SPEAKER_01: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: Next Sunday, we're going to begin a few weeks in 2 Corinthians through the month of September.
SPEAKER_00: But today we're going to finish in Acts chapter 28.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, maybe many of you, remember radio personality Paul Harvey, who delivered his famous the rest of the story segment from about 1976 until he died in 2009.
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't become familiar with the rest of the story, just YouTube it and you'll become familiar very quickly and likely hooked on it.
SPEAKER_00: One of the most famous rest of the story bits was about Chicago publisher William Dixon Boyce.
SPEAKER_00: In late October of 1909, not 2009, 1909, William Boyce was in London for a business meeting, and he found himself lost in one of London's famous foggy days.
SPEAKER_00: As he was looking around him, trying to figure out through the fog where he was, a 12-year-old boy suddenly appeared in front of him holding an old lantern.
SPEAKER_00: That 12-year-old boy offered to help him find his destination, which he did.
SPEAKER_00: He went to his meeting, and when he came out of his meeting, William Boyce found the same 12-year-old boy waiting for him to lead him back to his place of lodging.
SPEAKER_00: William Boyce tried to give the young man a tip for helping him through the day, but the boy declined, saying that he was only doing a good thing because that is what scouts do.
SPEAKER_00: The rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, is that William Boyce returned home and founded the Boy Scouts of America.
SPEAKER_00: Paul Harvey had a unique ability to craft his stories around one unusual aspect that kept listeners hanging on until the very end.
SPEAKER_00: Some stories, from ancient times to modern times, don't have a clear ending.
SPEAKER_00: Some leave you hanging without any sense of closure.
SPEAKER_00: I hate those stories.
SPEAKER_00: Other open-ended stories don't leave the reader without an ending so much as they leave you in a place that you begin to imagine what the possible endings might be, even inviting you to consider your place in the story's ending.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of narrative written by my friend Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: Luke begins his account in the Gospel of Luke with the prophecy about the birth of John the Baptist, followed by the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But then Luke ties his story to the very beginning of creation by tracing Christ's genealogy all the way back to a man named Adam.
SPEAKER_00: Luke then takes his account from the beginning of time, tracing the fulfillment of God's promises in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Then, through firsthand historical accounts and other witnesses and his own personal experiences, Luke traces the Lord's work through the first three decades of the early church.
SPEAKER_00: He very intricately follows the fulfillment of the Lord's promise to bring Paul all the way from Judea to Rome so that he might testify of Jesus in the city of Rome.
SPEAKER_00: And the story ends with Paul doing just that for two years.
SPEAKER_00: He's proclaiming the gospel of King Jesus in Caesar's city.
SPEAKER_00: And the story ends with the good news of salvation and the forgiveness of sins brought to the center of the world at that time.
SPEAKER_00: But that's just the beginning, not the end.
SPEAKER_00: Luke's story is unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't exactly leave us hanging, but it does leave us imagining what Luke left unwritten.
SPEAKER_00: And he invites us to consider our place in the story's conclusion.
SPEAKER_00: When we think about Luke's ending in this way, we see that we become a part of God's unfinished story of building his kingdom through the witness of his people and the teaching of his word through the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Consider with me this morning four unfinished aspects of Luke's narrative before we see the full end of the story.
SPEAKER_00: First, we begin to see that the Apostle Paul's story is unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: Luke leaves us with Paul in verse 30 and 31 under house arrest for two years.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't exactly told why the Romans granted this kind of house arrest privilege to Paul, but it was very unusual.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's because Festus and Agrippa from Judea had sent positive recommendations with the soldiers that accompanied him.
SPEAKER_00: We really don't know.
SPEAKER_00: It's all speculation.
SPEAKER_00: We do know that there were some very depraved prisons in the city of Rome.
SPEAKER_00: They were terrible places.
SPEAKER_00: One of them was specifically what we might call death row.
SPEAKER_00: It was a place where prisoners were actually executed before they were taken out of the prison and thrown down a series of steps in the city of Rome and then tossed into the river Tiber.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul isn't in those prisons.
SPEAKER_00: He is confined.
SPEAKER_00: We do see that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why my phone is talking to me.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is confined.
SPEAKER_00: He's changed to a Roman soldier.
SPEAKER_00: Not two of them, which was standard, but one.
SPEAKER_00: He's changed to a Roman guard at all times.
SPEAKER_00: But being in a rented place enables him to have sort of a house church in his place of confinement.
SPEAKER_00: Luke tells us people came to him.
SPEAKER_00: All kinds of people came to him in verse 30.
SPEAKER_00: Probably indicating both Jews and Gentiles, Jews and non-Jews.
SPEAKER_00: They came to him and he welcomed all who came to him.
SPEAKER_00: But don't get the idea that this is a cozy setup.
SPEAKER_00: First, rent in Rome was hideously expensive.
SPEAKER_00: Probably comparable in modern times to rent of an apartment in Los Angeles or New York City.
SPEAKER_00: Most comparable estimates tell us that the dingiest shack in Rome, rented for four times the amount as elsewhere in Italy.
SPEAKER_00: Was not cheap.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's quarters were most likely not much better than a shack, unless he was allowed to be in the building of a wealthy patron from whom he rented a room.
SPEAKER_00: I say that because building codes were not very strict, and when they did exist, they were not followed.
SPEAKER_00: Many multi-story apartment complexes were constructed in flimsy ways, with each successive level shabbier than the one below it, so that the top level, instead of being the penthouse, was the cheapest and flimsiest and coldest or hottest place on the building.
SPEAKER_00: Dangers of fire and collapse were constant.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, many modern building codes had their origin in the ancient city of Rome because they learned by mistake.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul couldn't work as a prisoner.
SPEAKER_00: We're told that he was a tent maker, but he wouldn't have been allowed to have the tools of his trade.
SPEAKER_00: So he was dependent on others to support him.
SPEAKER_00: And then he used that financial support to pay the rent for what was probably a dingy one-floor apartment, maybe that he shared with others.
SPEAKER_00: He would have gathered with friends and people who came to hear him teach on the lowest level, which was open to everyone, and that was his situation for two years.
SPEAKER_00: But what comes after those two years?
SPEAKER_00: Luke doesn't tell us.
SPEAKER_00: This is likely around 60 AD.
SPEAKER_00: That means the two years of imprisonment takes us to around 62, maybe 63 at the latest, depending on when he arrived in Rome and when Luke's two years ends.
SPEAKER_00: Is it an exact two years?
SPEAKER_00: Is it an approximate?
SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
SPEAKER_00: And we also don't know precisely when Emperor Nero executed Paul.
SPEAKER_00: But we do know that Nero's anger at Christians and Jews didn't really begin until a massive fire broke out in Rome and burned most of the city in 64 A.D.
SPEAKER_00: So if Paul arrives in about 60 and he's in prison in his own house arrest for two years, until 62, but he's probably not executed until 64 or 65, what happens in those other two or three years?
SPEAKER_00: Luke seems to indicate that something happened at the conclusion of those two years mentioned in verse 30.
SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't say what it was.
SPEAKER_00: Two options are most likely.
SPEAKER_00: One is that Paul was either martyred at the end of those two years, and he didn't live any longer, or he was released from his house imprisonment for a short period of time.
SPEAKER_00: So some church traditions tell us that he was released, that he traveled to Spain, which is where he wanted to go after being in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: He returned back through the island of Crete and then came to Rome a second time, and it was then that he was arrested again and finally martyred.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know which of those two options it really is.
SPEAKER_00: Is church tradition correct?
SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
SPEAKER_00: It's an unfinished story.
SPEAKER_00: Luke doesn't want us to focus on what is left out of Paul's life story.
SPEAKER_00: He intentionally ends his account with Paul's life unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: This is not about Paul.
SPEAKER_00: We've been following Paul for many, many chapters.
SPEAKER_00: Very detailed instructions or conditions related to us, details about what happened to him, all kinds of situations that he went through and endured, but we don't have the end.
SPEAKER_00: That's to help us know this is not about Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, the significance of this story is found in the very last word.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, it's the very last word in your translation.
SPEAKER_00: Without hindrance or unhindered.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Paul proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus boldly and without hindrance.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel proclamation went out unhindered.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't meant to know the rest of Paul's story.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't meant to know what happened at the end of two years.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't meant to know if he went somewhere else or when he lost his life or even how he lost his life.
SPEAKER_00: The intention is that we see the fulfillment of Jesus' promise to take the good news of his death, burial, and resurrection and the proclamation of his kingship over his kingdom to the nations of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And Luke's story ends with Paul doing just that boldly and unhindered.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing standing in his way.
SPEAKER_00: He proclaims a new kingdom with a more glorious king in Caesar's backyard.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is Lord, not Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: Paul labors to turn people from hoping in Lord Caesar for their eternal Roman peace to the Lord Jesus for their eternal saving peace.
SPEAKER_00: Turning from the one who is there and will die shortly to the one who died and rose again to bring everlasting peace with God.
SPEAKER_00: Right under Caesar's nose.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul's story ends, but it's ongoing.
SPEAKER_00: And that is to represent the ongoing message of the great king of our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: It's also there to help us remember that message that we need to hear again and again and again.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about me.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about us.
SPEAKER_00: It's about the message of the great King of our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's story is unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not the only unfinished story.
SPEAKER_00: Israel's story is left unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul's pattern, as we've walked through the book of Acts, is that every place that he goes, he goes first to the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Most often, that meant he goes to a local synagogue, gathering with other Jewish people, where he has an opportunity to prove that Jesus is the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he has a favorable reception, most often he's chased out of town.
SPEAKER_00: But that's his pattern.
SPEAKER_00: It began in Acts chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: Not with Paul, but with Peter.
SPEAKER_00: In Acts chapter 3, beginning in verses 25 and 26, Peter explains to the Jews that were listening to him in Jerusalem that God's pattern began with Abraham, way back in the Old Testament, where God promised to bless all the families of the earth through Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: So Peter said that the fulfillment of that promise would begin in that time with the Jews, because he said God raised up his servant and sent him to you, the Jews, first.
SPEAKER_00: If your Bible begins Romans on the next page, you can look at Romans chapter 1 and verse 16, where the apostle Paul says he's not ashamed of the gospel because it's a power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
SPEAKER_00: And then he qualifies that.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul calls on the Jews first in Rome, even though he's the apostle to the Gentiles in the heart of the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: Because the privilege of first response of the gospel of Jesus Christ goes first to the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: Not because of some ethnic priority or privilege, but because of God's promise to work through them.
SPEAKER_00: And the Apostle Paul's pattern of going to the Jew first is part of that fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: Now when they come to him, Paul needs to explain his chains.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine, imagine calling a family meeting in your home and you're wearing shackles.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul has called a family meeting of all the Jews in the community, the Jewish leaders, and he's explaining why he's in chains.
SPEAKER_00: Those questions would be asked, and he's answering them, but it's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting to note that Paul's accusers aren't there.
SPEAKER_00: Now we've followed Paul.
SPEAKER_00: On the ships from Jerusalem to Sidon, to around Crete, to another boat, and through shipwreck on the open sea, to stranding on the island of Malta, and then now up to Rome.
SPEAKER_00: We've followed him all along that journey, but his accusers are not yet in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: And apparently they haven't arrived for two years.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Jewish people haven't heard anything.
SPEAKER_00: They've not heard anything about Paul, they've not heard anything about any evil that he's done.
SPEAKER_00: No correspondence about his case has reached the Jews in Rome from the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul has an open opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: But his message remains unchanged.
SPEAKER_00: His message is that he's in chains because of the hope of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: That hope we've learned before is hope of the resurrection of the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Hope initiated in Christ who rose from the dead as the kind of first fruits of that resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: He says, that's why I'm in chains.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in chains because I hope not in Caesar, who sits on the throne up on up on the hill.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in chains because I have hope in a man who rose from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: It's unchanged everywhere Paul goes.
SPEAKER_00: And that message remains unchanged today.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And Israel's hope is in Christ's resurrection from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Which they call a sect of Judaism.
SPEAKER_00: That's an important point because it shows us that three decades into the history of the church, it was still viewed, Christianity, the way of Christ, was still viewed as an offshoot, a segment of Judaism.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus was a Jew, and they're trying to say this is the fulfillment of all that God promised.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, the perspective within Judaism about Christianity and Christians was negative.
SPEAKER_00: They say, we haven't heard anything about you, Paul, but we've heard everything about you people.
SPEAKER_00: And it's all negative.
SPEAKER_00: We've not heard anything good.
SPEAKER_00: But maybe it's because these Roman Jews haven't had much experience with Christians that they're willing to give Paul a Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: He turned Christian, a hearing.
SPEAKER_00: And the next day they come with even greater numbers.
SPEAKER_00: You have to imagine this scene.
SPEAKER_00: When is the last time a prisoner in chains, that is, literally chained to a Roman soldier, had people coming begging to hear him.
SPEAKER_00: And they're filling up the lower level of this probably multi-story apartment complex.
SPEAKER_00: Wanting to hear what he believes.
SPEAKER_00: Captive audience listening to a captive.
SPEAKER_00: So he tells them, seeking to prove that Jesus is the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, it says, expounded the scriptures to them in verse 23 all day long.
SPEAKER_00: All day long they're sitting listening to Paul, going through his Old Testament, by memory, most likely, unless there was a synagogue there who was willing to bring a copy, a scroll of the Old Testament, the Torah, or any other part of the prophets, or the Psalms, the writings, and say, what show us.
SPEAKER_00: All day long he's expounding to them the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: That's a term that describes carefully explaining.
SPEAKER_00: Explaining what the scriptures say, explaining what they meant, and explaining how that is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And this exposition is coupled with a witness to the truth of Scripture and an effort to persuade them about Jesus from their Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, never lay aside your Old Testament because it's there that you find the first elements of God's statements about your Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the fulfillment of all the Jewish scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: And those early disciples and apostles sought to convince other Jews first of that truth before they went to Gentile, non-Jew people.
SPEAKER_00: We tend in our day to elevate the Apostle Paul as sort of that pinnacle of Christianity, the example that needs to be followed.
SPEAKER_00: He's the example of all examples right below Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But even though he was so well versed in Scripture, even though he could try to persuade people, this greatest of Christian evangelists still couldn't convince some of these Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: Some believed, we are told, verse 24, but others disbelieved.
SPEAKER_00: And Luke emphasizes those who didn't.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that some didn't believe caused Paul to see a fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy beginning in verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: And notice how he does it.
SPEAKER_00: This is the fullest quotation, by the way, of Isaiah chapter 6, verses 9 and 10 in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: We see snippets of it all throughout the book, but here it's in its entirety.
SPEAKER_00: Sort of to encapsulate everything that's been happening.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the Holy Spirit was right when he said, Now wait a minute, I thought God said that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Telling us the Holy Spirit spoke to Isaiah in the Old Testament about a situation in which people would not believe.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 26, go to this people and say, You will indeed hear.
SPEAKER_00: That is, you will have physical ears to hear, but you will never understand.
SPEAKER_00: You will indeed see, but never perceive.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that that is a statement of fact.
SPEAKER_00: It's a statement of condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: You've got ears to hear and eyes to see, but nothing ever comes of it.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 27 gives us the reasoning behind it, which comes from Isaiah 6, 9 and 10.
SPEAKER_00: For this people's heart has grown dull.
SPEAKER_00: And with their ears they can barely hear, and with their eyes they have 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: God told Isaiah to speak those words to the Jews of his day, around 650 BC.
SPEAKER_00: God said the people that he had called his own people had shut their eyes and their ears to anything of God.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, they could hear the prophets speak, they could see what God was doing, but there was no real comprehension going on.
SPEAKER_00: And under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul sees another applicable fulfillment in the Roman Jews of his day.
SPEAKER_00: It's both a condemnation and a judgment.
SPEAKER_00: It's God's word condemning the unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: You refuse to believe.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a judgment of hardening of their hearts to God's good news.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, that's a good time for us to hear the warning ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Because those who are blessed with a history of God's word, that is, you've grown up with it.
SPEAKER_00: It's been infused into you.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard it again and again and again.
SPEAKER_00: Those who are blessed with the history of God's word are held to a higher account of hearing, of believing, and of following it.
SPEAKER_00: For Paul, it signals another turning from the Jews in another city to the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: A people group whom he says will have open hearts and open ears.
SPEAKER_00: Now some think this is the end of God's work with ethnic Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Because the book of Acts ends with this sort of hideous gravity.
SPEAKER_00: You refuse to believe.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the end.
SPEAKER_00: It's even been used to support antisemitism.
SPEAKER_00: But we must not go that far.
SPEAKER_00: First, this is not the first time we've seen this reaction.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen it again and again and again in different cities of the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: It may be the pinnacle of Jewish rejection in the book of Acts, but it's only because we we see it now for the last time and the book ends.
SPEAKER_00: But Luke has been showing us this kind of rejection for some time, building to the end of his story.
SPEAKER_00: But we must also not go there because Paul himself shows us that this rejection in Rome by the Jewish people is not the end for ethnic Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Their story is unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: You just have to flip over a few pages to Romans chapter 11 to see that God is not done with ethnic Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He always has a remnant of Jewish people who are genuine believers.
SPEAKER_00: But he tells us in the book of Romans that a kind of partial hardening currently exists in large part over the Jewish people, while God brings in every Gentile person that he has chosen for his son.
SPEAKER_00: So the story of Israel, ethnic Israel, is not finished.
SPEAKER_00: It feels like it at the end of Acts, but it's not finished.
SPEAKER_00: What Luke is recorded here isn't the end of their story.
SPEAKER_00: It displays, rather, the current situation.
SPEAKER_00: Some believe, but many do not.
SPEAKER_00: But one day their story will be brought to completion when God saves every Jewish person alive at that time.
SPEAKER_00: But there is a third unfinished story that we see here, and that is the church's story.
SPEAKER_00: Believers already existed in Rome before Paul arrived as a prisoner.
SPEAKER_00: There were already Christians there.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them came out of Rome south along the path from Putioli north to Rome to greet him, to meet him before he got there.
SPEAKER_00: And the book of Romans, the letter to the Church of Rome, was written before Paul went on this journey to get to Rome.
SPEAKER_00: So there were already Christians there for some time.
SPEAKER_00: It's also clear that Paul seems to have continued to lead a kind of house church during his two years of imprisonment.
SPEAKER_00: He welcomed all, whether Jew or Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: That general Jewish rejection of Jesus then becomes the means for the gospel of God's salvation to expand its reach beyond the Jewish centers in each community to all of the people.
SPEAKER_00: The end of Paul's imprisonment is not the end of the story, because the church in Rome continued.
SPEAKER_00: The church continues to expand everywhere because Christ is still at work from his place in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We saw in Acts chapter 1 that it's about Jesus working.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's about Jesus, it's an unfinished story.
SPEAKER_00: The church's story is unfinished because he will continue that work until he returns in the same way that the disciples saw him go into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You can see that in Acts chapter 1, at the very beginning of this story, where Jesus is gathered together with his disciples, and it says that he was lifted up from them, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 1, verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: And while they were looking into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, Why are you looking up into heaven?
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus who was taken up from you will come in the same way as you saw him go.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, stop standing around.
SPEAKER_00: Get busy being a witness for Jesus until he returns in the same way.
SPEAKER_00: We also know that the church's story continues beyond Luke's ending of Acts because the letters that we know as the prison letters, prison epistles, were written during these next two years.
SPEAKER_00: That's Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon.
SPEAKER_00: Those were written during this time period while Paul's in prison.
SPEAKER_00: We know that the church's story continues because John's letters and the book of Revelation were written after the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: Acts doesn't complete the story of the church.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, it leaves it open-ended so that the story can keep on going because Jesus continues to work.
SPEAKER_00: And he continues to work because he has not returned.
SPEAKER_00: And it continues in much the same way.
SPEAKER_00: The good news of Christ the King is proclaimed everywhere so that the story can continue because Jesus keeps on working.
SPEAKER_00: The good news of Christ the King and forgiveness of sins in him is proclaimed by those who follow him.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, that means that we are testifiers of God's grace in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We become Paul in our time.
SPEAKER_00: Testifying of Christ, seeking to prove that He is the Messiah from the Scriptures, proclaiming the Scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: And some will receive that good news with joy and faith, others have ears to hear and do not believe.
SPEAKER_00: But keep on proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.
SPEAKER_00: But don't get the wrong idea.
SPEAKER_00: Without hindrance doesn't mean without opposition.
SPEAKER_00: Very likely that some of these Jewish leaders who didn't believe never came back.
SPEAKER_00: And we know from the rest of the book of Acts that as more and more people became Christians, the opposition to them increased.
SPEAKER_00: We also know that within at least three years of this point, the city of Rome burns, and Nero blames it on the Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean there isn't opposition when we say without hindrance.
SPEAKER_00: It means that above all Jesus will accomplish his purpose.
SPEAKER_00: It means that he is building his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: It means that he is taking it to the gates of hell, to the family of Caesars, of kings, of governors, of soldiers, of business people, of all sorts of people, from the smallest to the greatest.
SPEAKER_00: Families of all nations and all languages who will sing the praises of the true king, who will worship the king, who rose from the dead to fulfill his purposes and bring ultimate hope.
SPEAKER_00: The church's story is unfinished because the king has not yet returned.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, that means that our story is unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: Acts ends without wrapping up Paul's life.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't wrap up Luke's life.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't wrap up any of the people in the book of Acts' life.
SPEAKER_00: Luke likely wrote his narrative shortly before Paul's death.
SPEAKER_00: We can't be certain about that.
SPEAKER_00: But we can be certain that great persecutions were coming.
SPEAKER_00: The city of Jerusalem would be invaded by the Roman armies.
SPEAKER_00: And the glorious temple of Herod would be leveled.
SPEAKER_00: But the true temple would live on because Christ now dwells in his people.
SPEAKER_00: So much remained unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: We can piece together some of the details of what happened after Acts.
SPEAKER_00: But much of it is bits and pieces from church tradition handed down through the ages, and maybe some of it's true, maybe some of it's not.
SPEAKER_00: We can't be sure.
SPEAKER_00: Because you see, the story is supposed to remain unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: Your story is unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: My story is unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: And it's unfinished because our calling is to remain faithful, not to finish something.
SPEAKER_00: Only Christ will finish the work.
SPEAKER_00: Because he is the one in the book of Acts who is at work.
SPEAKER_00: He uses us, his people, to accomplish his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: So wherever we are, wherever he takes us, whatever we're called to endure, we are simply called to be faithful because Christ is at work.
SPEAKER_00: He fills us with his spirit to empower us to fulfill his purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And our story doesn't end in the middle.
SPEAKER_00: Your story doesn't even end when you die.
SPEAKER_00: Because you, as a follower of Christ, are a part of his story, and so your story doesn't end until his story is complete.
SPEAKER_00: Our story ends at the same place in the same time that Paul's story ends, that Luke's story ends, with the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to set all things right.
SPEAKER_00: Until then the story of salvation in Christ going to the world continues through us.
SPEAKER_00: The story will remain unfinished until the Lord Jesus returns.
SPEAKER_00: Until then, each one of us picks up where Paul and Luke and all the others who've gone before us left off.
SPEAKER_00: And others may pick up where we leave off.
SPEAKER_00: Which incidentally means that our story is not finished until the Lord Jesus comes back.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're all part of the same story.
SPEAKER_00: Let me demonstrate what that looks like from the pages of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Peter in Acts chapter 3, beginning in verse 19, told the people to repent and to turn back so that their sins would be blotted out, that times of refreshing would come from the presence of the Lord, and that he would send the Christ appointed for them, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.
SPEAKER_00: Never forget that it's the little words that sometimes matter the most.
SPEAKER_00: And that little word until helps us see the story is unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: And as we are part of Christ's story, our story is unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: Consider what Paul would later say to the church at Philippi, Philippians chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: He reminds them that their citizenship is not in the Roman Empire, not in a free city of the Empire, not of the United States of America or some other country in this world.
SPEAKER_00: Our citizenship for those who belong to Christ is in heaven because it's whose story?
SPEAKER_00: His story.
SPEAKER_00: From which we await Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body.
SPEAKER_00: From it we await.
SPEAKER_00: Until, as Colossians chapter 3 says, Christ, who is our life, appears.
SPEAKER_00: And we also will appear with him in glory.
SPEAKER_00: But don't miss that little word.
SPEAKER_00: Then you will appear with him.
SPEAKER_00: And then your story will be finished.
SPEAKER_00: Then my story will be finished.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Acts, if nothing else, shows us that Jesus Christ is at work building his kingdom, calling people to himself, using those people to accomplish his purpose, to bring others into his kingdom until he appears, and then our story will be finished because his story will be finished.
SPEAKER_00: So what do we do in the meantime?
SPEAKER_00: Glad you asked.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes to Titus.
SPEAKER_00: Bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we are to be doing.
SPEAKER_00: Waiting for the blessed hope.
SPEAKER_00: What is the blessed hope?
SPEAKER_00: The appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The one who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
SPEAKER_00: He trains us to live a certain way while we wait.
SPEAKER_00: Why are we waiting?
SPEAKER_00: The story is unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: So we see then that we are part of God's unfinished story of the building of his kingdom through the witness of his people and the teaching of his word through the power of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So it's good for us as we finish the book of Acts to remember what Paul would say to the Romans before he ever got there.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Whatever is written in former days is written for our instruction.
SPEAKER_00: So that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: By your Spirit, give us hope.
SPEAKER_00: Give us hope that we might live as you have called us to live in these last days before you return.
SPEAKER_00: Give us perseverance and endurance to keep our eyes focused on heaven looking for your return.
SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, we rest in your words that it is finished, even though it's, in a sense, unfinished.
SPEAKER_00: Give us endurance and hope to wait patiently and to endure.
SPEAKER_00: Fill us with your spirit in unique and wonderful and powerful ways to keep on proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ crucified, buried, and risen again, which is the hope of all people.
SPEAKER_00: Keep our eyes focused on you as we rest in the words at the end of your great book, where we say, even so come, Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_01: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.