Tonight we’re looking at Acts chapter 21. It’s page 930 in the pew Bibles. Acts chapter 21. We’ll look at the first seventeen verses this evening. Somewhere, C.S. Lewis once wrote that, “There are only two kinds of people in the end. There are those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and there are those to whom God says in the end, ‘thy will be done.’” And he’s echoing something the apostle Paul wrote in Romans chapter 1 when he said, “THerefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen.” And there’s a sense in which, for those who refuse to submit to God, God gives them over to pursue their own sinful desires to their own destruction. And so in the end, there are really only two kinds of people – those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “thy will be done.”
When we come to Acts 21 tonight it is about submitting to God’s will, saying, “Thy will be done,” in a difficult and painful calling. And in this passage, Paul is on his way to Jerusalem, he knows that imprisonment and affliction await him there, but he also knows that it’s God’s will for him to go there. And so he goes. He goes to Jerusalem, even when it would seem like it made more sense to do something else. But it’s always best to say to God, “Thy will be done.” And we’ll notice two things in this passage. We’ll notice first the trouble with knowing God’s will, and then secondly, knowing God’s will in trouble. The trouble with knowing God’s will, and knowing God’s will in trouble. Before we read, let’s pray and ask God’s blessing on the reading and preaching of His Word.
Father, we give You thanks for revealing Your Word to us, for this account of Paul and his boldness and his courage and his obedience to go to Jerusalem for what awaited him there. And we pray that as we come to Your Word tonight that You would give us a boldness and an obedience to hear Your Word and to do it, to live out Your will for our lives and to find the comfort and the joy that is to be found there. And we pray that You would speak, that You would show us Jesus, for Your servants listen. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Acts chapter 21:
“And when we had parted from them and set sail, we came by a straight course to Cos, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara. And having found a ship crossing to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail. When we had come in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left we sailed to Syria and landed at Tyre, for there the ship was to unload its cargo. And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days. And through the Spirit they were telling Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. When our days there were ended, we departed and went on our journey, and they all, with wives and children, accompanied us until we were outside the city. And kneeling down on the beach, we prayed and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home.
When we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemais, and we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for one day. On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. He had four unmarried daughters, who prophesied. While we were staying for many days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 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.’ And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, ‘Let the will of the Lord be done.’
After these days we got ready and went up to Jerusalem. And some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us, bringing us to the house of Mnason of Cyprus, an early disciple, with whom we should lodge.
When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of our God endures forever.
Now let’s see first the trouble with knowing God’s will. You all know that sometimes it’s hard to know God’s will, but sometimes God’s will is clear to us and we just don’t like it. And the big idea in these verses is what we find in verse 14 where they said, “Let the will of the Lord be done.” You see, Paul’s travel companions, his ministry partners, they were reluctant to accept what they knew was going to happen if Paul continued his course to Jerusalem. They had every indication to believe that bad things were going to happen to him there. And in the first place, there were these disciples in Tyre. Verse 4 says that they, through the Spirit, were telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem. And what it sounds like is that they had received some sort of prophetic message, and this message must have been an ominous one about Paul and his travel plans. And so what they concluded was that Paul should not go to Jerusalem.
In fact, that same thing is what happened in Caesarea a few days later, and we find that while Paul and his group were staying with Philip in Caesarea, it says in verse 10 that a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. And Agabus took Paul’s belt and he bound his feet, he bound his hands, and he 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.” Now Agabus was a prophet; he had a message from the Holy Spirit. He warned them clearly, vividly about the danger for Paul. And so what was the conclusion? What then was the conclusion for such a message? Well, verse 12 tells us their conclusion. “When we heard this, we and the people there urged him,” they pleaded with Paul, “not to go up to Jerusalem.” And this was a classic case of having all the right information and yet drawing the wrong conclusion.
I still like to tell the story from my senior year in high school. I was on a campus visit at Ole Miss and one of the student hosts at a particular building was asking me some questions about where I was from and where I went to school. And when I told her the answer to those things, she said, “Oh, so are you the football player?” “No, not quite!” But you see, my friend, Will Overstreet, a future national champion at Tennessee and linebacker for the Atlanta Falcons, Will Overstreet was from Jackson and he went to the same high school and both of us had campus visits scheduled for the same day. It just so happens that he had about half a foot and over 100 pounds on me! I was not the football player; he was the football player. She, this girl, this student, she had all of the information, she just drew the wrong conclusions.
That’s what’s going on here in these verses. They knew the will of God. They knew that Jerusalem would be trouble for Paul and they just did not like it. They did not want him going there and facing and experiencing any sort of harm. It’s not always easy to know God’s will. It’s not easy to know God’s will because there are some things that God just does not tell us. He doesn’t tell us where to go to school or who to marry or what to do for a career. We’re not told where to live, when to retire, or how to be productive in retirement. We don’t get a, “Thus saith the Lord,” we don’t get a “Thus says the Holy Spirit” for those kinds of decisions. And a lot of life’s decisions requires wisdom. It requires prayer and faith and good counsel. It requires weighing past experiences along with the gifts and the desires that God has given to us, along with the open doors, or maybe the closed doors that God has put in front of us.
And all those things together go into making decisions and seeking and discerning God’s will. The Westminster Confession of Faith talks about the sufficiency of Scripture for knowing what to do and for glorifying God. It says that, “Some things must be deduced by good and necessary consequence.” There are some circumstances in our lives that have to be directed by the light of nature and by Christian prudence, according to the general rules of God’s Word. Sometimes, a lot of times actually for us, we find ourselves in situations like King Jehoshaphat in the Old Testament. When he found himself facing danger, when he found himself up against uncertainty he said, “O Lord, we do not know what to do, but our eyes look to You.” That’s a good prayer. That’s a good prayer, especially when God’s will is unclear to us.
But on the other hand, sometimes it can also be hard knowing God’s will. It can be hard. What do you do when you know the mind of God on some matter, and yet even though you know it, you know it’s going to bring you trouble. You know that obeying God’s will in some matter is going to hurt. What do you do then? Well these disciples and these friends of Paul, they did not want him going to Jerusalem but Paul was dead set on getting there. How is that? How could he take that approach? How could they hear the same thing and come to opposite conclusions? They said, “Don’t go,” but Paul, he was hastening to get to Jerusalem. He was determined. He wasn’t wasting time. He wasn’t putting it off. And you can get a sense of his determination and his resolution to get to Jerusalem just by the pace of the story that we read here in these verses. There aren’t a lot of details, you notice, between the different stops along the way. And they went from Cos to Rhodes to Patara to Tyre to Ptolemais to Caesarea before making it all the way to Jerusalem. It’s a fast paced journey. And he’s not stopping at any of those places for long. It’s the next day here and seven days there; it’s one day somewhere else. Even the many days that we read about in verse 10 in Caesarea, it couldn’t have been for very long. And Paul says in verse 13 that when they were urging him not to go to Jerusalem, he says, “I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”
How could he say that? How could he be so confident? Well we know how Paul could be so confident because he knew that even if being obedient to God’s calling meant that it caused him trouble, well, “What man intends for evil, God intends for good,” and “All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” Paul knew that it was better to entrust himself into the hands and the plans of God rather than the schemes of man. There’s a quote that’s oftentimes credited to Mark Twain. Mark Twain said a lot of things. He was probably like Yogi Beera when Yogi Beera said, “I said a lot of things I didn’t say.” That was probably Mark Twain as well. But the quote goes like this. It says, “Some people are troubled by the things in the Bible they can’t understand. The things that trouble me are the things I can understand.” Who knows what he meant by that, but on many things God’s Word is clear. His will is plain and revealed for us to understand, and yet we may not like it. It may bring us trouble and we would rather do our own thing.
The Bible says, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” The whole day. But what if that means getting looked over for a job? What if that means losing playing time? “Let every person, every person be subject to the governing authorities.” What if it’s more fun, what if being a part of the group means being critical and demeaning to the governing authorities? What if biting your tongue would just be awkward? “Let the marriage bed – Let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled.” But everyone is doing it, and wouldn’t it just be easier to live together anyway? We know what the Bible says about these things, and yet often rationalize and justify something else. We know what the Bible says about the dignity of human life and about protecting that life, and yet we can be sometimes inconsistent and uncritical in matters of fertility. It’s not that we don’t know, it’s just that it’s hard sometimes.
And the writer of Hebrews, he says about persevering in the knowing and the doing of the will of God, he says, “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” Well here’s Paul, he was ready to shed his blood, he was ready even to die in Jerusalem if it was the will of God for him. You see, that’s the trouble sometimes with knowing God’s will. It’s being obedient to it even when we don’t know how it’s all going to turn out, even when we don’t know how it could possibly be for our good. It’s being obedient even when it’s difficult, and that’s what Paul is doing as he goes to Jerusalem in these verses.
But do you know what? When that trouble comes, and it will, there’s also a blessing and a comfort in knowing that we are in the hands of God, knowing that it’s the will of God. That’s the second thing to see – there’s knowing God’s will in trouble. It dawned on me this past summer. I was doing a wedding for a couple and the homily was from Philippians chapter 4. And you know in Philippians 4 towards the end where Paul talks about how he knew how to be brought low and how to abound. He says that in any and every circumstance he had learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and in need. And in all the times that I’ve heard those verses, in all the times that I have read those verses, it never dawned on me that they sound almost exactly like the traditional wedding vows about loving and cherishing your spouse in sickness and health, plenty and want, joy and in sorrow. And when Paul was talking about that in Philippians chapter 4, what he was talking about was contentment.
Now if you’re talking to a husband or a wife, or maybe if you are playing the newlywed game and you ask each spouse to write down one word that they would come up with to describe how they felt about being married to the other person, if they reveal their answers and one of the person’s said, “Content,” it might not go over very well. “How do you feel about being married?” “I’m content.” It doesn’t sound all that exciting! But that’s what’s happening when a husband and wife promise each other in their wedding vows to love each other in sickness and health, in joy and in sorrow. It’s promising to be content, whatever happens. And that is no small thing. And what difference does it make when you are going through a really hard time, when there’s suffering and when there’s trials, to submit to the will of God and to be obedient in it? That’s what we could ask from this passage. What difference does it make to submit to God’s will in a difficult calling?
Well I think there are four things that we see in these verses, and the first one is contentment. It’s to be content in suffering and in trial. You know, none of us had a road to Damascus experience. None of us can say that we were constrained or had resolved in the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. Paul’s calling, yes, it was different and he had some information that we don’t have, but there are some things that we can know about God’s will for our lives. You know, I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s God’s will for me to be a grandfather. I don’t know if it’s God’s will for me to live to old age. But I do know that it’s God’s will for me to be a husband and a father and a pastor here at First Pres. And so like these people said in verse 14 of Acts 21, whatever happens in those callings that I know are God’s callings for my life, let the will of the Lord be done. In whatever situation, I am to be content, we are to be content. And the way that we can be content is to know that it is the will of God to sanctify us, to make us holy in whatever situation we find ourselves in our lives. There’s contentment.
And what else does Paul say in Philippians chapter 4? He says, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” That’s not saying, “I can hit the homerun. I can get the perfect job through Him who strengthens me.” Maybe, but it’s also saying, “I can strike out or I can deal with a job loss through Him who strengthens me.” And that’s what the second thing that we see that comes to us knowing God’s will in times of suffering, and that is dependence upon God. We saw it back in chapter 20 when he was speaking with the Ephesian elders. After they had met together, they knelt down and prayed together. And we see it here with these disciples from Tyre. Verse 5 says that, “Kneeling down on the beach we prayed and said farewell to one another.” What we see there is that Paul and the others, they were brought face to face with more than they could handle and how did they respond? It drove them to their knees in prayer. It was overwhelming for them, but it was not overwhelming for God. In fact, it was the plan of God. Paul says elsewhere, he says, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this that it should leave me, but He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ When we are weak, then we are strong.” When we are weak, we depend all the more on the grace and the power of God. There’s contentment and there’s dependence.
And then we see that power of God on display in Paul’s life in these verses, don’t we, because we also see his boldness. Contentment, dependence and boldness. I won’t say much about it, but only that when God brings hard things into our lives, if it’s God’s will, how can it really hurt it? How can it hurt us? “I am ready,” Paul says, “I am ready not only to be imprisoned and even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” That’s real boldness. It sounds a lot like the psalmist saying, “The Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me?” Or, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Derek Kidner says that there is a defiance to faith. That faith often times defies our emotions. That’s Paul, and his faith is defying his fear. It’s defying his circumstances and he is bold in the face of trial because he knows that the Lord has called him to it.
And then the last thing we see, not just contentment, dependence and boldness, but we see also more love to Christ. More love to Christ in times of trial. Again, in Philippians, Paul talks about all that he had given up for the sake of Christ and he says, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and may share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.” Sharing in the sufferings of Christ. Have you noticed as we’ve read this passage, have you noticed how many similarities there are in Paul’s journey to Jerusalem as there were in Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem? And we read in the Gospels about how Jesus “set His face to go to Jerusalem.” He was resolved and determined to go there. Well here’s Paul, resolved in the Spirit, constrained by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem as well. And when Jesus said that He would be handed over to die in Jerusalem, do you remember what Peter said to Him? “Never, Lord. May it not be so.” And here’s Paul and his friends, they’re trying to keep him from going to Jerusalem. Jesus was going to Jerusalem in order to be there, He was hurrying to be there in order to be there for Passover. Well Paul is on his way there to make it for Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks. And remember what Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane – “Not My will but Your will be done.” And here’s Paul, and what are the last words as he sets off from Caesarea to Jerusalem? They say, “Let the will of the Lord be done.”
And there are differences of course. Paul would be arrested and imprisoned and put on trial, but he would not be beaten in Jerusalem and his life would be spared. Jesus was not. Jesus was not spared. He was not spared the torture, the abuse, the unthinkable agony of death by crucifixion. He was not spared the wrath of God on the cross. He wasn’t spared so that He could take it, He could take what we deserve, and He could secure victory and salvation for us that we could never do through His resurrection. You see, it’s only Jesus’ humiliation and exaltation that accomplishes forgiveness, new life and eternity in the presence of God, but suffering has a way of making us like Christ. Like Christ in His death that we may also be made like Him in His resurrection. Suffering reminds us of what Jesus did for us. It reminds us that no suffering that we face could ever compare in any way to the suffering that Jesus endured on our behalf. And our suffering reminds us that the suffering of this present time is not worthy to compare with the glory that will be revealed in us. And that draws us in greater love and affection to Christ.
There was an old preacher who was at the end of his ministry and he came to preach on Psalm 23, the shepherd psalm. And he realized as he sat down to prepare a sermon that he had never preached on those verses before and he asked himself, “How could that be? How could I have gone all these years and never preached on Psalm 23?” And then he realized what it was. He said there are probably many preachers who decide to preach on the Twenty-Third Psalm and then think of his congregation. And he thinks about Mr. and Mrs. Jones who lost a child so many years ago, or Mrs. Smith who has suffered for a decade with a chronic illness, or Mr. Peters who have lived patiently with disability for so long. And the preacher thinks to himself, ‘I may know the shepherd psalm better than they do, but they know the Good Shepherd much better than I do. And so he decides to take up another passage to preach that week.
You see, that’s what suffering does. Walking through the valley of the shadow of death with the Good Shepherd, it helps us know Him better and love Him more because He is the one who is so faithful and His guidance is so true. There’s contentment, dependence, boldness and more love to Christ so that we can say when we face hard trials, knowing the will of God like these brothers and sisters in Caesarea said, “Let the will of the Lord be done.”
Let’s pray.Our Father, I’m sure all of us would recognize and confess that uttering those few words can be so difficult at times. And we face challenges and uncertainties, sorrows and tears, and it’s hard to say, “Let the will of the Lord be done.” And yet, Father we pray that You would give us faith, that You would give us strength. Help us to be content and bold, that we would grow in our dependence upon You, that even in our trials we would grow in our love and likeness to Christ. Thank You for Your Word and for the blessings of the Gospel. Help us as we go out from here. Maybe You don’t call us to imprisonment and death for the sake of the Lord Jesus, but help us to be firm and bold and to stand for His sake in whatever comes our way. And we pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.