Leftovers - Acts 24

Happy Monday, Pastor Matt, Pastor Chris, back here with

y'all. It's a wet weekend.

A little soggy A. Lot of lot of storms here in the

DeWitt area. I I woke up multiple times

because it was so loud. What was it?

Saturday night, Friday night, Friday night, Saturday night.

Saturday night. Saturday night, it was Saturday.

Night it was super loud and my dog was beside herself really

meaning beside me in bed cowering in fear.

So how did your you've got a newer dog?

How did how did your pup handle that?

She's generally fine inside. If I, if it's kind of stormy and

we take her outside and she either like sees lightning or

hears the Thunder, she'll do the quick like dodge like, yeah.

Dodge. Lightning.

Yeah, just completely. She's still little, though.

Yeah. And only had one let one child

wake up on Saturday actually, so that was good.

Oh yeah, you know, I forget that people have.

Children. Who might be affected by that?

I instantly thought about that. Tells you where I am in life.

I instantly thought about the dog and not children who might

be freaked out by that. Yeah, no, it's just very, very

like we, we somehow have windows on all like three sides of our

bedroom. So like, no matter what way the

wind is blowing, there's there's wind pattering on a window.

No, no matter where it's coming from.

So that yeah, storms are always just loud at night for us.

So yeah, no. Had a wonderful worship

gathering yesterday morning as well.

Full house. Great message from you.

Continuing on the journey in Acts.

And this this Governor Felix, now that Paul has brought

before. Yeah, it's just good gathering

time. Those chairs that that might

seem like a minor thing, but carpets got cleaned at church

this morning. Oh my gosh.

Those chairs were cleaned out of that sanctuary in like 5

minutes. It was impressive because that's

like over 200 seats. Yeah.

And I got to tell you every I can't remember how often we

clean the sanctuary carpets, whether it's once every year,

it's like a year, two years. But when you take all the chairs

out, you're like, the carpet just looks like camouflage

because of the number of times that any given number of people

spill coffee on it. We spill a lot of coffee.

We spill a lot of coffee. I almost wonder if we drink more

or we spill more. I'm really not sure.

But they they did a good job there.

I think they got it all fantastic.

There's one, there's one that like vaguely resembles wine in

in the back, right. So I don't know if anyone was

sneaking a little something extra into the communion at one

point, but it looks, yeah, looks like that guy spilled.

And there's a reddish stain in the back right corner that I'm

going to try to work out. They couldn't get it out.

The the professionals couldn't get out.

But we're going to give it a shot.

And if you're the one bringing wine into the communion, I'm not

going to speak against that. You're absolutely, that's fine.

But I keep it in the cup, I guess, yeah.

Well, you know we don't spill the blood of Jesus, right?

Right. Don't do that.

OK, this is very side tangent. When I was when I was a child.

Well, I guess I was an adolescent because it was

actually after. Did you ever I've never seen

someone spill anything at communion and and I always

wrestled when I was younger. I always wrestled if there was

like this supernatural aura or like something couldn't go wrong

during communion. And I remember because you hold

the elements and wait forever. Like I remember, I remember like

tipping the little cup to see if the the juice would just like

stay. And I never got to the point

that it actually spilled out. But I, I, I don't know, maybe

that's just me. That's awesome.

I remember as an adolescent just being like, can I actually even

spill the blood of Jesus during this time or does God just like

keep it on the cup? I actually, so I know a pastor

and if I named him you would too, but I won't.

But he was, you know, it was on. So all the communion stuff in

this particular church he was serving at was on like a

three-step stage and the whole stage was the steps, right.

So it went around the whole thing and as he's carrying the

communion trays down the steps, he totally biffed it.

Totally biffed, it fell face forward.

During the service. Yes, totally biffed it.

And the communion stuff is is gone.

Yeah, what? Did they do?

So I, I mean, you know, when I tell you who it is, you'll

understand I'll have to do that off air.

But when I tell you, you'll get it.

And Yep. And it's just wow.

OK, so we I. Did they just like, did they

just skip communion? Like what?

What's the next? I'm pretty sure everybody just

waits and we refresh the entire thing and then don't let that

particular person carry the elements downstairs anymore

because. And I wouldn't.

If that ever happened to me I would be like, I would be

mortified. To.

Try to ever do it again. Oh, I would be so in my head and

so nervous all the time. It would be.

It would be terrible. But so it can't happen.

That is an answer to your question.

It can happen. And I think this, I think this

particular pastor, like what a good guy, like honestly, like

just the nicest guy you could ever meet.

And you know, it happens to the best of us, I suppose.

Oh man, Yikes. I'm glad though.

I'm glad I've never actually. We're glad it's not you.

Glad it's not me. Really glad it's not me.

We also, you mentioned it in the service yesterday, we mentioned

it last week. We're doing a couple AMA, Ask Me

Anything episodes coming up at the end of August and the first

week of September or actually the first couple weeks of

September. That's what it is the first two

episodes in September each of those Mondays, but we've gotten

some coming in already. There's the there's the little

question jar at the connection center at church, but we've had

some texted in messaged into Facebook as well.

And because you actually touched on the answer to this question

yesterday, we're that's going to be our ice breaker today is

actually using one of these questions early.

The question was just asking us to expound on the, the tagline,

the meaning of house for the broken home for the healed at at

Emmaus Rd. Church.

And you, you went over that. You explained that yesterday in

the sermon briefly, but I just I thought we'd kind of addressed

that. And that's the beauty of these

ask me anything questions. I would not be surprised if you

have a question. I promise you are not the only

person that has that question, unless it's like wildly specific

to something that only happened in your life.

If if you have a general about why we do something this way at

church or what this thing means, I promise you're not the only

person that goes to this church that has this question.

So that's the beauty of it, you asking these questions.

I bet there's at least ten other people that are also wondering

this question. And I always thought I always

felt that way in my classroom too.

So like if I'm explaining an idea inside, so I was an art

teacher. So if I'm explaining an idea and

there's something about that idea or concept you did not

understand, there's no way you're the only one.

The fault is probably on me because I didn't explain it in

such a way that you could grasp it unless you just were straight

up not listening in, which and that does happen in middle

school sometimes. Sometimes, but yeah, you know,

otherwise, yeah, you'll, somebody else is going to pair

up with you on that. Yeah, but we have lots of, we're

kind of a melting pot of even religious backgrounds here too.

There there are some people who go to church here who grew up,

grew up Catholic, grew up to Baptist, grew up non

denominational. I bet there's even some people

that go here that don't necessarily realize we have like

Lutheran theology is, is the OR, or even what I say that and

there might be somewhere like, OK, I don't really know what

that means. I don't know like what defines

Lutheran theology. So we have, we have a background

of all these things that I, I don't assume I, I would assume

that other people have similar questions to what y'all have

about, about church or maybe about us.

So whatever it may be, this question, just expounding on

house for the broken, home for the the heel, you don't have to

say exactly what you said yesterday, but just regurgitate

a little bit of your explanation from yesterday.

Sure. I, I, I believe the heart behind

that statement. It seems somewhat

straightforward in terms of, OK, so every single person who walks

through the doors of our church, or quite frankly any church on

the planet, is broken by sin. What do I mean by that?

Well, broken by sin, meaning that because of the sinful

nature of us, from the moment of conception with which the Bible

talks about, there is not a day or a moment that goes by where

sin doesn't negatively affect our life and our relationships

with other people and especially our relationship with God.

And so every single person is going to walk through those

doors, no matter how good they look, no matter, well, how well

put together they are, they're going to walk through church

doors broken by sin. And I think that's a really

important thing to acknowledge. And in some ways going to the

Lutheran thing, Lutheran's have historically always acknowledged

the brokenness of sin, regardless of how good your life

looks on the outside. And we can point right to Jesus,

who calls the people who followed the law probably best,

the Pharisees, whitewashed tombs, you know, beautiful on

the outside, you got it all put together.

But on the inside, so we are all affected by that way.

And and and so I, I absolutely think that house for the broken

is good in that way. Additionally, it's good because

when we do meet people who don't seem to fit the quote UN quote

church going criteria, they are all the more welcome in a place

like this because you know, a church is never meant to be a

sanctuary for the saved. It's meant to be a place where

we come just like just like the Jewish tax collector in Jesus

story, we come and we beat our chest and say, Lord, forgive me.

That's that's what that looks like when we acknowledge our

brokenness and all of us need to do that.

We do that during communion too, don't we?

We pause because the Bible tells us to.

We pause and we confess our sins and we, as Paul Lang would say,

we do our business with God and all those are important things.

And so just acknowledging that we all walk in broken is a

really important piece. Yeah.

And Jesus said I didn't come for the healthy, but the sick.

And that's the first part of that statement.

A house for the broken is just acknowledging that brokenness of

sin that we all experience, that none of us have triumphed over,

even even clothed in the righteousness of Jesus.

Something that that he triumphed over, not that we magically

figured out and are now better at dealing with or we are now

healed from because of because of our own doing.

So that's that's the house for the broken part.

Just kind of that openness to whatever your hurts or sins are

and none of it is too much to keep you away from here.

We want this to be a house for those experiencing A variety.

There's many ways the brokenness of this world can manifest

itself across all our lives. So those brokenness, those

things, those hurts and sins shouldn't be the thing holding

you back home for the healed, though.

So there's a there's a second part of it.

You have to want to be healed from your hurt is in and here we

we believe that that Jesus is the way Jesus is the one who

heals your hurts and sins. So to me, there's kind of A2

fold meaning in in a home for the healed.

Yeah, there's people who call this their home church.

Or if this is where you regularly go to church, like it

maybe it maybe it is like that makes sense that this church

would be your home, your home for community, your home for

where you come and learn about Jesus.

More specifically, it's it's a home for those that have let

Jesus by by his actions, by his grace, by faith, heal their

hurts and sins. So they are healed by Jesus and

this place is their home. So home is usually something we

think of as a as a comfortable place right at the place that we

enjoy going or, or a place that we enjoy being a place that is

easy to go to. Cheers.

I don't know where everybody knows, everybody knows your name

like. Jingle.

That's a really good Jingle. So that's Brandon definitely

gave a message about that. I don't know if that was before

maybe you were here. I don't remember if it was.

I don't recall when you were here before you were here.

But yeah, that was that was definitely part of it.

So if you're broken, fine. You're not going to receive

judgement because we we all are broken.

We're still experiencing the brokenness of sin.

There's a place for you here. But you have to want, you don't

want to be healed if you keep perpetually coming back only

marked by your brokenness. This place is never going to

feel like a home. In my opinion.

It's it's never going to if if you're not healed by Jesus, this

place isn't going to feel like a home.

It's going to feel like a place of judgement.

It's going to feel like a place of shame because you're still

letting that brokenness be your identity, not the healed son,

daughter of God, that you are clothed in the righteousness of

Jesus. So if it's it's a House of a

place of shelter that you can come when you're broken, but if

you're content to stay in that brokenness, it's it's not going

to feel like a home. And that's where so we we

believe entering in the the the way we set up fellowship or

ministries or small groups or or serving or whatever it might be.

All of that is to make this be a place that that is comfortable

enough to be a home that shouts Jesus in, in these halls, for

sure on the streets of DeWitt and and in y'all's lives to that

he's the one who heals your hurts and sins and and then that

way it becomes a home for the healed.

So. And I, you said you put that

perfectly. Let me just add one thing to

that. Just an idea that has always

struck me about that. So you mentioned like going

home. Well, when we go to our homes,

what are we essentially doing? We're in some ways and maybe a

positive way. I don't mean to sound this

negative. We can shut out the rest of the

world, the the stressful parts of work or social pressures that

we feel. We can usually shut those things

out when we go home. And so I mean, to the same

degree, I think like if you know, a maestro church or any

other church becomes, you know, a home for you, that means that

those outside pressures and worries that you feel when you

walk out those doors, they, they get to fall away when you're in

this space. Now, hopefully you can take that

piece and you can take that freedom with you.

Hopefully that's that's something that you can do.

But for sure, while you're here, you will absolutely hear Jesus.

And on our best days as a faith community, you will absolutely

feel loved and supported by the community of believers who's

here. And so in those ways, it should

feel comfortable to be here. Now, if I'm feeling that

brokenness, then I'm going to feel some uncomfortableness.

But Lord willing, the gospel will reach my heart and my head,

and all of a sudden I can let go of that bondage that makes me

feel so uptight and so concerned and worried.

Yeah, so that's what that's where that comes from.

Matthew 1128 through 30. Come to me, all you who are

weird and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and

humble in heart. You will find rest for your

souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

I mean, those are the those are the words of Jesus.

He's the one who heals our hurts and sins.

And this is just about being a place that isn't, isn't passing

judgement upon those, whoever it may be that enters the doors,

but also to spur you on, to push you on to, to want to be healed,

to want to know Jesus and make him known and let him be the one

who heals your hurts and sins. So yeah, that's it.

House for the broken, home for the healed.

All right, We are in Acts 24. You.

Took most of it in various sections and, and we're kind of

at the point in acts where we, we do kind of need to be in

these different sort of scenes to set up contacts.

There's a lot of historical political things happening in

each in each of these different accounts.

So yeah, I liked how you broke it down.

We're just going to dive into a little bit more of the yeah,

maybe unspoken context or or lay of the socio political landscape

at the time and mine a little extra out of the text here in

Acts 24. So right off the bat, verse one,

oops, I'm in the wrong chapter, that's Matthew 11.

Just kidding, we're in Acts 24. So five days later, the high

priest Ananias went down to Caesarea with some of the elders

and a lawyer named Tertullius, and they brought their charges

against Paul before the governor.

So this is this is Felix and Tertullis pleasantries right out

of the gate, right? We've enjoyed a long period of

peace under your foresight has brought about reforms in this

nation everywhere and in every way.

Most excellent Felix, we acknowledge this with profound

gratitude. That's wow.

That's insane. That is absolute madness.

And if Felix has even a glimmer of like self reality and self

analysis of how of what kind of a job he's done in that space,

he knows that this guy is just like kissing his butt to the end

of the day. Like, I mean, this is yeah, this

statement is madness, but it but it goes to show you and we'll

maybe we can talk about this more.

It goes to show you that when you know you don't really have a

case via proper evidence, you will do anything else you can to

sway the powers that be in your favor.

And that's absolutely what's happening here as this, this

attorney, this prosecuting attorney is, is just laying it

on real thick. Buttering up the governor.

It's crazy. But also it speaks to they were

bringing out the big guns, but the, the religious leaders at

the time between Ananias, the elders being there and then this

lawyer who assumedly skilled lawyer like you're, you're

bringing in top notch prosecutor here against Paul.

They wanted this thing done. They, they were serious about

putting Paul in the ground by legal means, because that's,

that's really what of course, they could have, they could have

connived. They could have done it under

lock and key and probably just spurt on more of their belly and

right. They're, they're trying to go

about this in, in a legal way so that they can continue to rule

with this iron fist. What did you, you said it

yesterday. They want, they wanted both

power and control, right? And that's, that's a major

player in all of this. And if you just read just

between the lines a little bit and you can attempt to put

yourself back in that space 2000 years ago, you can see how like

it so much benefits the religious elite.

If we can stifle Paul and other people like him, because then we

can continue to plague the people with these laws and rules

and regulations. And like I mentioned yesterday,

you don't toe the line. It's not just that they kick you

out of your church or your synagogue, man.

You're a social pariah now like your, your life is over.

You got to move and you got to move and hope that word didn't

spread from these religious elite to other people that when

you do move somewhere where nobody knows you, I mean, that's

the power that they had. And they can absolutely control

you with that power and that fear.

Yeah, which is ironic in a way. You have some of the history on

Felix here as well. He actually began his life as a

slave and somehow, which to my knowledge in the Roman Empire,

like that's, that's pretty wild. I know we have the gladiator

movies. We're like that.

We can't trust that it's entirely accurate.

But like for Felix to begin his life as a slave and be able to

rise to this status as governor, His brother palace was a friend

of the Emperor Claudius. And I guess it's more about who

you know than than what you know.

He's he's proving that. But Tacitus, the Roman historian

described Felix as a master of cruelty and lust who exercised

the powers of a king with the spirit of a slave, noting that

this this slave mentality stayed with him.

So he see he has the power and influence to enact judgement,

punishment, but he has the mentality of think of a former

former slave, former prisoner in captivity.

Like that mentality had to be everything that is wrong with my

life is everyone else's fault, right?

Like so he's he's mad at everyone or every circumstance

is someone else is to blame for his misgivings, right.

So he's basically on a revenge tour, right?

As like as as governor, just merciless.

He's wrapped up in all these different conspiracies and and

conniving and just he's corrupt, right?

He's he's corrupt to AT he also indulged in every license and

excess. This is this is more from

Tacitus, the Roman historian, thinking that he could do any

evil act with impunity. That's just how he he's he's

living in lavish power and is above the law and essentially is

above the law because no, it's it's going to take Caesar to do

anything to him, right? And as long as he's in Caesar

good races, it doesn't. And he'll remain in the Caesar's

good graces as long as his brother remains best friends.

And he can say, oh, well, you know, it's fine.

Just you got it. You just got to give him some

space to do these things. And he's just he's just handling

the people the way they need to. They need to be roughed up.

They need to, you know, they're not they're not conceding to

your power, Caesar. So Felix is just helping you

out. There's a lot of different ways

you could spin that to make sure that Felix stays in power.

What I think is interesting and and somewhat unspoken in this

text, and it's it's almost more something that we should mine

out of out of the book of Proverbs or something.

This this greeting from this lawyer.

Most excellent Felix, your your foresight about bringing peace

and and reforms. Felix didn't bring peace or

prosperity to any this. This is not only buttering him

up. It's completely false.

Like it's it's not. It'd be one thing to greet him

with that. OK, yeah, maybe like you haven't

done anything recently, but your, your rule has brought

peace and prosperity. It it hasn't, There's there's

tumult, there's apprehension, there's war.

So it's it's not only flattery, it's just straight up lie.

Yeah, John Stott points out. In reality, he, Phoenix Felix,

had put down several insurrections with such

barbarious brutality that ye earned for himself the horror,

not the thanks, of the Jewish population.

In particular, he ordered a massacre of thousands of Jews in

Caesarea, with many more Jewish homes looted by the Roman

soldiers. There is nothing good for the

Jewish people underneath this guy's thumb.

It's all going bad for them. And again, it goes back to

similar to the religious elite, it goes back to I have all the

power, I have all the control, and if you sidestep me at all,

we're going to have a problem and I'm always going to win

because I have the bigger stick. So what I think is interesting,

though, even even within this and that's just he ruled with an

iron iron fist. This flattery from this lawyer.

We don't we don't often talk about that and the and the Bible

calls out flattery. There a couple different places

in the in Proverbs, but Romans 16 for sure.

Romans 16 verse 18. Actually, I'll start in 17.

Romans 16:18

Romans 16 is verse 17. I urge you, brothers and

sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put

obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you

have learned. Keep away from them for such

people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites

by smooth talk and flattery. They deceive the minds of naive

people. Paul writes against that very

strongly in in Romans chapter 16, Jude chapter 1.

Romans 16 · chapter mention Jude 1 · chapter mention

It's the only one chapter in Jude, but Jude 116.

These people are grumblers and fault finders.

They follow their own evil desires.

They boast about themselves and flatter others for their own

advantage. I'm not, I know we live in a

Midwest nice sort of sort of place and I'm generally a pretty

straight shooter. So I, I, I told this line

between I, I don't enjoy flattery for flattery's sake,

really ever. I understand you have to be, you

have to be polite and you have to get along cordially with

people. But I told the line so much

between this, this aversion to flattery, but also we're called

to like speak the truth in love, right?

You can't, I understand that you can't just go up to everyone all

day, every day and just tell him how it is.

This is this is truth. This is how your reality is deal

with it. But I, I get that.

But I also think we we should be averse to this man flattery for

for flattery's sake or or just to simply only to puff up the

feelings or your worst to manipulate another by something

that that isn't true. I don't know, I'm convicted more

often. They might, they might need a

whole dose of truth in their life then like.

I, you know, OK, so I want to, I'll give a quick example that

might be relevant. Well, I think it's relevant, but

consider this. If you, for example, let's say

you're a teacher in a public school district, OK, and inside

your classroom is, I don't know, the child of the Superintendent

or the child of a school board member or something like that in

this particular student is just awful.

They're just terrible in your class.

They hardly do anything. They they're disruptive,

whatever you want to say. But then parent teacher

conferences roll around and here comes this really important

person with that student. And you know, the truth is you

need to tell this parent that like, hey, your, it's a real

problem in my class. And here's the ten different

ways that they're disruptive every single day and blah, blah,

blah, blah. But instead, maybe it's the year

where like the school board is going to vote on a pay raise.

I know, I know teachers are on a scale.

But let's say, you know, and so you choose to just not talk

about any of the ways that that student is terrible in your

classroom. And you're like, Oh no, best kid

ever, love him to death. You know, he's just part, he

participates and blah, blah. And why are you doing that?

You're just, you're just trying not to cause any waves.

You're trying to flatter, you know, this person who has some

level of power influence in your life.

And it's just wrong. Like that student will learn

nothing. They will gain nothing.

And quite frankly, they will go home laughing all the way

because they know they played you because of who their parents

are. And they know you are now weak

because you can't can't speak the truth.

Yeah. And that's, I think that's, I

think that's really what it is. I know we want to be gentle, we

want to be kind, especially in our reaction interactions with

those that are that are close to one another.

But if you meet with a close friend and they, they have some

maybe self-inflicted struggles that they're just looking for a

way out from, well, at some point, yeah, it, it might be the

soothing thing to be like, oh, man, yeah, no, it's things are

going to turn around like you're, you're going to, it'll

get better. There'll be breaks.

Or it might be, I mean, yeah, I'm sorry that this sucks for

you and you're in a tough place, but you might need to do

something. You, you might, you might you

don't like your job, Go get a different job.

Or, or it might sound crazy and we all have bills and lives and

whatever, but man, this job sucks.

You might just need to quit your job even without, without having

an answer. And you obviously you can't live

in that forever without. But do something you, you can.

And that might sound harsh and that truth might be hard to hear

and they might even be a little bit mad at you for it.

But there's a part of me that from life experience and even

how the the Bible talks about these things, we're we're

supposed to speak the truth in love.

It's calling out flattery as just something to avoid.

Don't associate with people. There's a verse in Proverbs 20,

Proverbs 20:19

verse 19 says any what do not associate with one who flatters

with their lips because if they and the other part of it, if

they do it to you or if you've seen it doing somewhat like we

are characters like we have our own person.

If you if you do one thing to one person, you'll do it to

pretty much anyone, right. So if if you see someone who

just like if maybe, yeah, maybe there's someone in your life

that just doesn't really speak truth.

It's always just kind of surface level or it's always flattery or

making light of everything, man. No, I think we're I think we're

called to more than that. It's not just OK, and yet we see

how it works. We see the appeal of it as of

course, they butter up Felix with lies and with pleasantries.

And if you Fast forward a little bit, you know, into Paul's

response, the one thing he doesn't do is he doesn't flatter

Felix. He doesn't disrespect him.

He doesn't say, hey, your rule is terrible.

But he also doesn't go out of his way in any way, shape or

form to flatter him, him or butter him up to get him on his

side. Why can he do that?

Because the prosecution has no actual evidential backing for

what they're about to say. So they need to do that.

Paul has plenty of evidence, you know, to prove like, these guys

are literally making all of this up.

There's nothing of truth or value in their statements.

Therefore, I don't need to win your affection.

I just need you to think logically and look at the

evidence. Yeah, and that's part of the

problem. Tortillas didn't have any

evidence. And so he had, he had like a

rumor of a reference of Paul being a Nazarene and was trying

to connect him to this low. We were talking earlier how

Hazarith was just kind of a the terrible the, the Cleveland.

I I said Cleveland. I said I well, because I had

said in our conversation, like Nazareth is clearly looked down

upon as the city. It's terrible.

You know, you look at John 146, can anything good come out of

Nazareth, All this kind of stuff?

So everybody just just hates this city and everything that

comes out of it. And I was like, I can't think of

a modern day one. And Matt's like Cleveland.

I don't have any hate against Cleveland, I just feel like

I've. Just dog in this place so bad.

People's answers is just Cleveland.

I don't know. Maybe it's just sports Worlds.

I don't know. Well, I mean, Oh my God, I'm

sorry. I.

Don't I don't have any personal experience for why Cleveland

would be terrible, but I just feel like society has inundated

me to believe that Cleveland is not an awesome place so.

OK, well, if you. Have nice things to say about

Cleveland. I would love to hear your

experience. Sure.

Maybe I mean, what actually what is there?

What's What is Cleveland where the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

is? Yeah, I think it is.

OK, well maybe they got that going for him.

Yeah. I mean, if you're, if you're

into that kind of music history, I suppose.

Yeah, I mean, there's lots of things in Cleveland I'm just not

sure they got. They got the Browns and they got

the Guardians and LeBron hung out there for a little bit, like

I don't. Know.

I don't know. I don't know.

I'm sorry. That was just, I don't know why

that was my just like conditioned answer for that

anyway. Nazareth, Cleveland level

reputation in the Middle East at the time.

But so he was trying to besmirch Paul just by saying this guy's

from here. He's garbage.

You should treat him like he's not a good person because he's

from here. Turtolis gave no evidence

because there was no evidence. There's there's nothing to

happen. And this is this is also why he

had to rely on flattery because he didn't have anything else.

He didn't have accusations backed by evidence.

He didn't even pretend it wasn't even like he put evidence out

there that was later dismissed as not he.

He just didn't even present anything to Felix as of

substance as to why Paul should be guilty.

Now, some scholars will tell you, you know, if these if these

guys traveled this far to come and have a prosecuting case

against Paul, A number of scholars will make the

assumption that this lawyer's statement was probably longer

than what is recorded by Luke. And there's good evidence to

support the fact that Luke was probably nearby or able to

listen to the case beyond Paul just reporting back kind of what

happened. Because no doubt he has been

tracking him and he's been taking care of him, you know,

while he's in prison. Because again, I mentioned it

yesterday, if you're in Roman prison, know the the prison

system doesn't provide food for you and you have to have your

friends come and drop stuff off in order for you to eat and

survive. So I have very little doubt that

Luke is one of those people. So Luke may have been right

there. But again, like, we can, we can

potentially assume that he said a little bit more, but nothing

that was recorded gives any sense of like, merit, you know,

and I and I think in any modern judicial system that's not

completely corrupt, like the judge would laugh these guys out

of the room, like the case would be dismissed almost

instantaneous. Why are you wasting my time?

Yeah, absolutely. But because Felix isn't worried

about justice, Felix is worried about his political power and

his control and all these kinds of things, it behooves Felix to

make the Jewish people happy. Because when they get really

upset and angry and they have enough pull in society, they can

they can go above Felix in some way and start lobbying

complaints. And what does Caesar not want to

deal with? Caesar doesn't want to deal with

the headache of, Oh my gosh, I'm just, I, I'm inundated all day

with complaints about you. Like, at some point, it's just

not worth it for Caesar to have to listen to this garbage day in

and day out. And so it, it's beneficial for

Felix to keep the Jewish people happy in spite of the fact that

he's done some terrible things to them.

So it's kind of a give and take for him.

Like I'm going to push you hard and I'm going to abuse you where

I can. But if it, if it's good for me

to like give you something that doesn't affect me, like I'll

keep this guy in prison for two years, then like, yeah, he's

going to do that. Like he's not, he's not

concerned with justice. He's he's concerned with his

political position. Yeah, and despite Paul's well

mannered logical reasoning, he he says verse 14.

Well, his initial defense in in 10 to 13 is just pointing out

the errors in Turtelis's accusations.

But then he goes on the offensive a little bit here,

verse 14 this I confess to you that according to the way which

they call a sect phrasing important in litigation, right.

How you how you frame everything.

So I worship the God of my father's believing all things

which are written in the law and the prophets.

Paul made it clear he he was now arcing back historically right

that this this is something that has been taught that has been

documented that we have religious backing on and now I'm

I'm living out my life in this way following he can he

continues on there will be a resurrection of the dead, both

of the just and unjust. This being so, I myself always

strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and

men. He's saying I'm not.

I'm not doing this just to cause a stir, just to cause rioting,

to cause chaos. I believe there's hope of

resurrection for everyone, just, just and unjust.

He's like I'm I'm here for everyone.

I'm here for everyone's benefit. I'm not picking fights, I'm not

picking sides. I'm just here to preach.

Well, and you know, as you, as you go on in that text, in that

little section, after several years, this is verse 17, I came

to bring alms to my nation and to present offerings.

While I was doing this, they found me purified in the temple

without any crowd or tumult, but some Jews from Asia.

And he goes on. And so, yeah, he's notating the

fact that when they found him, he was just, he was hanging out

in the temple doing purification rights.

He was not getting any crowd stirred up.

In fact, he was probably not talking to anyone.

He was just present. There is nothing that he was

doing that would do anything. But you know, these, as Paul

would say, these Jews from Asia. And that's the that's the next

hilarious thing that Paul does, which should have had this case

thrown out instantaneously, is that those people who started

all of this, they didn't even bother to show up to accuse him

of what he had supposedly done. So there are no eyewitnesses to

any crime that has taken place. It is all hearsay.

None of it is valid. Again, it's remarkable how

corrupt Felix must have been not to just instantaneously say, I

can't believe you wasted my time.

Let this guy go. Yeah, he had enough evidence to

set Paul free to let him go, but he did not want to align himself

with the way as as Paul was calling.

He did not want to align himself with the gospel and Christian.

So he made no decision and kept Paul in custody just kind of.

All right, well, we're going to wait to hear more testimony

until I can make a more accurate decision.

This is an interesting kind of pinpoint here for Paul.

He's relying on the truth, the truth of the gospel, the truth

of this circumstance of of what happened.

He believes he hasn't done anything wrong.

He's done what God has called him to.

And if we're truly following God, the truth and evidence

should be our friends, not the not the made-up stories of

accusers, right? And in this situation, what he's

facing, yet he still finds himself in captivity.

Yeah. And and you know what, here's

here's the thing that modern day Christians need to hear too.

We need, we need to study this case and we need to study this

moment particularly because if we know and believe that the

truth of the gospel is on our side, and as we speak that

truth, if we somehow believe that we will always be treated

fairly based on that truth, we've got another thing coming

to us. Now, that's not a conspiracy

theory thing. I'm just saying that man's

version of justice does not always align with the truth.

Now, I would love if I had to go to court and defend myself.

I would love to be able to stand on the truth and be found

innocent on that based on the jury of my peers who can also

see that truth outside of any political or religious leanings

I have. But honestly, again, we're all

broken by sin. We all have these sub, you know,

these sub kind of conversations happening in our head and, and

sometimes logic and truth does not win.

And so the Christian needs to recognize that even if I'm

speaking truth, even if I'm defending what is clearly right

in God's by God's standard, that does not mean I will always get

justice the way I should. That's just how that is.

And it's terrible, it's corrupt, it's unfortunate, but that is

the brokenness of the world that we live in.

We will sometimes deal with things that are wildly unfair,

but that should not cause us to back off of what we know is true

from God's word and what He says and how we ought to live and all

these other things. We are still called to speak the

truth. Yes, as Paul was preaching here

as well, he used the truth as part of his convincing.

He spoke on righteousness being found in in Jesus Christ.

That was at the at the core of his argument here, the need for

self-control and, and something a guiding barometer here of, of

actions and then the judgement to come ultimately that there

would be eternal accountability before God.

This this resurrection of the dead or justice for those that

rebelled against God. And this is something you

touched on in your message yesterday.

These were things that were true that were the opposite of

flattery, right? They were probably not winning

him points with Felix because he was calling out Felix on some of

these as as being unrighteous, as not living in self-control.

And that he at this point is looking to be judged, not saved

at at the eternal coming, right? Yeah, and The thing is like, you

know, as it, if you look at the show notes, I basically I, I

copied and pasted David Guzik's notes.

Commentaries. From chapter 24.

So that's what the show notes look like today.

But if you look through those, he notes that many modern

preachers would avoid speaking about, especially in speaking to

a high figure like Felix. And what he's talking about is

righteousness, self-control and judgment.

So even talking about that yesterday, I know that that

makes people uncomfortable and I, I don't say things and I

don't talk about, you know, subjects like this just for like

shock value or to make people uncomfortable or to like get a

rise out of you. We talk about these things

specifically because that's what the Bible talks about, right?

So the Bible talks about righteousness.

The Bible talks about self-control in the Bible talks

about the judgment to come. And so like we can do that in a

gentle and loving way, of course we can, but it still needs to be

done. Like we talked about earlier,

like man flattery, this is the opposite of flattery, is it not?

The truth is, the truth is typically opposite of flattery.

And yeah, so I mean, I think Christians, we we need to have a

place to do this. And the better and the closer

you are to somebody that the easier you can probably do some

of these things. But at the same time, even to

the general world, we need to speak truth into that, even when

it maybe makes us less likable to some extent.

But also the truth should always be, you know, it should be

salted with the gospel, right? The the good news that Jesus

Christ is the fulfillment of these truth claims.

He is the fulfillment of our shortcomings.

He will cover those things, but we have to accept Him, believe

in Him, so we can have His righteousness because clearly we

are not that on our own. Right.

I think this is a really interesting thought from this

commentary. I hadn't seen this, but in

talking about Felix's delay of judgement, extrapolating that

then to Christian and quote UN quote faith decision, many

respond to the Gospel in this way.

They they express their rejection through delay.

That's interesting. If if you're unsure, undecided,

that means you haven't decided one way or another, neither in

the positive or the negative, right?

So Spurge Spurgeon, to extend this point further, says men all

have their warnings and all men who perish have had a last

warning. Perhaps this is your last

warning. We talked about it over the past

couple weeks to like hot or cold.

Pick one, even even back to the teachings of Jesus.

Felix is middling this decision, right?

He's being very lukewarm about this decision.

He's not aligning with Paul. He's not aligning with the, with

the Romans, with the with the religious leaders, the

authorities here. He's in the middle Paul, even he

brings it up again in this passage, same as same as last

week how he says I've lived in good conscience.

He's made a decision and and it's a decision that the will of

God convicted him towards and and that he was in and he's he

can he can live with it. Felix, can you live rightly in

this corrupt whatever deciding you have enough evidence.

You have no evidence to condemn me.

You have enough evidence to set me free and you're just not

going to do anything. Explain to me how that's in good

conscience for anyone, either the eyes of God or the eyes of

men. It's neither.

No. Well, and The thing is, I'll

probably mess up this phrase a little bit, but it's a fairly

popular phrase that makes its rounds.

And the idea behind it is when good men fail to do nothing,

tyranny wins, right? And so I think that's what's

happening. We, we can, we can stand by on

the sidelines and we can just kind of go, well, I guess that's

their choice. Well, I guess that's their

decision. They have the right to, you

know, and you can do those things.

And yes, people do have the individual right to choose

whatever, you know, whatever that might look like.

You have that right. But we also have not the right,

but we have the responsibility as those who know better to

speak some life, giving truth into people's lives, into the

the things that is potentially killing them and drawing them

away from eternity with God. We we do have that right to

speak into that. We've made in, in the West, in

America, we've made faith or religion, We've made it so

private that we, we no longer even feel comfortable speaking

about it. And, and I said this before,

faith is personal. It's not private.

That's that's how Christians ought to act.

It is deeply personal to me, but that doesn't mean I'm supposed

to close it up in a box and just get it out when I come to church

or just get it out when I close my doors at my house.

Like, no, it needs to affect all parts of my life.

And that doesn't mean that I run around, you know, accusing

people of things. And, you know, no, that's not

what that means. But it does mean in my daily

conversations as somebody's like, Oh yeah, how was your

weekend? I'm like, man, praise be to God

because like, he did this and this and this and whatever,

whatever that looks like, You can.

You can and you should casually be dropping these things in your

conversation, giving credit to God when things are going great,

giving credit to God for carrying you things that aren't

going well. So for example, if you're having

a conversation with a Co worker or somebody and maybe people

tend to bring up things that are hard for them.

So you know, you might say, oh man, you know, I'm really going

through this thing. And so it's, it's pretty tough.

And, and if a Christian is having a conversation like that,

you know, it would only make sense that they would say those

things, but they would also say, but I know God's got me.

That's not a hard thing to say. And that's not you pressing your

faith on somebody else. That's just you giving credit

where credit's due in a casual conversation.

Every Christian can do that, and every and every Christian should

do that. And that's I think I brought

that up a couple weeks ago in the in the message of it's not

Jesus isn't saying great, you graduated, you're on your own.

You can handle it. Go do it.

It's it's alongside and and behind and before us, right.

That's that's all there another thought from Guzik here on this

verse. The claims of Jesus are never

convenient for us. If we insist on waiting for a

convenient time, we will wait for an eternity, an eternity

spent in agonizing separation from God.

If we put off the truth, we're never going to land on it,

right? Like if, if we don't, if we

don't make a decision for the truth, we're never going to be

living in that truth, right? We're we're always going to make

a make an exempt excuse, make an exemption, make make a

convenient loophole for some and we're and we're never going to

land on the truth. That quote you were looking for

before you paraphrase it. Well, but I'm going to read the

actual attributed to Edmund Burke.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men

to do nothing. And that's I mean, so that's a

that's a good general statement. Apply it to neighbors, friends,

family members, lost, lost people in your life.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil in lost people's

lives is for, and I'll use the good in quotes here, for good

men, good people, righteous people clothed in the blood of

Jesus. The only thing necessary for the

triumph of evil in the lives of the lost is for the good people

to do nothing right. Why did God put us here?

Why does He have us in this space and time?

So that the good people AKA. Again, good.

Clothed in. Jesus right?

Clothed in. Jesus, let's put it that way.

So that way the people clothed in Jesus can interact with those

people who who need that righteousness imputed into their

lives. And it is crazy how small words

can create big opportunities. Well, yeah, just like I was

talking about, like you're talking about something hard and

whatever, but I know God's got my back.

Like, man, that little phrase creates such a huge opportunity.

And even if they don't say anything to you in that moment,

I guarantee they're walking away going, wow, they're they're

really going through some stuff. But they have this, they have

this belief that there's a higher power, that there's a

sovereign God who's going to take care of them.

I think it would be cool to have that kind of assurance.

Maybe I'll go ask them a question about whatever that

looks like. But I mean like those little

drops of the gospel, they can go so much further than what we

think. That's so good.

Final thoughts here, the last couple of verses, and I

understand you didn't deep dive into this yesterday.

It's largely procedural, but interesting to know verses 26 to

27. Meanwhile, he Felix also hoped

that money would be given him by Paul, that he might release him.

He's looking for a bribe. I think the longer he keeps

Paul, the more desperate he's going to get.

These people who are coming to bring up Paul's food eventually

going to be like, OK, we're going to bring him money to get

him out of here. Therefore Felix sent for Paul

more often and conversed with him.

But after two years Porsche as Festus succeeded Felix and Felix

wanted to do the Jews a favor left Paul bound.

So for two years and and there's a couple things here.

Of course he's corrupt and looking for the bribe to just

he's open. Paul just shows up with a lot of

treasure, a lot of money pays him off.

Let me out of here until then. We're going to keep this trial

going until until you're just desperate.

Also, by Roman law, this sort of like judicial custody as the

trials going on that was not supposed to last more than two

years. There's a law for that.

Like, you can't hold on to somebody without a conviction

for more than two years. You can't do that.

And he just totally jumps over that and says, Nah, I don't

care. The law doesn't apply to me.

Him, me letting him out doesn't benefit me.

Therefore I'm not going to do it.

NT Wright, who has reading this week, and I didn't bring this

out in the sermon, but NT Wright had this great funny

illustration of like drains. And he he, you know, a drain,

literally its job is to suck everything up, right?

And so he, you know, talked about the fact that you probably

have some drains in your life, people who even if you don't

know it totally, they're only there to get what they can get

out of you. They're not providing anything

for you. They're not giving you anything.

They're not, you know, they're only there to get what they can

get out of you. Felix is the exact same way.

He's just there to get what he can out of.

Paul doesn't care about justice, doesn't care about anything.

He is a drain. Yeah.

And finally he left Paul bound. He was, he was not.

He did this. And again, not even really any

advantage to himself. And he even seemingly would

think that Paul, he knew that Paul was innocent, right?

And in his heart of hearts, there was no reason.

But he did it out of political advantage.

Wanting to do the Jews a favor, he left Paul bound.

Guzik's final thought here. In a way, people like Felix and

Pilate are the guiltiest of those who reject Jesus Christ.

They know what is right, but refuse to do right purely out of

the fear of man. They have an eternally fatal

lack of courage. Eternally fatal.

Wow. Wow, that's heavy.

Yeah. Yeah, so we see how this just

this attraction to flattery, this rejection of the truth

festered. I mean, it had festered for a

lifetime in Felix, but we get this two year glimpse at it and

how how it results in destruction in indicate.

So even in this, even in the sufferings of Paul, we see the

picture of someone sucked up in the things of this world,

rejecting the things of Christ and where where it ultimately

leaves them right where it ultimately gets them.

We have this even the gospel script that this is, this is

when, when you reject the gospel, this is the life that's

in store that this life of the of the pious, corrupt, terrible

Felix, right? So even in this, even in Paul's

suffering, even in his trial, we have the word of Jesus giving us

this contrast between these two, these two outcomes, Paul and

Felix and their responses to the gospel.

It's cool. There.

This is as you, if you spend some more time in these several

chapters, you know, leading up to the end of the book of Acts,

it's just one wildly frustrating moment after another.

And in some ways, it absolutely leads us, I think, to the

conclusion that there is no real justice without the gospel.

There just isn't, not for the Saints and not for the sinners.

Without the gospel, judgment cannot properly happen.

So yeah. All right, Well, it's been a fun

continuation of the conversation.

Again, we have some Ask Me anythings that we're going to

pre record and and let out the first couple weeks of September.

So get your questions in by August 24th.

You can e-mail them to connect at emmausrdonline.org.

You can message the Facebook page or post a comment under the

under the podcast posts, posts on the Facebook page, or you can

always text your questions, 563-659-9444.

And Chris and I see those, get those.

We're cataloguing them for the shows coming up.

So love to have you jump in on the Ask Me Ask Me Anythings for

those couple of weeks, anything. Faith, spiritual, church,

family, personal, even about, like, even if it's just about

us, that's not like anything's on the table.

Even if it's a what's your favorite superpower?

Sort of like, I mean, yeah. I don't find myself all that

terribly interesting. But if if if you do and you just

burning question you need to know us, sure, go ahead.

Yeah, so it's been fun. Thanks for hanging out with us.

Have a blessed week, Church.