When Doing Right Goes Wrong | Acts 21:15-36

Paul does everything right — he humbles himself and lays down his own freedom for the sake of unity in the church — and it still blows up in his face. He's dragged out of the temple by a mob that got the story wrong. In this message, Zach walks through Acts 21 and asks the question that cuts close: what right or preference are you holding onto that's quietly costing you a brother or sister? And when doing right still goes wrong, is God's plan still on track?

Scripture: Acts 21:15-36
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, a community of Liz and Saints in Kansas City, following the way of Jesus and pushing back our message together.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

All right. Good morning, everyone. Would you stand with me for the reading of God's word? Today we're going to be in Acts 21, 15 through 36. After these days we got ready and went up to Jerusalem, and some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us, bringing us to the house of Manassan of Cyprus, an early disciple with whom we should lodge. When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. On the following day, Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present. After greeting them, he related one by one of the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. And when they had heard it, they glorified God, and they said to him, You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law, and they have been told about you that each that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs. What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. Take these men and purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law. But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. Then Paul took the men, and the next day he purified himself with them, and went into the temple, giving notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled, and the offering presented for each one of them. When seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, seeing him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place. Moreover, he even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place. For they had previously seen Trophimus, the Ephesian, with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. Then all the city was stirred up, and the people ran together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut. And as they were seeking to kill him, the world the word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. He at once took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. And when they saw the tribune of the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. Then with a tribune came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. He inquired who he was and what he had done. Some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Amen, amen. Rocked it, Glenn. Um we also had a big young adult hang on Friday night. Um shout outs to Micaiah and Glenn for a running point on that. Give them up to them. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Well, it my name is Zach. We haven't gotten the uh privilege of meeting yet. I am uh the lead pastor here at the Way Church KC. And uh we uh are uh two and a half year old church plants, and we exist to follow the way of Jesus and push back darkness together, and that is the journey that the Lord has had us on, and um with that we get to do stuff like yesterday, like having the back to school outreach, like um having fellowship on Friday nights as young adults, and um just the Lord's doing some incredible things here, and um just so grateful to be a part of this journey. We have a lot of ground to cover, so I'm gonna jump right in. We are in a sermon series walking through the book of Acts. This series is entitled Living by the Spirit and Following the Way. Um, so we've been here in Acts over a year. Um we are now at Acts 21, 15 through 36. So if you have a Bible, you can open it up to Acts chapter 21. If you don't have a Bible, we'd love to give you one right outside of the sanctuary doors. Our Bibles for you to have, for you to keep, for you to underline, highlight, do all the things with. Um But where are we in the book of Acts? Where we're standing at the hinge of the book. We're standing at the hinge of Paul's missionary journeys. For twenty chapters, we have watched the gospel seemingly run. Remember, our thematic verse for this series is Acts chapter 1, verse 8, which reads, And you will be my, and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in all of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So that's essentially we've seen the text like running through these places Jerusalem, Samaria, Antioch, Cyprus, Galatia, Greece, and Ephesus. And so throughout, we've been like Paul's missionary journeys have taken us throughout this like ends of the earth section. And throughout Paul's missionary journeys, he's been free. He's been on the road, he's been planting church after church after church, and starting today, that sort of freedom, physical freedom that Paul has seemingly ends. Um, from this passage to the last verse of the book, Paul is a man in custody. The Sanhedrin, Felix, Festus, Agrippa, and finally Rome. He is in custody, he is bound. And remember, just uh two weeks ago and then last week, Paul was like uh compelled to go to Jerusalem, knowing that he would be bound, that he would be arrested and seemingly face death. And so, right here, Luke seemingly hits the brakes on the story. Luke slows way down because I think he wants us to watch something carefully. He wants us to see how the plan of God moves through hostility and not around it. Last week we ended with the hardest prayer that a Christian will ever have to pray. Let the will of the Lord be done. And after that, Paul's friends they wept, they begged him not to go to Jerusalem, and finally they surrendered him to God. This week, what we're gonna see is what that surrender looks like on its feet. Verse 15 after these days we got ready and went up to Jerusalem. So surrender didn't end their friendship, it packed its bags, it walked with Paul to Jerusalem and found a bed for them all to stay. And here's the tension I want us to feel this morning. I want you to feel this before we read a single verse throughout this sermon. In this passage, Paul does seemingly everything right. He's humble, he's generous, he submits to the leaders of the church, he he bends over backwards for brothers who doubt him, and it still ends up with a mob trying to beat him to death. So the question for us this morning is what do you do when faithfulness doesn't quote unquote work? Like, what do you do when you did it God's way and everything around you still fell apart? That is where this text is taking us this morning. Um there's three movements that we'll see in today's text. We'll see in verses 15 through 19, um, Paul and the brothers being welcomed. Then in verses 20 through 26, we'll see them being warned and Paul being willing. And then finally, verses 27 through 36, um, we'll see Paul being seized. So, to thematically give you guys a heading of where we're going, we see family, we see rumor, and then we see riot. So, question. Yes, yes. Have you ever walked into a room where the rumor mill got there before you? Anybody ever been there? Every day? You start, maybe it's you start the new job. You just got this awesome new job, you're so excited to start the new job, and on day one, somebody smiles and says, Hey, I know about you. I've heard about you. Or maybe it's you show up to the family gathering and you can feel it. To half the table, you're still the you from ten years ago. You ever been there? You're you're frozen in who you were before Christ, and maybe that's the lens that people view you through. Like how people perceive you has already been decided because of the rumor meal. A meal of rumors. Or somebody, maybe somebody like screenshots one sentence you said, strips out everything around it, all the context, and sends it to the group a group chat you're not in. And now 40 people have met a version of you that you wouldn't recognize on the street. You didn't get to introduce yourself. There's a story that's wearing your name that walked in before you. And that's exactly, I think, what is waiting for Paul in Jerusalem. That is exactly what is waiting for Paul in Jerusalem. Look at verse 21. We'll get there in a second. But it says, they have been told about you. They've been told about you. Thousands of people in the city have already met a Paul who does not exist. And before this chapter is over, one wrong assumption will set the whole entire city on fire. And so here's what I want us to see this morning. Here's our big idea. It is this faithfulness does not guarantee a fair hearing. Faithfulness does not guarantee a fair hearing. But no rumor, no mob, and no chain can stop the plan of God. Nothing can stop the plan of God. I'll pray and then let's dig in. Lord, we love you, we praise you, we thank you for gathering us here together today to sing songs of praise, to sing songs of worship, to dig deep into your word. Lord, I pray that you would prepare our hearts, prepare our minds, prepare our ears for what you have for us this morning, that you would do a work that only you can do, that you would set people free by the name of your son Jesus. Will we see the reality of your son Jesus' resurrection, Lord? 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 point number one this morning is this the kingdom runs on people who stay. The kingdom runs on people who stay. Verses 15 through 20, the first part of verse 20, it reads, After these days we got ready and went up to Jerusalem, and some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us, bringing us to the house of Nason of Cyprus, an early disciple with whom we should lodge. When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. On the following day, Paul went in with us to James, and all of the elders were present. After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, You see, brother, how many thousands that are among there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law. So that the journey it seemingly ends quietly. Verse 16 Some disciples from Caesarea bring Paul's team to the house of Nasin of Cyprus, an early disciple. So let's not read past that man, like we haven't heard his name mentioned before. And the author, Luke, he reaches for a specific word to describe this man. He says, an early disciple. An early disciple. So he's like, he's the old guard. He was likely following Jesus back towards the beginning, the Pentecost area, all the way back at the beginning of the books of Acts. Well, when the church was, you know, about like a thousand, a few thousand scared people in one city. That was roughly, depending on uh what scholar you're looking like, at probably about 25 years before this verse. That's 25 years of ordinary days of showing up and following the way of Jesus. There was nothing extraordinary about this man. There was no books of the Bible being written about him with his name on the title. And when he finally appears in Scripture, he gets one verse. One verse. And the verse says he's still there. Still there. He's following the way of Jesus still. And I think that if we're honest with ourselves, that might be one of the most countercultural things that we can read in this whole passage. Because we we live in a world where enthusiasm has as a shelf life. Maybe it's like a season or two. There's always a new obsession, a new aesthetic, a new trend, a new project, a new self that we're reinventing every quarter. And then we have the drawer full of things that we quit. You know, the old junk drawer at your house? Anybody got one of those? We got several at our house. Right? But like we just throw old trinkets and stuff in there. And I think that at times that's what we can do with like this newfangled trends or this new identity we're trying to reinvent. Like, no, that's not what the text is telling us. It's showing us this man, Nathan, walking faithfully, following the Lord Jesus year after year. Because starting something, it's kind of easy. There's enthusiasm, there's adrenaline, there's excitement, there's announcements, there's big unveilings. But nobody posts about year 17. You know, like even in church planting, we see this. Like everybody's celebrating their one-year birthday, and then uh year two, it's not as exciting. Year three, so on and so forth. Um the start is often exciting, and people can forget about that after a while. But what I want you to hear this morning is that the kingdom of God, it does not primarily run on launches. The kingdom of God runs on ordinary faithfulness day after day, year after year. The kingdom of God it runs on people like nascent. People who decided to follow Jesus a long time ago and then just kept doing it when nobody was watching and when nothing was new.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

That's really good.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Thank you, Lana. I think we can look at this for us as a church. We are two years old, two and a half years old, and so the the real question over us as a church family, as a newest church plan is not whether we can start. We've we've started. The real question is will we have long-term ordinary faithfulness in this community? Will we do the stuff like we did yesterday, where we're seeing relationships being built year after year, day after day, through the ordinary? Will we see that 10 years from now? That's my hope. Then we get to verses 17 through 19. The brothers, they receive Paul gladly. And the next day he goes to James and all the elders and related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. And notice two things. First, what he reports. He's not reporting his stats. He's not saying, hey, this is how many churches we planted, this is how many conversions we've seen. No, it's God's work that he's pointing to. He's saying, hey, look at what God has done. He's not saying, hey, I, Paul, did any of this. He's saying, no, God has done this in and through him and the people with him. God is the main actor throughout the book of Acts. And Paul, he's talking like he knows it. And second, I think it's important that we realize that he reports just in and of himself, that he has a report to give. You know, some people, you might, like so much of the New Testament is written by Paul, and we might be like, hey, you know, Paul doesn't need to report to anybody, but that is not the case. He submits to the leaders of the church. He's arguably the most faithful missionary alive. And he still sits down in front of the leaders of the Jerusalem church and gives an account. One by one, just like he did at the Jerusalem Council years before. So the apostle to the Gentiles is not some sort of maverick. He submits his mission to the family. So there's two questions for us. One, do you have a James and the elders in your life? Do you have a room where you actually report what God is doing in your life, the good, the bad, and the ugly? And where somebody would notice if you disappeared? My hope is that the answer is yes. And but if the answer is no, this is a place where you can find the person. You can find the person that knows you, the good, the bad, and the ugly, that secret that you don't want to tell anybody. Like this is a place where you can have that. Because I think that a faith that answers to no one is a faith that is in danger.

unknown 19:04

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

I believe this in my heart of hearts that a lone ranger is a dead ranger, right? Like, we need people around us. And if you don't agree with that, well, like, I'm sorry. I just think that the Bible spells out that we need people in our lives. Two, no, second thing, look at verse 20. When the elders hear the report, they glorify God. They glorified God. Grace was landing on people that they had never ever met in cities that they would never visit through methods that weren't theirs. And their reflex was worship, was glorifying God. So can you do that? When the Lord is moving from through in and through somebody that is not you, can you glorify the Lord for it? Can you glorify God for a work that he's doing in somebody else's life?

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Amen. Can you glorify the Lord for a work that he's doing in somebody else's ministry? Can you glorify the Lord for a work that he's doing in another church? My hope is that our answer is yes. And you have permission to check me on that because I don't want to ever be so self-focused that we're only glorifying the Lord for what he's doing here. No, like praise God for the back-to-school outreach he did across the city yesterday. So that's how Paul is welcomed back to Jerusalem, but right in the middle of the welcome, the elders clear their throats. They begin to speak because the family that received Paul is glad about him, and they're um, they've also heard the rumor, though. Which brings us to point number two. Lay down your rights in order to hold on to family. Lay down your rights in order to hold on to family. Go with me here, because it's going to make sense in a second. This isn't just like, hey, I'm now a robot. That's not what we're saying. No, we're going somewhere, I promise. Second part of verse 20. And they said to him, You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law. And they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs. What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. Take these men and purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law. But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. Then Paul took the men. And the next day he purified himself along with them and went into the temple, giving notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled, and the offering presented for each one of them. So there, Paul is welcomed, but the welcome, it comes with a warning. Verses 20 and 21, there are thousands of Jewish believers in Jerusalem. They're all zealous for the law, and they've been told about Paul. They've heard about him. There's the rumor, and it's false. Luke has spent chapters showing us the opposite. Anywhere in the book of Acts, and throughout Paul's three missionary journeys, have we seen Paul teach to forsake the law of Moses? No, we just simply haven't seen that in the book of Acts. And so the rumor is false. We read it. Paul, he circumcised Timothy back in Acts 16, verse 3. Paul took a vow himself in Acts chapter 18, verse 18. Paul is racing to Jerusalem to be there for Pentecost right now. So the rumor that tell that Paul tells Jews to abandon Moses simply does not exist. But thousands of believers think that about him. Thousands of Jewish believers think that about him, anyways. And so hear this. I think that at times part of following Jesus can look like being misrepresented before others. Is that fair to say? And sometimes, sometimes that misrepresentation, it can come from within the church. And that's what's happening to Paul. And so the elders they propose a plan, verses 23 and 24. Four men are completing a Nazarite vow, the number six kind, the one that ends with shaving your head and bringing offering to the temple. And these offerings, they were not cheap. For each man, a male lamb, a ewe lamb, a ram, plus grain, and drink offerings. And the elders say, pay their expenses, purify yourself, and walk into the temple with them. Show the city with your own body that the rumor is a lie. And Paul, the apostle of grace, like Paul's all about grace alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, like that's Paul, the man who wrote that no one is justified by works of the law says yes to doing these things. And he didn't need to do any of it, right? His conscience was free, it was clear, but he does it anyway. Because I think we could look at 1 Corinthians 9, 22, where when Paul says, I've become all things to all people that by all means I might save some. He's doing it for the one, because he wants to see the one saved. And uh scholar Patrick Shriner, he calls this compromise without sacrificing integrity. Compromise without sacrificing integrity. So Paul is not bending the gospel. Verse 25, it makes that clear. The elders reaffirm the letter that was sent to the Gentile believers in the Jerusalem Council. Gentiles, they don't have to become Jews. And Jews are never told to become Gentiles. Neither side of this newfound family gets to force the other one into its own mold. So, Paul, he's not surrendering truth. What he's surrendering by taking these vows is preference, is comfort, is money, and his rights. And why is he doing this? Well, it's to hold on to brothers who doubted him. And let's not rush past what he's actually doing in that temple. Because I think that we will not see Jesus in the text today if we do rush past this. Paul, he walks into the house of God and he picks up the tab for four men's purification. Lambs and rams that he did not owe, paid with tent maker money for men whose names we don't even know. So that they could stand clean before God. Now, where have we seen that before? Because the fact of the matter, what the gospel tells us, is that somebody walked into this world and did that for you. Except the bill for your purification before the Lord was not payable in lambs. No, it was paid by the blood of Jesus on the cross. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 14. For by a single offering, he, he being Jesus, has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. So every step of this passage, Paul is imitating a generosity that was first spent on him. And so are we. Whenever we lay something down for the family of God, we are imitating Christ. So here is the question for a church of misfits and saints. And I want you to actually answer this in your head and in your heart. What right, what preference or freedom are you gripping right now that is quietly costing you a brother or a sister? What preference? What right? What freedom are you holding on to or are you clinging on to that is quietly costing you a brother or sister? Is it the music you'd pick? Is it the way that church should feel? Is it what you think church should look like? Is it um whether we wear shoots and ties in church or, you know, like some jeans and a t-shirt? Like, what is the preference you're holding on to that's keeping you from unity within the body? D.A. Carson, theologian, pastor, he puts it this way: it's a longer quote, so listen hard. The church itself is not made up of natural friends, it is made up of natural enemies. What binds us together is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs, or anything else of that sort. Christians come together, not because they form a natural community, but because they have all been saved by Jesus Christ and owe him a common allegiance. In the light of this common allegiance, in light of the fact that they have all been loved by Jesus Himself, they commit themselves to doing what he says. And he commands them to love one another. In this light, they are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus' sake. A band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus' sake. It's not the first sentence I would use to think about the church. But I think it is biblical, and I think Carson is right. And I think that that's what's happening right here in the text. Paul is laying down his rights, he's paying the bill, and he walks into the temple to put a rumor to rest that's costing them unity in the church. And it almost worked. But it didn't. Point number three, Paul is seized for doing right and still inside God's plan. Paul is seized for doing right and still inside God's plan. Verses 27 through 36. When the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, seeing him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help. This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law in this place. Moreover, he even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place. For they had previously seen Trophimus, the Ephesian, with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. Then all the city was stirred up, and the people ran together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut. And as they were seeking to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. He at once took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. And when they saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. Then the tribune came up and arrested him, and ordered him to be bound with two chains. He inquired who he was and what he had done. Some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another, and as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks, and when he came to the steps he was actually carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the crowd. For the mob of the people followed, crying out, Away with him. It almost worked. The seven days of purification are nearly finished. And then verse 27. The whole it's an uproar. Everyone stirred up. They lay hands on Paul. They bind him, bound him. These are Jews from Asia in all likelihood. These are from Ephesus. Remember, Paul spent three years in Ephesus. And they spot Paul in the temple and they start screaming. This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law in this place. Where have we heard that exact charge before? Well, this is the exact charge that got Stephen killed. Acts chapter 6, verse 13. Against the law in this place was the charge brought against Stephen. Stephen was the man that was martyred, the first Christian martyr that was killed for being a Christian. And who was standing by watching? It was Paul, whose name was then Saul. He was approving of this execution. And now he's being charged with the same thing that this man Stephen had been. Twenty-five years later, the man who stood at Stephen's execution is standing where Stephen stood, absorbing Stephen's charges. And look at the evidence for the charge. Verse 29. For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. They supposed. That's it. That's the whole case. They saw Paul walking around town with a Gentile friend, and they filled in the rest. And we see an entire riot, a beating, we see two chains, not the rapper. And the last five chapters of the book of Acts all running along this assumption. So I think what we should learn is we better, we ought to be careful with what we do with this word suppose. Right? Assumptions in religious clothes, they have real teeth. We should taste the irony here. Luke, I think he certainly wants us to. Paul is accused of defiling the temple while he is standing inside of it in the middle of a purification ritual. The crowd is profane, they're shouting out him, at him, and the accused is the purified one. Do you see the irony? In verse 30, the whole city shakes, they drag Paul out, and at once the gates were shut. Let's mark that sentence, underline it in your Bible. It is the last time that the temple appears in the book of Acts. The doors slammed shut on Paul and on the message he carried. Verse 31 through 36, word reaches the Roman tribune in the Antonia fortress, overlooking the court, and he comes running down the steps with the soldiers. And Luke does something sly with his verbs. Says the mob seized Paul to kill him, and the tribute came up and took hold of him, arrested him, and saved his life. Two time, two different moments of Paul being seized, one meant for death, and one that God uses for rescue. He binds Paul with chains, and if that detail sounds familiar to us, it should, because it just last week it was Agabus' prophecy that is being fulfilled right here. And the violence is so wild that the soldiers physically carry Paul up these stairs over the crowd, and then verse 36, the crowd finds its voice and says, away with him. Away with him. And the author Luke has written that scream into his story once before. Same city, Jerusalem, another courtyard, another innocent man who had done everything right, standing before a mob that had already decided who he was. And the crowd roared identical words to this. Away with this man. Look at Luke chapter 23, verse 18. I'll read it over you guys. So this is Pilate delivering Jesus to be crucified, verse 18, but they all cried out together, Away with this man and release to us Barabbas. Paul, when he heard that cry coming out, he's likely hearing an echo. He's not off of the path, he's on it, right? When you're accused of the same thing as Jesus, when people are saying the same things that they said to Jesus to you, that might be a sign that you're on the right path. That you're walking the exact road that the Lord first walked. That you are, in fact, following the way of Jesus. That's what we see here. So if you're being defined right now by a false version of yourself, doing right does not exempt you from being read wrong. It didn't for Paul and it didn't for Jesus. There was a missionary author named Elizabeth Elliot. Here's what she said. God will not protect you from anything that will make you more like Jesus. God will not protect you from anything that will make you more like Jesus. Now there's like layers we could go there. We can flesh out the theology of that later, but like I think on the surface there's truth to that. Like, God is refining us, making us more and more like Jesus. And so with Paul here in Acts 21, notice what the riot could not do. God's plans couldn't be thwarted. God's plans didn't wobble for one second of it. Ashton, you can come up and begin to close us in worship. The chains were promised, right? We looking back the past two weeks, we've seen the chains being foreseen. The chains were the very thing that God saw was coming. And next week, watch what happens. The fortress steps, they become a pulpit. And Paul preaches to the mob that just tried to kill him. Spoiler alert. The thing that looks like the end of his ministry becomes the platform for it. And not just that, the Lord's taking him somewhere even more radical. To Rome. Rome's chains will carry the gospel all the way to Rome. It's the verse that we see in Genesis, what the enemy meant for evil, God will use for good. So Paul, he's in chains, the crowd is screaming, the gates are shut, and if that's where the story ended, it would be a tragedy. But you already know that that's not where the story ended. We still got seven more chapters. So for us, what about you? What about you? In the room, where the rumor beat you there. How are you gonna carry yourself? I keep thinking about verse 30 as I was preparing this message. At once, the gates were shut. At once the gates were shut. They slammed those doors to protect the holy place from a man that they had already decided was unclean. And what was it based on? It was based on an assumption. An assumption. And Luke, he very deliberately never shows us those doors again. But the author Luke knows something that the mob does not. And so do you. About 25 years earlier, just outside those same walls, at the moment that another innocent man died under the same scream, the curtain of the temple was torn in two. In the Gospel of Matthew, we we see that it's torn in two from top to bottom. So man shuts gates against people that he has decided about. But God, he tears curtains open. The book of Hebrews says that Jesus suffered outside of the gate, that he was thrown out like Paul, that he was thrown out like the unclean, so that he could open for us a new and living way. Every single gate that man shut, Jesus' body opened. So here's the invitation for us as we close in worship. And I think it's got like two figurative doors of their own. To the person here who feels like the misread believer, the one who the rumor mill got out ahead of you. Well, I think that you can stop litigating your reputation. Your Lord, Jesus, was misread all the way to death, and he was vindicated in his resurrection. And yours can wait for the very same court. Because there will be a day when Jesus Christ returns and makes all things new. So, church family, I encourage you to walk in the pattern of Paul and in the pattern of our Lord Jesus, to absorb the cost, to keep doing right, and to trust the plan that is never once wobbled. God's plan ain't never gonna wobble. It's pretty cool, isn't it, Jesse? And so the one whose past always arrives before they do, the one who is so tired of walking into rooms where a story wearing your name got there first. Hear this. Jesus does not know the rumor version of you. Jesus doesn't know the version of you that you can find on the uh criminal database online or whatever. Like, no, he he knows the real version of you, the actual record, the the version of you that's worse than those records actually are. And he's always known it. And he stood under the crowds, away with him, so that the Father would say over you, welcome home. Welcome home. No supposing, no secondhand pieces, known fully, loved fully, grace and mercy, and welcomes gladly into the family of God. So as Ashton closes us in worship, let's worship like people who know that reality to be true. And if you've never put your trust in the Lord Jesus, this morning is the day you can do that. Um, as always, I'm down here to pray with you, to talk about Jesus, to explain what his life, death, and resurrection did for you. He's not waiting for you to fix the story first. He's ready to welcome you just as you are today. So I'll pray in the national closes in worship. Lord, we love you. We praise you, we thank you for what you're doing in this house. Would you continue to move in, through, and among us, Lord? Jesus, you're so, so good. We love you and we praise you. It's in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Amen.

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