Acts 21:1-36 (Week 36 - Life in the Spirit)

Last week, as many of you know, we pushed the pause button on this this message series, Life in the Spirit, where we've been going verse by verse through the book of Acts, but today we are jumping right back in, and as we get ready to to look at chapter 21 today, let me, let me just kind of set the scene for where we're picking up today, the Apostle Paul, as many of you know, had had come to know Jesus through this encounter that he had with him. Then we saw all the way back in Acts chapter nine, and his life was radically transformed and changed, so much so that he went from persecuting Christians to then traveling around on all of these missionary journeys to then tell other people about Jesus and how He could transform and change their lives as well, and by the time we get here between Acts nine and now Acts 21 Paul's at the very end of his third missionary journey, where he's traveled so many miles in over two to three years, I mean over 10 years of his life to tell people about Jesus and how they can have their lives transformed and changed. And last week, when we ended chapter 20, we saw that Paul and his leadership team were in Miletus, that's this area here that's just south of Ephesus, and Ephesus may sound familiar to you, because we have a New Testament letter in our New Testament of our Bibles called Ephesians, and that's because Paul wrote a letter there, and he had spent, gosh, probably two or three years in Ephesus, ministering to sharing the good news, telling people about Jesus, and he, he was passing through really close, and he, he knew he was on his way to Jerusalem, and he met with them there to tell them, "Listen, I've been compelled, he says, "I've been compelled by the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem, knowing that only more suffering and hardship is coming, but I can't help it. I'm compelled by the Spirit to go, and He said, "My life is worth nothing if I don't go. If I don't finish the race, the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace, because we can't have anyone, Paul is saying, who misses the grace of God. And so he meets with them there, he shares that with them, he gives them his last words of encouragement and things to do while they're shepherding the church and watching out for false prophets and guarding the gospel of grace above all things, and they kneel on the beach, and they, they pray together, and then as we get into chapter 21 Luke says this, after we had torn, torn ourselves away from them, we put out to sea and sailed straight to costs, and just the language that Luke chose there. Right? I mean, it wasn't that we left the beach and those that were there, we had to tear ourselves away from them, and so you sense the emotion there, and that they loved each other. These were brothers, these were sisters, they had been through a lot of life together, and so they tore themselves away. They set sail to cost, and then Luke continues to tell us where the Holy Spirit took them after that. The next day he says we went to Rhodes, and from there to Paterah, and we found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, and so we went on board and set sail. After sighting Cyprus and passing to the south of it, we sailed on to Syria, and we landed at Tyre, where our ship was to unload its cargo, and so this is where we were again, Ephesus up here, and now we're seeing Paul and them travel all the way back over to Tyre. He's coming back home, he's not real far from Jerusalem, where he's headed at this point. And again, this is the completion of a third missionary journey, where he had left the church at Antioch, and traveled all through these areas, sharing the gospel, planting churches, establishing leaders, discipling people, and he was on his way back through 10,000 miles later, 10 plus years of his life, again doing all of these things, and when he lands there, we see he continues to do more of the same.

In verse four, it says we, Luke included, and them sought out the disciples there and stayed with them seven days. So he's being compelled to get to Jerusalem, but they're there, and so he reaches out to the disciples, and he continues to disciple them and encourage them along the way, but then Luke says that through the Spirit they, the disciples that were there at Tyre, urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. When it was time to leave, we left and continued on our way, and all of them, including wives and children, accompanied us out of the city, and there on the beach. Which we knelt to pray. After saying goodbye to each other, we went on board the ship, and they returned home again. You see the emotions that are involved here, the struggle. The Holy Spirit makes it clear to these brothers and sisters through the Spirit. They become aware that Paul is going to suffer, that he's probably going to die, and so after the spirit's revealing the truth about that, they're going, "Don't go, we love you, Paul. You've shared so much of your life with us. You're our friend, you're our brother, you're our teacher, you're our discipler. Don't go. The problem is the Holy Spirit, as we mentioned earlier, is compelling him to go, and when the Holy Spirit compels you, follow you, trust, even if it means hardship is coming. And so he certainly knew this, and that the Holy Spirit was leading him in this way. And we're going to see, as we continue, that the Spirit is preparing him for what is ahead. Verse seven says we continued our voyage from Tyre and landed at Ptolemais, where we greeted the brothers and sisters and stayed with them for a day. Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the seven, and we're told that he had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. Now, if you were here through the Acts series in the fall, or maybe you've just ever read through the book of Acts, you know that Philip is someone that we were introduced to all the way back in Acts chapter six, and he references him here as one of the seven. The seven were some men that were chosen by the church to help lead this this ministry to the widows, which was kind of some people were being overlooked, and the Holy Spirit led them to choose these seven men to to partake in this ministry and to be a part of those things, and we see that Philip is known now as Philip the Evangelist, like he's not referenced this way when we first meet him in Acts chapter six, but we saw in Acts chapter eight how he shared the gospel and had an encounter with Simon the sorcerer there and shared his faith with an Ethiopian eunuch who came to know Jesus and baptized him, and these were all things that happened with Philip right after that, and guys, this is 20 years later. I mean, from Acts chapter six until Acts 21 we're talking 20 years have gone by, and really, when you see that the Apostle Paul and his team stayed at Philip's house, that alone is kind of an incredible thing, because I don't know if you remember this or not, but when we were in Acts chapter six, this was when Paul was still Saul. This was when Paul was persecuting the church. One chapter after we're introduced to Philip, we're introduced to Stephen, another one of the seven, one of Philip's friends who was persecuted by the church, who was stoned to death, and we're told that the Apostle Paul was standing there giving his approval to the matter. Philip had one of his best friends in leaders in ministry killed, with the Apostle Paul being partially responsible for that, and now he's staying at his house, only the grace of God can do that kind of work. Amen.

I mean, this is the power of our God, though, to overcome relational things that sometimes stand in the way, and some of us have those things with friends or family that we haven't talked to in years, and even when we see little things like this, and we're quick to pass over, but then we make the connection between who we're talking about and that they're staying. We go, wow, this is the big God who is so big that he can, he can overcome even conflict and and things that cause such relational struggle in our lives and keep us from speaking to other people for years. Sometimes one of the things that I find really interesting is after he mentions that they stayed here, he just casually writes this next sentence and says he has four unmarried daughters who prophesied, and after this, he's not going to say another word about it, he's not going to tell us about anything that they prophesied about, we're not going to hear anything about it, we're not going to know anything about what's going, but listen, remember what we're doing here, the Holy Spirit is inspiring Luke to write about their experiences to make sure that the people who were going to read it, then knowing it would be preserved for 1000s of years, that this was something important that they needed to know, and so even though he doesn't share any details, why is this important? Well, we know that women during this day and age were looked down upon, and that they didn't - they were of low status, and and didn't have authority in a lot of ways, and I think Luke again is trying to show us that when we become new covenant believers in the Holy Spirit, men or women are empowered. Powered by the Holy Spirit, and we make ourselves available to Him, that He works powerfully in and through us. I mean, guys, prophecy was no small thing. I mean, prophecy is listed in a gifts list inspired by the Holy Spirit, and Apostle Paul writing about this in First Corinthians 12, and in Romans 12, and in Romans 12, prophecy is leaving listed before you get to the gift of teaching, above the gift of teaching, and here we have unmarried, meaning they're young, probably teenage girls who the Holy Spirit was empowering to prophesy and reveal God's truth to people, playing a big role in God's kingdom work, and I think that says a lot to those of us who sometimes feel like we don't have much to offer. We look around and see other people who have more status and more gifts and abilities, and what do I have to really offer? And here's some teenage girls whom the Lord was using, empowered by the Spirit, to prophesy and be a part of big kingdom-minded things that he was doing, and it was so important that the Holy Spirit inspired Luke to at least make sure that we knew to say something to us about that today, and so we pay attention to those kinds of things. Verse 10, Luke says, after we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea, and coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it, and said, "The Holy Spirit says, in this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles. And when we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And when he would not be dissuaded, Luke says we gave up and said the Lord's will be done. Again, you see the emotions involved here, the love and the care and concern for Paul, their friend, their teacher, their discipler, his love and care and concern for them, but again Paul shows us that the spirit has prepared him to be ready to die for the sake of the gospel.

No doubt Paul probably wasn't just looking forward to it, like I can't wait to die, but listen, his attitude was the spirit's compelling me to go, I'm willing to die for the sake of the gospel, because if that means that my death means that somehow God uses that for even more people to come to know Jesus and be in heaven one day, then so be it. We're reminded that the Apostle Paul saw him as being involved as something so much bigger than himself in even his own life, and is that not true of any of us? When we get saved in the Holy Spirit, God himself comes to take up residence in us, and we get to go on this adventure where, where He is involved in doing things in and through us that are so much bigger than us, man. What a great, humbling thing to be able to be a part of what God is doing in and through us, and many of us miss out on it because we're so focused on so many other things. Luke goes on in verse 15, says, "After this, we, we started on our way up to Jerusalem. It was technically south, but it was up in elevation, and so some of the disciples from Caesarea accompanied us and brought us to the home of Manassen, where we were to stay. He was a man from Cyprus, and one of the early disciples were told, when we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers and sisters received us warmly. Now the next day, Paul and the rest of us went to see James, and all the elders were present. Paul greeted them and reported in detail what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry, and when they heard this, they praised God. Now again, that's no small statement there either. You may remember early on the Jews had no category for the Messiah coming to save the Gentiles. He was their Messiah, right? And so he's coming to save us. And they didn't have a category for that, but through the things that God showed to Peter that we saw earlier, and the things that he was doing through Paul, and they couldn't ignore the evidence that Gentiles were getting saved, and they were there, were signs to accompany those things, and so now they're at a point where they're hearing about all these Gentiles who are becoming new creations in Christ, and they're celebrating, they're praising God for that, and and that's a huge thing, but as soon as Luke tells us that. Now he turns right around and shares about a problem that is brought up immediately. Verse 20 goes on to say, then they, meaning James and the elders, said to Paul, "You see, brother, how many 1000s of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. They have been informed that you teach the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or to live according to their customs. Okay, so we need to pause here and make sure that we understand what's going on. The first thing that Paul references, or that James and them reference, are these Jews who have believed, so these are Jewish people who have come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah. They put their faith and trust in Him to be their Lord and Savior, and so they've been forgiven. The Holy Spirit has come to dwell in them, and now they have become new creations in Christ, but James uses another phrase to tell us even more about them and what they were experiences. Many of these Jews who have believed, and they are zealous for the law. What does that mean? Well, it means that these Jewish people, these Jewish Christians, had not detached themselves from their Judaism yet. These Jewish Christians, who had put their faith and trust in Jesus, were still holding on to the law as a means of approaching God as a way of using it to dictate their lives, instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to do that. In other words, they, they were confused. They were confused about the role that the law now played in their lives as new covenant believers who were new creations in Christ, and now had the Holy Spirit living in them.

They were referencing this idea of circumcision and their customs that they were used to participating in what Paul was teaching about those things. Can I show you what Paul was teaching about those things? Let me show you what Paul was teaching about those things in Galatians chapter six. The apostle Paul says neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. What counts is the new creation, the new creation that you become in Christ, being born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, he's saying that that there is no way that an external sign can prove or make you a part of God's family. You're born again by the Spirit, and therefore you're, you're born into God's family. You're reborn into His family, and that can only happen through the power of the Holy Spirit. He goes on, or he says a chapter earlier, even in Galatians, to say that for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. There's no value in it. There's no value. It's the Spirit that makes you born again and makes you a part of the family of God. You're it's not part of the new covenant. His obligation under the old covenant is no longer there because there's a, there's a new covenant. So this is what Paul was teaching about uncircumcision, or circumcision. What about what about the customs, the Jewish customs. Well, in Colossians two, the apostle Paul writes, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration, or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ. He see Paul says the reality is Christ, right? All of these things that were customs and part of what we're doing, we're pointing to. They were a shadow that was pointing to Christ. And guess what, Christ has now come. So what Paul is not saying here is, hey, you, you Gentiles don't need to worry about all this stuff now, and, but, but you Jewish believers, you still, you still need to partake of those things. If, if he's saying that the reality has come, what it is that they pointed to is here, then there's no reason for it at this point, right. The reality has come, and so this is what he is, he is talking about there. And then, and then, let me, these are all letters that Paul had written by the time we get to Acts chapter 21 He had written Colossians already, he was teaching these things, he had, he had written Galatians. Let me show you one more that he says about the law and. Romans, that really makes it pretty clear, he says. So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. He goes on and says, but now by dying to what once bound us. Notice the plural language. Who's writing? Paul is Paul. Jewish. Yes, Paul is very Jewish. He's including himself as a Jew, along with the Gentiles. The law once bound us. We died to that, and as a result, we've been released from the law, the purpose, so that we serve in the new way of the spirit, and not in the old way, not in the old way, not in the old way of the written code. This is what Paul was teaching, that when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in you, after putting your faith and trust in Him, you're born again into God's family, and now as a new covenant believer with God himself dwelling in you as you're the temple of God, the tabernacle of God, He becomes. We serve by the power of the Spirit, where He becomes our guide, and He empowers us, since He's dwelling in us and working through us. We do not do that any longer through the written code. This is what Paul is teaching about circumcision. He was teaching about Jewish customs. He was teaching about the very law, but these believers, these Jewish believers in Acts chapter 21 were zealous for the law, they were confused about what role it played.

They were using it to approach God and to dictate their lives instead of living by the Spirit. And so it concerns James, concerns the elders about the unity in the church and what it could cause in all of that. And so when we get over here, they come up with a plan. Verse 22 What shall we do? James says, they will certainly hear that you have come. So do what we tell you. There are four men with us who have made a vow. Take these men, join in their purification rites, and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads shaved, then everyone will know that there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law. As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. We learn that in Acts chapter 15, and then finally the next day Paul took them in and purified himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each one of them. Now, when you read that, I'm sure many of you are thinking, what in the world is going on here? We just read about all the things that Paul was teaching about circumcision and customs, Jewish customs, and in the law, and all of those things, and it sure sounds a lot like Paul is putting himself back under the law in this very moment, what is he doing? Why is he doing this? I think what we're seeing here is Paul putting into action some of the things that he also had been teaching through the power of the Holy Spirit in writing in these other New Testament letters, for example, the Apostle Paul, empowered by the Holy Spirit in Romans 14, begins to teach about the principle of the weaker brother, and he begins to tell us that those of us who are more mature in Christ should give up some of the freedoms that we have in Christ to make sure that it doesn't cause our weaker brother to stumble in some way. The apostle Paul specifically said something about that in regards to himself in First Corinthians 919 and 20, and I think this exactly sums up what Paul is doing here. He says, though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone. Why to win as many as possible? He says to the Jews, I became like a Jew. Why to win the Jews? To those under the law I became like one under the law. And then he inserts this parenthetical remark, but by the way, remember, I myself am not under the law, but why am I putting myself under the law, so as to win those under the law? And he goes on, and finally says, I have become all things to all people, so that by all possible means I might save some, and I do all of this for the sake of the gospel. I think this is what. What we see when it comes to Acts 21 and why Paul is participating in this, even though he was teaching all of the things that I read to you earlier, for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of unity in the church, Paul gives up his freedom in Christ to maintain the relationship and the the opportunity for God to continue his his outward work of showing everyone what new covenant Christianity, what living by the power of the Spirit really means, and it takes time. I mean, you can imagine that it would take some time if this had been a part of your heritage and all that you really knew. And so I think that that's what we see going on here, and we see how ugly it can get when people disagree with you about the things that Paul was saying and teaching. When we see what happened next, verse 27 says, when the seven days were nearly over, some of the Jews from the province of Asia, saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, 'Fellow Israelites, help us!

This, this is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people and our law and this place, referring to the temple. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place. Luke inserts the parenthetical remark and says they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with Paul, and assumed that Paul had brought him in the temple. The whole city, Luke says, was aroused, and the people came running from all directions, seizing Paul. They dragged him from the temple, and immediately the gates were shut, while they were trying to kill him. This is how bad things were getting, because of Paul teaching grace. While they were trying to kill him, news reached the commander of the Roman troops that the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar. He at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd, and when the rider saw the commander and his soldiers. They stopped beating Paul. The commander came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. And then he asked, Who he was and what it is that he had done. Well, some in the crowd shouted one thing, some another. And since the commander could not really get at the truth because of the uproar, he ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. And when Paul reached the steps, the violence of the mob was so great that he had to be carried by the soldiers. This is again how bad it had gotten. In the crowd followed that followed kept shouting, "Get rid of him now. The these Jews that we see opposing Paul and starting all of this here are not the same as the Jewish believers that James and the elders were talking about. These were Jewish people who had not put their faith and trust in Jesus and who had opposed Paul, you know, before on his other missionary journeys, and here this whole thing ends up getting Paul arrested, and for the rest of the book of Acts, this is where Paul's going to be arrested in chains for the sake of the gospel. He will even write more letters once he ends up in jail all the way in Rome and sharing the gospel with the guards all along the way, and just continuing to be used by him to make sure that no one misses the grace of God. And so this is a point that we get to, and immediately next Paul is given an opportunity to speak. His speech is fairly long, and we don't have time to get into it today, and so this is a great point for us to cut it off today, and next time we'll end up looking at Paul in his speech, and how it is that he responds. But this is a great opportunity now that we've seen what life in the spirit looked like for Paul in the others in this day and age to ask ourselves, what is life in the spirit look like for us today, based on what it is that we've seen, how does this text apply to my life specifically today? And we ask that question, and there's a number of things I think that we see in here that we'll just touch on quickly, because we've kind of highlighted some of them along the way, but let me remind you first that one of the first things that we saw was the the relational aspect of the church. Remember the emotions, remember the, we tore ourselves away from them when we had to leave from sharing our last words. There's emotions involved with brothers and sisters, they, they had done life. This, this reminds me, hopefully it reminds all of us that church is really about people, it's about community, it's about being united together as brothers and sisters in Christ, and experiencing life together. And so, how does that apply? We, we put ourselves in community, we stay together. And we're, we be, we were part of relationships together through the good and through the bad and the ugly, encouraging each other along the way as we grow in His grace together. I saw an article posted online this week that said something like the headline, and it was 10 million Christians stayed home from church this Sunday, were you one of them again?

Not 10 million people that, that know that don't know Jesus, 10 million people who have put their faith and trust in Jesus, who are now part of the church, the body of Christ. Brothers and sisters weren't in church, aren't in church this morning, I think it's really sad again. I highlighted this earlier, that's never meant in any legalistic way, but if the church is community and He works in and through people to point us to Jesus, then we miss that when we're not involved in the very community that He made church to be, and so maybe that's one of the ways this applies to you, just to remind you of the poor. It's not just of being here, but involved in real relationships, authentic relationships with others. Another thing that we saw was how God worked through four teenage girls to prophesy, to reveal God's truth and be a part of His kingdom work, and again, remember culturally that they were looked down upon, and most people wouldn't think they'd have much to offer, but God thought differently, right? And He thinks the same way about all of us, regardless of however it is that you think about yourself and what it is that you have to offer, and maybe that's what He brought you here today to show you that when you make yourself available, no matter what you think about yourself, God, who's dwelling in you, can do significant things as part of His kingdom work in and through you. The third thing that we saw was that Paul was willing to die for the gospel, right? That Paul saw himself as part of something so much bigger than himself, so much so that he was willing to die for the sake of the gospel, and we already mentioned this, but when we put our faith and trust in Jesus, and the same Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us, He's inviting us to be a part of that story, to lead us on this mission with Him, to invite everyone to experience the same grace that we've experienced, and so maybe that's the way it applies to you, to remind you today that you are a part of something that's so much bigger than you, so much bigger than your comfort. It's about what God wants to do in and through you to reach more people, the same way that He was working in and through Paul, no matter what was going to happen to him. We saw how Paul gave up his freedom in Christ for the sake of other people. Maybe that's the way this applies to you. The Lord certainly works the same way today. Sometimes He calls us to give up some of the freedoms that we have in Christ for the sake of other people, to lead other people to Jesus. And so there might be some freedom that He's working out in your life to lead you to give up in this moment for the sake of the gospel, but finally you could be here today and never received Jesus's free gift of salvation. This, this gift that the apostle Paul risked his life to travel for over 10 years to make sure everyone heard and had the opportunity to respond to, and maybe you're one of those who have never responded to it. You've never received his free gift of salvation, and maybe that's the way it applies to you today, that he brought you here to learn that you are a sinner, and there's nothing that you can do to get out of the situation that you're in, but the God of the universe allowed his one and only son to come here, so that he could pour out his wrath on him as the penalty for our sins, your sin, and then raised him from the dead, defeating the power of sin and death forever, and offers that forgiveness and eternal life to you as a gift, if you'll just receive it, and maybe that's what he's calling you today to take that step of faith and to receive and have that applied to your life, whatever it is that the Lord is leading you to do, or to respond today. Let's make ourselves available during this time of response that we're going to enter into now. Would you close your eyes and bow your heads?