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. Hey. Good morning, everyone.

I am Jeff Schultz, one pastor is here on staff at Faith, and, it's good to be able to gather with you in worship today. How many of you like, movies or shows with kind of the the cliffhanger ending? Any any of you old enough to remember who shot JR in the eighties? Yeah. That that's a that's a stretch.

I've I've shared before, I I love Lord of the Rings, had read the book already, was really excited when the movies came out. The the story is basically, especially the first one, The Fellowship of the Rings, is the background of kind of this, magical ring of power that that gives its wearer just, awesome, abilities, but it also corrupts them and, being made by this sort of evil power wants to get back to that evil person. And, the ring becomes the center of this epic battle between good and evil. And, this character named Frodo comes to possess the ring and gets caught up in this quest to take it to Mount Doom to destroy it. And along the way, he he encounters friends.

He goes through all kinds of trials, and, they they form a fellowship together committed to destroying this ring as their quest. The fellowship faces battles and dangers and narrow escapes. And and as the first movie ends, okay, the the group breaks apart. One soldier is killed. A friend is lost in battle underground in in the caves.

Frodo's two hobbit friends are captured by orcs. Three of the guys decide that they're gonna go off and try and rescue them, and, only Frodo and Sam are left to complete the quest together. And that's where the movie ends. And and I remember being so excited and thrilled and even a little, frustrated and disappointed in in watching it in the theater, even having read the book before. I know how the story ends, but but it just leaves you with so many unanswered questions.

Is Gandalf really dead? It it what happens to the Hobbits that are captured by the Orcs? How is the quest gonna survive when, the group is broken apart? Will they ever see each other again? And it feels a little like where we are finally in the end of the book of acts.

We we come to the end of this journey through the book of acts together. More than two years, we've been studying it, but it it comes to an end today. I hope and trust that we've all gotten something out of it. It it it's become sort of an old friend. I'm kind of attached to it and sorry to see our time together end even as I'm excited about a new series that we're gonna be starting.

For 28 chapters, we have been tracking the acts, not so much of the apostles, but the acts of God by his spirit through his church. Jesus sent out the holy spirit back at the beginning of the book with the promise that the Spirit, the helper, was gonna empower Jesus' followers to do even greater things than He has done. And we have seen that. We've had a front row seat to see what God has been doing. But we ended last time with Paul having, yes, made it to Rome according to Jesus' promise, but he's under house arrest.

He goes out, remember, to share the gospel to his fellow Jews and some of them respond. A lot of them reject him, and and he sort of leaves with this message of kind of warning and judgment from the prophet Isaiah. And he says, I'll take the gospel to the Gentiles and and they will listen. And and that would be kind of a strange and curious, disappointing way to kind of end the story. Paul has come so far and this meeting sort of falls flat.

And Luke provides this little epilogue that we're looking at today in verses thirty and thirty one. Whole years at his own expense at this rented house and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. So there's there's kind of a high note here. Right? Like Paul is in Rome and the gospel has in a sense reached the ends of the earth as Jesus promised because Rome is the center of the world, and everything goes in and out of Rome.

And from Rome, you reach the ends of the world. But it's kind of a strange ending, kind of a not exactly feel like a big win. Right? It it doesn't really feel finished. It's not as glorious or glamorous as we would expect.

I mean, Paul's alive, he's in Rome, but he's under house arrest and he's not doing any public preaching. And and weirdest of all, the book ends without telling us what actually happens to him. What happens to Paul? Where does the story go from here? Was he acquitted by Rome?

Was he executed? The passage doesn't even tell us whether the church in Rome in Rome is growing or not. And and Luke doesn't fill in the details, I think, one, probably because the story was still ongoing when he wrote it. The the mention of two years could be that, Paul was acquitted or his accusers never showed up until he was released. We don't know.

But it leaves us with questions. Right? Like, why does Luke end the story this way? What does he want us to take from it? We we get this detailed description of his disappointing meeting with the Jewish leaders and and then this abbreviated ending that sort of leaves us hanging.

It's like a cliffhanger. And we wanna know, how does that relate to us? Maybe even the bigger question is, what is the ultimate message of this book as we come to the end of of it? What what does Luke, what does God want us to walk away with? What does he want us to be thinking about?

I I think he's closing with a story not just that we hear about, like Lord of the Rings. It's not just an entertaining thing that we've learned about, but we're meant to walk away understanding we're in this story. This is our story if we're followers of Jesus, and and that's in a sense why it's left unfinished because the mission and the work of the spirit continue through God's people. So what kind of people are we supposed to be? What do we take away from what Luke leaves us here with in these couple of verses?

What what should we look like as we pick up the mission where Luke has left it hanging? And I just want us to spend a little bit of time looking about three things that I think we can pull out of these verses. So if you haven't already, go ahead and turn to acts 28, page one sixty six. And the last time will be in our Acts scripture journals, which is kinda weird to think. First of all, some some attributes of the people of God that we pick up from Paul that he's handing off to us.

We are a welcoming people. We are a welcoming people. Look at what Luke says. Paul lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him. There's this picture of I mean, it's really kind of amazing.

A guy who's under house arrest in Rome who probably has no steady source of income because he's under house arrest, and yet he's there at his own expense, which probably suggests the church is helping to support him somehow, like they're they're sending him collections and help, and welcoming all who came to him. Now think about what that would mean in this culture of hospitality as a value. Right? That means he's he's gotta put out food. He's gotta have more than enough food.

He's he's gotta have barrels of things for people to drink. He's gotta be able to receive people and and welcome them, because Paul is there giving a picture of God's welcome. That that's what it means to be welcoming people, that we are reflecting God's gracious, generous invitation to come to him and and to find life and fullness and satisfaction and blessing and and hope. That's what Paul is doing here even in prison in prison of a sort. He he he can't go out to the markets.

He has to have people help him do this. He can't go into people's homes. And so Paul is instead opening the door and saying, whatever I have, whatever I can pull together, I wanna make it available to you as as a picture of what God is like towards us. And when we moved into our, home here in the Indy area nine and a half years ago, we started trying to get to know some of our neighbors because we wanna try and, you know, practice this this example of hospitality and welcome for the sake of Jesus. And we have some neighbors who live near us.

And it was this interesting dynamic with their boy who's, now graduated high school, but at the time, you know, he was, about nine years old. And he was this kid who would just wander over and invite himself into our home. Like, he would just knock on the door and say, hey, can I come in? And he would walk in and go to our pantry. And so what do you have to eat?

Oh, you have mac and cheese. Can I have mac and cheese? Yeah, sure. We'll make you some mac and cheese. And he would just come over, and he would say, oh, those cookies look good.

Can I have some of those yeah? Sure. Have the cookies. And it was, you know, it was a little strange, but we're like, we can roll with this. Right?

Like, that's what I think Jesus wants us to be known for, as people who are glad to see whoever God will bring to us. Paul is not able to go out himself, but he's welcoming all who come to him. And and I love that Luke highlights that Paul is welcoming everyone. That there's no priority, there's no favoritism. Paul is not saying, well, you know, I I really wanna focus on these kinds of people because these are the ones that I like, these are the cool people, these are the ones that I can relate to.

So, those are the ones that I'm going to welcome and be open to God reaching through me. Now, Paul is intentional, welcoming all who came to him. Now, some of us may be living in circumstances where we don't have a lot of opportunity to get out. Maybe you can't drive. Maybe maybe you don't get out as much as you used to.

And and there's still opportunities to welcome people wherever God has us. For most of us, we have a lot of freedom and opportunity to travel, to go out, whether that's at work or in our neighborhoods or school. And are we the kind of people who are taking the welcome and the gracious invitation of Jesus into all the places that God has us. I I remember one of the things that we learned as a boy scout was you always leave a place better than you found it. And I think there's a reflection of the gospel in that.

That as God sends us out into all the places that he takes us, that when people encounter us, they're encountering something of the the welcome and the blessing and the generosity and the kindness of Jesus. I mean, that's why we have serve and learn teams go out across an ocean to to take friendship and encouragement and teaching and help and prayer and support and the good news of Jesus to to places that they go. But that's not just for going across the ocean. It's for going across the street. It's for being the people who wanna host the neighborhood get together so that we get an opportunity to reflect and maybe even talk about the welcome and the blessing and the love of God for us.

We should be known as people who are welcoming like Paul here. That's how we carry on this mission. Not just as people walk through the doors here at Faith Church, but as people come into our sphere of influence in the places where we live and work and study and and shop. We're welcoming people. And as we continue with the story of Jesus, we're preaching people, teaching people, sharing people.

Look at, again, what Luke says. He welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. That's amazing, isn't it? Look at the the the content, the focus of what Paul is sharing with people, proclaiming the kingdom of God, the good news that God has entered this world in the person of his son, that the crucified, risen, exalted Jesus is the Lord and savior of all people, through whom both Jews and Gentiles find salvation and rescue and newness of life and hope and new identity in the community of God's people. To talk about the kingdom of God means that we're people who are going out and talking about how God has fulfilled all of his promises to save himself, that he's left himself a witness and a testimony through Jesus and through his church of what he is like and what he does in people's lives, saying Jesus is the Lord.

Think about think about where Paul is living as he's talking about Jesus, the Lord. And he's in prison, but he's in prison in Rome, in Rome that has a Lord, that has a Caesar who claims himself to be the savior and the Lord of all, and the one who has brought peace to the known world. And we are people who live in the middle of a, maybe even a very similar kind of empire that wants to grab our attention and demand our worship and distract our focus with its claims of salvation and rescue and blessing and peace. But we have a message that says the only real peace comes from knowing the reconciliation that comes through Jesus Christ, and that he is the only one who can offer it. And we go out looking for opportunities to introduce people, to invite them to come into this kingdom that is shaped not by power and wealth and success and fame and domination, but by sacrificial love and kindness and beauty and gentleness and forgiveness and peace.

Paul is talking about our calling living in another empire, but being witnesses in in word and in our lives to a different kingdom that's operating. That how we live, how we relate to one another, the hope that we talk about, the things that grab our attention, that get our passion, that we're advocating for are reflecting Jesus' kingdom. That's what we're interested in advancing. That's what we care about pointing people towards. The neighbor boy that I mentioned, who, you know, would come over, every so often and, you know, invite himself in to, you know, have food and what do you guys got going on?

And, hey, you're playing games. Can I come play games with you too? You know, as we continued in this relationship, I got to do things like he came by a couple years ago. Hey, can you help me figure out how to do a chainsaw? I need to I need to chainsaw up this limb in in mom's yard.

And they're not really responsive to the gospel, not really open to hearing much about spiritually significant things, but we continue to try to love those neighbors because we know that we have what their hearts are longing for and what they're made to know, peace and joy, forgiveness and hope and love. So we continue to try to be people of peace in their lives, to love them, to serve them, to encourage them, to help them experience blessing for us and look for opportunities to have some more spiritually significant conversations with them. That's why God has us there because we have a message that those people need, and you have the message that the people in your sphere, in your world need to hear. The only message of peace and life and hope that our souls are hungry and thirsty and longing for? Can't you see it as as we look around at this world that's just so broken and angry and conflictual and hostile?

And if you're not on the same side with me, you have to be an enemy that I have to hate and crush. And what a difference followers of Jesus can make in that environment. To model that I can disagree with you without hating you. I can listen to you and treat you respectfully with without having to believe everything that you believe or affirm everything that you affirm and and look for the good in the things that I disagree with you about that we affirm together. Because that's what Jesus kingdom looks like.

People who bring peace into hostility. We're welcoming people. We're preaching people because we're looking for opportunities to not just model, but to tell people about why we're able in the middle of a crazy anxiety producing culture or work environment that that we're not stressed out and we're not going crazy like everyone else. I I had that happen to me once when I was still working in the corporate world. A a coworker came up to me and said, in in this, oh my gosh, just a horrible work environment, Jeff, how does this place not get to you?

Like, thank you, Jesus. Let me tell you about the hope that I have of of a God who's in charge of all of this mess, even though it might not look like it, and that I know he loves me and his purposes for me are good, even in the crazy. That's the kind of people we get to be that that carry out this story. We're welcoming people and preaching people, and we are trusting people. We are confident people.

Think about, again, where Paul is. He's in the center of the known world. When you think about ancient Rome, what comes to mind? And and I know this is dangerous because, guys, it's so easy for us to, man, oh my gosh, we could just spend twenty minutes thinking about Rome and nothing else. Right?

When you think about Rome, what comes to mind? Power, glory, wealth, military might, magnificent public buildings, triumphal processions, pride, strength, marble, gold, fanfares, entertainments. And look at the guy at the end of this story who is literally the opposite of all that, weak, unknown, powerless. Nobody knows who he is. In fact, it's almost like a a a comic contrast.

Right? A guy under house arrest waiting trial in this powerful impressive empire. But it's Paul, not Caesar, who left the lasting legacy in our world. It's it's this small, scattered, persecuted church that that is the institution that has impacted billions of lives across every culture and every continent, not Rome. Rome came and gone like every worldly empire.

In in Jesus' physical absence, as he has sent out the spirit, think about what we have seen through this book, that Pentecost becomes the starting point, the the launching pad of this movement of the spirit through the empire and then through the world, and and and even to where we've just been looking at recently. Paul arrives in Italy, right, a place he's never been before, and he finds there are already Christians there. The spirit has been working. Without Paul's intervention, without Paul doing anything, oh my goodness, there are Christians here in Putioli and, Appia and in, three taverns. The the Spirit is working and laying this framework and and softening hearts and and plowing up the ground.

And and so, you know, as we saw last time just briefly, and and Paul was encouraged by this. Right? Like, it doesn't that give you just this great sense of of peace and, trust and confidence to know that someone has gone ahead of you to prepare things. Right? It's it's great when you show up at a hotel room, right, and the room's already clean.

Like, oh, they knew I was coming, and the the sheets are turned down, and there's a mint on the pillow, and everything's where it's supposed to be. You know, or you you wake up in the morning, and amazingly, like, the first thing you notice is the smell of coffee brewing and and bacon frying, and you're like, oh, this is good. Like, somebody knew what I needed, anticipated it, and has been working, ahead of me. That's what's happening here. That's what Paul wants us to see.

As as people who are now finding our part in the story, we have confidence that the same spirit is going out ahead of us to prepare the ground, to open doors, to soften people's hearts, to give us the words that we will need to speak. God has been directing events throughout this whole book, right? God gave them the call for mission. God gave the Spirit. God directed the gospel to go to the Gentiles.

God calls out Paul and Barnabas to go out on missionary journeys and then sends him to Jerusalem and has now brought him to Rome. God can be trusted, Luke is saying. Do you see that? That he can be trusted. He says, in verse 31 that he was able to preach and teach with all boldness, which means confidence, the outspokenness, frankness, and without hindrance, which, again, is just, like, kind of amazing given the fact that he's under arrest and potentially even physically chained to another Roman soldier standing next to him.

He's he's a prisoner, and yet he's able to share the gospel with no hindrances, no barriers. He met all who came and and preached without restrictions. Do we have the same confidence that that God is doing that, that God can do that, that God will do that by his spirit through us? Paul is able to turn this rented house as a prisoner into a center of ministry. And and, you know, I struggle sometimes to think, well, you know, could God really be at work?

Could God really reach those people through me? Could God make an impact in my life? It it turns out that challenges and limitations can actually be opportunities for God's power to be displayed. We had a a friend, colleague, back at, the first church we served in in Saint Louis, a guy by the name of Richard. He'd been a very successful very successful banker, and an elder at our church left that to go back to seminary and came on staff as our missions pastor, was fantastic, incredibly gifted, and in his fifties then was diagnosed with, leukemia.

Started going through treatment, started declining more and more, and, got to the point where it's clear that the end was coming to his physical life. And yet what was amazing is that kids at home. And and they shared that. They had conversations with And and they shared how they had conversations with nurses, with doctors, with other patients. Like, you guys sound like you really believe this stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. We do because Jesus actually is alive. And this hospital room is not the end of the story, and death actually is not going to be the end for me. Death ends up becoming the thing that God uses to usher me into his presence.

Death, in one commentator's phrase, in Jesus' power actually becomes a gardener, and our lives are like seeds that are planted in the ground. And all death does is plant us in the ground in a way that by Jesus' work, we will bloom into eternal life when we see him face to face, so that hospital rooms become even places where Jesus is able to work. And no plan of the enemy, no hostile force can thwart that. Right? Do you think Satan intended for good to happen and God to be glorified out of someone getting cancer?

No. I mean, it's like the story of Job, right? Like, let let me afflict him and he'll curse you. Why would God allow something like that to happen? Why would God do that?

Satan did not intend for afflicting Job to be the writing of a book that has helped millions and millions and millions of people going through suffering to find hope and comfort and perspective. That's what God does. And that's the trust and the confidence that we have as we walk with Jesus. The the the confidence of God's people in trusting that him, that he's going before us that allows us to talk about not ourselves, not about our political opinions, not our hot takes about what's going on in the world, but to talk about Jesus and his kingdom with boldness and confidence. And that he empowers us and he actually literally changes lives through that as we do that.

Do you believe that? Isn't that amazing that we get to be a part of that story, that God is bringing someone from death to life, from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom because of what we are doing, because of our simple faithfulness to be led by the spirit and to share with people the good news of Jesus. That's our story. That's incredible. I think that's why when we get to the end of this book, Luke is not focused on the conclusion, not the results, but the method, the attitude, the perspective, because that's what we take from here.

This little house church of one person is welcoming, is teaching, is trusting. Paul's not discouraged by imprisonment. He's not thrown back to despair by setbacks because he's come too far to worry about that, and he's trusting the one who's been in control of all of it. Part of the reason we don't get the rest of Paul's story is probably obvious, should be obvious to us because Paul is not the point of the story. We don't know what happens to Paul, and that's kind of the point.

We don't know what happens to Peter in the rest of the book. He just, like, disappeared fifteen, twenty chapters ago. Right? We don't know what happens to John. What what happened to him?

Because that's not the point. The point is, what am I going to do with this? What's my part in the story? What story does God wanna write through my life into other people's lives? Because Jesus is the point.

Jesus is the one who's been faithful from the first chapter to the very end. The church is growing, the spirit is at work. God is fulfilling his promises, and he does it through his people who imperfectly but faithfully continue to walk with him, depending on the spirit, welcoming all who will listen and sharing the good news of Jesus. So let's be confident. Let's be trusting and bold in that.

Because even in the face of disappointment and setback and suffering and trial and loss, we have everything that we could need. What more could we need? Paul was shackled in a rented home under the power of Rome, and he had everything he needed because he had the spirit. And we have the same spirit at work in us. So Jesus, the hero of the story, the one that the story is about, is the one who gives us confidence through his servants, trials, through their successes, and failures, and pains, and puzzles, and suffering, and shipwrecks, and reaching out, out beyond Jerusalem, to Judea, Samaria, Rome, to the ends of the earth, across time, across culture, across geography, so that we now have received the same message.

Taking that message to men and women and children and and the afflicted and rulers and local authorities and island governors and wandering prophets and, and sleepy young men in window sills because the pastors preach too long. That's we're a part of that story. That's us, right? Those are the people that God is going to reach through us. And Luke has pictured all of this before us to help us get a sense of the drama that we belong to, that we have been called to, that we're now living out.

Paul's journey is our journey. Paul's victory is our victory. The the spirit is ours. The story is ours. Luke's writing, Paul's journey has come to an end, but ours is just beginning and it continues.

So let's walk into that journey and live it out welcoming, teaching, trusting. Let me pray for us. Gracious God and Father, we thank you as always for your word, especially for this book that, you have put before us for our encouragement to see how your spirit is active, to recognize, yes, our situation is is different from those people, but it's different from one another even in this room. And your story is continuing. Thank you, father, for the reminder that this is not just a history of things that happened in the past, but the work and the activity of your holy spirit who is alive in us and working through us today.

Oh, father, encourage us. Encourage us with that word and this reminder that we would live faithfully, confidently, welcoming, preaching, trusting. Help us believe it so much that we can't we can't help but share it, that it would flow out of our lives because you are alive in us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.