Acts - Week 16 (24:1-8, 18-25)

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message.

Anyway, moving on to actually what's happening today, I will

tell you that I think, and I hope you're with me on this, I

think it has been incredibly fascinating to follow around the

Apostle Paul as he navigates mobs and violence and death

threats and everything in between.

And now he's in the midst of navigating what I would call a

pretty corrupt trial where his life is on the line.

And I and all that's been really kind of cool to watch him use

poise and cleverness and peace in the midst of all those

things. And somehow he's able to do

that. I don't know that I would be

able to manage those circumstances, but through the

Holy Spirit, he did just that. Now, as I say that and all those

things are true. But as I say that, one of the

things that I wanted to bring about today is the fact that as

Paul is doing this and working and living in this, in this

world that he's, he's trying to get through, it's really all

about Jesus. And you say, Pastor Chris,

that's the most Sunday church line I've ever heard.

And you're right, but I'm also right.

It's all about Jesus because here's the thing, in the book of

Acts, we see what Jesus continued to do and teach.

And you're like, wait a minute, I thought he went up to heaven.

Yes. But what we see in Acts 11 is

that Luke does just that. Because previous to that, he

gave us the Gospel of Luke, which is his account, his

understanding of the history of Jesus Christ walking around and

talking on earth. However, the book of Acts is

what Jesus continues to do and teach.

Now, he's not here physically as he was 2000 years ago, but

through the power of the Holy Spirit, he is influencing and

moving in people's lives. And so therefore, Jesus is

continuing to teach and preach and, and move inside this world.

And so that's how I want us to kind of frame and look at this

text today that we're going to, that we're going to kind of go

through is I want us to see Jesus in every step of the way.

And you would think I would want that every week, and I do.

But today I'm just going to make that a little bit more obvious

for you. So although we're going to

follow Paul's story, we're really following what's

happening in and through Jesus. So here's what that that's going

to look like. We're going to see how Jesus

stirs up and challenges religious people.

By the way, if you like to take notes, if you get out your phone

and you take a picture of that right now, that's fine.

And if you don't take notes, that's fine too, but just don't

feel weird. If you need to do that, that's

fine. The second thing we'll look at

is how Jesus stirs up and challenges irreligious people.

So 2 very different groups. And then finally, we're going to

see how Jesus testifies to the hope of resurrection.

Now, I'll tell you that normally, stylistically, what I

normally do is I like to read the entire text and then we

figure it out along the way. However, today I'm just going to

read this in sections. That way we make sure we get the

main points. And so let me preview you as to

where we are in the story right now, in case you haven't been

with us or you're just not familiar with where we are.

Historically. What's happened is Paul has been

obviously taken into custody because of his because of his

preaching about the gospel. And that is stirring up a lot of

people who really do not care for that kind of talk.

And so he's been taken in and there was an attempt on his

life. So he's going to move basically

from where he was in, in, in Israel.

And they're going to move him outwards so he can be tried by

actually like a Roman governor. Well, in the midst of that,

there's a plot and there's 40 people who are going to like,

jump on him while he's moving from one place to another.

The Romans catch wind of this plot.

And so they move him in secret. Well, that brings us to where we

are today. He is now before his, his, his

governor Felix. And Felix, what's going to

happen is Felix is going to interview him and he's going to

interview basically the prosecuting attorney.

So the prosecuting attorney for the Jewish people is there

specifically to say this is what this guy's done wrong.

You need to find him guilty. And that's where we're going to

pick it up today. We're going to pick it up with

the prosecuting attorney talking to the governor Felix.

All right, hopefully that makes sense and we're all where we

need to be go. Thank you.

All right, so this is Acts chapter 4.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

That's where we're going to be this morning through various

different kind of spots. And again, we read all this in

Jesus name because it's his word to us.

So verse one through 8 to start. And after five days, the high

priest Ananias came down with some elders and a spokesman. 1

Tertullius. And they laid before the

governor of their case against Paul.

And when he had summoned Tertulli, and when he had

summoned him, Tertullius began to accuse him, saying, Since

through you we enjoy much peace, and since by your foresight most

excellent Felix, reforms are being made for this nation in

every way, everywhere, we accept this with gratitude.

What a line. That's ridiculous.

But to detain you no further, I beg in your kindness to hear us

briefly. For we have found this man a

plague, one who stirs up riots among the Jews throughout the

world and is a ringleader of a sect of Nazarenes.

He even tried to profane the Temple, but we seized him.

By examining him yourself, you will be able to find out from

him about everything that we accuse him of here in the

reading of God's Word for now. So here's what I want us to see

out of the gate. I want us to see that Paul is

going to rightly defend himself from these accusations.

And here's what they are. He's going to rightly defend

himself from these accusations. But I want to make the argument

and I think it's fair that those things that Paul is being

accused of are things that Jesus may have actually done.

And you're like, how dare you give me a second to explain.

And I'll and I'll, I'll try to win you to my side of this

argument. So first thing, they call him a

plague, they call him a, a disease.

Spot on. Their culture.

Is that true? Was he really like that and and

was Jesus like that? Well, it seems obvious out of

the gate, but they did this. They did absolutely consider

Jesus a plague of sorts. And what that word means, if you

look it up in the actual languages, it means someone who

is a Public Enemy and somebody who is a worthless man.

Oh man, they absolutely found Jesus to be Public Enemy number

one. Let me explain why.

In that culture, when you have the Jewish elite basically

running the show, here's what happens.

It's not like you and I where we go to church on Sunday and then

if you want to avoid the pastor and everybody else for the rest

of the week, you can do that and you can go about your normal

life. That was not the case 2000 years

ago in Judaism. What happens is if the religious

leaders don't like what you're doing, if they don't like how

you're acting, if they don't think you're following the law

well enough, what they can do is they can just absolutely stop

your entire life. Because that's the thing for

them, their faith, their congregation isn't just a thing

to do on Sundays. It's their entire life.

It's their entire social structure.

So if out of fear mongering and control, they can't manipulate

you the way they want to and you're kind of out of sorts,

they'll just kick you out of the entire community.

And now you have no life, you have no job, you have nobody to

talk to because you've become a social plague.

Look at how that works. Religion throughout all of

history, when done poorly, has been used to manipulate and

control and create fear. Jesus was never about those

things. But these guys are now this,

this sense of him being a plague and stirring up riots.

I'll give you a couple other fun things.

Jesus was called a king. In fact, he was called the king.

He called himself I am, meaning I am God.

So that's another issue that they took with him.

And of course, you know, there's this tricky business about taxes

and render on to Caesar that which is Caesar's render on to

God, that which is God's. And I don't have time to get

into the particulars of that today.

But for all these reasons, they looked at Jesus and in some ways

they looked at Paul as a plague and someone who stirs up riots,

right? You're, you're creating

dissension among our population. And we don't like that because

we like control and we like fear.

That's how we keep you under our thumb.

Not helpful, but that's how they lived.

The second thing that they said about him was that he was the

leader of a sect. Now that word sect is not

something that we use a lot, but let me say this to you.

Jesus was in the world, but not of the world.

And the interesting thing is that Jesus calls his people to

be the same way he calls you, and he calls me to be in the

world, but not necessarily of the world.

And what happens when you do that?

What happens when you take an attitude like that?

Well, what's going to happen is you're going to create

dissension because you're going to challenge some social and

some cultural norms, and that's going to make them not happy.

That's going to put them in the position again, because they

desire control and they desire power.

It's going to put them in the position to squash you or start

calling you names. They're really good at calling

names. Very mature.

Now on this idea of a sect, you can go so far with this word.

Modern day, you'd probably understand that as they're

saying, he's in a cult. Have you ever heard Christianity

called a cult before? I have.

And sometimes when it's been when it's being manipulated and

we're not working out of the Bible, but we're working out of

a sense of a power grab, it does become that.

I want to share a story with you.

I can't share the whole thing, but the people who started this

church, they got told something very similar to this.

You're creating dissension. You're a separate thing.

You're not with us anymore. You guys are a cult.

I have so much respect for the men and women who bravely

started this church over 40 years ago because this is a

small town, if you haven't noticed.

And I know they got called all sorts of names and they got told

that they were a part of a cult because they weren't toeing the

religious line. God bless those people.

If you know any of them, go thank them today because they

are the human reason why we get to be here today.

But they were persecuted for that.

They were persecuted for their belief that God's word is the

rock that we stand on and that we don't mess with that.

We leave that alone. We let God be God.

So if you know them, thank them because they went through a lot.

The third accusation that they lobby is that he has profaned

the temple. What does that mean?

It means you made it dirty. It means you ruined it.

Well, how would Paul or Jesus have done that?

That's a pretty severe thing to say about somebody.

Oh, I know how you do that. You let those people in.

Nobody likes those people. They're so gross.

They don't dress like us. They don't act like us.

You know, all that kind of stuff.

Well, here, here's the deal. If you're in religious power at

this point and somebody is bringing in that person who you

think is dirty, who doesn't fit in your little cultural box,

they're going to say you're ruining church.

I would love us to ruin this church with people that we don't

think belong here. That would be great.

Friends. We call this place a tagline

right there. Here's the tagline.

House for the broken, home for the healed.

I guarantee every single one of us that walk through these doors

today is broken by sin. Every single one of us.

And here's the thing, If we say as religious people, if we say,

you know what? I really need you to clean up

your ACT. I really need you to dress

right. I need you to be morally and

ethically the way I want you to be before you come to this

place. Guess what?

This building and every other church on the planet is empty.

They're all empty because nobody is worthy.

That's why we call it a house for the broken, because we come

broken with sin, but home for the healed because we leave with

the forgiveness and grace of Jesus Christ.

And so therefore we leave. We leave in freedom.

So man, make this place your home.

If you know you're broken enough to need Jesus, but you know

you're forgiven enough to have him, that's how this can be your

home. And that's why I want those

people here. I want those people here.

Go ahead and invite them. They may look different, they

may act different, they may dress.

Invite them anyway. This place is for them.

So those are the accusations thrown at him.

Here's the thing. I want us to see that as much as

Jesus and Paul challenge the religious elite and we can pick

on them all day, they also challenge the irreligious.

And here's what that looks like. So after the prosecutor makes

his case against Paul, Paul is going to answer.

He's going to defend himself. I'm going to skip over that

section for now because what happens is after Paul defends

himself, then Felix decides, I'm not going to decide anything

right now, but over the next two years, two years, Felix keeps

pulling Paul back into conversations.

Not formal court conversations, but conversations because Felix

is corrupt beyond belief and he's looking for a bribe.

He knows that Paul has these networks all over the known

world where he can get money from people.

And so Felix would love for Paul to bribe him, right?

Well, here's what one of the conversations looked like.

It comes from 2422 and through 23.

It says this, but Felix having a rather accurate knowledge of the

way put him off saying when lice when Lyceus the tribune comes

down, I will decide your case. Then he gave orders to the

centurion that he should be kept in custody but have some liberty

and that none of his friends should be prevented from

attending him. By the way, fun fact, if you're

in a Roman jail, they don't provide food.

So if your friends don't show up and give you food, you starve to

death in jail. That's how that works.

But keep going. After some days, Felix came with

his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, and he sent for Paul and

heard him speak about faith in Jesus Christ.

And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control

in the coming judgement, Felix was alarmed and said go away for

the present. When I get an opportunity, I'll

summon you. Here's how Jesus challenges the

irreligious. He challenged them with

righteousness and self-control and judgement.

Well, what's righteousness? I wanted to read this definition

to you because I think it's better than what I could have

said. It comes from a little website

calledgotquestions.org. I think that's a nice little

resource if you do have questions, but bring those

questions to the podcast 1st and then you can go to

gotgotquestions.org. But let me read this to you

about righteousness. The Greek new word.

The Greek New Testament word for righteousness primarily

describes conduct in relation to others, especially with regards

to rights of others in business, legal matters, and beginning

with relationship to God. It is contrasted with

wickedness, the conduct of one who out of gross self

centeredness neither reveres God nor respects man.

Do you see how this definition of righteousness and how Jesus

and Paul understood this is, gosh, it's really difficult,

isn't it? But it lines up perfectly with

the two laws that Jesus said were the most important.

Love God, love your neighbor as yourself.

That's what righteousness looks like.

Righteousness looks like me putting God first, and I have a

wife and I have kids and I have people I love, but putting God

first and then loving my neighbor as myself, My closest

neighbors, of course, being those people that I mentioned.

And then it goes out from there. That's what righteousness looks

like. That is a challenge to people

who are irreligious #1 because out of the gate, you don't have

God, you don't know Him, you don't Revere him, and #2 because

you don't know God, it is highly likely that you are living for

you, for what makes you comfortable, for what makes you

happy. That's not righteousness.

Now, again, none of us is righteous perfectly.

I often times put myself before my wife, my kids, God.

Of course I do that often, but it's a good thing I have Jesus

Christ who is perfectly righteous, who then gives that

to me by his atonement for my sins.

That's how that works. Now self-control.

Oh, that's a fun one. That's a fun one.

How good are you at that? I mean, honestly, there there's

some things that you're probably really good at self-control and

other things like man, you just blow it every time.

What's in your Oh, I'd love to know what's in your heads right

now. You're like, oh, is Christmas

buying too many presents or? Yeah, no self-control at

Christmas. I understand that's a good one.

But here's the thing. I will make the argument that

self-control of the irreligious is all about themselves.

Now that seems obvious when I say that, doesn't it?

But let me lay that case out for you from the Christian

perspective. Self-control from the Christian

perspective isn't about me, it's about others.

So I will exercise constraint and moderation as a Christian,

and I will withhold some of that freedom to serve you.

I will exercise some of that to serve my wife, to serve my God.

So therefore, self-control for the Christian is never about me.

It's always others based. Here's what self-control looks

like for the irreligious person. Let me give you a fun example.

If I'm if I'm somebody who doesn't believe in God and I'm

trying to exercise some self-control with the food I

eat, for example, why am I doing that?

Why am I doing that? Oh, that's right.

I'm doing that so I can look better, so that people are more

attracted to me and they see me and they want to be like me.

That's why I'm doing that. If I'm the irreligious person

and I'm trying to exercise self-control over my finances,

why am I doing that? Because I want to have more

money for me. Do you see the difference?

self-control inside Christianity is others based. self-control

irreligiously is me based. Huge difference.

And that's a huge challenge to people who don't believe in God.

Third one, and this is the biggie.

Judgement. Judgement.

You know what's going to make somebody squirm?

Even if they say they don't believe in God?

Tell them that they'll be judged.

Tell them that there is a perfect God who judges perfectly

and without Jesus Christ they will die in their sins and they

will be judged accordingly. Tell them that.

See how that conversation goes. This is why Felix freaks out and

says, see you later. Because as we challenge the

irreligious with the truth of the gospel, that's hard to hear.

But I, I, I, I want to speak plainly to you.

So let me let me take a moment to do that.

God's judgement is coming. It's real, and it will not be

stopped. It is inevitable.

So therefore, you can take Jesus one of two ways.

You can take Jesus as your Savior.

You can take him as the person, as your defense attorney, or you

can cower before him and you can let him be the prosecuting

attorney. Which one do you want?

Because it's coming. And I will tell you, I think as

Christians, we ought not be afraid to say that.

Now, maybe depending on who you're talking to, you have to

season that a little bit because you want to maintain that

relationship. But I'm telling you that is the

truth. And we don't need to be afraid

of the truth. The same way you wouldn't be

afraid if somebody's about to drive off a Cliff, right?

Because there's a lot of cliffs around here anyway, that you

would tell them to stop. It's the same thing.

Don't be afraid of that. So what does all this mean?

These, the religious challenge, the irreligious challenge.

What does all that mean? Well, here's the thing.

In light of tight conservative religiosity and in light of

liberal secularism, Jesus challenges, and he disagrees

with them both. Do you see that?

You can't put him in a box. You can't put him on the left,

and you can't put him on the right.

Because anything that doesn't honor and Revere and love God

and love our neighbor Jesus absolutely challenges.

You can't wrap him up. And that's what the world tries

to do. The world tries to take the

gospel and they try to wrap it up in this nice, neat little

unoffensive package. But the word of God and his

people, Lord willing, will not be put in a box.

We will not be packaged into this small, unoffensive, quiet,

scared thing. That is not who we are called to

be. We are called to be people who

speak the truth. And quite frankly, we are called

to be people who love the people who don't look like they deserve

to be loved and who challenge the people who don't get

challenged nearly enough. That's who we're called to be.

And you know what's going to happen if you do that?

It's going to be weird. You're going to make some

friends you never thought you'd have, and you're going to make

some enemies that you never wanted.

Welcome to the gospel. I'm signing up for that all day

because I don't want you to put me in a box.

I don't want you to tell me what I have to be or who I need to

talk to. I want to talk to the people

that you don't think I should. I hope you want to get weird

like that too, because anything less is not the Christianity

that Jesus did because he is far too liberal for the religious

elite and he has far too high expectations for the

irreligious. You can't put him in a box.

Last thing and then we'll we'll wrap this up how Jesus testifies

the to the hope of resurrection in this middle section that I

skipped over. Paul makes his defense and I

think he does a great job and you can read the entire thing in

Acts 24. But here's how he here's how he

kind of wraps up his defense. And I'll read that part.

But some Jews from Asia, they, they ought to be here before you

and make an accusation should they have anything against me,

or else let these men themselves say what wrongdoing they have

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 to the

resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you this day.

I can tell you with all assurance, because I get to talk

to a lot of people, that everybody I've ever, ever met,

when somebody they love dies, they're in a better place.

Rest in peace, they're in a better place.

This could be the most irreligious person I've ever

met, and they all say the same stinking thing.

They're in a better place. It's fine.

That's normal, apparently, to think that no matter what your

background is, you know what's not normal?

To expect resurrection. That's not normal.

That's weird. That's really strange thing to

do. And here's the thing.

Jesus himself proved resurrection, did he not when he

rose from the dead, presented himself to hundreds of

eyewitnesses? That's the hope.

That's the hope that the Christian gets put on trial for

is I expect resurrection. Now let me tell you something.

I use the word hope a couple times and I've said this before,

but I need to make sure it's clear to you.

When the Bible uses the word hope, it means expectation.

That's what it means. So I hope and or expect to be

made alive again. I expect to have a life where my

body doesn't hurt and I'm not prone to sickness, disease,

pain, injuries, etcetera. I expect to be able to use these

two arms to embrace my Savior, right?

I expect that because we have a risen Lord and therefore we will

be risen again. What do you expect from God?

He's a big God. You can have big expectations,

but your biggest expectation ought to be that you will not

die and stay dead, nor will you float in the clouds as some

weird spirit playing a harp. No, God provides resurrection

real bodies. So you can really grab him.

You can really hold him. I expect to be able to hug

people. I expect to be able to eat and

drink, because that's what Jesus does in his resurrected body.

Therefore, we can do the same. Let me close with this.

I'm aware that some of my words were more than offensive to some

people, maybe not necessarily in this room, but people, you know,

because you could think about somebody like, oh, man, I'm glad

I didn't bring so and so to church today.

They would have been like, really uncomfortable.

But you can like my words. You can hate them.

You can think about me. You can never think about me

again. That's OK.

I'm good with that. Not that I don't love and care

about you guys, but I'll, I'll be good with that.

Because here's the thing. I don't want to be put in a box.

And you shouldn't want to be either.

You should want to be weird. You should want to love people

who don't deserve it, and you should want to challenge those

who think that they've got it all figured out.

Do that. Do that, and when you do that,

you can do that in freedom because Jesus Christ who has

died for your sins and has resurrected, and therefore you

know that you are free. You know that you are forgiven

as you believe in Him. You can do all these things with

a good conscience and don't ever apologize for that.

Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank

you for the challenge of the gospel.

It challenges us to love people who seem unlovable.

It challenges us to question people who seem unquestionable.

But in both ways, Lord, you give us your truth.

So, Father, I pray that that truth would ring, would ring in

our hearts this morning, would move to our heads, and

eventually move through our mouths.

Lord, I pray that you would do all this through the power of

your Holy Spirit, as you did through the Apostle Paul.

May we be people of truth and love and grace.

And Lord, may those things coexist inside us in such a way

that people start to ask questions.

Lord, you can do it because you're capable, You're able.

And Father, we pray all these things in Jesus name, Amen.

Thanks for listening to ERC Sundays.

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