Jeff Miller

December 3, 2017

I Will Not Fear

I Will Not Fear. I Will Be Content.

Jeff Miller

December 3, 2017

I Will Not Fear

Review / Introduction:

Sit in your PEW

Persecution

Endurance

Witness

Make a MESS

Make the most of every situation.

Evil people will hate you.

Share Christ.

Stand strong.

FLY little songbird

Fear no evil.

Live with persecution.

Yearn for witnessing opportunities.

Psalm 6:2-3 - Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O LORD—how long?

Psalm 77:7-9 - "Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?"

How Can I Be Content in Hardship?

Learn to see Hardship as Dependance.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 - So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Learn to see things to be Thankful for.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 - give thanks in all circumstances...

Learn to see the Bigger picture.

Hebrews 12:2 - looking to Jesus... who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:35-00:40
Open up your Bibles please to the book of Acts and chapter 25.
00:40-00:44
If you don't have a Bible, there are Bibles in the pockets in the seat.
00:45-00:49
And you can keep that if you need a copy of God's word, consider that a gift.
00:51-01:01
While you're turning there, let's get a quick review of where we are in our study in the book of Acts.
01:03-01:14
following the life of the Apostle Paul here in these latter chapters and acts, and following false accusations of bringing Greeks into the temple in Jerusalem.
01:14-01:30
Paul was taken into Roman custody and sent to Caesarea, where he was put on trial before the Roman governor of Judea named Felix, accused of breaking Roman, Jewish, and even God's laws.
01:31-01:40
So Paul makes his defense, he proves his innocence, but Felix keeps Paul in custody for two years, hearing the gospel but wanting a bribe.
01:41-01:44
Okay, Acts 25, you there?
01:46-01:57
It says, "Now three days after Festus had arrived in the province," Festus actually succeeded Felix as the Roman governor of Judea, okay?
01:59-02:01
He was a little better than Felix.
02:01-02:11
you're going to see here in the passage, where we saw last week Felix was like, let's just stall, put them off and delay, that way we don't make the Jews mad, we don't make the Romans mad.
02:11-02:14
Felix was sort of a procrastinator.
02:14-02:17
Festus, he went right after it.
02:18-02:19
Okay, and you're gonna see that here in the passage.
02:21-02:31
Three days after Festus had arrived in the province, he went up to Jerusalem from Caesarea, and the chief priests and the principal men of the Jews laid out their case against Paul.
02:32-02:34
Keep in mind, this is like two years later, and they're still fired up.
02:34-02:41
Like Festus rolls into town, they're like, "Hey, we gotta talk to you about Paul." Like seriously guys, you need to let it go already, but they will not.
02:43-02:58
Says, "They urged him, asking as a favor against Paul, that he summon him to Jerusalem because they were planning an ambush to kill him on the way." Same thing that we saw previously, right?
02:59-03:05
Festus replied that Paul was being kept at Caesarea and that he himself intended to go there shortly.
03:07-03:11
So said he, "Let the men of authority among you "go down with me.
03:11-03:25
"If there's anything wrong about the man, "let them bring charges against him." So again, not procrastinating, Festus is like, "Look, if you've got a problem with Paul, "I'm going to Caesarea, why don't you come with me "and we'll take care of this, okay?
03:25-03:35
"We'll take care of it." After he stayed among them, not more than eight or 10 days, he went down to Caesarea, and the next day he took his seat on the tribunal.
03:36-03:38
That means he got on the judgment seat.
03:39-03:40
And ordered Paul to be brought.
03:40-03:48
When he arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him bringing many and serious charges against him they could not prove.
03:50-03:59
Paul argued in his defense, neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I committed any offense.
04:01-04:18
But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, said to Paul, "Do you wish to go up to Jerusalem and there be tried on these charges before me?" Now see, this was Festus' idea of trying to make both sides happy.
04:18-04:20
Like the Jews were mad, but Paul's a Roman citizen.
04:21-04:22
He's like, "Yeah, I got an idea.
04:22-04:24
Why don't we go to Jerusalem?
04:25-04:33
That way we're sort of in their backyard, but I'm gonna be the one presiding over the case and we'll make everybody happy, right?
04:35-04:37
By the way, making everybody happy, does that ever work?
04:38-04:40
Okay, all right, that's been my experience, just checking.
04:42-04:47
But Paul said, "I am standing before Caesar's tribunal "where I ought to be tried.
04:47-04:51
"To the Jews, I have done no wrong, "as you yourselves very well know.
04:51-05:02
If then I'm a wrongdoer and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death.
05:03-05:07
But if there's nothing to their charges against me, no one can give me up to them.
05:07-05:10
Paul's like, "Look, I didn't break Roman law. I'm in a Roman court.
05:11-05:14
I didn't break any Roman law. If I did, execute me.
05:14-05:16
I'm not going to fight you. Execute me.
05:16-05:18
If I broke a Roman law, but I didn't.
05:18-05:20
And I didn't break Jewish law either, and you know that.
05:22-05:25
Look at the next phrase. This is a turning point in Acts here.
05:26-05:55
Paul says, "I appeal to Caesar." "Then Festus, when he had conferred with his council, answered, 'To Caesar you have appealed ; to Caesar you shall go.'" So with this appeal, what happened was Paul's case was taken out of the governor's hands, Festus' hands, and it was put into the emperor's hands.
05:55-05:57
And the emperor at this time was Nero.
05:57-05:58
You're like, "Wait a second.
06:00-06:03
From what I remember in history, Nero, he was a little cray-cray, wasn't he?
06:03-06:09
Why would Paul appeal to go see Nero?" Well, this was early on in Nero's reign.
06:09-06:17
He wasn't the savage, sadistic madman that he became later in his reign.
06:17-06:18
That was later on.
06:19-06:20
Not as bad in the early days.
06:21-06:23
This was very snake-like for Paul.
06:25-06:27
Let's be honest, this was sort of a gift for Festus, wasn't it?
06:28-06:44
He's like trying to figure out what to do with Paul, trying to figure out what to do with Paul, and Paul's like, "I appeal to Caesar," and he's like, "Go." And the Bible doesn't say this, but I have to wonder if Festus, like, after the fact, went into his chambers or whatever, shut the door and was like, "Yes!" Because Paul is out of his hair.
06:45-06:48
Now he's Caesar's problem, right?
06:49-06:51
Okay, so that's the text.
06:51-06:54
And here's the sermon.
06:57-06:58
I'm gonna be honest with you.
06:58-07:02
I had a very difficult time coming up with an outline for this passage.
07:02-07:02
Why?
07:03-07:05
Not because it's hard content, let's be honest.
07:05-07:07
Like you read that, it's very straightforward, right?
07:07-07:07
What's happening.
07:07-07:20
It's not hard content, but I had a very difficult time coming up with a sermon outline Because I'm just gonna be honest with you, it is the same stuff that we've covered over the last two months, true or false.
07:20-07:22
Did you see going through the passage?
07:22-07:23
It's the same stuff.
07:23-07:25
It's the same stuff over and over and over.
07:26-07:33
And Dan, you can testify to this, giving a message every week, teaching the same timeless truths in new and fresh ways.
07:33-07:37
When you get to this portion of the book of Acts, it's sort of like, didn't I already preach this sermon?
07:38-07:42
And it was hard to come up with an outline, so we're gonna give it a whirl.
07:42-07:43
you're gonna show me grace, right?
07:45-07:47
Okay, so here's your outline.
07:48-07:50
Sit in your pew, it's an acrostic.
07:52-07:58
P is for persecution, E is for endurance, and W is for witnessing.
08:00-08:01
That's not very good, is it?
08:02-08:04
We can be honest, that's not a very good outline, is it?
08:07-08:11
But honestly, I was looking at this passage and those are the three things I see.
08:11-08:13
Persecution, call to endurance.
08:13-08:14
And Paul had to...
08:15-08:18
You guys totally, some of you guys are looking at me like, that outline's no good.
08:21-08:21
All right.
08:23-08:24
All right, I have another one here.
08:25-08:26
How about this one?
08:27-08:27
Make a mess.
08:30-08:32
M, make the most of every situation.
08:32-08:34
E, evil people will hate you.
08:35-08:36
S, share Christ.
08:37-08:38
S, stand strong.
08:40-08:42
Would you like me to preach that outline?
08:44-08:44
Wow, no?
08:48-08:51
All right, let's try this one.
08:52-08:53
Fly little songbird.
08:54-08:55
(congregation laughing)
08:57-08:59
Hey, do you wanna try this?
09:00-09:06
Every week, every week, every week, sitting down on Monday, what am I gonna do with this passage?
09:07-09:08
Do you wanna do it?
09:08-09:09
All right, you're up next week, Tony, okay?
09:10-09:11
I see you smirking back there.
09:11-09:12
You're up next week.
09:13-09:14
Come on, tough guy.
09:16-09:23
Fly little songbird, fear no evil, live with persecution, yearn for witness.
09:23-09:24
Oh, man.
09:26-09:27
That's no good either.
09:30-09:32
Isn't this the same stuff that we've already covered?
09:34-10:06
I'll be honest with you, it's pretty hard to think of a sermon when it's the same stuff over and over over and over and if you think that's frustrating I want you to imagine being Paul at this point if you think it's frustrating to try to come up with a fresh way to roll this out persecution and hatred and false accusations and Imagine Paul at this point, same problems, different day.
10:08-10:17
I just went through this passage, I just made a list of all the things that Paul experienced just in this passage that we've already seen, okay?
10:19-10:28
So number one, Paul's like, "I'm on trial in Caesarea before a Roman governor "with a two-syllable name beginning with F." I mean, that is really specific.
10:30-10:31
He went from Felix to Festus.
10:32-10:34
I mean, the name only slightly changed on that.
10:36-10:38
So at this point, Paul's like, "The Jewish leaders hate me.
10:39-10:43
Yeah, that happened in 2222." Verse three, "They have a plan to murder me.
10:43-10:48
Yeah, that happened in 2315." Verse seven, "The Jews are accusing me.
10:48-10:53
Yeah, that happened in 2405 and other places, but there's no evidence for their accusations.
10:53-11:01
That already happened again and again and again, 2413." So Paul's like, "I'll defend myself again." Chapter 22, verse one.
11:01-11:03
I think this is like the fourth time he's made a defense.
11:06-11:07
How about verse nine?
11:07-11:15
"A Roman official wants to appease the angry Jews instead of executing justice." That's exactly what happened in chapter 24, verse 27.
11:17-11:23
And in verse 10, Paul's like, "I'll defend myself again." Again, 24, 10.
11:24-11:25
Now this wasn't happening.
11:26-11:28
Now we've been studying this over the last several weeks.
11:28-11:31
This wasn't happening over the course of days or weeks.
11:32-11:33
This was years.
11:35-11:36
And nothing's changed.
11:37-11:40
Same trials, a name slightly changed, but that's it.
11:43-11:44
And that's the sermon today.
11:46-11:52
How am I supposed to hold on when a trial doesn't seem to be ending?
11:54-11:57
Is there anybody else that can identify with Paul at this point.
11:58-12:02
That there's an ongoing trial in my life that just doesn't seem to be ending.
12:03-12:04
Anyone? Anyone else?
12:06-12:11
If so, you're in good biblical company because it's a common experience.
12:11-12:16
Psalm 6, "Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing.
12:16-12:18
Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.
12:18-12:21
My soul also is greatly troubled.
12:21-12:26
"But you, O Lord, how long?" Psalm 77.
12:28-12:31
"Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable?
12:32-12:34
Has His steadfast love forever ceased?
12:36-12:39
Are His promises at an end for all time?
12:39-12:42
Has God forgotten to be gracious?" Wow.
12:44-12:52
"Has He in anger shut up His compassion?" How long am I going to have to deal with this?
12:54-12:55
That's always the question, right?
12:56-12:56
How long?
12:57-12:59
How long am I going to have to deal with this?
13:00-13:02
How long? How long?
13:04-13:07
We'll go through the questions. You know who and you know what.
13:07-13:10
And honestly, if you've studied your Bible, you know why.
13:10-13:16
Those questions don't seem to bother us as much as the question, How long? How long am I going to have to go through this?
13:19-13:25
The reason that's such a struggle for us is because of a principle that we're all familiar with, and it's this principle.
13:25-13:30
Jot this down, "Pain prolongs time." Pain prolongs time.
13:33-13:59
Several years ago, I was at the gym exercising, and I was doing these tricep pull-downs on this machine with the cables and all this stuff, I'm doing the, and it was right next to this like vending machine and there was a TV on the vending machine and I don't even know what I was watching on TV, but I was distracted by the flashing lights and I'm doing my tricep pull downs and I'm partway down and the cable snapped.
13:59-14:00
(imitates snapping)
14:00-14:06
And my hands went full force down and there was another bar below for another exercise on the machine, you know what I mean?
14:06-14:11
And I mashed all of my fingers between the bar I was holding and the bar.
14:11-14:12
I see you cringing.
14:12-14:25
Yeah, this finger right here took the brunt of it and it turned, remember Aaron, it turned like a greenish purple color and got real big and I ended up losing the fingernail and that's a whole nother story.
14:25-14:34
But anyways, right after it happened, I was like, oh, I was the only one in the gym at the time.
14:34-14:39
But right after it happened, this friend of mine came in and he walks in, this just happened.
14:39-14:43
And he's like, "Jeff, what's up with your penguins?
14:43-14:49
They just can't seem to be scoring goals." Now in real time, that's how long the conversation lasted.
14:51-14:55
But as I look back on the event, that guy stood there for three hours talking to me about hockey.
14:57-15:08
Because I couldn't like, I didn't want to be like, "You're such a, I just hurt my finger." So he's talking and he's like, "Jeff, what's up with your penguins?" I'm like, "I don't know what's up with them."
15:37-15:38
(mimics heart beating)
15:38-15:40
What's it like with three days with the flu?
15:42-15:42
Right?
15:44-15:48
Some of you are going through trials right now that don't seem to be ending.
15:50-15:52
I'm part of the prayer team. I get to friendship registers.
15:53-15:55
And I know some of you are hurting.
15:56-16:01
Because you've been seeking God in prayer for a long time.
16:03-16:04
For the same thing.
16:07-16:18
Maybe you're asking, "How can I keep the faith when God doesn't seem to be working?" "How can I keep praying when God doesn't seem to be answering?" I mean, seriously.
16:20-16:24
I've been praying about this and praying about this.
16:25-16:26
Why should I keep praying?
16:29-16:32
You know, maybe for some of you, maybe it's a financial situation.
16:32-16:39
Like, you know what, I've been praying about my finances for years, and I just can't dig myself out of the hole.
16:40-16:56
Maybe for some of you, it's a breakdown in some relationship, maybe with a family member or a coworker, or you're like, "I've been praying about this relationship for years." For some of you, it's a health issue.
16:57-17:15
You know, I've had this affliction now for years, and I've gone to the pastor and elders to pray over me, and I've prayed, and I've been praying for so long, and I've been dealing with this hardship for so long.
17:16-17:19
I can't really remember my life before this trial.
17:21-17:26
It dominated all my thoughts and all my energy, and really dominated my life.
17:28-17:41
I remember in my own life when we first discovered the developmental issues with my oldest son Owen. I was completely crushed. I mean I was crushed.
17:44-18:43
Shortly after that I turned it around 180 and I'm like I am going to beat this and I am going to I'm going to read and I'm going to study and I'm going to travel and I'm going to buy whatever we need and I can't even tell you the seasons of fasting and prayer. I've had so many pastor and missionary friends who have prayed with me and prayed over him and I can stand here before you today and tell you 11 years into the battle I haven't won. So if this is the new normal, if I have to accept that this is how it's going to be, if things aren't changing anytime soon, here's the real sermon outline. How can I be content in and hardship.
18:44-18:48
Do you think Paul ever had this thought cross his mind at this point?
18:50-18:52
Same stuff, different day.
18:54-18:56
So here's what we're going after today, okay?
18:56-18:59
How can I be content in hardship?
18:59-19:01
And right now somebody's like, "Content?
19:02-19:03
Are you kidding me?
19:05-19:06
Are you serious right now?
19:06-19:18
You're telling me that I have this issue that's been crushing me and it's been crushing my family and you're telling me that I should be content with that?
19:20-19:23
And I would just ask you, well, what's the alternative?
19:26-19:28
Has bitterness changed your situation at all?
19:30-19:35
Has anger helped your circumstances at all?
19:37-19:42
Has despair and despondency, Have those things put you in a better station in life?
19:45-19:47
If we're honest, I know they have not.
19:49-19:54
So if it doesn't look like the circumstances are going to change, what means is I have to change.
19:56-20:13
Philippians 4, verse 11, Paul says, look at this very closely, "For I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content.
20:15-20:16
Why don't you look at that first phrase?
20:17-20:21
Paul says, "I have learned." You know why he said, "I have learned"?
20:22-20:25
Because it's not natural, right?
20:26-20:28
If it was natural, God's word wouldn't need to address it.
20:29-20:29
Right?
20:30-20:33
But Paul says contentment wasn't something that I just had.
20:33-20:49
I just woke up one morning like, "Well, I'm content with being under arrest for no reason." He said, "I've had to learn how to be content." So we're gonna go to school here.
20:50-20:52
I want you to learn three things today.
20:52-20:54
We could say so much more on the subject.
20:56-20:58
I just want you to get three things down.
20:58-20:58
You ready?
20:58-21:04
Number one, learn to see hardship as dependence.
21:06-21:10
Learn to see hardship as dependence.
21:11-21:17
In 2 Corinthians chapter 12, this is a whole other sermon series down the road, but some of you are familiar with the story.
21:17-21:18
The apostle Paul had a thorn in the flesh.
21:18-21:22
We don't know exactly what it was, and there's a million different guesses what it was.
21:22-21:23
It doesn't matter what it was.
21:23-21:26
He had this thing that was constantly afflicting him.
21:26-21:28
Was it a physical thing?
21:28-21:29
Was it a relational thing?
21:29-21:30
Was it a spiritual thing?
21:30-21:31
I have no idea.
21:31-21:32
It doesn't matter.
21:32-21:35
The matter is, he had this thing that he dealt with.
21:37-21:52
And he says, "So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations," he says, "a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being conceited." But look at this next phrase.
21:52-22:00
He says, "Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this." See, this wasn't one and done for Paul.
22:00-23:19
Like, "Well, I prayed about that last week answer so on to the next thing. He said, "I prayed and I prayed and I prayed that God would take this." He says, "Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me, but He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ then..." See this next phrase? "I am content with..." And this list covers the whole spectrum of everything. Look at this list. Weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities. He's like, "Whatever. Whatever bad stuff happens in my life, I can be content." How? Well look at this last phrase. He says, "For when I am weak, then I am strong." Do you want to know the power of Christ? Do you want to know the power of Christ? I'm assuming that's why you're here today. If you want to know the power of Christ, then you have You have to be weak.
23:21-23:21
You have to be weak.
23:23-23:28
You can't be resting in your own strength and experience the strength of Jesus at the same time.
23:29-23:30
You can't do it.
23:32-23:37
You have to get to the place in your life that you're like, "I bring nothing to the table.
23:38-23:45
It's Jesus or it's nothing." Because here's the bottom line, spoiler alert.
23:46-23:48
we're all going to suffer in this life.
23:50-23:53
We're all going to suffer in some way, shape or form, but here's the choice you have.
23:53-23:57
You can suffer with Christ or you can try to suffer without Christ.
23:58-23:59
And I've done both.
24:00-24:06
And I'm here to tell you, I would never go back to suffering without Christ.
24:09-24:20
Paul learned to see his thorn as something that God was using to keep him humble To keep him resting in Christ's power and not his own.
24:21-24:25
To learn that Jesus' grace is sufficient.
24:27-24:36
So if you want to know the sufficiency of grace, you need to see hardships as dependence.
24:37-24:54
Whatever that thing is, instead of saying, "This is my hardship in life, this is my this is my trial, this is my suffering, whatever, you need to say, this is the thing in my life that has taught me that I need Jesus Christ every moment of every day.
24:54-24:55
That's what this thing is.
24:57-25:02
And when you learn to see it that way, you'll learn contentment.
25:05-25:12
Every day, every day, you should be able to point at that hardship and say, God, this is why I need you.
25:13-25:18
I imagine God's gonna be like, "Well, you need me for a lot of other stuff too." And you're like, "Yeah, you know what, that's true.
25:20-25:22
But this is the thing that's on the forefront of my mind right now, God.
25:22-25:26
This is the thing that's weighing on my heart right now.
25:26-25:38
This is the one that I'm feeling the most, God." You need to see your hardships instead as dependents, the thing that makes you dependent on Christ.
25:42-25:52
As I heard one preacher say, "Jesus Christ is all you need, but you'll never know it until He's all that you got.
25:54-26:04
And then when He's all that you got, you learn He's all that you need." Number one, learn to see hardships as dependents.
26:04-26:09
Number two, learn to see things to be thankful for.
26:12-26:14
Learn to see things to be thankful for.
26:14-26:16
What about Paul in this situation?
26:17-26:19
Right where he is right now in the text, in Acts.
26:21-26:23
Pop quiz, does Paul have things he can be thankful for right now?
26:24-26:25
Absolutely.
26:25-26:26
And I'm sure he was.
26:26-26:27
What are some things?
26:27-26:27
We saw it actually.
26:28-26:31
Go back up to chapter 24 and verse 23.
26:34-26:40
Paul was given liberty, even though he was under house arrest, he was given liberty, his friends could come and go, and all of his needs were met.
26:42-26:49
So right there off the top of my head looking at just one verse, I'm sure those were three things that Paul was daily thankful for.
26:50-27:46
"I just, I'm incarcerated, but, but, but 1 Thessalonians 5.18 says, "Give thanks in all circumstances." to notice, give thanks in all circumstances. It says in, not for. Note that. In all circumstances, not for all circumstances. In other words, you don't say, "I'm thankful for my cancer." The Bible doesn't call you to that. The Bible doesn't say, "Okay, because I have this physical diagnosis, "I'm thankful for the cancer." But instead you say, "In this circumstance of having cancer, I am finding things to be thankful for." Do you see the difference?
27:47-27:56
You're not thankful for the cancer. Though that's the hardship you're enduring, you're finding things in that to be thankful for.
27:58-28:04
So go to school, learn to see hardship as dependence. Learn to see things to be thankful for.
28:05-28:08
The last lesson for today, how can I be content in hardship?
28:09-28:21
Learn to see the bigger picture. When God is at work in you, it's about more than you.
28:23-28:28
When God is doing something in your life, it is always about more than you.
28:30-28:36
And you're like, "Oh, so that's supposed to motivate me?" It motivated Jesus.
28:37-28:54
Like, "Oh, that wasn't fair." Hebrews 12, two says, "Looking to Jesus," look at this, "who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
28:56-29:08
Jesus knew that the suffering He had to go through was to glorify God, but He also knew it was going to purchase salvation for those who would receive Him.
29:09-29:12
It was going to purchase salvation for the people that showed that today.
29:14-29:28
So Jesus went through the most horrific suffering that a human being can go through, but he was content to go through it because he knew suffering was part of God's bigger picture.
29:30-29:31
There's a difference for you and I though.
29:32-29:34
I don't always know what the bigger picture is for us.
29:35-29:41
I mean, it's easy in regards to the bigger picture for Jesus because God wrote it down in his word, right?
29:41-29:48
And we can read his word like, oh, I see what God was doing through Christ in the midst of his suffering, but I don't have that luxury for us.
29:49-29:51
We're living through it right now.
29:52-30:19
I wish I had one of those magic eight balls or some kind of way you come to my office, you're like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, "why am I going through this trial?" And I'm like, "Well, you see, "it's because God's going to use this "to win your neighbors to Christ." You're like, "Oh, thanks for letting me know about that." I can't, I don't know that there's a purpose, but I don't know what exactly the purpose is rather, but I don't need to know exactly what the purpose is to know that there actually is a purpose, right?
30:21-30:24
You can figure out what that sentence meant, you let me know.
30:25-30:26
But you get the point.
30:27-30:27
You get the point.
30:28-30:31
I don't always know what the bigger picture is, but I know that God has one.
30:32-30:44
And though it involves suffering, not only will you be blessed on the other side, God is going to use it to impact people in ways that you may never discover until heaven.
30:46-30:46
Like, what about Paul?
30:48-30:49
What about Paul?
30:49-31:13
Do you think there was ever a time during Paul's history of incarcerations, do you think there was ever a time that Paul's like, you know, I'm really getting sick of this and I don't see the point because I'd like to go visit the churches, I'd like to go see people, I'd like to go preach the gospel and I can't do those things.
31:13-31:14
I can't go and do them.
31:14-31:18
All I can do, all I can do is send them letters.
31:20-31:22
Do you think God had a bigger purpose with that?
31:24-31:27
Paul writing letters from jail, do you think God had a bigger purpose for that?
31:29-31:33
'Cause you realize almost 2000 years later, these letters are bringing people to Christ.
31:34-31:44
We're still carrying his letters around and reading them and studying them and God's using them to change lives for eternity.
31:46-31:50
So today we are going to go to school. We are going to learn some things.
31:52-32:08
If you want to learn, "Ok, maybe I can't change my circumstance, maybe I need to change and what I need is contentment. How am I going to learn contentment?" Learn to rename hardship. Call it dependence.
32:10-32:12
This is the thing that makes me dependent on Jesus.
32:14-32:16
You need to learn to be thankful in hard circumstances.
32:16-32:17
Yeah, things aren't optimal.
32:18-32:19
Things will never be optimal.
32:21-32:24
But even in the worst of situations, I'm finding things to be thankful for.
32:25-32:27
And that's what I'm going to focus upon.
32:29-32:31
And I'm going to learn to trust God that there's a bigger picture.
32:31-32:32
I don't know what it is right now.
32:34-32:35
But He's doing something.
32:37-32:41
If you can learn those lessons, you're going to earn a diploma.
32:43-32:46
You're going to get a master's degree in being content.
32:48-32:48
Let's pray.
32:49-32:55
Father in heaven, this is one of those easier said than done things.
32:57-33:02
Because Father, I know looking out, I know there are some people sitting here that have been going through some trials for a long time.
33:03-33:08
Whether it's relational or physical or financial or whatever.
33:09-33:12
There are people here that have been struggling for a very long time.
33:13-33:21
And Father, it's easy to lose heart when we pray, and we don't see You moving.
33:22-33:24
We don't see You answering.
33:26-33:28
And we start to wonder if You're listening at all.
33:30-33:34
God, You may choose to change our entire life circumstance today.
33:36-33:46
Father, you may choose to say, "No, my grace is sufficient for you." Whatever the case, Father, I pray for myself.
33:49-33:51
And I pray for my brothers and sisters in this room.
33:53-33:56
I pray for everyone who's going to be listening to this message.
33:58-34:01
That you would teach us to be content.
34:03-34:09
Father, teach us what it means to live in the strength of Christ when we are totally weak.
34:10-34:11
Teach us.
34:12-34:17
Teach us how to find things to be thankful for and let our focus be on that.
34:19-34:26
Father, teach us that you're rarely ever doing one thing in one person's life.
34:26-34:35
In your providence, you're doing thousands of things in millions of people's lives, even with one seeming event.
34:38-34:45
Father, when we leave here today, we might be like Paul, saying the same situation as yesterday, and it's going to look the same tomorrow.
34:47-34:48
So God, we need you.
34:49-34:52
Whatever happens, Father, we need you to change us.
34:53-34:55
I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 25:1-12

If God is sovereignly using a trial in your life, is it OK to pray for the ongoing trial to end?
What advice would you give someone who says, "I have been suffering with this hardship for years. I have been so discouraged because God obviously isn't answering my prayers."?
What is your big take-away from this passage / message?

Breakout Questions:

What hardship have YOU been enduring for a long time? How are you doing with being content in the trial? What do you need to do if you are struggling with being content?

Jeff Miller

November 26, 2017

I Will Not Fear

I Should Fear, Lack of Urgency!

Jeff Miller

November 26, 2017

I Will Not Fear

Review / Introduction:

How to Miss Your Opportunity to Receive Christ:

Don't Apply what you learn. (Acts 24:24-25a)

Hebrews 10:26-27 - For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.

Keep Putting if off. (Acts 24:25b)

Hebrews 3:7-8 - Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts..."

Care more about Lesser things. (Acts 24:26-27)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:35-00:38
…to the book of Acts chapter 24.
00:40-00:42
Book of Acts chapter 24.
00:43-00:53
While you're turning there, following false accusations of bringing Greeks into the temple in Jerusalem.
00:54-00:59
The apostle Paul was taken into Roman custody and he was sent to Caesarea.
00:59-01:02
And last week we saw trial.
01:03-01:09
Paul was on trial before the Roman governor of Judea, Felix.
01:11-01:16
He was accused of breaking Roman law, he caused his riots.
01:16-01:21
He was accused of breaking Jewish law, and he was accused of breaking God's law.
01:22-01:27
Paul made his defense and proved his innocence.
01:28-01:43
While you're turning there, several years ago in our prison ministry there was a young man, his name was Klaus, and he looked extremely out of place being in prison, quite honestly.
01:45-01:46
Way too young.
01:47-01:53
And I remember in our weekly Bible study, there were weeks that he would be the only person that showed up.
01:53-01:55
It would just be him and I.
01:55-02:05
And he had a Bible that he was constantly reading and studying, and he came hanging on every single word.
02:06-02:12
You know, if you've ever done a Bible study or a small group, you've ever given a sermon, you can tell who's tuned in and who's not.
02:13-02:13
That's just reality.
02:14-02:17
Klaus was tuned in to every single word.
02:18-02:20
On the edge of his seat, Bible open.
02:21-02:27
And one particular week he asked me a question, I'll never forget this.
02:29-02:32
He said, "There's a question I've really been struggling with.
02:33-02:47
Is it possible to reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the point that you've gone too far and you can't get saved?" And I said, "Yes.
02:48-02:49
Biblically there is.
02:50-02:55
I don't know when that is, only God does, but Hebrews 6 talks about this and I walked him through that.
02:55-03:15
I said, "The problem is not that God has rejected you, the problem is you've hardened your heart so much from constantly saying no to God that you've put yourself in a position where you're so hard-hearted you don't care anymore." And we spent a long time talking about that.
03:16-03:27
And again, hanging on every word, and he, tears in his eyes, he said, "I worry about that, Pastor Jeff, I worry about that." And I said, "Well, I got good news for you, because if you're worried about it, it hasn't happened to you.
03:27-03:30
If you're worried about it, that means your heart isn't so hard.
03:31-03:36
The hard-hearted person doesn't care." So that's good news.
03:36-03:39
Well, a couple weeks later, I'm going back into Bible study.
03:40-03:54
We were rounding up the inmates to come and I said, "Hey, where's our friend Klaus?" And they said, "Well, he got out two Fridays ago." I'm like, "Oh, like the punk?
03:54-04:02
He was supposed to call me when he got out because I told him I was going to try to help him get on his feet and get things going." And it got real awkward for a second.
04:03-04:08
They said, "Oh, you didn't hear?" I said, "No, I didn't hear." They said he died the day he got out.
04:10-04:12
And I think about him often.
04:12-04:13
What happened to him?
04:15-04:18
Did he ever come to the point that he received Christ?
04:20-04:25
Or by his own admission did he keep putting Christ off?
04:25-04:34
Did he harden his heart because he refused to turn over to Jesus Christ?
04:34-04:46
You see, we're going through this theme this year of "I will not fear." We've seen a lot of messages here in Acts about things that we should not fear because of our confidence being in the Lord.
04:46-04:55
But today, we're going to do something a little different because today in our passage, I'm going to show you one thing that you absolutely should fear.
04:56-05:04
So the title of today's message is "I should fear." I should fear lack of urgency.
05:05-05:12
Because today in this passage, we're going to see a man who missed salvation because he had no gospel urgency.
05:13-05:17
Look at Acts 24, picking up in verse 22.
05:17-05:19
Again, this is right after the trial.
05:20-05:21
Paul proved his innocence.
05:22-05:23
Here's the result.
05:24-05:56
It says, "But Felix, having a rather accurate knowledge way, meaning he knew about Christianity, put them off, saying, "When Lysias the Tribune comes down, I will decide your case." Then he gave orders to the centurion that he, Paul, should be kept in custody, but have some liberty, and that none of his friends should be prevented from attending to his needs.
05:58-06:04
So Felix stalled, your Bible says he put them off, that's actually a legal term.
06:05-06:07
It means adjourning a hearing.
06:07-06:08
Do you see what he says?
06:09-06:21
He's like, "When Lysaeus the Tribute comes down, I will decide your case." Like dude, he already sent a letter with Paul, which had no evidence that Paul did anything wrong.
06:21-06:23
That's in 23 verse 26.
06:24-06:26
So Felix, this is your plan really.
06:26-06:38
You're just going to keep an innocent man in custody, so you're going to stall and we'll keep him in custody and we'll just wait and maybe we'll...
06:38-06:39
Why did he do that?
06:41-06:57
Well, understand, Felix was in a tough spot politically, because here you have an innocent man, an obviously innocent man that we can't punish or condemn because he was a Roman citizen.
06:57-06:59
The Romans certainly would have come down on him for that.
07:00-07:02
But if Felix would have said, "Well, this guy's innocent.
07:02-07:15
Just let him go." All these Jewish men were furious with Paul because of him preaching the gospel, and they would have certainly revolted against Felix.
07:16-07:21
So he was, you could say he was trapped between justice and popularity.
07:23-07:29
And this year as we've been talking about, "I will not fear, I will not fear, I will not fear." Well, Felix, he feared.
07:31-07:36
And his fear led him to miss his opportunity.
07:39-07:40
Today we have a warning for you.
07:40-07:41
I want you to look at Felix.
07:43-07:54
If you haven't received Christ, if you haven't gotten serious about God in your own walk, you need to absorb every word that the Bible has for you today, okay?
07:55-07:56
Yeah, God knows your heart.
07:57-08:06
But if you're sitting here today, yeah, I'm gonna get serious about God, I'm gonna get serious, yeah, I've really been thinking about getting, I know I need to get right with God, I know it.
08:06-08:09
Well, you need to listen very, very, very closely today.
08:12-08:14
He gives the message, jot this down, you have an outline, jot this down.
08:15-08:17
This is how to miss your opportunity to receive Christ.
08:18-08:24
And boy, Felix, he just, he nails this stuff, unfortunately.
08:24-08:26
But here's how to miss your opportunity to receive Christ.
08:27-08:30
Number one, here's how you're going to miss your opportunity to receive Christ.
08:30-08:31
Don't apply what you learn.
08:33-08:34
Don't apply what you learn.
08:35-08:37
Look at verses 24, first part of 25.
08:39-08:45
Okay, so we saw in verse 23, Paul was in custody, but he wasn't shackled in a dungeon.
08:45-08:47
It was more of a house arrest type thing.
08:49-08:53
His friends could come and he could have everything that he needed, but he wasn't allowed to go anywhere.
08:54-09:30
Verse 24 says, "After some days, Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, And he sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus." Actually in the Greek, the definite article is there, so it's literally, "He heard him speak about the faith in Christ Jesus." It says, "And he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment." Stop there for a second.
09:32-09:34
Felix's wife, Drusilla.
09:36-09:37
A little background, you can study this out.
09:37-09:40
It's just an interesting story if you have the time.
09:41-09:44
But Felix married her when she was only 16.
09:45-09:48
Under some pretty shady and wicked circumstances.
09:48-09:59
He actually threw this sorcerer and all these other, you know, this goofy magic man took her away from her current husband.
10:00-10:02
And she was actually his third wife.
10:03-10:10
So there was a lot of really wicked and shaky circumstances that he took this woman to be his wife.
10:11-10:16
And she's actually the daughter of Herod from Acts chapter 12.
10:16-10:17
You remember Herod from Acts 12?
10:18-10:28
He was the guy that's like, "Look how awesome I am." And everybody's like, "Oh, he speaks like such a God." And he thought he was too sexy for his shiny, remember he had the shiny coat?
10:29-10:33
And the Bible says that an angel of the Lord struck him and killed him.
10:33-10:37
He was eaten by worms and he died because he refused to give God glory.
10:37-10:39
Instead thought he was something.
10:39-10:42
Well, that guy was Drusilla's dad.
10:43-10:43
All right?
10:45-10:49
So it says here in your Bible that Paul reasoned with Felix.
10:49-10:51
I want you to see these three things he shared with him.
10:53-11:02
He reasoned about, first of all, righteousness and self-control and coming judgment. What's righteousness?
11:02-11:13
First of all, that's God's holy standard. Righteousness. That means there are some things that are morally right and morally wrong. That's righteousness.
11:13-11:23
That's the first thing that Paul shared with Felix. And you can understand now, I gave you that little bit of background so you understand, Felix wasn't exactly He's basically choir boy.
11:25-11:30
So Paul's like, listen man, there's a God who determines right and wrong.
11:33-11:41
There's a God who says there are some things that are sin, and there are some things that are righteousness, and there's a standard, and he preached that.
11:41-11:43
And the second thing is he preached self-control.
11:45-11:49
Literally, that's restraining your passions and your appetites.
11:50-11:58
In other words, it's saying - this is going to sound so foreign, so I want you to try to track with me here - it's saying no to sin.
11:59-12:01
That's what self-control is.
12:01-12:02
It's saying no to sin.
12:02-12:03
This is wrong.
12:03-12:05
I shouldn't do it, so I'm not going to do it.
12:06-12:11
And we live in a culture today - that's such a crazy concept, isn't it?
12:11-12:12
Say no to sin?
12:12-12:13
But I want it!
12:13-12:14
I'm going to have it!
12:17-12:18
That's self-control.
12:20-12:22
Felix obviously did not have.
12:23-12:25
By nature we're like animals.
12:27-12:30
We're driven by our desires, you know, like my dog.
12:30-12:33
When my dog wants something, he'll just take it.
12:33-12:35
He'll do what he wants, what he feels like.
12:35-12:39
He doesn't weigh the, is this right, is this wrong?
12:39-12:41
He's just governed by his belly.
12:43-12:44
Complete lack of self-control.
12:47-12:48
And then he gives him the bad news.
12:48-12:52
It says he reasoned with them about the coming judgment.
12:54-13:03
In other words, it's the result of failing, failing to get on board with God's righteousness and the call to self-control.
13:05-13:09
So the bottom line of Paul's message to Felix, you can sum it up in three words, right?
13:10-13:11
That you need Jesus.
13:11-13:13
That's what he would say, you need Jesus.
13:15-13:16
God demands righteousness.
13:18-13:20
You're a sinner and you have a problem.
13:23-13:24
But here's the good news.
13:24-13:32
When you turn from your sin and you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, the Bible says God gives you the gift of his Holy Spirit.
13:33-13:36
That is the presence of God living inside you.
13:36-13:38
And he changes you.
13:39-13:41
He gives you new appetites.
13:42-13:44
He gives you self-control.
13:44-13:45
That's a fruit of the Spirit.
13:45-13:48
He gives you the ability to say no to sin.
13:51-13:55
And he cancels judgment when you receive Jesus Christ.
13:55-14:00
God in His courtroom says, "Not guilty." Forever eternally not guilty.
14:01-14:03
And nothing can overturn that verdict.
14:04-14:11
And that was the message that Paul was preaching to Felix.
14:13-14:29
So you would think, let's just stop here for a second, like you would think, okay, if you, like some of you probably read this, and like, even if you read ahead, what a cheater, and you might know what's coming, but at this point you would think, here's the greatest preacher since Jesus Christ himself.
14:30-14:45
Like in the entire history of the church, as Felix's personal preacher, and he's like laying it all out for him, this is the gospel, you would think it's like, okay, sackcloth and ashes, repentance, here we go, Felix says, "I'm going to get saved." Right?
14:47-14:48
Look at the next statement in your Bible.
14:51-14:55
It says, "Felix was alarmed." Felix was alarmed.
14:57-14:59
It alarmed him, but it didn't convict him.
14:59-15:02
In other words, Felix knew he was guilty.
15:05-15:05
But he went no further.
15:07-15:09
That's a common problem, by the way.
15:10-15:12
That happens every week in this church.
15:12-15:18
It happens every week in the church across the street, or whatever church you listen to, where the preacher's broadcast on the radio or online.
15:19-15:19
It happens everywhere.
15:21-15:26
The people are sitting in church, people are sitting here right now, like, you know what, I need to get serious about my walk with Jesus.
15:26-15:31
Yes, I need to get serious about, you're right, I gotta stop playing around, I gotta get serious about my walk with Jesus.
15:32-15:51
And yeah, I'm guilty, and I realize I'm guilty, and I need to stop doing this, and I need to cut off this relationship, and I need to stop sneaking around with this hiding this and I need to do that." And you realize you're guilty, but you don't do anything about it.
15:53-15:56
And you have to understand that knowing isn't enough.
15:58-16:01
It has to be joined with faith.
16:02-16:04
That's what faith is.
16:04-16:08
Some people think faith is just, "I understand some Bible facts." And that's not faith.
16:11-16:14
Faith is really, there's three levels.
16:17-16:19
And the first one is, yeah, you do have to know the facts.
16:20-16:22
But secondly, you have to agree with the facts.
16:24-16:31
But biblically it's not real faith until you get to the third step, which is you rest your life on the facts that you know.
16:32-16:35
Some of you, if you've been at this church any amount of time, you've heard me share this before.
16:36-16:38
To illustrate, it's like a chair.
16:38-16:52
If I said to you, "This chair here will hold a person that sits down on it." Now that's the first level of faith.
16:52-16:53
Now you have information, right?
16:54-16:55
You're like, "Ok, he told me something.
16:55-17:00
He told me this chair would hold a person." Ok, the second level is agreeing with the facts.
17:01-17:05
you're sitting here looking at it, and you're like, well, it looks a lot like the one I'm sitting in right now.
17:05-17:07
And yeah, you know what, I agree with you.
17:08-17:09
I do agree with you.
17:09-17:13
That looks like that would hold a person that sat down on it.
17:13-17:17
Those are the first two levels, but understand that we're still not biblically at faith yet.
17:18-17:19
What is biblical faith?
17:19-17:28
Biblical faith is when you sit down in a chair and say, because I know something, and because I agree with it, I'm going to rest my life in the truth of it.
17:28-17:29
That's biblical faith.
17:30-17:33
You acted on what you know and agree with.
17:35-17:49
But too many Christians, or not Christians yet, I should say, too many church goers - that's the word I was looking for, thank you - too many church goers are sitting in church, and they think they're fine with levels 1 and 2.
17:50-17:50
I know and agree.
17:51-17:53
Yep, I'm guilty, I'm guilty, I do need Jesus.
17:54-17:55
And you're no different than Felix.
17:56-18:03
Your sin has alarmed you, that hasn't convicted you to the point that you're willing to rest in Christ and act on what you know.
18:06-18:07
Knowing isn't enough.
18:08-18:10
Do you know what the Gospel calls you to do?
18:12-18:13
Turn from your sin.
18:14-18:18
Turn from your demand to be the ruler of your life and turn to Jesus Christ.
18:18-18:21
Bow to His lordship and allow Him to change you.
18:23-18:25
It can happen today, you know.
18:27-18:31
You can pray today, "Lord, I am done playing games.
18:32-18:35
I want to receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
18:36-18:40
Please God, save me and change me." That can happen today.
18:43-18:52
I have to warn you, what the Hebrew writer tells us in Hebrews 10.26-27, look at these words.
18:55-19:17
He says, "For if we go on sinning deliberately, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries." You know what that's saying?
19:18-19:19
Here's the short version.
19:20-19:21
The short version is this.
19:21-19:22
God doesn't have plan B.
19:24-19:45
If you continue to sin, it's not like God says, "Well, she hasn't received Jesus, so let's go with this other plan that I have." There is no plan B. So, the first way you can miss your opportunity to receive Christ is to not apply what you learn.
19:45-19:46
Just be like Felix.
19:46-19:48
"Yeah, you're right.
19:48-19:49
This is alarming to me.
19:49-19:50
Yes, I am a sinner.
19:50-19:52
Very concerned about that.
19:52-19:53
Not mixed with faith.
19:54-20:08
act on what he knew. Secondly, how can you miss your opportunity? I think this is a pretty obvious one from the text. And boy, is it obvious in the church. Keep putting it off.
20:10-20:19
Keep putting it off. Look what Felix says, the rest of verse 25. "Felix was alarmed and "Go away for the present.
20:19-20:30
When I get an opportunity, I will summon you." When I get around to it, I'd like to hear some more about this.
20:32-20:35
And somebody right now is like, "Okay, Pastor Jeff, I get it.
20:35-20:35
I'm a sinner.
20:36-20:36
I get it.
20:37-20:40
Listen, I'm going to get around to following Jesus.
20:40-20:42
I'm going to get around to it." My question is, "When?
20:43-20:43
When?
20:44-20:50
your plan? Because for some people they think it's just next stage of life, right?
20:51-21:28
"Well I'm in high school now and you know maybe when I get to college and when you're in college I'm way too busy with work and studies and then when you know when I get when I get married and then when you're married you're like well I you know I'm gonna focus on my career and I don't have time but when we have kids and, or insert your excuse here. But listen, as we talk about opportunity, I need to tell you something about opportunity. Two things actually. You have it right now, but You may never have it again.
21:31-21:36
It's like the guy I shared the gospel with, he's just starting to understand, he was like at level one.
21:38-21:54
He said, "So wait a minute, what you're telling me is, if I prayed and received Jesus Christ on my deathbed, I would go to heaven." I said, "Well, yeah, technically that is true.
21:55-22:01
If you were on your deathbed and you prayed to receive Jesus, yes, you would go to heaven.
22:01-22:11
And he said, "Well, I'll just do that then." And I said, "No, you won't." He's like, "What do you mean, no, I won't?" I said, "Well, there's two problems with that plan.
22:11-22:12
There's two problems.
22:12-22:21
The first problem is you don't have the guarantee of a deathbed." You know, I think we like to idealize that in our own minds.
22:21-22:22
Do you know how I'm going to die?
22:22-22:39
I'm gonna be 120 years old, I'm gonna be at my house, and my family's gonna be around the bed, and they're all gonna be holding hands, and they're gonna be singing Amazing Grace, and I'm just gonna take my last breath, just very peacefully, with the angels, go to heaven.
22:40-22:48
And they're gonna light a candle or something, and it's gonna be like right out of a Hallmark movie.
22:50-22:52
Do you know how often that happens?
22:54-23:06
Look, being in pastoral ministry over 20 years, part of the job is funerals and being with people in moments of death and such, and I can tell you on great authority, that is extremely rare.
23:07-23:08
Extremely rare!
23:10-23:12
So that's your first problem.
23:12-23:15
You have no guarantee of a deathbed, but here's the other problem.
23:15-23:16
It gets back to what we talked about earlier.
23:18-23:34
So I said to this man, "Okay, let me give you this." I told the man, "I'll give you that you're gonna live "to be 120 and you're gonna be in your deathbed "and your family's gonna be around you." I'm like, "How old are you now?" And he's like, "I can't remember." He was like mid-30s or whatever.
23:34-23:41
I'm like, "Okay, so that means you have decades "of saying no to Jesus Christ.
23:41-23:41
"Think about that.
23:42-23:59
"Decades of saying no to God, "decades of shutting God out of your life, and decades of rejecting God, and you mean to tell me when you're 120 years old and you're laying in your deathbed, "All of a sudden, my heart is so open and tender to the things of the Lord." Like, no, that's not going to happen.
23:59-24:05
You're going to be so hard-hearted and so callous, you're not going to give a rip about God on that day.
24:07-24:09
So that's a bad plan.
24:10-24:23
We could go around the room today, and I'm sure every single person in this room could tell stories of death coming too soon and too suddenly.
24:24-24:35
Car accidents and motorcycle accidents and weight lifting accidents and accidents at work, sudden health issues like a heart attack or a stroke, or we could go on and on and on.
24:37-24:40
You have opportunity right now that you might not ever have again.
24:42-24:46
We're going to see here in just a second, Felix had two years.
24:47-24:48
Two years!
24:51-24:53
You have no idea how much time you have.
24:55-24:56
You have no idea.
24:58-25:00
This could be your last day on the earth.
25:02-25:12
That's why Hebrews 3, verses 7-8, actually if you read Hebrews 3 and 4, he says it like what, like four times in the same little passage.
25:12-25:22
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.
25:25-25:27
I don't know how much time you have, but you have today.
25:28-25:29
Do you want to gamble your eternity?
25:32-25:33
But then just be like Felix then.
25:33-25:35
That's a great way to miss your opportunity.
25:36-25:38
Just keep putting it off, putting it off, putting it off.
25:40-25:48
Then finally, here's how to miss your opportunity to receive Jesus Christ, to receive salvation, to receive the promise of heaven.
25:49-25:50
Here's a surefire way.
25:50-25:52
Number three, care more about lesser things.
25:53-25:54
Care more about lesser things.
25:57-26:00
Okay, so back in the text, Felix is like, "Okay, Paul, go away.
26:00-26:05
"And when I get some time or whatever, I'll get you and we'll talk some more about this.
26:06-26:15
Verse 26, look at this, "At the same time, he, Felix, hoped that money would be given him by Paul.
26:17-26:21
So he sent for him often and conversed with him.
26:22-26:27
When two years had elapsed, Felix was succeeded by Portius Festus.
26:30-26:34
And desiring to do the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul in prison.
26:36-26:39
Here's another surefire way to miss your opportunity to receive Christ.
26:39-26:41
Be distracted with lesser things.
26:42-26:53
Just consider the temporary, ultimately useless things of the earth to be more of a priority than being right with God and having the promise of heaven.
26:55-26:56
That's what Felix did.
26:57-27:01
Did you see the two lesser things that he was more concerned?
27:01-27:04
In reverse order, look at verse 27 again.
27:06-27:12
Says "Desiring to do the Jews a favor, he left Paul in prison." He wanted to please people.
27:15-27:16
He was more concerned about popularity.
27:18-27:20
More concerned about what people think than what God thinks.
27:23-27:28
If you don't want to be serious about following Jesus Christ because of what your friends might think.
27:30-27:33
Listen, it is never going to be popular to follow Jesus Christ.
27:35-27:35
It's not gonna happen.
27:36-27:37
It's not gonna be popular.
27:37-27:40
You will be swimming against the current.
27:43-27:44
It's not going to make you popular.
27:46-27:50
So given the choice, Felix says, I think I'd rather be popular.
27:51-27:52
But you see, here's another problem.
27:53-27:54
Look at verse 26.
27:56-28:03
It says, "At the same time, he, Felix, hoped that money would be given him by Paul." Why in the world would he think that?
28:03-28:09
Do you remember back in verse 17, Paul had already revealed why he was in Jerusalem in the first place, do you remember?
28:09-28:27
He said, "I came to Jerusalem bringing an offering for the poor." So Felix is like, "Paul has access to money." But for two years, let's be honest, how annoyed do you think Paul was after two years of this?
28:28-28:33
Felix sends for him and Paul comes to him and Felix is like, "Hey, Paul, how are we doing today?"
28:33-28:34
(Paul coughs)
28:37-28:39
Paul's like, "Do you have a cough?" "No, no, no, I'm, no."
28:39-28:40
(Paul coughs)
28:42-28:45
"No, I'm fine." "Well, what's wrong with your hand?
28:45-30:44
Why is it twitching?" "Uh..." was happening. For two years Felix was like, "So Paul, let's talk. You want to talk about Jesus?" "No, no, I was kind of thinking, I'm really interested in the kind of work that you... tell me about that money that you brought and how I can get some of that." And he's like, "Well, wasn't taking a bribe illegal?" "Yeah, obviously. But don't miss the point. Some people want something from the church as long as it's not Jesus. I'm going to say that again. There might be some people sitting here like that today. Some people want something from the church as long as it's not Jesus. All the stories Aaron and I could tell. You would miss the Steeler game tonight if we started talking about all the stories, the things that we have seen. Not just in this church, any church where I've served. Any church. It's just amazing to me that people who have never seen me and have never even seen the inside of the church and couldn't even point on a map to where the church is located, call the church, call me. They're like, "Hi, yes, I saw your church website and I was looking through your church website and I'm like how can I help you yeah I need you to pay my rent like is that on our website click here to get your rent paid I just don't understand that hello pastor I don't know of a church that I never ever ever ever will go to can you mail me a check and pay my electric bill like that doesn't really happen does that happen constantly It happens.
30:45-30:47
Oh, we could tell you stories.
30:47-30:49
You know, hello, pastor of a church I've never been to.
30:50-30:52
I need toys for my grandkids for Christmas.
30:54-30:55
A common one is food.
30:57-30:59
That's a real common one.
30:59-31:02
Not, I should take that back, not food, food vouchers.
31:04-31:06
We used to keep bags of food at the office.
31:07-31:14
I remember one time these two young girls came in, they're like, we're starving, and we got babies that are starving, and we just need some food vouchers.
31:14-31:16
And I'm like, this is great.
31:16-31:18
I said, stay right here, I'm gonna help you out.
31:19-31:23
Ran up to my office, had two giant bags of groceries, and I'm like, here you go.
31:25-31:28
The look on their face was like I was handing them a dead kitten.
31:28-31:31
They were just like, what's that?
31:32-31:33
I'm like, it's bags of groceries.
31:33-31:35
And they're like, don't you have any food vouchers?
31:36-31:38
Like, you can't eat a food voucher, here's real food.
31:41-31:42
They were back the next day.
31:43-32:01
They're like, "Yeah, we're starving and stuff, "and our babies are starving, I guess, and stuff, "and we need food vouchers." Like, "What happened to all those groceries "I gave you yesterday?" "Oh, no, we need vouchers." We don't eat like that giant eagle food or whatever.
32:04-32:05
This has happened a few times.
32:05-32:07
It happened here just a month or two ago.
32:09-32:27
I had somebody call and say, "Yeah, I found your website, got your number, "and I wanted to call you, "and I wonder, could you buy me some meat?" And I'm like, "Golly, that's a specific request." True story.
32:27-32:50
"Can you buy me some meat?" I said, "I'll tell you what we'll do." I said, "You come to church on Sunday, "we'll go over to Giant Eagle afterwards, "and I will buy you some meat." "No, I can't do that." "Why can't you?" "But can't you just like, you know, send me money now?" Like, "No, I don't really have any way of sending you money now, but if you come to church, I will personally take you over afterwards and we'll go grocery shopping.
32:50-32:52
I'll get you whatever you want." "No, no, I can't do that.
32:53-33:06
Every time I've offered that, I get turned down every single time." You're like, "Pastor Jeff, you are so calloused." Listen, I'm trying not to be cynical and I'm trying not to be jaded.
33:07-33:13
And our leadership will tell you, my wife will tell you, we try to help as many people as we can.
33:13-33:14
We really do.
33:16-33:21
I just find it so interesting with the people that we help when we share the gospel with them.
33:23-33:33
The only way I can describe it is, do you remember that like in the cartoons, when the cartoon character runs through the wall, there's like a perfect shape of him on the wall, even like his hair outline?
33:35-33:38
That's what happens when I try to share the gospel with a lot of people.
33:39-33:43
Like, here's the groceries, can I tell you about the eternal difference Jesus Christ can make in your life?
33:44-33:45
Gone.
33:47-33:49
And it's just a modern day feelings, right?
33:51-33:54
I want something from the church as long as it's not Jesus.
33:56-34:02
And how many people, all the stories we could tell you.
34:02-34:08
We give and we give and we give, And as soon as we say, "You know, we don't have any more to give you right now." They're gone.
34:08-34:23
"Stick around as long as I can get what I want from the church as long as it's not Jesus." So the message to Felix is the message for any modern day Felix that's listening here or listening to this online or whatever.
34:24-34:27
God is not going to settle for second or third priority in your life.
34:29-34:31
He's everything or he's nothing to you.
34:31-34:34
Those are really the only two choices you have concerning Jesus Christ.
34:35-34:37
He's everything to you or he's nothing to you.
34:39-34:48
Verse 27 tells us that after he was succeeded by Porteous Festus, it's awfully nice the way Luke phrased that.
34:48-34:55
Actually Nero grabbed Felix by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his pants and showed him the door the hard way.
34:57-35:04
that after he was succeeded, Felix vanished from history, and there was zero evidence that he ever came to Jesus Christ.
35:04-35:06
I was thinking about that this week.
35:09-35:20
Zero evidence he came to Christ, and let's assume that based on the Bible, based on secular history, because you know if he came to Christ, Luke would be all over reporting that, right?
35:21-35:25
But I was thinking this week, what excuse do you think Felix had before God?
35:25-35:28
When he stood before God, What do you think he said?
35:29-35:32
Do you think Felix said, "I didn't know"?
35:32-35:33
Do you think he said that?
35:34-35:41
"Well, I didn't know about Jesus." Do you think Felix said, "Oh, you know what, Lord?
35:41-35:57
I was gonna, I was gonna." And I can just hear the Lord saying, "I had my missionary sitting on the porch with you for two years and you didn't.
35:59-36:00
You wasted your opportunity.
36:03-36:06
Listen, I'm telling you all of this because I love you, okay?
36:08-36:14
And I don't want you to think I'm a mean person just because I ask people requesting meat to come to church.
36:16-36:18
But I'm telling you this because I love you.
36:18-36:20
You don't have an excuse either.
36:22-36:26
So I'm begging you, if you would bow your heads with me.
36:28-36:34
I'm begging you, if you have not received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, maybe you have known about Jesus.
36:36-36:44
Maybe you're sitting here even agreeing with the message about Jesus, but you haven't personally turned from your sin and turned to Jesus.
36:46-36:47
Today is the day.
36:50-36:56
Everybody else, maybe you have, maybe you know somebody that's like a modern day Felix.
36:59-37:00
Today can be a new day.
37:03-37:04
I wanna encourage you to pray.
37:07-37:14
Maybe you're sitting here today and you're saying, you know what, Lord, I have known for a long time who you are, but I haven't acted on faith.
37:16-37:27
Maybe you're sitting here today saying, You know God, I've been feeling for a long time like I need to get right with you, but I've just been putting it off, putting it off, putting it off, and I don't know why I keep putting it off.
37:28-37:32
I don't know why I think tomorrow is gonna be a better day than today to get right with you.
37:35-37:39
I'm sure there are some people here right now say, you know what God, I know.
37:40-37:46
I have put some things, some lesser things ahead of you.
37:49-37:55
Maybe you're saying, you know, God, maybe I've been like Felix and I've cared more about what people think than what you think.
37:58-38:07
Maybe there's some people here that are saying, you know, I've cared more about money and stuff and my job than I've cared about you.
38:10-38:15
I've cared more about my secret sin than I've cared about you.
38:17-38:25
I've cared more about getting my own way than I've cared about allowing you to be the Lord of my life.
38:27-38:29
Today can be the day for you.
38:31-38:32
Cry out to God.
38:34-38:53
In just a moment, we're going to close the service and worship, and as always, there's going to be a prayer, people from the prayer team, rather, backed by the giant sign that says, "Pray." You can come for prayer for any reason, but especially today, like, you know, I need to receive Christ.
38:54-38:55
I need to get serious.
38:57-39:01
I need somebody to talk to and I need somebody to pray with me about this.
39:02-39:03
We will be so happy to do that.
39:06-39:50
And if today is the day that you've received Christ, your next step is to boldly declare your faith baptism and you need to see me about that as soon as possible because our Baptism service is next week and you will have opportunity like in the book of Acts you will have opportunity Immediately to publicly declare your faith in Jesus Christ Father I lift up my brothers and sisters here. I Lift up everyone the father who knows you and follows you But especially today, Father, I lift up maybe some Felix's that are sitting here.
39:51-39:56
People that haven't yet come to Christ for whatever reason.
39:58-40:00
Father, I pray that today is the day of salvation.
40:02-40:09
I pray, Father, that today is the day that lights come on because you, by your Holy Spirit, have renewed in them a sense of urgency.
40:12-40:14
Father, we thank You for Your grace.
40:15-40:20
You would be so gracious if You just offered salvation to us one time in our lives.
40:21-40:32
But the fact that You give an open invitation, that even for the person that may be sitting here today who has said no to You 10,000 times before, they can say yes to You today.
40:33-40:34
You don't hold it against them.
40:35-40:35
You don't condemn.
40:36-40:37
You welcome.
40:38-40:42
Like a loving Father, thank You for Your grace, Father.
40:45-40:46
Thank You for Your grace, Father.
40:48-40:50
Pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 24:22-27

Felix was alarmed when Paul shared with him (Acts 24:25). What's the difference between being alarmed and being convicted?
Why did Felix keep stalling in dealing with Paul (and the Gospel) (Acts 24:22, 25-27)? What is the danger of stalling? Read Hebrews 3:7-8.
What was your big "take-away" from this passage / sermon?

Breakout Questions:

Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

November 19, 2017

I Will Not Fear

I Will Not Fear Accusations.

Jeff Miller

November 19, 2017

I Will Not Fear

Review / Introduction:

How to Fearlessly Defend your Faith: (Acts 24:10-21)

Be Ojbective.

Use the Bible.

Stick to the Issues.

The Example for Paul:

Broke Roman law? (Acts 24:11-13)

Broke Jewish law? (Acts 24:14-16)

Broke God's law? (Acts 24:17-21)

1 Peter 3:15 - but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect...

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:26-00:31
Open up your Bibles with me, please, to Acts 24.
00:33-00:38
Acts 24, where we left off last week as we walked through God's Word.
00:40-00:49
While you're turning there, if you haven't turned there already, some of you know this, but I know not all of you do, but this is an absolutely true story.
00:50-00:54
When I was in college, I was nearly arrested for attempted murder.
00:55-00:56
That is a true story.
00:57-01:01
And it's kind of funny now, but I promise you it wasn't funny at the time.
01:02-01:05
So, arrested, nearly arrested for attempted murder.
01:05-01:06
How did that happen?
01:06-01:07
I'm going to give you the short version.
01:07-01:10
If you want to hear the long version, I'll be glad to tell you.
01:11-01:22
But while I was going through college, I was a magazine vendor, and I had two Walmarts and two K-marts, and one of my K-marts, I was walking in to do my magazines, and I was eating Spree.
01:23-01:24
How many people know what Spree are?
01:24-01:26
that delightfully fruity candy.
01:26-01:32
And it came in a foil tube and I wouldn't like tear the foil because I didn't want little pieces of foil everywhere.
01:32-01:33
So I'd slide the spree up the tube.
01:33-01:48
Well, I was, that's important to the story, but I'm walking in and I'm like, to one of my Kmart's and I thought, well, I'm gonna, I better put this in my pocket because they sell spree and I don't want them to think I'm just like taking it off the shelf and eating it while I'm doing the magazine.
01:48-01:54
So I fold it up and stick it in my pocket and go in and I'm doing the magazines, right?
01:54-01:57
Rotating them putting out the tabloids and the TV guys. Do they still make TV guides?
01:58-02:32
That's still a thing Am I showing my age? Okay. Anyways They still make magazines All right. Um, so I'm doing the magazines and as I'm as I'm stalking the magazine shelf to police officers walk up to me Absolutely true story. No embellishment here whatsoever. But two police officers walk up to me and they like excuse me, sir. I'm like, yes and They said, "What are you doing here?" And I said, "Well, I'm trying not to be smart-alecky here, but I'm like, well, I work here.
02:33-02:40
It's not like I, in my free time, I just wander into stores and play with their magazines, right?" That would be weird.
02:40-02:54
But the one police officer said, "Do you have a knife on you?" And I said, "Yes, I do." He took a step back, he said, "I want you to pull it out nice and slowly." So I pulled it out.
02:55-03:00
He goes, "Nice and slow." And I went...
03:01-03:02
Now, this wasn't the actual knife.
03:03-03:07
No joke, the actual knife that I had that night was about half this size.
03:07-03:10
I used it to cut the bands off of the magazines.
03:10-03:11
So I'm like...
03:11-03:36
And he goes, "You can put that away." And I said, "Well, what seems to be the problem, officer?" He said, "Yeah, we got a report that you were coming in here to murder someone." I'm like, "But I work here." He said, "Well, that's the report that we got." I'm like, "Well, obviously you have the wrong person." So he gets in his little, you know, the shoulder radio thing.
03:37-03:45
He says, "Could you describe the suspect again?" I'm like, "This will clear it up right here." Came back through the radio.
03:45-04:11
"Caucasian male, approximately 200 pounds, "blonde hair, maroon dress shirt, "khaki pants, brown shoes." And I'm like, "Oh no, that is a weird coincidence." And they said, "Sir, we're going to have to frisk you." And I thought for a second, okay, this is gonna be really weird when some people, I was pastoring a church at the time in Ohio.
04:12-04:30
It's gonna be really weird some of those church members come into Kmart and they see the pastor being frisked in the front like, "Hey, we'll see you tomorrow morning, bring your Bible." And so I'm being frisked in the front of Kmart and they obviously didn't find anything on me and the police, they seemed very confused.
04:30-04:33
They took my information, driver's license, wrote everything down.
04:34-04:36
They just seemed very confused and they left.
04:37-04:41
I remember thinking to myself, what was that all about?
04:43-04:49
And I finished my magazines, I walked out of the store, I pulled the spree out of my pocket.
04:52-05:06
I was like, "Wait a second, this was like 10 or 11 at night and it was in a foil wrapper?" I think what happened is somebody saw me with that foil wrapper folding it and putting it in my pocket and they thought that I had a switchblade.
05:08-05:10
And I was nearly arrested.
05:12-05:15
But I was falsely accused, for sure.
05:16-05:24
And I can tell you from that experience, and a few others that I'm not going to get into today, I can tell you from that experience that it is no fun to be falsely accused.
05:26-05:31
And that's exactly what we're looking at in the life of the Apostle Paul, is he is falsely accused.
05:32-06:05
see my ordeal was done in an hour. The thing that he was falsely accused of carries ramifications all the way to the end of the book of Acts, including this trial that we're going to be looking at today. So by way of introduction, again if you're just joining us, if you're just listening online for the first time, we're going through the book of Acts. Paul is at this point in Acts 24, he's falsely accused of bringing Greeks into the temple in Jerusalem, which he did not do.
06:05-06:32
And he was attacked by a mob of angry Jews and was promptly rescued/arrested by the Roman tribune Claudius Lysias, who sent Paul to Caesarea, not only for his own safety, but but also to send him to Felix, who was the governor of Judea, the Roman governor of Judea, and that's where Paul stands trial in the passage we're looking at today.
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Paul was actually with Felix for two years, and his time with Felix is kicked off here in this first trial.
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As we look at the text, again, we're going to see Paul has to once again defend his faith.
06:52-07:02
The question I want to ask you as you're looking through this passage with me today is, how well are you going to do when you have to defend your faith?
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I know for many of you that has already happened.
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For some of you it's going to be happening very soon.
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Maybe it's going to be happening at Thanksgiving.
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How many people here are the religious nut of your family?
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Anybody?
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You're like the religious nut of your family?
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Okay.
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And you're going to have people, maybe this Thanksgiving, putting you on trial, so to speak, for your faith.
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Maybe you have that friend or co-worker that knows you're a Christian and they love to always try to stump you.
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Throw out those hard Bible questions.
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Maybe this week the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses will show up at your door and your faith is suddenly on trial, the question is, are you going to be ready for that?
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I want to remind you, as we look at Paul's defense, defending your faith is not about winning or losing an argument.
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And I get to tell you that because this is something I...
07:58-07:59
it took me a while to learn.
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When I was a young Christian, you know, studying apologetics and studying the Bible, always loaded for bear, I always felt like, you know, there were times the Mormons would come to my house, and I'm like, "Come on in!" And I would just biblically trash them for like two hours, and they'd leave with their tail between their legs, and I'm like, "Victory!" And I was so proud of myself.
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And did that really do anything for the kingdom?
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My pride certainly did, and sharing the Word of God always does.
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But I realized that it's not about winning the argument.
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I mean, we can see that through the book of Acts, right?
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How many times in Acts, Paul shares a gospel, it's like people get saved, they're lining up.
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We wanna receive Jesus.
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Oh, we saw plenty of that, didn't we?
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How many other times in the book of Acts have we seen Paul preach the gospel and people are, all right, let's put the boots to this guy.
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We've seen that too.
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So understand that God doesn't gauge faithfulness on your perceived results.
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It took me a while to get that, people.
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If I don't win the argument, I lose, and God's disappointed in me.
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And that is so not true at all.
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God is honored when His Word is honored, when Christ is exalted, and we lovingly and humbly share God's truth with people.
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That honors God, no matter how people respond.
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Remember, Noah preached for 120 years, and not one person believed him outside of his own family.
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It's not about results because, write this down, results are up to God.
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Results are up to God.
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What did Paul say in 1 Corinthians 3? "I planted, and Paul is watered." But what? God gives the increase. God gives the growth. Only God can do that.
09:56-10:01
I can't argue somebody into the kingdom. I can't persuade somebody to be born again.
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God does the work.
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And that's good news, isn't it?
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Because if it was up to you and if it was up to me, we'd have a lot of fear.
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We're talking about fear this year at Harvest Bible Chapel.
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I will not fear.
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And think about it.
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If somebody else's salvation was up to you, you'd live in fear, wouldn't you?
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I could have shared the gospel with this coworker, but what if I don't say it right?
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Or what if I have a rotten attitude?
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What if I come across as a bit of a jerk and he doesn't like Jesus because of me?
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And you would have a lot of reason to fear.
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But the reality is it's up to God, so you can be fearless.
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God promised in His word, in Isaiah 55, His word always accomplishes the purpose for which it's sent out.
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So when you share God's word, God's gonna deal with it.
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I just have to honor His word.
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He'll take care of the results.
10:50-10:56
So as we look at this passage, we're going to look at how Paul defended himself.
10:57-10:59
We're not going to look so much at what he said.
11:00-11:05
We'll do some of that, but I want you to see here how he defended his faith.
11:05-11:07
And we're going to do something a little different today.
11:08-11:22
Usually we sort of work through the outline as we go through the text, but I'm going to give you the whole outline first here, at least the whole first part, not the sub points in the bottom.
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I'm gonna give you the whole outline.
11:23-11:24
You ready?
11:24-11:25
How to fearlessly defend your faith.
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Since we're doing things different today, we have an acrostic. The acrostic is "bus." You see that on your outline? Bus, B-U-S.
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Like, "All right, what's the acrostic mean?" I don't know. You can come up with that.
11:39-11:40
All right, I wrote the rest of the sermon. You write this part.
11:43-12:04
But here it is, church. Listen, kidding aside. When it comes time to defend your faith, you just have to know three things. And if you can nail these three things, and you can stick to these three things, then you will share your faith effectively every time. Every time. Number one is be objective. Be objective.
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Meaning we're just dealing with facts here. We're just dealing with truth. We're not dealing with my opinion or your personality. You see it's not an effective way to share your faith if somebody asks you a question about the Bible and you're like well you're just a you're just ignorant you're just stupid and you just don't listen. That's not objective. Now you're making it a subjective, personal thing.
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That's the first thing.
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We're gonna see all this in the text.
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I'm just giving you the outline ahead of time.
12:30-12:31
Say thank you.
12:31-12:32
Be objective.
12:32-12:33
Number two, use the Bible.
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Use the Bible.
12:36-12:39
Again, not about personalities, not about my opinion.
12:40-12:41
Well, I think God's like this.
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It doesn't matter what I think God is like.
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What matters is how God has revealed himself to be in his word.
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So you stick with what the Bible says.
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So be objective.
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And secondly, use the Bible.
12:56-13:00
And the third one, this is another thing I've had to learn the hard way people.
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So let my pain be your gain.
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The third one is, stick to the issues.
13:06-13:07
Stick to the issues.
13:08-13:09
We'll talk about this more in a minute here.
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But I learned this the hard way.
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Especially in prison ministry.
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People ask a question and you start to answer it.
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And as soon as you do, onto the next question, like, but I didn't even finish the answer.
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And then you're trying to answer their new question.
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And now they're onto the third question.
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And now you're trying to answer that one.
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And in your conversation, you and you want to encourage the other person to stick to the issues.
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So this is how to fearlessly defend your faith.
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Why fearlessly?
13:45-13:50
Because as soon as we talk about sharing your faith, evangelism, witnessing, There's people that are going to tighten up.
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Because so many people are afraid of these moments.
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What do I say?
13:56-13:58
What if they ask a hard question?
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I don't want to look stupid.
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I just like to lovingly encourage you of Proverbs 28.1, right, the righteous are bold as a lion.
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Remember we talked about that in the beginning.
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Adult lion's roars can be heard over five miles away.
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Why do they do that?
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Why would a lion roar and let everybody know where he's, because he's not afraid.
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He's not an animal that camouflages himself, hides thinking a predator might get me if I'm not hidden.
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I'm scared of what's out there.
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A lion just steps right out there and lets everyone in the zip code know, here I am.
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The Bible says that's the boldness that we have in the Lord.
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If you wanna fearlessly defend your faith, be objective, use the Bible, stick to the issues.
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Okay, that's the sermon.
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Here's the illustration from Paul.
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Look at verse one.
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"And after five days the high priest, Ananias, came down with some elders and a spokesman, one Tertullus.
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They laid before the governor their case against Paul.
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So in just five days, they managed to put a case together and they even got a lawyer." that's that Tortullus. He's their lawyer and they're showing up to court and it says they went down. Why? Because Jerusalem's on a hill, right? So if you're leaving Jerusalem, you're always going down. They went down to Caesarea. Now this Tortullus was an expert in Roman law and the Jews took him because they knew the only way they were going to get any punishment put upon Paul was to prove to Felix that Paul broke Roman law.
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Look at verses 2-4.
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It says, "And when he had been summoned, Tertullus began to accuse him." Accused Paul.
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Okay, so it's like you have the courtroom scene in your mind, that's what's going on here.
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Okay, so the prosecuting attorney stands up, Tertullus.
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Here's what he says, opening statement.
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"Since through you, Felix, we enjoy much peace, and since by your foresight, most excellent Felix, reforms are being made for this nation in every way, and everywhere we accept this with all gratitude, "But to detain you no further, I beg you in your kindness to hear us briefly." Everybody say, "Gag." This is just flattery. Nobody was buying this.
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Here's the real story. You study history?
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Here's the real story. Do you want to know what was good about Felix?
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Alright, write this down. I'm going to tell you everything that was good about Felix.
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You ready?
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He stopped the Sakari, the assassins.
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Remember we talked about them being led by the Egyptian.
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He stopped the Saqqari and that was it.
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That's the only good thing about Felix that anybody has ever said about him in all of history, period.
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This is flattery. They're just trying to butter him up.
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Felix was the Roman governor of Judea from about 52 to 59 AD.
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In fact, two years after this trial, we're going to see in verse 27, he was removed by Nero.
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Look at verse 5, it says, "For we have found this man," Paul, "For we have found this man a plague, one who stirs up riots among all the Jews throughout the world, and is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes." Wow, that's...
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I've been called a lot of things in my life, but that one's just harsh.
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They call him a plague.
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He's not just like a virus or a disease.
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They're like, "This guy is a plague.
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Everywhere he goes, he just infects everybody with his nastiness." All the Jews throughout the world...
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That's a bit of an overstatement, I would say.
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He goes on, he says, "He even tried to profane the temple, but we seized him." That was a lie.
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The Jews didn't seize him, the Romans did.
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Verse 8, "By examining him yourself, you'll be able to find out from him about everything of which we accuse him." Okay, so there's three charges brought against Paul here.
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Three charges.
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Very systematic.
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The first charge was against Roman law.
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Verse 5.
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And they say he's constantly stirring up riots.
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One thing the Romans never tolerated was disturbing the peace.
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You've ever heard of the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome?
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They were all about that.
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They didn't have anything to do with people that would disturb the peace.
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And if somebody was disturbing the peace, they would squash that immediately.
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So the first accusation here is he broke Roman law because he's constantly disturbing the peace.
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Secondly, he broke Jewish law.
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He's a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.
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Talk about that in a second.
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And then the third accusation, the third charge, is he broke God's law.
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He broke God's law.
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He profaned the temple.
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Remember, that was the whole accusation.
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This all started because he was accused of taking Greeks into the inner parts of the temple, which he didn't do.
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Remember, the only substance they had for that argument was they think they saw him out in the city somewhere with a Greek, maybe we saw him.
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I think he was like, you know, in the city with the Greek and that turned into, oh yeah, Paul's constantly taking Greeks right into the temple where it's forbidden.
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Now, I'm gonna answer this question real quick.
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The second part of verse six and the first part of verse eight is left out of a lot of Bible translations.
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And actually, if you look down at the bottom of your Bible, You'll see a footnote.
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You see that?
20:48-20:49
My Bible has a footnote.
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It says, "Some manuscripts add, and we would have judged him according to our law, but the chief captain Lysias came and with great violence took him out of our hands, commanding his accusers to come before you." Why is that a footnote?
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Because when they're putting the Bible together, they had many, many, many, many thousands of different copies of the manuscripts and these verses were in some but they weren't in others. So what do we do with it? Well, if they don't belong, and you read this passage straightforwardly, they're just simply urging Felix to examine Paul. In verse 8, "By examining "Him," that "him" refers to Paul then. Like, "Hey, we want you to examine Paul, but if these verses really do belong, here's the thing, verse 8, that "him" refers to Claudius Lysias, the Roman Tribune. And what they're saying is, "By examining Claudius Lysias yourself, you'll find out about everything we're accusing Paul of." And basically they're throwing Claudius under the bus. Hey, that's where that acrostic fits. Right there. Bus. I knew we'd find something.
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But here's the point. Don't get all caught up in this. The point is it doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter. Whether the verses belong or they don't belong, the point is this. These Jews were before Felix saying, "Look, we don't like Paul, and we want you to do something about him." That's the bottom line. So verses 10 through 21, we're going to see Paul's example of how he defended himself.
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Paul didn't have a lawyer.
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Paul didn't even really have a lot of time to put his case together.
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Verse 9, it says, "The Jews also joined in the charge, affirming that all these things were so." Verse 10, "When the governor had nodded to him to speak, Paul replied, 'Knowing that for many years You have been a judge over this nation, specifically five years at this point.
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Paul says, "I cheerfully make my defense." Now, he's not buttering him up here.
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What he's saying by knowing for many years you've been a judge over this nation, what he's saying is, "Listen, you know how things work around here, Felix.
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You know the dynamic between Romans and Jews and between Jews and Jews, and you understand how all this works.
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So because you're not a rookie, because you know what's going on, I cheerfully, he says, I make my defense.
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So Paul makes a systematic defense.
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Number one, first of all, the accusation was, did he break Roman law?
23:44-23:45
Here's his answer in verses 11 through 13.
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Did he break Roman law?
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He says, you can verify that it is not more than 12 days since I went up to worship in Jerusalem And they did not find me disputing with anyone or stirring up a crowd either in the temple or in the synagogues or in the city.
24:08-24:17
Neither can they prove to you what they now bring up against me." Stop right there.
24:17-24:19
Paul's saying, "Okay, first of all, here's my defense.
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Did I break the Roman law?
24:20-24:21
Well, let's look at the facts.
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It's been 12 days since I went up to Jerusalem.
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Five of those days have been in Caesarea, we just saw in this passage here.
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Plus there was a time that Paul went through the Jewish purification.
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Paul's point is, "I really didn't have much time to start a revolt, did I?" Not much time to amass a gang and start rioting and disturbing the peace.
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I want you to see first of all, we talked about being objective.
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It's exactly what Paul did here.
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He didn't make it personal.
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He didn't make it about the personalities, Not Felix, who doesn't have a great reputation.
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Not Claudius Lysias, not the high priest, who we saw was a violent thief.
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He could have brought all of that stuff up, but he didn't.
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We're going to see in this passage, Paul stuck to the three accusations.
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He goes, okay, these are the three things that are on the table.
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These are the three things that we're going to address.
25:15-25:21
And that takes us to the, you know, other principle that we're seeing in the play here, that he stuck to the issues.
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He stuck to the issues.
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You see the accusation, you broke Roman law, you broke Jewish law, you broke God's law.
25:29-25:36
And Paul, in his defense, okay, here's the answer to the Roman thing, here's the answer to the Jewish thing, and here's the answer to breaking God's law.
25:37-25:38
Very systematic.
25:40-25:42
Again, stick to the issues and do not get sidetracked.
25:45-25:49
Several years ago, in my old church, I got a phone call from a guy.
25:51-25:54
He said, "I'm going to commit suicide.
25:54-26:13
I have some health problems, and I decided I can't take the health problems anymore, and I'm going to kill myself." And I said, "Well, why did you call me, if that's the case?" He said, "Well, I don't know what happens to a person when they die.
26:15-26:16
And I just wanted to call and make sure.
26:16-26:20
I heard that if you commit suicide, you go straight to hell.
26:20-26:24
And I just wanted to call a church to make sure that's not the case.
26:27-26:34
I said, "Let me ask you a question." I said, "You said you're not sure, right?" He goes, "Yeah, I'm not sure." I said, "Do you really want to step into eternity, not sure where you're going to land?
26:35-26:36
Is that your plan?
26:36-26:55
You're going to step into eternity, you have no idea what's waiting for you, that's your plan?" And he said, "You should work for a suicide hotline." I said, "Well, I'd like to get together and like to talk to you about what the Bible says." Remember last week we talked about Providence, do you remember that?
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So this guy gave me his address, I went to his house.
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I show up and as soon as I saw him, I'm like, "Dude, I know you." He looked at me and looked at me, he goes, "I know, I know you too, but I can't think of where." And I said, "We worked together when I was 15 at a local restaurant." He's like, "Oh yeah, that's right." And I said his name. I'm like, "Yeah, your name's so-and-so.
27:22-27:28
And you remember we worked out at this restaurant together?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." So, I'm talking about Providence.
27:30-27:34
So I said, "I'd like to tell you what the Bible says." And I started to share the gospel with him.
27:34-27:38
And he's like, "What do you think about creation and evolution?" And I started answering that.
27:38-27:40
And I'm like one minute into that.
27:40-27:43
And he's like, "Well, what about the dinosaurs?" And I start to talk about the dinosaurs.
27:43-27:47
"Okay, well, what do you think there's life on other planets?" And now we're talking about that.
27:47-27:49
This went on for like 20 minutes.
27:52-28:15
And finally I just closed my Bible and I said, "You know, I'd really like to help you, but I don't think you're ready to listen." He goes, "Well, sure I am." And I said, "No, you're not actually, because every time you ask a question, you don't listen to what the answer is, you just ask the next question." And it was extremely frustrating.
28:18-28:46
But I just want to encourage you, he's still with us today, in case you're wondering, but I just want to encourage you, don't let people sidetrack you because it will be a fruitless conversation and you have, I think, the responsibility to lovingly say to that person, "Look, you asked me some very specific questions and those are the questions I want to talk about." and you get sidetracked and they're trying to throw all these things at you and...
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You're not teaching and they're not learning.
28:49-28:50
So stick to the issues.
28:51-28:53
You want to talk about this, let's talk about this.
28:54-28:54
All right?
28:57-28:59
Number two, Paul's accusation here.
29:00-29:02
Did I break the Jewish law?
29:02-29:03
Look at verses 14 through 16.
29:05-29:06
Did I break the Jewish law?
29:07-29:37
He says, "But this I confess to you, that according to the way," that's what they called followers of Jesus, "which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the law and written in the prophets, having a hope in God, which these men themselves accept, that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.
29:38-29:48
So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man." To Paul's defense here, the second accusation is I broke Jewish law.
29:48-30:00
Paul's saying, "I'm a Christian, but that's not exactly heresy." Paul says, "Listen, I worship the God of the Jews." And do you see here, again, using these principles, Paul used the Bible.
30:01-30:02
Paul used the Bible.
30:03-30:07
Don't make the issue between you and the person.
30:07-30:11
Don't make the issue between my church versus your church.
30:13-30:17
When your faith is on trial, you want to make the issue between that person and the Bible.
30:18-30:21
Like here, that's what you think, but I want to show you what God said.
30:21-30:27
You say, "I used to think this way too, but I want to show you what God said." Make the issue between them and God's Word.
30:30-30:38
By the way, if you don't believe the Bible, then your discussion is just gonna be opinion versus opinion, and that just isn't gonna get you anywhere.
30:38-30:39
You might as well talk about football.
30:42-30:43
Here again, Paul sticks to the issues.
30:46-30:53
He decides to circle back to the main issue, the real issue that enraged him.
30:53-30:56
It wasn't the Greek in the temple thing.
30:57-31:00
The real issue that enraged was his belief in the resurrection.
31:01-31:02
But look at how he words it here.
31:03-31:12
He says in verse 15, "There will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust." What does that mean?
31:12-31:13
Well, jot these references down.
31:13-31:17
We're not going to look at them today, but you can do a little Bible study yourself.
31:17-31:21
John 5 28-29.
31:23-31:25
John 5 28-29.
31:25-31:27
And I write down Revelation 20.
31:29-31:31
Revelation 20 verses 11 through 15.
31:34-31:36
The Bible teaches that there are two resurrections.
31:38-31:40
The first resurrection is for God's people.
31:40-31:43
People that are born again receive Jesus Christ.
31:43-31:47
The Bible says, I'm giving you the very short general version here because we could spend hours on this.
31:48-31:54
But the Bible teaches that if you're a believer in Christ, when He returns, you will receive a glorified body.
31:55-31:56
What's that like?
31:56-32:02
Well, 1 Corinthians 15 says, it's kind of like the one that you have, but it's gloriously different.
32:03-32:09
It's like the difference between a watermelon seed and a watermelon, and I don't mean your new body's gonna be put like a watermelon, that was a bad example.
32:12-32:21
It's the difference between a seed and a fruit, basically, that's made of the same stuff, but gloriously different.
32:21-32:26
And you're gonna have a glorified body that you're going to enjoy forever.
32:26-32:30
It's not going to get sick, it's not going to die, it's not going to get weak.
32:31-32:34
You're going to have it to enjoy in Christ's presence forever.
32:36-32:38
That's one resurrection, but there's another one.
32:38-33:04
After the millennial reign of Christ, Revelation chapter 20 teaches that every person who's rejected God, every person who has refused to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, who has seen the gift that God offers of eternal life and grace and mercy and says, "I don't want your stupid gift." Every person that does that, after the thousand year reign of Christ, the Bible says that they will receive a glorified body too.
33:06-33:07
See, here's the horrifying thing.
33:09-33:22
Just like a believer's body is eternal and indestructible, the unbeliever's body also will be eternal and indestructible because it will be in hell to constantly suffer but never be destroyed.
33:23-33:26
A body that's constantly on fire but never consumed.
33:28-33:29
It's a horrific thought.
33:32-33:33
The Bible clearly teaches that.
33:34-33:37
You are going to be somewhere forever.
33:40-33:43
And it's not based on how good of a person you were.
33:43-33:56
It's not based on, "Did I go to church? Did I keep the rules?" The issue is this, "Am I forgiven of my sin?" As I stand now by nature in the flesh, I am guilty of sin.
33:58-34:03
But when I receive the gift, the God that I sinned against gave me this gift.
34:06-34:12
When I receive that gift, I'm pronounced in God's courtroom not guilty, forgiven.
34:15-34:18
A gift of eternal life that can never be taken from me, by the way.
34:19-34:26
When you're pronounced not guilty, when you are forgiven, when you are born again, there is not a power anywhere that can undo that.
34:28-34:29
You are eternally secure.
34:32-34:34
You're going to be forever somewhere.
34:36-34:37
Where are you going to be?
34:39-34:50
Number three, finally, and systematic, "I didn't break Roman law. I didn't break Jewish law." Well, the last accusation is, "Did you break God's law, Paul?" Look at verse 17.
34:52-35:02
He says, "Now after several years, I came to bring alms to my nation and to present offerings." Do you remember? That's why Paul was in such a hurry to get to Jerusalem.
35:02-35:07
He wanted to... There are all these poor Christians, and all the Gentile churches took an offering.
35:07-35:23
And Paul's like, "I've got to get to Jerusalem. I've got to get this offering to them." I was like, "Guess what I was doing? I was bringing money to poor people." He says, "While I was doing this, they found me purified in the temple without any crowd or tumult.
35:24-35:33
But some Jews from Asia, they ought to be here before you to make an accusation, should they have anything against me.
35:35-36:08
Or else, let these men themselves say what wrongdoing they found when I stood before the council, other than this one thing that I cried out while standing among them. It is with respect to the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you this day." The last part of Paul's defense, he says, "I was bringing relief. And by the way, I was purified in the temple, so I wasn't breaking Jewish law either. I went through the purification.
36:09-36:15
He said there was no rioting. Paul says, "By the way, where are the witnesses?" Shouldn't a trial have witnesses?
36:17-36:24
If there's all these accusations that I was causing, all these problems, where are all the people that can give testimony?
36:24-36:34
"Yes, we saw him here doing this, saying this, and these were..." He says, "Where are they?" They no-showed, if there are any.
36:36-36:37
Again, be objective.
36:37-36:38
Be objective.
36:38-36:42
Paul says the only accusation really, here's the real issue, let's just be real objective here.
36:42-36:49
The only accusation that they have against me is that I believe in a resurrection, which by the way, the Pharisees also believe in that, and they're part of the Sanhedrin.
36:49-36:54
So you can't even say believing in a resurrection is a crime because some of the Jewish council believes in a resurrection.
36:57-37:05
So Paul's basically saying here, You know, "They're beef with me. These Jews, they're beef with me." It doesn't belong in a Roman court.
37:07-37:15
So do you see in this passage, Paul employs these three things, these three principles that I would commend to you.
37:15-37:22
And if you can get these down, it's not going to matter who comes after you.
37:22-37:30
You're going to, with a cool head, be able to fearlessly, And Christ exaltingly defends your faith.
37:30-37:32
And the first one is be objective.
37:33-37:35
Use the Bible and stick to the issues.
37:37-37:58
1 Peter 3.15 says, "But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy." But look at this, "Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.
37:59-38:03
Yeah, do it with gentleness and respect.
38:04-38:15
It's important to know now so that we can be prepared for when, because we don't always know when we're going to need to make that defense.
38:18-38:21
We saw in Paul's case, he didn't exactly have time to prepare a case, did he?
38:22-38:23
He didn't even have a lawyer.
38:24-38:28
He didn't have time to get his documents in order, or call in expert witnesses.
38:31-38:36
You could say he didn't have time to prepare, but you could also say he was already prepared long before this trial.
38:39-38:39
So what about you?
38:40-38:43
When your faith is in the hot seat, are you going to be ready?
38:45-38:50
When your faith is on trial, you too can be fearless.
38:52-38:56
Be objective, use the Bible, stick to the issues.
38:57-38:57
Let's pray.
38:59-39:03
Father in heaven, thank You for the example of Your Word today.
39:03-39:11
Father, just as I confess to my brothers and sisters here, and to You God, I have messed this up so many times in my life.
39:13-39:30
What a great example You've given us in Your Word of how to lift high your word and make a defense of the faith without being personally abrasive, personally offensive.
39:32-39:40
God, in Your sovereignty and Your providence, You know when every single one of us are going to have to make that defense.
39:40-39:42
For some of us here, it might be this week.
39:43-39:44
For some of us, it might be at Thanksgiving.
39:45-39:52
that the questions, the accusations, it's going to be coming after us, and we're going to have to defend ourselves.
39:54-39:57
For some of us, Father, the cult might show up at our front door tomorrow.
39:59-40:05
Some of us might be going to a hostile work environment that knows we're Christians and loves to try to make us look foolish.
40:08-40:11
God, You know every context, everyone represented here.
40:11-40:25
I pray, Father, now that You're using Your Word and Your Holy Spirit, Father, is working in our hearts in such a way that whenever that time comes, we can make a defense.
40:27-40:31
And again, Father, it's not about us winning or losing a debate.
40:34-40:47
It's about by Your grace, by Your mercy, Lord willing, It's about you using our testimony to lead others to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
40:49-40:50
We trust you, Father.
40:52-40:56
Let us be prepared to proclaim your name.
40:57-41:00
Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 24:1-21

Paul made his defense "cheerfully" (Acts 24:10). How can we have that attitude when we feel on the defensive?
Acts 24:15 talks about the resurrection of the just and the unjust. Explain what that means. See John 5:28-29, Revelation 20:11-15.
Why is it important to stay objective when sharing? What are ways we can make it subjective? Why could this be a problem?
What is your big take-away from this passage?

Breakout Questions:

Pray for one another - to be fearless.

Jeff Miller

November 12, 2017

I Will Not Fear

God is Sovereign, I Will Not Fear.

Jeff Miller

November 12, 2017

I Will Not Fear

Review / Introduction:

God @ Work Through Providence (Miracles that Don't Look Like Miracles at the Time):

God works through unexpected Trials. (Acts 23:12-15)

God works through unexpected People. (Acts 23:16-22)

God works through unexpected Circumstances. (Acts 23:23-35)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:35-00:54
Acts chapter 23. While you're turning there, review what we've seen so far in the book of Acts in this latest little stretch. We've been following the story of the apostle Paul in Jerusalem, coming to give an offering for the poor that were there, and the poor Christians.
00:55-01:05
And Paul was falsely accused of being anti-Jewish. Remember, the mob tries to kill him, and he He was rescued/arrested by Rome.
01:07-01:10
And do you remember Paul asked to address the crowd.
01:10-01:11
He shares his testimony.
01:11-01:19
He told these Jewish people that wanted to kill him, "Here's how Jesus Christ changed me." And didn't get received very well.
01:20-01:22
Because the mob got more enraged.
01:23-01:28
So Paul was kept in protective custody by Rome to protect him from the Jews who wanted to kill him.
01:30-01:36
the Lord showed up to Paul and said, "Take courage." Next up, we're going to preach in Rome.
01:38-01:45
And as we get to Acts 23:12, and you think about, okay, now we're going to Rome to preach.
01:47-01:50
You know, that's quite a promise made to a guy sitting in protective custody.
01:51-01:58
But this passage starts the journey on how the promise is kept.
01:59-02:02
And as we approach the text, something I want you to think about for your life.
02:02-02:05
This is the billion dollar question for your life.
02:06-02:08
The billion dollar question.
02:08-02:14
The question that should matter the most in your life, in your family, in your church.
02:14-02:16
The billion dollar question is this.
02:17-02:18
Do I see God at work?
02:20-02:23
That's why this church was planted, by the way.
02:24-02:26
And that should be why every single one of you are here.
02:27-02:28
to see God at work.
02:30-02:35
The biggest sign that God is working is transformed lives.
02:38-02:45
People saved, people baptized, people repenting from sin, people obeying the call to ministry.
02:46-02:48
Those are signs that God is working.
02:49-02:50
But here's what we're going to look at today.
02:52-02:53
What about the other miracles?
02:55-03:01
Doesn't God work in other ways besides just like the inward heart change stuff?
03:02-03:04
If you're taking notes, I want you to jot this down.
03:07-03:11
There are two kinds of miracles, according to the Bible.
03:12-03:16
And the one kind of miracle, we're just going to call it supernatural.
03:18-03:23
That's when God suspends the natural laws of the universe that He established.
03:23-03:25
supernatural miracles.
03:25-03:30
For example, parting the Red Sea for the Israelites to pass through.
03:30-03:31
That was a miracle.
03:31-03:35
When Jesus fed the 5,000, that was a miracle.
03:36-03:38
There's actually 10 or 12,000, it was just 5,000 men.
03:39-03:40
But that was a miracle.
03:40-03:42
Well, how about when the dead are raised?
03:42-03:44
You remember Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.
03:44-03:45
That was a miracle.
03:45-03:50
Remember we saw through the apostle Paul, God raised Eutychus from the dead in Acts.
03:50-03:52
That was a miracle.
03:52-03:55
That's suspending the natural laws of the universe.
03:56-04:02
But there's another kind of miracle, number two, and it's not supernatural.
04:04-04:05
This one I want you to write down.
04:06-04:07
This is our word for the day.
04:08-04:09
The word is providence.
04:12-04:13
What is providence?
04:13-04:15
Well, it's not just a city in Rhode Island.
04:17-04:21
Providence is God at work through natural laws and circumstances.
04:23-04:24
Here's a definition.
04:24-04:37
Providence is God's sovereign control over and direction of "natural circumstances" to accomplish His will.
04:38-04:39
That's providence.
04:42-04:47
God's sovereign control over and direction of natural circumstances to accomplish His will.
04:47-04:51
If you're still not sure what that means, here's a much easier definition.
04:51-05:00
Providence is what unsaved people, people that don't know the Lord, it's what they call "coincidence." Okay?
05:01-05:11
People that don't know the Lord, what they call "coincidence" biblically is called "providence." And you know the biblical poster boy for providence, right?
05:12-05:13
That'd be Joseph in the Old Testament.
05:14-05:15
You remember his story?
05:17-05:26
Joseph, his brothers hated him, they faked his death, They sold him into slavery and he's in prison, he's falsely accused, and you know the whole story with Joseph.
05:26-05:28
He went through horrible ordeals.
05:29-05:41
But when you get to Genesis 50 verse 20, Joseph said to his brothers, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." That countless people would be saved.
05:41-05:46
God used Joseph's hard circumstances to save countless lives.
05:48-05:49
That's providence.
05:50-05:53
Because you see, for Joseph, it didn't look like God was working when he was sitting in the dungeon.
05:54-05:59
It didn't look like God was working when his brothers faked his death and when he was falsely accused.
05:59-06:05
And it didn't look like God was working, but God was working, and that is providence.
06:06-06:08
Now we talk about these two kinds of miracles.
06:10-06:11
Let's bring it home.
06:13-06:16
Like, "Pastor Jeff, have you seen supernatural miracles?" I have.
06:17-06:18
I absolutely have.
06:20-06:22
They'll give me some examples, I'll be glad to.
06:23-06:29
When I was in Bible college, a friend of mine who played baseball took a line drive to the eyeball.
06:29-06:33
He went to... yeah, everybody go, "Ouch." Yeah.
06:34-06:42
He went to specialists in Cincinnati, specialists in Cleveland, and because of the injury and the blood clots and everything, they said, "There's really nothing that we can do.
06:42-06:51
your vision is probably going to be distorted or at the best or bad for the rest of your life.
06:51-06:55
And we had a prayer vigil for him at school and his eyesight miraculously recovered.
06:55-07:03
He went back to the specialist and they said, "We have no explanation for what happened." And I said, "I do." It was a miracle.
07:05-07:08
Oh, speaking of eyes, how about my own wife?
07:09-07:18
When she was pregnant with Cade, our second son, and she was told that she could either have her eyesight or have the baby.
07:19-07:20
If you have the baby, you will be blind.
07:22-07:27
And God, through a miracle, allowed us to have both.
07:28-07:30
Cade and Aaron has her eyesight.
07:32-07:41
Oh, speaking of Cade, back when he was four years old, here's another miracle, back when he was four years old, you know, my little Cade, He got kicked in the face by a horse.
07:43-07:45
Kicked in the face by a horse.
07:45-07:49
It was-- long story short, horse got out of the barn and he was a little four-year-old.
07:49-07:50
Oh, look, a horse.
07:50-07:51
Runs up behind it.
07:51-07:53
We're talking like full-size adult rides on it horse.
07:54-07:54
Bam!
07:55-07:58
Double hoof right to the face, catapulted him across the yard.
07:58-08:02
He did one full flip in the air, landed on his face.
08:02-08:03
I ran down.
08:03-08:06
He was lifeless, eyes open, blood trickling out of his mouth.
08:06-08:07
I thought he was dead.
08:08-08:09
I really did.
08:09-08:14
I scooped him up and we ran to the car and raced to the hospital.
08:14-08:19
And the whole way there, his mother was praying for him.
08:21-08:30
We show up to the hospital and the doctor says, "No four-year-old gets kicked by a horse and survives." So they took him by ambulance down to Children's.
08:31-08:56
Long story short, when he woke up the next morning, he jumped out of bed and just started playing singing and dancing and the nurses were trying to calm him down. Not one broken bone. We've had people say, "Oh yeah, you know, you know, kids are pretty resilient." I'm like, "What?" No, no, no. Superman is resilient. He was kicked in the face by a horse.
08:58-09:12
We have a natural explanation for why, you know... Shut up. I say that in good Christian love by the way. What about in our church? Talk to Ryan and Sarah Strupa about Milo, the miracle with Milo. He's back teaching the kids now.
09:13-09:33
But Milo was a baby and the health problems he had. Talk to them about the miracle that we saw after praying over Milo. How about some of you remember in our church our Japanese friend Yuka. How many people remember "Brother Yuka, when she came to us, that poor woman was so sick.
09:34-09:46
She came to Pittsburgh from Japan for medical treatment." And I can't articulate the exact nature of her problem, but the poor woman was so sick, and one day she came to the elders.
09:47-09:51
She's like, "Would you pray for me?" And the elders laid hands on her and prayed for her after service.
09:52-09:53
Then we didn't see her for a couple of weeks.
09:54-09:58
She came back to church a couple of weeks later, She looked like a completely different human being.
09:59-10:01
She came back to guest reception and she was talking.
10:01-10:02
Remember Deb?
10:02-10:15
And I can't remember who, somebody else came into guest reception and you could turn to that person and as matter of fact as anything, she turned to that person and said, "Oh yes, the elders prayed for me and I'm all better now.
10:15-10:19
I'm going back to Japan." Now you explain that.
10:21-10:23
Other than saying God supernaturally intervened.
10:24-10:28
So here's the point, I could go on. I'm not going to, but I could go on.
10:30-10:31
But here's the point I want to make.
10:31-10:46
If we had lunch together, and I just shared with you all these stories, like I'm doing now, for an hour, for two hours, I just share all of these stories with you, my life would look like the book of Acts. Right?
10:48-10:53
These stories that I'm telling you took place over a period of more than 20 years.
10:54-10:54
Right?
10:56-10:58
My life doesn't look like the book of Acts.
10:59-11:07
To give you a baseball illustration, it's the difference between watching the highlights on ESPN.
11:08-11:10
You know, when you watch the highlights on ESPN, what do you see?
11:10-11:11
Right, Matt?
11:11-11:15
It's like, you know, triple, homer, strikeout, walkout, you see?
11:16-11:19
you watch that little 20 second clip, you're like, wow, that was awesome.
11:20-11:25
But when you watch the game, that takes place over the course of like 3 1/2 hours.
11:26-11:28
The baseball game didn't look like that little clip.
11:31-11:32
That's how it is with the book of Acts.
11:32-11:39
These things that we're talking about in Acts, these miracles that we've seen, these events didn't take place over the course of a week.
11:39-11:49
These miracles, and I believe they literally happened, like the ones I've seen in my own life, But these events and acts take place over a span of 30 years.
11:50-11:53
These supernatural miracles are actually rare.
11:56-11:59
And I would say, you're going to see it here today, they're more the exception than the rule.
12:01-12:04
Do we pray for them? Of course we do. Every time.
12:05-12:07
We pray for a miracle. Absolutely.
12:08-12:19
But I need to tell you, more often than not, When God is at work, it doesn't look like a miracle at the time.
12:21-12:27
When God is at work, things usually look totally normal.
12:28-12:35
They look unsupernatural, which my computer tells me isn't a word, but it is now.
12:37-12:39
It looks unsupernatural, but God is working.
12:41-12:47
The details, the timing, the circumstances, the weather, the traffic, the chance encounters with random people.
12:48-12:52
That is God's providence and that is how He is constantly working.
12:54-12:56
Some examples of that, we could talk about healing.
12:57-12:59
I gave you some examples of supernatural healing.
13:00-13:03
Those examples I gave you are a few over 20 some years.
13:05-13:07
Is that the only healing I've seen? Absolutely not.
13:07-13:18
because more often God heals through what looks like normal circumstances, through doctors, through hospitals, through medicines, because all healing is God's healing, amen?
13:19-13:28
So when I pray for somebody that's sick, yeah, I pray for the miracle, but I also pray for the doctor because God might choose to use the doctor to bring the healing, right?
13:30-13:31
Talk about comfort.
13:31-13:33
Does God give comfort supernaturally?
13:33-13:34
Absolutely, he does.
13:34-13:39
He gives comfort from his spirit, but according to 2 Corinthians 1.4, God gives comfort from other people.
13:40-13:42
That doesn't look supernatural, but it is.
13:43-13:47
It's God at work through providence through other people.
13:49-13:50
We could talk about growing the church.
13:50-13:52
We pray that the Lord would grow the church.
13:53-13:54
We pray that He would.
13:56-14:02
Does God have the ability to turn every empty seat in here into a human being?
14:02-14:04
Absolutely, He has the ability to do that.
14:05-14:07
He creates by speaking. He can do whatever He wants, right?
14:08-14:09
Was it Psalm 115 verse 3?
14:10-14:14
"Our God is in the heavens, He does all that He pleases." Yeah, He could turn those chairs into people.
14:15-14:16
That's not how He works though.
14:17-14:19
How has He been growing this church?
14:19-14:26
It's been through children being born, and it's been through people excited to share the good news of Jesus Christ with their friends and invite them here.
14:27-14:30
So as we've seen in Acts, sometimes God delivers supernaturally.
14:31-14:37
The passage we're going to look at today, sometimes it's through Providence, and that's what's on display here.
14:39-14:50
As we look at this text, and we're gonna go through it quickly, but something I want you to notice, the irony of this text is, there is no mention of God in this text.
14:51-14:52
There's no mention of Jesus Christ.
14:53-14:54
There's no mention of the Holy Spirit.
14:55-15:02
There is no mention of God in the text that we're going to look at today, but he is in every single verse.
15:04-15:07
So on your outline, now we're gonna get to the text.
15:08-15:09
God at work through providence.
15:10-15:13
In other words, miracles that don't look like miracles at the time.
15:14-15:15
Number one, jot this down.
15:16-15:18
God works through unexpected trials.
15:19-15:21
God works through unexpected trials.
15:22-15:25
Look at verses 12 through 15, Acts 23.
15:27-15:35
"When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath, neither to eat nor drink until they had killed Paul.
15:36-15:41
There were more than 40 who made this conspiracy." That's pretty extreme, don't you think?
15:42-15:44
Forty people. Forty people.
15:44-15:45
Like, "All right, guys, huddle up.
15:46-15:50
Nobody eats, nobody drinks until Paul's dead. Who's in?
15:51-15:52
Aye. All opposed?
15:53-15:55
Alright, that was the plan.
15:57-16:12
They went to the chief priests and the elders, probably Sadducees, we talked about that, people that already hated Paul, and said, "We have strictly bound ourselves by an oath to taste no food till we have killed Paul.
16:14-16:31
Now therefore you, along with the council," that's the Sanhedrin, that's the Jewish rulers, "you along with the council give notice to the tribune," and that's the Romans, to bring him down to you as though you were going to determine his case more exactly, and we are ready to kill him before he comes near.
16:32-16:38
So these guys were like, "Okay, if Rome ain't going to kill him, we will." We talked about mob mentality, that's totally what's happening here.
16:39-16:40
Mob of 40 men.
16:41-16:57
So you see their plan. The Jews were like, "Okay, you're going to go to the Romans and say, 'Hey, the Sanhedrin kind of wants to get some more information about Paul, When you bring him out into the open, we are going to rush in, blitzkrieg attack, and we are going to kill him.
16:58-16:59
That's the plan.
17:01-17:09
And at this point, we can stop in the story and say what possible good is going to come from something like this?
17:09-17:14
You have 40 people determined that they're not going to eat or drink until they murder this man.
17:15-17:16
What possible good could come from this?
17:16-17:18
Well, here's the good that's going to come from it.
17:18-17:20
Remember Jesus promised that Paul was gonna preach in Rome.
17:21-17:23
These events kick off the journey to Rome.
17:24-17:38
Somebody would say, "Well, if God wanted Paul in Rome, why didn't he just use Uber?" Well, here's the thing, and if you haven't learned this yet, I promise you, you're going to have to learn this lesson in life.
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God chooses to work through trials.
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Oh, I wish it were otherwise.
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But cover to cover in your Bible, cover to cover in your Bible.
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God loves to work through your adversity.
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So if you find the trial in your life right now, whatever it is, that health thing you're going through, that financial problem you're going through, that family crisis or relationship breakdown you're going through, whatever that trial is in your life right now, you can trace God's grace and purposes through that trial.
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And now you're asking yourself, "Okay, I hear what you're saying, Pastor Jeff, but Pastor Jeff doesn't know exactly what's going on with me.
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What could God possibly be doing in my trial?" Do you know how many times I've asked that in my own life?
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"God, why would you allow this?
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I don't see how you're working here.
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What is God possibly doing in my trial?" I can tell you emphatically what God's doing in your trial.
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And it's this, He's changing you.
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Romans 5, listen to this.
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Romans 5 verses 3 through 5, Paul says, "Not only that, we rejoice in our sufferings, "knowing that suffering produces endurance, "and endurance produces character, "and character produces hope, "and hope does not put us to shame "because God's love has been poured into our hearts "through the Holy Spirit who's been given to us." So if I said to you, "How many people here would like hope?" "Oh yeah, I want hope." Well, if you work backwards in that Roman text, if you want hope, you need character.
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Like, "You know, I want character." "Sure, I want character." Well, you know how you get character?
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Endurance.
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That's how character is grown according to God's Word.
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It's through endurance.
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Now how many people would say, "Yeah, I'd like endurance." Well, guess how you get endurance?
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Through suffering.
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It's all connected.
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So whatever trial you're going through right now, God is using that.
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For 10,000 things you don't know, but for one thing you do, and it is to change you.
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Which is God's ultimate endgame, by the way.
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So while we're waiting for our hardships to get better, God is making you better through your hardships.
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So a word that I want to share with you, that by faith I want to receive myself is this.
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Don't look at the trials in your life right now as a hindrance for what God wants to do through you.
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Look at the trials in your life as training you for what God is going to do through you.
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That's a more biblical understanding of the purpose of trials.
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God says, "I have all kinds of things in store for you, but we've got to go to boot camp.
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My training ground is this trial that you're going through right now." So God works through unexpected trials.
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Secondly, God works through unexpected people.
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God works through unexpected people.
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Look at verse 16.
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"Now the son of Paul's sister heard of their ambush, so he went and entered the barracks and told Paul.
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Paul called one of the centurions and said, 'Take this young man to the tribune, for he has something to tell him.' So he, the centurion, took him, Paul's nephew, and brought him to the tribune and said, "Paul the prisoner called me and asked me to bring this young man to you as he has something to say to you." The tribune took him by the hand and going aside asked him privately, "What is it that you have to tell me?" Now we don't know how old this young man was, but he must have been a kid because of the tribune taking him by the hand.
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That's not a normal thing for an adult man to do with an adult man, right?
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So, best understanding from the commentaries that I had studied this week, he was probably a very young, young man.
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Verse 20, "What is it you have to tell me?" He said, "The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the council tomorrow." As though they were going to inquire somewhat more closely about you.
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"But do not be persuaded by them, for more than forty of their men are lying in ambush for him, who abound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they have killed him, and now they are ready waiting for your consent.
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So the tribune dismissed the young man charging him, tell no one that you have informed me of these things." Okay, so Paul's nephew. Any questions? I have questions.
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Here's my first question I jotted down on my notes.
22:51-22:55
Paul has a nephew? Like where did that guy come from?
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He just like parachuted into the text. We didn't even know this guy existed.
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It's like, "Oh, Paul's got a nephew!" I was not aware. Why was he in Jerusalem?
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Was he a Christian? I don't have answers to these questions. I just got the questions.
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But the Tribune says that when he reports the plan in incredible detail, The Tribune says, "Don't tell anyone that you told me because if they know that we know, they're going to abandon this plan.
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They're going to make another plan, a plan that we don't know about." But obviously the big question here in this passage is, how did Paul's nephew hear about the plan?
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I don't imagine he was one of the 40, do you?
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So how did he hear about the plan?
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I don't know how he heard, but apparently he found out because he knew it down to the letter, the point is just that. Providence is like that. Providence is like that.
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Because you can look at this passage and be like, "Wow, Paul's nephew heard the entire plan and reported it. What a coincidence!" And I would say, "No, no, no, no, no, not coincidence. Providence! God wanted to protect Paul, so he used Paul's nephew." Now we've studied Acts, as we've gone through Acts, we've seen God deliver through angels, right?
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Chapters five and 12.
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We saw God deliver through an earthquake, and sometimes that's what we're looking for, right?
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God deliver me, God deliver me.
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We're looking for the angels in the earthquake, and here God delivers through Paul's nephew.
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Why?
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Because God works through unexpected people.
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I've shared with you my testimony before.
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I was led to Christ by a complete stranger at community college.
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Butler County Community College.
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And looking back on that now, looking at my life in the rear view mirror, I see that wasn't an accident, that was God's providence.
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I want to talk for a minute about a more famous preacher.
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How many of you have heard of Charles Spurgeon?
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One of the, if not the, greatest preacher in church history.
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after Jesus and Paul, obviously.
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Do you know his testimony?
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I'm gonna give you the short version.
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You can look this up.
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I'm just gonna give you the short version.
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But before he was saved, it was a Sunday and there was this horrible snowstorm.
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And he wasn't able to go to the church that he normally attends, but there was this little Methodist church nearby that he was able to get to.
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So he went to the little Methodist church.
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There were 15 people in the church.
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In fact, the pastor himself was not at the church, probably because of the snowstorm.
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So do you know who got up to preach?
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A shoemaker.
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A guy whose job to make sure he got up to preach and his sermon was so terrible.
25:59-26:00
Nope, I didn't hear it, okay.
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Like, boy, you're harsh.
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Spurgeon said that, not me.
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Okay, the sermon was so bad, Spurgeon said he mispronounced most of the words in the Bible, okay?
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Could you imagine you're sitting in church and the guy getting up preaching He can't even pronounce the words in the Bible.
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But while this guy was fumbling through his sermon, and Spurgeon was sitting there, suddenly the man just looked Spurgeon right in the eye, and he said, "Young man, you look miserable.
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And I'm going to tell you, you're always going to be miserable until you call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." And Spurgeon came to Christ.
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Through that.
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That was the day the lights went on for that guy.
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Was that what you were expecting?
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That wasn't how I was expecting that story to turn out.
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But that was how the story turned out.
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We could line this place up with people telling stories of "God put so and so in my life at just the right time!" Is that a coincidence?
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No, it's providence, or another word, or term rather, we used to describe it as divine Divine appointments.
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I can look at my own testimony and say, "What if?
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What if that person didn't share with me?
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What if, you know, what if for some reason the person was sick that day that they were going to share with me?" And I can look at Spurgeon's story and I can say, "What if he decided the snowstorm was too bad to go to church?
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Or what if the shoemaker wasn't even a guy that preached?
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What if they decided to cancel church?
27:27-27:30
What if the regular pastor showed up and he wasn't a good preacher at all?
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Or what if a thousand different things happened?
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God make sure that what if doesn't happen. That's providence. You realize God's not sitting in heaven ever going, "Well what if such-and-such would have happened?" God's like, "What if isn't even in our vocabulary here? It's gonna happen!" That's providence. And you see, as we go When you go through a text like this, it's easy to identify with Paul, but the truth is you're also like Paul's nephew.
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Because not only does God use unexpected people in your life, you are the unexpected person that God's going to use in somebody else's.
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That's why we encourage you to share the good news boldly.
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You realize today, today, somebody's life, somebody's life might change for eternity because of you.
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because God works through unexpected people.
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And finally, God works through unexpected circumstances.
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Let's look at this last chunk of text here.
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All right, chapter 23, verse 23.
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It said, "He," that's the Tribune, and we're going to see his name here, is Claudius Lysias. I've been saying that the last couple of weeks, and somebody might be wondering, "How does he know his name?" It's here in the text.
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I read it.
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Anyways, "Then he called two of the centurions and said," check this out, "Get ready 200 soldiers with 70 horsemen and 200 spearmen to go as far as Caesarea at the third hour of the night.
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Also provide mounts for Paul to ride and bring him safely to Felix the governor.
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And he wrote a letter to this effect.
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Hang on a second before we get to the letter.
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Math people, Paul's sent with an armed guard.
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How many people are sent with Paul to protect him?
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You do the math there?
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470.
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Talk about providence.
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470, and it says, send him at the third hour of the night, that's 9 p.m.
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So you see obviously what the Claudius Lysias' plan was.
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This guy's life is in danger.
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Let's sneak him out at night and we're going to surround him.
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Nobody's touching this man.
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We're gonna send him to Felix, the governor up in Caesarea.
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That was 65 miles Northwest of Jerusalem.
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Verse 26, this is the letter.
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"Claudius Lysias, who is excellently the governor of Felix.
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"Greetings, this man was seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them when I came upon them with the soldiers and rescued him, having learned that he was a Roman citizen.
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Desiring to know the charge for which they were accusing him, I brought him down to their council.
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I found that he was being accused about questions of their law, but charged with nothing deserving death or imprisonment.
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And when it was disclosed to me that there would be a plot against a man, and I send him to you at once, ordering his accusers also to state before you what they have against him." Okay, so in transporting a prisoner, protective custody, whatever, it was customary to send the required letter.
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And this letter I would categorize as accurate-ish.
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Because do you notice in the letter that Claudius Lysaeus totally makes himself look good?
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Do you notice that?
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if you were with us the last couple of weeks, you know that this didn't exactly shake down the way he's presenting it.
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He sort of highlighted the good parts and he didn't mention any of his mistakes.
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Did you catch that?
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He didn't say, "Dear Felix, we thought he was the Egyptian assassin, and he wasn't, and we was wrong." Or, "We almost flogged him, which is illegal." Or, "We had him in chains, which also is illegal." He, "Leave that part out of the letter." and just talk about like the good parts.
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Here's a flagrant lie.
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He says, basically I rescued this Roman from the Jews.
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Did you catch the lie there?
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He didn't know that Paul was a Roman until after he rescued him.
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He sort of painted it like, I saw this Roman and we rushed in to save him.
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They saved a guy and then found out he was a Roman.
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He's just painting himself out to look so superheroic here.
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So he's like, the guy's innocent.
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We're sending him to you for safety.
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Verse 31, "So the soldiers, according to their instructions, took Paul and brought him by night to Anapatrus." That was like a rest stop between Jerusalem and Caesarea.
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Anapatrus was 40 miles away from Jerusalem.
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Okay, so you kind of, you know, stop there on the trip.
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Now, the next day they returned to the barracks.
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The soldiers returned back to Jerusalem, letting the horsemen go on with him.
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So it's like we're out of the danger zone, just send the 70 horsemen, right?
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So when they had come to Caesarea and delivered the letter to the governor, they presented Paul also before him.
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Okay, so now Paul's in Caesarea, he's before the governor, governor pulls out the letter.
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On reading the letter, he asked what province he was from.
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And we learned that he, Paul was from Cilicia.
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He said, "I will give you a hearing "when your accusers arrive." And he commanded him to be guarded in Herod's Praetorium.
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So he asked where Paul was from to determine jurisdiction.
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That's why he asked.
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Like, am I the right person to be hearing this?
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Oh, okay, you're in my district, great.
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So they kept Paul in, it says in Herod's Praetorium, that was basically the governor's residence.
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And all of this, all of this happened one day after God promised that Paul was going to testify of the gospel in Rome.
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Do you think Paul sat in protective custody in Jerusalem going, "He said that's going to happen, but I sure don't see how that's going to happen." Turn the clock, he had 24 hours, and Paul's like, "I kind of see how that's going to happen." Here's the point, God is always at work in you through harsh trials.
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But as in Paul's life, God is also working through the unexpected circumstances on what we would call the peripheral of your life.
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Realizing in this passage, God had these plans for Paul and all these things that were happening between Claudius Lysias and Felix, Paul had no idea what was happening and he certainly had no control over what was happening, but God was making it happen.
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And church, you've got to get this down because we miss it.
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God works and we miss it.
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Because God so often works through your circumstances.
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Don't miss that.
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For example, if you're like, money's really tight, and you're like, God, God, we need money, money's just so tight, God, could you please provide money?
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And then like a couple days later, your boss says, hey, you're doing such a good job, I'm gonna give you a raise.
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You see what we do?
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We say, well, God didn't come through.
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Good thing my boss did.
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And do you realize when you do that, you've created a false dichotomy to say either God works or my boss is going to work.
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But do you realize what happened?
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God was working through your boss.
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That's what providence is about.
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So it's not an either or.
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It's God taking the circumstances and using other people to make provision for you.
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I'm going to give you another example.
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Back when this church was very young, core group phase, some of you remember this, we were working on getting the things that we needed to launch the church.
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When this church started, we had nothing.
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We opened a bank account that had zero in it, and when we had enough money to buy a trailer, we stood in the parking lot and stared at an empty trailer.
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"Woo, we hope God fills it." We had nothing.
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So we worked with this organization called Church in a Box provides the stuff that you need for portable churches and all those things.
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And we got a quote from them.
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Dan, do you remember?
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The quote was like over $80,000.
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You talk about sticker shock.
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Okay, so there's 20 of us sitting in an Airbred's little community room thing.
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And we're like, okay, here's what we need.
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$84,000.
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Okay, so let's take our offering.
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Wow, we're about 83,500 short.
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We had one of those thermometers that we colored.
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It was just like a line.
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We'll get there.
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God provided for the church.
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And I wanna tell you this story by talking about four different parties.
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When I say party, I don't mean like party, I mean like groups.
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I wanna tell you the story through four different parties.
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The first party is this, the Harvest Bible Chapel Choir Group.
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There was 20, about 20 of us or whatever it was, meeting.
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That's one party.
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Second party, I wanna talk to you about, is there was a man who wanted to bless our church.
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I'm not gonna mention his name because he's part of the church now, but he wasn't at the time, which makes this even more incredible.
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So there was the second party, is there was a man who wanted to bless our church.
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The third party is there was a father who had a son that wanted to get music.
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So the father bought this son like a truckload of brand new music equipment, speakers and microphones and cables and all these things for son to get music, that's the third party.
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The fourth party involved in this story is the son, who wanted to get involved in music.
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Well, the son decides suddenly, he doesn't want to do music now.
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So the father decides to sell off all of this equipment that he just bought that was still in the wrapper.
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And this father just happened to be friends who wanted to bless the church.
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And that man said, "Well, I'll buy this equipment at this greatly discounted rate and donate it to the church." So Harvest Bible Chapel got a truckload of brand new music equipment and it cost us zero.
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So the question is, was that God's provision?
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While we were sitting praying over our $12 bowl of soup at Panera Bread, Just kidding, we couldn't afford that.
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We're praying for God to provide and that's how we got all of this stuff.
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So was that God's provision?
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Was that God at work?
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Would you say that was the answer to that prayer?
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I don't have any other conclusion.
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God could have turned a tree into a speaker.
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He could have turned a snake into a microphone cable.
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God could have done a lot of things, but He didn't.
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He provided through incredible circumstances, but there's no doubt that that was God.
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We see all of these in the gospel, by the way.
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All of these things that we're talking about this morning are all part of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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You know, Jesus Christ went through an unexpected trial, didn't he?
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Falsely accused.
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When I say unexpected, I'm talking about in human terms.
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Jesus was executed by what we would say are unexpected people.
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The Romans didn't even really know who he was.
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You know, remember Pilate, he's like, "So you're a king and where's your kingdom?
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And like, you know, who are you?
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And why are they so mad at you?" And he was executed by unexpected people.
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And suddenly in the ministry of Jesus Christ, suddenly the most, again, human perspective, The most innocent person who ever walked on this planet was nailed to a cross.
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And if you get that picture in your mind of seeing Jesus nailed to the cross, you can look at this innocent man condemned and crucified and you can say, "Where was God through all of that?" The Bible tells us that God in His providence, not in spite of all of that, but through all of that, was actually offering His Son as a sacrifice to pay the penalty for your sins.
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So if God can bring glorious purposes through events like that, He can do it through whatever lesser trial you and I are experiencing today.
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Don't miss the miracles, people.
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God's providence through His sovereignty is just as much of a miracle, and I would suggest sometimes maybe more, than parting the Red Sea.
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And when you get to that place in your life that you realize, I'm not going to worry, because God has every single detail in my life under His perfect control.
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When you get to that place, you will be able to say, like that bold lion, "I will not fear." Let's pray.
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Father in Heaven, You are awesome.
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Sometimes we wish there was a bigger word to describe You.
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But the way that, yes God, You can raise the dead, You can part the Red Sea, but God, the way that You can work through minute details, and choices, and decisions, and everything from traffic, and weather, and...
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It's all under Your control!
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So many times, Father, we feel like God never showed up when you were working the whole time.
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So Father, expand our vision for who You are and how You work.
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And I pray, Father, You give us the fearlessness that comes knowing that You are in control.
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And in your providence, you're going to take care of everything perfectly.
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In our church, in our families, in our very lives, Father.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 23:12-35

"God works through miracles and providence". What do those terms mean, and what's the difference? Why does it seem God usually chooses to work through providence over just doing a miracle?
Tell of a time you've clearly seen God's provision through His providence. In other words, what was a situation where you looked back and said "God was working the whole time! I see it now!" (like Joseph in Genesis 50:20)
What was your "big take-away" from this passage?

Breakout Questions:

Share a hardship you are experiencing now - how might God be working through this? How is God using this to change YOU?

Jeff Miller

November 5, 2017

I Will Not Fear

I Will Not Fear Wolves.

Jeff Miller

November 5, 2017

I Will Not Fear

Review / Introduction:

Matthew 10:16-18 - "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles..."

How to be a Fearless Snake / Dove:

Be wise! Think Defensively. (Acts 22:22-29)

Be innocent! Live Blamelessly. (Acts 22:30-23:5)

Be wise! Strike Deliberately. (Acts 23:6-10)

Be innocent! Trust Fearlessly. (Acts 23:11)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:01
Acts 22, are you there?
00:03-00:04
We're going to get there in a second.
00:05-00:18
Just to recap, we have the apostle Paul is in Jerusalem, and he is in the temple where he was falsely accused by his enemies of, hilariously enough, being anti-Jewish.
00:21-00:31
So a mob tries to kill him, they actually drag him out of the temple, and were going to beat him to death, and Paul was then rescued/arrested by the Romans.
00:33-00:37
Now in their custody, we saw this last week, he asks to address the crowd.
00:37-00:44
He shares his testimony and he says, "Hey, here's how Jesus saved and changed me.
00:45-00:55
And how Jesus, verse 21, told me that He was going to send me to the Gentiles to minister to them." that gets us caught up.
00:55-01:04
The title of this message is, "I Will Not Fear Wolves." We're going to be talking about animals quite a bit today.
01:04-01:06
Anybody fans of the zoo?
01:07-01:09
Our family, huge fans, okay?
01:09-01:11
Huge, I love the zoo.
01:11-01:13
I love going to the zoo.
01:14-01:17
And we're going to be talking about a few animals today.
01:18-01:26
And to understand this passage that we're going to be looking at, We actually have to do a bit of a flashback.
01:27-01:33
And the flashback takes us back to Matthew 10, verses 16-18.
01:33-01:37
These are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.
01:38-01:52
And you have to see the prophecy here, and see the commands that Jesus gives, in order for us to understand what's going on with Paul in the passage we're going to look at.
01:52-02:01
But Jesus said, "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.
02:04-02:09
So be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
02:11-02:37
Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, And you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles." Jesus said He's sending us out, do you see it?
02:38-02:40
As sheep in the midst of wolves.
02:41-02:47
Jesus promised that we, His people, are going to be treated the way that wolves treat sheep.
02:47-02:49
Don't you wish that was the other way around?
02:51-03:07
Don't you wish Jesus said, "I'm going to send you out as a wolf in the midst of sheep, and you are going to dominate, and you are going to be the predator, and you're going to be unstoppable." That's not what he said.
03:08-03:15
And when it comes to interacting with the world and dealing with the hostility of the world.
03:17-03:19
Permission to speak freely?
03:21-03:24
We are knuckleheads as a church.
03:25-03:29
And I don't just mean this church, I mean Christians at large.
03:31-03:32
Myself included.
03:33-03:35
Often times we have no idea how to interact with the world.
03:37-03:41
Here's three wrong ways that we as a church interact with the world.
03:41-03:43
jot these down. These are wrong ways.
03:44-03:47
These are wrong ways. We've all been guilty of these things, okay?
03:47-03:56
So, I hope you're not here today to affirm what you've been doing, but instead to see what God says and make some changes, amen?
03:58-04:03
Here's wrong ways that we have a tendency to interact with the world.
04:04-04:08
One is detach. Detach.
04:09-04:11
You know I'm going to huddle up my family?
04:11-04:18
Okay, we go to church in our holy huddle, and then through the week we get back in our homes in our holy huddle, and we don't interact with the world at all, ever.
04:19-04:20
They are not our problem.
04:23-04:23
We detach.
04:24-04:29
We think somehow that we can be in the world, but completely separated from the world.
04:32-04:36
Second wrong way that we interact with the world is condemn.
04:37-05:16
Christians they think it's just their job to point the finger. Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless, you're hopeless, you're hopeless, you're hopeless, you're hopeless, you're hopeless, you're hopeless, and some some Christians think that's their ministry. It's just to go around and point out all the evil and sin that Not to fall into this, but churches get this mindset, like, "Hey world, we're just like you.
05:16-05:18
You should come here because we're just like you.
05:19-05:21
The world doesn't need us to be just like them.
05:22-05:30
Their thing's not working." And just when the world needs us the most, here we are just acting like them.
05:31-05:33
And they walk in and say, "Well, there's nothing there.
05:34-05:40
They're not offering me anything." But somehow we think we'll win them by imitating them.
05:41-05:47
And I'm just saying, church, you gave me permission to speak freely, so this is on you now.
05:47-05:57
But when we detach and when we condemn or when we imitate, we are knuckleheads in dealing with the world.
05:57-06:01
But I want you to see, okay, we're here to make some changes, right?
06:02-06:03
Look at what Jesus said.
06:03-06:05
Can we put that verse back up, please, Mike?
06:06-06:07
Catch this.
06:07-06:15
Jesus said, "I'm sending you out sheep in the midst of wolves." Okay, this next two phrases, this is the key here.
06:17-06:32
"So be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." I tried so hard to get a serpent and a dove to bring here this morning and have.
06:33-06:35
How creepy would that have been to like stand here preaching with a snake?
06:37-06:38
Or even worse, a dove.
06:39-06:44
Anyways, I even went to a pet shop and I'm like, tried to sweet talk them into loaning me one.
06:44-06:45
They wouldn't do it.
06:48-06:48
(laughing)
06:50-06:55
All right, so Jesus said, "Church, and you gotta get this.
06:56-06:58
Here's how we are to interact with the world.
06:59-07:06
Wise as serpents and innocent." As doves, why is it serpents? What does that mean?
07:06-07:12
Well, serpents can spot trouble a mile away, and they're always ready to deal with it.
07:14-07:19
Serpents, or snakes, are masters of self-preservation.
07:19-07:20
They are.
07:22-07:24
This past summer I was mowing in the yard, and there was a snake.
07:25-07:29
And I'm like, "I'm going to mow the snake." And he saw me coming, whoop, he vanished.
07:29-07:31
I tried to find the hole that he slipped into.
07:31-07:32
I couldn't find it.
07:34-07:38
Jesus said to be wise as serpents, and he said to be innocent as doves.
07:41-07:49
Doves. No malice in a dove. No wrath. No vengeful spirit in a dove.
07:51-07:57
Doves are the poster birds for peace, right?
07:59-08:05
Jesus said, as we as a church interact with the world, here's the picture that you need to have.
08:08-08:15
This is you, Christian, wise as the snake, but innocent as the dove.
08:17-08:20
In other words, be gentle, but don't be a pushover.
08:21-08:26
Be self-sacrificing, but don't let people take advantage of you.
08:26-08:30
But as people often do, we love to swing the pendulum to the extremes.
08:31-08:34
For some people, it's all serpent and no dove.
08:36-08:38
Meaning you're wise, but you're not innocent.
08:40-08:42
And you win people by being crass.
08:42-08:47
Or you consider that your Christian conduct doesn't matter to the world.
08:47-08:49
That's all serpent and no dove.
08:50-08:52
Some people are all dove and no serpent.
08:53-08:59
Meaning you're blameless in character, but you're clueless on how to interact with people.
09:01-09:02
Both of those are wrong.
09:04-09:10
Jesus said it's seeing yourself as the serpent/dove.
09:11-09:15
It's how you wisely witness without being worldly.
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Or to state Jesus' teaching in the negative, Jesus was saying, "Look, sending you out as sheep among wolves.
09:24-09:28
Don't be clueless, but don't be worldly either.
09:29-09:29
Right?
09:31-09:35
Like, can we think of somebody that might have modeled this?
09:36-09:36
Can you think of anybody?
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How about Jesus?
09:40-09:47
The most innocent and gentle person to ever walk on the earth, but he never fell into the traps laid for him by his enemies.
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Read your Bibles.
09:50-09:54
You'll see that Jesus always addressed people in exactly the right way.
09:54-09:55
He always knew.
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Jesus didn't have a one size fits all message that he just spit out to everybody.
09:59-10:08
Whether it was the woman at the well, or the harsh enemies, the Pharisees coming after him, Jesus always knew exactly what to say in every context.
10:08-10:14
He knew, like the snake, how to do a defensive strike.
10:16-10:20
But like the dove, Jesus was innocent.
10:21-10:24
So you're like, "I thought we were an axe." We are.
10:26-10:28
What I just gave you is the sermon for today.
10:28-10:33
And as we go through Acts, you're going to see the illustration of Jesus' words.
10:34-10:40
You're going to see Paul not only fulfill Jesus' prophecy, but obey His instructions.
10:41-10:41
Okay?
10:41-10:48
So what we're going to go through for the rest of the morning the illustration and with this some application.
10:48-10:53
So on your outline, how to be a fearless snake/dove.
10:54-10:56
All right, number one, be wise.
10:59-11:00
Think defensively.
11:01-11:03
This is snake stuff.
11:03-11:04
Look at verse 22.
11:06-11:13
It says, "Up to this word, they listened to him." Well, up to what word?
11:13-11:25
Well, Paul's giving his testimony, and as soon as he said the word Gentiles, they were like, "That's it! Enough, enough." You see, for the Jews to hear, "Are you saying that the Gentiles are equal with Jews?
11:25-11:28
Are you saying Gentiles can be saved without first becoming Jewish?
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We don't want to hear any more.
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Shut your mouth.
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We are done listening." That's what's going on here.
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By the way, that's not the reaction most preachers are looking for.
11:40-11:41
Look at this.
11:43-11:58
And they raised their voices and said, 'Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live.' And as they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks, and flinging dust into the air - that's just crazy, they're going crazy.
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Were they throwing off their cloaks because they were getting ready to stone him?
12:02-12:05
That's what a lot of people think is going on here.
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Flinging dust into the air.
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They were just so outraged.
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and they would do it And Paul is saying, because after Paul gives the sermon, he's like, "I still don't understand why everybody's so upset with this man." So this was his plan.
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"Let's beat him within an inch of his life and see if we can get some answers." When it says, "flogging, understand," yeah, that sounds familiar, doesn't it?
12:58-13:00
That's what Jesus Christ endured.
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It was a wooden stick with leather straps on the end, and the straps are actually woven, and woven into the straps of iron and bone.
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Why?
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Because when they whipped you, it wasn't like a smack, like if you've ever been hit with a belt, which we may or may not have as kids.
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It wasn't like the smack.
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Those pieces of metal and bone, when they hit were meant to just rip flesh off when you pulled back.
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Jesus Christ endured that.
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So if you're sitting here today and you've ever gotten to a place in your life where you're in a rut and you feel like, "God doesn't love me.
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"God doesn't care about me." I want you to think about something.
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Jesus Christ willingly endured.
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Not only the worst beating a human being could endure, but then he went on to endure the worst kind of execution by hanging on a cross that anyone could endure.
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So if you ever get in that mindset of, "God doesn't care about me." I want you to put your eyes on the cross because that forever stands as a testimony that God cares about you.
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Okay?
14:13-14:19
So, they're like, we can't get answers out of this guy, so let's beat him until he gives us answers.
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Says, but when they had stretched him out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, "Is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman citizen and uncondemned?" Whoa! Understand, when Paul asked that, the answer... it was a rhetorical question.
14:48-14:58
Under Roman law... remember, okay, Rome was the world power at the time, and Israel was under Rome's occupation, all right?
14:58-15:00
So Israel answered to Rome.
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And if you were a Roman citizen, you had certain rights.
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And one of those rights, we're going to talk about a couple other ones here, you could not be flogged without having a preliminary hearing, without being condemned.
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You went through the courts, judgment was passed.
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They couldn't just take you and beat you if you were a Roman citizen.
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That was illegal.
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And if somebody did that, and this is going to be very important here, you're going to see in a second in the text.
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If an official did that, they could not only lose their job, they could be executed for that.
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Are you starting to see the snake here?
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Paul is stretched out. Can you see the picture?
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He's stretched out, they're just about to beat him, and here's the snake.
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He's like, "What you're about to do, is that legal?" Whoa, whoa, whoa.
15:51-15:53
Because I'm a Roman citizen.
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And that puts the brakes on things pretty quick, right?
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Which, by the way, I jotted this down in my notes.
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This is actually kind of funny.
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Do you remember back in Acts 16, if you were with us through this series, Paul and Silas were beaten and imprisoned, and then when they were released, thanks to the Lord showing up, they told the magistrates that they were Roman citizens, The magistrates, you remember that story, the magistrates were like, "We are so sorry.
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We will escort you out.
16:30-16:32
We baked you some fresh cinnamon rolls.
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We'll stop by Starbucks on the way.
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And is there anything else that we can get you?
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We are so sorry." Why were they like that?
16:42-16:46
Because they knew they just committed a major crime themselves.
16:48-17:00
Okay, so back in Philippi, Paul told the Philippian magistrates that he was a Roman citizen after he was beaten and imprisoned.
17:01-17:11
So do you think when we get to Acts 22, Paul was like, "Lesson learned?" They're just about to beat him, and he's like, "You know that Roman citizen card that I played in Philippi?
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I'm going to lead with that instead of telling them afterwards." And of course, scholars are like, "Well, here's why he didn't in Philippi, and here's why he did here." Honestly, I think Paul learned his lesson.
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"You know what? That really worked well in Philippi.
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Why don't we get that out before the beating that we're Roman citizens?" Good plan, Paul.
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Where are we at? Verse 26.
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It says, "When the centurion heard this," that he was a Roman citizen, "he went to the tribune and said to him, 'What are you about to do?
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"For this man is a Roman citizen." So the tribune, again, Claudius Lysias.
17:55-18:06
So the tribune came and said to him, "Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?" And Paul said, he said, "Yes." Now, why didn't he ask for ID?
18:06-18:13
Well, if you claimed you're a Roman citizen and you weren't, you lied about that, that was also death penalty, okay?
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So back in Paul's day, if you were asked "You probably said you were a Roman citizen." It was kind of taking a face value because the alternative would be death.
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So look at verse 28.
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This is really interesting.
18:25-18:26
I thought a lot about this this week.
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The Tribune answered, "I bought this citizenship for a large sum." Paul said, "But I am a citizen by birth." Now, what did Claudius Lysias mean when he said, citizenship for a large sum. Understand that citizenships were not for sale, okay?
18:52-19:01
You didn't go to Kmart and buy a citizenship. You didn't, you know, stop by Sheetz on the way to church, get a coffee, get an MTO, get a room in citizenship.
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They weren't for sale. They could actually be purchased though by bribing corrupt officials. There's a lot of conjecture over what he meant by this He made a statement when he says, "I bought this citizenship for a large sum." I think I understand why he said that.
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If you get the scene, here you have Paul, remember they thought he was the Egyptian terrorist, and they're about to beat him to death, and he probably looked pretty pathetic.
19:33-19:39
He's like, "I'm a Roman citizen." Lysaeus is like, "I paid a lot of money for my citizenship.
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the implication there is, how did you buy yours?
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Do you ever have somebody do that?
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Like, oh, you drive that kind of car.
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They kind of give you that, how can you afford to drive one of those?
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It's like, it's really none of your business, honestly.
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But I think that's kind of what he's doing here.
19:58-20:00
He's like, I paid a lot of money for mine.
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How'd you get yours?
20:02-20:04
And Paul says, I was a citizen by birth.
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How did his family get their citizenship?
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We don't know.
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but we know that his parents apparently were citizens and Paul was born into.
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So verse 29, "So those who were about to examine him..." Boy, that's an understatement.
20:19-20:21
They were about to flog him.
20:22-20:25
But Luke, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, sort of tones it down a few notches.
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They were going to examine him.
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"...withdrew from him immediately.
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And the tribune also..." Look at this. "...was afraid, For he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen, that he had bound him.
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It was also illegal to bind an uncondemned Roman citizen.
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So he's breaking all kinds of rules here.
20:48-20:51
And he's like, guys, we need to slow our roll.
20:51-20:52
Is that what the kids say?
20:54-20:56
Good, I put that in my notes, but I wasn't 100% sure.
20:56-20:58
So I'm gonna give you another run at this, all right?
20:59-21:02
So Claudius Lysias was like, hey, we need to slow our roll.
21:04-21:08
So in this passage you have Paul one second away from being beaten.
21:10-21:15
You see the self-preservation like a snake, striking back.
21:16-21:16
Is this legal?
21:17-21:18
You see, that's wisdom.
21:20-21:24
Because Romans, they didn't care about the Jews.
21:25-21:27
They sure didn't care about Jesus.
21:28-21:31
But you know there's one thing the Roman officials did care about.
21:31-21:34
There was exactly one thing that they cared about, and you know what it was?
21:35-21:37
I couldn't think of a nice way to say it.
21:39-21:42
What I have in my notes is covering their backsides.
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Is there a nice way to say that?
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Is that the best we're going to get there?
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Okay. I don't mean to be crass, but seriously, I racked my brain.
21:51-21:52
I'm like, I can't think of a nicer way to say it.
21:53-21:58
That's all they care -- protecting their vocational, political position.
22:00-22:02
They cared about that.
22:03-22:08
So when Paul's like, "Hey, what you're about to do is illegal." They knew immediately all the implications that's going to come from that.
22:09-22:14
And they're like, "Whoa, stop, back up." That's snake stuff, man.
22:15-22:16
That is wisdom.
22:17-22:21
And there are times, church, that we claim our civil rights.
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There are times, church, listen.
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There are times that we use the world to our advantage.
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That's being wise as a serpent.
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Some people think it's wrong for churches to take advantage of things like, you know, non-profit, or tax breaks, or things like that.
22:43-22:48
If you can legally use the world to your advantage, you absolutely should do it.
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That's called being wise as a serpent.
22:52-22:54
Now, yes, it's true Christians are going to suffer.
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But we've seen this so many times in Acts.
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If you can righteously avoid suffering, do it.
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Because that's thinking like a snake.
23:04-23:05
Number one, be wise.
23:05-23:06
Think defensively.
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Be a snake.
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Use every advantage you can to protect yourself while witnessing, while living for Christ.
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Number two, be innocent.
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Live blamelessly.
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Look at verse 30.
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"But on the next day, desiring to know the real reason why he was being accused by the Jews, he unbound him and commanded the chief priests and the council to meet, and he brought Paul down and set him before them." Okay, so Rome's still confused.
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Rome still has no idea what's going on.
23:39-23:42
They're like, "Everybody's really upset about this guy.
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We can't figure out why, but now he's a Roman citizen, and now we really have no idea what's going on.
23:47-23:54
Okay, so he's Jewish, so let's get the council." the Sanhedrin, meaning let's get the Jewish rulers to understand.
23:55-23:57
Okay, we talked about Rome, Roman occupation, right?
23:57-23:58
Rome was in charge.
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The Sanhedrin were the Jewish religious rulers.
24:03-24:07
They ruled the Jews underneath the umbrella of Rome.
24:09-24:10
So you see, the Romans gathered them.
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This wasn't a formal trial.
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They just wanted information.
24:14-24:15
So let's get the Sanhedrin together.
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Now, this is really important as we go through the text, Because he says, I'm sorry, the Sanhedrin, rather, is made up of two factions.
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The Sanhedrin is made up of the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
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That's really important.
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You're going to see why here in a second.
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It says, "And looking intently at the council, Paul said, "Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day." It says, "Paul looked intently at the council." That means he looked them in the eye. Why?
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Because Paul was a Pharisee before he came to Christ, right?
24:57-24:59
So he knew many of these people.
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I guarantee you, he knew many of these people.
25:03-25:05
So now he's standing before them.
25:05-25:08
He looked them in the eye. "I know you. I know you." and he's looking at them.
25:09-25:18
He says the statement, "I've lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day." You're like, wait, wait, wait a second.
25:20-25:32
He was arresting and beating and imprisoning Christians and persecuting the church, and while they're stoning Stephen, he's like, "Here, let me hold your coat." How can he say something like this?
25:32-25:34
Well, he's exactly right.
25:35-25:45
saying is, "I've always tried to do what I thought was the right thing." Now he was wrong before, but he thought he was right. He's talking about his conscience.
25:45-26:03
Your conscience is that part of your brain that passes judgment on your actions. That you're like, "I can't do that in good conscience." Why? "Because of my brain, that's wrong." Or, "My conscience tells me I have to do this, and my brain passing moral judgment, yeah, that's what I What do I need to be doing?
26:06-26:08
Conscience isn't the measure of right and wrong.
26:09-26:11
God's Word is the measure of right and wrong.
26:11-26:17
That's why we need to consider our convictions in light of what God's revealed.
26:18-26:22
But all Paul is saying here is, "Look guys, you know me. You know me.
26:23-26:25
I've always tried to do the right thing.
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I've never violated my conscience.
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I've always done what I thought God wanted me to do.
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Does that make sense?
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It says, verse 2, "And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth." Ananias was one of the worst high priests in the history of high priests.
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And you can do a little study on him.
26:51-26:54
He was a thief. He stole from the common priests.
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He was violent, as we kind of see here.
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If I was going to strike him in the mouth, it wasn't like, you know, something light.
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This was a very violent word.
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This meant, you know, "crack across the face." Would anybody like to come up and demonstrate that on me?
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Wait, wait, no, no, no, wait, wait, I said that backwards.
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Would anybody like to come up, see this is what happens when you plan everything out.
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Would anybody like to come up and let me demonstrate on them?
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Oh, we wouldn't do that.
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But you see the point. Ananias was upset.
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And Paul's response, getting cracked in the face, "Then Paul said to him, 'God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall.
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Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?'" Okay, Paul is pretty upset.
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His response was in anger, it was sinful anger, and he recognized that.
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Look at verse 4, "It is as those who stood by said, 'Would you revile God's high priest?' And Paul said, 'I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest.
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For it is written, 'You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.'" That's from Exodus 22.28.
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So Paul didn't know.
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Did he take the high priest position when Paul was out of town?
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Or maybe he didn't have his high priestly robes on at the time and Paul didn't recognize him out of uniform?
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I don't know, but Paul just didn't recognize him.
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I think there's a word here, considering our political climate.
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"You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people." The way that any of our prayer meetings can tell you whether the presidents have carried our ideologies or not, we've prayed for them.
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We live in such a politically hostile environment, I think it would do us well to heed this verse.
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"You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people." We're commanded to pray for those that have those positions, right? Amen?
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So here, see in this passage, Paul was quick to confess, he was quick to repent, and he sought to not cause intentional offense.
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Here's the deal. If you want to dishonor God and ruin your testimony, "Well, that's not why I showed up today." Listen, if you want to dishonor God and ruin your testimony, here's how.
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It's real easy. Never own up to your mistakes.
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Never own up to your mistakes.
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Do you see how quickly Paul repented?
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He could have kept lashing out. "I don't care if you're the high priest or not! You don't do that!" He owned up to his mistake.
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He's like, "You know, the Bible says I shouldn't speak evil against a ruler, and I just did. I'm sorry." You see, church, if you suffer for Christ, it's a gracious thing in the sight of God, according to 1 Peter 2.20.
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But if you suffer because you're a self-righteous jerk who never admits when you're wrong, God isn't honored, and you're just getting what you deserve.
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So be a dove. Be innocent.
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Keep your conscience clear.
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Admit your mistakes.
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Even to your enemies.
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What a testimony that is, to say to your enemies, "You know what? I was wrong about that.
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I'm sorry.
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That's being a dumb.
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Alright, last two, much quicker.
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Number three, be wise.
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Strike deliberately.
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We're back to snake mode.
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Alright, look at verse six.
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"Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, 'Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees.
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with respect to the hope and resurrection of the dead that I am on trial." And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say, "There is no resurrection, or angel, nor spirit." But the Pharisees acknowledged them all.
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You see what happened? This is so snake-like. Paul threw a grenade right in the middle of the council. He's looking around. He's like, Sadducee, Sadducee, Pharisee, Pharisee. Good. Oh, by the way, resurrection of the dead, just to put it in modern terms, imagine he stood before Congress and he's looking around. He's like, Republican, Republican, Democrat, Democrat, Republican. Universal health care is the way to go! And now they're fighting. "Universal health care is a big mistake!
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"Oh, you don't care about the people!" And now they're like fighting each other over that issue.
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That's exactly what he did here.
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Why? Because the Sadducees, they only believed in the Pentateuch.
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They didn't believe in, which I would argue that resurrection and angels and things like that are in the Pentateuch, but they only believe in the Pentateuch, but they also said there's no angel spirits, there's no resurrection, there's nothing really supernatural.
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What you see is what you get in the Pharisees.
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They believed in resurrection and angels and spiritual.
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And so Paul knew that was a bomb.
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He's like, "Resurrection of the dead and the Pharisees, you're gonna see here in a second." They're like, "Yeah, we're kind of, we kind of go with that." And the Sadducees are like, "Not buying it." Look at, Paul just totally turned the tables on them.
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Look at verses nine and 10.
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It says, "Then a great clamor arose as some of the scribes of the Pharisees' party stood up and contended sharply." This is hilarious.
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These people that were, they hated Paul and they hated the Christians.
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They actually turn on the Sadducees now and they kind of align with Paul.
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They said, "We find nothing wrong in this man." Look at this next statement.
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This is the funny part.
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They said, "What if a spirit or angel spoke to him?" 'Cause the Sadducees didn't believe in that.
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So they're like digging it in even more.
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They're like, "How do you know an angel didn't show up?" "Oh, you don't believe in angels!" And it's just like, "Wrenching it in, wrenching it in!" It says, "When the dissension became violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away from among them by force and bring him into the barracks." So, Paul starts yet another riot, and he has to be saved by Rome.
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So Paul was snake-like, cornered and defended himself.
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Paul wasn't looking for a fight, understand that.
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Paul didn't show up to the temple with boxing gloves on, saying, "Who wants to go a few rounds?" He showed up to worship, he showed up to show his critics that he wasn't anti-Jewish.
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He came to Jerusalem to give an offering to the poor.
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He wasn't looking for a fight, but when he was backed into a corner, he wasn't going to roll over either.
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Well, it's hopeless.
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He made a bold and precision strike.
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In the same way, again, we don't, church, we don't go looking for a fight, but when we're cornered, we should choose our words to put our attackers on the defensive.
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I would encourage you to be a snake.
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Strike with the most powerful thing on the planet, and that's the Word of God.
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That's what Paul did.
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Instead of just striking you back with doctrine, "I'm going down, I'm going down swinging my Bible." Be a snake. Strike deliberately.
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And finally, be innocent.
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Trust fearlessly.
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This is the innocence of the dove here.
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This is a key verse because this verse and set the theme for our whole ministry year, along with Proverbs 28.1.
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It says, "The following night, the Lord stood by him and said, 'Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.'" How comforting do you think that was for Paul?
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If you've been with us the last few weeks and seen all these things that Paul went through, and went back in the cell.
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It says the Lord showed up and comforted him.
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The Lord stood by him and said, "Don't be afraid.
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Mission accomplished in Jerusalem.
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Next up, we're going to Rome, and you're going to do it again." How comforting do you think that was?
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Well, if the thought of dying in Jerusalem ever crossed Paul's mind of all this violence, you'd think this would have changed his mind.
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In other words, if God says Paul's going to Rome, what are the chances that Paul's going to Rome?
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Pretty good? 100%? More?
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Here it is, I'm going to close with this.
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Fearlessness comes when we embrace God's promises.
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This is the whole point of this.
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It's the whole point of this whole ministry year.
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Fearlessness comes when we embrace God's promises.
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The only way you are going to be bold as a lion is living as if you believe God's promises are true.
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Not just acknowledging them, but banking your life on them.
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So let me ask you, do you believe that God is with you how hard life gets.
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God promised that in Deuteronomy chapter 31.
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Do you believe that God is going to provide you everything that you need in this life?
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You believe that?
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Jesus promised that in Matthew chapter 6.
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Do you believe that God uses the difficulties of your life for your benefit?
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You believe that?
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God promised that in James chapter 1.
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Do you believe the Word of God is powerful and when you speak the Word of God, God moves?
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Do you believe that?
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God promised that in Isaiah chapter 55.
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And do you believe when all is said and done, you have the promise of eternal glory in heaven, purchased by Jesus Christ?
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Do you believe that?
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Jesus promised that in John 14.
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Because you see, if you bank your life on these promises, you will be wise as a serpent, you'll be innocent as a dove, and you'll be bold as a lion.
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Let's pray.
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Father in Heaven, wisdom.
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Your Word makes it so clear.
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the type of wisdom, the type of lives we are to live.
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Father, I pray today that we would leave here meditating on this glorious truth that you've given us, illustrated by the animal kingdom that you created.
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Father, we are sheep being sent out amongst wolves.
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We are defenseless.
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and the enemy is violent.
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Jesus called us to be as wise as a serpent, to think and to be calculating and to know how to strike and when to strike, but somehow at the same time to be innocent as a dove, be blameless, to have a reputation that can't be maligned.
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Through this, Father, we want to be bold as a lion.
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Your word tells us the righteous are bold as a lion.
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Father, give us the wisdom.
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When our day of trial comes, it might not be before the Sanhedrin.
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It might be before our neighbors.
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It might be before our family.
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It might be in a local courthouse.
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Find us to be faithful snakes and doves.
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Pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 22:22-23:11

What does it mean to be "wise as serpents and innocent as doves" (Matthew 10:16-18)? Restate this in your own words. What is the danger of being just one or the other?
What are ways Christians can “use the world to our advantage” as Paul did in Acts 22:25?
Re-read Acts 23:5. What does this say about how we should regard OUR leaders, even if we don't particularly like them?
How did the Lord's promise of Paul testifying in Rome give Paul courage? What promises of God give YOU courage?
What is your one big "take-away" from Paul's ordeal in this passage?

Breakout Questions:

Pray for one another to be "wise as serpents and innocent as doves".

I Will Not Fear. I Will Be Content.

I Should Fear, Lack of Urgency!

I Will Not Fear Accusations.

God is Sovereign, I Will Not Fear.

I Will Not Fear Wolves.

Upcoming Small Group Questions CLICK HERE

How much of the Bible have we covered since 2011?

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