Acts 28: The Unfinished Ending

We sit with the abrupt ending of Acts 28 and trace how Paul’s house arrest in Rome becomes a launchpad for bold, everyday gospel witness. We challenge ourselves to refuse antisemitism, refuse wasted waiting, and live like Acts is still being written through the church today. 
• Paul’s arrival in Rome after shipwreck and delay 
• House arrest as an unexpected mission field 
• The repeated Acts pattern of preaching to Jews then Gentiles 
• Why Luke emphasizes Jewish evangelism in the ending 
• Isaiah’s warning about hardened hearts and spiritual hearing 
• Paul’s ongoing hope for Israel in Romans 9–11 
• Guarding our hearts against antisemitism in the church 
• Reading the Old Testament as a unified story pointing to Jesus 
• “Don’t waste the waiting” as a practical spiritual discipline 
• Personal responsibility to share the gospel in everyday places 
• Post-Christian culture and why younger generations are still open 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Acts chapter 28. Boy, this was this was tough in multiple ways. Tara will tell you, I don't like the ending of something. I've not finished the last season of The Office because I don't like the endings of things. I've watched several episodes of the last season, but I've not watched like the last

Why Endings Feel Hard

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five. I won't do it. Won't do it. Oftentimes I read Lord of the Rings or I listen to Lord of the Rings once a year. Oftentimes I won't finish it. I'll get to the very last couple of chapters and I'll be like, I know what happens, but I won't finish it. And in a similar way for Acts here, I'm not necessarily excited about finishing the book of Acts. First of all, it is my favorite book of the Bible. It is. That in Proverbs, my favorite book of the Bible, okay? And so I don't want to leave it. Um, but but I am. But also, this was not an easy thing to preach on. But Paul has been sent to Rome. He has survived a shipwreck, and now after spending the winter on Malta for about three months, they start their last leg of the journey to Rome. And this last section, which we're not going to read all of it, but a good chunk of it. But this last section is very condensed. We missed the three months on Malta. We miss a lot of the details

Paul’s Final Road To Rome

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that we might have in other places of Acts during his final stops when he goes to Rome. We miss some of the details as he's walking from the port to Rome, because this is a journey that takes a couple of weeks, and we don't know anything about it except for a few little details. And we don't know why it's condensed. We don't know why we're missing so many details. We have guesses, and we'll talk about that a little later, but it is condensed. But right before they reach the city of Rome proper, he meets a few fellow Christians along the way. This encourages him, and uh the the word spreads that Paul is there. This is just a little side note. We already know that there are Christians in Rome. We've seen it earlier in Acts, and we've seen it in some of Paul's letters where he talks about he wants to go see the church in Rome. I just think it's interesting in my mind to know that while Paul is held in high regard and in high esteem, along with Peter and others in the New Testament, clearly there were others unnamed who were doing the work of the gospel. And that's just encouraging to me. It's not about a name in a book. It's not about being famous. It's not about having a name for yourself or getting personal glory for yourself. I'm not saying that Paul was after that. It's just how God ordained it. But clearly, people were doing the work of the gospel, even though they are never mentioned in the book. That's just encouraging to me. Normalcy produced growth. Everyday people doing the right thing produced growth. That's how the church got to Rome. Now, when they did get into Rome, Paul's allowed to stay by himself in his own home under house arrest, which I think is interesting. He has one guard with him at all times. That guard would have been chained to his wrist at all times. And throughout the day, somebody would come and they would rotate through 24 hours a day. It'd be a long chain, but it would be a chain nonetheless. And I think it's interesting because we see it in Philippians that it's

House Arrest And A Chained Audience

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no wonder why Christianity, Jesus, becomes a talking point among the palace guards because they're spending so much time with this guy. It's common sense. It's going to make an impression, I guess, if you're with this guy, Paul, who's talking about Jesus all the time. And then we see in Philippians, which is written during this time, that apparently people were talking about it even in the uh palace guard. After three days in Rome, he gathered some of the Jewish people to talk to them, and he sort of recounts to them briefly how he arrived from Jerusalem to this point. And that's where we pick up our scripture today, Acts chapter 28, verses 20 through 31. For this reason, therefore, I have asked to see you and speak with you, since it's because of the hope of Israel that I'm wearing this chain. And they said to him, again, just a mental image of Paul's preaching, and he's got a dude chain to him, who just has to be there. Just has to be there listening to all this happen. Um, that guy probably has some really good stories from this time. Anyways, we have uh uh and they said to him, We have received no letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has reported or spoken any evil about you, but we desire to hear from you what your views are, for with regard to the sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against. When they had appointed a day for him, they came to him as a lodging in greater numbers. From morning till evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus, both from the law of Moses and the prophets. And some were convinced by what he said, but others disbelieved. And disagreeing among themselves, they departed after Paul had made one statement. The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through the prophet Isaiah, Go to this people and say, You will indeed hear, but never understand, you will indeed see, but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and turn, and I would heal them. Therefore, let it be known to you, this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles. They will listen. He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. What we have here is a common pattern that we see all throughout the book of Acts. Paul arrives to a place, and the first place he goes is to the Jewish community. He wants to talk to them. He is Jewish, and so that's the most natural funnel for basically his gospel message is to go to the people who would, well, who should have understood best

The Acts Pattern And Needed Context

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what he was talking about. There is some acceptance, and oftentimes there is plenty of rejection. And then from that point of rejection, he often moves on to the Gentiles who seem willing to listen, even though they don't fully comprehend the history of the salvation story. Of course, we see that he quotes this relevant prophecy in the scripture. We'll touch on that in just a second. But I got several contextual notes. Everybody say context. Scriptures, it's not useless without context, but if we're talking about studying scripture, it is useless without context because people can make scriptures say all sorts of things when they unground it from the surrounding structure. Um the Jewish people here may have just been allowed back into Rome. We know earlier in the book of Acts that the Jewish people were kicked out of Rome for several reasons, some of it having to do with Christianity, and because Christians and Jewish people were often thought of as the same group of people, just slightly different beliefs, the whole group were kicked out. Um, that being said, uh, that's how Paul meets Aquila and Priscilla. If you recall correctly, he meets Aquila and Priscilla in Greece. They had just left Rome. This is several years later. The Jewish people have been let back in, but that might explain why they don't necessarily have any details about this Christian sect, right? They seem a little ill-informed about what's going on. It's probably because they were going back and forth for a while, and it's sort of like ships passing in the night. You sort of see them and you wave and you move on. You don't know anything about them. Um, Paul seems to have great success with the Gentiles in Rome. And in fact, Acts doesn't dwell on the fact that the Jewish people seem to fail to hear the good news once again. That's where Luke spends most of his time, but it doesn't stop there. It stops on the fact that the gospel was shared with the Gentile people with some success. Even with a relatively comfortable imprisonment like this, right? He's under house arrest, he's in a place, his own space, he has relative freedom. People could come see him. I'm sure it was still a trying time for him. It's two years. Two years he's stuck here. And keep in mind, he wanted to come to Rome, but I'm sure in his mind it probably looked a little different.

Don’t Waste The Waiting Years

SPEAKER_00 8:01

And to be sure, he still talked about wanting to go to Spain. And maybe he would. We'll talk about that in a second. But here we are, but he's not wasting time during this time, and this is a sermon for itself, and we've touched on this before during other imprisonments of Paul. He doesn't waste the waiting time. He doesn't stop doing what he's called to do just because he's not being able to do what he thought he was going to do. Right? He wants to do this, but this is what he's doing, and during this time he's ministering. And also it seems like he writes several of what's called the prison letters: Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philomen. Tradition tells us, and there's some small hints of this in Scripture itself, that Paul was released for a time from this imprisonment.

unknown 8:45

Right?

SPEAKER_00 8:45

He's arrested for two years in Rome, and then it sort of seems from some of his other writings and some other people who are supposedly disciples of Paul, that he's released for a time and he ministers. Maybe he goes, he might even make it to Spain, but eventually he is brought back. He's brought back to this place. But he doesn't waste that time either. From that imprisonment, we have written the pastoral epistles. Never waste the waiting. Don't waste the waiting. We all have goals and plans. We all have ideas of what we want in the future. We all have things that we're working for. And I'm talking practically here as well as spiritually. Don't waste the waiting. Don't don't there's never wasted moments with God. You can be productive right now, even though you're not where you think you should be. Be productive. Paul is always productive. One final technical note, and we'll jump into the meat of the sermon today. Acts is dated to around the mid-60s, around 65 A.D. So roughly about 30 years after the resurrection of Jesus. It's one of the earliest circulating books that we that we have. It's one of the earliest books that we can we can date. And yet Paul is killed, supposedly around 64 to 67 A.D. This sort of explains why it might seem a little condensed at the end. Right? Just from a practical standpoint, if you're a Luke and you're church leaders and you hear and you see and you experience that that Paul has been crucified, it might inspire you to sort of cap off what you're writing to get that work out there so that it unifies people. Because it's going to be a little stunning to hear that someone like Paul has been killed in Rome. He's been martyred in Rome. So that sort of to me lends us to, I don't know, it sort of points to the fact that this is condensed for a reason. It's not an accident. There's practical reasons for this that the Holy Spirit leads Luke to do. What to conclude about this conclusion? Because ultimately Acts 28 is the conclusion of basically our only history of the very early church. So what's here? Well, let's start with the hard thing that shouldn't be the hard thing, but because of the day and age that we live in, it is a hard thing. One of the different things Paul did after arriving in Rome, and one of the things that Luke spent the most time focusing on is recounting his witness to the Jewish people. Verses 17 through 29 is all about his witness to the Jewish people. It is the largest trunk, chunk of chapter 28. Luke doesn't

Jewish Evangelism And Guarding Our Hearts

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mention the witness to the guards, the palace guards, right? Obviously, he does because in Philippians we see them talk about it. We see Paul talk about it, but Luke doesn't record it. The Gentile, Luke, because Luke is a Gentile, by the way, he seems to have chosen and been led by the Holy Spirit at the closing of this book to report on Jewish evangelism because it was important to him, and it was important to all the rest of the book. While Paul certainly gave up on individual Jewish people and groups in his ministry when they became obstinate, he never gave up on the Jewish people as a whole. Matter of fact, he lived with a constant ink in his heart. But Paul never gave up on the Jewish people. Romans chapter 9, verses 1 through 3 shows us that he has this ache in his heart for his people, and he keeps trying to do what he could to bring them to Christ. And in this scripture, Paul uses a familiar text. It's Isaiah 6, verses 9 through 10 that we read earlier to explain this resistance to the gospel that the Jewish people have. And we also see Jesus touched on this hardening of the heart whenever he's teaching in the Gospels. In Romans, Paul used two Old Testament texts, Deuteronomy 29 and Isaiah 29, to convey a similar idea about God hardening the heart, about the Jewish people closing off their heart and their mind to the message of the gospel. And in keeping with that general principle, he elaborates in chapter 1 of Romans that the hardness of the Jews is a result of their rebellion towards God. The rebellion over and over again. We see it all throughout the Old Testament, up and down, up and down, up and down. The Jewish people have this relationship with God. They are his people, and yet over and over again, they continually reject him, come back to him, reject him. And even when we come to Matthew chapter uh chapter, the basically the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5 through 8, there, we see that Jesus is having to correct once again all of these Jewish people who were supposed to be experts on God's law. He's having to correct them on the correct translation and the correct interpretation of this because once again they have fallen astray of their calling. And so Paul points that out over and over again. We see that at work in the book of Acts. We see it at work in the Gospels, and yet in Romans, Paul also says that when the Jews see the blessings of God come to the Gentiles, they will be provoked, it says, to jealousy and turn to God. Romans chapter 11, verses 11 through 16. In other words, Gentile Christians, us, anybody who isn't Jewish or practicing Judaism, plays a part in the process of God trying to restore his connection back to the Jewish people. You have a testimony for others, for all people, but in particular, Paul says your relationship with God is a symbol for the Jewish people that will hopefully incite them to turn their hearts back towards the Savior. Here's the problem: that testimony is completely destroyed and ruined when we let antisemitism run rampant and unchecked in the church, God's church. And unfortunately, in this day and age, and unfortunately, people our age and below increasingly find a way to villainize people who are no more evil than anybody else in the world. Be careful. Guard your hearts against that attitude. It's a spirit of the Antichrist. It is. It's the spirit of the Antichrist. It's not the Antichrist himself, it is a spirit that the Antichrist will use to fulfill his purposes. Guard your hearts. To Luke, then Jewish evangelism was an important theme. While he wants us to understand the phenomenon of the rejection of the gospel from the Jewish people, he doesn't want us to give up on evangelizing them. Right? I'm not talking about politics here. Let me make that clear. I'm not talking about politics. I'm not talking about land. I'm not talking about prophecies. But Paul lays out in a clear reading of the text that our testimony is in part to evangelize to them just like it is to evangelize to anybody. And Luke seems to understand that, and that's why Luke has this emphasis on evangelism all throughout the book of Acts. Closes Acts by presenting this challenge. And in light of that, we should have sorrow over the Jewish rejection of the gospel, which we find in Romans chapter 9, verses 1 through 3. And every Christian should desire to see Jews accept Christ. We too should be saying with Paul, this is Paul's words, brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God is for the Israelites. Is that for the Israelites that they may be saved? Romans 10, verse 1. God wants them just like he wanted you. But that's the go. Again, this is not politics. This is not geopolitical crap. That's not what this is. I can't say crap, can I, from stage? I guess I did. No, my wife said no, so that's the official answer. No. Anyways, but God wants them just like he wanted us. Um I'll have another talk on that at some point again, but that's not really here nor there. Testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the prophets. Paul often does this. We see him do this with Jews and Gentiles alike. He turns to the scripture, which for him was only the Old Testament because the books of the New Testament weren't with him

Seeing Jesus Across The Old Testament

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yet. He was writing many of them. Right? So he turns to the Old Testament, to these people who should know the Old Testament, and he's trying to get them to connect the dots, which are fairly obvious in my opinion. Matter of fact, I'm always stunned when I'm reading the Old Testament to see how perfectly it connects with the New Testament. And these documents are at times thousands of years apart. The original writings of the of the Torah, of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, they are thousands of years. Their formation is thousands of years before the New Testament. Some of the other books of the Bible, they were written and formulated hundreds of years before the New Testament, and yet we see that they are aligned and they are enacted, and it's just it transforms. When Jesus shows up on the scene and he starts teaching and preaching in his life, his death and resurrection, all of these connections are rebuilt. And the entire way that we see the Old Testament is radically changed. It's radically changed because of who Jesus did. Matter of fact, that's what Jesus spends a good bit of his time doing, like we already talked about. He's trying to re-evaluate and draw the Jewish people who are listening to him back into correct alignment about what this really means for their life. And so it's just impressive that when you look at Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, when you look at Isaiah, Proverbs, Psalms, Ezekiel, any of them, when you look at those books of the Bible, it's impressive to me that they line up so perfectly with the New Testament. And it's always impressive to me that Jesus becomes so evident in every book of the Bible. Matter of fact, I know there are certain preachers who, when they are preaching on the Old Testament, their rule is to always draw out Jesus. Because it's possible, which is incredibly impressive. But because of Jesus, the New Test the Old Testament has a brand new thing. And as Christians, we're called to look back and see those things. When we look at the sacrifice of Isaac, that has brand new meaning because of Jesus. It meant one thing to the Jewish people before Jesus, after Jesus, it means a brand new thing, a richer thing, a more full thing. When we read about the the parting of the Red Sea, it was a spectacular event for the Jewish people, but because of Jesus, it means a brand new thing, a more spectacular thing. The same with the Proverbs, the same with the Psalms, the same with any of the prophecies. The all-mean stuff. Matter of fact, with the prophecies, what's so impressive to me is that not only, and this is a testament to God's sovereignty, but when you look at the prophecies, it's always impressive to me that they had meaning for the people who were receiving them in the moment. It had immediate meaning to them. Whether they believed it or understood it or not, it had an immediate connection to the people who were hearing these prophecies of the Old Testament in the moment. Within a couple of generations, they had meaning. But also, because of Jesus, those prophecies now have meaning for us. Jesus changes everything. And this really only applies if you're saved and a part of the church, which is all of us in here. Despite all of this, we somehow find ways to doubt God, anyways. We look back on scripture and this beautiful connection, this beautiful thread of Jesus woven all the way until Jesus shows up. And we see that, and yet we still decide to live in fear and anxiety. We still

Share The Gospel As A Lifestyle

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decide to be afraid. We still forget. And we fail to remember who God is, what he's done, and what he is still doing, because he is still working. The story's not over. Acts chapter 28 ends, but it's not over. The New Testament ends, it's not over. The Old Testament ended, but it's not over. He's still working, he's still moving. And the world needs to know that. The world needs to experience that. The world needs to see that. We have to proclaim that. Luke proclaims this in the book of Acts. Luke records that Paul proclaims this all the time. We have to live it and proclaim it. And ultimately that boils down to, and I'm almost finished, sharing the gospel. Share the gospel. Everything that we've talked about in this sermon and the other sermons, it's all important. It's all a part of the book of Acts. It's all a part of Christianity and our call. And we should put it all in our heart and our mind in a practical way. But all of that stuff is folded into a folder. And the label on that folder is share the gospel. Acts chapter 16, Paul and Silas and the Philippian jail and them dealing with that trauma with worship. It's in a folder called Share the Gospel. Right? Peter and John healing the lame man. And earlier in the book of Acts, it's a Of God's faithfulness and his power to perform miracles and the mission and power of the church. It's wrapped in in a folder that says, share the gospel. Amen. Share the gospel. Share the gospel. Yeah. You can have it. You can have it. The church grew. The church grew because individuals took responsibility for carrying out the mission every single day. We see it with Peter and John. They took personal responsibility. We see it with Philip. We see it with Barnabas. We see it with Silas. We see it with Stephen. We see it with Paul. We see it with uh other small Christian groups all over the place. Right? All the little Christian groups that exist. Paul shows up to places sometimes and there's already Christians there. It's a testament to individuals deciding it's not somebody else's job to talk about Jesus. It's not a pastor's job to talk about Jesus to my neighbor. It's not a pastor's job to talk about Jesus to my friend. It's not my dad's job, my mom's job. It's not some saint in a church somewhere. It is my individual job to talk about Jesus. Share the gospel. Share it at home with your children. Share it with your extended family. Share it with your friends. Share it at work. Share it at the gym. Share it with a Hindu. Share it with a Muslim. Share it with a Mormon. Share it with the woke lady who's yelling at you for some reason that you can't comprehend. Share it when there might be negative consequences. Share it when it hurts. Share it when you hurt. Share it when it's dark. Share it when it's bright. Share it when it's good. Share it when it's bad. Share the gospel. It is your divine calling for your life. You don't have to have, like Paul, Jesus show up and say, Paul, go share the gospel. You've already got it in scripture. It is the word of God for your life. Share the gospel. Share the gospel. You want the church to grow? Not this church, but any church. It's not about strategy. It's not about building. Those things help. They're a part of it. It's about individuals taking personal responsibility for their calling on their life. Not to preach, not to teach, but just to tell people there is a Savior who loves them and who can transform their life. Share the gospel. That's the book of Acts. We're at the very end of the book of Acts. And it all boils down to share the gospel. Share it. The book of Acts ends. And I hate it. I want more. I want chapter. Where's chapter 29?

unknown 24:46

Right?

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Where's chapter 30? Where's the epilogue? Where's Acts part two? I want it. We live in a listen, we live in a society that likes series. We like having one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, even whenever

Acts Continues In A Post Christian World

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it gets worse and worse. But we only got one book of Acts. And I'm going to tell you, while Acts ends physically, spiritually, and philosophically and theologically, Acts is still going. You are a continuation of what's happening in the book of Acts. Right here. Right now. We have the same mission as the early church. We have the same connection to God as the early church, the same Savior, the same Jesus. We have the same Holy Spirit, the same anointing, the same gifts. We have the same purpose. We ought to have the same passion and the same ability to walk into any situation and believe that God can do something for his glory, for his honor. We gotta get to work. We gotta work. I've been doing some studies recently, and I'll talk about this at some point. Been working on two small books. But we live in a society where I think it's like 86 to 92% of people believe in something.

unknown 26:13

Right?

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Atheism grew for a while, it's capped out, and it's actually shrinking again to people not knowing. Right? In particular in the U.S., it's like 86 to 92% believe in a God, a spiritual, something beyond the material. How will they know unless we tell them? How will they know? Yes, the Holy Spirit will show up in their lives. And yes, there are countless stories of God showing up and doing things without anybody saying anything, and he can still do that, but that's that's that's that's not the norm. That's not the norm. Younger millennials, Gen Z, Generation Alpha, which is this group right here, they're open. They're open. Now they they might have the wrong ideas about church, they might have some stuff to deal with, they might they might have some brokenness and some broken ideologies and theologies and philosophies to to work through, but so did Paul everywhere he went. Do you understand when Paul walked into a new place, he wasn't walking to a place with a bunch of churches, he was walking to a place with a bunch of temples. They had no con listen, they had no, yes, the Jewish people had a connection and reference to what Paul was talking about, and that was great. That's why Paul Paul went there first. That's why all the first disciples were were Jewish. There's a reason for that because they had a grounding in something that was greater than themselves. But everywhere, everywhere Paul went, he was talking to people who had no reference or connection to the Old Testament. The people that we are rubbing elbows with, they might know the term the Old Testament. They might know something about a flood, they might know something about a guy named Moses, they might know something about Adam and Eve, but ultimately they don't have the connection that we are probably used to people having. It's different. It's called post-Christian. We live in a post-Christian society. It's no longer the norm for us to realize that people understand the world the same way that we understand the world. And we can get freaked out about that, or we can realize that that's okay because the church has already been there before, and the church has already had success there before. We can have success again. The story is not over, acts is not over. We still have the calling and the anointing to speak to people and connect them with a savior that they're open to. They might not know his name yet, they might not understand what it means yet, but they want something desperately for their lives. Amen. That is our calling in this day and age. There are people who are hungry for something more. There are people who desire a connection to something beyond the material because they have everything materially and they know it's not enough. That's the thing about the U.S. So many people have everything they could ever want materially, and yet for some reason, when they lay down at night in the quiet moments and the still moments, there is this ache and this hunger that makes them understand and know there has to be something more. And there is. There is. And we have to be passionate about letting people know what that thing is. Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior crucified and resurrected on this holy week. Amen. Let's pray real quick. Get these kids out of here. Heavenly Father, we love you. Heavenly Father, you are great. Heavenly Father, you are good. You are wonderful. You are mighty. You are awesome. And Lord, we have a mission.

Prayer And A Listener Roll Call

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We have a mission. And I simply pray for the anointing to fulfill the mission. Let us fulfill the mission as parents with our own children. Let us fulfill the mission as brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. Let us fulfill the mission as friends, as co-workers. Let us fulfill the mission as fellow citizens of the same country, of living in the same community, in the same areas. Let us fulfill the mission even when we feel unqualified, when we're afraid, and when things aren't going right, Lord. Let us fulfill the mission of sharing the gospel and Holy Spirit empower us for that task because without you we have nothing. Let us not work in our own ability, but let us work in your anointing and your leading and your guidance. In Jesus' mighty name I pray. And we all said together, Amen. By the way, again, I checked read I re-checked the downloads for the podcast. Some person or people in Germany have downloaded this podcast more than even people in my own hometown, my family. So there's the the random family in Germany, unless they're using like a VPN or something, reach out and let us know. Let the church know that you're listening to this. I want to know who this is. It's crazy. All right.