Let the Will of the Lord Be Done

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Don Filcek; Acts 21:1-26 Let the Will of the Lord Be Done

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what I like to do at the beginning of every service is kind of introduce the subject that we're going to be talking through, read the scriptural text so that we can prepare our hearts for worship as the band is going to come and lead us.
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We've been going and marching through the book of Acts, and we've been focusing in on that concept of the new church, the early church being started, and particularly as recast as a new church and gotten started, we've been looking at it from that standpoint.
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What we're going to see in our text this morning is we're going to see God guiding the Apostle Paul into difficulty and hardship.
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We're going to see him preparing Paul's heart for difficulty that's ahead of him in Jerusalem. He's been traveling and he's on his way, and we're going to see part of that journey back to Jerusalem, and there in Jerusalem he keeps hearing time and time again that he's going to suffer in Jerusalem.
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Now, how many of you would like to sign up for that? Okay, you're told that the journey ahead of you is going to be suffering, you're going to be arrested, you're going to be put on trial, and bad things are going to happen.
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Anybody ready to sign up? Okay, that means everybody's fairly normal here, but also it means that not many of us are very much like Paul, because Paul signed up for it and was eager, and we'll see that in our text.
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Now, I think some of us have the tendency to think that God should primarily be concerned about our comfort. Right?
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God primarily exists to make us comfortable, to give us health, to give us wealth, to make us feel good.
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That our peace is the primary designation of God's blessing on us. Now, maybe we might not say that, right?
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But how many of you would say that maybe sometimes in your life you've thought that? Like, if things are going well, then
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God is blessing me, but if things are going bad, then God is not blessing me. How many of you might have thought that from time to time?
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Like, maybe I've done something wrong because God isn't blessing me or things aren't going well. And what we're going to look at is,
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I'm going to kind of try to, over the course of this service, kind of turn that on its head and say, sometimes
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God brings difficult things into our lives because He loves us and wants better for us.
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Can you imagine that? Can you think of a situation or a scenario in your life where you have grown through hardships and difficulties?
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Where you're a stronger person now and today because you went through and endured some difficulty, and that really that difficulty was the best that God had for you.
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Can you imagine that? It's hard for us to get our mind around, but as we go through this text,
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I think it's going to begin to make sense to all of us. We'll see a text where God is leading and guiding
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Paul to Jerusalem, where he is going to be beaten, arrested, and brought to trial. And that's
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God's will for him. So the question that I ask as we come to worship this morning, before we're going to, again, talk about this, read the text, and then come to worship.
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And I think it's fundamental that we ask this. Can we worship and praise a God that might have difficult things in store for us?
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Genuinely answer that question this morning. Because reality is, the band is about to get up, and they're going to play some songs, and we're going to sing along with these songs, and we're going to say some words, and we're going to read them off the screen.
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But the question is, are we going to be able to gauge our heart with the worship of God? Because how many of you admit that you've gone through some hard things?
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I know some of you. I should be raising your hands, because I know you, and I know you've gone through hard things, and I know you're going through hard things now.
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Can we praise God in the midst of those storms, and in the midst of those difficulties, and in the midst of knowing that there are going to be hard times ahead of us?
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Thank you for answering that. I really appreciate that coming from Sharon, knowing what she's going through.
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Wow. As the band comes, they're going to lead us in worship.
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When I finish reading this text, and we've got to deal with that question in our hearts. Paul himself is going to say, if you look at Paul's life, and all that he endured, and all the difficulty, and all the struggles, and the strife, and the problems, and being beaten, and stoned, and left for dead, and drug outside of cities, and threatened with death, and shipwrecked, and all of the different things, and he says this.
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He writes this in 1 Corinthians 4 .17. If you have a pen, you might want to write this one down.
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These two verses are extremely encouraging to me. 1 Corinthians 4 .17, Paul writes this in the context of going through it with the churches, being beaten, being ridiculed, being spit at, and mocked.
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He says, What did he call all of the suffering that he endured in life?
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He called it light momentary affliction. Wow, what a perspective.
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Do we have that perspective? Also in Romans 8 .18, he says this. And believe me, the church that he's writing to is suffering.
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They are being lynched, and killed, and murdered by the authorities. And he says,
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For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth even comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us when
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Christ returns. That there is something that is long -term in mind here.
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The Christian life and the plan that God has for us goes so far beyond this life that all of the suffering that we experience here,
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Paul considered light and momentary affliction. And I, for one, am grateful that God has the long view in mind for me.
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How many of you would raise your hand and say, I praise God that he has something longer -term in mind for me than this present life.
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There is something more. Amen to that. So open your Bibles, please, to Acts 21.
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We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 26. If you get that Bible that's in the seat back in front of you, you can turn to page 796 in that Bible.
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If you were here with us this morning, you don't own a Bible, I encourage you to take that one with you. We want everybody to own a
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Bible. We've got a box full of them in the back room ready to fill in any that get taken. So we want everybody to have a
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Bible. 796, follow along as I read the entirety of Acts 21, 1 through 26.
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And when we had parted from them and set sail, they're parting from the church in Ephesus, so we talked about that last time, the leaders of the church of Ephesus.
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And when we had parted from them and set sail, we came by a straight course to Kos, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patera.
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And having found a ship crossing to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail. When we had come in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left, we sailed to Syria and landed at Tyre, for there the ship was to unload its cargo.
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And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days, and through the Spirit they were telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem.
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When our days there were ended, we departed and went on our journey, and they all, with wives and children, accompanied us until we were outside the city, and kneeling down on the beach, we prayed and said farewell to one another.
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Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home. When we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemaeus, and we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for one day.
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On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the Evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him.
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He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. While we were staying for many days, a prophet named
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Agabus came down from Judea, and coming to us, he took Paul's belt and bound his own feet and hands and said,
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Thus says the Holy Spirit, This is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the
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Gentiles. When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go to Jerusalem.
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And then Paul answered, What are you doing weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned, but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the
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Lord Jesus. And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, Let the will of the
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Lord be done. After these days, we got ready and went up to Jerusalem. And some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us, bringing us to the house of Manassin of Cyprus, an early disciple with whom we should lodge.
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When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. On the following day, Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present.
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After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified
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God, and they said to him, You see, brothers, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed.
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They are all zealous for the law, and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the
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Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs. What then is to be done, they will certainly hear that you have come.
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Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. Take these men and purify yourselves along with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads.
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Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourselves also live in observance of the law.
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But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with the judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what has been strangled and from sexual immorality.
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Then Paul took the men, and the next day he purified himself along with them and went into the temple giving notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship. Father, I want to thank you that you have such a longer vision in mind for our lives.
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Father, it is hard to not pray for success.
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It is hard to not just primarily pray for health and wealth and good things. That's what we really want.
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I mean, we think we know what is best for us, and yet you have proven in my life that some of the hardest things that I've had to deal with have been the things that have caused me to grow closer to you, closer to the things that matter most in my life, to shake me out of complacency and apathy and laziness and to shake me into a deeper, more profound relationship with you.
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And so, Father, as we walk through this text, I know that we are coming from all different kinds of walks of life, all different kinds of things that have happened to us, struggles, difficulties this week.
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Some of it had awesome weeks. Some here might have been promoted or got a raise or good things have happened to them, and this has been primarily a good week for them.
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And then others are sitting here, and they have just had one of the worst weeks of their lives. And, Father, I ask that you would level us all at the feet of the cross to stand before you in praise and worship of you and acknowledge your glory and, most importantly, to believe and trust in your goodness towards us.
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I pray that you would be with our worship and accept it as an offering to you in Jesus' name. Amen.
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I want to remind you that I know we just had a little bit of a break time. You got up and got some donuts, but there are some more donuts back there and there's more coffee, so take advantage of that.
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You can get up during the message at any time. But make yourself comfortable, but not so comfortable that you fall asleep, please.
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Okay? Please. But if you do, I'm not going to throw anything at you or anything.
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We're going to dive right into a map to start with. And so if Tim would kind of pull that up there. We left, it's kind of important sometimes in the
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Book of Acts, we're actually looking at a historical account of real events that happened in a real place in a real time.
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And so sometimes it's helpful just to get a map out and kind of look at things. We left Paul giving the last words to the leadership in the
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Church of Ephesus in a place called Miletus. And Miletus is 30 miles south of Ephesus. The leaders last week came down from that town.
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We don't know how many there were, but it says the elders, the leaders of that church came down and he gave them a sermon, basically declaring his last words to them.
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Now we had seen, leading up to his travels to Miletus, up to where we ended last week, that he had been told that things were not going to go well for him when he got to Jerusalem.
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He's already been aware of that. People have been telling him this as he goes from town to town and city to city, traveling towards Jerusalem.
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His goal is to get down to Jerusalem in the southwest, I mean the southeast corner of the map there.
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His goal is to get there by Pentecost. From the time that he takes off from Miletus, he's got five weeks to get there.
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So he's got some traveling and some miles to cover in five weeks. And of course, he's not just going to jump on a plane and get there.
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So he's got to get moving and get on the road. Again, he knew the
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Spirit was telling him that things were going to turn bad. And then people along the way, we're going to see today, that are going to remind him of that, that he's heading into the hornet's nest.
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And what we know, though, is that Paul said last week that he felt constrained by the
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Spirit to go to Jerusalem. So you're kind of like, everybody's telling you that things are going to go bad when you go to a place. Like, just don't go there, right?
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Like, wouldn't that be just a logical conclusion? I'm just not going to go, because everywhere I go, people are telling me things are going to go bad when
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I go there, so maybe I just shouldn't go. But he used the word constrained, and the word constrained is like chained or shackled.
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He says, I'm chained to the Holy Spirit. It's like the Holy Spirit is dragging him there. And we don't know what that really looked like in his life, whether he received a vision, an audible voice from God, a manifestation of the
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Son of God. We don't know. We're not told how he knew he was supposed to go to Jerusalem. But are you convinced that Paul thought he was supposed to go to Jerusalem?
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You see that. Everything in his life right now is driving him towards Jerusalem. He says, I'm constrained by the Spirit to go there.
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So in verse 1, we see that he takes leave of the Ephesian elders who were weeping at his departure.
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And the word that's like take leave or to leave the Ephesian elders is like a word like he had to pull himself away from them.
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Like, they had put their hands on him. They prayed for him. They knelt down with him. They were embracing him, it says. And there was much weeping and sorrow, because he told them,
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I'm never going to see you again. So there's a sense that he has to pull himself away. Now, just at the stage, he's going to get on a ship, and he's traveling with a delegation of Gentile believers.
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We know that from where we've been in the past. So he's got about 8 to 10 people in his posse that are traveling around with him.
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And he's carrying a large offering, according to 1 Corinthians. He's got this huge sum of money that he's traveling with, taking it down to Jerusalem, where there's been a couple of famines have hit.
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And he's taking a collection all throughout Greece and Asia Minor, which is modern -day Turkey, taking up this collection, and he's heading back down to Jerusalem to take care of the people that are there.
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Now, they're on a small ship that stops at a port every night. So we're going to see just some short trips here.
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He goes from Miletus to Kos, from Kos to Rhodes, and then from Rhodes to this place called
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Patera. Now, when he arrives at Patera, they switch ships there. And he boards a more sturdy cargo ship.
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Now, we know it's a cargo ship because it's going to unload its cargo at Tyre. So that was quite common in those days for them to basically jump on a, like, just imagine back in,
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I don't know what era it would have been, but you hear about people jumping on a train, right, a cargo train, and jumping on it and taking it as far as they could and then getting off and jumping on another train or whatever and just traveling.
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That's what they kind of did in those times. And it was just extra income, extra money for the owner of that ship to take on some passengers along the way.
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Hey, we're heading that way too. Why don't you come aboard? And then they'd charge him a little bit and they were going there anyways and it worked out well for everybody.
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So that's what's going on there. He switches ships. A more sturdy vessel that's going to be able to take them down across the south side of Cyprus there and end up in what is
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Phoenicia, which is the area that's basically, you see where the, how many of you can see Syria on the map on the right -hand side?
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See the word Syria there on the right -hand side? The area between Syria and Judea is called
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Phoenicia where you see Sidon and Tyre there and that's what the text tells us. They were heading towards Phoenicia.
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Again, you can notice that Luke is present. We see the word we in the text. That's the pronoun, which means that the author is present in the text.
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He's actually with this entourage and he's traveling with them and he loves detail. So he's telling every place that they stop.
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He talks about how long they stay. He's just a little bit anal that way. So he likes the detail.
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He's got a journal and he is just keeping track on this stuff. So he's there and he even goes so far as to say, well, we kept
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Cyprus on the left, which means that they went on the south side and they're going to head over to Tyre over here in Phoenicia.
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Once they get there, they have to unload the ship. It's going to take them a week probably to transfer loads. So they're going to unload and then they're going to also have to try to barter for contracts to load and move other things around.
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So it takes them a week, the whole process of unloading and loading. But they've cut off some time because what he probably anticipated is he was going to stay on, not going to be able to connect up in Patera with a sturdy vessel like that.
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So he's going to have to go all the way across the south side of Turkey, stopping at every port along the way. And now he's saved significant time by finding this awesome vessel that was able to go straight across the
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Mediterranean and cut off some time. So they've got some time to kill. They end up there and it says that Paul and company are going to stay in Tyre for a week and they seek out disciples.
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Now there's nothing in history that ever indicates that prior to this, Paul had ever even set foot in Tyre. There's nothing that indicates that.
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So it's not like he's going there and he's going to try to find an old friend to stay with. He is looking for disciples.
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He's like, there's some followers of Jesus Christ that live in this city that we could kind of connect with and encourage and strengthen and build up.
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It's interesting to note that when they actually do meet up with believers, the believers are really quick to give
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Paul some advice. What do you think that advice is? Don't go to Jerusalem. The Spirit has told us that you're not supposed to go to Jerusalem.
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It's like everywhere he goes, he's getting hit over the head with a two by four, people saying don't go to Jerusalem.
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Now it sounds like I'm going to suggest that it's their advice to him. But if you look at the text in verse four, does it look like advice to you?
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What does it say? And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days and through the Spirit, they were telling
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Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. Does that sound like advice or does that sound like the Spirit is telling him not to go to Jerusalem? Like what are you hearing there?
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It can be a little bit confusing, right? But it looks like, it looks like if you just read it at face value, it sounds like they were telling
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Paul in the Spirit, somehow the Spirit is telling them to tell him not to do that. Well, there's an interesting lesson that's going to be drawn out of this and really become a primary part of the application today.
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And that is that Paul has definitively declared that the Spirit of God is sending him to Jerusalem.
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So is it possible that the Spirit of God is sending Paul to Jerusalem and equally telling people to tell him not to go?
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Like is that what's going on here? Is the Spirit confused and not able to keep his story straight?
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Or what's going on? Rather than see the problem with the Holy Spirit, I'm convinced that what we have here is a case of the
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Holy Spirit revealing that Paul is going to suffer when he gets to Jerusalem and then the disciples in Tyre actually running with that.
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So they're given a fact. The Spirit somehow, whether it's in a miraculous dream, a vision, whatever, the
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Spirit reveals to them Paul's going to suffer when he goes to Jerusalem. So what do they do? They take it a step further and apply it to his life.
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They make the application for him. You getting what I'm saying here? And they're like, well, if you're going to suffer when you go there, you shouldn't go.
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And they take what the Spirit has revealed to them and take it a step further than it should be taken.
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Have we ever done that? Have we ever been guilty of being that in people's lives where we basically, our human nature co -ops divine guidance?
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And we assume that we have the right notion of what God wants for each other. You been there?
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Where you've been willing to maybe be a little bit more free with your advice than you should be? Because we assume that we know what is best for everyone.
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How cautious are we? How careful are we when it comes to offering advice to others?
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Or even harder, like, to say what God wants for a person. We ever been there?
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I just kind of feel like, well, obviously what God would want for you is this. In the text, the
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Spirit reveals the facts and then we interpret them. But we have a tendency to tell others what they ought to do with them.
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This applies to everything that God has ever revealed. This applies to God's Word, to the Bible. So when we come to it and we understand its meaning, then we have a tendency to tell others what to do with it.
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Now, obviously I'm getting on thin ice here, right? I'm a pastor. What do I do?
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If I don't get up here and explain what the Word of God says and then tell you what to do with it, then what is my job, right?
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Like, what's going on? Well, let me just explain something to you. My job as a pastor is to try my level best to declare the meaning of the text, to walk you through it, to explain the text, to walk you through the map, the scenario, the situations that are going on, to explain it to you.
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And then, yes, I do offer some possible applications, don't I? But I want to make sure that you understand that when
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I'm offering you possible applications, I'm offering you possible applications. More often than not, the applications that I draw out, that I actually explain to you, are the things that God has impressed on my heart.
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The things that He's spoken to me as I've studied this, and I've spent hours this week studying this and poring over this and reading books about it and reading what other people think about it and coming to my own conclusions and all this and all that, and understanding the text.
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But more often than not, how many of you would be scared if I did that every week and God didn't convict me of anything?
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Like, wouldn't that be a little bit bizarre if I was in God's Word every week and the Holy Spirit wasn't telling me to do something different with this?
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And so that's where the application comes in for me. But my prayer for you is that the Spirit would deal with you where you sit.
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How many of you know I can offer you five applications from this text and not one of them has anything to do with your life?
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But I could stand up here and just explain what the text means, close it, and sit down and have you convicted because the
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Spirit of God is alive in you and is telling you what you ought to do different. Have you ever had that experience?
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Raise your hand if you've had that experience where the Spirit has just, like, it could be something you've already read before. You've read it 1 ,000 times and all of a sudden it's like, boom, it just makes sense.
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And it's like, ah, either conviction for good or conviction for bad or it's like, I need to change this or God is giving encouragement to you or challenge you, whatever it might be.
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So that's what we're dealing with here is them actually kind of getting that wrong. In the end,
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I trust the Holy Spirit to convince and convict you about what you should do with God's Word. Imagine how hard it must be for Paul, who is hearing people regularly tempting him to step off the path that he knows
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God has chosen for him. He knows he's supposed to go to Jerusalem. I don't know if it's a vision or a dream, like I said, but God wants him in Jerusalem.
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And people keep telling him, this is gonna get ugly, please don't go. We're gonna see people begging him, pleading with him, weeping, breaking his heart, saying, please don't go, please don't go, with tears in their eyes.
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How hard would that be to be Paul, knowing that this is where you're supposed to be going and having everybody in your life telling you the opposite?
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That'd be hard. When they first arrived at Tyre, they had to seek out
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Christians. They didn't really even know any. I mean, the Word is searching. They're looking for Christians, trying to figure out if there's any believers in the town.
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So the city was not familiar to Paul and noticed that just in a short time, how long were they there? Anybody see in the text?
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Seven days. They're there a week. And by the end, there's a significant connection with the body of believers there.
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Isn't that awesome? In one week's time, they go into a city that they don't even know. And a week later, they go out as families from the church and kneel on the shore as Paul is ready to board a little boarding ship, a little boarding boat to go and row out to the big ship out in the harbor.
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And they are praying for him and with him. Whole families come out. Isn't that cool?
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Doesn't that speak to something about the fellowship that we have together with other believers, that that happens? It says in the text that they return to their homes and Paul and his posse boarded the ship, bound ultimately for Jerusalem.
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He didn't heed what they said. There's something amazing, though, about meeting other believers in strange places.
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Have any of you ever had a chance to travel and actually meet believers in other cultures? Just to sit down for tea with a
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Moroccan family of believers who the husband had lost his job because he was a believer and was unemployed because nobody would hire a
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Christian in Morocco? Came to faith in Christ by stealing a
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New Testament from his uncle that was on his shelf. Read it, believed it, came to faith in Christ. Just an awesome story.
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To be a member of a small British church that met in a community center surrounded by a neighborhood 80 %
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Muslim in England. To sing and dance in the aisles with believers in the
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Dominican Republic when I was in high school. Yeah, I'm not good at dancing, but man, that was awesome. Fortunately, they didn't have, you know, smartphones with, you know, somebody could have just posted that to Facebook and that would have been so incriminating.
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Recast would have never flown if you saw me dance. But to catch a global vision and to find immediate fellowship with other believers, where smiles and kindness speak of a common bond that goes beyond the language barriers.
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When you come to faith in Christ, you enter into a global family. It's an awesome thing. And almost everywhere you go, you can find brothers and sisters in Christ, and that was
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Paul's experience here. Isn't that an awesome thing? To know that there are churches meeting that have met all around the world today.
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It's not just about Recast. It's not just about Madeline. It's not about Michigan. It's not about the United States. It's about a global kingdom that we're a part of.
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It's an awesome thing. Paul's ship takes him to Ptolemaeus, where they spend just one day.
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Again, Luke's penchant for detail just throws that in. We don't even know why he recorded it. He just probably felt like he had to.
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So they spend one day with the believers there, and then they arrive the next day in Caesarea. And there we reconnect with a dude named
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Philip. Now, Philip, if you were here, if you've been here through the whole series, back from Acts 6 to Acts 8, so two chapters are really, well, three really, six, seven, and eight, all mention
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Philip by name, the same guy. He was one of the seven that was chosen in the church in Jerusalem to serve tables of widows who were being neglected.
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He's a guy of Gentile descent, so he was not originally a
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Jew. And he's identified as an evangelist. We last saw him in Acts, a story that might stick out to you, is he was called by God to go down to the road, to Joppa, to lead a guy in a chariot, an
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Ethiopian guy, to faith in Christ. Do any of you remember that story? So there was this guy who was riding in a chariot, and God came to Philip and said, go down to this road.
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There's gonna be a guy in a chariot. Run alongside of the chariot, so he's huffing along. And he says, get up in the chariot and explain to him what he's reading.
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Well, come to find out he's reading a passage in Isaiah about Jesus, something from the Old Testament about Jesus. And he explains it to him.
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And the guy says, hey, I believe this stuff. This is awesome. This is cool. There's some water. I should be baptized because I believe.
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And it's like this guy was an evangelist. I mean, he's getting people after just a few minutes riding in their chariot to come to faith in Christ and want to be baptized.
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So he's identified as an evangelist. The last time, it's interesting to know how thoroughly complete this history is, how accurate it is.
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Where do you think the last time that we have Philip, where's the last place we left him? In Caesarea.
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The last place we saw him was on the road up to Caesarea. And it says he stopped and stayed in Caesarea. Now he's settled down.
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He has a wife and kids. He actually has four daughters, the text tells us. And one thing that's interesting to note is that he must be fairly well -off to be able to accommodate all of these people in his house.
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So he has all of these people stay with him, it says in the text. And Paul's entire posse stays there.
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He has these daughters. Four daughters. Again, Luke just kind of sharing some detail there.
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Four daughters who prophesied. And I think it's interesting to note that women also prophesied.
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That wasn't a big deal then. The gift of prophecy was not limited to just men in the early church, but in fulfillment of the prophecy by Joel in the
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Old Testament, the Spirit fell on women, men, slaves, free, even children.
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So the Spirit of God is accessible and available and the ministry of the Spirit is accessible and available to all who are in Christ.
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It's a little bit unclear why this dude Agabus comes on the scene, because didn't it just get done saying in the text that his four daughters were prophets?
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That they prophesied, but for some reason God brings this dude Agabus up from Judea. And Agabus goes old school.
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He goes old school in his prophecy. Like Old Testament type of old school. Because if you read through the
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Old Testament prophets, they had this flair for the bizarre or strange, for the dramatic.
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They were flamboyant in their personalities and they just did strange things. They liked to act out their prophecies.
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And so what Agabus does is in his flamboyant nature, he takes Paul's belt and he ties it around his hands and his feet.
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Okay, now, if you've ever, you picture these things when you read them. What do you have to do to get a belt around your hands and feet?
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You have to hog tie yourself. Dude in the church, okay, takes off Paul's belt and hog ties himself on the floor.
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How many of you are thinking, somebody gets up and takes my belt off. Okay, that's creepy. Creepy to begin with.
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You're not getting near my belt. I'm going jujitsu on you or something. He comes up, takes his belt off and hog tie yourself on the floor.
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And then from down there go, oh, whoever this belt belongs to, that guy's going to get tied up just like this in Jerusalem.
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Okay, bizarre, a little bit strange, just like a prophet. That's what
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I would expect from a prophet, something bizarre like that. You have Ezekiel just doing crazy stuff, making a little model of Jerusalem and setting siege to it.
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You know, just what? Cutting off his beard, taking a third of it and burning it in a fire, another third, burying it, another third, tucking in his belt.
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Wow. Okay, strange prophets. Okay, and that's what this Agabus does.
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But how many of you, if you're Paul, put yourself in Paul's shoes. Now, I'm talking about this funny scene. Dude's hog tied on the floor saying, this is going to happen to you.
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If you're Paul, do you think you're getting the point by now? Like, do you think it's like, okay,
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I think when I go to Jerusalem, something bad is going to happen. Like, I'm not that fit, God.
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Okay, I've got it. People, stop. Like, does anybody else want to get up and give a little, you know, pantomime of what's going to happen to me when
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I get there? You can borrow my shoes if you want and show how I'm going to walk out of there into jail or something.
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I mean, are you getting that? Like, how would you feel if you were Paul? Like, good grief,
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I get it. Can we just cut this out for a minute? The other
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Christians in Caesarea strongly urge him to skip Jerusalem. And finally,
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Paul reaches a breaking point. By the way, it's not just the other believers in Caesarea, it's his own posse, his own people.
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The people that have been traveling with him for miles now on this journey are starting to gang up on him, too.
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Now, even Luke, the author of this book, includes himself by saying, we encouraged him not to go to Jerusalem.
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We, even his own people, are now saying, dude, maybe this is really, maybe you really shouldn't go, okay?
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Do you see how he's kind of standing alone on this one? Man, this would be tough. So they encourage him not to go.
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And finally, Paul reaches a breaking point. He's like, enough is enough. I think he's both troubled and annoyed by it.
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And he bursts out. What are you doing weeping? You are breaking my heart, okay?
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Maybe you know that Paul is emotionally engaged with these people. He loves them, he cares for them.
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It's grieving him to see them cry over him. That's bothering him. He's like, will you just cut it out?
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And then I think, as if to strengthen his own resolve, think about how these words, you could say them, not necessarily believing them or not quite sure about them, but you're gonna say it just to strengthen your own resolve.
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I am not only ready for prison, but even for death in Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord Jesus. That's how far
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I'm willing to go. Will you guys just cut this out? I don't care if it's hogtied. I don't care if it's martyred.
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I don't care if it's run through with a spear or crucified. I'm going to Jerusalem. I've been called and I'm going to do it.
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Wow. Anybody impressed with Paul on that statement? I am. Wow.
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He was ready to lay down his life for his Lord and King. Since Paul couldn't be persuaded to skip
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Jerusalem, everyone stops pestering him. And it's interesting to note again that the posse has completely jumped in because they make the statement,
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Luke writes, And here's the key phrase. This is the title of my message this morning.
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Let the will of the Lord be done. Let the will of the
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Lord be done. How many of you know that it is possible that we might offer advice to others that may be a temptation for them to avoid what is best in their lives?
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Could we do that? Talked about that a little bit in the introduction. We would do something like that out of good intentions, right?
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Like we'd be intending to be positive or to be uplifting to them or to build them up.
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And yet if we're honest with ourselves, we operate in our interactions with others as if the only possible thing that God wants for us is our well -being.
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Like as if we know what is best for ourselves and we know what is best for others and we don't have a clue what is best for us.
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Would you agree with that? When it comes to our relationship with God, when it comes to our relationship with others and taking the things that are serious in life that matter the most importantly to taking those things as priorities, we are our own worst enemies.
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Have you thought about that? We are our own worst enemies when it comes to our own joy.
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We defeat ourselves all the time and we operate like the only thing that He could ever want for us is our own joy,
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I mean our own pleasure or happiness. So we encourage people. Regularly and consistently we encourage people towards ease, towards comfort, towards healing, towards wealth.
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And if we're honest, we're just a bunch of pragmatists. If it works, then it must be God's blessing, right? If things turn out well, then
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God bless. But if things don't turn out well, then it wasn't God's blessing and it wasn't His will. It couldn't have been
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His will because things didn't go very well and He wasn't healed or this thing didn't happen or the deal fell through or whatever.
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Are you hearing what I'm saying? Do you see how we think that way? How many of you know, not to be just completely morose and down, we're on this ball of dirt swirling around and it is not likely going to end real well for us.
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Like how many of you know that mortality rate among humanity is 100 %?
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We are going to die. And so does that mean that because we die and we know that that's the end, well,
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His life wasn't blessed because He passed away. What? But do you see how we can think that way?
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Really? We can operate through life like, oh, the only thing that is good from God is blessing, as if it turns out right.
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And we are pragmatists in our heart, assuming that we know the will of God based on blessing or outcome or results.
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What if God wants hardship for us? You're willing to take that from His hand? What if that is
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God's greatest grace to us, is hardship and difficulty? Would you take that from Him? Don't answer that out loud.
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I want you to wrestle with that in your heart because that's one that, and don't answer that flippantly. But if what
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God wants for you is hardship, would you take it? If that's what He says will grow you in the long run, make you a stronger person, make you the person that He wants you to be, call you out that you might be usable to Him for others and as a blessing to others, would you go through that darkness with Him?
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What if God's best for us is a season of defeat that brings us to the end of ourselves? What if God wants to break us down so that we can be built up stronger?
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That's what we're seeing in Paul's life. How comfortable would you be praying that for one another?
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Think about that. To pray something like, God, please bring us to every hardship and trial that it takes to make us fully dependent on you.
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Can you offer that prayer? Can you pray that for yourself? Can you pray that for your kids? Can you pray that for others?
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God, do what you desire in our lives that you might receive the greater honor, that you might receive the greater glory and that I might be made the way that you want me to be made.
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Useful to you. Paul was heading into the events.
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I want you to hear this. These are the events that are, it's not going to be just that God is breaking Paul down that he might be better used later in life.
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This is going to be the seal of the end for Paul. Okay, so this will result in his permanent incarceration.
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Paul is going into Jerusalem, a free man. He's going to leave Jerusalem in chains, never to be free again.
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As a matter of fact, the way that that incarceration ends is that he's going to be beheaded in Rome. That's how this story ends.
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That's where it's going. Sorry to ruin the punchline, but that's where it all ends up. Paul enters Jerusalem free to go wherever.
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He leaves in chains, and that is the best that God has for him. Can you accept that? Can you believe that?
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That's what God has for him. That's what he wants for him. That is what it meant for Paul to finish his race well.
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Please pray for me. Pray for your children. Pray for one another.
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The words of those in the text that gave up playing God in Paul's life. They gave up. They said, okay, we're done.
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We're done. We're not going to play God in your life anymore. Let the will of the Lord be done.
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I want you to pray that for me. If we trust God, and here's the key, if we trust
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God and we believe that he is good, if we believe that he has the longer, greater good in mind, then we will be able to adopt
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Paul's perspective on this, that all of the suffering in his life was merely momentary and light affliction compared to the weight of the glory that awaited him in eternity.
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Is this kind of heavy? I feel like it's saddling heavy on you guys. That must mean that you're reading the same thing
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I am. Verse 15 contains the Greek word, a little bit lighter.
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It contains literally the phrase saddle up. So it's a Greek word that means saddle up.
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It's got the word saddle in the middle of it. And they apparently literally are going to get on horses and take horses into Jerusalem. Paul is fully resigned to whatever might await him there.
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He's now going, he went to Ptolemy, Caesarea, and now he's going to head down to Jerusalem, inland, just a little ways on horseback.
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And they stop along the way, stay with a dude named Nathan. Greek can get really annoying at times, like just putting an
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M in an N at the beginning of a word just to kind of go, isn't that supposed to be, wait, that's a typo, it's supposed to be Mason. No, it's
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Nathan. It's pretty cool that the text notes that this was an early disciple. The phrase that's used there for early disciple implies that he was there from the beginning with the believers.
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He's likely one of the 120 all the way back in Acts 2. Now, we're on Acts 21. All the way back at the very beginning of the church, he was in that upper room when the
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Holy Spirit fell on them at Pentecost. So he's an old school disciple who's been with the church for a long time, since its very beginning.
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They arrive in Jerusalem, are greeted gladly and warmly, and on the following day, the leaders of the Jerusalem church, who's headed up by James, the brother of Jesus Christ himself, that's the leader of the
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Jerusalem church during this era, and they all gather together. Paul gives a report.
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Now, remember, he's got Gentile believers with him, so he's giving an update on how things have been going out in Greece and out in Asia Minor and out in these outposts and these out -of -the -way fringe areas, and he brings some of them back.
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Can you imagine what that would have been like for the people in Jerusalem to hear the testimonies of these Gentiles who are coming to faith in Christ and coming into the fold?
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It would have been an awesome thing. They rejoice, and then James equally gives a counter -report that's awesome.
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He says, not only have things been going awesome out in the fringes of the known world where Paul has been, but things have been going awesome in the center, in the hub, in Jerusalem.
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Thousands of Jews have believed in Jesus there in Jerusalem since Paul last left.
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So the gospel is expanding among Jews and non -Jews, which is basically everyone. And James identifies that there's a problem with these new
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Jewish believers, however. He says, they're zealous for the law. The words used imply that they are jealous for the law of Moses.
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They still practice it. They still walk in it. Now hear me out. It is allowable for Christians to follow the
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Old Testament law. Did you know that? You can do that. You can follow the Old Testament law.
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Ask yourself this question. Is it permissible for a Christian to decide to come under the authority of the kosher system of dietary law?
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For example, I'll eat your lobster for you if you want, but no bacon, none of that stuff, only kosher dill, all that stuff.
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Is it okay for a Christian to do that? Yeah, that's okay. They can do that. But the freedom we have in Christ is the freedom to live according to the law.
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But we do not have the freedom to require the law for salvation or to mandate that other believers follow the law.
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And that's where we get into hang -ups, right? Where we put our preferences and our desires and our way of worshiping
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God over on others and say, you've got to do it too. If you're going to be acceptable to God, then you need to do it too. And Paul railed against that.
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He spent whole books like Galatians talking about how it is by grace you're saved has nothing to do with following the law.
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If you don't believe me, read it. That's what Galatians is focused on. It is not law. Nobody is righteous in God's eyes by following the law.
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It is only through the cross of Jesus Christ to anybody by faith in Him that anyone is ever made righteous.
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That's it. But yeah, you're free. The real problem is not that they still like the law of Moses, but they've received misinformation about the teachings of Paul.
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So they're hearing that he teaches Jews to forsake the law of Moses. That when a Jew becomes a Christian, he says, okay, now you can scrap
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Moses. You don't need to circumcise your children. And he opposes all of their traditions and customs.
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Paul, of course, was doing absolutely no such thing. That was not his ministry. What was Paul's ministry in a nutshell?
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Proclaim the gospel. That was it. He's not saying against the law, for the law, whatever. It's primary ministry, primary focus.
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Everywhere that he went to proclaim Christ and Him crucified and raised for the forgiveness of sins.
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Paul himself, of course, it's interesting. He circumcised Timothy himself. So here are some accusations that he's opposing circumcision.
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And he actually did a circumcision. He had no problem with Jewish Christians living according to their traditions as long as they understood that it wasn't what saved them.
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So in verse 23 through 26, we see a plan that the elders say, all of the Jews, all of these new believers, they hate
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Paul. Everything that they hear about Paul is negative and derogatory and bad. And now they're going to find out he's back in town and it's going to stir everything up.
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So they come up with this plan, the elders in the church, to help him. To demonstrate that he's not opposed to Jewish traditions.
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So they say, why don't you actually participate in a couple of Jewish ceremonies to prove that you are not opposed to Jews.
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So the fact of the matter is, if a Jew was traveling outside of Israel, they had to go through one week of purification before they could enter the temple and offer sacrifices.
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So they said, why don't you do that? And if you could, correspond your ritual purification that at the end of one week, it will line up with these four men who are currently going through what's called a
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Nazarite vow. So that their purification ends with your purification and then you can actually pay for their sacrifice.
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Now at the end of a Nazarite vow, people would give thanks to God for something. They'd go 30 days without certain things, no wine, just all different kinds of things, never touch a dead body, not shave their head.
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And so they'd be all woolly and crazy looking. And they would go through this period of time and for whatever duration, it could be 30 days was the minimum, but it could go longer.
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And then at the end of that, they had to give, not financial, they had to give offerings. But those offerings, how many of you know that goats and bulls and rams and things like that cost money?
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That was bling in those days. And so at the end of that time, you couldn't fulfill your vow, you couldn't shave your head until you had all of the money in place to be able to purchase the sacrifices needed to come out from under your vow.
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So that's what Paul's going to do for four guys. Apparently, Paul was doing fairly well and he was able to pay for these four, but he's got to go through the ritual purification.
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Now, the thing is, I don't think it's as important. How many of you, that's a little bit confusing. Did I just confuse anybody? This whole, you know, it is.
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And I don't think it's important that you understand the Jewish ceremonies associated with any of that. But the main point is that Paul is going to publicly identify himself with acceptable
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Jewish practices and customs so that he causes the least offense possible to Jewish believers and Jewish unbelievers in Jerusalem.
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Do you see? He's doing what he said about becoming all things to all men, that some might be saved. So he's willing to, he's like, yeah, okay, no problem.
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James reminds Paul and company that this is not about Gentile believers accepting Jewish customs, forcing other people to follow your rituals and your rules.
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That had been all decided back in Acts 15 with the result that the Jews set the bar super low for Gentiles.
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This is what they said regarding the law if you are, if you're a Gentile. They said, just kind of avoid idolatry.
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Avoid idolatrous practices. Things like where they would sacrifice the animal by strangulation to keep the blood intact.
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And so they said, eating meat like that, that associates you with idolatry.
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And then all of the sexual immorality that was tied in with the cult prostitutes and things like that. They said, just stay far clear from everything that's associated with idolatry.
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That's all that we ask because Jews are going to get hypersensitive about that stuff. If you're even close to that, if you're even around those practices or near those practices, all the
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Jews are going to be in uproar because they now know who you are. You're one of those kind of Gentiles. So they said, if you're a
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Gentile Christian, just steer clear from all of that. So in verse 26,
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Paul carries out, and here's the end, he carries out the plan, gives public notice in the temple of his purification and Paul provides the offering for the four men.
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Now that's probably a small hoop for Paul to jump through. What did he think was going to happen when he arrived at Jerusalem? He has no idea when the ax is going to fall but what's he expecting?
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The ax to fall. So the fact that he's just been given a couple small hoops to jump through when he gets there is good.
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He's resigned himself to arrest and possibly even death. So just going through those ritual purifications is the least that he can do to keep the peace in Jerusalem.
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But in the end, I want to conclude with one primary focus. We're going to just wrap this up here from the text.
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Paul trusted God with his future and we need to trust God with our future.
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Would you agree with that? Whether it's hardship or ease, good times or strife, long life or just days left for us, would you resolve to trust
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God with your future? I'm convinced that this reality is the central key to the
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Christian life of being satisfied and pleased in worship of our God. You see,
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God doesn't promise to tell us the future. Did you know that? Did you know that?
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I think we all live there. How many of you would love it if He did? How many of you are glad that He doesn't?
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Okay, I'm kind of more in that. I'd rather just be surprised. But He promises.
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He promises us that He has our best interest in mind in everything that we face, whether hardship or ease.
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If we approach life from the perspective that it's all about us, then we will take issue with God when
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He leads us into things like beatings and arrests in Jerusalem, like He was leading Paul. But if we acknowledge that God has a bigger plan and we see
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Him as central and we see Him as key and His plan is good, then we can agree with the disciples in verse 14 and we can say with them, as they declare, let the will of the
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Lord be done. Let the will of the Lord be done.
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Let's pray. Father, as we have an opportunity to come to communion this morning as Rob comes and leads us in this next song,
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Father, we remember the ultimate sacrifice that is the greatest and most awesome token of Your good will.
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It's so much more than that. It even is cheap to say it, to think of it that way and yet it's immense and awesome that You sent
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Your Son to die on the cross, that in His suffering we are made complete. In His payment and in His taking on and experiencing hell for us, we are made whole and right by faith in Him.
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Father, we have an opportunity to take the juice and to remember the blood of Jesus shed for us. We have an opportunity to take a piece of cracker and to remember that His body was crushed for us.
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Father, I ask that You would impress on our hearts an intense trust in You for our future, knowing that there will likely be hard things in our future and to give those over to You and to not waste the time that is going good, but to take that as time to sharpen us for the difficulties that lie ahead.
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Father, I love You and I thank You for loving us, for caring for us, and for giving us a future where we know and a promise that You have our best interest in mind.
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I pray that You would help those who are suffering and going through hardship now to come to that. I can't give them clichés and I can't give them simple answers, but I can say this, that I believe firmly that God has an eternal plan in mind for all of us.
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Father, I ask that as we come to communion, we would worship You and thank You for this great sacrifice in Jesus' name.