SPEAKER_04: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard me say many times that Acts is far more than a history book.
SPEAKER_00: It is history.
SPEAKER_00: It's church history.
SPEAKER_00: It's our history, but it is far more than that.
SPEAKER_00: It tells us the story of the early church, but more than that, it tells us the story of Christ after the Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: The Gospels themselves are the biographies of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They show us that he is the God man who left behind the glory of God's unstained holy presence to enter his stained creation to redeem it from the dominion of sin and Satan.
SPEAKER_00: So the first testament of your Bible, that first part of the Bible, tells us how God started that work.
SPEAKER_00: He chose a particular people, the Jewish people, through whom he promised that he would send a redeemer for the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Gospels, as you know, recount that coming.
SPEAKER_00: They recount his life, his ministry, his death, his resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And then when we get to Acts chapter 1, all of a sudden that Redeemer King leaves.
SPEAKER_00: He ascends into heaven, where he will remain until he returns to gather his church to himself.
SPEAKER_00: But if we read and listen closely, we will see that Luke tells us the church is not left alone, is it?
SPEAKER_00: For Jesus promised and then fulfilled his promise to send his spirit to work in and through his people, to accomplish God's eternal purpose and plan.
SPEAKER_00: Now the book of Acts then is focused on one step in that plan.
SPEAKER_00: Think of that.
SPEAKER_00: All of the different little parts of the book of Acts are one big step.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it like this.
SPEAKER_00: You can imagine God the Father, as a grown man, adult, long legs, takes long steps.
SPEAKER_00: But his children have to take several little steps for each step that he takes.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Acts is one long step.
SPEAKER_00: But as that is worked out in life, in time and space, God's people take lots of little steps.
SPEAKER_00: If God is going to redeem his sin-cursed world, not just people, but the world, all of it, then that work has to expand beyond what happened in the first testament.
SPEAKER_00: It has to go from Israel to the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the Lord Jesus at the end of the book of Luke told the eleven disciples that it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations.
SPEAKER_00: Beginning from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Those 11 disciples with Jesus that day were the first witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: They are the witnesses with him at the beginning of the book of Acts, who then become 120 and then thousands of people who begin spreading across the face of the globe, taking the name of the Lord Jesus Christ as witnesses for repentance and the forgiveness of sins in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Those nations were represented at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, where people heard the good news of Jesus Christ from all over the globe.
SPEAKER_00: All the known world at that time.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Acts shows us how the gospel continued to expand in different regions.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul was arrested by Jesus Christ and called into apostleship, leading him to a life of suffering for Jesus in the cause of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: But that progress, that exciting progress, is about God's work.
SPEAKER_00: And as you trace God's work throughout the book of Acts, we continually see in expanding ways a foil.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what a foil is?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about that shiny stuff that comes out of a roll and you use it for baking and cooking.
SPEAKER_00: A foil is something that writers employ, it's a tool in narrative.
SPEAKER_00: So a foil is an aspect of a story that is set against something positive and good that a writer wants to highlight.
SPEAKER_00: So think of a bad guy in a story.
SPEAKER_00: A bad guy in a story is often used to highlight how great and good the good guy is.
SPEAKER_00: The bad guy is a foil.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's not necessarily a character, sometimes it's a situation or a circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: A foil is often negative or disturbing or confusing and often evil.
SPEAKER_00: And it highlights the positive elements of the story.
SPEAKER_00: In the book of Acts, especially beginning in chapter 21, through to the end of the book, very religious yet unbelieving Jews are the foil to God's work.
SPEAKER_00: They're the foil to God's work.
SPEAKER_00: You see, from here till the end of the book of Acts, Jewish unbelief gains strength and momentum in Luke's narrative.
SPEAKER_00: On the whole, their ears are closed to the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But that unbelief isn't Luke's point.
SPEAKER_00: He's not wanting to highlight the foil, he's wanting to highlight the greatness and the awesomeness and the fulfillment of God's purpose and plan to take the gospel to the ends of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And to show us how great and awesome that is, Luke employs a foil to show us a negative side that serves to highlight how powerful God's work is.
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean that the gospel isn't proclaimed to those who don't want to hear.
SPEAKER_00: From the very beginning, the gospel was proclaimed to everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Some were interested in hearing, others didn't want to hear at all.
SPEAKER_00: And so at the end of the book of Acts in Acts chapter 28, Paul issues a prophetic condemnation of that unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine saying this to your family.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Think about yourself saying this to your family.
SPEAKER_00: This is at the end of the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is speaking to Jewish people, specifically Jewish religious leaders.
SPEAKER_00: And after speaking to them, they're disagreeing about what Paul says, and they left Paul after he made this statement.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet, quote, Go to this people and say, You will indeed hear, but never understand.
SPEAKER_00: You will indeed see, but never perceive.
SPEAKER_00: For this people's heart has grown dull, and with ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they've closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the book of Acts, Paul is done with his ministry to the Jewish people because they have fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy about closed ears.
SPEAKER_00: Acts 21 is the first time that Luke tells us about this corporate, almost national refusal to hear the good news of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It takes place outdoors, on the steps of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to imagine what that looks like, imagine me preaching from the stairs on either side of the room here.
SPEAKER_00: Except the stairs are full of Roman soldiers gathered around Paul to protect him from the mob.
SPEAKER_00: And he asks for an opportunity to speak to them.
SPEAKER_00: A religious mob wants Paul dead.
SPEAKER_00: And he takes that opportunity not to run away, but to give an apology.
SPEAKER_00: Literally a defense.
SPEAKER_00: Our English word apology is from the Greek word meaning defense.
SPEAKER_00: He's defending himself before this mob.
SPEAKER_00: He tells his kinsmen that faith in Jesus is not some way-off, strange religion distinct from Judaism.
SPEAKER_00: That you can be a Christian and still be Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: He says God's program is to redeem people from all nations, not just the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what Luke showed us at the end of his book?
SPEAKER_00: Luke 24.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance and the forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed to all nations.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we're headed at the end of Luke.
SPEAKER_00: In the book of Acts, we begin to see that taking place, and the Jewish people want nothing of that kind of good news.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's the story of our text in very condensed form.
SPEAKER_00: But Luke structures this account to make us focus on Paul, not the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: The unbelieving Jews are in the background, they're the foil that serves to highlight the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_00: And because we know the end of the story, we know that the unbelieving Jews in Acts 21 and 22 mirror those Jews in the time of Isaiah who had ears to hear but did not hear.
SPEAKER_00: So as Paul is standing on the Jerusalem temple steps proclaiming the gospel to the mob, he is preaching to closed ears.
SPEAKER_00: Closed ears that belong to people who want him dead.
SPEAKER_00: Every faithful Christian will be in this situation sometime.
SPEAKER_00: If you are not in this place at some point in your life, then there is some element of your life that is not faithful.
SPEAKER_00: You will feel compelled to tell someone about the Lord Jesus Christ, and they will have no interest in hearing you at all.
SPEAKER_00: They may even be combative about it.
SPEAKER_00: They may disown you.
SPEAKER_00: So watching Paul gives us some insight into how to face similar situations today.
SPEAKER_00: So let's consider Paul's defense a little more closely.
SPEAKER_00: First, we see in chapter 21, beginning in verse 27 and following, that Paul, I'm sorry, 37 and following, that Paul was ready to make a defense to the people.
SPEAKER_00: As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the tribune, Can I say something to you?
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, he wants permission to speak.
SPEAKER_00: And in chapter 22, verse 1, he says, Brothers and fathers, hear the defense, the apology that I now make before you.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Listen, I'm on trial before you all, so let me make my defense.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you why I'm here, why I'm in the temple, what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00: You've accused me of doing wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Let me make a defense.
SPEAKER_00: What we find here in this section is that Paul was ready to defend who he was, first of all, before the Roman authorities.
SPEAKER_00: That he was one of the Sikari, the assassins, who had gathered together a fighting force to remove Rome from the realm of Judea and the Roman Empire and take back their country for the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, there was an Egyptian who gathered them together.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, Listen, I'm not a criminal.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a leader of the criminals.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, in verse 39, he says, he's an educated, cultural, cultured man.
SPEAKER_00: See, Romans tended to look, look down their noses at Jews, looked at them contemptuously.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul circumvents that by saying, Listen, I wasn't even born here.
SPEAKER_00: I was born in a different region.
SPEAKER_00: Not even in this city, not even in this region, but I was born in Cilicia and even in Cilicia, in Tarsus, a citizen of no obscure city.
SPEAKER_00: Tarsus was a big deal in the Roman Empire at this time in history.
SPEAKER_00: It was what was known as a free city in the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know exactly what it all entailed, but somehow, because of his birth in that city, Paul was born as a Roman citizen.
SPEAKER_00: Only a handful of people could be Roman citizens.
SPEAKER_00: A handful is many, many tens of thousands or across the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: You had to meet certain qualifications.
SPEAKER_00: Part of that may be that Paul was born in Tarsus.
SPEAKER_00: It may be that his father, being most likely a wealthy man, purchased his own citizenship, and then because he was a citizen, Paul became a citizen.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, Paul uses that to his advantage here in defending himself before the Roman authorities, saying, Listen, that's not me.
SPEAKER_00: Who you think I am, that isn't me.
SPEAKER_00: He was also ready to defend who he had been, not before the Romans this time, but before his accusers.
SPEAKER_00: He tells them, brothers and fathers, chapter 22, verse 1, hear the defense that I now make.
SPEAKER_00: And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, language there is the word dialect.
SPEAKER_00: So there's one of two possibilities here.
SPEAKER_00: One is that Paul is speaking to them in the Hebrew language, in which case he would most likely be addressing the Jewish leaders, because Hebrew was not the common language spoken by Jewish people at this point in time.
SPEAKER_00: The common language was Aramaic.
SPEAKER_00: So if he's speaking in Hebrew, he would be addressing the leaders who would have some knowledge of Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: If he's just speaking to a mob of temple goers, he's probably speaking in the Hebrew dialect, which was Aramaic at the time, which was the standard operating language among Jewish people in the region, general region of Palestine, all the way from Syria down to Egypt, they spoke Aramaic.
SPEAKER_00: That's probably what's going on here, which helps them know hey, he's one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how would that say he's one of us?
SPEAKER_00: Well, if Paul has just said, and anybody's heard him, that he's from Cilicia, he's from Tarsus, that makes him one of those Hellenized Jews, which means he's a Greek Jew.
SPEAKER_00: Sort of a misnomer.
SPEAKER_00: He's somebody, he's a Jewish person who's been born outside of Israel, and therefore he's been raised in a Greek culture and he speaks Greek.
SPEAKER_00: Most people, Jewish people who were raised Greek, couldn't speak Aramaic.
SPEAKER_00: But now here's Paul, who speaks Greek and Aramaic, and he understands Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: So he's telling them, I'm not an outsider.
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of you.
SPEAKER_00: He goes a step further.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm a strict Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: I was educated at the feet of Gamaliel, one of the greatest teachers in Israel's history.
SPEAKER_00: He's a zealous Jew, so zealous that he was a persecutor of the way.
SPEAKER_00: That was a phrase applied to Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: It was known as the way, the way of Jesus, the way of the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is defending himself first before Roman authorities, then before his accusers, saying, I'm not who you think I am.
SPEAKER_00: Now, most of us would be able to defend who we are, or maybe are not, in the way that Paul did before the authorities.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not that criminal.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a leader of criminals.
SPEAKER_00: But knowing who you were, past tense, before believing in Jesus, is a key to sharing the gospel with those who have closed ears.
SPEAKER_00: Paul identifies himself as a Jewish, strict Pharisee who persecuted Christians.
SPEAKER_00: That's all past.
SPEAKER_00: That's all opposed to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now, very few of God's people will have the kind of drastic life change that Paul did.
SPEAKER_00: Some will.
SPEAKER_00: Most Christians today are what we might call generational Christians.
SPEAKER_00: We tend to come from families with believers in them.
SPEAKER_00: And so many believers come to faith in Christ at a younger age.
SPEAKER_00: And if that's you, you have an incredible blessing because you didn't have much time in life for your life to become a runaway freight train to hell.
SPEAKER_00: You were spared much of the hardship that comes from living a life given to sin.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, though, have a clearer perspective of what your life was like before you trusted in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But either way, it's important to know who you were before you believed in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, let me tell you who you were.
SPEAKER_00: And if you have not come to faith in Jesus Christ, this is who you are.
SPEAKER_00: This is who the Bible says you are.
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us.
SPEAKER_00: You're a self-focused, prideful sinner.
SPEAKER_00: That's who you were, or that's who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's who we all are without Christ's transforming work.
SPEAKER_00: Paul knew this about himself.
SPEAKER_00: And he could describe how that worked itself out in his life.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he goes on to say that he was even ready to defend his own Jewish zeal.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Listen, I was educated at the feet of Gamaliel, according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, even as you all are this day.
SPEAKER_00: He's ready to defend who he was.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Listen, I know exactly what you're feeling.
SPEAKER_00: I know exactly what you're experiencing.
SPEAKER_00: I know exactly why you're angry with me.
SPEAKER_00: Because that was me.
SPEAKER_00: It's not anymore.
SPEAKER_00: That's not who I am.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul is ready to make a defense of who he is now contrasted with who he was.
SPEAKER_00: Can you make that defense?
SPEAKER_00: To give somebody an idea of the difference that has happened in your life because of who Christ is.
SPEAKER_00: Now, beginning in verse 3, we see a change, a shift here where Paul told how Christ arrested him.
SPEAKER_00: So he starts out, right, with telling how he was a zealous Jew.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I understand your zealousness this day.
SPEAKER_00: You are wanting to keep the temple pure, you are wanting to keep the law of Moses strictly.
SPEAKER_00: I get it, I understand that.
SPEAKER_00: And so he goes on to say that he was an indiscriminate purifier.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't matter who it was, he would go and arrest men and women, probably even children who were Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem to be beaten and imprisoned.
SPEAKER_00: Because you want to talk about zealousness for your faith?
SPEAKER_00: That's me.
SPEAKER_00: He persecuted people to the end.
SPEAKER_00: He could look back on his life and see how sin in the form of religious zeal drove him to more sin.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, we can all tell stories of how sin worked itself out in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Even if you came to faith as a child, if you think about it, you will be able to give examples of how sin was present and on display in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Sadly, in my life, it was by deceiving my parents.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't work very often, but I tried.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to obey.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted my life my way.
SPEAKER_00: I was right.
SPEAKER_00: That self-focused, sinful pride is in every single one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, by God's grace, not many of us were murderers like Paul.
SPEAKER_00: But sin is always at work in us before we come to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Paul told them that.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I get where you are.
SPEAKER_00: Preaching to closed ears is helpful if you identify with where they are.
SPEAKER_00: Paul also then told how Christ arrested him.
SPEAKER_00: He's on his way to Damascus, verse 6, verse 5 and verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: He's on his way to arrest believers.
SPEAKER_00: He journeyed toward Damascus to take those who were there and bring them in bonds.
SPEAKER_00: That means he's going to use ropes and chains to bind them up and haul them back to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: He's on his way to arrest Christ's disciples, but Jesus Christ arrested Paul before he ever arrived in Damascus.
SPEAKER_00: Every genuine conversion of a sinner is a dramatic thing.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard people say, I have a boring testimony.
SPEAKER_00: No, you don't.
SPEAKER_00: Every conversion story is dramatic and glorious.
SPEAKER_00: Now, few experience something as transforming as Paul's experience.
SPEAKER_00: But if you've believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, then you have been arrested by his grace to encounter him in a saving way.
SPEAKER_00: Can you express that?
SPEAKER_00: Can you express how Jesus arrested your heart, soul, and mind?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about the act of praying a prayer or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about what God did in your heart, soul, and mind to make you aware of your wretched sinfulness and how God then made you aware of his saving grace and what that awareness did to your heart, soul, and mind so that you reached out to Christ in faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna be like Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Not gonna be a blinding light in the sky that blinds you physically and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: But it's gonna be amazing grace.
SPEAKER_00: Like you, unlike me.
SPEAKER_00: You see, friends, we all have closed ears of one kind or another.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in another place that there's no one who seeks after God.
SPEAKER_00: No, not one.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want our happy place of self-focused pride and sinfulness to be exploded by God's holiness.
SPEAKER_00: So people with closed ears need to hear how others had closed ears, opened by the good news of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, if you have closed ears, let them be opened.
SPEAKER_00: Let them be opened to hear the good news of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection so that you might repent and receive the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: After Paul told how Christ arrested him, he told how Jesus identified himself.
SPEAKER_00: He says, A great light appeared that everybody with him also saw, and a voice spoke that others did not understand.
SPEAKER_00: Both the voice and the light are common signs of divine intervention in the ancient world.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8, Paul doesn't know who this is, and he says, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.
SPEAKER_00: Do you get what he's saying?
SPEAKER_00: Paul is on his way to Damascus to arrest followers of the way, and the people of the way are now identified with Jesus of Nazareth because Paul is persecuting the people of the way.
SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus says, You're persecuting me.
SPEAKER_00: If somebody is persecuting a disciple, a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, they are persecuting Jesus because Jesus is identified with his people.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I didn't understand what I was doing.
SPEAKER_00: In my unbelief, I was opposing Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now who's Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's from Nazareth.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but there's more.
SPEAKER_00: Paul now tells how the way, and therefore faith in Jesus, is faithful to the God of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: When he gets to Damascus, a law-abiding man, that is a Mosaic law-abiding man, a Jew who is faithful to his Jewish culture and Jewish faith, who has a good reputation among all the Jews in the community, became Christ's messenger to an arrested man.
SPEAKER_00: Healing the eyes of the blind, that is the apostle Paul, places Ananias in the legacy of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He functions as an Old Testament, now New Testament prophet who communicates God's word and God's will to Paul.
SPEAKER_00: And in case there's any doubt, Ananias clarifies what had happened to Paul.
SPEAKER_00: So this isn't just Paul's opinion.
SPEAKER_00: This is now a prophetic revelation of what has happened to Paul the apostle.
SPEAKER_00: He declares that Israel's God had appointed Paul to know his will and to see and hear him.
SPEAKER_00: Hope you get what that means.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, listen, I came to know the wretchedness of my own sin.
SPEAKER_00: And then I got introduced to Jesus of Nazareth.
SPEAKER_00: And this Jesus of Nazareth is the God of Israel, the God of the Old Testament who has marked me as his own.
SPEAKER_00: Notice how this happens.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is speaking to him in verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: Then if you look down at verse 14, Ananias says, The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the righteous one, and to hear a voice from his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the voice who speaks.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the righteous one who speaks to him, and the righteous one is the God of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Paul in an instant understands that the one he's been persecuting is Israel's God, whom they've been looking for forever.
SPEAKER_00: Why are those with closed ears so unhappy?
SPEAKER_00: Because they don't know, see, and hear Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Not an antagonist, not an arrestor.
SPEAKER_00: He was arrested to turn around and be a witness.
SPEAKER_00: How is it that God made you aware of the person of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about when you came to understand that Jesus isn't just a fun, interesting Sunday school story, but when you came to know that Jesus is the God man who came to die as a sacrifice that satisfies God's eternal wrath against my eternal rebellion, and in exchange for my faith and trust gives me forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Can you express that to someone whose ears are closed?
SPEAKER_00: In the last part of this section, Paul told how God's prophet, Ananias, led him, led Paul, to complete God's cleansing acts in him.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 16 says, Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Listen, Paul, you now know who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: Let's finish out this symbolic process of trusting in him, being baptized as an emblem, as a symbol of God's cleansing work in your life.
SPEAKER_00: To now go and direct your heart and worship to the proper place.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus of Nazareth, the God of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Everything's fine on the temple steps up till that point.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have even an indication of any commotion.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is told to rise and be baptized and wash away his sins, calling on his name, that is Jesus' name, the name of the righteous one of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And now from here, Paul leads them from himself to Christ's work.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I've been a faithful Jew.
SPEAKER_00: But even after my conversion, even after coming to faith in Christ, he is still a faithful Jew.
SPEAKER_00: He comes back to Jerusalem in verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: And what's he doing?
SPEAKER_00: He's praying in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: The apostle was arguing that believing in Christ doesn't necessarily change ethnic customs.
SPEAKER_00: In this case, it was just the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's prayers in the temple were now focused in the proper direction.
SPEAKER_00: We probably all know people who spent most of a lifetime in church, in Sunday school, worshiping, praying, learning, not really having a true awareness of who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And when that changes, everything changes.
SPEAKER_00: That's Paul.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I get it now.
SPEAKER_00: I see.
SPEAKER_00: I hear.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's praying in the temple also displayed to those antagonistic Jews that day that he wasn't interested in defiling the temple as they thought he did.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to honor it through proper worship of Israel's true God.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul now becomes obedient to Christ as the God of Judaism.
SPEAKER_00: Notice in verse 18 where he sees Jesus saying to him, Make haste, go quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Get out of Jerusalem, because they will not accept your testimony about me.
SPEAKER_00: Paul returns to Jerusalem after his Damascus trip.
SPEAKER_00: He was converted to Christ in Damascus.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's there, back in Jerusalem, that the Lord Jesus appears to him again, this time to save his life from antagonistic Jews.
SPEAKER_00: And to initiate Paul's service of taking the good news of Jesus beyond Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the reason, verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, you need to know this.
SPEAKER_00: They're not going to hear you.
SPEAKER_00: They're not going to listen to you.
SPEAKER_00: And they're not going to accept what you have to say.
SPEAKER_00: That made no sense to the Apostle Paul as a young believer.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone knew how much he hated Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone in Jerusalem by now had surely heard about how persistent and zealous he was of finding Christians and dragging them back and beating them and imprisoning them, men and women indiscriminately.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone, apparently, in Jerusalem had learned of his complicity in Stephen's murder.
SPEAKER_00: So why would they ever reject him?
SPEAKER_00: Why would they not listen to what he had to say?
SPEAKER_00: They would reject Paul because they also rejected their Lord and King, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, Paul could choose the familiar and become a quiet, closeted Christian living a life of seclusion, not talking about his faith.
SPEAKER_00: Or he could choose to obey Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That decision was made more difficult, I think, by a lack of response to Paul's objection.
SPEAKER_00: Did you see his objection?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19?
SPEAKER_00: But I said, Lord, they know who I am?
SPEAKER_00: They know what I've done.
SPEAKER_00: And there's no response from the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus did not respond to Paul's reasoning in verses 19 and 20.
SPEAKER_00: There was only a response of command.
SPEAKER_00: Go.
SPEAKER_00: Go, for I will send you away to the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's safe to say we all want reasons, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: It's much easier to obey when you have reasons and the reasons make sense.
SPEAKER_00: It's much much easier to follow the Lord's will when we understand it and all of the things line up and everything is logical and makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: If a legitimate reason exists for obedience, we can be more inclined to obey.
SPEAKER_00: But often God may not give us a reason.
SPEAKER_00: He may only give us the command.
SPEAKER_00: Go.
SPEAKER_00: Like Isaiah's response to Christ's question of who will go for us in Isaiah 6 to those with closed ears, Paul was to obey the command to leave those with closed ears and go to those with open ears and receptive hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Paul was to display what a proper response to Jesus looks like: faith, trust, and obedience.
SPEAKER_00: I like the way Steve Wellham has said this.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Given who Jesus is, Paul now knows this, he must be our glory.
SPEAKER_00: He must command our obedience.
SPEAKER_00: He must receive our complete trust and devotion.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's lots of good things in life to be concerned about.
SPEAKER_00: But none so central as knowing rightly our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm out of time.
SPEAKER_00: So let me summarize our last section where Paul is unafraid to suffer while making full use of the legal code.
SPEAKER_00: So we have really three components here: the Jewish antagonism, Paul's actual suffering and his Roman privilege.
SPEAKER_00: So first, Paul says in verse 21, Jesus said to me, Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: And notice it says, up to this word, singular, they listened to him.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't want to hear anything that Paul had to say about Gentiles, non-Jews.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember from our last study, their accusation to him, against him, is that he brought a Gentile into the temple, defiling it.
SPEAKER_00: So hearing that Jesus, the God of Israel, is now directing Paul to the Gentiles just blows their minds.
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, they want him dead.
SPEAKER_00: They're treating him as Jesus was treated.
SPEAKER_00: They want him dead just as they wished Jesus dead.
SPEAKER_00: And so the result is that Paul is suffering.
SPEAKER_00: He's bound and carried into the barracks and ordered to be flogged, to be whipped as a lowly criminal.
SPEAKER_00: He's treated as a criminal based on the outrage of others.
SPEAKER_00: Others are outraged at what he says, so he gets treated as a criminal.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, that's Not so outlandish and outrageous as it might feel.
SPEAKER_00: Just this week a European country passed through part of their legal system to make it a criminal act to preach the truth about sexuality in their country.
SPEAKER_00: It hasn't yet become law, it has one more step, but it looks like it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: The outrage of others will make it a criminal act to do so.
SPEAKER_00: That's not that unusual.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that unexpected.
SPEAKER_00: That's Paul.
SPEAKER_00: He's being treated as a criminal based on the outrage of others.
SPEAKER_00: And he's kept in bonds until the next day.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at verse 29, Paul was a Roman citizen, he bound him, verse 30.
SPEAKER_00: But on the next day, desiring to know the real reason why he's being accused, he unbound him.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is kept bound up as a prisoner that day, that night, until the next day.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul is also making full use of his Roman privilege.
SPEAKER_00: As a citizen by birth, he is protected from certain kinds of treatment, which means you can't flog, you can't whip a Roman citizen without a proper trial, a proper examination to make sure that he is doing things uncitizenlike.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, God may make use of all of the details in your life to fulfill his purpose in his world, to proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus, and to make you more like him.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord Jesus takes each one of us down a different kind of path in life.
SPEAKER_00: The path itself is going to vary from person to person to person.
SPEAKER_00: And the details will be different.
SPEAKER_00: All of Christ's people are going to face joys, sorrows, trials, sufferings of all kinds, pains that conform them more and more to Jesus Himself.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul's path was to go to the Gentiles, to the non-Jews.
SPEAKER_00: And that means God used to bring about, the means that God used to bring that about was the rejection of his own people.
SPEAKER_00: God used Paul's citizenship and his place of birth to protect him from flogging, to save his life at this moment.
SPEAKER_00: God used his ability to speak Aramaic to communicate the gospel to his own people.
SPEAKER_00: God used every single detail of Paul's life along the path that he had chosen for Paul.
SPEAKER_00: And his own people rejected the Lord Jesus and they rejected Paul.
SPEAKER_00: They had closed ears.
SPEAKER_00: Yet even in their rejection, Paul wanted them to hear.
SPEAKER_00: And he was ready to tell them of the hope that's found in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Our takeaway then is very obvious, I think.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, we must have ears to hear the good news of Christ that calls us to believe in him, to deny ourselves, to take up our cross and follow him.
SPEAKER_00: But that means we have to have eyes to see and ears to hear the glory and majesty of the exalted Christ that moves us to follow him and obey.
SPEAKER_00: And we must also then be ready to make a defense of how Christ arrested us so that we can lead others from our story to his work within the freedoms provided to us while enduring suffering as we follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to be confident in your work by your Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Enable us to persevere through the frustrations and the difficulties of those who don't want to listen.
SPEAKER_00: Give us boldness to stand firm for you as we set our hope fully on the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: As the ushers come forward with the elements for communion, I'd invite you, please remain seated.
SPEAKER_03: And as they come, if you've received the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, I'd invite you, all of you, to partake of the elements with us.
SPEAKER_03: But if you if your ears are still closed, let the elements pass by, okay?
SPEAKER_03: But as we sing a song, it'll be new to you.
SPEAKER_03: But we hope it helps you reflect and prepare to receive the elements.
SPEAKER_03: So let's sing.
SPEAKER_03: John chapter six, Jesus told the Jews about him, having just fed them, I am the bread of life.
SPEAKER_03: Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and ever believes in me shall never thirst.
SPEAKER_03: But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.
SPEAKER_03: For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
SPEAKER_03: For this is the will of my Father, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_03: That everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life.
SPEAKER_03: And I will raise him up on the last day.
SPEAKER_03: And so the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.
SPEAKER_03: They said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph?
SPEAKER_03: And Jesus responded by saying, Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
SPEAKER_03: I am the bread of life.
SPEAKER_03: Your fathers ate the man in the wilderness and they died.
SPEAKER_03: This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
SPEAKER_03: I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
SPEAKER_03: If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.
SPEAKER_03: And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my breadflesh.
SPEAKER_03: When many of his disciples heard it, they said, This is a hard saying.
SPEAKER_03: Who can hear it?
SPEAKER_03: But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, Do you take offense at this?
SPEAKER_03: Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
SPEAKER_03: It is the Spirit who gives life.
SPEAKER_03: The flesh is no help at all.
SPEAKER_03: And the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
SPEAKER_03: And after this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.
SPEAKER_03: So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well?
SPEAKER_03: You have the words of eternal life.
SPEAKER_03: And we have believed and we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.
SPEAKER_03: Paul later told the church in Corinth.
SPEAKER_03: But the same Jesus who preached to crowds and they walked away later on the night when he was betrayed, took bread.
SPEAKER_03: When he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.
SPEAKER_03: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_03: And that's why you're holding a little piece of bread right now.
SPEAKER_03: To remember that the true life that comes down from heaven is broken on a tree for your sins.
SPEAKER_03: That if you believe upon him, you might have eternal life.
SPEAKER_03: And so opening our hearts and our ears together to hear his words, take the bread in the same way.
SPEAKER_03: Paul continues to write that Jesus took the cup after supper.
SPEAKER_03: Saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
SPEAKER_03: Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_03: So that's why you hold a little cup right now.
SPEAKER_03: As a reminder of the blood of Jesus Christ that was poured out for your sake that you could be cleansed from sin.
SPEAKER_03: So again, opening your ears and your hearts to take the cup.
SPEAKER_03: Before Pastor Jason comes to lead us in prayer.
SPEAKER_03: I trust you all know the first verse of Amazing Grace.
SPEAKER_03: I don't have it for you.
SPEAKER_03: Would you sing it with me?
SPEAKER_03: Amazing grace.
SPEAKER_00: Bless the Lord, O my soul.
SPEAKER_00: And all that is within me.
SPEAKER_00: Bless his holy name.
SPEAKER_00: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
SPEAKER_00: And forgive us all your iniquity.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we your people are humbled before you.
SPEAKER_00: And you have crowned us with steadfast love and mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you work righteousness in ways that we cannot even begin to comprehend.
SPEAKER_00: You are merciful and gracious.
SPEAKER_00: You are slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
SPEAKER_00: You don't deal with us according to our sins, for we would all be perished and apart from you forever.
SPEAKER_00: You don't repay us according to our iniquities.
SPEAKER_00: We're remembered no more.
SPEAKER_00: For you have established your throne in the heavens, Lord Jesus, as the King of kings and the Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_00: And your kingdom rules over all.
SPEAKER_00: And we ask all creatures, his angels, his mighty ones who do his word, who obey the voice of his word, all hosts, all servants to bless the Lord with us.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, may you be honored and praised in all things forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_04: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_04: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.