Without Hindrance | Acts 28:17-31

The title of our message today is Without Hindrance.

Without Hindrance.

Um, usually, uh, when a story like the Book of Acts ends, if

we consider something like the Apostle Paul being imprisoned, we

might consider, um, a good ending.

We might think about, we might brainstorm a few good endings for the Apostle Paul.

We might think maybe at the very end, it shows us that, um, he gets vindicated

and the crowds cheer, and the gospel still proceeds and it, and it, um, um,

you know, flow, uh, it, it flows out to the nations or something like that.

Or maybe he gains an audience with Caesar, and Caesar is

converted or something like that.

Well, um, quite frankly, if those are our expectations, um, that the Book

of Acts does not quite meet them In some ways, we might say that, um,

it's, uh, it's under s- those formal circumstances, we might consider that the

Book of Acts might be an unsatisfactory ending as some might consider it.

Um, quite often if we're, we're thinking about or if we, we recommend a, a show

or a movie, we, we often don't start at the beginning, but we often start at

the end to say, "Okay, well, the ending was really good, but you gotta watch the

whole show to wait till it gets there."

Sometimes endings are very controversial, like I never, I never gave the

time to the show Lost, but I guess the ending was s- unsatisfactory.

But quite often, though, we, we use that to determine, like, hey,

our, our gut feeling is, like, things were generally resolved, and

we're happy with the resolution.

Well, as we read this passage in, um, the last partion- portion of the Book of

Acts, a few things seem to be unresolved.

And yet what I wanna focus in today and this morning on is that there's a core

shift, it's subtle, but it's a core shift that really changed the entire direction

and changes the shape of the early church and even, um, uh, births the, the rest of

the, the, the ministry of the gospel to the rest of the world as we know it today,

of which we are the beneficiaries of this subtle change that's, um, described in

the last portion of the Book of Acts.

So let me, um, go ahead and dive in and, and we'll read chapter 28, verse

17, which says, "After three days he called together the local leaders of

the Jews, and when they had gathered, he said to them, 'Brothers, though I

have done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet

I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.

When they examined me, they wished to set me at liberty, because there was no

reason for the death penalty in my case.

But because the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar, though I

had no charge to bring against my nation.

For this reason therefore I have asked to see you and to speak with you,

since it is because of the hope of Israel that I am wearing this chain.'"

And they said to him, they said to Paul in verse 21, "We have received

no letters of Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has

reported or spoken any evil about you.

But we desire to hear from you what your views are.

For with regard to this sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against."

Verse 23, "When they had appointed a day for him, they came to him

at his lodging in greater numbers.

From morning till evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom

of God and trying to convince them about Jesus, both from the Law

of Moses and from the Prophets.

And some were convinced by what he said, but others disbelieved.

And disagreeing among themselves, they departed after Paul had made one

statement, this statement, 'The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your

fathers through Isaiah the prophet, "Go to this people and say, you will

indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.

For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear,

and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear

with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them."'

Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God

has been sent to the Gentiles.

They will listen!

He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came

to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ

with all boldness and without hindrance."

So those are the final words of the Book of Acts.

Last time we left off with Paul, we saw the, some of the

promises of God being fulfilled.

As God promised, Paul made it safely to Rome, and he, of course,

as we saw last week, he met with other brothers outside of Rome and

other members of the church family.

But when he gets into Rome proper He, you know, he gets settled for three

days we're told, and then he calls up the Jewish leaders in Rome, i.e.

those who were still practicing the Jewish ways.

And he gives the local Jewish leaders an explanation of who he is.

Oh, oh, you might say an introduction of who he is and why he is there, and

why he's under basic house arrest.

It's kind of like he holds an additional court with the local

Jews to gain a hearing with them so that they wouldn't have a chance to

form an opinion of him otherwise.

For instance, like the, the danger could be that other Jews were gonna come

from out of town, maybe traveling all the way from Jerusalem to say, "Hey,

this is what the Apostle Paul is doing.

Beware of them."

This was his chance to talk to them first, to Jews that never heard of him, and

belie- um, and convince them to believe not only just his side, but mo- most, um,

even, even further to believe the gospel.

Who knows what would have happened if they did believe, and they were on his side.

Maybe they could have testified on his behalf, um, as he, um, appealed to Caesar.

Who knows?

And so Paul wants to give an audience with the Jews for th- this very reason,

that he wants them, of course, to hear from him first before they hear

from other means or by, from third parties, uh, who the Apostle Paul is.

But in a broader sense, this fits with Paul's ministry, as we've

seen throughout the Book of Acts.

Remember, it…

when he would go into a town, he would go to the Jews first.

He would say, you know, "Where's your local synagogue?"

Sometimes there wasn't a synagogue, but he found other occasions where there was

a small prayer gathering of Jews, and he ministered to them on those occasions.

But nevertheless, Paul had this habit, although he was known as the Apostle

to the Gentiles, he had this habit of going to the Jews first and explaining

to them essentially their own scriptures and why Christ was the Messiah and

fulfilled their prophecies and their law

His inclination here, of course, was that those who would know the word of

God the most, um, it was an assumption that those who would know the g- word of

God the most would understand what he, where he was coming from 'cause he was

starting from their, from, as a basis and foundation, their very scriptures.

So that was his consistent, um, activity.

And in, in Rome, it was kind of no different except the methodology.

Instead of going out to the synagogues, he didn't have liberty to leave his

house because he was essentially under house arreft- arrest even

though it seemed to be more or less a, a comfortable living situation.

They had to come to him in his own lodgings.

And Paul gives a very specific reasoning and methodology as he's explaining

his circumstances because he, they're, they're coming to him and they set aside

a day and he explains to them, um, well, he, he first introduces himself to them

and he explains to them, "Hey, like, I bet you're wondering why I'm here.

You know, I, what…

This, this looks kind of strange.

I'm this guy, I'm this Jew under house arrest."

And he indicates that, yeah, there's every right, basically I have every right

b- to believe that I've conducted myself with a pure and free conscience, and that

there's no even, there's, um, there's even no indication from the Roman authorities

that I have done anything wrong.

And he also notes interestingly that, um, in verse 19, because the Jews

objected to Paul's acquittal, uh, any sort of acquittal, um, 'I was compelled

to appeal to Caesar, though I had no charge to bring against my nation.'

So Paul's even saying like, we might even think like, 'Hey, the

Jewish leaders wanted to kill him.'

That's, that's a, that's a fair charge you can bring against…

And then he's like, 'I had actually, I had nothing against the Jews.

I have nothing against my nation in general.'

And he sought here essentially common ground with the Jews as a Jew.

This is very much, this is very close to his methodology he describes, or it's

essentially his methodology he describes in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 when he

1 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

says to the Jews, "I became as a Jew in order to win Jews, and to the Jews, um-"

Uh, I became, or I, to the Jews I became as a Jew in order to

win Jews, that I might win those under the law, I should say.

So he's, he's saying, "Hey, this is, we're, we have this commonality.

We have this common history and these common scriptures.

Therefore, um, why don't you give me a hearing?"

Because in verse 20, "This reason, therefore, I've asked to see you

and speak with you since it is becau- because of the hope of Israel

that I am wearing this chain."

Meaning that like, hey, um, it is something that I have that is very

precious to me, which is a message of hope for the nation of Israel, and so

here's why you should give me a hearing.

And of course, their immediate reply was essentially like they were talking

amongst themselves evidently, and they were like, "We, do we have anything

on file for the Apostle Paul?"

And they're saying, "Well, we don't have any, any letters from you, any

letters of commendation from you."

But they had s- heard certain bad things about this sect, which was

the sect of the Christian faith.

They considered it a, a rogue sect of Judaism, and they had

heard some bad things about it.

They had said with regard to the sect, "We know that

everywhere it is spoken against."

So in some ways, though they had not heard of the Apostle Paul, there

was some hearsay about, hey, this sect is a little bit troublesome,

and maybe we should avoid it.

Um, this seems to be a, a reference to an earlier persecution among the Jewish

community, which was recorded in the Book of Acts, specifically in the city of Rome.

Um, just really quickly in Acts chapter 18, verses, verse 2, um, we see, uh-

Acts 18 · chapter mention

Um, talking about Paul, uh, verse one says, "After this, Paul left Athens and

went to Corinth," and verse two, "And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native

of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife, Priscilla, because Claudius had

commanded all the Jews to leave Rome."

So there's not a lot of information there, but a lot of scholars believe

that Claudius, the emperor at that time, had told the Jews to leave Rome

because there was civil unrest owing to the fact that certain Christians were

coming in and converting Jews, and it was becoming a very, um, uh, tumultuous time.

So he just said, "Okay, no more Jews in the entire city."

This was, of course, um, quite a long time ago, so of course the Jews were

back in the city of Rome, but they had a bad taste in their mouth b- based

on what they heard this sect to be.

And so Paul, nevertheless, sought to seek, um, or sought to build common

ground with them, and therefore he wasn't inclined to say, "Hey, you know,

let's, let's talk about or justify whatever experience you might have had."

He instead went and had them focus on the scriptures instead.

Um, so in verse 23, "When they appointed a day for him, from morning until

evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to

convince them about Jesus, both from the Law of Moses and the Prophets."

And so Paul essentially gives an, uh, a, from morning to evening, um, s-

a single sermon or several sermons, essentially giving them the entire

whole counsel of God and explaining their own law and prophets to them,

and explaining why they were fulfilled in Jesus, to testify about Jesus.

And after he had, um, made his entire presentation when, when we saw, as

we see lasted one day, what was the result after finally getting to the

city of Rome and sharing the gospel with the Jews in verse twenty-four?

Some were convinced by what he said, but others disbelieved.

Their response was underwhelming, to say the least.

Some dis-- Some were like, "Okay, I, I get what you're saying."

Others essentially rejected it

And we might think, okay, like on, on, on one, on one hand, what do we expect?

I mean, we've g- been given the lesson over and over throughout

the book of Acts that the Jews will reject the message of Paul.

They've rejected him several times in several cities, most recently, of

course, in the city of Jerusalem itself.

But in another sense, we might ask, weren't we s- expecting some great

ministry of Paul to come out of his time in the capital of the Roman Empire?

We might reasonably expect better results from Paul's ministry in Rome when we

see the great, um, um, uh, purpose with which God had l- guided his own steps and

guided his own journey in safety to Rome

And when we see their, their lack of co- um, convincing at the behest

of the Apostle Paul, we might wanna say and conclude like, "Hey, this is

not, you know, the ending we might have expected for the Book of Acts."

And that actually has led some scholars to believe that they're

like, "Okay, well, maybe Luke just didn't have enough information.

Maybe he was writing close to when these events happened.

He d- he didn't wanna…

He didn't know what was gonna happen, or, um, maybe he didn't finish it," or

something like that, the, the, Luke as the author of the, the Book of Acts.

But in truth, this, as we see, is an appropriate and necessary conclusion

to the book because there is a critical type of resolution that we receive

in the Book of Acts, and it's a resolution that the Apostle Paul forces

on the Jewish people, forces on the Jewish community in the city of Rome.

Look at verse 25.

It says, "Disagreeing among themselves, they departed after

Paul had made one statement."

So in short, like, they were, they were, like, kind of on the fence,

and they were talking this over.

They were, they were, um, um, you know, essentially, uh,

reasoning among themselves and disagreeing among themselves and

kind of arguing about this thing.

And so Paul saw that, and he thought, "I need to push them to a decision."

Essentially, they weren't making a decision.

They weren't in whole agreeing with it, or they weren't in whole rejecting it.

They weren't hostile, but they also weren't, um,

enthusiastic about the message.

And so the Apostle Paul interjects in their own disagreement and says this,

that, "The Holy Spirit was right."

Well, right about what?

"Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the

prophet, 'Go to this people and say you will in- indeed hear but never

understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive, for this is pe-

this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear.'"

W- and with their eyes, or, "Their eyes they have closed, lest they should

see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their

heart, and in turn I would heal them."

This is where the apostle is essentially coming out in judgment against them, and

he quotes the Old Testament prophet of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter six in particular,

to say, "Hey, this is a fulfillment," essentially, and this is the same exact

behavior of disbelief and stubbornness that has plagued the Jewish people

for hundreds of years at this point.

That, hey, you can hear my voice and you can understand the

reasoning, but you yet are yet…

Y- you what, you yet have to make a decision.

You are still disagreeing among yourselves.

You're deciding whether this is true.

That is what Paul is saying.

You're seeing, but you're not understanding.

Or, I'm sorry, you're, you're hearing, but you're not understanding.

You're seeing, but you're not perceiving.

They saw it.

They, they kind of got it, but they didn't hold onto it with faith.

And therefore Paul says, "If you continue to do this, then what is

your, um, judgment," essentially?

What is the going to be the consequence?

Well, if you do not turn to God, if your heart has grown too dull, if you're

unwilling to make a decision of faith, you're not gonna see, you're not gonna

hear, you're not gonna understand with your heart, and God will not hear you.

What is he saying?

He's essentially saying that unless they decide now in the critical, um, uh, time

of this moment, they were essentially giving up a no decision, and a no

decision essentially is as good as a loss.

Paul understood the stakes here.

Hey, this is a fulfillment of your own prophets.

This is not simply a dispute about Jesus himself and his particular

life, death, and resurrection, even though it was in some ways.

But he's like, "If you disbelieve this about Jesus, you're actually rejecting

the whole of the law and the prophets."

Like, doesn't that have any import on you?

And finally, he concludes, because of all this, because you are rejecting or

not deciding to bre- um, to approach Christ with faith, to believe on

Christ with faith, therefore, in verse 28, "Let it be known to you

that this salvation of God that has been sent to the, um, has been sent to

the Gentiles, for they will listen."

What's happening here?

Paul is making his last, final, on the record statement about his ongoing

disputes with the Jewish community, the religious leaders of whom he, of,

of whom, um, are, are his own kin.

And it's the last in a series of repeated rejections of the gospel message.

I don't have time to read all the passages, but the Jews have rejected,

the Jewish community, we might say, the religious leaders have rejected the

gospel appeal of the apostles on several different circumstances, including on,

in Acts 13:46, Acts 18:6, and Acts 22:21, which you can note in your own time.

Acts 13:46 Acts 18:6 Acts 22:21

They've rejected over and over again, and the warning from the

apostles have been, has been, "Hey, if you reject this, then fine.

You don't have to accept it.

We will go to the Gentiles."

And usually that has created a riot.

Usually that has created, um, charges of blasphemy.

Usually that has created, um, an angry mob of some sort.

In this instance though, they just left.

They stopped caring.

It wasn't a concern for them.

And we might say like, "Yeah, that's absolutely their loss."

But there's some, there's a sense in which there's a certain sort of finality

right here in the book of Acts with which they, hey, they stopped caring.

They're neither hostile nor they're, are they enthusiastic.

They're just gonna let it happen.

And we might think how sad that is that the, the Jewish people, the Jewish

community to whom belong the oracles of God, as we are told in scripture,

reject or simply don't accept the gospel.

But Paul explains this approach by describing the Jews as stumbling.

Stumbling because they're tripped up because they refuse to believe

their own scriptures, essentially.

And he says he, he will, he will, um, elucidate this more in- when

he writes in Romans chapter 11.

Romans 11 · chapter mention

The Book of Romans is a, a neighbor to the Book of Acts,

so you can turn there yourself.

Romans 11:11 says, "So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall?"

Romans 11:11

Did the Jews stumble in order that they might fall?

By no means.

Rather, their, their, through their trespass, salvation has come to the

Gentiles so as to make Israel jealous.

Now, if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure

means riches for the Gentiles, how much more were the-- where--

will their full inclusion mean?

So to be certain, as Paul is just getting a brick wall when he's trying

to minister to the Jews in the city of Rome, it had to have grieved his heart.

But he also knew and he had faith in God's redemptive promises,

knowing that this of course does not mean that Jews cannot be saved

But rather it means something entirely positive

That by their rejection of the gospel message, the rest of the world

freely gets the message of good news.

Amen.

That though they've cast it off like, "Hey, this is, this is crumb, this is

bread crust," the world will eat it up.

And Paul even says this, he's like, in verse 28, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you

know that this message is gonna go to the Gentiles and they'll eat it up."

That's the, that's the Jared Safaja translation.

He said, "They will listen."

Because it's good news.

It's objectively good news.

Why are you throwing it out?

So if they will not receive it, they can also not hinder it.

And because of this pivot in Paul's ministry, it resulted in a

pivot largely in the early church.

And by their own indifference, it was a signal and a sign that the Jewish

community was increasingly decreasing in their own power, heading towards their

own judgment by God as God was going to judge the nation of Israel later.

But essentially going to be out of the way in un- um, uh, of,

of hindering the gospel message.

As the commentator Charles Hodge said, it's in your bulletin, he said,

"The stumbling of the Jews was not attended with the result of their

utter and final ruin, but was the occasion of facilitating the progress

of the gospel among the Gentiles."

What was Charles Hodge saying?

He's saying, well, at this point, when they're rejecting the

gospel, essentially God's saying, "Okay, I'll just go over here."

And it's actually accelerating the gospel across the world so that no

matter how or when or way, whatever way we might consider it, God is

fulfilling his own purposes despite them.

At this point, he's going around them to minister to people.

And that is the mode in which Paul is able to minister going

forward in these final two verses.

It says that he lived, in verse 30, "He lived two whole years at his own expense

and welcomed all who came to them, to him, proclaiming the Kingdom of God and

teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance."

All these things are working together for good, even though the

circumstances of Paul weren't great.

The combination of maybe the Jewish leaders in the community fearing to

go even near the gospel anymore, the, and plus, um, their, their ultimate

indifference to the gospel ultimately led the Apostle Paul to push harder than ever

before, and with all boldness proclaiming the gospel to those who were visiting him

So as we see, this is actually a subtle shift in the early church

that has seismic consequences to us.

That ultimately Show us the arc truly of the Book of Acts.

What was the arc of the Book of Acts?

It was, hey, can these 12 guys, you know, now 11 since Judah,

Judas was, uh, uh, dead now.

Could these 11 guys actually do what Jesus told them to do, which

was a very ambitious thing, to preach the gospel to all nations?

Well, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the answer by the

end of the Book of Acts is yes.

And I think, myself, that's a very satisfactory answer.

And the answer is simply not only yes, but yes in greater ways than you could

ever imagine, greater ways than even the Jewish community could have even imagined.

And so today we come as post-Acts people, essentially.

What we live today and the faith we celebrate and the fellowship

that you have with each other is because we are a post-Acts church,

meaning we happened after Acts.

Well, the things that happened in the Book of Acts directly benefit us.

So therefore, we can say that we are beneficiaries as we, as we consider

what the import of this, um, passage is.

First thing is that we are beneficiaries of the salvation of God.

This is the core benefit that we receive, especially if, if, if we are Gentiles.

And we receive it simply by the hearing of the ears, as Paul noted,

and the preaching of the gospel to us.

Essentially, by this means, the church created the supply line for the gospel,

which is no- nothing else but just to say, "We're gonna preach the word to

everyone we meet," and you and I today are beneficiaries of that, of God's salvation.

And what is the marker of God's salvation?

Well, we have access to God's power through His Holy Spirit.

We today are beneficiaries and a fulfillment of Jesus's promise and Jesus's

charge in Acts 1:8 when Jesus said, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit

Acts 1:8

has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea

and Samaria and to the end of the earth."

We today in Norco, California, are the result of the end of the earth.

We have the Holy Spirit in our lives because of the work that

God has done through these men, as shown through the Book of Acts.

And the decision, the conscious decision that they made to say, "We're

going to go to the Gentile world.

We're gonna share the good news because that's tr- God's charge to

us Secondly, what other large lessons can we take from this final passage?

Well, secondly, if God can use the conflict and adversity to spread

the message of the gospel, then he can use it for your good, too.

Though they rejected Paul, and we might consider, like, Paul's

last major evangelistic outreach to be a failure on its own terms.

Hey, they didn't even believe.

They actually left him.

The good news that came out of that was that the Jews no longer directly opposed

him, and God ordained it so that his ministry to the Gentiles was completely

unhindered because of that rejection.

That God brought an entire reversal to the fortunes of Paul.

That though he were, was in prison, though he was limited, he, he…

Paul's faith was not shaken, and he knew that God had a plan.

And as a result, he preached boldly, and he preached unhindered.

In the same way, we can take heart knowing that our disputes, and our conflicts,

and our even anxieties about the state of the world, sometimes, and quite often,

God uses those things for his own good.

And if we try to make a trajectory, if we try to make a trend line with even

our own lives, and we think, "Maybe we're, we're just so in-ineffective,"

or, or, "My family's falling apart," or, "I'm going through these, these

tough things," God can turn them around.

God can make, um, uh, essentially

You know, switchback vines or switchback branches out of your bad

circumstances in great reversals.

I have a, uh, as I've mentioned before, I think probably too much

'cause I obsess over it, but I have a juniper bush or juniper, series

of juniper shrubs in my front yard.

And at first, like it looked really healthy when we first

moved into the house, and like it was, it was generally green.

But as I started to get down into it, I realized that several of them were

dead, but I didn't recognize it because so many of them have these, what are,

are called switchback branches, where they're branches that are coming from

another bush way over there, and you can't even recognize them that it's

coming from, um, that bush 'cause they look like another bush 'cause

they're, they're wildly out of place.

And as I started to trim it, I realized like, oh, I'm, I'm gonna trim this bush

since I see that it, it needs trimming.

And I realized, oh, I'm the trimming the branch from this other bush.

And in some ways it's actually hard to track because they're, they're going

this way, and then they start to grow this way, and then they start to grow

this way, and it's just sheer madness.

And I think in many ways, our own life and our own fortunes, we can

just say like, there's not necessarily a linear trend line where we can

say, "Oh, things are getting better.

Things are getting better.

Things are getting better.

Oh, things are getting blessed, and this is how God blesses me."

Sometimes that's how we think quite often.

Hey, if, you know, if we just vote for the right people and, and,

um, prepare the ground and, and, um, uh, make sure that we're all

good, maybe God will bring revival.

No.

Well, sometimes God will bring revival in our own lives and in the lives of the

nation when things are actually very dark.

And God will create a switchback.

God will create a great reversal of fortunes and use it for his own good.

That's one of the great lessons of the Book of Acts, and it's one of the great

lessons of the life of the Apostle Paul.

Number three, when we share the gospel, we should know that we are participating in

God's redemptive plan for the whole world.

When we share the gospel, we know that we can have success.

That was essentially Paul's gambit, is to say, "Hey, this news is so

good, I know that God will bless it when I take it to other audiences.

They will listen.

They will give me a hearing.

The Gentiles will listen."

Paul knew his redemptive history, and he was glad to participate it by doing his

part and proclaiming the word of God.

If we continue on in Romans chapter, um, 11, in that passage,

he says, in verse 13, he says, "Now I am speaking to you Gentiles.

Inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in

order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.

For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world,

what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?"

So Paul w- had the faith that, like, "Look, God's going

to work it out in the end.

I know that if the Jews will reject the gospel, I'll go to the Gentiles, and God

will actually use that means as a way to minister to the Jews again, because

the Jews will see what's happening to the Gentiles through their own

prophecies and their own scriptures, and they'll say, 'I want that.'"

Essentially, that's our hope when we proclaim the gospel,

for both Jews and Gentiles.

We have a hope that God will eventually find His people, and that gives us, um…

God will eventually

bring in more and more people into the gospel, into the kingdom of God, and we

simply have the then motivation to put our hand to the work of sharing the gospel.

And lastly, on a very practical note, godly hospitality is an effective way

we can express boldness in our faith.

By the end of the Book of Acts, we might say that Paul is--

seems to be very domesticated.

He's, he's in his house.

He's no longer on, you know, Solomon's Portico or, you know, um, on, on the Mount

Athens and, and proclaiming the gospel in these huge, um, high-risk venues.

His venue suddenly becomes his own small rented house's front room.

And so I think in some ways we picture boldness, the boldness we are

called to, um, live by in the Book of Acts and in throughout scripture,

like the boldness of the Apostle Paul, the boldness that proclaims

Christ in, in coliseum-type venues.

Well, they're not always like that of necessity.

Paul's boldness was boldness like was with an inside voice.

It was the work of convincing and encouraging, but it was a

work that started in his house, and it started with hospitality.

That suddenly his ministry just became receiving people and ministering to them.

And in that way, like, we can look at ourselves and say, "That's an easy entry

point for how I can share the gospel."

We don't know if Paul's hospitality meant like that he, he served them bread

or, you know, served them charcuterie.

You can if you want to, but essentially it was, "Come to my house.

Let me tell you about something.

Let me minister to you."

Really quick, the church history, of course, we don't get the remainder of

the Apostle Paul's life, but church history tells us that Paul appears

to have been released after some time after house arrest in Rome, and then he

traveled to other regions, including of maybe Macedonia before eventually he was

arrested again in Rome once more, and then he was not held in great circumstances,

but they were in much worse circumstances.

And then lastly, he seems to have held office with Caesar Nero

and was, as a result, beheaded.

Um, not crucified as a Ro- as a, um, as a non-Roman citizen, but beheaded, which

was considered a more honorable death

And according to the church father, um, Clement of Rome, um, we, we get this

enduring picture of the Apostle Paul as a symbol and as an example of endurance.

He said, "When Paul had preached in the East and in the West, he received

the noble renown of his faith.

Having taught righteousness to the whole world, even reaching the bounds

of the West, and having borne witness before rulers, he thus left the world

and went to the holy place, becoming the greatest pattern of endurance."

Let's pray together.

Lord God, we see this example in the Book of Acts.

We see the import of the Apostle Paul's ministry.

And Lord, my prayer is not simply that we would look at this example

and see it as merely inspiration, something that's, um, interesting.

But Lord, that you would make your personal call upon each and every one

of us to be bold, to show endurance.

Lord, to look at changing the world and turning it upside down for you.

And Lord, for those of us who maybe fear to be bold, Lord, spur us on to

take that first step of faith, to share the gospel within our own households,

to share the gospel and to spread your word within our own living rooms,

to show the gospel through our own hospitality to our friends and neighbors.

Lord, would you give us the strength, and would you bring your

Holy Spirit upon us afresh, anew, so that we might reach our world?

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.