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. Hey. Good morning, everyone.

I'm pastor Joey. Welcome to Faith This Morning. I'm excited to open up Acts twenty two and twenty three and go through this again. We are in the third week in a row saga of Paul and the riots in the temple, if I were to title it. That's what I would that's the title I would give it.

Even though we're three weeks in, we have to remember it's only been a couple hours in Paul's experience as he's gone from, you know, angry crowd to angry crowd to where we left it last week with him on the verge of being beaten, being tortured for information to figure out what's going on. The Roman military, especially the tribune, the guy in charge is like, hey, what is going on here, and how am I gonna gonna find out? He's on the verge of torturing Paul when Paul, you remember, interrupted and asked that important question, is this legal? Are you allowed to torture Roman citizens? And the commander had to, you know, back off.

He'd already broken the law just by binding Paul for torture, but we're at the point where he he still doesn't know if Paul was at fault for the riot or not and needs information. That's where we pick it up this week. And man, if I were Paul at this moment, my prayers would all be, Lord, how how does this end? Like, where is this going? What's gonna happen next?

And and how does this all, resolve itself? I mean, it's only been a few hours, but it's been an emotional roller coaster. So where is this heading? Okay. Show of hands.

How many of you, when you, like, start reading a book or watching a movie, you skip ahead to the end to find out how the book ends, or you Google the movie to find out, does she live to the end or die? Anybody? Some okay. Some of you are raising your hands. Some of you are pointing at people who aren't raising their hands.

Okay. Perfect. Great. Do you ever wonder why we do that? You know why, don't you?

Yeah. I think I think part at least part of the reason is because it's a lot easier to regulate our emotions when we know how the story ends. Right? You know you don't have to get too anxious about the scary part because they make it to the end. You know you maybe shouldn't get too excited because things are going well.

It might just all be a false sense of security. Crises are about to come. We wanna know the ending so that we can, you know, save some of our feeling for for later. Like, should I be getting anxious now or should I wait till later to to get anxious? Another show of hands, how many of you wish life was like that?

That you could, you know, look ahead when you're facing something difficult or traumatic or something hard, you could kind of glance ahead at the ending and figure out, okay, well, if it all plays out, like, if that's where it ends up, then I have a better idea of what decisions to make to get me there, or I don't have to be too scared because I know something great is coming, or maybe I shouldn't get too excited because it's not gonna last long enough. I mean, if I were Paul, and maybe I'm projecting myself back onto him, but if I were Paul, I'd be looking for something like that. Like, how does this end? Lord, tell me how this this ends. Give me some assurance that I'm I'm on the right path.

Right? Tell me how it plays out, so that I know if I'm making right decisions or not. Like, am I moving towards the ending that's inevitably coming? Right? Wouldn't you love to have that?

Well, for Paul, maybe for us too, But for Paul, in this story, he doesn't get any assurance that he's on the right track until after he acts. He doesn't get affirmation ahead of time, but confirmation after the fact. It's almost as if Jesus is more interested in in Paul, probably also in us. It's almost as if Jesus is more interested in Paul following him through all of the emotional upheaval and uncertainty than he is in rescuing Paul from all of the emotional upheaval and uncertainty. I imagine it's something like, you know, a good parent who knows that their kid has to struggle a little bit to build resilience.

Jesus seems to pretty normally call us through the struggle, not save us from the struggle. If you had to choose, which would you prefer, a snowplow or snowshoes? Yeah. Jesus doesn't usually rescue us from the struggle or snow plow it all clear for us. He calls us to go through it.

Anyone else wish it were the other way around? Yeah? Okay. I was expecting more honesty, but that's alright. Let's jump into the passage.

So we we pick it up in the last verse of chapter 22, so chapter 22 verse 30. But on the next day, Paul spent the night in the Antonia Fortress right there on the corner of the temple precincts. He's been kept under key, probably still chained, because on the next day, desiring to know the real reason why Paul was being accused by the Jews, the tribune unbound Paul and commanded the chief priests and all the council to meet. He brought Paul down and and set him before them, before the council. Like I said earlier, the tribune, he's the highest ranking military officer in Jerusalem right now.

He still doesn't know if Paul has broken any laws or not. All he knows is that Paul was at the center of a mob in the temple precincts. He was being beaten bloody when the tribune soldiers showed up and pulled Paul out of the crowd. But the tribune doesn't know, like, okay, did Paul like, did he incite this riot and then it turned on him? Did someone else break the law and start a riot and now Paul's just the victim?

He doesn't know. All he got from the crowd were confusing shouts. All he got from Paul was a declaration of his innocence. And it's it's not his job in this moment to try Paul, like in a court, but it is his job to get the facts of the case before he hands it off to the prosecutors, his his boss. The procurator is his title.

That's the guy that's gonna be responsible for putting Paul to trial, but we're not there yet. Because we're still, like, fact finding, and and because this whole riot thing took place on the temple grounds, the tribune decides the best way to get to the bottom of it is to call together the people responsible for the temple, the religious authorities. It's the council called, the Sanhedrin, which is a Greek word that means council. So the council is called the council. It's a group of, 70 men, made up of some priests, some officials, some just ordinary folks, and they served as as a sort of a supreme court for the Jewish state.

It was a group that was used to meeting every day except for festivals and on the Sabbath, so it was easy for the tribune to call them together, and it was probably smart of them not to refuse, when he asked. Now remember, Paul is not on trial. This is not a formal legal trial. The tribune would not allow that. Paul is his prisoner.

He's not a prisoner of the Sanhedrin. He Paul is subject to Roman law, not to Jewish law. Paul's only here so the tribune can get them to explain to him what Paul did wrong, if anything. But what I love here, chapter 23 verse one, Paul doesn't give anyone else a chance to speak before he speaks up, as soon as he's drug in there. Chapter 23 verse one says, and and looking intently at the council, looking intensely.

We don't know if that if he's like staring them down or sizing them up. But whatever he's doing, he he takes a good long hard look at the group knowing, like, what's at stake here. Looking intently at the council, Paul said, brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day. Which is another way of saying, like, I'm innocent. I haven't done anything wrong.

Like, even God would agree with me. You should ask him. Like, I'm innocent. And Paul's presumption to just speak in his own defense without being invited, it incenses the high priest, a guy named Ananias, not the same Ananias as before or before that. It was a common name.

So this is another Ananias. But this guy, this one, this high priest, he's the highest ranking religious official in the council, and so he commands the guy sitting next to him, just basically pokes him and says, shut him up. It's a physical, obviously, violent way of essentially saying, we already know you're guilty. You shouldn't be allowed to defend yourself. Shut your mouth or we'll shut it for you.

And then we get a scene that is just classic Paul. I don't know if he's startled by, you know, being hit in the face only one sentence in, or, one biography of Paul says, you kinda wonder if the guy he he meditated on a lot of scripture. Did he ever meditate on a gentle answer turns away wrath? Or did that one just go right on by him? But either way, Paul just retorts shouts right back at this guy.

God's gonna strike you, you white washed wall. Which is, like, you're such a facade. Right? You're you're a house be that's made of cardboard and paint. This is like, are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law, you order me to be struck?

Right? In other words, like, what a you're a hypocrite. You're sitting there claiming to judge me to judge how well I'm following the law, and then you break the law by ordering me to be struck before I've even been found guilty. Like, can't have it both ways. And, of course, the whole thing quickly devolves.

Now the high priest backers, the guys right next to him, are shouting back at Paul. Like, what? You're you're gonna revile God's high priest? Really? You're gonna you're gonna speak against God's anointed?

You know, subtext. There's a law against that too. Right? It's like, you broke the law. No.

You broke the law. Like, mom. And and Paul's response, we're not exactly sure how to take it. The way Luke writes it, it's a it's a little bit vague. Paul might be saying what's been kind of straightforwardly translated into English here as is like, sorry, I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest.

Right? And and the law says you should not speak evil of the ruler of your people. And it's plausible that Paul didn't know this guy was the high priest. Paul hasn't been in Jerusalem in five years, which is long before this guy came to this this rank. Paul's been out of the halls of power for at least twenty years since he was Gamaliel's student and would have been part of some of these proceedings.

So there's a good chance he didn't recognize the guy, at least by face. On the other hand, if he's wearing his high priestly garb, then Paul probably has no excuse. That's why most commentators think that Paul's being sarcastic, that if we were to translate it with the subtext, what Paul's really saying something is like, I'm so sorry. I didn't know someone who acted like that could be a high priest. Nevertheless, shouldn't speak evil of a ruler of your people.

Never mind the fact, we know from other historians, this this guy, this high priest was notorious for taking bribes, stealing ties, even sat in ambush, and and attacked Samaritan pilgrims coming to the temple. He expressed all these, like, pro Roman sentiments. He'll be dead within a decade when the great war starts between, Israel and Rome in '66. Some zealots assassinate him. He's one of the first, the first to die in the battles.

Anyway, that's all, you know, in the future from where we are right now. Back here, in, what, 8057 or so that this is taking place, we're in this quickly devolving volleys back and forth of interpersonal insults when Paul sort of shifts tactics. I think he's well aware at this point he's not gonna get any justice, from these guys. You may have noticed the only person here appealing to the law is Paul. It's time to try another tactic.

So Lou tells us in verse six, now Paul looks out at the crowd, at all 70 of these men, and he knows, because this is the way it's been for decades, he knows most of the members of the Sanhedrin, this council, are part of a group called the Sadducees. And the Sadducees were kind of the, aristocratic class. They were the establishment, if you will. They're the high class citizens who have a vested interest in Rome not cracking down on them because they have the most to lose. But a fairly significant, you know, minority of this whole gathering is made up of Pharisees.

Almost any other political group. Right? It's the establishment class versus kind of the populist pressure group saying, hey, we gotta do something different, something something new. Now, Paul knows these groups well. He knows the Pharisees especially well.

I'm sorry. I keep making you guys the Pharisees. I hope you're okay with that as I look over here. You good? Okay.

So Paul knows the Pharisees well. He was one. He was trained as one. And he knows, the old arguments and the tension, the topics he could bring up to kind of raise the temperature in the room if he wanted to. And it really boils down to Pharisees believe in a resurrection and Sadducees don't.

The way Sadducees see it, when your body dies, your soul dies as well. I mean, they believe you have a soul, but it just ceases to exist at the death of your body. That's end end of story. Pharisees, on the other hand, believe that at the end of all things, God is going to resurrect the physical bodies of everyone who has ever lived, so that they're prepared to face a judgment. So in the meantime, like, after you die, but before the resurrection, like, what are you?

And it's all vague and ambiguous, but Pharisees in general believe, well, you kinda persist as, I don't know, a spirit, or an angel maybe, or something like that. And even they believe, well, I mean, if those spirits, those angels still exist, it's it's plausible that at times, the spirit of somebody who's already died may communicate with someone still living, you know, from the other side of the grave. Sadducees believe none of that. When you're dead, you're dead. Nothing after that.

And, you know, those are kind of the same two categories in which we think about life after death today. Generally, there's, like, the strict materialist. Right? There's no soul, so when you die, you're gone. Like, that's just the end.

Lights out. Story's over. And then, if you're like, well, I think there's something more than just the physical, just the material. Some sort of of soul, we kinda think, well, it must linger after death somehow. Maybe it becomes an angel and and floats off to heaven somewhere to play a harp on a on a cloud, or or maybe we exist as spirits roaming the earth or whatever.

I mean, intuitively, this is kinda how we think. If I were to tell you that I received a message from my long deceased great grandmother, you would assume I was crazy. But if you didn't assume I was crazy, you would assume that I meant I heard a message from her spirit, or her angel, or something, not that she was physically resurrected and was giving me stock market tips over coffee, or something like that. See, Luke even makes a wants to make this point clear for his readers because he's writing this history for Greek and Roman followers of Jesus who aren't clued in to the nuances of some of these, like, inside of Judaism arguments, between Sadducees and and Pharisees. So in verse eight, he says he explains for us, his readers, he's like, hey, the Sadducees say there's no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, meaning they believe there's no resurrection and nor do you continue to exist after death as an angel or as as a spirit.

They believe in angels and spirits, just not that we become one after we die. He said, on the other hand, the Pharisees acknowledge them all, resurrection, and that you continue to exist somehow in some state after your body dies. So that's the theological background, the argument behind what happens in verse six. Now, when Paul perceived that one part were one part were Sadducees and another part were Pharisees, and make you guys the Pharisees now. When Paul realized, like, this this is the group, I could push some buttons here, he cried out in the council.

He's like, brothers, I'm a Pharisee. I'm with you guys. I'm a I'm the son of Pharisees. Probably doesn't mean his parents were Pharisees, but that he was trained by Pharisees. He's like, I'm on trial here because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead.

And when he said this, Luke tells us, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was immediately divided. See, Paul's statement here, I'm on trial because I believe in the resurrection, is brilliant because it's true, and it's the core of of his message, but also it drives a wedge right between these two groups. And they react just the way he thought they would. Verse nine says, there arose such a clatter. Right?

A great clamor arose. It's the same words for the mob last chapter, and all the fighting and and and the shouting and the anger that was going back and forth. Because until this moment, until Paul said this, it was Sanhedrin versus heretic. Now it's Sadducees versus Pharisees. And the Pharisees know that Paul's on their side, they're on Paul's side.

Some of the Pharisees even stand up in defense of Paul, and they start arguing loudly. They're saying, so so what if he thinks he's heard from this Jesus? Right? Angels, spirits, they've been known to do that sort of thing. We find nothing wrong with him.

Like, he's right where we are theologically. He's one of us, and now we're against all of you. Now, of course, Paul would not agree that he only saw Jesus' angel or his spirit or whatever. Paul met the resurrected Jesus. He saw the bodily resurrected Jesus on that road to Damascus all those years ago.

He's saying, no, the whole point is that Jesus didn't wait until the resurrection at the end, but he became, know, he was resurrected now as proof, like first fruits, as a down payment of the resurrection at the end. But that's fine. Paul's not gonna press the point. The shouting was too loud for him to get a word in anyway. Tribune has to show up, verse 10 tells us, again, yet again, and rescue Paul from another angry mob.

The Sanhedrin is is so incensed that Paul was at risk of literally being torn between them. Some men are grabbing him to pull him to safety, while others are holding on to him to try to take him into custody. It's three times in two days that Paul has had to be rescued from an angry crowd. It's not on the list of spiritual gifts, but if annoying a large group of people were one of the spiritual gifts, Paul would have it. But still, and interestingly, the the story's not over.

There's there's one more verse, because that night, exhausted, I would imagine, by the day, the emotional roller coaster of this whole thing, Paul says his evening prayers and lays down on a hard bed back in the fortress to try to sleep, and the next thing he knows, Jesus himself is standing in front of him with words of I hesitate to say encouragement. Just take a look at this. Verse 11, Jesus, the Lord says, take courage. For just as you've testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome. Paul, you've told people about me here in Jerusalem.

You're gonna do the same thing in Rome, so take courage. Take courage, not, hey, Paul. Relax. I got this. It's gonna be fine.

You got nothing to worry about. No. Jesus shows up and he says, hey, Paul, steel yourself. Gird up your loins like a man. Jesus speaks in Old Testament.

So take courage, steel yourself. This is going to be hard. You're going to need all of your stamina, and all of your strength, and all of your courage, and all of your fortitude, and all of your forbearance, and all of your other synonyms for courage. Take courage. But I'm with you.

You've done what I asked here. You're gonna do what I asked there. Like, you've got this because I'm with you. So what do you do after you wake up from a message like that? What do you pray after you wake up from a message like that?

Do you keep praying, Jesus, deliver me from the struggle, or Jesus, give me courage through the struggle. Man, what are you struggling with today? I know some of us struggling with medical issues. Right? You can't get answers, or all the answers you get are not the answers you want.

You wish God would somehow affirm for you what just the right path forward is, that you're going in the right direction, that you're making the right decisions, but he hasn't? Some of us, I know, we're struggling with family decisions. Right? If you're caring for aging parents or for kids who aren't quite thriving and launching the way you always assumed they would, You wish God would somehow affirm for you that you're headed in the right direction, you're making the right decisions, but but he's not? I mean, some of us are struggling with school decisions.

You gotta you gotta pick the college that you're gonna go to or decide if you're gonna go to trade school or enter the workforce, and and you wish God would would somehow make it clear to you that you're on the right path, you're making the right decision, you've declared the right major, or or you've not declared a major at all, and and that he he would say, like, yes, you're going in the right direction, give you that assurance, and yet he hasn't. Some of us are struggling with money decisions. Right? How much do we save? How much do we spend?

How do I how do I save for a future I don't know that I'm guaranteed while not being deprived now? And I wish that God would just show up and affirm that we're headed in the right direction, that we're making the right decisions, and yet he hasn't? Some of us are struggling with relationship decisions. You know, do I date this person or not date that this person or that person, or do I date at all? Do I marry?

Should I stay married? Do we try to have kids? What's the right timing for it all? Should I reach out to my estranged kids, or should I reach out to my estranged parents? Should I try to talk to them more about Jesus, or should I just back off and and let them make their own decisions?

Do I go to the friend, and do I go to the parent? Do I do I try to reconcile, or do I try to you wish God would somehow affirm that we're going the right direction, we're making the right decisions, and yet he hasn't. Because rarely does God show up to save us from the struggle. He almost always calls us to go through it. He almost never snowplows.

He always seems to give us snowshoes. I hate it. We've been in this story for three weeks. It's such a huge turning point in Paul's ministry. From here on out, he's incarcerated.

He he's on his way to Rome, yes, but not not as a free man. There there are no more rescues or late night angel driven prison breaks. There's no no more huge ministry successes, no preaching to enthralled crowds, no more all of Asia heard the word of the Lord. No massive conversions, no new churches. We know that.

Paul does not know that. He has no idea that that's what's coming. He doesn't know until the last verse that Jesus is sending him to testify in Rome. Not until the last verse. As far as Paul knows, he's trying to just get himself acquitted, try to get himself off the hook so he can get back to his mission, so he can get back to the churches, so he can get back to his long held, oft ignored, and neglected dream to preach the gospel in Rome.

He doesn't know he's still years away from getting there. All he knows is that Jesus has confirmed this is where you're you're headed, and that doesn't mean it's guaranteed. It doesn't mean that Paul can sit back and relax and do nothing and and be confident. Well, nothing bad can happen to me because Jesus said, I'm going to preach in Rome. It's like one of my favorite comic strips when I was a kid, and still as an adult, was Calvin and Hobbes.

And my maybe my second favorite Calvin and Hobbes comic strip is one where Calvin is talking to Hobbes, you know, his his stuffed tiger, and he's saying, Hobbes, I believe that we were put on this earth with a certain number of tasks for us to do, and right now, I'm so far behind, I'll never die. Paul doesn't have this kind of, like, well, Jesus said I'm gonna make it to Rome, therefore, it's just hop on the next cruise ship, and it's gonna be clean sailing all the way there. But it does mean Paul doesn't have to try to engineer his circumstances, or orchestrate moves to make it happen, or manipulate people to try to get what he wants. If Jesus wants him in Rome, Jesus will get him to Rome. Paul's gonna play a part, for sure, but it's not all up to him.

Jesus isn't saving him from the struggle. He's giving him just enough direction and the assurance of his presence so that Paul can persevere through the struggle. And it's the same for us. Even with the end goal, the end chapter known, Paul's still gonna face and he has no idea. He's gonna face years in prison, violent storms, shipwrecks, snake bites, sleepless nights, unexpected mercies, constant opposition.

So take courage. You're gonna need it to face the struggle. Not rescue from the struggle, but courage to go through it. Yeah. Me too.

Should we pray? Yeah. Let's pray together. Father, we acknowledge most of this life is struggle. It's the carrying of burdens.

It's the challenge of uncertainty. There is a significant portion of our life that is unexpected joy, moments of of pure happiness, of love, of belonging, and moments of anxiety, and struggle, and doubt. And our constant prayer to you is that you would take us out of the struggle, and out of the anxiety, and out of the doubts. And so we pause this morning to confess that you have promised to be with us in it, but not always to take us out of it. Father, we need your grace to look to you and to look to Jesus who went through the struggle on our behalf.

And may we persevere it just as he did for our sakes. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.