Let the Will of the Lord Be Done | Acts 21:1-14

Everyone who loved Paul told him not to go to Jerusalem. They weren't wrong about the cost — the Spirit had already said chains were waiting. They were wrong about the conclusion. In Acts 21, Zach walks us through a room full of weeping friends, a prophet with a belt around his hands, and one man who won't be talked out of obedience. God telling you what something will cost is not God telling you no. And when the argument finally ends, the church reaches for the hardest prayer any of us ever pray: Let the will of the Lord be done.

Three movements from the text: open your house, don't mistake the cost for a closed door, and pray the hardest prayer you know. Paul went up to Jerusalem knowing chains were waiting. Jesus went up knowing a cross was waiting — and He went for you.

Scripture: Acts 21:1-14
Series: Living by the Spirit, Following the Way

The Way Church KC is a community of misfits & saints in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City following the Way of Jesus & pushing back darkness — together. Join us Sundays or learn more at thewaykc.church.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to Sermons from the Way Church KC, the community of the citizen saints in Kansas City, following the way of Jesus and pushing that darkness together.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Okay, good morning, everybody. How are we doing? Good. Um, I am going to be reading Acts 21, 1 through 14. So if you have your Bibles, you can open them, and if not, they should be up on the screen. So if you guys could please stand with me for the reading of the word. And when we had parted from them and set sail, we came by a straight course to Cause, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Batara. And having found a ship crossing to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail. When we had come in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left, we sailed to Syria and landed in Tyre. For there the ship was to unload its cargo. And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days. And through the Spirit they were telling Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. When our days there ended, or were ended, we departed and went on our journey, and they all, with wives and children, accompanied us until we were outside of the city. And kneeling down on the beach we prayed and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home. When we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we arrived in Potolmes, and we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for one day. On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the Evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. While we were staying for many days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea, 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 out 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. And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, Let the will of the Lord be done. This is the word of the Lord. You all may be seated.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

All right. Thank you, Madeline. Well, welcome everyone to the Waychurch KC. If we haven't gotten the chance to meet yet, my name is Zach. I have the privilege of pastoring here. We are a two and a half-year-old church plant, and we exist to follow the way of Jesus and push back darkness together. If this is your first time here, we're glad you're here. We have a gift for you. If you fill out a connect card at the end of service, we'll give you all those details later. But if this is your first Sunday with us, what I want you to hear is that if you came here looking for a perfect church, you will not find that. What I believe is you won't find a perfect church anywhere for the moment that any of us entered this space, entered this building, it became an imperfect place, right? Because we are sinful human beings. But what you will find is a family of misfits and saints with real stories, with real messes, with real uh baggage that they're bringing to the feet of the Lord. Um, people who are trying our best to figure out how do we follow the way of Jesus and push back darkness together in this cultural moment. So this morning we're gonna dig into Acts. So open your hearts, open your Bibles, and prepare yourself to dig into God's Word. If you've got a Bible, you can go ahead and turn to Acts chapter 21. Acts chapter 21, and we'll be picking up right at verse 1. If you don't have a Bible, right outside of the sanctuary doors, we have Bibles for you to have, for you to keep, markup, make your own, all that fun stuff. Um we've been walking verse by verse through the book of Acts in a series entitled Living by the Spirit and Following the Way. And so we'll continue in that. We've been rocking in this for um over a year now, and we will be here until we begin celebrating the Advent season. So it's all planned out too perfectly in terms of Sunday, so we'll see what we're sitting at. A little recap. Here's where we are in the story. Here's where we are and where we've been. Uh last week we we stood on a beach at Miletus, and we watched Paul say goodbye to the elders of the church at Ephesus. He told them twice that he would never see their face again. And what we saw, what we witnessed, what we read about was grown men weeping on Paul's neck, heartbroken that they would never see him again. And they walked with him all the way to the boat because they could not stand to let go one second earlier. And this morning in chapter 21, what happens is the boat pulls out of the harbor, and we're on it with the author, Luke, and the other occupants on the boat, including Paul. And like that, it's almost like quite literal. Look at the first word of verse 1 after we had departed, and when we had parted from them. We, right? We. And so Luke, the man writing this book, is standing on the deck of the boat with them. This is one of those passages where the historian, Luke the physician, he puts down his pen, he puts down the scroll, and he's like, he's a passenger. He's telling us, like, hey, I was there firsthand, I was a firsthand witness to what I'm telling you. Everything that we're about to read about, he watched happen. The weeping in verse 12. That's his weeping. That's Luke weeping along with the other companions of Paul. And here's the shape of the chapter that we're looking at. Paul, he's going to Jerusalem, remember? He told us why back in chapter 20, he said he is bound by the Spirit. He's compelled by the Spirit to return to Jerusalem. And he's in a rush because he wants to get there by Pentecost. So he's like he's being carried there by the Holy Spirit. He's not wandering there aimlessly. And over the next 14 verses, three separate times, the Holy Spirit is going to speak about that trip to Jerusalem. Three times. And every single time, the people who hear it, they look at Paul and they say exactly the same thing. Then don't go. That's the shape of what they're saying. If imprisonment and potential death is what await you, then do not go. And so this text puts a question on the table that I think some of us may be living inside of right now. What do you do when the Spirit of God and the people of God seem to be saying two different things? What do you do when the Spirit of God and the people of God are seemingly saying two different things? What do you do when everyone who loves you is begging you not to do the thing that you are convinced that God has asked of you? And I don't know if you guys can relate to this or not, but some of the hardest conversations I've had, they're not with critics. They're not with people who are like overtly against me. They can be friends, they can be family, they can be brothers or sisters in Christ or literal, physical brothers or sisters. And here's the thing like critics are easy, easier, maybe I think. When somebody who does not care about you tells you that you are making a mistake, you can usually shake it off in a couple minutes. And that I don't think that that's the hard kind. But I think back to when we first began to answer this calling to church planting, when Chelsea and I put our yes on the table and said, yes, we're going to be obedient in planting a church. Like the thing that happened, almost nobody flat out told us no. And what they said, it was kind of gentler than a no. And uh, I think about a hundred times harder to carry. Fair? They said things like, Are you sure? Are you sure that this is what God's called you guys to? They would say things like, Do you know how hard it is to plant a church? I remember like very vividly sitting at a coffee with an older saint, a gentleman that I look up to, has a lot of wisdom, and he looked me dead in the eyes and he said, Church planting will be the hardest thing you will ever do. And then he went on to tell me, like, if you can figure out anything else in the world to do other than planting a church. Or maybe it was things like, hey, have you looked at the neighborhood you're planting in? Or maybe it's why would you put yourself in a situation that is that hard? Oftentimes, like people can look at church planting and think that it's something crazy to step into. And again, like I'm not talking about distant acquaintances. I'm not talking about people who don't necessarily like know your heart. I'm talking about like other Christians. I'm talking about like family, those closest to you, those doubting you, those, in a sense, maybe even doubting God. And here's what I want us to understand, and I think what the text of Acts 21 shows us, it's that those people, they're not necessarily, they're not being unspiritual, right? They're not like overtly opposing you or opposing us. They very likely love you. Maybe they've done the math on your behalf. Like, I think of some family of mine, like uh my parents, actually. Like, oh, you guys are gonna follow the call of God to plant a church. Are you sure? And it took some time for them to like get behind us, and it's not that they were against us, it's not like that they didn't believe in us, it's that they had kind of counted the cost. That they loved us, they they'd done the math on our behalf, if you will. And the math in church planting, it genuinely doesn't look good, right? Anything of the kingdom, I believe, is not like doesn't make mathematical sense oftentimes. And I think that today what I realize and understand is that those people were telling me the truth about the cost. The truth about the cost. And I think the same goes for so many in this room. Like I'm thinking of so many of the different ministries that our people are involved in, or so many of the just different ways that we're living out a relationship with Christ where we live, work, and play by doing the work of the ministry. And there's a cost to it. There's a cost to starting a Christian clothing brand. There's a cost to starting a Jesus house party movement. You know what I'm saying? Like there is a cost to these things. Anything of the kingdom has a cost. And I think that when it's those closest to you that are having a little bit of caution, that's the hardest conversation at times. Because it's easy to stand up to somebody who like hates you, right? Who's like, oh man, I don't even care what they think, you know? That's easier. But it's nearly impossible to stand up to somebody who loves you and is crying and is pleading with you not to do the very thing that you feel the Lord has called you to do. And so if you have ever had a hard, right thing that you've had to do while the people closest to you were pleading with you not to, then we already know exactly how Paul felt standing at a house in Caesarea. Because that's where this text is headed. Here's our big idea this morning as we dig in. Our big idea is this. It's kind of a mouthful, so I did not put it up on the screen, but here it is. The Spirit will not always lead you around suffering. Sometimes the Spirit leads you straight into it. And it is there that you should pray the freest words a Christian will ever pray. Thy will be done. Thy will be done. Not my will, Father, but your will be done. I'll say it one more time. Spirit will not always lead you around suffering. Sometimes he leads you straight into it. And it is there that you should pray the freest words that you could ever pray. Thy will be done. So, with that, there's three heart postures and movements we see in the text that I hope to impress upon you this morning. First, open your house. Second, don't mistake the cost for a closed door. And thirdly, pray the hardest prayer you've ever known. I'll pray and then let's dig in. Heavenly Father, we love you, we praise you, we thank you for this day. Lord, I thank you for bringing us here together to gather amongst your people, a family, a community of misfits and saints who are learning to follow the way of Jesus and push back darkness together. Lord, I pray that this morning you would write a new song on our hearts. I pray that this morning your word will become living and active and breathing to us, Lord, that we would see your Son Jesus clearly. Lord, I pray that you bond us more closely together as a church family, that you do a work that only you can do. Holy Spirit, you're welcome here. We love you, we praise you. It's in the mighty name of Jesus, I pray. And all God's people said, Amen. Amen. Hey, so first things first, before I dig in, there's one thing I forgot to do. Um, I wanted to, um, we have some friends that are watching online. That is Edgar and Kinzo and Ronica, and so I just wanted to say hello to you guys. And they're, yeah, let's give it up for the Edgar, Ronnie, and Kinzo. They're like right behind that wall in their house. Uh Ronnie's under the weather, but they're a part of our family. And so I just wanted to say hi to you guys. So, cool. Point number one, let's dig in. Open your home. Open your home. That'll make sense in a little bit as we dig in. Acts twenty-one, verses one through nine, read this. And when we had parted from them and set sail, we came by a straight course to Cause, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Peterra. And having found a ship crossing to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail. When we had come in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left, we sailed to Syria, and landed at Tyree, for there the ship was to unload its cargo, and having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days, and through the Spirit they were telling Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. When our days there were ended, we departed and went on our journey, and they all, with wives and children, accompanied us until we were outside the city, and kneeling down on the beach we prayed, and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home. When we had finished the voyage from Tyree, we arrived to Ptolemyas, and we greeted the brothers, and stayed with them for one day. On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the Evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with them. He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. So let's start just right off the rip in verse one with that first phrase that we see in this section of text. Because a lot of times our modern English translations, they can tend to soften the meaning of what the author Luke intended. What our Bible says, what mine that I read from the ESV said is parted from them. And that sounds like a simple departure, a simple goodbye, right? But the reality in the original Greek, it has this connotation of something being torn apart. In fact, the word that Luke uses, it's not just the word for leaving, it's the word that you would use for prying apart two things that don't want to come apart. They had to be pulled off of each other. And then right after that, like what we see is the itinerary. Caos, Rhodes, Paterra, a ship to Phoenicia, Cyprus on the left side, Tyree, Ptolemyus, Caesarea. And that's over 300 miles that are covered in just a few verses. And I think if we're honest with ourselves, like the first time reading through this, as we gloss over it, it can read like some travel receipts, right? Like, hey, this is a travel log of where Luke and Paul and their companions were traveling on their way to Jerusalem. So you might wonder, like, why is this in the Bible? Well, what Luke is doing, he's slowing the film down on purpose. Every port is another town on the road to Jerusalem. And he did the exact same thing in the gospel that he wrote in the book of Luke. Luke chapter 9, verse 51. He set his face to go to Jerusalem. And then chapter after chapter of Jesus walking slowly to Jerusalem, toward the city that would kill him. So Luke, he's it's as though he's telling Paul's story in the shape of Jesus' story. And he wants you to feel the road getting darker and darker under your feet as you travel this journey with Paul. And let's not neglect to notice verse 3 while we're here. They cite Cyprus and they pass it on the left. And Cyprus, if you remember all the way back towards the beginning of Paul's missionary journeys, Cyprus is where the first missionary journey began. Back in chapter 13 of Acts. Paul's whole ministry is like sliding by on the port side of the ship. He would have thought about that. He would have remembered, like, oh, I remember that first church we planted. Just sliding by in the boat. And here's what's really interesting as I studied the text this week. Here's what just like it's just pretty crazy. Every single stop that's mentioned has a church that's been planted there. Tyree, verse 4. We sought out the disciples and stayed there seven days. Ptolemias, verse 7, we greeted the brothers and sisters. That's showing that there is a church there. Caesarea, verse 8. We entered the house of Philip. Roughly 25 years after the resurrection, you could not land a boat anywhere on the coastline without hitting Christians, without hitting a body of followers of the way of Jesus. And now watch what those houses do to Paul. Because this was pointed out to me, and I can't shake it. If you go back to Acts chapter 8, verse 3, before the road to Damascus, here's what Saul of Tarsus did for a living. I'm gonna turn there and I'll read it to you guys because this is cool. Acts chapter 8, verse 3. But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Okay? He entered house after house, he dragged off men and women, and he committed them to prison. Now boom, we look at Acts chapter 21, and what's happening? He's being welcomed into house after house of Christians, of believers, of followers of the way of Jesus. He's being embraced by husbands and wives on a beach, and he is the one that's now on his way to prison. It's these same three things that we saw back in Acts chapter 8, but now they're flipped on their heads. It's a reversal, it's a divine reversal. Every one of those things turned inside out. And you might be saying, like, okay, that's cool, that's interesting, but why is that important? Well, it's important because that is what Jesus does to a man, and that is what Jesus does to a woman. That is what Jesus does to a person. You hear me? He does not just forgive you of your past. He does that, yes. But oftentimes, what I've seen is he takes the exact kind of shape of your worst years, he runs it back. He flips them on their head, he reverses those things. He uses what the enemy meant for evil for good. Then verse 8 hands us somebody we have not seen in 13 chapters. We we see Philip, Philip the evangelist. He's one of the seven from Acts chapter six, the man who preached Christ in Samaria and baptized an Ethiopian official on a desert road in Acts. And here he is, still in Caesarea, still called the evangelist. Roughly 20 years later, same city, no promotion, no platform, no brand, still doing his thing, still sharing the gospel, still sharing the good news. And what's crazy, Luke doesn't even stop to comment on this. Paul stood there holding the coats while Stephen was stoned. So Paul's persecution is the reason that Philip was ran out of Jerusalem. And now Paul's asleep in Philip's guest room. That is crazy. There's no speech made about it. Luke doesn't even flag it. There's no, I don't know about your Bible, there's no notes at the footnotes in my Bible about that. And what does that show us? Well, it shows us that with the early church, the impossible often became the ordinary. What seemed impossible became ordinary to the living God with the early church. And what I hope you see today is that the same should be true in our day and age. The impossible should be ordinary for the church of today, not just the church of Acts. Like we should believe for those things. We've seen the Lord do it time and time again. Wouldn't it be something to see that today?

unknown 23:27

Man.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Verse 9, we see four virgin daughters who prophesy. Luke mentions their youth and their gender on purpose because back on the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up and quoted the prophet Joel, your sons and your daughters will prophesy. That's what he said. And so it's not theoretic anymore, right? Here we're seeing it lived out. Four young women in a house in Caesarea prophesy. So in this book, in the book of Acts, the spirit being poured out is never like an abstract idea. No, the spirit's showing up in people's living rooms. So here's where I want us to land on with this first point. The Christian life, it's not a solo run towards some destiny. No, it's often a series of houses, a series of living rooms. Somebody's living room could be the reason you are still walking with Jesus today. And if I can just be real, somebody's living room is the reason this church is here today, right? This began in a living room, in a home where we broke bread, where we opened God's word, where we prayed together for a room full of people just like this. Three, four years ago, Chelsea, my buddy Garrison, his wife Sophia, and their son Uzziah were sitting in our living room praying for this. That's what happens. So my encouragement to us is we should open our homes. Open our homes to the road. Open our homes to those who are seemingly on the margins, who are those that may just be passing us by because they may not be willing to enter a church house, but I bet they walk into your living room. And like that's not like some sort of like abstract thought. Like I mean it as plainly as it sounds. Is your house on somebody's road? Do you know your neighbor? Who's sitting at your table? Who's eating at your table? Did you just move into a rent house and invite your neighbor to uh church already? Like, that's what we should be doing. We should be building relationships. Who's slept on your couch or in your basement guest room? Who's in your living room hitting their knees, praying with you? Somewhere out there is a person who's walking a hard stretch. And the thing that keeps them walking is gonna be a meal. Maybe a spare room. Maybe seven days with people who know their name, who they're known by. And hear this too. Especially if you're sitting here and you feel like, oh man, I'm invisible, I'm not seen, I'm not known. The most faithful person in this chapter, in Acts chapter 21, never gets a chapter of their own. Philip, the evangelist, just stayed put, kept telling people about King Jesus for 20 years. What I want you to hear today is that faithfulness, it does not look like a platform. Sometimes it looks like a living room, sometimes it looks like a guest room. So that's the road that we're seeing. Port after port, house after house, families kneeling in the sand, and Paul is taking all of it in while he sails toward a city that he has already been warned about twice. Now he's in the last house on that road before Jerusalem, several days in Caesarea, eating at Philip's table, sleeping under Philip's roof, and then a man walks through the door. Which brings us to point number two. Don't mistake the cost for a closed door. Don't mistake the cost for a closed door. Verses 10 and 12, 10, 11, and 12, the word reads, While we were staying for many days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea, 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. So we meet Agabus. Some of us may remember that name back in Acts chapter 11. He's the prophet who predicted the famine, which is what set the church at Antioch on the mission of collecting relief money for Judea. And 13 chapters later, we we see him again. And so the author Luke's assuming that we remember him, he doesn't simply say it what his prophecy is. Like he takes Paul's belt, the long sash that a man wore wrapped around his waist, and he ties up his hands and his feet with it in front of everybody. And I thought about getting Roman up here for an illustration with uh with his belt, hands and feet tied, but no, we're not doing that today. I think though, I think if like we were actually to do that, if somebody were to do this today, we'd think, wow, that's kind of like performative, right? But but that's not what this is. That's not what Agabus is doing. This is often what it looks like in biblical times to operate in prophetic ministry. The prophet Isaiah walked around stripped and barefoot for three years as a sign against Egypt. Jeremiah buried a linen belt in a rock crevice until it rotted, then dug it up and held it out. Jeremiah walked around wearing a wooden yoke on his own neck. Ezekiel laid on his side for months next to a brick that he carved into a model of a city under siege. Prophets, they did not just say the word. No, they made a picture that you could not get out of your head. And listen to how Agabiz introduces it. This is what the Holy Spirit says. The formula in the Old Testament was thus says the Lord. Thus says the Lord. And Agabus here he says it's about the Spirit. Thus says the Holy Spirit. And just as an aside, if you say, thus saith the Lord, you better be pretty darn sure that that's what the Lord said, right? So sit on that for a second. Like the Holy Spirit, it's not a move, it's not a feeling, it's not a vibe, he's not a feeling in the room when the lights go down. When the worship team's playing in just the right key. When the music swells as the drums are building. No, the Holy Spirit isn't that. The Holy Spirit is God. And he speaks in the first person. Now that the contents of the prophecy. Hold that sentence. Because Jesus said almost exactly the same thing about himself. Luke chapter 18, verse 32. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. So the author Luke is not being subtle anymore. And then we get to kind of the hard part of this text, and I don't think we should dodge it. Like, let's jump right in. Let's let's tackle it head on. Three times in this passage, the Spirit speaks about this trip. Verse 4, the disciples at Tyree through the Spirit tell Paul not to go to Jerusalem. Verse 9, Philip's daughters prophesy, and Luke doesn't tell us what they said, but they said something. Verse 11, we meet Agabus, and that's what he says. He has this visual prophecy that he gives. But remember, back in chapter 20, Paul says that he is going to Jerusalem bound by the Spirit. So which is it? Does the Spirit say go, or does the Spirit say don't? That's seemingly what it seems like the text is saying. But what I want to draw our attention to is that I don't think that's the take. I don't think that that's what the text says. Look carefully at what Agabus actually says. He does not say don't go. He doesn't say don't go. He says, what is going to happen? Don't go shows up in verse 12. When we heard this, both we and the local people pleaded with him not to go up to Jerusalem. It's not the Spirit saying don't go. It's his people that are with him in the house. It's his friends, his brothers, his sisters. So don't go is not the prophecy. That is the response to the prophecy. The spirit told them the truth about the cost. The people drew the conclusion. If this, then this. If you're gonna be bound and end up imprisoned and potentially dead, then don't go. Like it seems like pretty A plus B equals C, right? But that's often not how the Lord works. It's as though they understood and misunderstood at the same time. They heard God accurately about what was coming. They just assumed a warning is always an exit sign. And notice who is inside the word we in verse 12. It's Luke. It's the man writing this book. He loved Paul. He cried over Paul. And he, even he, got the application wrong of this prophecy. And he was honest enough to leave it in the book of Acts for us, with his own name in the sentence. And there's precedent for this. It's, I think, the biggest one there is. In Luke's own gospel, the Spirit comes down on Jesus at his baptism. And the very next thing that the same Spirit does is drive him out into the wilderness to be tempted for 40 days. The Spirit did not lead Jesus around temptation. He led him into it and then sustains him in the middle of it. So let's let's bring this all together with point two. Let's make it practical, guys. I think there's two kinds of people in this room. First, can I say that some of us have been calling wisdom what is actually fear? Maybe it's a hard conversation, maybe it's a step of obedience, maybe it's an amends that you owe somebody. Maybe it's a door that God has clearly opened that you're scared to walk through because you can see exactly what it's going to cost you. So you've quietly decided that the cost is God's way of saying no. So hear me when I say this. Do not mistake a closed door for a no because of the cost. Don't mistake the cost for a closed door. God telling us what it will cost us is not God saying no. Sometimes He tells you precisely so that you can walk in with your eyes open instead of getting blindsided. And second, some of us, maybe you're a person that has a word for somebody. I think it's like we need to hold that intention. We need to speak when the Lord says speak, but we also need to be careful. We need to hold it, hold the revelation with an open hand and our application with a looser one. This is why Paul writes, don't quench the spirit, don't despise prophecy, but test everything and hold on to what is good. We're not trying to shut the spirit up around here. We just don't hand our obedience over to somebody else's fear. We're not trying to manufacture a move of God's spirit. We want it to be authentic. So let's look at the room now in the book of Acts. You have a prophet on the floor with his hands bound and feet tied up in another man's belt. Philip and his daughters, the whole church at Caesarea, Luke himself, all of them pleading, all of them crying, all of them saying the same word. Don't go. So everybody in the room has now had their say. Everybody except for one man. And he has not opened his mouth this entire chapter. That man is Paul, and that brings us to point three. Point three, our final point. Pray the hardest prayer you know. Pray the hardest prayer you know. Verses 13 and 14, the text says, 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. And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, Let the will of the Lord be done. Let the will of the Lord be done. So Paul, he hadn't said one word up until this point in this passage. A dozen verses, other people talking, other people giving their opinions and their input. And then he says, What are you doing? Weeping and breaking my heart. And the word, this is that's not like a violent statement. It's not a violent statement. It's it's crushing to the people. It's heartbreaking. It can shatter like their hearts into pieces, right? Paul's not annoyed with them. He's not like, hey, shut up, Bernadette. It's a joke with Zach Oprah and I. It's my dog's name, by the way. I don't tell humans to shut up. That's not what Paul's saying, right? He's not saying shut up. Jordy, you missed a funny joke. So he's not annoyed with them. He's coming apart at the scenes. So whatever courage in this text, it's not the absence of feeling. He's not made of stone, he's not a robot, he's not rigid. He's a man who loves these people deeply. Standing in a room where everyone he loves is sobbing and telling him that he is about to ruin his life. But Paul says, For I am ready not only to be imprisoned, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. He's ready to die. That's harsh language. That's keeping it real. Pastor theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he puts it this way: When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. So maybe it's a dying of old self. Any Christian, it's a dying of old self. But in Paul's case, it's a physical death, too, that he's awaiting. And notice what he's ready to die for. It's not the mission statement, it's not the cause, it's not the relief offering that's in his sack. It's not his reputation, it's not his own personal ministry, it's not his influence. What he's ready to die for is what? It's the name. The name. The name of the Lord Jesus that Paul is ready to die for. That's the whole book of Acts in just a few words. The name. They were beaten for the name. They left the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. Ananias was told this man would carry the name. So Paul, he's not being brave just for the sake of being brave. He's not trying to look like a super Christian. No, there is a person that he loves, and that person has a name, and that person is worth it. So, in a sense, this is Paul's Garden of Gethsemane. And if that sounds like a stretch or something radical to say, remember who else got told not to go to Jerusalem? Peter pulled Jesus aside and said, Never, Lord. This will never happen to you. And Jesus said the hardest thing he'd ever said to a friend. Remember what he said to Peter? He said, Get behind me, Satan. That's harsh. For an example more, you know, closer to our era, still a ways away, though, there's a missionary that's name was Adonairam Judson. In 1810, Judson wrote a letter to the father of the woman that he wanted to marry. They wrote letters back then, they didn't send a text message. He's planning to go on this missionary journey, and he had this girl that he wanted to marry. So he's not asking for a blessing of marriage for a comfortable life. For the sake of Christ and of people who had never heard the name. They went to Burma. Judson buried two wives and multiple children in that soil. He spent not at the same time. These wives, one would die, and then he'd get remarried after that. What the point is, is that a lot of suffering came, a lot of death came, a lot of heartache came. Judson went on to spend 17 months in a prison, hung upside down by his feet at night, and he labored for years before he saw much of any fruit in his ministry. And late in his life, somebody asked him what the prospects were for the gospel in Burma. And this is what he said. As bright as the promises of God. As bright as the promises of God. Paul, in a later letter, I think it's 1 Corinthians, he said, all of God's promises are yes and amen in Christ Jesus. So Judson could say that because he knew the name. He knew the name of the one whose promises are yes and amen. So, back to the text as we land the plane. Everyone who loved the man, Paul, told him not to go. They were not wrong about the cost, but they were wrong about the conclusion. Verse 14, this is what I want us to carry out of here today and this week. Verse 14. And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, Let the will of the Lord be done. Let the will of the Lord be done. Six words argument is over. And look at what they reach for. That is the Lord's Prayer. Your will be done, God. Jesus taught them to pray that. And it's Gethsemane shaped. Not my will, but yours be done, Father. That's what Jesus prayed. Face down in the dirt, sweating drops of blood, while his friends slept a few feet away. So the church at Caesarea, everybody surrounding Paul in this moment, loses the argument. And then they pray the exact same prayer. That Jesus taught them to pray. And that Jesus prayed. That's not giving up, family. That is not giving up. That is the highest thing that they could have ever possibly done. And I think, if we're honest with ourselves in our heart of hearts, that that is the hardest prayer we could ever know. Not my will, but yours be done, Father. Not my will, but yours be done. It's not the safe prayer, is it? It's not, Lord, make it easy. Make my life easier. Lord, get me out of this. Lord, please let the answer be the one that I picked out. No. What those six words do is hand the outcome back to the Lord. It doesn't tell us the outcome, it hands the outcome back to the Lord. That's the prayer that costs something. And it's the only one in this passage that ends the standoff. Another Bonhoeffer quote. Bonhoeffer was a scholar, pastor, theologian in Germany during World War II. So he's walking into a Germany that would eventually hang him. He took as kind of like a watchword, a line out of 2 Chronicles. He said, We know not what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. We know not what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. And that's verse 14 in different language. So the verse doesn't say, this pastor doesn't say that they came around and that they agreed with Paul. It doesn't say that who Paul won the argument, or that somebody produced a better thought or verse, or that everybody felt peace about where Paul was heading. Verse 14 says he would not be persuaded because he was bound by the Spirit. And so they said, Let the will of the Lord be done. They're praying it anyway, even though they probably don't dis don't agree with him. Because in the end, there is a will over Paul's will and over their will, and they would rather have that than get their own way. And maybe that's a word for some of us today. Would we get the will of the Lord over our own personal will? Will we not be the example of self-will run riot in this house? Agabus said that the Jews would bind Paul, and that's exactly what happened. Jesus said the same thing about himself, and then it happened. He was bound, he was handed over. Paul's friends, they prayed, the Lord's will be done over him out loud in a room together. Jesus prayed it about himself, alone, in a garden, on his face, in the dark, while his friends slept through it. Paul said, I am ready to die for the name. Jesus died so that there would be a name. Paul, he went up to Jerusalem knowing that chains were waiting for him. Jesus, he went up to Jerusalem knowing that a cross was waiting for him. And why did Jesus do that? It wasn't for a mission. It wasn't so churches would be planted in a new place. It wasn't for the mission. It wasn't for an offering. No. Jesus went for you. Jesus went for you. Paul was bound so that the gospel could reach Rome. Jesus was bound so that you could be set free. So, Ashton, wherever you are, we didn't even talk about it. You want to do a fourth song?

unknown 48:20

Cool.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

Let's land the plan where we started. All those people who asked us, are we sure about church planting? They weren't our enemies. They were family. They were friends. They were brothers. They were sisters. And the reality is, most of what was said about the cost was and has been true. There is a cost to following God's calling. But what I told a group of young adults this weekend is that all the tough days, all the heartache, all the pain, all the trials, I would not change that for nothing. That's how I said it too. I said I wouldn't change it for nothing. It's bad English. But that's what I said. I wouldn't change it because the question was never whether it would cost us something. The question was whose will it was. And that is the thing about verse 14. The Lord's will be done is only a terrifying sentence if you do not know whose will it is. It is the will of the one who sets his own face towards Jerusalem for you. So two things that I want you to meditate on. The first Sunday of every month, we take communion. Two things I want you to meditate on as we take communion. If you follow Jesus, what is the thing that you already know he has asked of you? That you've been calling wisdom, and actually it's fear. Be it the conversation, be it the confession, be it the amends you need to make, the step you need to take, the obedience you keep pricing out and putting back on the shelf. Stop asking whether it will cost you something. It will. Following the Lord's will will cost you. Ask whose will it is. If it's the will of the Lord, step in. Do it afraid. And if you're here this morning and you've never trusted in King Jesus, I know that that word surrender, it sounds like losing. And the truth of that, though, is that it's not. When you surrender your life to Jesus, you'll be more free, you'll see more purpose, you will find life and the joy set before us in a new, fresh way beyond what you imagine. That's my story. That's the story of so many in here. So the invitation is to surrender. Turn from what you've been running to and trust the one who died for you. That's the invitation. It's open right now. I'm happy to pray with you.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

Thanks for listening. Join us Sundays at 10 30 a.m. in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City. Or find us anytime at the wakeac.church.