Jesus In Our Troubles

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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But we're going to be diving back into the book of Acts. That's another transition. We've been in Matthew, starting in the beginning of December through now.

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And get back to Acts. Acts is actually the series that we started recast with. So the very first Sunday when we launched, we started

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Acts. Now since then, we've taken some breaks. We've gone and gone to the book of Jonah. We've been through the book of Joshua.

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And before that, actually, when we're meeting in a basement, when we were a small church, I went through Ephesians. But we're going to be wrapping up in the next few weeks.

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So we're going to be in Acts right through to the end. We're going to be in Acts 23 this morning. And I think it's important that we catch up to speed.

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Because some of you haven't even been here for a single sermon in the book of Acts. So what is this book about?

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The book of Acts is a history of God's work in the early church. And that's one of the reasons that I chose that, is that as recast was getting started and forming as a new church,

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I thought it would be cool for us to walk through the book of Acts and see how God started this whole thing.

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We're a part of something that's gone back in history. And I mean, I hope that you get a sense that when you are a part of the church, you're part of something that is ancient and yet contemporary at the same time.

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Do you know what I'm saying when I say that? Does that resonate with any of you? That there's something that we tie in with a rich heritage and a huge history, and it's something that's awesome.

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But at the same time, it's something that touches our lives right where we live in 2012. And so there's something valuable about going back and looking at the way that they did things in the

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Bible and the way that the church started, and then working our best at recast to make sure that those elements that were there in the early church are being worked forward in our fellowship and in our meeting times and in the way that we do church.

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So what we really see in the book of Acts is God working through a ragtag group of people and his followers to quickly spread the church throughout the known world.

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And this morning, we're gonna be catching up with the Apostle Paul, who is one of the members of that ragtag group who is going around and going through hardships and trials for the cause of Christ.

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He traveled all over the known world at that time and was proclaiming the good news that the

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Messiah, Jesus Christ, had come and provided a way for all people to be reconciled with God.

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Now we know that Paul wasn't always well -received, right? Those of you who have been here for the series, was Paul always well -received?

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No, but what's amazing is that as the persecution and as he endured difficulties as he went along, it's like nothing could stop the church from growing.

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It's kind of cool to see, like as much as people wanted to put it down and destroy it and get it to stop, it expanded all the more and more.

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And so he would go into a region and people would be shouting him down and yelling at him and throwing stones at him and trying to kill him, and the church starts.

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And it's like, it seems kind of antithetical to what you would think would happen logically. I mean, big crowds would turn out to try to kill him and others would believe and the church would be formed and started and move on.

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So that's where we're at, is he's been traveling around the Roman Empire, and more specifically in our text in Acts 23, he's returned to Jerusalem where he was almost killed in the temple.

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They were trying to kill him when a Roman tribune stepped in. A Roman tribune is a soldier, a commander, over 1 ,000 troops, and he was over the temple district.

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And this Roman tribune stepped in and brought Paul into protective custody.

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The tribune then in verse 30, if you wanna turn to Acts 23, one through 22, it's page 798 in the

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Bible that's in the seat back in front of you, 798. And if you don't own a Bible, I say this every week, but if you don't own a Bible, take that one with you, we have more, and so we want everybody to have a copy of the

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Bible. But if you look back at the last thing that I said a couple of weeks or a couple of months ago in the book of Acts, it was this, verse 30.

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But on the next day, so he's been arrested, tried, I mean, not tried, but he's been arrested, brought into protective custody.

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They're trying to figure out why the crowds were trying to kill him. He says, but on the next day, desiring to know the real reason why he was being accused by the

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Jews, he unbound him and commanded the chief priests and the council to meet, and he brought Paul down and set him before them.

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So there's a gathering of the who's who in Jerusalem, the high council, and he's going to be tried before them to figure out, so that the tribune can figure out, this

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Roman can figure out why the Jews wanna kill this guy. So that's where we're at in the text, and that's where we're gonna pick up.

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So we're gonna go ahead and read this text, Acts 23, one through 22, and follow along as I read all 22 verses of this text.

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And looking intently at the council, Paul said, brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day.

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And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. When then

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Paul said to him, God is gonna strike you, you whitewashed wall. Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law, you order me to be struck?

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Those who stood by said, would you revile God's high priest? And Paul said, I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.

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Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, brothers,

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I'm a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.

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And when he said this, when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided.

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For the Sadducees say there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. Then a great clamor arose, and some of the scribes of the

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Pharisees' party stood up and contended sharply. We find nothing wrong in this man.

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What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him? And when the dissension became violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away from among them by force and bring him into the barracks.

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The following night, the Lord stood by him and said, take courage, for as you testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.

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When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by oath, neither to eat nor drink till they had killed

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Paul. There were more than 40 who made this conspiracy, and they went to the chief priests and elders and said, we have strictly bound ourselves by an oath to taste no food till we have killed

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Paul. Great. Now therefore, along with the council, give notice to the tribune to bring him down to you, as though you were going to determine his case more exactly, and we're ready to kill him before he comes near.

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Now the son of Paul's sister heard of their ambush, so he went and entered the barracks and told Paul. Paul called one of the centurions and said, take this young man to the tribune, for he has something to tell him.

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So he took him and brought him to the tribune and said, Paul the prisoner called me and asked me to bring this young man to you as he has something to say to you.

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The tribune took him by the hand and going aside, asked him privately, what is it that you have to tell me? And he said, the

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Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the council tomorrow, as though they were going to inquire somewhat more closely about him, but do not be persuaded by them, for more than 40 of their men are lying in ambush for him, who have bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they have killed him, and now they are ready, waiting for your consent.

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So the tribune dismissed the young man, charging him, tell no one that you have informed me of these things.

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In our text, Paul starts out on trial. Okay, like right off the bat, he's basically standing before a jury when we start and when we open our text in chapter 23.

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And I'm pretty ignorant about court proceedings. I have to do some reading to figure out how courts work and things like that.

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This past year was the first time I was ever in a courtroom. How many of you have been in a courtroom before? Maybe that's not always good.

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Depends on which side you're on and where you're at and all that stuff. Hopefully you're jury duty or something like that.

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I've been called up for jury duty five times. Anybody beat that? I've been called up for jury duty five times and I've only been in a courtroom once and it was this last year.

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And they actually got, they seated a jury before my number came up and I never got called back in again. So, never even protested a speeding ticket because every single one

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I've gotten, I deserve. So, but Paul's on trial.

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And as the defendant, he starts off initially with a plea of not guilty. That's what we see right from the beginning.

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Notice though that he doesn't consider his guilt before his accusers. It's not like he says, before you who are accusing me,

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I'm not guilty. He takes it to a higher authority. She's ready to take it to a higher authority.

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It says right away in verse one, brothers, I have lived my life before.

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Does he say you? You? Says brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience.

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He takes it immediately upstairs. He doesn't stay down here on this level. He says,

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I wanna let you know that I have a judge. I do have a judge, a legitimate judge. And that judge before him, I stand not guilty or I have a clear conscience at least.

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So, that's where he starts. And he looks at them, it says intently, with resolve, intensity in his eyes.

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And he declares this about his good conscience. Now, I think we'd be making Paul's statement too strong if we think that he's saying he's lived a sinless life.

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Do you understand what I'm saying? Paul was one of the first to declare that I am the chiefest among sinners.

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I went about my life before I became a follower of Christ, murdering Christians, totally opposing his way, doing evil and wicked things.

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Killing moms and dads and children and everyone. I mean, I'd confine them to prisons where they would die of starvation.

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I would do all kinds of evil and wicked things. So, he's saying something has changed in his conscience since those days.

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What is it that has given Paul a clear conscience? A relationship with Jesus Christ. That he knows that all of his sins were paid on the cross.

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That's the solution to a clear conscience, isn't it? We can have a clear conscience based on the fact that our sins have been washed and cleansed.

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Isn't that an awesome thing? Have any of you experienced that? Have you felt that? What it can mean to have a clear conscience before God in the sense that he's not going to stand and judge you anymore.

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Thank you for that, and amen. He's not gonna judge us anymore. He doesn't stand as judge over us.

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We stand clear, pure, completely innocent before him. I don't deserve that.

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Anybody else willing to raise your hand and say, I don't deserve to be declared innocent, but he has declared me innocent. Hallelujah, that is an amazing truth.

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So we'd be making it too strong of a statement for him to say, I've lived a sinless life, but he is saying,

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I'm clear, I'm clean. He's done his best to the

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Lord. He's done the best of his ability to discharge his duty, and before his accusers, he's completely clear of conscience as well.

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But I want you to remember that our conscience is a good guide, but our conscience is not an ultimate guide.

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You know what I'm saying? Some people have an overly sensitive conscience. Can you relate to that? Some of you in here have an overly sensitive conscience, and some of you, you probably don't know it if you do, but you have an under -sensitive conscience.

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Most people with an under -sensitive conscience don't even worry about that. But you know where you're at on that spectrum.

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But I think it's an interesting reality that we need to face as we deal with this text is that we are all living our lives before God, just like Paul.

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I've lived my life before who? Before God. We're living before the face of God.

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He is watching us. And sometimes, depending on what you're doing at the time, that's either a scary thing or an exciting thing, right?

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Do you know what I'm saying? I think sometimes people are like, oh, God, and you'd say this to your kid, God is watching you.

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Say that to your kids, you know. He's watching over you. Well, that's good to scare them. You know, now they're afraid of God. Great.

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God is watching over us for good. He's seeing the way that we live our lives. He is a good

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God, as Dave said when he was introducing the worship this morning. But what does your conscience say?

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I think it's wise for us to kind of contemplate and consider, recognizing our strengths and our weaknesses, whether you're a little bit overboard on your conscience or whatever, taking that into consideration, a genuine assessment.

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What is your conscience saying to you right now about the way you've lived this past week? You know, I mean,

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I think that's a good, it's a reasonable guide for us. It's not ultimate. Because the ultimate guide is here, right?

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Our conscience is only as accurate as it lines up with God's word. And what God's word says is the standard for us.

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But the more that we're in the word, the more our conscience is strengthened to be able to convict us of sin and things that are going on in our lives.

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Is that making sense? You guys getting that? Okay. Well, the high priest didn't like Paul's intensity or his confidence, and he commands the bailiff to sucker punch

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Paul. Okay, he's just like, punch him. That's not cool, okay?

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I mean, if you're there, you're Paul, are you enjoying this? Is this going well? I don't think, I think it's reasonable to assume that Paul didn't see it coming.

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Okay, and many, many scholars, you know, you go back and forth, they assume, for multiple reasons, that this probably wasn't a command that a high priest didn't go smack him.

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He just kind of did a hand motion. They have all, you know, all these gestures or whatever. Just do this, and he punched him, okay?

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He gave permission somehow. Anybody ever hear, anybody here ever been hit in the mouth before?

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You ever been struck in the mouth? There's something about fast -moving knuckles, lips, and teeth coming together that is not pleasant.

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Okay, that's not fun to have happen. You know, blood, bruises, all of this stuff, not real good.

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So what would you do? What would you do if you were Paul? Somebody sucker punches me in the mouth, and I'm gonna be pretty hot,

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I'm just saying. I mean, I'm your pastor, and I'm being honest. This is a moment of transparency. You come up and punch me,

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I'm not gonna be happy, okay? Anybody agreeing with me on that? Anybody else feeling that?

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Okay, Paul's not happy, and what we have in his response, by the way, I think this is really a kind of key concept to understanding scripture.

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Not everything that everybody does in scripture is endorsed. Did you know that? Okay, so what we have is we have prescriptive and descriptive language.

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Prescriptive, like a prescription that a doctor gives you, says, here, take this, this is what I'm recommending for you. Descriptive is just explaining what happened, right?

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So what we have here is we're gonna describe what Paul responded, but that's not necessarily how we ought to respond.

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Are you getting what I'm saying? Because he's going to revile. The word revile is a hostile word. I don't even know,

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Paul's a human. He's a person, and he's even going to, in just a couple verses, literally say, kind of in essence, sorry,

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I actually did wrong. Okay, and scripture's gonna correct him here in just a minute, but what he does is he responds pretty harshly to the high priest and lashes out at him, emphatically declaring,

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God is gonna strike you, you whitewashed wall. Now, Paul is doing more than just name -calling here, okay?

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It's not just name -calling, it's funny, but even in losing his temper, he's still theologically astute, okay?

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He's actually saying, there is a judge over this proceeding. You guys aren't being fair to me, this isn't right, you know what you did is wrong, but there is a judge, and you're not it.

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You're not the ultimate judge. There is a judge who is looking over these proceedings, and he's gonna judge you for the way that you're judging me.

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And you're gonna be struck just like that, okay? Ironically, some people actually see the way that this high priest dies 10 years later as a fulfillment of a literal prophecy that Paul is declaring here.

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He literally was struck down by a zealot, okay? So it literally comes to pass.

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It actually happens kind of that way. But I don't wanna get into a lot of detail.

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This high priest, Ananias, was a bad dude. History scholars from that time, historians from that time, a guy named

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Josephus that lived during the times of Christ that literally was a historian writing and recording, not a

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Christian, a Jew, recorded some of these events and some of these things. This Ananias was really friendly with the

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Romans for financial gain. He was the high priest, and under him were many, many priests, some of them literally starved to death under his leadership while he was stealing money from them.

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Not a good, anybody think that's not good? A couple of you, the rest of you need to check your consciences, okay?

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Two of you think that it's wrong to starve people who are under you, for real? Okay. What's that?

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Just depends, right? The concept of a whitewashed wall, by the way, anybody kind of confused, like what's a whitewashed wall?

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What does that mean? Well, if you picture in your mind, can any of you picture like an old stone wall, like even kind of the rounded stones set on top of each other?

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They have those all across England or Scotland, and you can maybe picture in your mind pictures of those or whatever. Or even a brick, even a brick wall, but picture that it's all janky.

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Okay, it's all like cattywampus, and those are some good words, technical words. It's not stable, and it's missing a brick or two and a rock, and it looks like, man,

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I could probably just push that thing over. You know what I'm saying? It's just weak, and so what do you do with a wall like that?

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Well, what you do is you add a nice coat of plaster over it and call it strong, okay? So that's what they would do sometimes in those times, and you make it extra thick so it looks, you know, but all it is is just weak plaster over a really weak foundation.

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But it looks nice. It looks like a good wall, right? That's what he's calling it. Again, theologically astute, saying on the outside, you're looking all big and tough and strong having somebody punch me and all, but inside, you're crumbling.

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You're broken up, and you're busted up, and you're not stable, and you're not strong. So that's what's going on there with that.

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But Paul also points out the obvious irony that the judge who is supposed to be judging according to the law is breaking the law by having him struck.

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Do you see the irony in that? Okay, so he's breaking the law while he is purporting to judge

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Paul by the law. Now, the society in Paul's day had a deep level of hierarchy and respect for authority.

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So what we see happen next, this idea that the crowds are shocked by the verbal attack of Paul on the high priest.

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Now, notice that nobody in the crowd thought to mention that he just had him struck in the mouth with a fist, but everybody's like, whoa, wait a minute.

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You're talking bad about the high priest. How dare you? Well, this hierarchy, and for him to do that was pretty significant, and they would have obviously been versed in the

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Old Testament law as well, where it says clearly in Ezekiel 22, 27, you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.

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So they're like, whoa, Paul, you're going overboard here. So, lost my place there for just a second.

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Once Paul, yeah, once Paul finds out that he's the high priest, is anybody confused that he doesn't know he's the high priest?

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That's where I was going. Verse five, it seems kind of immediately strange. So if you look at verse five, and Paul said,

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I do not know, brothers, that he was the, I did not know that he was the high priest. Like, doesn't it seem weird that Paul wouldn't know who the high priest is?

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It's a little bit strange, but there's some solutions to that. And once he does find out that he's the high priest, he kind of apologizes, sort of, acknowledging his own wrong in light of Scripture, and it's a good example in the text of how

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Scripture corrects our behavior. We do something, and then encounter the word of God, and it's like, oh, wait a minute, what

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I did was, what I did was wrong, based on the reality, the truth of what God wants for me.

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I've done something different than that. So he says that. There's a couple of explanations why Paul didn't know he was the high priest.

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I don't know, I think it's maybe a mix of these different things. They all seem somewhat plausible. First is that the

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Tribune has called, a Roman guy has called this meeting. So they're probably not meeting in the actual same building that the

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Sanhedrin would always meet in, where you would have the seats, and the seats and the structure in such a way that everything would be focused on the high priest, so he probably wasn't sitting in the center.

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They probably didn't have all their regalia on, and all that stuff to identify, and the ephod, and all that stuff. He's just, this is an impromptu meeting, and they're meeting in a

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Roman forum. So they're not structured in a way that Paul would naturally, Paul knew the Sanhedrin. He knew how that worked, he had been there before.

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So if they were meeting in that building, he would have known, oh, that's the high priest, that's this, this is this person, this is this person, and on down, and they would have sat according to ranking, and different things like that.

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So that's one possibility, is that that's part of it. The second is likely that Paul had poor eyesight after encountering

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Christ on the road to Damascus, and there's different verses. He's writing to the Galatians, and he says to the

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Galatians, I know you loved me so much, you would have torn out your own eyes, and given them to me. Why would he make a comment like that, unless he needed eyes, right?

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So there's different indications that Paul had poor eyesight throughout his life, and that he struggled with that.

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So he might not have seen the hand gesture, he might not have known who was the one who had issued the command, or who was the one who spoke, or however it happened.

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So that's a possibility. And then also, another thing that adds to this, is that for the better part of 25 years, when we come to this text,

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Paul has been absent from Jerusalem. He's only been back there for two weeks, and the high priest has changed since then.

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So even if he could see clearly, if they're not wearing their gear, he doesn't know who the high priest is.

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So does that make sense of that? You kind of start to see, oh, well maybe there's some rational reasons why the text would indicate that Paul didn't know who the high priest was.

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In verse six, though, Paul's gonna switch the subject. After getting hit, and his lips bleeding, and he's all busted up, he's gonna switch the subject to something closer to the reason he's on trial.

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It's like, you're not even bringing this up, so I'll bring it up. And because there are both Sadducees and Pharisees on the council, he then identifies himself with the

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Pharisee side, because he's a believer in resurrection, and the Pharisees believe in resurrection. And that's ultimately the reason that he's on trial.

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So he brings that up. And verse eight identifies that Pharisees believed in resurrection, angels, and spirits, but Sadducees did not.

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And so you kind of get these two parties that are involved on the high council in Jerusalem with different opinions, different thoughts, both

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Jewish in nature, both ascribing to the Old Testament, but obviously very different views of how they would interpret scripture and things like that.

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And so you end up with these two groups on the council. And I think Paul's being culturally astute in this situation.

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He wants to bridge into a gospel conversation, but I do not think he's solely trying to divide the council.

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If you kind of read it at first glance, you think, oh, he's just trying to manipulate, right? He's just trying to get the

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Pharisees to argue with the Sadducees. But no, I think he's trying to drive towards his main point being that there's a hurdle in the way for this council to coming to understand who

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Jesus Christ is, and that's that they don't believe in resurrection in a general sense. So he doesn't go straight to the gospel.

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And I think it's kind of important because if you think about your daily life or the interactions that you have, and some of you, how many of you talked with a person who's not a follower of Jesus Christ this past week?

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Okay, I think most of us have. Now, if you have an opportunity to proclaim the gospel to them, to share the gospel, what does that mean?

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Because I think sometimes what we do is we talk about spiritual things, or we talk about God, but we never get to the gospel.

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Paul's not at the gospel here. He's not presenting the gospel to the high council. What he's trying to do is he's trying to remove a hurdle for them before he even gets to the gospel.

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Have you ever had a conversation like that, where there's layer upon layer upon layer of misunderstanding that you've gotta break through before you even get to Christ died for your sins and rose again three days later, and they're like, wait a minute,

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I don't even believe Christ exists. I don't even believe he was. Well, now we've gotta back up, right? We've gotta get back here and figure out what, you know, and there's hurdles and things like that.

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So Paul is entering into a general conversation about resurrection. Does that make sense? And they're gonna do the work themselves wrestling through this.

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Now, I believe fully that Paul has every intention of desiring to get to a conversation about the resurrection of Jesus Christ specifically.

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That's where he's driving this, and this is where he wants to go, but he's not gonna be able to get there because it says in the text, a dissension arose.

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The assembly becomes significantly divided in verse seven. They start to fight and argue and bicker, and this degenerates into verse nine, a great clamor, sharp contention, some pretty strong words, which leads to, by the time we get down to verse 10, look at verse 10, what does it say ends up happening?

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Outright violence is going to occur. This place is going to erupt, okay? And it's gonna get dicey in the council chamber.

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The Pharisees are declaring loud that Paul's done nothing wrong. They find no wrong in him.

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Maybe an angel told him something. Maybe a spirit told him something because now they're being kind of snide towards each other.

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You see what I'm saying? I mean, the Pharisees are shouting, well, maybe it was an angel because the Sadducees are saying there are no angels. So they're getting at it.

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They're going for it. It's interesting to note that on this council, the

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Pharisees are the minority. There's not many Pharisees. There's a lot of Sadducees, but the

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Pharisees that are on this council are pretty high standing in society. So that's why there's this kind of, this power play that's going on here.

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It's not very well divided, but the ones who, the Pharisees, have a pretty loud voice anyways.

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So the council turns so violent that the Roman tribune sends soldiers into the fray to bring Paul back into protective custody again.

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The last time that we were together talking about the book of Acts, he was brought into protective custody then.

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We see the same thing happen again. This tribune must be kind of pulling his hair out, going, what is it about this man that brings everybody to want to kill him?

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What is going on? I mean, by this point, he's gotta be going, this is crazy. It says in the text, he was afraid

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Paul was going to be torn to pieces. Literally, that's how violent this crowd gets. He's afraid Paul is going to lose his life down in this pit.

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So Paul ends up in the custody of the Romans just like he was at the beginning of the text with very little answer for the tribune about why in the world he's been arrested.

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Have you noticed how conflict and craziness kind of follows the life of Paul everywhere he goes?

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So sometimes I wonder, and I think Dave kind of alluded to this too, but sometimes I wonder if my life isn't a little too tame.

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Have you ever thought about that? Is your life a little bit tame? Some of you are looking confused because your life isn't too tame.

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If everyone likes us, just think about this for a minute. If everyone likes us and just thinks that we're nice people and nobody ever disagrees with us, is it likely that we're truly communicating the gospel?

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Is it likely that we're getting that message across? Or would you assume, maybe just think about this for a minute, would you assume that some people might not like you if you proclaim the gospel in clarity?

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If they truly understand what you think and what scripture says, would you have some people who don't like you because of that?

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Seems kind of likely to me. Wherever Jesus is proclaimed, look at scripture, just read it.

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Wherever the gospel is proclaimed in clarity, there are radical responses.

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Very rarely in scripture do you see a passe response to the gospel. Either people's hearts melt before the onslaught of truth and their heart changes and they get a new life because they acknowledge that this is true or they revile and mock and hate.

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But I guess there's a third option, right? As we see it all the time. And I think that it's one that has been invented in modern culture.

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I don't think it's been around for too long. And that's that people just don't get it or they ignore it or it just doesn't somehow penetrate into their minds.

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Like we can explain the gospel to people and they don't have the same offended response because our culture has become so soft to truth claims that we've invented a third way.

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So it's like I can say Jesus is the only way and people are like, that's great.

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That's so good for you. I love to hear that for you. Anybody ever heard that?

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Anybody heard that response? I'm so glad for you that you have hope, that you have trust.

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I'm saying we all need this. We all need this. This is real and this is true and if God has declared a way, it is, how many of you would agree that it's up to God to decide how we get to heaven?

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It's his thing. This is his cosmos. This is his universe. And somebody can look at me and they can say, and I understand from their mindset why they would think this, that it's arrogant for me to say that I found the way.

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Like have you heard that? Have you heard that on our culture? Have you heard that on the radio? These arrogant Christians who think that they found the way.

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It's just that I believe this is true. That's it. And so when Jesus says things, clearly, like I am the way.

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I am the truth. I am the life. And no one comes to the Father except through me.

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I don't come to arrogance at that. I come to humility in that. I don't come to say, oh, wow,

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I figured this out. No, it says it. It says it, so I come under that and that's humility.

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That's our message. We need to know that that's not fun. That's not fun to share with your friends and your neighbors and your,

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I mean, that's a hard message, isn't it? But it's true. And so what

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I think we need to do, my point on all of this, is that we need to work hard to be clear. And listen to the difference.

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Clear, not perfect, not flawless, not necessarily polished, but clear that Jesus is the way.

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And that God has provided no other way. We need to be clear about that. That's a hard thing.

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You guys agree with that? Jesus is the way. And so Paul, here in our text, he's left with a bruised, fat lip, probably bleeding, spends the night in the barracks, but he has a visitor in the night.

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Visitor comes to him. Jesus comes to hang out with him. And I believe it was physical.

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I mean, it says that Jesus came and stood there. I believe that he had a physical experience with Jesus. He was there, he saw him.

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And Jesus encouraged Paul. Did anybody think that's good timing? Pretty good timing.

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I mean, if I'm Paul, I'm feeling like giving up the whole punching bag for Jesus gig.

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Okay, like I'm feeling like God's pinata. Okay, and anybody else, you know, anybody else wanna throw rocks at me?

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Anybody else wanna take a punch? Come on, I've been hit with sticks. I've been left for dead.

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I've been drug outside of cities, by my ankle. People, you know, I mean, everywhere I go, somebody is punching me.

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Can we get this done? You know, I mean, can you imagine the frustration?

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I'm sure that Paul was feeling it. The same God who kept appearing to Joshua in the

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Old Testament. Went through that book, some of you were here. Constantly saying to Joshua, be strong and courageous.

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The same God in the Old Testament, same God in the New Testament. Be strong and be courageous. And he always gives a reason.

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And here he comes to Paul in the middle of the night and says, take courage.

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And he says, take courage because, and then he gives a promise. He says, you're gonna make it to Rome alive.

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You're gonna make it to Rome alive. I'm gonna tell you just a little bit of the future. I'm gonna open your eyes to just a little bit of what

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I have in store for you. Paul has declared that his heart's desire is to get to Rome to proclaim the truth.

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And Jesus says, let me just give you a piece of courage. Let me give you a piece of encouragement.

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You're gonna make it there. You're gonna get to do your heart's desire. This is gonna happen for you. It will be so.

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But notice, look at verse 11. Notice the lack of detail. Okay, Jesus appears to you tonight.

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You're laying in your bed, you wake up and there's Jesus standing by your bed. You know it's him, I don't know. You're gonna know it's him, okay?

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Anybody have any questions you'd like to ask Jesus if he's in your room? Maybe one or two questions that you've, maybe you already have them ready for him when you see him.

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This isn't a Q and A with Jesus in Paul's bedroom. It's one sentence of comfort.

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Jesus is giving him just what he needs to get through this trial, to get through this difficulty. Just one sentence of comfort.

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The next morning, though, so Paul's been beaten, falsely tried, almost torn in pieces,

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Jesus appears. The next morning in another part of Jerusalem, more than 40 Jews get together to conspire to kill

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Paul, even taking an oath to go on without food or drink until they've killed Paul. Now, if you think about this, do you see the way that the author, the way that Luke, who's writing the book of Acts, has a sense of irony because he's just told us, he's just revealed something about the future to us, and yet, now we get on the flip side.

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Someone's conspiring to kill Paul, but we know that they're not gonna get to kill Paul because he's gonna make it to Rome. So it's kinda cool in the writing if you just read this all the way through.

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There's irony and twist and all that stuff, and it's good writing. There's also another irony.

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Think about this. I'm deciding I'm gonna kill somebody, so I'm not gonna eat or drink anything. Like, how's that gonna work?

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Like, can you picture this going on? I mean, this thing drags on for seven days, and these guys, by that point, can barely walk.

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Okay, some of them have already died off. You know, there's 40 of them, but there's only 30 or 20 left because some of them have just totally dehydrated themselves.

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And then, some guys are laying, saying, is that Paul over there? Paul, come over here, we wanna kill ya. Come on,

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I can't, I'm trying to scrabble. That's the way my mind thinks.

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I was thinking there's a Monty Python skit in there somewhere. But it just didn't quite form well.

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But, not enough energy to do him in, I don't know. But the oath, the oath. Okay, so that's senseless, right?

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But the sensible thing about this is that what they're doing is they're talking about, this is an oath of speed and quickness and priority.

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It's not that they don't, it's not that they intend for this to go a week. They're not going, okay, well, we expect we're gonna be in this for the long haul.

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No, this is saying, we are not going to eat food until he's dead, and we intend to eat today.

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You hear what I'm saying? They had every intention of eating their next meal. They didn't have any intention of missing a meal in this.

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They're saying, this is our number one priority, we're gonna get it done. You hearing the oath? Anybody see an

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Iranian taking an oath about breaking God's laws? God, I promise that I'm not gonna eat any food until I murder.

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It seems like something would've connected, no, it was lost on them, that they were taking an oath before God to not eat or drink before they murder somebody.

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Like, I'm good with that, that's okay. So really, the rest of the text is historical.

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We can cover it pretty quickly and get down to the application. Verse 12 through 15 is the plot described, verses 16 through 17, if you're taking notes, are the plot discovered, and verses 18 through 22 are the plot disclosed to the

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Romans. There's your alliteration for, I don't know, maybe the next six months or so. I don't do that often, so that's just throwing you guys the bone who need it.

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The 40 men who went to the chief priest, the 40 men who took this oath then, go to the chief priest and they enlist the priest and the elders of the council in the whole scheme.

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And they say, well, we can't call the Roman Tribune and have him bring Paul out of custody, so why don't you, and if you say you want to understand him more fully, the tribune already has curiosity, right?

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I mean, he wants to know what's going on, so ask him to come back to the council and bring Paul with him.

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We'll go ahead and lie on the side of the road and jump up out of the ditch and kill Paul while we're at it.

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It's interesting to note that these guys are literally willing to take on some Roman soldiers to get Paul dead. Some of them are not gonna make it through that, right?

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I mean, are you aware of that? I mean, the Romans are much more militarily trained. If they bring a handful of soldiers, these 40 men are gonna be hard -pressed to kill

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Paul, but they're committed to it. They're gonna do it. You see, I mean, that's the intensity of the hatred that they had for Paul.

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They want him dead. I notice that the religious leaders are willing to comply. Somehow their religion didn't get in their way of their plot to murder somebody.

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They weren't gonna let a little issue of their religious standing or anything like that get in the way. You see, just like the religious leaders who condemned

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Jesus, their religion, their rules, their laws were not enough to stop them from committing atrocities against an innocent man.

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Religion, their laws, their rules were not gonna stop them from doing evil. And that's because no amount of religion, no amount of trying to follow laws and rules will ever lead any human to a righteous life.

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No amount of self -effort, no amount of rules, regulations, laws will ever accomplish righteousness in our hearts.

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Did you know that? We try to paint up the outside and make it look good, when what we need is an internal heart change.

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We need to be remade completely from the inside out. That's what we need.

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Only a heart transplant, only the new life that is offered in Jesus Christ can make a dent in our unrighteousness.

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It's the only thing. You see, rules and laws point out my flaws and tell me you better do better.

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But the gospel points out my flaws and says it's already been done for you. Rules and laws say my value is in what

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I do and don't do. The gospel says my value is in the price that was paid for me.

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Rules and laws lead me to look for loopholes. Anybody been there? The gospel leads me to a relationship of love and desiring to obey.

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Rules and laws focus on the negative of a life that can never quite accomplish enough.

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If you're living by rules and laws, you never know if you've got it yet. Always one more thing to do better.

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But the gospel focuses on the positive of a life set free to love God as his child.

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Rules and laws lead to a religion that need me to protect it, just like this Jewish council is trying to protect their religion.

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The gospel leads to a relationship with the one who ultimately protects us, Jesus. Well, the plot is discovered by Paul's nephew.

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Who even knew he had a sister? I mean, this is the only time she's ever mentioned and she's there in Jerusalem, apparently, with a young nephew, a young son.

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And he comes to meet Paul in custody. Somehow he's caught wind. We don't know how. He's caught the plot.

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And so he comes to Paul. Paul has a centurion take the young boy to the tribune and he reports what he knows to the tribune.

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The plot's been discovered by the nephew, disclosed to the tribune. And the tribune, for obvious reasons, doesn't want anybody to know that he's in the loop because we're gonna see next week what he chooses to do with his information.

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And that concludes our text. And so there's the cliffhanger for you. You have to come back next week and find out how

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Paul fares through this, what's gonna happen. Of course, you got the text and you can take one of those home with you and read it if you need to. But this is not just a story.

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You know, I'd make for a good story, but it's not just a story. It's a real dude's life. This is Paul. And put yourself in his shoes.

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And for some of you, it might not be too hard to put yourself in his shoes because you feel like you're set about at every angle.

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You feel like everything is against you right now and things around you are crumbling. Or you've been in that place before.

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You feel like people don't understand you. You feel like you keep doing and doing and doing and giving and giving and giving and getting nothing in return.

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Have any of you felt that way before or been there? Do you feel like life is kind of pressing in and crowding you out and it's just one crisis after another?

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Raise your hand if you've gone through a period of time where you recognize, it's like, is there gonna be an end to this?

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Is this gonna just be one, is this gonna be one thing after another? Can I get just maybe a month without a big crisis?

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Have you been there? Where is God when life sucks?

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Where is he in our text? Right there in the middle.

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He's right there in the middle. Paul's getting sucker punched, almost torn apart, a plot by 40 men and the

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Jewish leadership of Rome, the who's who in Rome, who hate him, despise him, want him dead. And there's

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Jesus smack dab in the middle. Giving words of encouragement and comfort.

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You see, we have a high priest who's able to sympathize with our weakness. He came here and he suffered among us and he gives us just what we need.

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Now, Jesus has never come and stood by my bed in the middle of the night. He done that for you? I wanna talk to you if he has.

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He's never done that for me. But he loved us so much that he's done something so much immensely more powerful than coming and standing with us in the middle of the night.

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Because how many of you know that if he appeared to you six years ago in the middle of the night, you'd be questioning whether that really happened by now?

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Do you know what I'm saying? You'd be like, was I dreaming? Did I dream? Did that really happen? He has written it down.

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That when your memory gets foggy, you can pick it up and read it again. And when your memory gets foggy, you can pick it up and read it again and you can read it again and you can read it again and he has written to us what our future is.

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He's told us in here. So much better than meeting me in the middle of the night is this, what we have here.

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Now, he hasn't, it can't be erased. It's not gonna be smudged. It's not gonna be blotted out. It's not gonna be revoked.

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It's here and he put it down in writing. Do you see how powerful that is? Do you see how awesome it is that we have the word of God, his words to us here available to us 24 -7, anytime you want.

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That is an amazing thing. Now, God hasn't promised me that I'm gonna make it to tomorrow. He hasn't promised me in here that I'm gonna make it to Rome like he did

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Paul, although I've already been there. But listen to what he has promised. Listen to this, listen carefully.

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John 14, one through three. The words of Jesus Christ to us. Let not your hearts be troubled.

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Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would

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I have told you that I'd go to prepare a place for you? I'm not leading you guys on. And if I go and prepare a place for you,

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I will come again and I will take you to myself that where I am, you may be also.

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A future, a promise that we will be his forever if we are in him.

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If we've trusted him and asked him to save us, he will surely save us.

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Better than knowing that I'm gonna make it to Rome one day or better than knowing that Recast will be successful and 10 years down the road it'll be a hopping place or better than knowing that I'm gonna meet my grandkids is the hope and firm promise that Jesus is preparing a place for us and he's gonna come back for us.

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And when I breathe my last breath, the next voice I will hear will be his saying welcome home.

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That's what it's about. Oh, all these crises and these trials and these troubles that we go through, they're there to sharpen us.

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Oh, that's so hard to hear when you're in the middle of it. That's probably the last thing you wanna hear when you're in the middle of it is, oh, it's for your good.

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What are you learning through it? Don't say that to people. That's the way to get punched in the mouth.

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If you haven't been punched in the mouth yet, try that, okay? But how many of you know that you can look back at a crisis backwards?

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By the way, again, you can't tell somebody to do this, but when you've lived it, when you've been through it and you look back and you say,

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I see the glory of Christ in the difficulties that I've endured. Have you been there?

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You can't tell other people to see that. They have to come to that themselves, but man, it is so powerful in your life.

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When I look back and I see my father's death when I was eight years old, oh, that was a crisis. How many of you, that sounds like a crisis?

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It was a crisis. That's defined me, though. Would I love to have my father back?

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You better believe I would love to have my father back, but has that been a defining thing in my life? Absolutely.

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Am I a stronger person because of it? Yes, I came to faith in Christ because of that. So you look back and you look at these hardships and these trials, and Christ is sharpening us, but I tell you what, sometimes, someday, a crisis is going to take each one of us, every single one of us.

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I'm not trying to be down or negative. We'd be ignorant to not think like that because in the end, a crisis is going to take us one way or the other, and we have hope, not hope that he's gonna solve every problem in our lives, but hope that he has promised a place for us in eternity with him, and that gate is open for everyone, for anyone, regardless of what you've done in life, and Jesus has paid our entry fee.

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He gave his life on the cross so that anyone who would accept him as Lord and ask for salvation will be admitted into his eternal kingdom forever.

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It's amazing that all we need to do is trust him and ask him, and yet I can understand why that's such a barrier to so many because it takes intense humility to acknowledge,

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I gotta ask you for something. Some people would be starving and not ask for bread, right?