No Favors | Acts 25:1-12

Welcome to Sermons from the Way Church KC, the community of Liz and Saints in Kansas City, following the way of Jesus and pushing back darkness together.

Good morning, Church.

All right, if you can make it way to your seat and stand for the reading of the word, today we are in Acts 25, verse 1 through 12.

Acts 25:1–12

Now, three days after Festus had arrived in the province, he went up to Jerusalem from Caesarea, and the chief priest and the principal men of the Jews laid out their case against Paul, and they urged him, asking as a favor against Paul that he summon him to Jerusalem, because they were planning an ambush to kill him on the way.

Festus replied that Paul was being kept at Caesarea, and that he himself intended to go there shortly.

So he said, Let the men of authority among you go down with me, and if there is anything wrong about the man, let them bring charges against him.

After he stayed among them not more than eight or ten days, he went down to Caesarea.

And on the next day he took a seat on the tribunal and ordered Paul to be brought.

When he had arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing many and serious charges against him that they could not prove.

Paul argued in his defense, neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I committed any offense.

But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, said to Paul, Do you wish to go up to Jerusalem and there be tried on these charges before me?

But Paul said, I am standing before Caesar's tribunal where I ought to be tried.

To the Jews I have done no wrong, as you yourself know very well.

If then I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death.

But there is nothing to their charges against me.

No one can give me up to them.

I appeal to Caesar.

Then Festus, when he had conferred with his counsel, answered, To Caesar you have appealed, to Caesar you shall go.

This is the word of the Lord.

Right.

Well, welcome everyone to the Way Church KC.

If we haven't gotten the chance to meet, my name is Zach.

Um the lead pastor here.

It's great to be here.

As we begin, I want to start with kind of a question for us or a phrase that I think a lot of us have heard before.

My guess is you've likely said it.

My guess is that you've likely heard it.

Maybe somebody even said it to you this week.

It's this.

Hey, do me a favor.

Hey, Zach.

Talking to Zach Oprah, not talking to myself.

Hey, Zach Oprah, would you do me a favor?

Can I ask a favor of you?

Yeah.

Wow, what a man.

He said yes.

Don't even know what it is.

You know, a lot of times I'll get the response like, hey, uh yes, but I need to know what it is first.

Um but we've all asked for a favor.

We've all been on the other end of a favor.

Um at times, favors are how the world runs.

Maybe it's like you got the job because somebody knew somebody.

Or you got the table at the nice steakhouse because somebody knew somebody that's a waiter or a host there.

Um or maybe it's you got the rent house or the apartment because somebody vouched for you and overlooked that thing on your record.

You you've all probably heard it said, it's not what you know, but it is who you know.

Um and here's the thing about a favor.

A favor, it always has like a shape to it.

It goes to the people who can do something for you back.

It's no nobody does favors for the person who has nothing to offer most of the time, right?

Favors, they they often run towards power.

So so to put it plainly, a favor is grace with a price tag.

And so, where we're going this morning, here's what I want us to do.

I want you to do this as we read this passage.

I want you to just count a word.

Count the word favor in today's passage, how many times it occurs, very um like obviously and maybe more subliminally in some other instances.

The the word favor, Luke, he uses it over and over again in these chapters.

Um, and he's doing it on purpose.

Like the author, Luke, is using specific words for a purpose.

And the the text is about what happens when a man who has done nothing wrong.

Remember, we we learned that Paul has done nothing wrong.

The text shows us what happens when that man is standing in a courtroom that runs on favors.

And the only thing this man, Paul, has going for him, is the promise of Jesus.

And so, with that, here's our big idea this morning.

Our big idea is this the world runs on favors, but the kingdom runs on grace.

The world runs on favors, but the kingdom of God runs on grace.

So if you're new with us, what we've been walking verse by verse through the book of Acts.

Our series is entitled Living by the Spirit and Following the Way.

Acts, the book of Acts is the story of what Jesus kept doing after he rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God the Father.

So it's about what he continues to do through his spirit, through ordinary people, and through the early church.

And we're in the last stretch of this book.

We've been here for over a year.

It's been a sweet time.

I love the book of Acts.

It's so cool to see that the early church take shape and to see that like we still live in the lineage of this church that Christ Jesus inaugurated.

And so, in this last stretch, Paul, he's been arrested in Jerusalem, and he's been on trial over and over and over again for the crime of believing that Jesus rose from the dead.

So everything, all this trial that Paul is undergoing, is based upon Paul believing in the resurrection.

Last week, what we saw, we watched Governor Felix hear the gospel from Paul's own mouth in private, and we saw him get scared.

Felix gets scared and say, Go away for the present.

When I got get an opportunity, I will summon you.

Later, and we said later is the most expensive word that a person can say to Jesus.

Luke, he then does something brutal.

He crams together two years into a single verse.

So two years, Paul sat in that palace in Caesarea, and Felix then he leaves on his way out the door, he's desiring to do the Jews a favor, left Paul in prison.

So that's the there's the first time we see favor.

That's as we closed chapter 24 and verse 27, and desiring to do the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul in prison, and then we pick it up in verse 1.

Now, in this text, there's a new governor.

His name is Porseus Festus, and he is a different kind of man than Felix.

Remember, Felix was a former slave who bought and sold justice, but Festus is competent, he's decisive, and as far as we can tell from the historians, he's reasonably honest.

He's also a complete outsider to the Jewish culture.

He knows nothing about Judaism, and he knows nothing about the way of Jesus.

He is the closest thing that we see in the book of Acts to an ordinary Roman who's looking at Christianity for the first time and trying to figure out what on earth it is that he's dealing with.

So we might think there's a new governor, that means there's a fresh start.

That there's been two years for the tempers to cool.

Surely this is where it gets better for Paul.

But it doesn't.

It doesn't.

And that's the whole point.

The names change, but the machine of the Roman Empire stays the same.

Almost nothing new happens in these 12 verses.

The same enemies show up with the same plot, the same charges get made, with the same lack of evidence, and a judge who knows Paul is innocent still tries to trade him away.

So the author Luke, he's not giving us new information today.

He's turning up the pressure.

He's tightening every screw that we already know about until the damn, the proverbial dam, breaks in verse 11, and Paul says the words that send him to Rome.

And underneath all of it, there are two stories happening at once.

On the ground level or on the worldly level, Paul, he is a pawn, right?

He's a pawn in this Roman and Jewish religious leader game of favor.

He's a piece on a political chessboard.

And men with power are moving him around in order to protect themselves.

But at the heavenly level, Luke, the author Luke, he wants us to see that the state is actually the palm.

That the governors, the councils, that the empire itself, all of it is in the hand of the living God.

And God is moving every piece on the board toward one destination that he promised two chapters ago.

The promise was this you must also testify in Rome.

Everything is moving towards Paul going to Rome and testifying about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So that's the tension I want us to sit in this morning.

What do you do when the system that's supposed to protect you is playing favorites?

And where is God when justice is for sale?

I'll pray and then let's dig into the text.

Lord, we love you.

Would you quiet my heart?

Would you quiet my spirit?

Would you let us rest on the goodness of who you are, on the truth of your word?

Would you write these words clearly on our heart?

Would you pierce our hearts today as we dig into Paul's appeal to Caesar?

We love you, Lord.

It's in the mighty name of Jesus we pray.

And all God's people said, Amen.

So let's let's start with Acts 25, starting in verse 1.

Now, three days after Festus had arrived in the province, he went up to Jerusalem from Caesarea.

And the chief priests and the principal men of the Jews laid out their case against Paul, and they urged him, asking as a favor against Paul that he summoned him to Jerusalem, because they were planning an ambush to kill him on the way.

Festus replied that Paul was being kept at Caesarea, and that he himself intended to go there shortly.

So, said he, let the men of authority among you go down with me.

And if there is anything wrong about the man, let them bring charges against him.

So point number one this morning is expect the darkness to come back, and trust the God who doesn't sleep.

Expect the darkness to come back, and trust the God who does not sleep.

So there's three days.

Festus has been in the country for three days, and the chief priests are already in his ear.

Before he has unpacked, before he knows where the bathroom is, before he's, you know, like taking his socks and put them in the drawer, he says that they laid out their case and they asked as a favor that he bring Paul to Jerusalem.

So there's our second favor in this story.

Luke tells us what the favor actually is.

It's an ambush.

They're gonna kill Paul on the road.

And if you've been with us, you've, or if you've read in the book of Acts before, you've heard this before, because this is the exact same plan from Acts chapter 23, two years ago.

Acts 23 · chapter mention

Forty men swore an oath not to eat or drink until Paul was dead.

That plot failed though.

Paul, he got moved to Caesarea in the middle of the night with 470 soldiers around him, and here we are, two years later, and the plan has not changed by one detail.

Think about that.

Two years, you would think that the tempers would cool.

You would think that somebody in the room would say, hey guys, it's been two years.

He's in a Roman prison in Caesarea.

Maybe we we let this go.

But hatred does not work like that.

Proverbs chapter 1 says that there are people whose feet run towards evil and who make haste to shed blood.

Proverbs 1 · chapter mention

So the grudge that they are holding against Paul has outlived any reason for it.

They don't even remember why they hate him this much.

They just do.

And a new governor is just fresh blood to circle and to influence towards their means that they desire to accomplish.

Now, here's what Festus does.

He says no.

He says that Paul stays where he is in Caesarea.

He says, I'm heading back there anyways.

And if you've got a case, you've got to come make that case in my courtroom.

So you might wonder, why does he say no?

Well, I love how honest the commentators are about this because there are at least three reasons that are outlined, and they're all probably true at once.

First, maybe it's convenience.

He's not going to reroute a prisoner because some priests asked him nicely.

Second, maybe it is politics.

You don't set a precedent in your first week in a new role of caving to the local leadership.

Or third, and this is what Festus claims later, maybe it's that he actually does care about due process.

Roman justice says that the accused gets tried where he's held, and the accusers come to him.

So maybe he's just trying to follow the justice system to a T.

Regardless, either way, no matter what it is, here's what I want us to see.

It doesn't matter which one it was.

God did not need Festus to have pure motives in order to keep his promise to Paul.

No, God kept Paul alive on that road through a governor's convenience and a governor's pride.

We've seen this before in Acts.

Remember Galileo in Corinth?

The governor who was so bored with the Jewish accusations against Paul that he just kicked everybody out of the court?

God shielded Paul through a man's indifference.

You don't think that he can shield Paul through a man's care about his political standing?

So what he's doing now, he is protecting Paul through Festus' self-interest.

God is so in control that he keeps his word through people who have no idea that they're serving him.

So if what we see Paul sitting with and realizing is like this sort of expectation that the darkness will come back, that the people who are against him will come back and continue to try to accomplish their plot.

But what Paul shows us is that he continues to trust the God who doesn't sleep.

He continues to put his trust in God, and he believes God's promise at his word that he will go to Rome and preach the gospel.

So here's the thing, though, Papestus, he protected Paul without meaning to.

And protection from a corrupt system is not the same thing as justice from it.

So let's watch what happens when the trial starts.

Verses six through eight of chapter twenty-five read this.

After he stayed among them not more than eight or ten days, he went down to Caesarea.

And the next day he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered Paul to be brought.

When he had arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing many and serious charges against him that they could not prove.

Paul argued in his defense.

Point number two, live so the charges don't stick.

Live so the charges don't stick.

So notice how fast Festus moves.

Not more than eight or ten days.

No, he goes the next day.

He doesn't like to take his time to go see what's going on.

So Luke, in a sense, he's taking a little jab here at Felix.

Felix, remember, he sat on this case for two years, meeting with Paul, hearing the gospel preached from Paul.

But Festus, he gets right to it and goes immediately to meet with Paul.

He gets back to Caesarea, and the next morning he's on the bench trying to decide this, the outcome, the verdict of this trial.

And then we see this detail the Jews stood around him.

They encircled him.

One commentator says that they surrounded Paul the way a lion surrounds its prey.

Picture it.

You have one man in chains, and you have a ring of the most powerful religious people in the nation closing in on him.

Anybody ever been like the only person in a room that's on your side, everybody's against you?

Like, that's what's going on.

And the text says that they bring many and serious charges.

Luke, he doesn't even bother to list them for us.

We've heard them two chapters ago from the lawyer to Tertulus.

He's a plague, he stirs up riots, he profaned the temple.

It's the same charges being brought.

And then Luke's verdict in five words.

That they could not prove.

They could not prove.

They could not prove.

Many charges, serious charges, zero evidence.

Now look at Paul's defense.

Luke gives us one line, and it's a masterpiece of clarity.

He says, neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I committed any offense.

So there's three spheres, there's three areas that we're seeing Paul's innocence declared.

Not against the law.

So that's Paul is not anti-Torah, right?

He believes in the entirety of the scriptures.

What he had at the time was what we know as the Old Testament scriptures.

He believes in the validity and the authority of that.

He's not anti-Torah.

He's not against the temple.

He says that I've not desecrated anything holy.

That's one of the accusations that has been brought against him, that he has desecrated the temple.

He's saying, I'm not guilty of that.

And he says, I'm not against Caesar.

So he's not a, he's saying that I'm not a political revolutionary.

And so here's why those three kind of areas that he is declaring his innocence matter.

Well, Luke has spent this whole book showing us that Paul is a reliable narrator.

When Paul says something, we can trust it.

So when Paul says, I've committed no offense against Judaism and no offense against Rome, Luke is handing you a key to the whole book.

The way is not a seditious group.

It's not a group who are against the scriptures.

It is a people who are following the way of Jesus that believe in Jesus as the Messiah.

Following Jesus is not a threat to your neighbor's faith.

Following Jesus is not a threat to the government.

No.

Christians are not a plague on this city, and they're not a plague on a city today.

No, they are, we as Christians are offer the hope of the world, who is Jesus.

And I want us to see what's underneath this, what's underneath the surface, because I think that the author Luke wants us to hear this.

Paul is walking a road that somebody before him walked.

Because Jesus, he stood in a courtroom encircled by accusers.

Mark 14 says that many bore false witness against him, but their testimony did not agree.

So Jesus stood before a Roman governor who said not once, not twice, but three times, I find no guilt in this man.

And still didn't release him.

So Paul is not just Paul's story.

Paul is following the way of Jesus all the way into a courtroom.

And Luke is painting him with his master's colors.

So what are we to do with this?

What are we to do with this text today?

Well, two applications I want us to sit with: one for the outside, the exterior, and one for the inside.

First for the outside.

We are to live so the charges don't stick.

Live so the charges don't stick.

That is, we are to, we as Christians, we as followers of the way, are to be above reproach in how we live.

We should measure up from all sides, not in order to earn anything, but because of the grace that's been bestowed upon us.

Peter, he writes this elsewhere in Scripture.

He says, Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God.

And then again, he says this having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

So Peter, he doesn't say that we won't be accused.

No, he says that the accusations shouldn't have anything to grab on to.

Live so that the charges don't stick.

Now for the inside piece, the heart level piece.

I know we we got people in this room from all walks of life who've struggled with different sins, but we got the same savior.

Some of you, I believe, hear the many and serious charges every single morning before your feet hit the floor, and those charges are being brought about from right between your ears.

From your past, from people who knew you before, from the enemy himself, whose name Satan literally means accuser.

You've got a prosecutor in your head who has a file on you that's thick, and he reads from it every day.

Well, here's where I need you to be careful if that's you.

Because there's a version of this sermon and of this text that would crush us.

The version that says, just be good enough that nobody can accuse you.

Just work, work, work.

Just achieve, achieve, achieve, just do X, Y, Z, and then you'll be alright.

Well, friend, can I tell you that that is not the gospel?

That's not the gospel.

That's just heavier chains.

You cannot outbehave the accuser.

He got receipts, right?

But the gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel on which our faith stands, says something different.

Romans chapter 8 says, Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

Romans 8 · chapter mention

It is God who justifies.

Who is to condemn?

Christ Jesus is the one who died.

More than that, who was raised?

So the point is not that you've become so good that no charge can be made or brought against you.

No, the point is that you are so hidden in Christ.

You are so hidden in Christ that no charge can stick.

The judge has already ruled, and he's declared you innocent.

Not because of anything you did, but because of what Christ has done.

Doesn't matter how serious the charge is.

One that they're accusing has already been declared righteous by the only court that matters.

So live so the charges don't stick.

But on the inside, live so the charges don't stick by being hidden in Christ.

Verses 9 through 12, the last three, the last uh four verses we'll look at this morning.

Read this.

But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, said to Paul, Do you wish to go up to Jerusalem and there be tried on these charges before me?

But Paul said, I am standing before Caesar's tribunal where I ought to be tried.

To the Jews I've done no wrong, as you yourself know very well.

If then I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death.

But there's but if there is nothing to their charges against me, no one can give me up to them.

I appealed to Caesar.

Then Festus, when he had conferred with his counsel, answered, To Caesar you have appealed, to Caesar you shall go.

Point number three, and our final point is stop living for favors, you already have grace.

Stop living for favors, you already have grace.

So there it is, right there in verse 9, wishing to do the Jews a favor.

It's the third one that we see if we're including the last verse of 24.

And there's a fourth one hiding in verse 11, and we'll cover that here in a second.

First, I want us to feel the weight of verse 9, though.

Festus has just heard the charges.

He's heard that they cannot be proved.

Paul is going to tell him in the next verse that you yourself know very well, that he's done no wrong.

And later in the chapter, Festus is going to admit it.

Later on, he says, I found that he had done nothing deserving of death.

He knows, right?

And knowing that, Festus, the governor, leans over to an innocent man and says, Hey, would you like to go to Jerusalem to be tried?

Jerusalem, where the men who've been trying to kill him for two years are waiting for him, where the ambush is already planned, where the judge is asking the innocent man if he'd mind walking into the trap.

As a favor to the people who said it.

One commentator puts it this way: The justice of Festus is not just.

Festus is a new governor.

He wants to start well with the local leadership.

It is very hard when you're invited into the inner circle of power to say no and keep your integrity.

And Festus isn't willing to pay that price.

So he's like, hey, I'm going to trade Paul.

And then this is where Luke's little word game pays off.

The word for favor all through these chapters is the Greek word charis.

So Felix, back in chapter 24, he wanted to do the Jews a charis.

C-H-A-R-I-S.

That's like the English rendering of the Greek word.

The priests asked Festus for a charis, for a favor.

Festus wished to do the Jews a favor.

That's how Rome runs.

Charis as favor.

Grace, lowercase G grace, we'll call it lowercase g grace, worldly grace, bent toward the people who can pay you back.

Right?

But there's another way that we see this word translated in the scriptures.

It's the same word that Paul uses in every single letter that he ever wrote.

It's the word that we translate as grace.

And Luke, he wants us to see that collision.

Rome's caris is a favor.

It's earned, it's traded, it's revocable, it's given to the people who can do something for you.

But God's carus is grace.

It's unearned, it's given to the people who can do nothing for him.

Peter said it in Acts chapter 10.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

God shows no partiality.

God, he doesn't play favorites, God plays grace.

T.A.

Carson, theologian, he says this.

All of us are more comfortable with justice when it's applied to others and mercy when it's applied to us.

That is favoritism.

That is not grace.

That's the whole system that Festus is running.

Mercy for my people and justice for yours.

Now let's watch Paul in verses 10 and 11.

He says, I'm standing before Caesar's tribunal where I ought to be tried.

Translation, he's saying, You are the judge, Festus, do your job.

And then he says, If I am a wrongdoer and committed and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death.

So do you hear what he's saying?

Paul is not afraid to die.

He'll say it before, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

He's not sitting there begging for his life.

No, he's refusing to be bartered.

He's refusing to be a political pawn for the system.

He says, if there's nothing to their charges against me, no one can give me up to them.

And there's our fourth favor: the verb give me up.

It's the same root word.

Paul is literally saying that no one can grant me to them as a favor.

No one gets to hand me over as a gift to the people who want me dead.

A prisoner in chains is standing in a Roman court teaching the governor what justice is.

That's what's going on here.

Now let's, we're gonna slow down here and land the plane in just a little bit.

This is where the whole passage turns into the gospel.

Every week we dig into the text and we see the gospel.

We preach the gospel within it.

And some sections are harder to see the gospel than others, but I want you to see that the gospel is clearly articulated here.

So we see that verse 11, that word that we would translate hand over as a favor, charismai.

So do you know where else that word shows up in Acts?

It's Acts 3.

Peter is preaching in Jerusalem to the very crowd that had been there on Good Friday, and he says, You denied the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you.

That's the same word.

A murderer to be granted to you.

You asked for Barabbas as a favor.

So go back going back to that courtroom.

Pilate says three times, I find no guilt in him.

The crowd wants a favor.

And Luke 23 tells us exactly what Pilate did.

He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

Barabbas was the favor, Jesus was the one handed over.

So do you see it?

Paul can stand in Festus' court and say, No one can hand me over as a favor to them, and he's right.

God honors it, but he can only say that because someone, that someone being Christ Jesus, was already handed over.

The innocent one stood in the courtroom, the only one who has ever been truly innocent, just like this, with charges that couldn't be proved, before a judge who knew he was innocent, and he did not appeal.

He did not say, No one can give me up.

No, Christ Jesus let himself be given up.

The righteous one was traded so the murderer could walk free.

That's not favoritism.

This is what this is, this is grace for the people who nailed Jesus to the cross.

This is the innocent trading places with the guilty on purpose for people who hated him.

So Paul is free because Jesus wasn't.

And so are you.

You also are free because Jesus took your place.

Now look at what Paul does with this freedom.

He says, I appeal to Caesar.

So Paul is a Roman citizen, and a Roman citizen had the right to appeal to the emperor's own court before sentence was passed.

I want to be clear about what this is and what this isn't, because some people may read this and think that Paul's lost his nerves, that he's being a scaredy cat, that he doesn't protect, trust Jesus to protect him.

John Chrysostom, he's early church-ish father, he's just a theologian of old.

He's preaching on this 1500 years ago.

He said, no, this isn't fear, it's publicity.

Paul is taking a trial and he's turning it into a pulpit.

Paul is going to go, he's appealing to Caesar, he's going to Rome so that he can preach the gospel in Rome.

He's going to get to preach the gospel in the capital of the world, and Rome is going to pay for the boat that takes him there.

So here's what that teaches us.

Being spirit-led does not mean being passive.

Paul used what was in his hand.

He had a citizenship, so he used it.

God had given him a tool, so he picked it up and used it, for the glory of God, not for his own self-preservation, but so that the gospel would be proclaimed.

So for us, what I want to see is that following the way of Jesus is not sitting on our hands waiting for a flash of lightning.

Sometimes, oftentimes, it's trusting God's promise so completely that you are free to use every legitimate means that He's put in front of you.

Then verse 12, Festus confers with his counsel and he says, To Caesar you have appealed, to Caesar you shall go.

So do you remember what Jesus said to Paul in Acts 23 in the barracks in the middle of the night?

Jesus appears to Paul, he says, Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.

That was over two years ago.

Two years of a stalled case, and a judge who wanted a bribe, and a new governor who wanted a favor.

And now, out of the mouth of a pagan Roman who has never heard of Jesus and who doesn't care, comes the word of God.

To Caesar you shall go.

Promise beginning to be fulfilled.

To Caesar you appeal, to Caesar you go, Paul will also testify in Rome.

Ashen you come up and begin to close this.

Festus, he thinks he's making an administrative decision.

But he's actually fulfilling the promise that the Lord had lined out.

A non-believer, a tool in the hands of the living God.

One commentator, he puts it this way.

He calls Festus an unwitting, an unwitting tool of the gospel.

Another, he puts it this way the plot against Paul becomes an occasion for preaching.

So what looks like a legal can of worms that's tainted with the order of corruption is actually the unfolding of God's plan.

Do you see it?

Do you see the just like upside down nature of God's kingdom and his kingdom being fulfilled by the king?

And I love this right there, the end of this story, chapter 12.

The last word is go.

The last word is go.

The same word that Jesus used on the mountain.

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.

Jesus said go, and now the pagan Roman Empire says go.

They don't get it though.

They don't get it.

Jesus said go, and the Roman Empire says go, and they paid the fare to send Paul to preach the living gospel in Rome.

Paul is being sent to plant the gospel in the heart of the Empire.

And the Empire doesn't even know it.

So here's the application, and I believe that it's for everybody in this room.

Stop living for favors.

You already have God's grace.

Some of you are exhausted because you are living on favors.

You're performing for a boss, you're performing for a platform, you're performing for an algorithm, you're performing for the right people in the right rooms in order for self-preservation, in order to keep moving forward in your own life, in your own career, with your own friends, family, loved ones, whatever it may be.

And you know deep down how worldly favor works, it has to be earned, and it can be revoked.

The people who you're giving everything to perform for may just trade you in for something more useful someday.

And I'm not saying that to like say, hey, this it these things, the job, whatever, it doesn't matter.

What I'm saying is it's not the main thing.

The Lord Jesus is the main thing.

You know why?

Because grace is different.

The grace of God was paid for, and it cannot be revoked.

It's an irrevocable gift.

You didn't earn it, so you can't lose it by underperforming.

Jesus was handed over so that you would never be.

You don't gotta hustle for favor from the Lord Jesus.

You've already been given it.

So what we see, we see two governors, we see two failures of justice.

Felix said later, Festus said favor.

And neither one of them could touch the promise of God.

Paul spent two years in chains, there was a renewed ambush against him, there were still charges with no evidence being brought.

There was a judge who owed the wrong people, and the plan of God did not slow down by a single day.

Paul is going to Rome just like Jesus told him.

And what's crazy is Rome is going to carry him there.

So I want to ask you the question that I think that this text asks us.

I believe that everybody in this room is living on one of two things.

They are favors or they are grace.

Is it favor or is it grace for you?

Which one is it for you?

If it's favors, if your life is built on who you know and how well you perform and staying one step ahead of the game, then hear me.

It's gonna run out.

It's gonna run out.

It always does.

Festus will need eventually need to give you up to somebody.

But if you'll come to Jesus, hear this.

Here's what's waiting for you.

An innocent man who stood in your courtroom before your judge with your charges read aloud, and he didn't appeal.

He let himself be handed over so that you would never be.

He took the death that you deserved and handed you the verdict he earned.

So who shall bring any charge against God's people?

It is God who justifies.

So if you've never trusted in him, today can be the day.

Don't wait until it's convenient.

Don't, like we looked at last week, two years of hearing the gospel preached.

Today, stop defending yourself, stop hustling for favors.

Come stand in the promises of Christ.

And if you're here, if you're here and you're his already, and you're surrounded this morning, and there's people against you from every which way, and the charges are loud, and the system is moving you somewhere that you didn't choose, take courage.

The one who keeps you does not slumber.

He hadn't gone to sleep, he hadn't gone to sleep on you.

The one who was handed over has already secured your verdict.

And the one who said where you're going will get you there.

Even if he's got to use a Caesar to do it.

Caesar, you shall go, and Christ will go with you.

Thanks for listening.

Join us Sundays at 10 30 a.m.

in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City.

Or find us anytime at the wakeac.church.