the final chapter of Acts. Paul arrives on Malta after the shipwreck, experiences God’s protection again, ministers to the people on the island, and eventually makes his way to Rome.

This chapter highlights God’s faithfulness, the continued spread of the gospel, and Paul’s steady commitment to the mission of Jesus. Even while under guard, Paul keeps teaching, keeps encouraging others, and keeps pointing people to the kingdom of God.

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- Real Talk. Real Jesus. Real Life. -

Transcript

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Welcome to the Morning Charge. This is your moment to slow down, breathe, and get your spirit aligned before stepping into the day ahead. Life moves fast, responsibilities pile up, voices compete for your attention. But before the noise of the world takes over, this is where we come back to what actually matters. This is a place for honest conversations about faith, life, purpose, and everyday battles we all face. No pretending, no religious performance, just the truth. Because following Jesus was never meant to be complicated, it was meant to be real. So whether you're driving to work, you're getting the kids ready, or simply taking a quiet moment for yourself, you're in the right place. This is Real Talk, Real Jesus, Real Life. This is the Morning Charge. Through this study, Lord, I ask right now, Lord, that our hearts, our minds, our eyes, our ears would be open to hear and receive all that you have for us this morning.

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Father, we thank you. We love you. We honor you.

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Come and move within us this morning as we go through your word in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen. Welcome in if you're jumping in with us, no matter what platform you're on this morning. Good morning and welcome in. All right. If you got your sword, you got your word with you. Let's go to Acts chapter 28, verse 1. After, we'll set this over here. After we had safely reached land, remember Luke is the one that wrote Acts. So this is coming from his perspective. Obviously, he was here on this trip. So Luke says, after we had safely reached land, we discovered that the island we were on was Malta. The people who lived there showed us extraordinary kindness. Now remember, there was a big shipwreck that happened on Friday when we went through we went through chapter 27. All right. Mighty shipwreck. They're on land now. So they discovered it was it was Malta where they were. The people who lived there showed us extraordinary kindness, for they welcomed us around the fire they had built because it was cold and it was rainy. Remember, this is their winter time. So not only were they in a major typhoon, it is cold. So they're cold and they're wet. They were out there for 14 days getting tossed around in a storm. This was not a pleasant, like this was not like a humid, warm tropical, no, this was bad. This was a nor'easter of a storm. It's wintertime. They should not be out in the sea, but they did it anyway. At least they wound up on an island that was people were kind. Extraordinary kindness was here. Verse three: when Paul had gathered an armful of brushwood and was setting it on the fire, a venomous snake was driven out by the heat and latched onto Paul's hand with its fangs. Oh, goody. Doesn't sound like a real, uh, real good situation going on here. When the islanders saw the snake dangling from Paul's hand, they said to one another, No doubt about it. This guy is a murderer. Even though he escaped at sea, you know, he didn't unlive at sea. Justice has now caught up with him. So they're saying justice. The implication in the Greek text because of the culture and the prisoners, remember there's 276, 200 and something people on board. The scholars believe were on this ship. When they're saying justice has now caught up with him, when we think and we read that, we're like, okay, justice. But actually in the Greek text, they refer it to the goddess of justice, which is which was like a local false, it's a false god to them. It's a local deity, all right, and something that they worship. So they were saying, aha, he must be a murderer because justice has now caught up with him. The goddess, the goddess of justice, has caught up with him. All right, so you kind of read it in that text, sort of brings it to where they are spiritually. They ain't got it. They've been on a boat with Paul, they've seen a whole lot of things, they have their gods, but they hadn't quite pieced things together yet. All right, let's keep going. But Paul, verse five, shook the snake off, flung it into the fire, and suffered no harm at all. Everyone watched him, expecting him to dwell, to swell up or suddenly drop from the snake bite. After observing him for a long time and seeing that nothing unusual happened, they changed their minds and they said, Well, well, he must be a god. He wasn't getting tested by the the god of justice, you know, the goddess, so to speak. Well, well, he in fact must be a god because nothing happened to him and something should have happened. The Roman governor of the island, his name was was Publius. He had an estate nearby, and he graciously welcomed us at his house guest, as his house guest, and showed us hospitality for the three days that we stayed with him. So they show up and they stay with him for three days. His father lay sick in bed, suffering from fits of high fever and dysentery. So Paul went into his room and after praying, placed his hands on him. Here we go. Faith in action. He was instantly healed. So this guy, Publius, has an estate nearby. He's the Roman governor of this island. He welcomes them in for three days. And his father's there sick in the bed. And what does Paul do? Paul enters the room and after praying, placed his hands on him, and he was instantly healed. Instantly healed. When the people of the island heard about this miracle, they brought all the sick to Paul, and they were also healed. And in there's an interesting footnote here, and and I love the way this puts this, but but Paul was technically the prisoner. He was a prisoner here. He was the one that was getting everyone set free. The prisoner was setting people free. Amen. Amen. Paul the prisoner is setting everyone free. No doubt, he preached the gospel with signs and wonders, leaving the island healed in more ways than one. Not just leaving the people healed and whole, he is literally helping to heal the land. Because if you can touch the hearts of people in a nation, if God will come and visit the hearts and truly have a heart change, all right, you will see the land beginning to heal. That's called regener regen regenerative revival. Regenerative revival. And they've actually done studies on this. Even scientists have done some studies on this. And ironically, in Kentucky is one of the areas. Like, search for this later if you don't believe me. Look for regenerative revival, Kentucky. All right, and see what pulls up. Because there have been studies shown in parts of, and I can't remember the city right now, but revival that's taken place in, and I think it was the was it, they're not there, the college that was that broke out into revival a couple of years ago. Up, I mean, I lose track of time. But I think it even started to even heal the land. Even some of the ecosystems in the land around where revival has taken place, you see, you see the ecosystems getting stronger. God wants to come and heal our land. Are we going to be a people that can carry the fire in and let him change us from the inside out so the ecosystems in the area that we're planted in begin to change? Amen. I'm just saying. I'm just saying Paul was like that. He would go and he would set people on fire, and you would start to see change in the land. Revival is taking place here in more ways than one. Amen. But the islanders honored him greatly, or honored us greatly, Luke says. And when we were preparing to set sail again, this is verse 10, they gave us all the supplies we needed for our journey. They were so thankful that they were there. Now notice they were great. And after three months we were put out to sea on an Egyptian ship. So they were there for about three months, is what I hear. That's what I see. But I want y'all to gather something else from this. The islanders honored us greatly. All right, they gave them all the supplies they needed for their journey. That's a huge deal. So they're going and getting their own supplies and giving them to them. They were so grateful for what they did. Now I want you to back up to chapter 27 for a minute. There was a great storm. Even through the warnings of Paul, we shouldn't go. This is not a good idea. It's not the best time to be sailing. I feel a warning about this. We shouldn't. They did it anyway. When we have in our lives gone against what we felt and hear, and we see storms unfolding, God will still use the storm for his good. Can you see the depiction of this? So many times, well, we did, and we we turned and we went this way, and it wasn't the way that God wanted us to go. We didn't do it the way God wanted us to do it. Uh-oh, big mess. We feel like we've gone too far, and God can't use me, can't use the situation anymore. God used a bad situation and a nasty shipwreck to bless a people. Man plans his ways, God orders his steps. What looked bad turned out for good. He'll always take what was what was meant for evil and he'll always turn it around for good. Can we see that God's hand is always upon us? All right, this is not an actual action to keep sinning and let grace just continue to, I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing, and God's just gonna love me and He's gonna pour His grace out on me. Absolutely not. That greasy grace thing, cut that out. He wants you to turn and He wants you to follow Him in all things. And when things get rocky and things get stormy and you feel like you screwed up or you feel like you did something you shouldn't have done, he will meet you there in that process and he may even bless a nation through the mess. He might even bless a nation through the storm. They endured the storm. People were getting healed. The nation was getting healed. The governor was very thankful. I mean, just think they were saying, I mean, as soon as they got on the island, they said they were the the people showed them extraordinary kindness. Come sit around the fire with us. They were already wonderful people. Turned out to be a blessing all the way around. All right, and that leads us to I just had to stop there and say that for a minute. If there's anybody on any of these streams this morning where they feel like they've gone too far and they have really messed up, let me tell you something. Do not say that anymore. Just say, Lord, here I am. Will you come and meet me in this place? Help me turn my life around because I can't go this way anymore. And watch him meet you in that place. He will meet you and he will help you turn. Amen. All right. Verse 11. We're in Acts chapter 28, if you're just joining us this morning, verse 11. After three months, we put out to sea on an Egyptian ship from Alexandria that had wintered at the island. Well, that was smart. They parked for the nor'easter season. Good job. The ship had carved on its prow as its emblem. It said the heavenly twins. Where does that come from? Well, these were the two sons of Zeus, another Greek god, by the way. Castor and Pollux. The Aramaic is flying, says flying the flag of Gemini. This was a widespread cult in Egypt in that era, no matter what. I mean, it wasn't the best message on the ship, but it was the culture of where they were, and so it was what it was. All right, verse 12. When we landed at Syracuse, all right, this was the city on the eastern coast of Sicily. So we're around Italy, okay, Sicily. We stayed there for three days. From there we set sail for the Italian city, a regium. The day after we landed, a south wind sprang up that enabled us to reach Putoli within two days. All right, this was on the western coast of Italy, with the road that leads to Rome about 145 miles to the north once they got there. Amen? I just I'm trying to put this in perspective for you in your mind's eye. In your mind, just think about where they are, where they're sailing. When the believers were alerted that we were coming, they came out to meet us at the Forum of Appius while we were still a great distance from Rome. Another group met us at the three taverns, or the three taverns was about 33 miles from Rome. And when Paul saw the believers, his heart was greatly encouraged, and he thanked God. Oh boy, he finally got to be with some folks that are of like mind and like heart and like spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Jesus, my people. Because you got to think there was just a handful of these guys. I mean, if Luke was on this trip, yes. But there's just a handful of Paul, of, of, of Holy Spirit-filled believers on this journey out of the 200 and something folks that are here. So he was very thankful to see them, very encouraged. Verse 16, when we finally entered Rome, Paul was turned over to the authorities. But the text says he was allowed to live where he pleased, with one soldier assigned to guard him. They weren't really, they weren't that strict on Paul. You have to remember, he's not really guilty of anything. Other than with the Jewish sect of religion, he was guilty in religion. Just saying. He was guilty by the religious sect. But he's really not done anything wrong. So, like, you can have some freedom. We're gonna have a soldier follow you around, and you'll be fine. All right, verse 17. After three days, Paul called together all the prominent members of the Jewish community of Rome. All right, some believers there could have been as many as 50,000 Jews living in Rome at the time of Paul's visit. All right, 50,000 Jews in Rome. And Paul is calling together all the prominent members of this Jewish community in Rome. When they had all assembled, Paul said to them, My fellow Jews, while I was in Jerusalem, I was handed over as a prisoner of the Romans for persecution, even though I had done nothing against any of our people or our Jewish customs. After hearing my case, the Roman authorities wanted to release me since they found nothing that deserved, you know, the sentence. When the Jews objected to this, I felt it necessary with no malice against them, all right, or not that I had any feud against my own nation. He didn't have anything against them. I appealed to Caesar. He's like, I had no malice against anyone, but I appealed to Caesar. This then is the reason I've asked to speak with you so that I could explain these things. He's like, I gotta get the people together in my nationality, the Jewish folks, together, and I gotta explain this. It is only because I believe in the hope of Israel that I am in chains before you. I have such a desire to see that place set free that here I am, here I am. Christopher, what is up, dude? Welcome in, man. It's good to see you, bro. I hope things are going well for you. Enjoy seeing things and keeping up with the new business and see how God is moving, how he's grooving, and how he's taking you like he's taking you like this. It's like you're in an airplane, man. You just fly in higher and higher and higher, buddy. Keep on flying. Tasha, thanks for all those things this morning. I'm looking up now. So good morning, everyone. Brenda, good morning to you here. Everyone else, good morning to you over here. Thanks for jumping in with us this morning, y'all. All right. So I got such hope in Israel. I'm in these chains and I'm here before you. They replied, this is verse 21, Acts chapter 28. We're nearing the finish line here, y'all. We haven't received any letters from the Jews of Judea, nor has anyone come to us with a bad report about you. But we are anxious to hear, to hear you present your views regarding this Christian sect we've been hearing about, for people everywhere are speaking against it. So they set a time to meet with Paul. On that day, an even greater crowd gathered where he was staying. From morning until evening, Paul taught them, Open up the truths of God's kingdom realm. Open up the truths of God's kingdom realm. Isn't that interesting the way the text, the way that's put here? From morning until evening, Paul taught them, opening up the truths of God's kingdom realm. The kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom of God is in my hand. We were taught how to live and what to do and how to go and what to say and when to burn and how to burn. And it's all right here. The kingdom of God is at hand. So he's opening up kingdom truths and teaching them about the kingdom realm that we should all be walking in because we all have access to. We have complicated the gospel so much we don't even know how to get to the throne anymore. Goodness gracious. I don't know. I just felt the Holy Spirit drop that in my spirit just right now. We have complicated this so much till we don't even know how to sit at his feet anymore.

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Let's get back to the basics.

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It's a simple gospel. With convincing arguments from both the law and the prophets, he tried to persuade them about Jesus. Alright, this is okay, about the purpose of Jesus' coming, which would include his life, his ministry, his for our sins, and the glorious resurrection. He's explaining the whole process. Some were converted, this verse 24. Others refused to believe. They argued back and forth, still unable to agree among themselves. They were about to leave when Paul made one last statement to them. The Holy Spirit stated it well when he spoke to your ancestors through the prophet Isaiah. Alright, the Aramaic says that he said, The Holy Spirit spoke beautifully through the mouth of Isaiah the prophet and said this, verse 26, I send you to this people to say to them, You will keep learning, or you'll keep listening, but not understanding. You will keep staring at truth, but not perceiving it. For your hearts are hard and insensitive to me. You must be hard of hearing. For then you would have to respond and repent, so that I could heal your hearts. So listen well. Verse 28. This wonderful salvation given by God is now being presented to the non-Jewish nations, and they will believe and receive it. Oh my goodness.

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Hello, Gentiles.

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It is being presented to the non-Jewish nations, and they're getting it. They're picking it up. It's resonating with them. Paul lived two more years in Rome in his own rented quarters, welcoming all who came to visit. He continued to proclaim to all the truths of God's kingdom realm, teaching them about the Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, speaking triumphantly and without any restriction.

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This is where Acts ends. It ends with Paul being in Rome for two more years.

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Now tradition says that Paul was eventually released from house arrest and traveled to Spain. Alright, this tradition tells us this. Alright, the history. We're going outside of this book, so just let's just listen and glean for a minute, okay? Do your own research. Everything that I say here, everything that I read, I still dig, okay? Don't ever stop with what I tell you or what your pastor tells you on Sunday or whatever. You should be searching, you should be looking, you should be gleaning. We should all have discussions, we should all be talking about these things. Amen. But the inspired, the inspired accounts of Paul in here, even though the scholars think that he was eventually released and traveled to Spain. All right, but it ends here with Paul ministering to all who came to him. That's what the text tells us. This completes the Acts of the Holy Spirit as recorded by Luke. Remember, Luke is the one that wrote this. The book of Acts is finished. The Acts of God continue to be accomplished through his apostolic company of surrendered lovers. Hello? Surrendered lovers. Every believer has the same Holy Spirit and can do the works of Jesus on the earth today, just as we see here in this. This was the accounts of the early church getting started and much, much, much, much, much persecution. Tons and tons of persecution. Now, over here in America, we don't really see this persecution very much. We're persecuted in different ways. Okay, but the enemy roars like a roaring lion in different ways over here. And to be quite honest, what he does is if he can't get you to sin or fall face first into something heavy like that, he'll just keep you really busy and keep you tired. In America, we're full of busy, hurry, worry, and tiredness. Man, I'm tired. Gosh, I've had a busy week. Boy, I can't, I tell you, I just can't stop. When you talk to somebody, it's like, man, things are busy. Man, we got a lot going on. Man, we gotta. I'm telling you, that's how the enemy works. He keeps you busy. And he keeps you hurried and he keeps you worried about everything. You feel like you're busy, busy, busy, and you can't meet your finances. And you don't know how you take on a third or fourth job because you can't. I mean, do you just don't have the time? I ain't got the time. I don't. There is a better way. There is a better way. I used to be caught up in the hurry and the worry too. Trust me. In the hurry and the worry, and how are we going to do and how we now, Brandy and I have we've lived a life of faith. All right. And our faith has been stretched, and we are much stronger in it now than we ever were before. But we started our whole life, our whole, our whole relationship when we started dating was founded on Matthew 6 and 33. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you. And we saw him move, we saw him move, we saw him move. Okay. And then as we he continued to stretch us in our faith, he continued to stretch us in how we spoke about things. He still loved us through our situations, even though we thought, man, this really stinks. And here this goes again. And oh my gosh. God got a hold of our speech and he started showing us how to speak rightly over our situations, speak rightly over our finances, speak rightly over. And you know what? And some days, now, even now, still, I will get up and I'll go, man, what I see with this is not what I want to see. But what I know in here goes much deeper than what I see here. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. We got to watch how we talk, we got to watch how we think. We're supposed to be casting our thoughts down. The apostle Paul has taught us a lot. He has taught us a lot. Amen. We've been through Romans. We've been through 1 Corinthians. We've been through Acts now. We've even been through Job. We've been through Proverbs. We've done a lot of books here on the morning charge. So surely to goodness, we're starting to change. You should begin to see fruit in your life. Amen. So today we saw three major things. What are the three major things we saw today? We saw God's protection over Paul even after the shipwreck. All right. We saw his protection in his hand on everybody on that ship. All right. Wayne is teaching me not to say boat, because I would just southernly say boat. Ship, big difference. Everybody's life was spared. Paul was on that ship. Paul's got a mission from Jesus. These other folks were a bunch of Greeks. Bunch of folks that that that that worshiped false gods and false idols and prisoners. All right. We see the continued spread of the gospel, both to the Jews and the Gentiles. We see the gospel now reaching Rome, which is the capital of the Roman Empire. Jesus foretold that he would stand before kings and he would speak. And we see just this. Luke, notice this. Luke does not record Paul's eventually when he is unalived, or the final outcome of this trial that he is supposed to be going on, but instead he ends it with what? Paul freely preaching the gospel to those that would come to him. We see Paul freely preaching the gospel. I think that was a great place to end. Yeah, it'd been cool to really, you know, dig in on some of the other stuff. And there are facts, and we'll talk about those, of what history tells us happens to Paul. But the church was not finished here. I'm almost glad we don't really see Paul's finished story here because it would have felt like an end. But what's happening is a beginning of the gospel. Acts as the beginning of the gospel being spread all over the world. We see this centralized area of where it's going. But the mission continues. And guess what? It continues with you and me. It continues with you and me.

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The mission continues with us. Amen.

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So after the shipwreck, survivors find that they're on this island of Malta. Malta, if you want to know where Malta was, it was about 60 miles south of Sicily. All right, and was a very important stop for Mediterranean ships. So they landed in a good place. All right, Luke says the islanders showed us what? Unusual kindness. These people were very nice. They were nice. All right, they were very hospitable. All right, when Paul gathers firewood, what happens? The viper, a snake, bites his hand. All right. The islanders now assume that he must be a murderer of some kind, and he's receiving his judgment now. Oh, now we know. But Paul shakes the snake off into the fire, and he's not even harmed. Nothing happens to him. There's no swelling. There's nothing going on here. All right, let's look at what Jesus said in Mark 16 and 18. All right, he said that believers would handle serpents and not be harmed. Here we see Paul. Now, Paul didn't, he didn't ask to be bitten. He didn't go after the snake. Okay, the snake, when they lit the fire, obviously, if you've grew up in the country around brush piles and bonfires, if you've put that wood up and you've let it sit there for a while, when you light that thing on fire, you stand back, not just for the fire, but there's some things that's probably going to run up out of there because there's some creatures that have made it its home. You know what I mean? But the snake comes out because of the flames and goes to Paul. This moment demonstrated God's protection over Paul and the very words of Jesus that we see in the Gospels. All right, so the Islanders then they change their opinion real quickly, but then they say first they think Paul is cursed by the goddess of justice. Now they think he's a god. Well, nothing happened to him. He's immortal. He must be a god. All right. But you know, this lets us know that public opinions change with the swaying of the wind. All right. There's going to be opinions and there's going to be people. Paul was steady. He trusted the Lord. He wasn't listening to what people were saying about him and, like, oh, great. Well, now this snake has bitten me. Now, now they think that, you know, I'm a I'm a murderer. And he didn't give an inkling of a care about what these people said because he knew they blew like the wind. He had one mission: trust God, share the gospel, bring many into the kingdom, and let them know these kingdom truths and that the kingdom of God is truly at hand. That was it. If it didn't fall, that was Paul's mission statement. Share the gospel with others, the truth about Jesus, and that was pretty much his mission statement. If anything, if it did not fall on the inside of that, he didn't give two rips about it. I'm just putting it blunt. Yeah, I'm just putting it blunt for us this morning. All right. But public opinions are going to change about you. God's truth and what he says about you does not change. So stop caring so much about what people say about you, what they think about you, what they're what they're trying to do. If it's a lie that they're spreading about you, eventually it's going to dissolve and it's going to go on. What they're saying about you is false, eventually it's going to shrivel up and it's going to, it's going to wither away. It's like water off a duck's back. You let that thing roll and know that what God says about you is the truth. And that is what you're most concerned about. Amen. All right. Lots of things we see through the scripture. So then we move on, and we see that Publius, I hope I'm saying his name correctly. Lord help us, but he was the chief official of this land. He was the governor, so to speak. And Paul heals his father of fever and dysentery. I mean, that was a real serious sickness that his dad had. And after that, people saw this, and now they go out and they bring all the sick people in. Even though Paul was the prisoner, he was setting people free. The kingdom of God is not the kingdom of this world. Even if you feel shackled by certain situations or you feel like a prisoner in your situations, you can still be the one that sets people free. Stop getting so in your head about your past. Your past is in your past. The enemy is going to try to bring up your past at all cost, but that's not who you are anymore. You know who you are. There's going to be people that talk about you, but you know who you are. Keep walking because you're known by your fruit. And the more fruit you're producing on your tree, the more people go, mm, that's not the same guy. Mmm, that's not the same girl. Something's changed here. And you let God work on all those details. It ain't up to you to go around everybody. That's not me anymore. Please don't say those things. You're hurting me. You're this and no. Let God work out the fine details and you be who you are in him. Amen. Wherever Paul goes, you know ministry is going to take place. And I want you to know too. I want you to know this too. Luke was a physician. Luke was a physician. How many barriers do you think he had to break down? I mean, Paul is praying over people and they're being healed instantly. He's a physician, so he's a very smart intellectual guy. He knows how to treat people, you know, he knows how to practice medicine, whatever. But his mention of dysentery and fever shows the medical detail of he knew what was going on. It's almost like he diagnosed Paul, went in and knew how to speak to that thing, and the man was healed. And notice how there's a pattern with Paul, too, when he goes in. He says he prayed and then. He prayed and then he would speak. He would say, Rise up and be healed. You're healed of the Lord. But he would pray, then he would take action. We got to get back to a point where we're praying and then we're taking action. That's where we've got to get back to. All right, after three months, Paul and the others boarded the ship. All right, they traveled north through Sicily, southern Italy. Eventually they arrive near Rome, and when believers in Rome hear that Paul is coming, they travel to meet him. Paul is arriving. Word has spread forth, and now they're coming to meet him. All right, there are two places that were mentioned here that I want to highlight to us again. All right, the Forum of Appius and the three taverns. Remember, we covered this briefly earlier. All right, these were resting stops along the Appian Way, as they called it, which is the major road that leads to Rome. These were the major stopping places. All right, when Paul sees the believers coming to greet him, Luke says that he thanked God and he took courage and he was, it's like he was overjoyed that they came to meet him and they were doing well and they're sharing the gospel. That is what he cared about. Paul cared about people, he cared about their hearts and their lives, and he cared about them sharing the gospel and continuing the message. That's what it was about. That's what it was about. So every church, every ministry, a part of the forefront and the crux of the mission statement should be caring about the people, the hearts of the people, and making sure that they are well equipped to go and share the gospel with others. The church was never a place for us to come and sit and keep a seat warm and go home the same. That was, I don't know where this, I don't know why that happened. That was not how it was. And then it just became a place to gather knowledge, but then nobody did anything outside the four walls. We went and we learned, yay. Why? Why do we learn things? I mean, I mean, look at Luke. Luke, he would have gone to school at some point, somewhere, maybe somehow, to learn how to be a doctor, and then he went and he was a doctor. We go to church and we go and we sit and we learn how to walk out this walk, but we don't walk. We just learn how to walk. What if a baby just learned how to walk but never stood up? What if that baby never pulled up on anything? Started strengthening its legs and working and going and moving and going and climbing and I'm just saying, somewhere along the way, we got into just being full-time scholars, and then never taking what we learned into our homes when we left. We got to get to a point where the with where our heart begins to change and something begins to shift, and we create altars in our homes, and we're seeking the Lord and we're reading the word together, and everything's not always gonna be just goosebumps. Not every day. And a lot of us are just chasing the feeling. Woo, those little goosebumpy feelings. We're in our feelings and we're all about learning, but we're not about taking action. What in the world happened? I'm just saying.

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So we see where Paul meets the and greets the believers.

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Luke says he thanked God and took courage, like we just talked about. You know, every strong leader needs encouragement. Every strong leader needs encouragement. We think that our pastors are the ones that are supposed to just pour out and pour out and pour out and pour out, pour out and pour out and pour out and pour out. Well, so-and-so didn't come and see me, or so-and-so didn't stop and say hi to me, or so. We we we put up put our pastors way up here. They are people just like you and me. We're all on one, we're all on one. We all should be operating in the gifts of the spirit. We should all be functioning together, but nobody is more higher than the other one. And that's the thing about the Western culture. We have lifted all these people, and then when they fall, they fall so hard because of the pedestal we have put them on. Every strong leader like Paul needed the encouragement. He was so thankful and so encouraged to see the other believers that came to visit and greet him. Just let some things bring light to you, okay? So, Paul, he arrives in Rome and he's allowed to live on his own in his own rented house under a guard protection. Wow, he's in a gated community. All right, this was house arrest, though. Let's just call it what modern day it is. He's in house arrest. He's got one soldier, though. He didn't have a bracelet back then. He was only able to go so far, but he had freedoms. All right. He was chained to the Roman soldier, but he was allowed the visitors. This arrangement allowed Paul to continue teaching and preaching. He continued on with the message, because I mean, technically he hadn't done anything wrong. Paul then meets with the Jewish leaders, has them come in, and he explains that he's done nothing wrong against the Jewish people or their customs. The Jewish leaders say they have not heard formal complaints about him, but they want to, I want to hear more about this Christian sect. See, everything they put everybody in little groups, in little cute little groups. Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Christians, the everybody's in their nice little sect, as they called it. But there's been no formal complaints. They want to know more about this Christianity thing, but this shows this shows that Christianity was still considered a Jewish movement by a lot of people of this time because they're putting it as a sect, a part of that. Paul begins to preach the gospel. He spends an entire day explaining the kingdom of God. He uses the law of Moses and the prophets to show that Jesus the Messiah, he was the Messiah. Some believe, others reject the message. Paul then brings about Isaiah chapter 6 about people who hear but they don't understand. He's like, Let me just end with this. And he begins to throw out what Isaiah said there. And he said, he said this, it's very powerful. He also said, the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen.

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They will be the ones to listen.

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That just kind of sums up the whole book. If you think about it. The gospel began in Jerusalem. Now it has reached the Gentile world and is spreading abroad. It's spreading everywhere. Paul lives in Rome for two years. We see this. He welcomes everyone that visits him. He proclaims the kingdom of God, teaches them about Jesus with boldness and without any hindrance. He does have freedoms.

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Paul the prisoner is still on house arrest, although he still has freedoms. Paul's technically still a prisoner. But the gospel is advancing freely. In the capital city of a major empire. That's what God can do. That's what God can do.

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What looks like a really bad situation. Paul knew exactly it was a setup for kingdom work.

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And he utilized every moment of that.

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Every moment of that. Accents. Like I said earlier, doesn't end? I mean, we hear nothing about Paul's trial. We don't hear about the moment that he he lived for so long and he got alive and blah blah blah. Luke leaves the story open. That's where he stops documenting. And what I feel like is the Church of Acts is going to continue, and it is continuing, and it has since then, okay.

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Beyond this. But I want you to learn something.

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Where we're at right now, it's not so much that we are continuing on the story. In the Western world church, we have lost the story. Big C. I'm not talking about maybe your local church, okay? So don't get offended. Big C in the Western world have dropped the ball big time. We've made it more about man kingdoms, man empires, what man wants wants to build so they can be a big something. Okay. We've made it about the wrong things. Amen. Paul never met Jesus.

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Yet somehow his letters became scripture. Do you know why? We say he never met Jesus. But he had an encounter with Jesus. Salah.

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We've read about where he had an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, where he was blinded by the light around noontime. It was the only way the Lord could get a hold of him. He saw the works of Jesus, even through the stoning of Stephen. And it bothered him so much to that point where the Lord was always churning something in here.

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Guess what? I've never seen Jesus either. But I've had an encounter with Jesus.

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That's all that matters. And that's my story. I'm sticking to it. He is the one that's healed me of a hole in my heart that I was born with, gone and eradicated now. I'm in my 40s. Causes me no problems. It's not there. It took 21 years to completely heal, and a lot of people would have gone through surgeries and many different things, but the doctor saw something unusual taking place, and they said, Hmm, that's closing up. We're just gonna, we're not gonna touch it. We're just gonna let it keep doing what it's doing. And it did what it did. Until my cardiologist said, Don't come back and see me unless you're having any issues, because there's not even anything to look at. But I've had encounters with Jesus. Amen. And so did Paul. And what a man of integrity who also taught us how to live based on the principles of Jesus. But this ends open-ended. And us Western world folks have really gone to sleep. And like I said, we go to church, we try to be the best little Christians we can and check the box, and we try to we try to be as nice as we can. But it goes so much deeper than that. And so where we are right now, God is taking us back. God is taking us back to the principles of Acts, to the principles of Jesus. He's taking us back to walk out the lifestyles of Jesus. And we have to unlearn some things to be able to learn the things that need to be learned through the word. We have these books. Most all of us could probably say we have one in our home. Are we reading it? Are we gleaning from it? Is it changing us? Are we being changed? Amen. But we do see Acts ending. The gospel is now brought to Rome, the most influential city in the entire world at this time. And now the teachings of Jesus and Christianity has gained the access to the hearts of the entire empire.

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What a place to end.

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And to Luke and to Paul, what happened to Paul at this point was now irrelevant. Because that's what mattered.

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Getting the gospel to a place where it could be at the heart of the people. One of the most powerful places. Amen. Storms couldn't stop Paul. Shipwrecks couldn't stop Paul.

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Prisons couldn't stop Paul. Chains couldn't stop Paul. Why? Because the message of Jesus was his life. It wasn't just a part of his life, it was his life. And to seeing others come into the same message of Jesus. Amen. And now I do want you to know what likely happened after Acts 28. History tells us. All right, so Paul spent two years under house arrest in Rome. We see that in Acts 28. All right. He was released for a time and traveled again. All right, traveled again. And that is most likely when he wrote 1 Timothy and Titus. Okay. Later he was arrested again during Nero's persecution. While in prison the second time, he wrote the final letter of 2 Timothy. In that letter, he says something powerful, though. It's 2 Timothy 4, 6 through 7. We might make it through all these books, that is. He said, I am already being poured out like a drink offering. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. All right. When you read those words, that's like a man who knows he's kind of near execution. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. And the part that he says, I have finished the race there tells us a lot. But most likely he was beheaded at that point.

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It's kind of what we read.

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Early church leaders recorded the fact of his beheading, and his persecution was under Nero, of course, which was around AD 64, AD 67. For you history people that love this kind of stuff. All right, around A.D. 64, 67. There's a couple of publications where early church leaders would record things. All right. One was the Clement of Rome in the late first century. The other was the Eusebus of Caesarea around the 4th century, and both of those confirmed that Paul unalived as a martyr in Rome. Okay. That's the Clement of Rome and the Eusebius of Caesarea. There's two publications where they both say the same thing. Alright, Paul was a Roman citizen, so he's most likely executed by sword. So be heady. So there you go. That's today's morning charge. Before you move on with your day, take a moment and let what you've heard settle into your heart. Faith isn't just something we talk about, it's something we live out in the ordinary moments of everyday life. Wherever today takes you, remember this. You don't walk into it alone. God is already ahead of you, working in ways you may not even see yet. Stand firm, walk in wisdom, lead with love, and don't forget who you belong to. Until next time, keep your heart anchored, keep your faith strong, and keep living out real talk, real Jesus, real life. We'll see you on the next morning charge.