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. Alright. Good morning, everyone.

My name's Joey. Feels good to be here. My wife and I were gone the last two Sundays, the week in between. We were at a gathering for pastors in our denomination, which was awesome, but it feels great to be back. And I'm excited to jump back into acts with you because, like, this these are the scenes where, like, action is happening.

If this is one of your first times with us, and you haven't been following along with us for the last two years that we've been going through this book, we've been taking our time to walk through the book of Acts, the origin story of the church. Right? That's what we're doing right now. And this is how it all started all these years ago. And and Luke is recounting this story for us to show us how God had been working, has been working, continues to work in the church and in the history of the church.

Now last week, pastor Jeff walked us through this wild midnight ride that Paul was taken on to, escape a plot against his life. Right? There's this escort. Hundreds of soldiers took Paul north from Jerusalem Sixty odd miles to, Caesarea Maritima, which it's called that because it's right on the coast of the Mediterranean. The city's still there.

I was told that there's actually some pretty good gelato in Caesarea. So if you ever visit, keep that in mind. Anyway, they didn't take Paul there for the gelato. They took him there to keep him safe, and because Caesarea is where the governor of this whole province of Judea resides, the governor built his fortress there. He's the one who's in charge of the whole region.

He's the one with the authority to decide Paul's case. The guy who was in charge back in Jerusalem, he's done his job. He's collected the facts as much as he could. He's written his letter. He sent Paul to Felix, the governor.

It's his turn. He's in charge. But he's not the kind of ruler you can rely on for justice. So this criminal case, this trial is is fraught. Well, let's let's pray together before we jump in.

Father, thank you for your word and thank you for Jesus. I pray that us this morning in your presence and in the presence of your word and with the filling of of your Holy Spirit that you would convict us and teach us. And that from your word, we find guidance for life, and we grow in love for you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Well, hey. If you're a follower of Jesus, if you've been walking with Jesus for any amount of time, you've probably wrestled with the question. In any given situation, how do I know if faithfulness to God means, faithfulness to God means stepping back, doing nothing, and waiting for God to work, for God's timing, for God to to make things happen? And how do I know in any given situation when faithfulness to God means stepping forward and speaking up or doing something and trusting God to work through me? You know, we often talk about, oh, God closes a door.

But does a closed door mean don't go in or does it mean kick it down? Like, how do you know? Show of hands. I'm curious. How many of us in this room would say we're the kind of people where we're like, hey, I don't really wanna move forward unless God has made it super clear.

Maybe not like a %, but he's made it pretty clear that, like, this is the right thing to do, the right decision to make, the right direction to go in. How How many of that is us? Okay. Alright. The spiritual ones.

Cool. And how many of us unspiritual ones are like, hey, you you can only steer a ship when it's moving, so I'm gonna do something and God can guide and direct? No one's gonna raise their hands. Oh, alright. Cool.

Cool. This is good. Now, I make the joke spiritual versus unspiritual because we all know it's more spiritual to say, I'm gonna wait for God to work. Right? I'm gonna sit back and I'm gonna I'm gonna let God move.

Of course, sometimes doing nothing is just a facade for I am so scared right now of making the wrong decision, then I'm gonna wait for God to make it super clear so that way I don't have to feel bad at all about the decision I'm making. Right? Like, okay, Lord, wisdom, that's hard. Why don't you just tell me what to do? This was I don't mean this negatively at all, because this is a % me.

In college, in seminary, throughout my life, right, I've I've I've always been a master of kind of disguising fear or pride in spiritual language. In college, it was girls. Lord, I'm just gonna wait for you to bring the right person. Right? I can't do this on my own.

I failed so many times. Lord, I'll wait until you make it abundantly clear that this person is the person I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life with. Translation, I am so afraid of putting myself out there and risking getting rejected that, lord, you're gonna have to do the work, and let's just go from now to married without anything in between. Right? I don't even wanna date if you have if I don't have to.

That's not faithfulness, by the way. That's fear, just in case we're not clear. In seminary though, it was like it was jobs, and it wasn't fear. It was more like pride. Okay, Lord.

I'll wait for your timing on just the right job, where you'll show us the right ministry that you want us to be involved in. But the translation was, Lord, I'm so amazing that when people see me, they should just be throwing jobs my way. I shouldn't have to apply or work for it. Did I hear an amen? I could have sworn I heard an amen from over here somewhere.

Alright. Thank you. Alright. But that's that's not piety, that's pride. Have you ever found yourself in that kind of dilemma?

Maybe not the exact situation that I'm in, but the or have found myself in, but the one where you're like, I don't know if I'm supposed to step forward and say something or step back and wait. Have you found yourself asking that question? Probably almost all of us at some point. Yeah. There's a reason I say that we wrestle with this question because there is no real clear and easy answer.

What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to wait or am I supposed to move? Both are active, like it's not like one's passive and the other's active, but what am I supposed to do? This was the question that kept coming up to me over and over again as I was reading and studying this passage. And I actually think it is a question we're meant to ask as we read this story.

Because Luke, in the way he is telling the story of Paul on trial, he is so deliberately and intentionally telling Paul's story in a way that echoes and parallels Jesus's story. When Jesus was on trial, before Roman governmental authorities on charges of fomenting rebellion and a seditious overthrow of government, like a lamb before its shears was silent, so he opened not his mouth. Okay. If that's what Jesus did, that's what I should do. Paul, when he's facing very similar charges, speaks up and says, I cheerfully make my defense.

Okay. So which is it for people learning to walk the way of Jesus? Do we keep our mouth shut and let let God work like Jesus did, or do we speak up and make things happen like Paul did? Paul's trying to follow Jesus, so why wasn't he silent? Why didn't he let God work it out?

Is that a character flaw on Paul's part, or or is it faithfulness? Which is it, and how do we know? That's kind of the big question that I wanna address, maybe get towards an answer as we walk through his his case and some of the details of the case together. It's not gonna be the details of the argument so much that matter as it's like, how do you how do you know? And by the way, spoiler alert, I'm just gonna give you the answer now so that you know where I'm going by the end of this.

This I think the right answer isn't always one or always the other. It's almost always the one when everything in you wants to do the other. Did you have enough time to write that down? Yeah. I I think the right answer isn't always the one or always the other.

It's almost always the one when everything in you wants to do the other. And hopefully, that'll come clear as we go through this. So if you're following along, turn to Acts 24. We pick it up in verse one, and we're gonna watch this trial unfold. As we jump in to Acts 24, it's important to recognize this is actually the first real trial that Paul is undergoing.

By trial, I mean court trial. Everything else, you know, it's been a trial, but this is the first one where he's, like, on the on the stand. I mean, up until now, he's been detained. He's been questioned. He's been almost beaten.

He's been present at a hearing, but now he's he's formally he's officially on trial. And we know the end of the story, but Paul does not. He doesn't know the end of the story, and he maybe doesn't know what exactly to do to try to get to the end of the story. This this is the charges that are being brought, like, they come with the death penalty. This is bad.

It's bad for Paul. It's bad for the early church for the the one of the most visible leaders on trial. This there's a reason Luke is telling us the story. Now we could spend some time, in fact, I did first hour. I stopped for, like, five minutes and explained how the Roman judicial system is different from the American judicial system, and then I saw people's eyes glaze over.

So this whole page is going away. And if you wanna know what was on that, you can tune in to Cut for Time, the midweek podcast where we talk about the stuff that we cut for boring or cut for time, in order get away. Seriously, I was gonna trip on that later or slip on it. So, so I'm gonna skip all of that and we're gonna jump right in with verse one. Alright.

Chapter 24 verse one, and after five days, the high priest Ananias, highest religious official, came down, that's down from Jerusalem North to Caesarea. You're it's always down when you're leaving Jerusalem, not just because it's at the top of the hill, but because it's, like, the center of everything. So went down to Caesarea, with some elders and a spokesman, one Tertullus. Spokesman, rhetor is the Greek word for it. Not just somebody who's, you know, good at talking, but, like, this is a a lawyer.

Lawyers weren't normally present in Roman justice system cases. Usually, the accusers would represent themselves and the defendants would represent themselves, but lawyers were allowed. And this guy, he's got a Latin name. He might be Roman. He probably knows the system well enough to take their sort of religiously tinged charges and put them in political terms.

So they came down, they brought their lawyer with them, they laid before the governor their case against Paul. That's what formally starts this trial off. Now right away, we can see the Jewish religious authorities are taking this whole Paul situation seriously. They don't wait. There's no guarantee or right to a speedy trial in the Roman system, so they could've just let Paul languish.

People had were held in prison for decade and a half without ever being charged in that system. But they don't wait. They gotta deal with this. Until Paul is dealt with, it's really difficult to say that the temple can still be a place of worship given what they're accusing him of having done there. Anyway, they head to Caesarea.

That's where the governor is. They've hired a lawyer. They're ready to argue their case. So trial begins. They lay out their case.

This is a long speech. Lots of proofs and evidences. Luke just glosses over it with just, hey, they laid out their case, and then the next step is Paul is brought in to be accused and then to give his defense, his his rebuttal. So we pick it up in verse two with Tortollus, beginning the sort of public accusation part of the case, and he he begins with just a heaping spoonful of flattery, for the governor, the the judge. He's both governor and judge.

So the in in their system, the, the executive branch and the judicial branch were separate. Now I'm talking about stuff on that page. I need to leave that out. Sorry. I'm getting distracted.

It's so interesting to, like, four of us that I wanna share it with everyone. Anyway, where were we? Yeah. So he's starting to lay out with all of this all of this praise. Like, Felix, you've been such a great governor.

We've had so much peace. You you've brought all these reforms with such foresight. It's straining credulity, but there's a point and a plan to it. Of course, there's the flattery side that's like, hey, you know, you wanna kiss the hand that feeds you. This is the guy who lets them stay in charge.

But also, he's setting him up as this huge contrast to how he's gonna talk about Paul. You've worked so hard to preserve peace, and everyone everywhere thanks you deeply for it. Now let me tell you about Paul, who's trying to destroy everything you stand for. Right. He's prejudicing the case a little bit.

But that takes us to you know, I'm not gonna go through every point of verse two, three, four where he's talking about how great Felix is because almost none of it's true. He was so vindictive and violent and was fired two years after this because he was such a bad governor. But verse five, Tartollos, the lawyer, gets to his point. He's like, hey, I beg you in verse four and your kindness. Hear us briefly.

I'll only say a little bit. There's a lot more I could say, but I'll only say a little bit. Verse five. We found this man to be a plague. Talking about Paul.

He's one who stirs up riots among all the Jews throughout the world. He's a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. He even tried to profane the temple. Luckily, we got there in time. We stopped him.

We seized him. We arrested him. In fact, examine him yourself. I mean, you question him. You can find out from him about everything of which we are accusing him.

He was there. Ask him. He'll tell you. Now Tertullis is being really strategic here, very carefully making sure that these accusations don't come across as, like, well, this is just a problem about or disagreement about how we we Jews together interpret the the what we call the Old Testament. It's like this isn't a religious case because the Roman governor has no interest in adjudicating religious cases.

This is a political case. This guy is a plague. It's a word that when you use it of an animal, I mean, it means an animal with disease that could spread. When you use it of a person, it means public enemy. Number one, patient zero for social unrest.

It's like, you wouldn't let someone with Ebola walk through Grand Central Station. Why are you letting this guy do what he wants? He's gotta be stopped. He's a public enemy. There's riots, not just here, but everywhere he goes.

Worse than that, he's a ringleader. He's one of the key leaders of the sect, the heresy of the Nazarenes. You remember where Jesus was from? That's what it's referring to. In other words, okay.

You remember, Felix, that would be messiah, the guy who who set himself up, said he was the king of Israel, the king of the Jews, the the one we killed. It's, like, twenty five years ago now. This guy, Paul, is here leading people to pledge their devotion to a convicted criminal that our justice system said did not deserve to live because he said he was the king, not Caesar. And he goes on, and and to set his plan in motion, he even tried to pro fame the temple, which would render the whole way the whole Jewish way of life and worship useless until the temple could be re sanctified, rededicated. Right?

It's like, question him yourself. You'll find out what I'm saying is true. And and are you going to let a guy like that, who stands against everything you've done for us, a guy who's a public enemy, a a devotee of a convicted and executed felon, a guy who's trying to upend the peace that you have built through your wisdom. You gonna you gonna let a guy like that live? Now if that were you on trial, how would you respond?

What would you want to to do or say? And if you were looking to Jesus for your example, what do you what do you think you would be called to do? So this is the point of decision for for Paul. Do you do you speak up? Do you defend yourself?

Do you say nothing? Either way, you have to trust God. So how do you make a decision? Which do you do? Well, Paul, at least for in his case, he knew Jesus had promised, like, you're headed to Rome.

Saying nothing is probably going to the noose. Saying something is maybe better than saying nothing, so he speaks up. And I actually, he's in a tricky spot. Tertullus, the the lawyer, the professional rhetorician and spokesperson, he's done a really good job of making these accusations against Paul just vague enough that you can't really prove them, but also just vague enough that you can't really disprove them either. And at the same time, kinda strictly speaking, everywhere Paul goes, riots do start.

Right? At some point, you kinda have to wonder, like, am I the problem? But it's not gonna help his case to try to explain that, like, okay. The riots aren't technically my fault. It's just when I talk, people get angry.

As far as the governing officials are concerned, like, yeah. That's it. That's your fault. That's your problem. So so what's Paul's strategy or like, what is he gonna do to to defend himself against these kind of vague charges that are really difficult to disprove?

Well, the main thing he's got going for him is that Felix is the one who gets to decide what crime are we really talking about here? His accusers Paul's accusers didn't show up and say, hey. We're bringing a case of, like, I don't know, felony riot mongering in the third degree. I don't even know if that's a thing. They're just explaining what happened, and it's up to Felix to decide, well, what kind of crime is this?

So if Paul is going to to make a decent defense, basically, he has to get Felix to think, like, this is not a political thing. This is a religious thing. I don't wanna argue about interpretations of the Old Testament, so you guys figure it out. Like, that's that's the strategy here. So verse 10, Paul begins his reply.

He does the same customary thing, begins with a little bit of flattery except he's a lot more restrained. You've been judged for years, so I happily make my defense. Isn't like, I trust you to judge fairly. And then he lays out a couple points because the first point, is he says it's only been twelve days. Like, this just happened, and also twelve days is nowhere near long enough to organize a riot.

Especially because he says, he didn't spend any time disputing. That's his normal word that he uses for teaching when he's, like, laying out logical arguments, with a crowd that's maybe not already on his side. He's like, I I wasn't doing any of that. I wasn't teaching. I wasn't arguing anywhere.

I wasn't stirring up crowds, not in the temple, not in any synagogues, not anywhere in the city. He's like, I was there. I came to Jerusalem to worship. And then he goes on to point out verse 13. He's like, and also, by the way, the people accusing me, none of them can prove what they're saying because none of them were there.

They're not eyewitnesses. Generally, eyewitness testimony is really the only kind you allow. So but, yes, he goes on verse 14. He's like, I will admit I'm a follower of Yahweh. But according to the way, which was the way the early church talked about following Jesus, you know, the one who Jesus who said, I am the way and the truth and the life.

Yeah. We're followers of Jesus. We follow Yahweh. We follow God according to the way. He says they they call it a sect.

You know, they mean, like, a heresy. But he says we worship the same god. I worship the same god that they do. I read the same holy book that they do. I follow the same law.

I listen to the same prophets. I have the same hope in God that they do that there will be a resurrection at the end of all things. And he goes on. He's like, I'm careful because if there's going to be a judgment at the end, like, I wanna be ready for it. I wanna make sure that I'm acting appropriately, behaving well.

But then in verse 17, kinda back to the point, he's like, and look. I was only in Jerusalem. I've been gone for years. I only came back to bring a gift to my people, to my nation, to bring alms, which is making his case. It might have been a mistake to mention that he brought, like, a large gift of money, to the Jewish people because Felix goes on to keep him in prison for two years hoping that he'll get a bribe out of him.

Like, works for the case, but darn it. If you hadn't mentioned the money. Because I was here to to bring money, to bring alms, and to present offerings. And even when I was there in the temple, I he's like, I was purified. There's in other words, he's like, how can I be accused of preaching against the temple if I'm there to worship and bring offerings?

How can I be accused of instigating Jews to riot when I was bringing gifts for my people? I'm not trying to destroy us. I'm trying to save us. How can I be accused of profaning the temple when I went through the whole seven day purification just to be there in worship? It's like and when I was there, there was no crowd or riot or tumult.

There were some Jews from Asia. Asia, by the way, just remember Asia here when it's talked about in the Bible means, like, the Western half of Turkey, not, like, Southeast Asia like we think of it today, China or or anything. So he's like, there were some some Jews from just over there in Ephesus. And by the way he interrupts himself in verse 19. By the way, shouldn't they be the ones here bringing these accusations?

It's a good point, because the Roman justice system just really, really did not like when actual accusers didn't show up in court to make their accusation. You could get in more trouble for making an accusation and not following through by, you know, by not showing up and making your case than if you just let it drop in the first place. And and so technically speaking, the high priest, the Jewish elders, the the lawyer, they don't have really any standing against Paul. They're not the ones who saw any of this. They didn't witness any of it.

So it's the Jews from Asia. Paul says, they're the ones who should be here bringing this up. Wonder where they went. They must not have thought their case was very strong. But if these guys here this is the last point in his defense.

But if these guys here, the high priest, everyone else, if they wanna actually accuse him of something they actually saw him do firsthand themselves, there's really only one charge they could bring. Paul says, when I was with them and I told them that I believe you're supposed to read the Old Testament like this, then they started arguing with me that, no. You're actually supposed to read it like this. Right? In other words, does that sound like rebellion, sedition?

Does that sound political to you, or does that sound like a religious case? He's just making the case. He's like, there's there's no there's no case here. There's no crime here. I didn't do anything wrong.

Paul should be freed. But then he's not. Even though his case is solid, Felix, the governor, he's not convinced that Paul should be freed. He's also not convinced that Paul should be convicted. So like a career politician trying to keep his options open, he does nothing, just leaves Paul in prison.

We'll talk about that more more next week. It's at this point in in reading this story and wondering, like, how does Paul know to speak or to be silent? It's at this point where where I begin to wonder. It's like, okay. Paul spoke up.

Did God show up? Like, did God show up for Paul? Or did he show up in a way that did he show up in a way that makes sense to me? Because nothing happens. Paul's not freed.

I mean, he's not convicted, but he's also not freed. So should Paul have spoken up or should have been silent? I don't know. How do you know when you're supposed to step back and wait on God, or when you're supposed to step forward and make something happen? That's the question I brought up at the beginning.

But, you know, for 15 chapters now, 14 chapters, we've been following the story of the growth of the Jesus movement, you know, the early church, through the lens of the work of Paul. He's the most effective preacher. He's the most prolific author. He's a firebrand of a speaker. At least, you remember what he was like in the beginning, right, when he showed up and the other apostles were like, dude, cool.

You're Jets. Go home for a decade, and we'll come find you when we need you. Right? He was this firebrand of a preacher. He was hot tempered.

He was a type a. He was get the work done, barrels in larger than life, takes charge, makes things happen. But we've watched as he's matured and he's mellowed and he's suffered, and he's been rejected, and in despair, and in pain, and betrayed. You know, we've gotten a sense over the last 14 chapters, Paul is less forceful than he used to be, less driven, more measured, maybe more in step with the spirits. By the time we get to this trial, I don't know if Paul has learned when to speak and when to be silent with absolute clarity and certainty.

But I think he's gotten to the point where faithfulness is not which choice you make, but making a choice and trusting God to work in it. Just like I told you at the beginning with the spoiler alert of where we're going, I don't think the answer is always the one or always the other. The answer is almost always the one when you desperately want to do the other. Put it in practical terms. Like, if your natural tendency, you know, your bent, your wiring, is that you just gotta you have to do something.

You have to say something. You have to speak up, or you have to make something happen, but if underneath that it's because you're afraid that if you don't, God won't, then the answer is probably slow down a little bit. You know, step off the gas, pray, wait for God to make things clear, you know, in his way, his timing. I mean, on the other hand, you know, if your natural tendency or your bent or your wiring or whatever you call it is that, no. I I I'm not gonna move until God moves first.

But underneath that, you're like, because I really don't wanna make the wrong choice, and I'm deathly afraid of exercising any sort of wisdom or discernment or judgment myself because what if I get it wrong? I can't live with myself. Then the answer's probably speed up. Put your foot on the gas. Pray.

Ask for wisdom. Seek for advice from godly friends, and then make a decision and and do something. Speak up or make it happen. The answer, it's almost I mean, it's it is the answer is not, I don't think. It it is always the one or always the other.

It's almost always the one when you'd rather desperately rather do the other. You can think back to, you know, in the garden on the night when Jesus was betrayed. He prayed, Lord, if there is any way, let this cut pass. Like, I don't want to do this. I don't wanna go through this, but it's not my will that matters.

It's it's your will that matters. When Jesus wanted to speak up or make it stop or find another way out and said he was he was silent, his calling was to go to the cross, not, you know, away from it. Paul, when when he's on trial, is anxious for his life and worried about what's gonna happen next and mulling over the, you know, pros and cons of various legal strategies. We could have looked to Jesus and thought, I'm gonna follow Jesus's example. I'm gonna do nothing and say nothing, and God God's got this.

He's he's gonna make happen what he wants to happen. And God would have, but Paul spoke up because his calling wasn't to go to a cross. His calling was to testify to the one who went to the cross, to speak. So if you are afraid, man, if I don't say something or do something, God's not gonna come through, then maybe step back a little bit. On the other hand, if if you're afraid, I can't I can't do this on my own.

I can't be the one who makes a decision without God making it absolutely, unmistakably clear, then maybe step up a little bit. The answer isn't always the one or always the other. The answer is trust God when you choose the one or the other. And if you struggle, the answer is almost always do the one when you desperately don't wanna do the other. And for that, we need wisdom.

So let's pray together. Father, you have promised in your word that when we feel our lack of wisdom, that all we have to do is ask and you give. I confess. I know there are others who share this with me, father. I confess I would so much rather have a flowchart or decision making tree than have simply your word and your presence and the people around me to help me make a good decision.

Father, we ask for your grace and your wisdom that whether we move, speak up, stay silent, wait on you, that you would be glorified. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.