You're listening to audio from Faith Church, located on the north side of Indianapolis. If you'd like to check out more information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindi.com. Now, here's the teaching. Morning, everybody. I'm Joey.

I I should warn you ahead of time, I found this passage endlessly fascinating, and I have about 3 hours worth of things I wanna talk about. So, yeah. I was chatting with, someone else on staff earlier, and I was like, there's this thread. There's there's, like, 7 threads in this story. He's like, which one are you gonna focus on?

I was like, all of them. So I wrote slow down at the top. Alright. Well, hey. Where have we been?

This is our our graphic. There was our graphic for, you know, the the whole series of Acts, but if you're here last week, you remember we left the apostle Paul. He was on his way into Jerusalem. He was wanting to get there before the big holidays, and he knows he's walking into a powder keg. Even the letter he sent off to the Romans, he says at the very end, hey.

Pray for me. I'm on my way to Jerusalem. I don't think it's gonna go well. All along the way, the spirit of God has been telling him and others that there's danger ahead. Some have said, well, if there's there's danger ahead, then, like, maybe not don't do that.

And he's, like, but my calling is this direction, and he wouldn't be deterred. He was ready to be arrested or even killed for the sake of the gospel if that's what God requires of him. So he's on his way to Jerusalem where we left off last week. It was leaving his friends and us wondering what kind of a reception is he gonna get. That's where we pick it up in Acts 21.

I was thinking about this as I read this passage, you know, almost gosh. It's almost 20 years ago now that my wife and I moved to Dallas to enroll in seminary, and when we moved there, we were required to participate in something called spiritual formation groups. It was 2 years long, 5 couples, and we spent those 2 years meeting every other week, just kind of encouraging each other, walking through this whole journey of of seminary. Now before we ever got together for the first time, there was this initial meeting where we, along with all of the other students who were brand new and hadn't yet been assigned to groups, like, we all came together, and they just went through the roster. They're like, these 5 people, here's your leader.

Here's your group. You guys go over there. You guys, you know, we did this whole thing. And they got down to to us, and they listed us and a few other couples, and then said, we don't have a leader for this group yet. So if you're interested in being the leader, come talk to me.

So I made a beeline down to the guy right away afterwards and said, what do you think? Right? And it it wasn't really because I wanted the responsibility of leading the group, but I figured if they looked at all 5 of us couples and thought, I don't think anyone here is really a leader, then I'm the least bad option. Right? Maybe you don't agree.

The way I no. First hour got that. The way the way I justified it to my wife at the time was I said I'd rather be the bad leader than submit to a bad leader. Right? And I know I've told this story before, and I've I've told it, in the past as if that was a good thing to think.

You know, look at me. Leadership potential. Right? Nimble decisiveness. Just see an opportunity.

Seize the opportunity. The more I think about it, the more I realize that's kind of a jerky thing to think. Right? I'd rather be the bad leader than submit to a bad leader, like, okay, God, I know you've got this, but just in case you need help, like, I'm here. Why do you think it is that almost all of us, when we see something being done unwisely or incorrectly or or something be done just plain badly, we automatically assume we could do it better?

Right? Or am I the only one? K. Because it it just got real quiet all of a sudden. I thought maybe, like, maybe I'm the only one who does this.

I mean, obviously, I would make a wiser decision, a better decision. I I would be so much there's no way I'm gonna make the same mistakes my parents made. Right? Right? Or I wouldn't do the same thing my boss did or my teacher or coach or have you heard the whole joke about the guy who wanted to be his own boss and 2 weeks in, he found out he's now working for the worst boss he's ever had?

Yeah. There is so much in this passage. This is why I found it endlessly fascinating. There's so much in here about about leadership, about how leaders can make bad decisions when they're anxious. There's stuff in here about the ongoing tensions that church leaders face when they're trying to avoid needlessly offending a group of people, while also helping them think more deeply and more theologically about how they're following Jesus.

There's lessons in here about the temptation to get a superficial unity. You know, like, well, maybe everybody will get along if we just divide them up into enough small groups that no one group can take over another one. All sorts of leadership lessons in here, but the most interesting lesson to me is the lesson that we see Paul living out. Because in this story, in this paragraph, Paul is not the guy in charge. He's not the one calling the shots.

Buck's not stopping with him. He's not the one making the final decision. We've seen it as we've walked through this book so far. When Paul is in the role where he needs to lead, he leads. But when his role is to follow, he follows.

When your role is to lead, then you lead. Whether you're anxious or insecure or whatever, if that's your role, that's what you do. But when your role is to follow, then you follow even if you could do it better yourself. That's what we're gonna talk about this morning. Who's excited for a sermon about following?

Yay. Alright. Well, then let's do it. Let's start at Acts 21, and and we'll dig into this. Let me show you what I mean.

And while you're turning there, by the way, Acts 21 17, I wanna take a couple minutes, just fill us all in on the stuff that that Luke's first readers would have, just understood about the story because they had just lived through it. Paul is coming to Jerusalem around the year 57 AD. This is one of the most politically volatile years in Jerusalem's history. There's been a string of just awful governors in charge. These are guys who are so anti Jewish and so incompetent that they couldn't have gotten the population more angry if they had tried.

It's like they were intentionally trying to get people to revolt. They were so bad and so offensive. In chapter 20 23, we're gonna meet the current governor. His name is Felix. At this point in chapter 21, he's been in charge for about 5 years.

He's a year or 2 away from being recalled by the emperor for doing just a horrible job and inciting people. So the the national mood is trending towards anger, and if if they had triggers, they would be trigger happy. See, these little insurrections keep popping up against Roman rule and against Felix in particular, and he is just brutally suppressing them all. His MO is when he hears of 1 guy standing up, he's like, okay, let's find that guy, let's kill him, his family, his friends, anybody he went to high school with, anybody he might have bought fruit from, you know, in the shops, whatever, like, just kill them all and stamp it out. There's just been thousands of innocents massacred.

And that has led to a lot of anti gentile sentiments. You know, frustrations directed at Rome have turned into animosity towards anyone who isn't completely Jewish through and through, totally loyal, completely pure. Right? It's Israel first. Zero tolerance for anyone who sees the situation with any sort of nuance, because nuance is compromise, compromise is treason.

And here comes Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, walking into town with 8 gentile followers of Jesus behind him, carrying a bag of money that he says is an offering, but looks suspiciously like a bribe if you're living in such a virulently anti gentile state of mind. So look at verse 17. When we had come to Jerusalem, this is Luke talking, narrating the arrival of Paul, Luke himself, their 7 companions. When we come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. And I wish the ESV hadn't put a paragraph break right here because along with a number of other interpreters, I think that verse 17 actually goes with the story before it with verse 16.

See, Paul and his company had come down to Jerusalem. They'd been direct directed to stay in the house of a a guy named, Nason. He'd been a follower of Jesus almost since the beginning. And when they arrived, Nason and his household, I think that's the brothers of verse 17, welcome him warmly. But verse 18 is the next day, and it's a different group.

Paul and his company go to see James, the guy who's in charge of the church in Jerusalem, James and the elders representing the whole of the church in Jerusalem. See, Paul's been gone almost 5 years, and he's back for a performance review and to submit a report. Hey. Here's what's going on in the churches out in that part of the world that no loyal Jew wants anything to do with right now. So as glad as the leaders in Jerusalem may have been to see Paul, like, man, it's so good to see you again.

It's been, like, almost 5 years. Did you have to show up right now? It puts him in a little bit of a tough situation because they fully support what Paul has been doing, his witness to the Gentiles. They commissioned him to it. It's almost 10 years ago in chapter 15 where we saw that.

Back then and still today, they are completely behind him. They want him to succeed even though James, Peter, they have a a harder time than Paul does seeing how do Jews and Gentiles really come together in in one church. How do they get along when when we've always been separate? Even back in chapter 15, what they came up with was a little kind of a compromise position. It was, okay.

Hey, Paul, why don't you and Barnabas, like, you guys go to the Gentiles. We'll minister to the Jews. Like, we're both following Jesus, let's just not get in each other's way. Okay? You go just go that direction, we'll go we'll go this direction.

And we watched in these intervening chapters as Peter and James, they they kept tending towards, you know, when you have one group that sees things 1, you know, one specific way, and so they want things done one way, and then you have another group that sees things another way, and so they want things done that way. And you're looking at these 2 groups, you're like, how will they ever agree together and come together? Like, the temptation is always to say, well, then let's just do 2. Right? Let's just split them up.

And that's the direction that Peter and James have kept tending to go, but Paul wouldn't tolerate that kind of superficial unity. He wasn't okay with Jews and Gentiles worshiping apart. Okay, Jews. Why don't you guys worship on the Sabbath in your way, and Gentiles, you can you can worship on Sunday kind of in your way, and as as long as you guys stay apart, you won't offend each other. He was preaching passionately about unity in the church, about laying down preferences for one another.

Like, don't think so highly of yourself that you demonize everyone who disagrees with you. And he kept teaching his churches to think deeply, to think theologically. What does new life in Jesus really require of us? If we both come to him together by faith, how does that bring us together? So all this talk of of unity, the nuanced way he talked about the law and following the law, the way Paul kept beating the drum of of Jews and Gentiles coming together, well, rumors are circulating.

Rumors about Paul, rumors that are rumors about Paul in Jerusalem that are making it hard for James and the other elders of the church in in Jerusalem to talk to Jews who don't follow Jesus yet. Going and talking to somebody who doesn't follow Jesus, they're like, wait, are you with that group that Paul's with, that guy that I keep hearing about, how he's telling, you know, he he's he's, like, ignoring everything about what it means to be Jewish? Why would I wanna be part of that? But it's not just non believers. Even Jews who are followers of Jesus in Jerusalem are suspicious of Paul based on the strange reports they're hearing from out there among the gentiles.

So check out how the conversation plays out. It it picks up in verse 19. So after greeting them, after Paul greets James and the elders, he related 1 by 1 the things that God had done, done among the Gentiles through his ministry. And when they heard it, they they glorified God. Paul gives this this report 1 by 1.

It's like a comprehensive accounting. Gives this report of everything that happened, you know, out there among the Gentiles, Gentile territory. Talked about his travels and the cities he visited and the people who came to faith and the congregations that were established, the contacts he made, the opponents who rose up. He talked about Jews and Gentiles both coming to faith in the Jewish Messiah, in Jesus, and building a new family together. You know, he talked about the riots and the imprisonments, and the changes of plan.

I was gonna do this, and then I had to do that, and then I found out about this plot, and then we had to go this direction. Talked about being betrayed by churches he'd planted, spending time in jail in different cities, but the whole time his focus is on on the church, Jews and Gentiles together because of the gospel. He's talking about how how Jesus broke down the wall that divided Jews and Gentiles from each other, how Jesus was actively building a new family out of former enemies. And their response, they glorified God. I mean, of course, how could you not?

We've been going through these stories over the last couple of months. It's like, how could you not glorify God after hearing a report like that, But at the same time, it's also made him a little insecure, a little nervous. All of those feelings come through in what's written in in verse 20. When they heard it, they glorified God and they said to him, you see brother how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, which is it kinda has this, you know, well, lots of cool things are happening here too vibe to it. So, like, when your your friend leaves a job where you guys have worked together for years, you know, goes to a new company, and then you get lunch together, and you're like, how's it going?

Everybody's like, oh, my. My new boss is awesome. This company is doing so many great things, and it's so cool how we're doing this and we're doing that, and you're, like, yeah, I mean, we're doing cool things too. Because they're saying that is great, and, honestly, it's great what's happening out there. And great things are happening here too.

1,000 more are coming to faith in Jesus. It's like it's not a competition, but there's a little bit of insecurity and nervousness in their voices because look at the rest of verse 20. It's like, yeah. Hey. You can see here too, brother, how how many thousands have come from among the Jews and have come to believe, and they are all zealous for the law.

And they've been told about you. That we don't know who told them what, but, well, we know what, but we don't know who told them. So they've been told about you. They're a little bit afraid of the phantom mob. You know, lots of people out there, an undetermined number of people that we're we're not exactly sure who, but there's a lot of people out there who think this.

They've been told that everywhere you go, you teach all the Jews who live out there among Gentiles that they they can just walk away from Moses. None of that matters anymore. Don't bother circumcising your kids. You don't have to walk according to the customs of what it's meant to be us for millennia. Now they're they're false rumors.

Paul's never told any Jew no matter where they live that they should become Gentiles, but, also, you can kinda see how those rumors might start. Paul's constantly telling Jews, you are free from the law. The Messiah has kept the law for you, and you're no longer bound by it. You're free. And someone might ask, he's like, oh, okay.

Well, but if the law is fulfilled, do I still follow it? And Paul is saying, well, yes and no. Right? You're free from it and it no longer binds you, but now you follow a higher law, the the law of Messiah Jesus. And you're like, okay.

Thank you, Paul, for that very clear answer. But how? How do I live it out? Right? If I'm a Jew, am I just not Jewish anymore because I follow the Jewish messiah?

Like, how does that work? And these are highly nuanced, deeply theological discussions. Paul wrote letter after letter after letter laying this out, and these are letters that take us years to preach through because they're so dense. Having these conversations requires an ability to think through, think in-depth the the rule of the law, the promise of Messiah, the character of the church, and on and on. But remember, these are highly inflamed political times.

How much appetite for nuance do you think there is? No. None. Nuance is compromise. Compromise is treason.

So they ask a good rhetorical question. What are we supposed to do? So what do we do with this? What then is to be done as verse 22 says? And I kinda imagine Paul standing there saying, well, you could tell them I don't, but that's not what they have in mind.

They're already worried that people aren't going to listen to what they say, so instead, maybe they'll pay attention to what we do. If people won't listen to your words, they'll see your actions. Verse 23 lays out the plan. Verse 22, what so what what can be done? They're going to hear that you came.

Verse 23. So do therefore what we tell you. Now it's not quite a command, but he's definitely being voluntold. Like, this this is what you're in for. So do, therefore, what we tell you.

We've got 4 men here who are under a vow. We want you to take these men, purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses, you know, so they can then shave their heads and and restart the vow that they had apparently broken. This way, everyone will know that there's nothing in what they've been told about you. They'll be able to see with their own eyes that you live in observance of the law. Now we don't know if, you know, if Paul had planned to go into the temple complex to worship or participate in any of the worship there.

I mean, most likely he was planning on worshiping with the churches. It's not that Paul was opposed to worshiping in the temple. I mean, after all, that's exactly the place where you would want to go to preach the coming of the Jewish Messiah is in the Jewish temple where God meets with his people. We saw that in the early chapters of Acts happening over and over. But if Paul's going to go into the temple, he has to go through a rite of ritual purification.

Anyone who travels in Gentile territory is considered unclean, and before you're allowed in the temple, you gotta go through this week long ceremony, which is perfect timing. It's gonna coincide with these 4 other guys who are under a vow. From what we can gather, it seems like they must have somehow violated that vow, so they need they too needed to go through a week long and a purification ritual, different reason than Paul, but also a week long, and then they could shave their heads and reengage with the the commitment that they'd made. So they have this brilliant idea. Well, Paul, if you go in with them and if you even like, everybody can see you're the one paying for the couple of pigeons it would cost for each of them, well, then, of course, everyone is going to see that that you're an observant Jew, you follow Torah, there's nothing to the rumors.

Right. If only it would have worked. Now, we don't get to find out what happens until next year, because Advent starts next week, and we're stepping out of acts for a couple of weeks. But spoiler alert, it doesn't work. People see Paul in the temple and they immediately come to the exact opposite conclusion than the one that the leaders were hoping for, which reminded me of something, I heard a character say in a kids TV show my daughter and I were watching a while ago.

Proof is useless unless it's proof for something people already wanna believe. Well, we'll get back to that next year, but today, the the leaders have a plan. A plan that's designed to show that Paul is not trying to make Jews into Gentiles, which is reasonable, they're quick to point out, because they're also not trying to make Gentiles into Jews. In in verse 25, they they remind Paul. Verse 25, but as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter.

They remind Paul of this letter. They've already had this discussion back in chapter 15. They've already come to a decision. They've already sent a letter. Gentiles who become followers of Jesus don't have to become Jewish, but they do have to set aside parts of their former life that are antithetical to worshiping the God of Israel.

They have to stay away from sexual immorality. They have to stay away from eating meat that's been sacrificed to idols. And when they bring up the letter again, I don't think that Paul, like, visibly rolled his eyes, but I do think he was feeling a bit of, like, the letter again, because he's the one who had taken the letter to the churches and reported on how it was received, but that letter is 10 years old, and it was a it was a stop gap. It was a compromise position. It was a, here's how we need to behave around each other so we don't offend each other while we're figuring out how to live together in this thing we call church.

And Paul spent a decade teaching the churches to think much more deeply than just how do we keep from offending each other. He hasn't compromised on immorality, not in the slightest, but meat sacrificed to idols is just meat. If idols don't exist, if they're not if they're not anything, then meat sacrificed to idols isn't anything. The only thing that makes it a problem is if it's so emotionally tied for you to your old way of life that you're like, I just can't do this. Then don't.

Now Paul would never say, okay, it's fine to go into the pagan temple and eat the meat and worship a pagan idol, for sure, but if you need to pick up some roast on your way home and the only thing there is the stuff was butchered in the temple because that's also where the butchering is done, like, it's just meat. But he doesn't bring that up. It's not the point of the story. He doesn't speak up or try to put them right or split off and start his own denomination or anything, because Paul's not leading right now. He's following.

When your role is to lead, you lead, but when your role is to follow, then you follow. Whether Paul thought the plan would work or not, whether he thought it was a good idea or not, he he went through with it. Whether he was comfortable with kind of the political posturing of of demonstrating out there, like, oh, yeah, this, you know, I'm performing this vow purification for the sake of people seeing me and believing something about me. Knowing Paul, I would guess he would have preferred to have a more in-depth discussion and dialogue about the issues and maybe had a chance to teach about it and talk about it for a while, but it's not the climate they're in, and that's not what the guys in charge wanted to do. So he went along with it.

And how it all plays out, again, we'll we'll we'll figure that out next year. But in the meantime, of course, we have to wonder how a story like this works itself into in our lives, as a church even individually. You know, we've said as we've been going through the book of Acts that Acts is the origin story of the church. This is the beginning of this thing that we're doing right now, you know, 2000 years later. This is what the church is like.

And in our day, in our culture, it's not all that popular to talk about following. Oh, everybody wants to talk about leading. No one wants to talk about following. So I'm gonna ask us just one to to ponder just one question because I I think I mean, if you guys are like me, you struggle to follow leaders you disagree with. Right?

If you're living at home, it's your parents. They say do this. You say, why in the world would I do that? And the next thing you know, people are stomping to rooms and doors are slamming, and we're eating leftovers. Right?

Or at work, it's your boss. You know, she's telling you to stop working on the project that you just loved, you know, or put more effort into this part of the business that just drains you, or you're watching and he's just making one bad decision after another after another, or telling you, hey. You've got less time and less resources, but you gotta get more done. Yay. We could game this out in all sorts of parts of life.

Like, we're all submitting to coaches and teachers and spouses and churches and governments and bosses, but we live in an epidemic of I could do it better. When was the last time you got together with friends and started complaining about your bosses, and somebody said, yeah, my boss is the worst. He's a human being who's trying his best. He's anxious about his leadership. He's insecure about whether or not he has what it takes, and he keeps making mistakes.

I hate him. No. We're, like, he's a jerk, and I would do it better. So, anyway, show of hands, and this is not rhetorical. I mean it.

Raise your hands if you struggle to follow leaders you disagree with. Some of you are real eager to put your hands in the air. Show, how about show of hands if you would rather be the bad leader than submit to a bad leader? Okay. There's there's fewer of us.

There's hope. You know, if your role is to lead, even if you're unsure and anxious, then lead. But if your role is to follow, then even if you think you could do it better, follow. That is not popular to say. Man, I'm glad we're almost done.

It's funny, isn't it, how we call ourselves followers of Jesus, but most of us suck at following? My like, I'm the worst. Okay? I'm publicly admitting I'm really bad at following. I'm the one who said I'd rather be the bad leader.

Right? It's like it's easy enough we tell ourselves, it's easy to follow Jesus. He's perfect. Everyone else, I could do it better. It's so easy to say I follow Jesus, but I'm only gonna follow the authority Jesus put over me if they're also following Jesus and if they're also making all the decisions the way I think they should make them.

Right? I'm not just talking about church, teachers, bosses, parents, all the rest. This applies everywhere. You know, if it weren't for the fact that God can use even flawed human leaders who are anxious and make mistakes, and he can use them for his glory? If it weren't for that fact, we would have to take over ourselves, wouldn't we?

If God couldn't lead, then I guess I'm the next best thing, and I'm gonna have to be the one who does it. But God can, and he will use even an unwise, poorly planned political posturing that that James and the elders put Paul through to get Paul to Rome. 2 years later than Paul wanted to be there, but he got there, and he'll have opportunities to preach the gospel along the way that he would have never had if he'd gone on his own. But again, we'll we'll see how that all works itself out next year, right now. If your role is to lead, then lead.

If your role is to follow, then follow. Now I'm kinda wondering in a group like this, like, how some of you are hearing what I'm saying, because I'm guessing a lot of it has to do with the kind of leaders you've experienced in the past. If you've served under pretty great leaders, you've had good parents, good coaches, good bosses, you're like, yeah, of course. This makes sense. Like, leaders are doing the best they can.

If you've been in church context, unfortunately, where you've been under manipulative leaders, who've tried to use things like this to get you to do what they want you to do, then you're hearing what I'm saying and you're like, oh, no. It's another place where they're trying to get us to stop asking questions. If you served under bad leaders who are just incompetent, then you're going, yeah, but what about when? And I think 90% of the questions that I'll hear after this sermon are are gonna start with those three words. What about when?

But again, that's not the point of this passage. There's lots lots to say from other parts of scripture about leaders, about good leadership, bad leadership, when we submit to bad leaders, how we we don't necessarily the scriptural way of dealing with it is not calling for their heads, it's calling for their hearts. It's saying could could you come back to good leadership instead of just saying we need to get rid of you and put ourselves in charge, but that's another sermon for another day. Right now, this passage, at least, is showing, man, when your role is to lead, lead. Even if you're anxious and insecure and when your role is to follow, follow.

Even when you know you could do it better yourself, because that's all part of all of us following Jesus together. Let's pray. I think we need some help. Father, coming to a story like this from a cultural situation 2000 years later where all of us are just default assumption is bad leaders should be replaced. It's challenging to see once again the repeated through line in scripture that leaders are to be submitted to.

Even preaching a message like this as a leader on a stage is is intimidating because it could be misunderstood and misrepresented. Even as each of us up here is trying to follow you, there are leaders over us that we are required to submit to. Father, leading is tough and following is sometimes even tougher. So we pray for the grace that we need to follow well, trusting that even as we follow flawed human beings, we know that ultimately you will use even our failures for your glory, and that we can trust that whatever happens and whatever decisions are made and whatever direction things go here, at home, in the world around us, in our workplaces, and in our schools, you can and will be glorified, and help us be part of giving you that glory. We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.