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 faithchurchindy.com. Now here's the teaching. Good morning. I am Jeff Schultz, one of the pastors here at Faith.

Glad that you are all here with us today in worship. We're continuing our journey in the book of Acts. We have been at this for almost two years, and we have almost come to the end. The end of this journey is in sight. We're heading into a section now that is a little different.

It's a lot more narrative. There's less preaching. And in fact, that's kinda what we're gonna see here today. But this remind remember is the story of God's work by his spirit through his people, a story that we're still a part of because God is still working by his spirit through his people to make Jesus known. Have you anyone here had kind of a brush with fame, an opportunity to maybe meet a famous person, go to like a big impressive dinner or palace or important some some are nodding their heads.

College, our choir was on a tour on spring break. We were singing at the Opryland Resort in Nashville. I looked up the stats because I couldn't remember. 2,000 rooms. I do remember there's a gigantic atrium area in the center completely enclosed with a three and a half story waterfall and, something like eight or 10,000 tropical plants inside.

Pretty impressive for a kid who grew up mostly in a city of about 20,000 in Nowhere, Oklahoma. My friends and I are in the elevator, heading up, to observe, you know, kind of the atrium from another vantage point. The doors open, and Tony Bennett steps into the elevator with us. Now for those of you who are a little younger, Tony Bennett was, for many years, a popular singer jazz and kind of American classic singer. And when I say he stepped into the elevator, he really kind of more stumbled into the elevator.

He sort of went like this and pulled out a key, and he was looking at it like this, and turned to me and said, can you help me find this room? And, it was an interesting perspective on fame and fortune, because you don't normally think of famous important people that way. I mean, here's this glamorous hotel and this person who, has won 20 Grammys, sold 50,000,000 records, was a Kennedy Center honoree. And, behind the scenes, he's just a guy. Right?

A guy who'd had maybe a few too many adult beverages in the hotel bar and was just trying to find his room in a confusingly large hotel. And I don't share that story as a criticism of Tony Bennett. I mean, I'm thankful there's no video evidence of what I was like in college at that point. But there's something about seeing behind the scenes that helps us put things in perspective. The king and the governor in this story look impressive.

They look important. They they look powerful. But I think part of what's going on here in this passage for us is Luke is giving us a look behind the scenes, not only to see what they're like, but to help us in contrast, see what really is important and what really is powerful, and also how God might be at work in those places and in those situations. So, a quick review for us, remind us kinda where we are in the story. After surviving this riot and an assassination attempt in Jerusalem, Paul was hauled off by the Romans to their regional capital in Caesarea where he sat in prison for two years because the previous governor, Felix, kind of, you know, had his hand out behind him looking for a little bribe to let Paul out of prison.

And when Paul didn't play along, Felix just let him stay there. A new governor, Festus, has reopened Paul's case. And remember in the last passage, there were these accusers from Jerusalem who came and were lodging all these, you know, slanderous accounts of what Paul had done. And, Festus asked, are you willing to go to Jerusalem and be tried there? And Paul, knowing that that's just kind of a pretext for the Jews to kill him, says, no.

I appeal to Caesar. So, that's kind of where we left things. What's interesting though is, the last section that we had where Paul is on trial is an interesting kind of different look at the apostle Paul. I I don't think Paul, even as godly as he was, as wise, as a mature apostle as he was, was too holy to experience frustration. In the last passage, I think Paul is kind of fed up with all of this rigmarole, two years in prison, and and now he's being asked to go back to Jerusalem and put his life in danger.

And, he appeals to Caesar. And and I think his appeal is based in trust in Jesus' promise who has said, you will go to Rome. But he left a lot of things unsaid. Right? If if you just kinda glance back up at that passage, he gets a little spicy.

He accuses the governor of being, a partisan and demands to see the emperor, and and I don't think that any of that was necessarily sinful, but it's not exactly like the bold focus on Jesus that we've kinda come to expect from Paul. Right? And in today's passage, Paul is totally absent. In fact, there are no believers present in this passage at all. Instead, we have a group of unbelievers, people who on the surface look impressive and powerful and and important, and and yet I think Luke is inviting us to see what's really happening behind the scenes, to see beyond what looks important, to see behind what looks powerful and impressive, and to encourage us to trust that God is working in ways that we don't know about.

So if you haven't already, turn in your bibles or open your Acts scripture journals to, Acts 25, and we're starting in verse 13. Paul has appealed to Caesar. Remember? So that means he's gonna be sent off to Rome. And Festus has agreed to that, but there's a gap now, in in verse 12 when some days had passed after making his appeal.

And and it's a gap of some indeterminate length that I think for Festus at least is about one thing. He's consumed with this question. What in the world am I gonna do with this guy? I cannot just ship a prisoner to the emperor without saying anything. Right?

Like, you can't just show up in Rome with a tag saying to Nero and nothing else. You can picture Festus, you know, probably like going to his desk and sitting down. He's gonna write a letter, and he's just sitting there staring at a blank page. Kind of like I do some weeks trying to prepare a sermon. Like, help me get this thing started.

I don't think Festus has any idea of what to do with this guy, how to proceed with the case. So the the letter is probably sitting there, maybe partially written, like on the unfinished honeydew list, like a number of my projects at home. And then a lucky break happens. Visitors show up. Look in verse 13.

When some days had passed, Agrippa the king and Bernice arrive at Caesarea and greet Festus. I love when visitors show up when I'm supposed to be working on a project that I don't really wanna do. I have been saved so many times that way. So thank you all for whenever you drop by or call or text or email. You guys have bailed me out of a lot of projects.

And that's what Festus needs here too. Agrippa shows up. Who is Agrippa? He is a client king who actually grew up in Rome, and his kingdom is up kind of to the North and the East of Judea. And so he's showing up to perform kind of a political courtesy to introduce himself to the new governor.

He's a guy who knows his way among both Jews and Romans. So Festus is glad to have someone who has some understanding. But it's important to know he's not just generally knowledgeable about what's going on. His full name is Herod Agrippa the second. This is another Herod.

In fact, this Herod Agrippa the second is the son of the Herod who killed the Apostle James about 13 chapters earlier in the story. And Bernice comes with him. Who is Bernice, you ask? You may have assumed this was Agrippa's queen, and that's exactly what Agrippa wants you to think. It's actually his sister, but there's more than that going on.

She and Agrippa were close, weirdly close according to, ancient accounts, if you catch my drift. She'd already been married twice. Her first husband died. She left her second husband to go run be with her brother, and later, she's gonna go on to marry two successive emperors. It's just a strange kind of scandalous group of pagans.

They're rich. They're powerful. They certainly don't strike us as particularly religious. This is not what we would call, you know, fertile ground for people hearing the good news of Jesus. Right?

It's more like a soap opera, the Judeans. But Festus takes advantage of kind of this mess that has walked into his hall to talk about the issue on his mind. That's in verses 14 to 18. Festus laid Paul's case before the king. There's a man left prisoner by Felix.

And when I was at Jerusalem, the chief elders and, the Jews laid out their case against him asking for a sentence of condemnation. And he goes on to explain, you know, I I'm not gonna do that. Verse 18, when these accusers stood up, they brought no charge in his case of such evils as I had supposed. It's really interesting. Festus sounds so sure of himself at the hearing, right, just up in the first part of the chapter.

But now he's admitting to Agrippa that, honestly, he he really doesn't know what to do here. This is just odd. I thought maybe it was gonna be a criminal case or or even a political case. I don't even know what these guys are talking about. It's all just a bunch of religious stuff.

So what were they talking about when they were talking about Paul, these accusers? Look in verse 19. This is really kind of key. Rather, they had certain points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus who was dead, but whom Paul asserted to be alive. Wait a minute.

Look back up at the beginning of the chapter. Did we miss something? I don't remember Paul saying that. Paul doesn't even talk about Jesus in in that first section at this trial. Did did something happen that we missed?

Festus somehow has figured out what the heart of the issue is, not disputes about doctrine, but the question of the resurrection of Jesus. He's discerned somehow that this is the main thing, that some guy named Jesus was put to death by one of my predecessors twenty or so years ago, and now Paul is claiming that this guy is alive. That's the heart of it. And yet Paul did not say that to Festus. Somehow, Festus has picked this up from maybe all the nonsense and the accusations that that Paul's accusers are throwing out.

I mean, do you see the picture? Paul was standing there too exasperated by this whole situation to even mention the gospel, and yet Festus is able to sift through all the slanderous accusations and pinpoint the main issue. Festus is not a believer, but he's just articulated the heart of the gospel, of the Christian message. Because the heart of Christianity is not just affirming a list of certain things that you agree with. It's not about a philosophy of life.

It's it's not a code of moral behavior. I mean, all those things are part of Christianity, but the heart of it, the real issue is whether or not Jesus is alive. And if he's not alive, then none of the rest of it matters. Who cares about the doctrines and the moral code and the philosophy of life? But if he's alive, it's the most important, earth shattering, life changing news that anyone can hear.

Any weirdo on the street with a megaphone can give you a philosophy of life. Right? You can probably go downtown and hear any number of them for free. The unique thing about Paul is that he not only really believes that this guy, Jesus, is alive. He's actually sane and credible and respectable.

And Festus has to admit, I don't know what to do with this. Verse 20. So being at a loss, how to investigate these questions, I asked whether he wanted to go Jerusalem and be tried regarding them. But when Paul had appealed to be kept in custody for the decision of the emperor, I ordered him to be held until I could send him to Caesar. The central thing that we Christians proclaim that Christian faith is about, they're they're not gonna be determined in a Roman court of law.

They're outrageous. They're they're almost unbelievable. They're earth shattering. It'd be crazy if it weren't actually true. And Festus is wrestling here with some truly important life changing claims.

At this point, it's about more than a letter to Caesar. Right? Why is this one claim that Paul is making that Jesus is actually alive? Why is it so important that he's willing to sit in prison for two years and then even be sent to Nero for? It doesn't make any sense.

So Festus has laid out the case. He he wants to get some advice from Agrippa, and Agrippa knows not just the area, but probably even a bit of the backstory that isn't aware of. Because if he knows his family history at all, it's Agrippa's great grandfather who tried to kill Jesus as an infant. His great uncle killed John the Baptist. His father killed the apostle James.

You'd expect this guy to have a pretty clear opinion. What are you worried about? Cut the guy's head off and let's go have dinner. Right? This guy's obviously a nut.

What does Agrippa actually say? Look in verse 22. I would like to hear the man myself. What? If you've traveled to another city, you know, you've gone off on kind of a vacation, you're staying in a luxury hotel, you're being treated like royalty.

Are Are you gonna spend one of the days of your vacation listening to some imprisoned street preacher talk about some religious belief? It makes no sense. It's it's the most bizarre kind of response. And yet here's Agrippa asking to see Paul, not only as, like, kind of just a curiosity, but to actually hear him as a messenger. I want to hear what he has to say.

Somehow, Agrippa's curiosity has been peed. Maybe there's something in this rumor about resurrection that Agrippa suspects might have something to say to his life. Because in quiet moments, he knows that he's has to know that he's a pretty messed up guy. I mean, he's a pretty serious sinner, even by Roman standards. And yet, maybe, maybe, maybe there's some good news here for him.

Do you see what's happening here? One unbeliever is telling another unbeliever, hey, I heard something from this other group of unbelievers about Jesus being alive. And this godless son of persecutors says, I'd like to hear more about that. Last part in verses 22 to 27. Tomorrow, he says, you'll hear him.

So the next day, Agrippa and Bernice come out with with great pomp, and they enter the audience hall with the military tribunes, the the the big leaders, the prominent men of the city. And then at the command of Festus, Paul is brought in. And Festus said, king Agrippa and all who are it's just, you know, impressive speech. I've tried to do justice. I I'm so glad that we have this opportunity to to execute Roman justice and and show how noble we are, but but I have nothing to write to Caesar about him.

So I brought him before you all, especially before you, king Agrippa, so that we can examine him, and I will have something to write because we believe in justice as Romans. Now I'm I'm gonna end the passage here on, you know, a little bit of a cliffhanger before Paul gets an opportunity to speak. First of all, because it, you know, ends the chapter, so of course we have to stop there. Right? But also because I I really want us to focus on what God is doing and what's happening before Paul even says a word.

Paul is not the point of this passage. Even at the hearing in in the first part of the chapter from a couple of weeks ago, Paul didn't have a lot to say. He left more unsaid than said. His last public hearing feels almost like a kind of a lost opportunity. Like, Paul, you you were right there.

What do we take from all this? What does it have to do with us? A few observations and maybe some encouragement. One, I think Luke is telling us don't trust too much in human justice. Don't put too much trust in human justice.

Festus knows that Paul has done nothing wrong. He knows he's not guilty. He knows he's certainly not deserving of death. And and he goes to great lengths, you know, all these speeches and declarations and about how he's going to execute justice and and minister justice and how he needs to write a letter to Caesar. And but also at the beginning of the chapter, you know, this whole thing was set up in verse nine because he wanted to do the Jews a favor.

I know the right thing to do, but there's also this political reality that I'm trying to navigate through. I wanna please important people. It's just a reminder that we can't always rely on human leaders or courts for justice. But God is always at work. God is at work.

Even through human politics, even in the middle of all the machinations in the backroom, maneuvering all the all the political pressure. Don't put too much hope in human justice. We are called to be people of justice. People who do what is right and seek what is right for others. But Paul's appeal to Caesar is not based on this expectation that Caesar's gonna give him justice, like Nero's gonna hear what he has to say and free him.

I don't know. Nero's just a convenient way to get him to roam. But Paul has hope that God is at work even when humans don't do justice. Don't put too much hope in human justice even as we seek it and advance it and try and reflect it. Don't be too impressed with human glory either.

I mean, we live in a world that loves to make a lot of itself. Right? Spectacle and lights and noise and entertainment. Festus is eager to look good to Agrippa and and to Caesar and, you know, this whole parade of notables. And Agrippa and Bernice walk in with all this pomp and ceremony and but just to look a little look beneath the surface, and things are not really all that impressive.

These are not very glorious, impressive people at the end of the day. And and all their noise and and their pride and the the gold and the glory and all of it is fading. I mean, there is an amazingly beautiful irony here that none of us would know who these people are if it weren't for the guy sitting in the prison cell and the savior that he represents. Rome passes off the scene. It looks impressive, but it doesn't last.

And and ironically, there's something about this little scrap of the gospel, the hope of Jesus that Festus has heard that sparks a curiosity in him. Religious debates, you know, he'd take it or leave it. But here's Paul, an obviously sane, competent, wise, respectable person who believes a dead man came to life and has given his life to that person and that message and doesn't care about glory or power or wealth and isn't intimidated. Even the rich and the powerful are attracted by someone who is clear and convicted and a person of character. It's a reminder that Jesus' glory that we sometimes struggle to see in ourselves and in others will will outlast the the the noise and the and the attraction and the shininess of this world because it has outlasted it.

Don't be too threatened by human power either. Don't be too intimidated or threatened by human power. I mean, it's it's almost kind of funny in a way that the king and the governor think that they have the authority to determine the outcome of Paul's life. Right? Festus is concerned about how he's going to appear to Caesar.

He has to worry about making himself look good to his boss. And and Agrippa is is a king, but he's only a client of Rome. And his throne and his power depend on pleasing Caesar, and and yet that Caesar's gonna die, and another one's gonna take his place, and eventually the whole line dies out, and Rome disappears, and almost no one speaks Latin anymore. Don't be too impressed with worldly power when when governments try to flex their muscles to look big. And, you know, it's almost like you get the picture of, like, a rooster or something, like, puffing itself up to to look big to a to a predator.

It's often a sign of weakness, of of feeling threatened, of insecurity. Paul knows that he is truly and ultimately in Jesus' hands, and he is safe there. And that gives him confidence. It gives him a boldness even in his imprisonment, that we can trust in Jesus' power in a way that brings freedom and peace. Ultimately, I think the the message here is we can trust Jesus because he is our hope.

He's our security, and he's at work by his spirit behind the scenes in ways that we don't even know, even when we're off the scene. That's amazingly encouraging. Paul hasn't done a thing to win these listeners over, and yet interest in the gospel is growing in spite of him. How is that possible? How do you explain it?

How does Paul, in a sense, succeed without really trying? Because the answer we've seen over and over again is that Paul is not the hero of the story. Paul is not the point of this. This book is not really the acts of the apostles. It's the acts of the spirit through God's church.

The Holy Spirit is working and store spreading the story of the resurrection, and and he's using even God's enemies to get the job done. The last time Paul was in this audience hall, you know, it I don't know if you call it a fiasco, but it was not exactly a big success. The gospel is spreading faster than dandelions in our yards at this time of year. I mean, it's incredible. And in the next section, Paul is going to walk into a room of people, of unbelievers who are eager to hear what he has to say about Jesus.

That is just mind blowing and encouraging. Is he is he gonna take advantage of that opportunity? We don't know for sure what kind of success happens, but how else do we have a record of this meeting between the king and the governor? Some point moved by this message of Jesus and came to share it with Luke who recorded it as a reminder and encouragement that God was working behind the scenes when Paul wasn't even present. Paul didn't talk about Jesus and the kingdom grew anyway.

All that's to say is that, man, maybe we can get too wound up worrying over, I've gotta have the right words. I gotta have the right answers. I gotta be able to give an answer for every objection. And and maybe also just the reminder that sometimes we get too impressed with people who look impressive. We maybe we get too scared because, oh, they're big and powerful and rich and impressive.

And I think God gives us this look behind the scenes to encourage us. Don't be too impressed by the glory of this world. Don't be frightened by the power of this world. Don't even put a lot of hope in the justice of this world. Trust in Jesus to be at work because he is.

We gather here and worship week after week. Maybe we go to bible studies. We struggle to have devotional times. We show up at our jobs. We we try to love our families and our neighbors.

We we serve and we give. Is any of it making a difference? Is God doing anything with it? A lot of the times we don't we don't get to see the fruit of it. And maybe we won't see the fruit of it, the results of it for decades or generations, or maybe not into eternity, will we get to know what God has done with it.

Some weeks, I wonder if my preaching has done anything useful. Sometimes I worry about what I said or what I left unsaid, or there's there's visitors here. And what if this is my one chance to to share with them the hope that they need to hear? Yeah. Absolutely.

God works through us and the gospel only goes out when we open our mouths and and speak. But I'm not the main character in the story. You're not the main character in the story. That's good news. That actually frees us.

It it encourages us because Festus has this very limited picture of what the gospel is even about, and and it's all confusing. He doesn't even know what to make sense of it, and yet it makes Festus wanna hear more. It makes a grip on to hear more. And what that tells me is God is at work, and people are hungry, hungry for a hope that that only the gospel can give. Hungry so much so that that they will sometimes leap after even the tiniest scrap of hope that we can offer them in Jesus.

Why else would someone like Agrippa, the the biggest most shameless sinner in the room, wanna hear a message from a weird old church planting dude? Why else would a would a politician like Festus care? Because the Holy Spirit is active and he's working even through God's enemies, even through injustice, even through slander and malice, the Holy Spirit is creating hunger in people's hearts because we were made by God to know him. And our hearts are restless until we find our rest in Him. And that restlessness is an opportunity to speak hope into people's lives.

The gospel is bigger than you and me, and we don't most of the time have any idea what he's doing, but stirring hunger in people. Can you believe that? Do you believe the spirit is going out even beyond us to spread hunger in people's hearts? That God's kingdom will not only prevail over darkness, but the light will shine even brighter in the darkness because of it. Because the true king that this story is about is bigger and better than than us or any kings in this world or any challenges that we face.

He is at work, so we can trust Him as He works through us. Let me pray for us. Oh, heavenly father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the testimony of this story, that father, we can see times when when maybe we've messed up or blown opportunities, or we don't say enough or we say the wrong words, and and yet we can still trust that you're at work, that you give second chances when when we're maybe too easily awed or scared by what seems impressive or important or powerful in this world. Father, we believe that you're at work, and we thank you for the way that your spirit works and the way that we've seen him work in our own lives and through us.

Father, help us to trust that you are at work and trust that people are hungry for the hope of Jesus and to believe that you are present and that you work in us and through us. And thank you, father, that that it's not even so much our words, but the spirit who is at work. So may your word be at work through us by your spirit in us and through us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.