Continue the Pattern of Faithful Proclamation

PRAY & INTRO: There is nothing else like this in all the world. That God himself, through the accomplishment and reign of Jesus Christ and the continued work of the Holy Spirit, is rescuing stubborn-headed, hard-hearted creatures and making us his children. There is nothing else like this in all the world. To know the joy and certainty and fulfillment and purpose of his grace to make me his own, and to get to follow in the pattern of Jesus and his other faithful followers. To know life as it is meant to be lived in worship of a Holy God. There’s nothing else like this in all the world.

The pattern set forth in the book of Acts is human life as it is meant to be lived. Jesus has come and revealed God. Jesus has made the only way to be in right relationship to God, and Jesus himself has commanded God’s children to follow his example of knowing joy and fulfillment in this life by becoming faithful proclaimers of the glory of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When Acts comes to a close, we find Paul doing not only what Christ commanded but what his heart desires. He’s in Rome preaching Christ to Jew and Gentile alike. And Luke ends with Paul still doing this, with an open-ended opportunity for us to follow the pattern set before us to be faithful proclaimers of a faithful God.

Acts 28:16–31 ESV

16 And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier who guarded him. 17 After three days he called together the local leaders of the Jews, and when they had gathered, he said to them, “Brothers, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans. 18 When they had examined me, they wished to set me at liberty, because there was no reason for the death penalty in my case. 19 But because the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar—though I had no charge to bring against my nation. 20 For this reason, therefore, I have asked to see you and speak with you, since it is because of the hope of Israel that I am wearing this chain.” 21 And they said to him, “We have received no letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has reported or spoken any evil about you. 22 But we desire to hear from you what your views are, for with regard to this sect we know that everywhere it is spoken against.” 23 When they had appointed a day for him, they came to him at his lodging in greater numbers. From morning till evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets. 24 And some were convinced by what he said, but others disbelieved. 25 And disagreeing among themselves, they departed after Paul had made one statement: “The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet: 26 “ ‘Go to this people, and say, “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” 27 For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed; lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’ 28 Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.” 30 He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, 31 proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.

God is active and directing the mission. Yet in his plan and process, God uses those who will faithfully follow the pattern of Jesus to proclaim that God has and is fulfilling his promises (like Paul, and like many others before him, and after him). We are in this line of succession of Spirit-empowered witnesses. Will we be faithful?

From Paul’s example here, we learn first that…

A faithful witness seeks opportunity in any circumstance.

-In what situation do we find Paul right now? (v. 16 &31) Under house arrest in Rome, awaiting a hearing before the emperor. “Wearing this chain” in v. 20 is literal.

-Paul had really wanted to reach Rome and preach Christ there (according to his letter to the Romans), but this circumstance is undoubtedly not what Paul had in mind. But since Paul trusted God’s sovereign direction of all things, he sought to use this opportunity. (v. 17 & 20)

After four years imprisoned, two in Caesarea and two in Rome, we do not find Paul moping and wasting away, but God providing “no hindrance” as Paul keeps proclaiming “with all boldness.”

If we put off being faithful witnesses for Jesus until our situation is just right, we won’t be faithful witnesses at all. (Let that soak in about your current life circumstance.)

These verses lead into another point we must make here, and it is perhaps the most obvious but most regularly neglected by some of us as Christ’s people:

A faithful witness speaks.

(A witness cannot be silent and be a witness.) The majority of this passage is Paul speaking, with some context and responses, but Paul is testifying.

v. 17a Paul’s last defense in Acts is to another set of practicing Jews in Rome, which provides him another opportunity to present the gospel of Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the hope of Israel. (The local leaders of the Jews would probably be those elders who run the synagogues in Rome, of which there were several, and other prominent Jews among them.)

- And Paul wastes no time… “after three days” - Paul has had a lot of practice making this defense, so he doesn’t need a lot of preparation. Our grasp of the gospel for our own lives, and our regular practice of sharing the gospel with others, will also result in making it significantly simpler to focus on the gospel in various, and even trying, situations.

But the point about Paul, Peter, Stephen, Philip, and many other unnamed Christians who spread out from Jerusalem is that they were speaking to others about Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promise of rescue from his word.

Is proclaiming the gospel the privilege and responsibility of a select few, only those spiritually gifted in evangelism, or is it the responsibility of all Christ followers?

What relationships and opportunities do you already have in which you ought to be faithfully speaking about Jesus? (home, friendships, work, school, etc.)

A faithful witness suffers well when he suffers like Jesus with his own hope firmly fixed in the gospel.

(like Christ, for Christ)

In vv. vv.17b-19 Paul recaps the process and his innocence, even of bringing any charge against his own people (although they have unjustly gotten him in this situation). [quick comments on each verse]

[At v. 19] Although Paul is unjustly slandered, like Jesus, he does not revile in return. He brings no charge against his people.

v. 20 Paul says, I’m telling you this so that you’ll understand that I’m in this situation (“wearing this chain”) because of the hope of Israel, meaning that God promised a Messiah, who is the hope of Israel, and what I’m doing is proclaiming that said Messiah is in fact Jesus of Nazareth, which was proven by his resurrection.

It is clear that Paul suffers well as a faithful witness because he is like Jesus and he knows that his suffering is for the gospel and that his own hope is fixed in the gospel. Even when our suffering is not directly caused by gospel witness, we can suffer well when we are like Jesus with our hope firmly fixed in the gospel.

Getting back to the flow of the narrative, Paul uses this opportunity to see if God might be pleased to allow him further opportunity, and that’s what God does here.

A faithful witness leans on doors (for gospel advance) and trusts God to open and close them as He wills.

In vv. 21-22, they respond, and their response includes two things:

In God’s providence, they have received no news of some dastardly evil of Paul, not from his accusers nor even from travelers. You would think that the accusers would be all over this, in their hatred of Paul, but it didn’t happen.

I see God’s hand in this, so that Paul will be able to present the gospel and they have every opportunity to respond or remain hardhearted (as we see in later verses).

Secondly, they want to hear from Paul what his views are because they are in fact (as practicing Jews) predisposed to oppose Christianity because it is widely maligned (contradicted and resisted, heavily antagonized, opposed).

However, to Paul and for our application, even in opposition there is opportunity for the gospel. Although it is the case that Christianity (that Jesus is Lord and is the way to God) is maligned, God uses the godly lives of Christians to disprove such maligning and to give opportunity for the gospel, to tell what it really is that we have come to know and believe.

But I point out to you here that Paul faithfully leaned into this opportunity for his defense in order to connect it to the “hope of Israel,” the gospel, and God saw fit to provide still greater opportunity.

v. 23 They appoint a day and bring more people with them (“larger numbers”) to his rented quarters where he is under house arrest. This turns out amazingly! Although every single Jew in Rome couldn’t have been there, but now undoubtedly all the Jews in Rome would hear in one way or another what it is that Paul preaches about Jesus.

And what does Paul proclaim to them?

A faithful witness proclaims the gospel according to God’s own revealed word.

(God’s message and means of salvation must be on God’s own terms.)

(Still in v. 23) From morning until evening he used the law and the prophets (which in the case of Jews they believe to be authoritative for their lives), to expound (to explain and clarify the meaning) that the Scripture’s teaching on the kingdom of God corresponds to the person and work of Jesus Christ. - Christ is the central fulfillment of OT covenant promises, a point which Paul seeks to prove to his fellow Jews again and again.

So he was trying to “convince” them, to persuade them, to try to win them over to submitting to God’s truth on God’s own terms. (As an aside, that is what I believe expositional preaching is: to take great pains to understand the meaning of a text of Scripture in order to explain and clarify the meaning… in order to persuade the hearer that God has no wasted words and that is to our own good that we submit to what he says.)

This is how we too must present the gospel to those around us, according to what God himself says in his word. And that is how we and others must follow Jesus: explaining what the Bible says about Jesus seeking to convince them to respond in submission to God.

Notice that when Paul is about to quote from Isaiah, he says that it was “the Holy Spirit” who “spoke rightly to your ancestors.” - Don’t take my word for it; let me show you what God says.

A faithful witness loves his hearers enough to tell the truth about God and us.

Ok, so Paul labors all day to convince them from the Scriptures about Jesus, and there is a mixed result.

v. 24 I mean, seriously, Praise the Lord that there is at least a mixed result. Although some continue in disbelief, some are convinced! That’s why Paul never gives up completely on his fellow Jews. So even though he knows the truth of what he quotes from Isaiah (next), Paul also knows that God saved him (Paul), and God is powerful to save others, even from amongst the most hard-hearted. Although Jewish hard-heartedness is pervasive, Paul preaches faithfully for the sake of the remnant who will believe.

The most loving thing Paul can do is to tell the truth, and the truth about God and us is hard, but we cannot be saved apart from the truth.

And speaking of telling the truth, because of the ongoing unbelief of the majority, Paul lovingly leaves them with a warning from Scripture, and a contrast to the greater receptiveness of the Gentiles, to keep them thinking and talking. And it works, they leave disagreeing and discussing.

As Jesus himself does, Paul quotes to them Isaiah 6:9-10, here to make the point that they prove themselves to be resisting God. They have self-inflicted blindness and deafness by their hardness of heart.

I wonder if this is you today. Are you stopping up our ears, covering your eyes, hardening your heart against the truth of the gospel of God through Jesus Christ? - Repent and believe; it is the only way.

That’s the next point made clear in our text.

A faithful witness presents submission to Jesus as the only gospel that saves, for all people.

(We find this in the transition from v. 28 into vv. 30-31… v. 29 was probably an explanatory note that got included in later manuscripts, so it is likely not original.)

“This salvation from God” (v. 28) is Jesus, the Messiah God promised and therefore the hope of Israel… who according to God’s promise is also the hope of the world. Faithful proclaimers witness to all peoples, knowing that Christ not only made a way, but that there will be people from all nations among his people.

Will you invite in your neighbor who is awkwardly different from you, hard to relate to? Are you willing to go to unreached people in the hardest places, because Christ is going to save someone—or many—from among them?

Paul keeps welcoming and proclaiming to everyone who comes to him, which leads us to believe those could be Gentiles and even still Jews.

But what he tells them is that the only way to enter God’s kingdom is through Jesus Christ. And this juxtaposition again of God’s kingdom and “the Lord Jesus Christ” should make it evident that the only way to relate rightly to Jesus is humble submission to him as Lord, who himself accomplished what is necessary to make us right with God. We must come to him on his terms. Any other way of trying to relate to Jesus is not the right way, and will not lead to salvation.

Finally…

To the faithful witness, no earthly cost is too great compared to being in Christ and being used by him.

From this Roman imprisonment, Paul writes,

Philippians 3:8–9 ESV

8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—

[repeat title]

Vv. 30&31 is the place where we ask ourselves where this abrupt ending in Acts fits in with Paul’s life and letters. Why does Luke end here? Those who assume (for various reasons) a later date of writing have to try to explain why Luke ends here. But the most obvious and most likely reason is that Luke stopped writing here because up to the time of writing this is where things stood, that there was not yet an outcome of this trial before Caesar.

So it is from early church history, combined with hints from his letters, that we are led to believe that Paul was in fact released from this first Roman imprisonment, did more traveling as a missionary, going even further west (as he had desired to go to Spain). At such time he would have written the first pastoral letter to Timothy and the one to Titus, and then likely imprisoned a second in Rome, he would write his last letter to Timothy and be executed as a prominent follower of Jesus, like the Apostle Peter.

(Like Peter and Paul) May the wick and wax of our whole lives be progressively used up for Jesus. May we withhold nothing from him, but willingly and wisely spend all the time, treasure and talents he has given us for the advancement of the gospel.

And so we come to the end of Acts of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles. Does Luke intend for this to feel like the end of the Holy Spirit’s work through Christ’s people? It’s not over until the trumpet-blast of God is heard throughout the earth: the king has returned! So we follow the pattern of Paul, who trusts in a God to use his people as we faithfully proclaim God’s revelation of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Conclusion: The forward posture of the Church is kingdom advance through gospel proclamation.

Remember, when we say church we don’t mean simply this gathering, what we’re doing now. The church is Christ’s Bride, Christ’s people functioning together. So we gather as a local representation in obedience and to grow in Christ and train and equip ourselves so that we will be faithful in being set apart to Jesus and (as the emphasis is here) to be faithful to proclaim Jesus.

Christ will build his church. The gospel goes forward despite opposition, and we are the means God is using. Will we be faithful proclaimers to a faithful God, and so know the joy and fulfillment of God’s pleasure in his blood-bought children?

Branson Bible, as a local cooperative team in Christ’s Church, until he returns, let us not lose sight of the evangelistic mission of God’s people. Let us not content ourselves by simply being in the fold, but be obedient to our Savior’s call to be faithful witnesses.

PRAY

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