Let’s look in our Bibles tonight at Acts chapter 21. We’ll pick up in verse 18. You can find that on page 930. Last week, we talked somewhat about how, as Paul made his way and journeyed into Jerusalem, he retraced the steps of Jesus. And we looked at some of the ways he did that. I made the mistake of saying that Paul was not beaten in Jerusalem. Actually, we find in these verses that he did receive a beating. It’s next week that we’ll see that he escaped the beating from the Roman tribunal. But tonight we see he not only retraced in many ways the steps of Jesus, but he retraced the steps of someone else we’ve read about in the book of Acts, and that is the first martyr of the church, Stephen. So keep that in mind and we’ll look at that more as we think through this passage tonight. But even as we read the passage, maybe to note some of the similarities that we find between Paul and Stephen and their experience in Jerusalem.
We’ll see two things from the passage. Number one, no tame Gospel. And number two, nothing left to lose. No tame Gospel and nothing left to lose. Before we read, let’s pray and ask God’s help.
Father, we give You thanks for Your Word and we give You thanks for this great privilege that we have had today and tonight to open Your Word, for it to call us to worship, and for us to sing Your praises through Your Word and to pray Your Word back to You in prayer and supplication. And we give You thanks as we open Your Word again to hear from You and to hear the preaching of Your Word, that we would hear from You, and that this Word that has been breathed out by You, that it would be useful for us in teaching and rebuking and correcting and training us in righteousness. We need Your Spirit’s help and we need Jesus – to see Jesus and to follow Jesus as we hear Him from Your Word tonight. Speak Lord, for Your servants listen. We pray this in Christ’s name, amen.
Acts chapter 21, beginning in verse 18:
“On the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present. After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, ‘You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law, and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs. What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow; take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law. But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality.’ Then Paul took the men, and the next day he purified himself along with them and went into the temple, giving notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them.
When the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, seeing him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, ‘Men of Israel, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place. Moreover, he even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.’ For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. Then all the city was stirred up, and the people ran together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut. And as they were seeking to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. He at once took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. And when they saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. Then the tribune came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. He inquired who he was and what he had done. Some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another. And as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks. And when he came to the steps, he was actually carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the crowd, for the mob of the people followed, crying out, ‘Away with him!’”
The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of our God endures forever.
First, we see no tame Gospel. These verses mark the beginning of what is the last major section of the book of Acts. You could almost say that verses 19 and 20 would make a perfect conclusion to the book because what we find here is that Paul had returned to Jerusalem, the brothers received him gladly – verse 19 says that, “After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified God.” They praised God, and all God’s people said, “Amen! This is a terrific, incredible story of what God had done through the ministry of Paul.” It had all come full circle. And here’s this book that had begun in Jerusalem after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Before His ascension, do you remember that Jesus commissioned His disciples to go and to take the message, to be witnesses of the resurrection in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And the Holy Spirit came upon them, the Word went out in obedience to Christ, and several times we have heard this refrain that appears throughout the book of Acts – that “the Word of God continued to increase.” “The Word of God increased and multiplied.” “So the Word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.” From Jerusalem, into Judea, and onto Samaria, and then through the ministry of Paul we can add Antioch, Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus. The message about Jesus and the resurrection had gone all over and it had been received by Jew and Gentile alike. Praise the Lord! It was remarkable! And here is this great scene, this great scene of Paul and the elders in Jerusalem and with the church there. And he is telling the story and they are giving glory to God.
And the book could end right here in this triumphant celebration of everything that had been accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t end here. And instead we have eight more chapters – eight chapters. That’s almost 30% of this book – eight chapters of long speeches from Paul while he is in custody. Eight chapters that includes an itinerary of his voyage across the Mediterranean Sea as a prisoner and then we come to an open-ended conclusion at the end of the book while Paul is under house arrest in Rome. Why does the book of Acts end like this? Well I think at least in part to show us that though Paul was bound and though Paul was confined, the Word was not, and the Word continued to go out and increase and multiply mightily.
But I think it’s also to show us some of what we see here in these verses. And it’s that the reason that Paul was under restraint, the reason that Paul was confined in these next eight chapters as we will see, is because of the love and the freedom that comes with the Gospel message. And we can’t help, as we come to these verses tonight, we can’t help but take stock of Paul’s life because we’ve heard this story before. We’ve been here before. This should sound familiar to us in these verses that we just read.
Several years ago The History Channel ran an ad campaign called “Know Where You Stand.” And in the ad campaign, a photographer had taken and blended together modern color photographs with black and white photographs of some major historical event. And so in one of them there was this picture of a man walking his dog leisurely in this field in color while behind him in black and white was a picture of the Hindenburg going down in flames in 1937, all in one photo. There was another one, and it was a family on a beach in Normandy, France in 2004 while soldiers all around them were storming those same shores in 1944. What this photographer had done was taken two photos, the same place, and blended them together seamlessly.
Well you can almost do that with the outline of Acts chapter 21 with what we have already read and studied in Acts chapter 6 and 7. And in the first place, there was a report – just like we saw here – a report of what God was doing by the work of His grace and power. And there were in both chapters false accusations that came from the Jewish people. In chapter 6, this is what the accusations were. “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God. And this man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law.” Now listen to what we just read in Acts chapter 21, verse 21. “They have been told about you, that you teach all the Jews to forsake Moses.” Verse 28, “This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law in this place. He even defiled this holy place.” And then with those accusations, those very similar accusations, the people in the city in both occasions were stirred up into a frenzy and this mob that formed all of a sudden rushed and violently seized the person who had been falsely accused and then all of that was followed by a long speech. We’ll see that speech next week.
But that’s where the similarities stop. That’s where the similarities between these two events end because in Acts chapter 6 and 7 it was Stephen who was arrested and cast out of the city and ——- in the Christian church in those early days. And then, we read those words right at the beginning of Acts chapter 8, “And Saul approved of his execution.” Saul, or Paul, approved of the execution of Stephen. Saul, or Paul, he was there on both occasions. On one occasion he was a part of the mob, he was a part of the crowd and the uproar. He had a hand in putting Stephen to death and then he went on from there ravaging the church. He was dragging men and women and committing them to prison, breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. But not now. Now he’s the one who is a disciple of the Lord and he is the one who has promoted and cared for the well being of the church. And it’s not Stephen, but it’s Paul, and he’s being falsely accused and he is being dragged off and he is being threatened with murder for the sake of the Gospel message. There could not be a more drastic difference could there? There could not be a more drastic difference between the man that we see in these two episodes.
How could that be? What happened? What happened with Paul? What was responsible for such a drastic change in his life? Well you know what the difference was. You know what happened with Paul. It was the grace of God that appeared to him. The grace of God appeared to him. Paul says in 1 Timothy, he says – excuse me, in 1 Corinthians – he says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” He says elsewhere, “Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor and insolent opponent, but I received mercy and the grace of our Lord overflowed from me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” Paul never forgot it. Paul never forgot what a big sinner he was, but he also never forgot how astounding the grace of God was to him. And that’s why he can write things like, “This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.” That, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” And he could say things like, “I am the very least of the saints and the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.” So hold those two scenes of Paul and don’t miss that this is no tame Gospel.
Because it’s not like Paul was some decent, law-abiding citizen who just needed a little bit of religion in his life and maybe a spiritual pep talk. Well actually, Paul was a decent and religious and law-abiding citizen. It was just that in his zeal for the law he tracked down the followers of Jesus in order to have them killed. It was in his zeal for the law that Paul was an enemy of the church. He was an enemy of Christ. And this mob that we see here in Acts 21, this violent crowd in Jerusalem, that was Paul, and the grace of God came to even him. Do you remember what Stephen’s last words were? Right before Stephen died, as he was being stoned, he said, he prayed, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” He prayed for forgiveness and mercy for those who were persecuting him, and here we are reminded that with Paul, that prayer was answered. Paul’s sin was not held against him. Paul received the mercy of God, and now here he is – he is not the one who is tormenting the church, but no, he is the one being tormented for the sake of Christ. This is radical grace to the chief of sinners. This is the breath and the length and the height and the depth of the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. And we have to see that our sin is never too big for the grace of God. And mercy triumphs over judgment. And that certainly was the case for the apostle Paul.
But that’s not it. And there’s more than that because what we find here in these verses is that in everything Paul did he has a concern for the salvation of the Jews. He has a concern for their place in the church. You know, sometimes people will accuse Luke and Acts of being anti-Semitic. One writer says that Luke is an anti-Semite because his narrative shows a fundamental and systematic hostility toward the Jews. He says that Luke-Acts is anti-Semitic because it never relents in its hateful portrayal of the Jewish people. And now it’s true, there are multiple stories in Acts about how the Jews opposed Christ and the church. Of course there are stories also about how the Gentiles opposed Christ and the church. And in Acts, several times – Acts 13, 14, 17, 18, 20 – in Pisidian Antioch, in Iconium, in Thessalonica, in Corinth, it was the unbelieving Jews rose up and persecuted Paul and those who were with him preaching the Gospel. And that’s what we find in this chapter. Verse 27 – it was the Jews from Asia who stirred up the crowd and laid hands on Paul.
Yes, Paul faced intense opposition from the Jewish people. But answer this question – “Where did Paul continue to go in city after city after city?” He went to his own people. He went to the synagogues. He went to the Jew first. He said, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also for the Greek.” And here he is in Jerusalem itself because of love for his people and love for Christ. A love for them, not a hate.
I once had a Jewish man tell me that he thought that Paul was a self-hating Jew. Apparently that’s a derogatory term for certain people who seem uncomfortable with their Jewish background. This man said that Paul was a self-hating Jew. He said, “Really Jesus is okay, it’s Paul that’s the problem.” But I’m not sure he really understood either Jesus or Paul because Jesus made bold and decisive claims about what it means to follow Him and none else. But what did Paul say? Paul also says, “I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.” Cut off for the sake of the Jews! That’s a hard thing to say, and I’m not sure how many of us would join Paul in making that sentiment. But he also says in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, he says, “I have become all things to all people that by all means I might save some. To the Jews I became as a Jew in order to win Jews.” Paul had a deep and intense love for his people. And he says in the book of Romans that he preached to the Gentiles at least in part to make the Jews jealous so that in their jealousy they might turn and believe the Gospel, in order to save them. And he’s talking about not some future event way out into the distant future. No, he’s talking about right then in the present, that as many of them as could would turn in faith to Christ and be saved, as many as possible.
And so why did Paul come to Jerusalem? Why is he facing such trouble in this chapter? It’s because, on the one hand, he came to bring encouragement and relief to the believers and the church who were there through the contribution. But also he came in order to identify and connect with his own people whom he loves that he might win them too. And he does that even as they are trying to put him to death. Are we sure that the Gospel is that scandalous to us or have to domesticated it? Have we toned it down? Have we cleaned it up too much? Remember what we said at the very beginning of Acts. It was Jerusalem that put Jesus to death on the cross. And in Acts chapter 1, what is the first place that the risen Jesus sends His disciples with the message of forgiveness and salvation and grace in Christ? He sends them to Jerusalem. He sends them to the Jews first. And that’s because the grace of God is for the biggest of sinners and it is for all kinds of people. It’s for Jew and for Gentile. The Gospel demands love for the Jewish people like we see in this verse. And if anything, the book of Acts shows us the patience of God and the persistence of God and the steadfast love of God to show His grace and mercy and love to those who seemed like they were the most resistant and hardened against it.
And that’s encouraging to me. I hope that’s encouraging to you because it’s incredibly liberating. And that’s the second thing we see in this passage. No tame Gospel, but also nothing left to lose. I’ve always liked that lyric, but I could never quite explain it. It’s the one – the Kris Kristofferson song, “Me and Bobby McGee” who Kris Kristofferson who actually died last Saturday. But in that song there’s that line that said, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” Another way to define freedom is “nothing left to lose.” And I think in the song he’s saying something about hitting rock bottom or something close to it that really you can try anything because you’ve got nothing left to lose. But for Paul, for Paul and his freedom, what we see is that he was so cleared of his past and he was so released from the law, he was so certain of God’s unrelenting grip on him that he had nothing left to lose. Paul was free. And the Gospel set him so free that he could actually give up his rights. He could give up his rights for the sake of others.
And wouldn’t you say that we need to be reminded of that today? Because we live in a time of carefully defined and carefully defended personal rights. Someone has said that one phrase, one catchphrase that somewhat captures the spirit of our day is, “Let me tell you how I’ve been wronged.” And I have a book about resolving conflict and about strengthening relationships and there’s a portion in the book, it’s a worksheet called, “The Inventory of Rights.” And it asks the question, “Which of these do you consider your rights? The right to be understood, the right to be happy, the right to safety, the right to make your own choice.” And the point is, we don’t really have any of those rights but we demand them. And the writer says that as Christians, all we have and all that we are, including our rights, belong to God and we can give them up for His sake and for the Gospel.
And you see, when Paul, when he got to Jerusalem, he did not have to submit to the Jewish customs, but there were certain people there who were saying that he taught the Jews to forsake the law of Moses and not to circumcise their children, and that in order to follow Christ, that in essence they had to become like Gentiles. But that wasn’t it at all. And the Gospel, the Gospel message, it is not bound to, it is not married to one particular culture. And so for the sake of taking the Gospel to the Jews, Paul actually put himself under a vow and purified himself. And he was following the instruction that we find in verse 24 from James and the elders. They said, “Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they had been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law.” Paul was free, but he was not free to do whatever he wanted to do whenever he wanted to do it. But he was free in order to observe certain ceremonial laws for the sake of a brother’s conscience. Did Paul have to undergo the purification ritual? No, but did that purification ritual cause him to sin or disobey God by doing it again? No. But it would prevent a brother from stumbling and it would help foster unity between Jews and Gentiles in the church. That was the plan.
And I love how F.F. Bruce put it. He says that, “A truly emancipated spirit, a truly emancipated spirit is not in bondage to its own emancipation.” In other words, his freedom didn’t mean the freedom to demand his rights. He was free to give up his freedom for the sake of the Gospel. And we see it. We see the same thing that Paul, when he gave up his comfort and his safety to follow the call of God on his life, we heard it last time in verse 13 where he said, “I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” And here he is. What’s happening to him? He is being imprisoned and is being threatened with his life for the sake of the Lord Jesus.
But what did he have to lose? What did Paul have to lose? “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave His life for me.” And he says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, and behold the new has come.” And Paul could say that he had “died and his life was hidden with Christ in God,” and “to live is Christ but to die is gain.” Can you say that about your Gospel? Can you say it – that you have nothing left to lose and that the Gospel has set you free, that it sets you free from gratifying your desires, sets you free from needing to be needed, sets you free from demanding to be right and demanding to be recognized and demanding to be appreciated? This Gospel, this radical grace, this no tame Gospel that we find here, it sets us free so that we can say with Paul, “Whether by life or by death, only that Christ will be honored.”
And that’s the key. That’s the key to a unity or a harmony between people as different from one another as Jew and Gentile. It’s thinking more highly of the other person and giving up what may rightfully be yours. And that’s the key to taking the Gospel to the unruly and the resistant like we find in this chapter. It’s holding our lives loosely and trusting ourselves completely to the promises and plan of God. “Let this mind be in you. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who though He was in the form of God, He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but He emptied Himself. He took the form of a servant. He became obedient even to the point of death, death on a cross.” That’s the Gospel. That’s freedom. But it’s a freedom that gives up its rights for the sake of others. And you know the church depends on that. The church depends on that kind of Gospel. The church depends on that kind of freedom.
I was talking to one of our members this week and we were talking about some of the pillars of the church, some of the pillars of the faith – Abraham, Moses, Paul. And then I said, “What about Rufus’ mother?” Rufus’ mother – we don’t know anything about her. We don’t even know her name. But at the end of the book of Romans, Paul says, “Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, also his mother who has been a mother to me as well.” No recognition, no status, no office, but what an incredible gift to the church. To take what grace had come to her in Christ and then to give herself away for the sake of others. Where did Paul learn to do this, to live like this? Where did Paul learn to live with this no tame Gospel and nothing left to lose? Well sure, he learned it from Stephen and he learned it from Rufus’ mother. And they were models among many in his life that modeled Christ and the way Christ gave up His life for the sake of His people so that what we can find here in Acts 21 is that Paul is giving himself away for the sake of the church, for the sake of the lost, the Jews, and for the sake of the name of Christ. May we be so bold to do that as well.
Let’s pray.Father, we come to this passage and we just ask that You would help us to see from different angles and new perspectives and over and over and over again the audacity of the Gospel and the audacity of the freedom that it gives to us in Christ. Help us never to quench the Spirit. Help us never to give up that freedom in search of some other freedom of our own doing. But would You forgive us of our sin and show us how accepted we are in Christ that we would go, in all that we do, in love for You, in love for those around us, in love for the world. And we pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.