As I’ve prayed, talked to many of you, read, and meditated on God’s truth much in these past few weeks, I have extremely excited about the fact that God is revealing to us his heart for his church. I might be one of the few people who gets to see this because I have the privilege to talking to a great deal of our members about what God has been leading them to in the Word and in prayer. And as I hear responses from people, I am finding that there is a lot of consistency in what is being heard, which makes me think that God is clearly speaking and giving us direction.
To say this makes me excited is an understatement. For as we hear God’s direction and respond in faith, we are going to be able to be a body, a channel, a means through which he might display his glory to those around us – and to the world.
However, as I begin to see and hear these things being confirmed, it leads me to a thought. And that thought is this: we need to equip ourselves (and continually be equipping ourselves) for the great calling God has placed on us to proclaim his excellencies throughout the world. Part of that equipping, I believe, is simply a refocusing, a calling back to some things that we already know but we may have forgotten or let drift into the background of all that with which we are busying ourselves.
There are probably few places that are more appropriate to look for this refocusing than Luke’s narrative of Paul’s ministerial work, for Paul seemed to be impassioned about fulfilling his calling in life. And because of that, we (again) can simply look to the details of his life and refocus on what God expects of us, how we should continually gear ourselves for our calling, what the means are for fulfilling that calling, and what is our hope.
Therefore, tonight I want to look at these four queries and answer them from this passage. However, I am not going to answer them thoroughly (for I will spend the rest of my life in preaching doing that), but I will give one small part of the answer to each.
God expects us to live holy lives. In these chapters and the next few, we will read that Paul is in trial five times in the latter part of Acts. But he is never found guilty of anything except offending people with his message. In fact, the accusation that begins all this is that Paul had brought a Greek into the temple (21:28). But in the next verse, Luke comments, “They had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, and they supposed that Paul had brought him in the temple” (21:29). But they were wrong. Paul was innocent.
One author, William Ramsay, believes that Luke was writing during the reign of Domitian, when Christians were being sentenced to prison for even the confession of being a believer because Christians had such a bad name. Therefore, he believes that much of Acts is written “not [as] an apology for Christianity; [but] … an appeal to the truth of history against the immoral and ruinous policy of the reigning Emperor.”1
If Ramsay is right, that would explain why Luke found it so needful to record the details of Paul’s trials over a number of chapters in the book of Acts. He was showing that crimes alleged in the first century against Christians have no ground for such individuals who strive to live holy, blameless lives. They are submissive to the state as long as it does not contradict the Word of God.
We need to remember these things today. We do not need to grow slack in our witness to the world in the way we respect the law, and above that, our Lord. As I said a few weeks back, we need to remember that we represent the entire body of Christ. Therefore, if a Christian leader, in the spotlight, were found in great sin tomorrow, it would affect more than just his witness. It would affect the whole church.
So we must strive for holiness. We should strive to be blameless before our God and our fellow citizens. As Peter says, “Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may on account of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Peter 2:12-15).
We need no more offense than that which the message of the cross (salvation in Christ alone) brings. So live holy and upright. Obey the law for the glory of your father (“for the Lord’s sake”) that you may be found blameless when you are slandered before men as Paul was.
Again, there are many answers here such as being fervent in prayer, diligent in the study and memorization of the Word, and others. However, I only want to mention one, but it is one that is quite apparent in our passage. It is that we need to constantly work for oneness and unity (in the truth) in the body of Christ.
There is an example of this that will break many of us in our pride and self-righteousness. In Acts 21:18-26 we read that Paul meets with James. And James tells him that he has spoken with the Jewish believers and that “They have been told about you, that you are teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs” (21:21).
Now this is all untrue. Though neither Paul nor James believed that circumcision was a requirement for salvation (Acts 15), Paul never taught that the Jews should abandon the customs of the law. In fact, he had had Timothy circumcised when he did not need to be.
But then James recommends that Paul go through a ritual of purification which may have involved shaving his head and paying money, just to justify himself before these false accusations and show that he keeps the law (21:23-24).
Now this is where Paul should be in an uproar. He had done nothing wrong. He had kept the law. He delighted in the law. And they were asking him to pay money and purify himself that he might show publicly that he was not guilty.
He could have stormed out and said, “Look, I know I’m not guilty and I have a right not to have to do these kinds of things to prove myself.” But what did he do? We read in verse 26, “Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purifying himself along with them, went into the temple, giving notice of the completion of days of purification, until the sacrifice was offered for each one of them.” He did exactly what James requested and sacrificed of himself.
Why? He did it so that the body of Christ may have unity. Man, is that a lesson for us today! How many times has my pride crept up when I think I have been unjustly treated and have I been tempted (though unintentionally) to sow discord and disunity in the body of Christ? I don’t care to think back long enough to answer that. And I doubt that I am the only one in that situation.
However, it is a good reminder to us to learn to sacrifice ourselves for the good of the entire body of Christ. For if we are going to carry out the calling which God has given us, it is going to require that a bunch of people with different opinions, personalities, and quirks see a vision and calling so great and desirous that we would lay our life down to achieve its fulfillment. That is the end to which we should be gearing ourselves continually for the calling God has placed on our lives to spread his glory throughout the earth.
Again, I could say that this involves the things I have mentioned so far and more, but the one aspect I will mention is that of suffering. As I have listened to talk radio these past few weeks, I am realizing more and more the suffering that many are going to know in this world for the proclamation that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
To teach only one way as the right one that leads to fellowship with the one God who created the world is going to bring more and more suffering as we are allowed to tarry in this nation. To test this, we need only hear such a proclamation made by a guest on a talk show to see how the world will try to tear his or her reputation and life to shreds.
However, we should not hate this, but know two things: 1) Christ told us this would happen (If they called him Beelzebub, what should we expect?) and 2) suffering is an appointed means for us showing his glory to another. It is our way of displaying the sufferings of Christ to those who are ignorant of them (Colossians 1:24).
And I bring this up because there is a striking similarity between Paul’s life in these few chapters and the life of Christ.
- They both come to Jerusalem and find suffering.
- They were both advised (if not commanded) to avoid suffering (Acts 21:4, 12).
- They were both rejected by their own, arrested without cause, and imprisoned (Acts 22).
- They were both unjustly accused and misrepresented by false witnesses.
- They were slapped in the face in court (Acts 23:2).
- They both heard the cries of the Jews, “Away with him” (21:36 and 22:22)
- And they were both subjected to five trials.
I think this is more than coincidence. And so was the parallel between Stephen and Christ shown in chapter 7 as Stephen cried out (as his Lord before him), “Receive my spirit!” and “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” (7:59-60).
For I believe suffering is a means to display the love and greatness of our God as we have the privilege of showing them in our bodies what he did to redeem a people for himself.
I believe the hope that will propel us through this life that we might fulfill our calling of pointing to our Lord is the assurance of God’s sovereign control. That is reflected in this story in one of the most precious ways.
Yes, God had shown his sovereign control to Paul as recorded in chapters 20-21 as he had shown him that he would face suffering in Jerusalem. God had allowed his child to be free from questioning God’s hand in what was going on. But in chapter 23, something even more gracious occurs. Jesus actually comes to Paul and comforts him in his suffering. Acts 23:11 says, “But on the night immediately following, the Lord stood at his [Paul’s] side and said, ‘Take courage; for as you have solemnly witnessed to My cause at Jerusalem, so you must witness at Rome also.’”
In the midst of Paul’s suffering, his Lord appears to tell him that he will survive Jerusalem and make it to Rome. Therefore, when there is a conspiracy to kill Paul in 23:12-22, Paul can have assurance that his Lord will deliver him. And we get to read of it in 23:23-35. John Stott writes, “It would be hard to exaggerate the calm courage which this assurance [speaking of 23:11] must have brought to Paul during his three further trials, his two years’ imprisonment and his hazardous voyage to Rome.”
Our Lord is still just as sovereign today. His plans will not be thwarted. Therefore, no matter what is going on, you can be sure that he will work all things together for the good of those who are his (Romans 8:28), that he will conform you to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29), that he will save men from every tongue, tribe, and nation (Matthew 24:14, Revelation 5:9, and 7:9), that Jesus Christ will be the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), and that our Redeemer will come again to take us home (John 14:2-3).
Trust his faithfulness. Amen.