The Story That Never Ends

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Don Filcek; Acts 28:11-31 The Story That Never Ends

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This morning, we are going to be finishing up the book of Acts. For those of you who have been here, some of you have actually been here from the very beginning of this series, which would go back almost three years.
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Now, I've preached some other things in between there. I haven't been in the book of Acts every single Sunday for three years, but we went through the book of Joshua somewhere in there.
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We went through Jonah, some of Matthew. But really, opening Sunday here at Recast, I preached on Acts chapter 1.
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So that puts some perspective. That would have been back in September of 2009. So it's been a long journey, and as we dive in, it could be a little bit...
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It could almost be disappointing the way that the author, Luke, concludes the book if we don't have the right perspective and we don't understand what he's trying to do.
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We're left with a lot of questions by the end of this text. We've gone through the journey of the way that God started
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His church, and we're left with some questions at the end. Questions like, what ends up happening to Paul?
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Does he ever get to his trial? Jesus promised that he was going to be standing on trial before Caesar. What happens with that trial?
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Does he get found guilty? Is he innocent? Is he set free? What happens to the church moving forward?
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I think we have some kind of inkling of how that happens and what happens there because we're here in 2012, right?
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At a church. And so we have some understanding of how the church, at least that the church, does move forward. But I think there's a beauty in the way that Luke leaves the story.
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He's going to leave it open -ended for us. You see, I think in the past few months we could easily have fallen into the notion that the book of Acts is primarily a biography of the life of the
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Apostle Paul. Could you make a case for that in what you've heard week in and week out here, that we're learning about the life of Paul?
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But for those of you who have been here from the beginning, you recognize that there were chapters upon chapters that had nothing to do with Paul at the beginning.
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The book does not start with the birth of Paul and end with the death of Paul, and therefore it's not a biography in that sense.
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Paul is obviously somewhat of a main character throughout the book. But in reality, the book of Acts was recorded as a biography of the early church and ultimately about God's movement in starting this thing that we call the church.
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His people gathered together for his worship, for his glory, for his honor, and it's really about the ongoing journey from the very birth at Pentecost of the church all the way until Luke can record no longer, and that's what we're getting to.
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And so for whatever reason, Luke reaches the limit of his ability to record things, and ultimately we get to where we're at today, and we've got to fill in some of the gaps and think that through.
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But the reality is if it's a biography of the early church, well, the church never dies, and so really we're looking at a story that will never end when we're reading the book of Acts, a story that goes on forever and ever and ever because the church is something that is eternal because the church is the people of God gathered together for his worship, and that's what we're going to be doing forever and ever and ever.
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So that's kind of an exciting thing to think about, the continuity or the perpetuity, the ongoingness of the church and the ongoingness of the book of Acts.
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So as we come to worship this morning, we're carrying forward the worship that began 2 ,000 years ago in the upper room in Jerusalem where 120 people gathered together with those original 11 followers of Jesus.
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Obviously Judas wasn't included in that number anymore, but with those original 11 and 120 total and the
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Holy Spirit came upon them with power, Peter preached the very first sermon, and 3 ,000 that day gathered into the church, and it's just multiplied and multiplied and multiplied, and we've seen that in the text, all the way to the point where what we saw at the very beginning of Acts has now been fulfilled as we've gone through it.
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The church spread from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth, and it even made it all the way to Matawan, Michigan.
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Are we a long ways removed from Jerusalem? Yeah, and yet the gospel has come here, and the church has come here, and that's something that's exciting.
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That's something that's worthy of ultimately giving God worship for, that he has saved us here in Matawan, Michigan for his glory.
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So I want you to open your Bibles, please, to Acts chapter 28. We're going to look at the last 20 verses of this from verse 11 through 31.
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It's page 802, 802 in the Bible, that's in the seat back in front of you, and again I say this, if you don't own a
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Bible, please take that one with you. We strongly desire that everybody owns a copy of the word of God. Follow along as I read
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Acts chapter 28, verses 11 through 31. After three months we set sail in a ship that had wintered in the island, a ship of Alexandria with the twin gods as a figurehead.
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Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed there for three days, and from there we made a circuit and arrived at Regium.
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And after one day a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli. And there we found brothers and were invited to stay with them for seven days, and so we came to Rome.
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And the brothers there, when they had heard about us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and the three taverns to meet us.
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On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage. And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier that guarded him.
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After three days, he called together the local leaders of the Jews, and when they had gathered, he said to them, Brothers, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the
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Romans. When they had examined me, they wished to set me at liberty, because there was no reason for the death penalty in my case.
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But because the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar, though I had no charge to bring against my nation.
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For this reason, therefore, I have asked to see you and speak with you, since it is because of the hope of Israel that I am wearing this chain.
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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.
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But we desire to hear from you what your views are, for with regard to this sect we know that everywhere it is spoken against.
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When they had appointed a day for him, they came to him at his 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 from the prophets.
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And some were convinced by what he said, but others disbelieved. And disagreeing among themselves, they departed after Paul had made one statement.
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The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet, Go to these people and say,
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You will indeed hear, but never understand, and 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 hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.
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Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, they will listen.
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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
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Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. Let's pray.
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Father, as we come to this conclusion in this awesome book of Scripture, we sense in this your word for us, that this is the desire for us this morning, that we take this in, that we believe it, and that it changes us.
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And we see principles and thoughts in the way that Paul interacted near the end of this book to boldly proclaim and be proactive in his work out in the community and out in the place that you planted him for the proclamation of the gospel.
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Father, I pray that you would be honored in our lives. And then as we have an opportunity to worship you, as we reflect this morning on the awesome salvation that we have in the
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Lord Jesus Christ, I pray that our offerings, our worship would come before you as an offering.
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And Father, that you would be honored and glorified as we sing these songs, not merely singing, but actually worshiping you. I ask this in Jesus' name.
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Amen. I encourage everybody to get comfortable. Keep your Bibles open. Maybe you lost your place, but remember it's
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Acts chapter 28, verses 11 -31 or page 802. And that Bible is back in front of you.
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Keep your minds engaged as much as possible. There is some more juice, some doughnuts, and some coffee if you need to get up and stretch in the back or something that's available too.
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We pick up the text and you need to set it a little to the stage. Maybe some of you weren't here the last couple of weeks.
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But Paul and company were shipwrecked on the island of Malta. So we saw that in the last couple of weeks. Two weeks ago there was a shipwreck.
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Last week we saw a little bit of the hospitality and the things that happened there on the island of Malta. But Paul is actually a prisoner who's being taken to Rome for a trial before the emperor.
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He appealed to Caesar. The right of every Roman citizen was to appeal their trial before Caesar if a verdict hadn't been reached.
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And so he's being literally shipped under guard to Rome to be tried by the emperor.
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And they end up spending three months during the winter of 59 A .D. on the island of Malta receiving hospitality from the local population.
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But as soon as the shipping lanes open, again early in February, they board another ship from Alexandria that is bound from Rome.
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And we see that in the text. So we're going to see, I think that the best thing is for me to give you a map here. The island of Malta is over on the left -hand side where the star is.
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And you see Alexandria. That's the place of origin of the ship that they're going to board. Ironically, they just shipwrecked on board a ship that was from Alexandria.
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So there was quite a common trade route between Alexandria and Rome. I mentioned last week that a third of all the grain that fed the
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Roman Empire came from Alexandria, came through that port that was the port of origin. So it's likely that they'd jump on another grain ship in this process.
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And it says, it's interesting to note that they mentioned that the figurehead, at the bow of most ships during this time, there would be a figurehead, an actual carved wooden something that would be like the insignia of, you know, like a lot of airplanes in the
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Air Force or ships in our military force have a name, right? Or a patron or some kind of call sign or something for it.
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Well, this one was known as Gemini. And it says in the text the twin gods in the
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English Standard Version or in different translations it might say Castor and Pollux. That is our zodiac sign,
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Gemini. Those twin gods in the Roman Empire, in Roman mythology, that is the call sign of this ship.
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And that's what would have been carved on the front of it. Now it's interesting to note that Gemini, the twin gods, were considered to be protectors of sailors.
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But I think that Luke includes that kind of tongue -in -cheek in the text. Because we have seen
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Paul come through significant duress at sea. And was it
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Castor and Pollux that delivered him from the sea? Was it any of the Roman gods that have been involved in this entire process of bringing all of those sailors, all of those prisoners, all of those passengers through the waters of the
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Mediterranean Sea to shipwreck and all of them saved on the island of Malta? It was God, wasn't it?
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It was the one true God who has brought them through. And so I think it's kind of tongue -in -cheek that he puts that on there. But if I'm with Paul and company, maybe some of you are more brave than I am, but are you really eager to step foot on a ship after everything that they went through a couple chapters ago?
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Like for real? Okay, so three months prior, maybe two and a half months prior, they actually shipwrecked on an island.
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And now what are they going to have to do to get off the island? There's no air travel. There's no bridges from Malta.
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I'm thinking maybe settle down, raise a family in Malta. Looks good. It's kind of like, okay, well, maybe this is where I'm supposed to be.
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I'll hang out there for a while. But the map will help us clarify a little bit here. So we're going to zoom in a little bit.
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Fancy, huh? Wasn't that fancy? You see how that zoomed right in? Yeah, I spent too much time on this for what it really is.
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It's not that big of a deal. So you've got the star of Malta down there, and then you're going to see that in the text it tells us that they made their first stop, safely made a trip to Syracuse on the east end of Sicily.
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That was the largest city on Sicily at the time, Syracuse there. And we're all thinking
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Syracuse like as in basketball, but that wasn't where the basketball team came from. But east end of Sicily, after three days there, they cross the straits, just a really short hop over to Regium.
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And they spend one day there, and they get a favorable south wind. Now, why would they want a wind coming from the south?
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Because they're trying to get up to Rome, which is on the western shore of, basically, just a little bit inland on the western shore of Rome, north of where they're at.
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So a favorable south wind means that they're going to be able to stay up close to shore. They don't want to get out in open sea.
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So they want to kind of hug the shore, and then they end up taking off and they make it to Puteoli, which is their destination port.
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They're not going to get any closer to Rome than that by ship. So finally they get to step off the ship. They made it.
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They are now walking distance from their final destination of Rome. Now, verse 14 indicates that they found a
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Christian church there in Puteoli. So that gives you the notion of how the
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Word of God is spreading in this time, how the church is spreading. Now, this is a fairly major town, so I'm not going to try to minimize it and be like, oh, it reached every backwater little town and rinky -dink place, but this is a fairly major port.
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But at the same time, they encounter a church of Christ there. A group of followers of Jesus Christ are already there.
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Now, has an apostle ever visited this place? I mean, you've been with me in the book of Acts. Have we read about Peter going to Puteoli and starting a church?
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Have we read about Andrew or any of the apostles going to that town and starting a church? So what we have here is the notion that there are things going on that are not recorded in the book of Acts, right?
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The church is spreading dramatically. And I think it's interesting to note that in that time and that era, the gospel was not considered to be left to the professionals.
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It wasn't like in Puteoli, they were like, I'm sorry, we can't share the gospel because we don't have an apostle here yet. We need to wait until a professional comes in.
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Or wait, wait until we get somebody who's... No, it was spreading, and it was like a third level and a fourth level.
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And somebody was leading their mom to Christ, and that mom was leading a friend to Christ, and that friend was leading somebody else to Christ. And the churches were forming, and it was spreading like that kind of grassroots level.
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It wasn't waiting for the professionals to come in. And I think that's valuable. Can you see how maybe that would be valuable for us to grab ahold of here today in 2012 where we live?
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Is it primarily up to the elders of Recast Church to spread the gospel? But we ought to be, right?
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But ought we not all to be doing that? And I think we're going to see that as we kind of move through this text, some principles about that and thinking that through.
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But it appears that the word spread between Puteoli and Rome, so they're there and they end up spending some time in Puteoli, but the word spreads and beats
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Paul to Rome, and it says that two different groups of Roman Christians come out, and what amounts to like a three -staged greeting to Rome.
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So one group comes out and maybe spends a couple of days, depending on if they had horses or if they just walked, they end up going 30 miles south of Rome to meet
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Paul. They hear he's coming, and they meet him at the marketplace of Appius. So you have an actual group of Christians who come out, and they hear
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Paul, they meet him there for encouragement, while another group maybe takes off a little bit later and meets him 12 miles south at a place called
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Three Taverns. Now the notion of a tavern, a tavern is a little bit different in that day and age than it is now, so a tavern is a place where you go and get a drink at the end of work on Friday.
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That's what a lot of people in our culture do, and that's the mindset. This is an inn, a place to actually lay over or stay, and so that was really common in those times, and there's a place which makes sense about 12 miles south, a fairly decent walking distance for the day, so just south of Rome, and they end up meeting them there.
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And the greeting shows that Paul was known among Christians in the Roman Empire. People knew him, he was a known quantity, and they actually wanted to go out and greet him.
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And the result of that three -stage greeting, so you have one group that goes out 30 miles and meets him, and then another group that goes out 12, and then once he gets into the city,
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I imagine that Christians greeted him then as well, so that's why I'm saying the three different stages of his greeting into Rome.
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And the result of that is that Paul thanked God, it says in the text, and he took courage.
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So in other words, if you think about our English word encouraged, it means to infuse somebody with courage, that's what
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Paul gets here. He's actually encouraged by this greeting. And it is apparent that Paul knew many people in Rome.
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So between five and ten years before the events that we're looking at here in the book of Acts, Paul actually wrote a letter to the church in Rome.
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It's called Romans. Have any of you ever read the book of Romans before? That's a letter that he wrote before these events to the
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Christians that live in Rome. And he mentions people, if you notice in that book, he mentions people by name.
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He says, send my greetings and send my love to so -and -so, and especially in the last chapter, in chapter 16 there, you see a lot of that going on.
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So he knew people by name. And my question to you is, have you ever been encouraged by the presence of other believers?
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Have they ever been an encouragement to you? And I think sometimes it really is just in the simple things that we can encourage one another.
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Just going out of your way to say hello. Just an email saying I'm praying for you.
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Sometimes just a call to say that you were on my mind. The believers in Rome don't really do much, if you think about it.
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They don't really go that far out of the way. They do take a day trip out of Rome to greet a friend. But it results in praise to God and encouragement for his servant.
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Now, would that be good timing for Paul to receive some encouragement? He's going into Rome not knowing what his destiny is.
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He's going to be standing trial before Caesar, and he doesn't know how that's going to go. And he's bound in chains.
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He's a prisoner, and he's going to be on trial. And so encouragement is valuable in his life. And I think the reality is, where we live today, we're very reticent to share some of the deep heart levels.
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Like even this morning, has anybody here talked with anybody else this morning? I hope most all of you. I hear a lot of chattering anyways before the service and stuff.
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And how much do you think we really get down to the heart in those moments? How was your week? Oh, it was really bad, and you're never going to believe what happened.
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And how I'm feeling inside and all that. Is that what you got this morning? Or was it like, no, I've had a pretty good week. It's been going okay. Would you agree with me?
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We kind of tend to stay on the surface. But the reality of it is we don't know how we could be encouraging others and just what a good, kind word and an active listening ear could mean to each other on a
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Sunday morning, right? Or in your small groups or wherever you're connecting with other believers. Sometimes it's just looking for those clues and those cues of, man, that sounds like you've had a pretty rough week.
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Can I pray for you? Can I pray with you now? Is there something I can be doing to help? Is there anything I can do for you this next week to help it to go better?
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Do you see what I'm saying? I mean, sometimes we've got to connect a little bit deeper with one another. In verse 16, we find a very favorable housing arrangement for Paul.
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We don't really expect it. We expect him to be held up at the barracks or the prison, but he's allowed to remain under house arrest, literally to find his own place to stay by his own means.
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He gets his own apartment, but a soldier is assigned to him. And it's still not a perfect situation.
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As a matter of fact, it's a little creepy, awkward situation because Paul was likely shackled to the soldier by the wrist during this house arrest.
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Okay, so he's never far from the soldier that's assigned to him. And we know that from historical documents from the
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Roman Empire, that that's how house arrest was conducted. And so they were shackled by the wrist, a four -hour rotation.
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So every four hours, fortunately for the soldier, he got a replacement, and another soldier would come in and spend four hours with Paul, and then another soldier, and there would be a rotation going on.
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So awkward for the soldier, awkward for Paul, but they would get to know. And actually, we see in a couple of the letters of Paul that his reputation began to spread around the
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Praetorian Guard. That was the guard that's assigned to him. And we actually see that through this rotation, people were getting a reputation.
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How many of you know that he had a captive audience? That poor soldier did not have a chance but to hear the gospel multiple times.
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I mean, you'd imagine, okay, he's going to turn them one way or the other, right? But every four hours, there was this rotation.
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Not necessarily a great arrangement for Paul, but at the same time, better than the dungeon. Okay, in this time, in this era, you died in prison often.
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And so this was a good arrangement. Only three days at Rome, so he spent three days there, and Paul, we see, is extremely proactive.
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He calls a meeting together with the local Jewish leaders. He always says this.
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In the book of Romans, he starts off and he says, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. He always begins with the
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Jews. Whenever we've seen that, all throughout the book of Acts, everywhere that Paul goes, he goes and he meets the
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Jews first, and then he proclaims the gospel to the Gentiles after the Jews gives them a chance, and after they reject it, then he goes to the
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Gentiles as well. It's just his M .O. It's the way he rolls. And so the first thing he does is he calls together the
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Jews. I think it's interesting to note he was extremely proactive. He didn't leave things up to guesswork.
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He does assume that he's got a bad reputation already among the Roman Jews, right? He's got that assumption, and so he's going to go in, and kind of with a defensive attitude, but he tackles things head on.
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So we have a first meeting between Paul and the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, in 17, verses 17 through 22.
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And so if you see that, that's what you're seeing. The first meeting, and then he's going to set up another meeting, so there's two separate meetings in our text at the end here in the book of Acts.
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In the first meeting, Paul is very focused on explaining how he ended up in Rome. How did he get here?
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Why is he standing there in front of them talking? Why did he even call the Jews together to listen to him? You see, the
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Romans found him not guilty, but the Jews in Jerusalem were not satisfied with that, and in making a long story short,
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Paul says, I appealed to Caesar, and that's why I'm standing before you. But whenever you hear a person in Scripture kind of recounting things that they already had experience to them, and you see something different in it, it's kind of a clue.
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You ought to zero in on that, right? Like, if they say something different about it. And at the end of verse 19, we get something different in Paul's delivery.
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He says, Now he's talking about him charging them.
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Now, he's on trial because the Jews have accused him of something, right? But he says,
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He has every right under Roman law to bring charges against his accusers, including the high priest of all of Israel.
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He could counter -sue. And he says, Why would that be important in his context?
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He's standing and defending himself before Jews. And he says, But in verse 20,
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Paul identifies why he desires so quickly, just after three days in Rome, to speak with the Jewish leaders.
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It's both to exonerate his reputation, and to clearly explain that he has been imprisoned because of the hope of Israel.
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Do you see that in the text in verse 20? The phrase, the hope of Israel. What is the hope of Israel?
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The hope of Israel is something that started way back, all the way in the beginning of Genesis, where there was a promise that one would be born who would crush the head of the serpent.
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Okay, way back when Adam and Eve fell, there was a promise that one would be born a woman who would crush the head of Satan.
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Who is that? Jesus Christ. And then we see from that very first glimpse of the gospel in the book of Genesis, all the way through the
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Old Testament, is this promise that one will come who will deliver his people from their sins. Jesus Christ.
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And that is the hope. That's what we see. And so that's the hope of Israel, is that the Messiah was coming, and they all would have understood this.
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It's almost a technical phrase, a technical term. The hope of Israel. They heard Messiah when he said that.
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And so the fulfillment is that the Messiah has come, and he has been revealed, and Jesus Christ has fulfilled that promise.
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The Jews in Rome had received no letter, they say. Well, we didn't know anything about any of this. We didn't even know why you were in trouble.
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We didn't know why you were here. No letter, no visitors from Jerusalem smearing you at all.
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We haven't heard any evil that you've done. Okay, nobody's visited, nobody's written about it. And although that might seem surprising, is that surprising to any of you who have been here for multiple weeks?
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It's kind of like, what, they didn't even send a letter? I mean, they were pretty hostile. They were ready to kill him back in Jerusalem, right?
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And now nobody's even forwarded anything on? Well, most historians and a lot of scholars and biblical scholars see this, that what we see in history is likely that they dropped their charges.
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Okay, they would be summoned to basically stand before Caesar and provide an accusation, and they're not real eager to do that.
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Because they knew that they were on shaky ground to begin with, and so they actually pull back and never show up.
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So his accusers are not going to push it any further anymore. And actually, most historians see that what's likely, by trying to harmonize accounts from his letters, he writes letters after this two years, this is not the end of the road for Paul.
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This is not the arrest that leads to his demise. He's going to actually stand before Caesar.
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Most people who try to put the Bible together and understand the history and the historical documents and Rome and all of this stuff, they see that he was released after two years.
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He went to Caesar, nobody came to prosecute, he was released under Roman law, and ended up actually spending a few years in ministry before he was arrested again under a new emperor named
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Nero. Nero had to find a scapegoat for this whole little burning thing that happened in Rome.
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So Rome caught on fire and he needed somebody to take the blame, he blamed the Christians, and then what ensued was just this hostility towards Christianity that took place over a century or so, and many died, including the
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Apostle Paul, who most historians, the most reliable accounts that we have, say that he was actually beheaded by the
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Roman Empire. And this would be subsequent to, this would be a second Roman arrest later down the road.
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So you can look up all that stuff and you can study it, and some of it is as much as history, when you get into Roman history, some of it's speculation and trying to figure things out, but that's the closest that I can get to that.
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But check out verse 22. The Jews in Rome are actually interested in learning more about Christianity.
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That's what it says in verse 22. 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.
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So they're like, we want to know more. Would you love that? If you presented the gospel to a co -worker or a friend, and they were like, man, we want to know more.
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We want to know this. Would you be like, thumbs up? Cool. Awesome. They want to know. They've heard that it was spoken against by Jews, but they don't know what it teaches or why.
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And at this point in history, Christianity was still considered primarily a sect of Judaism. If you were a
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Christian in this time, most people thought you were a Jew who was kind of just like on a different track.
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You get what I'm saying? So everybody kind of thought of you as a Jew if you were a Christian.
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But it was not until the destruction of the temple in 70 AD that Christianity and Judaism began to be really formally separate, where it was like, okay,
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Christianity is something different than Judaism. And there's all kinds of historical implications to the demise of the temple that brought that about.
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But how many people in our lives are just like the Jews in Rome? I think we know people that are like these
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Jews. They've heard others talk about Jesus. They know that many disbelieve, and they know that there's controversies, but they do not know anything about Jesus Christ for themselves.
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They have not studied Him. They have not read about Him. They haven't touched the Scriptures, but they've heard whispers and rumors about the
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Christian faith. And they kind of want to know a little bit more. They've maybe watched a documentary or two on the
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History Channel, which has led them in the wrong direction. But all it took for Paul was making himself available.
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And he found that they desired to hear his views, and they wanted to know more. And he had an audience with them because he made himself available.
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And I imagine that there are some people that you know that actually desire to know what you believe.
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They would listen. If you invited them for a cup of coffee or to take them out for a Coke and just talk, they would love to hear.
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Do you believe me when I say that? Do you think that there are people in your lives who would genuinely love to hear it?
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Now, granted, I can't only paint a rosy picture. Are there some people who would like to just dump the coffee over your head if you did that with them?
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There might be a couple. But I would dare say that the majority of the people would actually love it if you cared about them enough.
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And the worst that you're probably going to get in our culture is, that is so good for you, but it's not for me.
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Isn't that what you're most likely to get in our culture? I'd give it a shot. There are people who are hurting and desiring to know more.
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And they're like, what is this life really about? And God might have put some of you in their lives for the sole purpose that you could proclaim the truth to them and be their friend in a way that conveys the most important love of all, and that is the love that God has for them.
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So think about that, the way that these Jews responded. They wanted to know more. In verse 23, everybody gets out their smartphones, coordinates their schedule, has their people contact each other's people, and they make appointments.
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And so they're like, we can't cover this all today. We're going to need to set down a time and actually have this discussion.
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And the impression is that in that meeting, so many people show up that Paul's place is packed. They meet at his place.
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I'd imagine it was kind of meager. And so they meet there. The place is packed.
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And Paul spends the entire day from morning to evening, it says, expounding the truth.
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Pretty long -winded meeting. Paul could do it. We know in one account in the book of Acts, he preached all night and a little kid fell out the window, fell asleep.
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So this dude could put people to sleep with his long -windedness. And there's a morning till evening. So this is only,
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I'm not going to preach that long, so you guys can rest on that. But he focuses on two primary things.
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He testifies to the kingdom of God, it says, and he tries to convince them about Jesus Christ from the
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Old Testament. It says from the Old Testament law and the prophets, from the law of Moses and the prophets.
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And that's what he's going to walk through, who Jesus Christ is. Now I mentioned this. Whenever you hear the word kingdom of God, what have
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I said that you need to have in your mind? King. Because sometimes that word, that phrase can get muddy in our mind.
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Like what is the kingdom of God? Is that heaven? Is it now? Is it the church? Have any of you ever been confused by that phrase, kingdom of God?
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The kingdom of God just is, whenever you read that, think, oh, somebody wants me to know that there is a king, because a kingdom comes with a king.
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And so Paul is ultimately making a case that the kingdom of God has arrived, and Jesus Christ is the king of that kingdom.
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And it's here. And Paul uses the Old Testament to demonstrate that Jesus fulfills the prophecy for the king who would come to set his people free.
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And Jesus is the answer to that. Now some are convinced by Paul's argument, but others, it says in the text, disbelieve.
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And Paul's response, by Paul's response, we're left to assume that the majority of them disbelieve, because he responds pretty directly to them.
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He's going to quote Isaiah 6, 9 through 10 in our text. And I think it's really interesting to note in verse 25, look at verse 25 with me.
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Go ahead and look down at the page for a second. Look at how Paul understands Scripture to be.
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What does he understand about the book of Isaiah? He says, Who wrote
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Isaiah? According to Paul, according to Luke, who's recording this. Who wrote Isaiah?
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The Holy Spirit through Paul. We have here a very clear indicator about how this book came about.
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How did we get this book, the Holy Spirit, superintended and wrote this through men?
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Okay, in history. Real history, real people who the Holy Spirit spoke through, and it is revealed as Scripture, as the words of God, Him speaking to us through the
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Holy Spirit, through the superintending of people. And it's interesting, what he has to say here could be kind of provocative and a little bit like, what's the word
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I'm looking for? It could look angry, okay? The quote in the context of Isaiah is about Israel and the fact that they have the tendency to hear, but not really understand.
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They see things, but they don't perceive them and really take them in. And the diagnosis is, so those are the symptoms.
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The symptoms are, you see, but you don't really perceive. You hear with your ears, but you don't take it in and own it and really believe it and embrace it.
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And I think the same could be true for people in our culture today and maybe even for some of us. But the diagnosis, so those are the symptoms.
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The diagnosis that causes those symptoms is a dull, a thick, or a calloused heart.
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Okay, that's what the text says. That word that's used there, callous or dull or thick, it depends on your translation.
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Paul is ultimately identifying that they have a need for a heart change before these things will actually sink in.
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This is really less of an insult. Does it look like an insult when you first read it? Okay, you're seeing, you're not perceiving, you're hearing, but you're not really listening, you're not paying attention.
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He's diagnosing their situation, but he's not insulting them. It's more of a proclamation of the need for a heart change, and he's identifying that and speaking that to them.
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And then he goes on to say that this message of salvation is equally available to the Gentiles, and oh, by the way, they will listen.
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He's really trying to drive them towards a decision. He's trying to motivate them. He's saying, well, the
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Gentiles will listen to this. You won't? Come on, guys, listen, pay attention to this. That's what he's saying.
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And although it could be interpreted as an insult if you look at it one way, the Jews departed after this statement, so you could go, well, okay, there's another evidence that maybe they got hacked about it, they're angry, they're going to just jet after he says this.
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He actually has two years of ongoing ministry in Rome unhindered, and it's obvious that the statement did not ruin his ministry in Rome one bit.
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Okay, it says he went on unhindered. These Jews are not opposed to him after this conversation. Do you see that in the text?
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The people are still coming to him, and they're not pushing against him. I want to point this out. So how could
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Paul say these things to his own brethren, to his own people, the Jews? How could he say these things so directly?
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You're just not paying attention. You've got hard hearts. You're callous. You're not listening.
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You're just not paying attention. All of these things. How could he say those things? Well, I want to soften that with something else that Paul says, and if you want to turn over to Romans 9.
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Romans 9, 1 -3. I don't have you turn to different passages very often, and I didn't get the page number for you. My apologies. Romans 9, 1 -3.
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I want you to hear another thing that Paul says that balances this understanding of the way that Paul viewed the
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Jews. He says, Romans 9, 1 -3.
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I'm speaking the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
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For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off for Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
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Paul says, I wish that I could be condemned and all the Jews saved. And I would make that change.
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How many of you could say that? I read that, by the way. That was kind of like one of those things. Sometimes I'm studying one passage, and then in my quiet time,
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I'm reading something else. And I read this a couple mornings ago, and I was like, that is an illustration for what Paul really felt about the
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Jews. I mean, I hate to say this, but if your salvation depends on me giving mine up,
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I'm sorry. I'm just being brutally honest. I'm so sorry. I mean, does anybody have any fear of hell in the room?
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Anybody kind of just afraid of that? Like that notion? The thought that Paul could say this? And then
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I thought, Paul pays lip service to this, right? Paul says it, but he doesn't ever have to do it. Moses said it.
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So you go back in the Old Testament, we have an Old Testament model of somebody who stood in the gap and said, well, you curse me and let your people go.
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Do you remember him saying that? Many times, Moses stood between God and the people and said, you want to fry the people?
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Fry me and let them go. Okay, and I'm kind of like, I'm not sure I'm there. There is one who didn't just say it, but did it.
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And his name is Jesus Christ. He didn't just say, I will stand and I will go to hell for you and then walk away.
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He did it. He paid the price for us on the cross and that is the good news. That is the gospel.
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It's not that Paul said he was willing, but didn't have to make payment on it. Or that Moses said,
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I'll stand in and God was gracious towards him. Jesus Christ said, I will go for you.
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I will stand in the gap for you and I will stand in the place that you deserve and I'll pay it for you.
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That's what Jesus Christ has done for us. That is the gospel. That is the good news. Anybody feel like saying amen to that?
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I rejoice that I have one who stood in the gap for me. And yet Paul's love for his people drove him to say things like, you're callous and you're cold and you're hard -hearted.
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He would have given his life for them, but he still says hard things to them. Do you see that in the text?
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He loved them. But have any of you ever been in a situation where you love somebody and you still had to say some hard things to them?
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If you have kids, you have. Some of you who don't have kids, you're just kind of like,
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I don't get that yet. No, you still probably have had to do that. And so we come to the end of the book of Acts.
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The gospel of Jesus Christ and his church started in Jerusalem. It's reached Rome, the center of the known world.
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And there is God's servant proclaiming the kingdom of God with boldness and teaching about the
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Lord Jesus Christ, it says in the text without hindrance. So as we draw to this abrupt ending to this book, anybody think that it's a little abrupt?
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Like anybody have some loose ends you'd like it to kind of sew up and tie up? And it just doesn't do that for us.
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I think it serves to leave it open ended, primarily because the story goes on.
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It's hard to sew up the biography of the church when the church has been going on for 2 ,000 years and the story hasn't ended.
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It's still going. And one obvious application is that the story goes on through us.
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This book of Acts still being written through us. There is a church planning organization in Seattle called
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Acts 29. Have any of you heard of the Acts 29 network? A couple people have. I like that.
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How many chapters are in this book? 28. And they call themselves
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Acts 29. And then somebody recommended to me this morning, I mean earlier this week, right,
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Dave, that we ought to call ourselves Acts 30. The Acts 30 network, just to kind of one up the
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Acts 29 network. But really, but really think about it. If Scripture was still being written today, what would be our part in it?
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What would be written about us? What would be written about you? If Scripture was still ongoing, what would our part look like?
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Are we going about our day today following the Spirit of God? Are we walking in obedience to the known things that Scripture tells us?
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And when I talk about walking with the Spirit or obeying God, I'm not talking about waking up in the morning and saying,
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God, which shoes do you want me to wear? And where do you want me to drive? And where do you want me to go? And what job do you want me to have?
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I've got plenty of things that God has explicitly told me He wants for me right here that it will last me a lifetime trying to follow this.
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I don't need all of those other things. I mean, if you are honoring God and you're walking with Him and you're in this Word, just go do stuff.
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Okay? If you love Him, then just go do stuff and it'll be awesome. Does that make sense?
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It's freeing to know that God tells us what He wants of us right here. It's all this mystical stuff about what college
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I ought to go to or who I ought to marry or all of those kinds of things. Is that in here? That's not in here and it doesn't need to be in here.
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Because if you love God and you're following this and you're in this and you're wrestling with it and you're trying to become more like His Son, awesome.
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Everything else will work. It'll fall into place. And I'm not promising perfection. I'm not promising that everything's going to be awesome and everything's going to go okay for you in every aspect of life.
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I mean, are we going to go through hardships? Are we going to go through storms? Are we going to go through shipwrecks? Yes, but if we're doing this and we are loving
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God and He loves us, then we know that everything is going to work out for the good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.
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Even if that means that I die through this next illness and He takes me home to be with Him. Right?
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It's all going to work out. It just might be that it works out over there. That was all extra and I've got to figure out where I was here.
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I do want to settle the application for us because as we walk by the Spirit, we're walking in obedience.
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There's one other thing here that is very, very key. Really, it settles the application for us in this entire book and ultimately in this last chapter.
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The book ends with a clear push towards the proclamation of the gospel, towards the kingdom, the teaching about Jesus Christ.
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And it's no accident that Luke ends his account with clear principles for our interaction with our culture around us.
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So I want to point out four principles that we see in the text that we can glean from Paul's example as he comes into Rome here at the end.
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First is that Paul was proactive and bold. He went out, he didn't leave his reputation to chance, but in verse 17 it says he gathered the
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Jews together and had a powwow with them. Now how many of us just leave things up to chance in our lives, in our interactions with our culture and with people around us?
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Are there people in your life who have the notion that you might be religious? Think about that.
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Literally, think about that. Are there people in your life who think, man, I think he might be religious,
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I think she might be religious, but I'm not sure? We kind of leave it up to chance that way.
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Are there people in your life who think you're just a pretty good guy or a pretty good girl? Hopefully they don't think you're a pretty good girl if you're a guy.
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But anyways. As I said earlier, there are some things that there are some people who would literally like to sit down with you and hear what you believe.
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And why not just go a little out of our way to be bold and proactive about those conversations and those interactions with people?
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Telling them what Jesus Christ has done for you and what he's done for them. The second thing, so first,
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Paul was proactive and bold, but second, Paul is also held up as a model in the way that he testifies and tries to convince.
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So he has kind of a two -pronged approach to the way that he proclaims the gospel in verse 23. And later that notion appears again in verse 31 where we see him proclaiming and teaching at the very end of our passage.
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I'm convinced that Paul tried to reach both the heart and the mind of his audience.
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He was trying to hit for both. He didn't shy back from difficult questions and really neither should we.
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There is a time and a place for us to work to try to convince people. Primarily because faith in Christ is not an irrational it's not irrational as a belief system.
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It's not like you just jump off a cliff and hope that Jesus catches you. There's some structure to it. There's some reality to it.
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As we've seen throughout the book of Acts, the Christian faith was not formed in some fairytale land with fictional characters.
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It's that God broke into real history and there's reality and there's archaeology and there's all kinds of evidences for that.
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So that our faith in the end, at the end of the day is faith, but it's faith based on fact and reason and rationality.
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Does that make sense? It's not an irrational faith that we hold to and there should be some kind of attempts at convincing in there.
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All of these things that we see in history and in the Bible occurred in broad daylight in real history. Not in some corner of Narnia or something like that.
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In verses 26 through 28, number 3, Paul did not shy back from speaking hard words.
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I mentioned that just briefly earlier. But in all these things we see in these principles, I think hard words need to be used with a lot of discretion.
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Would you agree with me on that? We need to be cautious and we need to be careful and especially around that time when we need to use hard words.
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But there is a time to challenge people to consider their own heart. Is there a time for that?
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Is there room for that in our relationships? I think nothing bothers me quite like a person who proclaims the value of an open mind while tenaciously keeping theirs completely closed.
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Have you encountered that person? Maybe we've been that person but where everything that they hold up is like, oh you just should have an open mind and everybody needs to have an open mind and the minute that you proclaim the gospel their mind is not open anymore.
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Okay, and that kind of thing happens and there may come a time in a discussion to respectfully identify the closed mindedness of those that we love.
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Just like Paul who said I'd be willing to give my own life for them but they're stubborn. That's what he says in essence, right?
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And he identifies it to them. Look at your heart. Check it out. What's going on in there right now?
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And lastly, Paul had an open door policy. You see that in verse 30. He welcomed any who would come to him.
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Look at verse 30 with me right near the end. He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him.
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And the emphasis on the word all there implies all. Okay, it's one of those tricky
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Greek words that means all. I think if we saw the list of even the types of people who came to him during these two years it would be amazing.
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I think all different kinds of people from all different kinds of walks of life came to Paul to talk to him. And my question is how open is our life to others?
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How accessible are we for the sake of the good news of Jesus Christ? I think some of us probably tend towards being all business.
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We can easily convey an air of unavailability to others by the way we live our lives, right? Paul was available and was willing to meet with anybody at any time.
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One of our core values here at Recast focuses on this very desire here of availability in the gospel.
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You see the gospel is the reason simplicity. You see it on the wall back here. It's the reason that that is a core value at Recast Church.
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We desire to minimize church programming so that you are available to get to know your neighbors and your community.
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We have pared down programming so that your evenings are more free to invite people over.
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So that you have time to actually engage your community out there. So that you could serve on a committee at your school or somewhere out in the community and actually rub shoulders with people who are not believers.
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Simplicity is not about laziness, about doing the minimum programming we can get away with.
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It's about orienting our lives around this great mission that we've been learning about in the book of Acts. That the book of Acts is ultimately leaving in our court to carry forward.
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Do you understand that? You're getting why simplicity is on the wall back there? It is for the purpose of the mission of the church.
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That we carry it forward and we actually get to know and love people out there. Not just people in here.
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And I'm afraid so many Christians can get their lives so busy in the church that they never ever have a light or shine the light or the salt out there.
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And ministry happens out there. In here we're built up, we're strengthened, we take in God's word, we learn.
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Hopefully it does strengthen you, hopefully you believe it and you go out and you live it and you act it. But all that we do in these four walls is for the purpose of when we're out there.
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Did you know that? It's not some cyclical self -serving business that we've got going on here of just trying to make ourselves better and just strengthen us and let's get some more
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Bible studies in here and let's get more of this and this and this and we can just become bloated with our own knowledge and our own wisdom and our own internal things here.
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Is that making sense? What we do is for the purpose of going out and sharing and proclaiming the word.
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The good news of Jesus Christ is shown through the pages and the power of the Spirit to call out people for Himself is clear and we get to have a part in that.
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We get to have a part going and carrying forward the book of Acts. So we've made it through the book of Acts but the history of the church is still being written and what is our part?
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What is your part in the story? Let's pray. Father, I thank
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You for this book. This book has become my friend over the last three years. We've spent a lot of time together and I love
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Your word. I love the challenge that it's placed on me as we've started recast.
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I think setting us off on the right foot of understanding the reason we do the things that we do and why
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You started the church and the notion this entire concept of the mission that's being carried forward through our lives, not through the professionals, not through me as the pastor or the other elders here at the church, not through just the
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Sunday school teachers, but everybody doing their part to proclaim the good news in their sphere of influence and that's the way that the kingdom grows as one life changed at a time.
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Not through political events and rallies and trying to lobby and get the government to make this a better place, but Father, ultimately we recognize it is one life changed at a time by Your Holy Spirit.
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So Father, I pray for us that we would be attentive to the opportunities that You give us as we go throughout this week.
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And then as we get an opportunity to come to communion and Bill comes and leads us in that, Father, that You would be honored and glorified.