Sermon Tone Analysis

If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it.

We are back on track after we took a bit of a detour last week and now we’re scheduled to start our new series on the books of 1-2 Thessalonians on the first of March.

Last week we finished up chapter 20 so tonight we’ll be looking at 3 chapters 21-23 but I will have us mainly focus on one statement that is found in the middle of chapter 23.

Before we get to that though, I want to ask: Have any of you ever found yourself in a situation where you have felt totally hopeless?

Or maybe a better question is: Has there been something that has happened in your life where no matter how the outcome might fare, you can’t find a silver lining?

Like no matter how you cut the thing, you can’t find much of a positive outcome at all?

When we find ourselves in these situations, we often feel like we should just give up right?

Like what’s the point of putting forth all this effort if no matter what happens, I’m gonna come out the loser so to speak?

There are times in our lives where we really feel like giving up don’t we? Times where it seems like we give up all hope?

I can’t remember his name but I remember reading a few years back about a Holocaust survivor and he was asked pretty much how he made it and his answer was pretty shocking.

He said that the reason that he survived was because he had hope and those that didn’t have hope were often the ones that died first.

You see it is possible to die from a broken heart.

Charles Spurgeon, believe it or not died from a broken heart.

He was so broken hearted over the state of the church in his day that his body pretty much shut down.

Johnny Cash, who in my opinion is one of the greatest musicians of all time, died mainly of a broken heart.

His wife June preceded him in death by just 4 months and many think that once June died, it was only a matter of time before Johnny would.

For many, sadness and depression come in so rapidly that the body basically just shuts down.

There’s actually a name in the medical community for this and it’s called broken heart syndrome.

Many of you that have lost both grandparents have probably seen this based on the closeness of their passings to one another.

How easy it is to just give up when the going gets tough.

How difficult it is to look ahead to things unseen when things get hard.

I think in some ways, we are going to see this in the life of the Apostle Paul as we look at these chapters but as we will also see, Paul was able to look ahead when things in his life were hard.

I’m going to pray for us and then I’ll sort of summarize chapters 21-22 for us and then we will read Acts 23:1-11.

Let’s pray.

Summary of Chapters 21-22

So, what has happened for the Apostle Paul since we last saw him saying goodbye to the Ephesian church elders at the end of chapter 20?

You might remember that in chapter 20 Paul stops to speak with the leaders of the church in Ephesus and he has made it known that he is on his way to Jerusalem and there is this sense that his life is in danger.

Paul didn’t leave Jerusalem on the best terms the last time he was there, he is known as the former pharisee that has left behind the life of being a pharisee and has embraced this newfounded religion, and there are several Jewish people as we have seen in the last few months that can’t stand Paul so he obviously has a target on his back from those within Jerusalem.

Paul ends up in Tyre at the beginning of chapter 21 and spends a week there with the believers and while he is there, the disciples in Tyre warn him repeatedly to not go to Jerusalem because the way that they understand the situation is that the moment Paul steps into Jerusalem, he’s a dead man.

From Tyre, Paul and his traveling companions go to Caesarea and they stay at the house of Philip and this is the same Philip that we read about in chapters 6 and 8.

While there, a prophet by the name of Agabus comes to them from Judea and we read in Acts 21:11-13

Acts 21:11–13 (ESV)

And coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘This is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’

” When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem.

Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart?

For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

Paul is not letting the threats of the world to get to him.

As much as it pains him to see his closest friends weep for him, his eyes are set on Christ.

To die for Christ is far greater than to live for the world.

Paul is about to see firsthand what the Lord meant when He spoke to Ananias in Acts 9:15-16

Acts 9:15–16 (ESV)

But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

It was A.W. Tozer who said, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.”

We see this in the lives of not just Paul, but all the apostles.

We see this in the lives of some of the greatest saints throughout history in the lives of Martin Luther, John Knox, John Calvin, John Owen, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, all the John’s I guess, Samuel Rutherford, Charles Spurgeon, George Whitefield, and the Wesley Brothers.

This is part and parcel of the Christian life.

When Paul gets to Jerusalem he’s warmly welcomed by the church and the day after he arrives, he goes to James and tells them all about what God has been doing on Paul’s journeys.

James again warns Paul about the threats of the Jews and gives Paul instruction to go to the temple to purify himself in the eyes of the Jews in the hopes that they would see that the charges laid against Paul were all false.

As Paul goes to the temple, we read in Acts 21:27-31

So Paul is arrested and there is so much confusion surrounding what is happening that those that arrest him have no idea what is going on or what the charges are.

For Paul’s own well-being the officers remove him from the crowd and at the end of chapter 21 and going into chapter 22, Paul delivers what is the first of many defenses that will come between now and the end of the book.

For the first 21 verses of chapter 22, Paul pretty much just recounts his conversion and the events that are recorded in Acts 9 so we won’t spend really any time with this section.

In verse 21, he informs the crowd that Christ has sent Paul far away to the Gentiles because the Lord knows that the Jews will not accept what Paul has to say.

All of this of course happened around chapter 9 and this is not a new development or a new message that the Lord is presently giving to Paul, that will come later in chapter 23.

As Paul is delivering his defense, the tribunal learns that he is a Roman citizen and this grants Paul certain rights as a prisoner that were not allowed for non-Romans.

They have Paul bound and on the very next day, they have Paul appear before them again because they want to know the real reason why he is being accused by the Jews because up to this point, they still aren’t sure what to charge him with.

What I want to do now is read Acts 23:1-11 and verse 11 is really where we are going to spend the bulk of our remaining time together.

Lessons on Verse 11

Verse 11 is such an amazing verse because it shows the humanness of the great man that is the Apostle Paul and the greatness and the sovereignty of our Loving Savior.

With the time we have left, I want us to look at 5 lessons from verse 11.

There are certainly more lessons just from this one statement but these are 5 that I think are most pressing for us today.

The first lesson is that we are commanded to have courage.

The command for courage

The first words out of the Lord’s mouth to Paul as he is sitting in those barracks is for Paul to take courage.

This isn’t a recommendation and this isn’t just wishful thinking.

This isn’t thoughts and prayers commented on a Facebook post.

This isn’t a, “Just try your best and everything will be fine” kind of message.

This is a command straight from the mouth of God to His servant.

Christians are to be a people of great courage because their lives are not entrusted to the hands of man.

The courage of the Christian stems entirely from the hand and heart of God and we will talk about this more a little bit later.

If someone like Paul needs to be reminded to have courage, surely all of us need to be reminded of that as well.

This is the same Paul that wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 “So we do not lose heart.

Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.

For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

Keep in mind that Paul likely wrote this prior to Acts 23.

Paul has seen the anger of the Jews, he has been beaten and yelled at, he is stuck in this horrid prison, and it makes perfect sense that he has this moment of fear and uncertainty.

Paul knows the sovereignty of God, he knows the fraility of man, and even Paul needs this message preached to him again and again, do not be afraid!

Do not fear!

You know of all the commandments in the Bible, I can’t think of one that I break more frequently than that one.

Time and time again in Scripture, God tells His people to not be afraid but time and time again, fear creeps in!

We need to remind ourselves that we are to be a people of great courage because it is God that holds the universe in His hands and it is God that is sovereign over the little things as well as the big things.

We are all commanded to take courage, not in our own strengths and our own abilities, but in the God who saves.

The second lesson we can learn from this verse is the proximity and facts of Jesus Christ.

The Proximity and Facts of Jesus Christ

At the beginning of verse 11, we read that the Lord stands by Paul and speaks to him.

Paul has the Holy Spirit living inside him but for this one special moment, Christ Himself stands by him in the prison and reminds the man of God what he is to do.

We see the closeness of Christ to His people.

We see the love that He has for His people.

Solomon writes in Proverbs 18:24

Jesus is that friend that stands closer than any brother.

Jesus has access to us that no one else does.

He can stand in the prison cell just as easily as He can stand in the church house.

Paul needed that reminder that Christ was there.

He needed the reminder, as we all do, that Christ is with us at the mountain top and in the valleys and everywhere in between.

Jesus is the friend that we need at every point of our lives.

Also we know that Paul preached the facts about Jesus Christ.

This is what we need in preaching and in the church.

There are far too many opinions and not enough facts in the church today.