JUL 23 2023 | Paul’s Third Missionary Journey S1E8 | There Was No Quit in Paul

Sea Change Church · Paul's Third Missionary Journey S1E8 · "There Was No Quit in Paul" · July 23, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

The Book of Acts chapter 21, verses seven through 16. We continued our voyage from tire and landed at Toll May, where we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for a day. Leaving the next day, we reached Cesarea and stayed at the house of Philip, the evangelist of one of the seven. He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied after we had been there a number of days. A prophet named Agabus came down from Judea, 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 Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles. When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, why are you weeping and breaking my heart?

I'm ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus, when he would not be dissuaded. We gave up and said, the Lord's will be done after this. We got ready and went up to Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Caar Raya accompanied us and brought us to the home of nascent where we were to stay.

He was a man from Cyprus and one of the early disciples, this is the word of the Lord. You're not allowed to change the walk-up song to faithfully. It's like, I gotta get a lighter out now and do this. That's not the energy I was looking for. Uh, well, welcome all. We're so glad to have you today. Open your Bibles, uh, if you have your Bibles. He been wanting to do that. Are we gonna do faithfully?

I'm like, no, we're not doing faithfully. Okay. Other churches deal with more serious issues. I'm sure if you have your Bibles open to Acts 21, 10 through 14. We're following Paul. We're finishing this third missionary journey. I was sad, really sad to end this. This is the third season we've gone through the missionary journeys of Paul. Um, we've got, you know, the first missionary journey, the second, and now on the third. And, um, I've just been so overwhelmed by the relationships.

You just see Paul as polity and writing Bibles and doing things of this nature. But the, the people, and like at the end of this is just, he keeps getting on his knees with people and weeping on the beaches, says, I'm never gonna see you again. And man, it was just, it's just so heartwarming. And then I think about the people that I'm surrounded with.

And so this is a really powerful, powerful, um, scripture. As we're ending this. Just so you know, I'm gonna be jumping back into the book of John next week, a little bit of a switch up. Uh, but we're gonna go back to John, starting with chapter two. So we're gonna pick up where we were, the series before this. So start reading through John again, chapter two and chapter three.

Through that we have a map I'm gonna show you that's gonna show a little bit about what Paul's been doing on this third missionary journey that isn't a font that you cannot see. Uh, but if you could, uh, it would show that Paul started over there on the right side of the map, uh, in Antioch and Syria. And he basically went up to Cyrus, Ephesus, uh, through Athens, this trip in Greece, Macedonia, and came back.

The majority of the bulk of this trip was spent in Ephesus. He spent three years there. Uh, and it was incredible. And we know that, um, that he was having impact. He was having a significant life. Paul was living a significant life. I wanna go over a couple things that happened when Paul was on these trips. First thing I wanna say is that Paul probably wasn't the best person to be the disciple to the Gentiles.

Paul was probably the premier Jewish theologian, as, I mean, even today he's seen as, as that today and biblical theologian that would've been perfect to preach to the Jews. He was a guy that should have gone to the Jews. He had all the talent, he had all the wisdom, he had all the historicity, he had all the lineage to be the disciple to the Jews.

But God said, I don't care about your batting average and all the things you can do. I'm gonna send you to go work with the pagans and I'm gonna send you out on this journey. And you could think to yourself, I'm ill-equipped. They're not gonna care about Moses and they're not gonna care about the divine law. They're not even gonna understand it.

How do I start an argument with the, you know, with the, you know, Germanic picks that might come down or whatever, these different people, you know, how am I gonna do that? I'm not, I'm ill equipped, but God said, this is where you're going. And maybe you felt that way too. Sometimes we wanna just go to where we're talented, right? But God's like, no, then you can depend too much on you. We're gonna have you depend on me.

And so a few things that happen because Paul really, whatever God called him to, he did it significantly. This is super important, the significance. And lemme just say a show a few things that he did. First of all, Paul served as a missionary into Asia Miner for over 15 years, which is really powerful. It was 15 years between the first and the third missionary journey from about 45 to 60 a d And he's gonna end up here, uh, in Jerusalem.

At the end of this trip, he planted churches. We believe he planted between 15 and 20 churches, but the number's not actually known. But here's a few that you would know about that we know that he planted. Antioch, I, Iconia, Lyra Derby, Philippi, Ephesus, Thessalonica significance. Where he went mattered. When Paul went somewhere, he went there to make a difference and to make an impact.

He wasn't free running and just floating through life. He had a mission, he had a plan, and it was a plan being called to somewhere. He probably was ill-equipped to go, but God was there. And then the final thing, which is really significant, when he was there, he is writing the Bible. You know, when, when Paul was writing letters to these churches, they were just letters of love, right?

He didn't know that he was writing the Bible. Do you know that sometimes we're doing things, we have no understanding of the significance of it. Paul didn't understand the printing press the internet. He didn't know that he was gonna be writing something that you would have on your bumper sticker or on your refrigerator. He didn't know that people would be memorizing these.

He was just sending a letter to some Corinthian brothers. He was just sending a letter to some Romans that needed to hear from him. But wherever Paul went, he had significance. And so Paul was doing these things. Paul was, uh, in a place though now in 60 ad where he's at a place where we often are. Paul's trying to decide what next, right? He's had a very successful, uh, and arduous 15 years.

There's a lot of reasons he could get outta the game at this point. Cash in the i r a, you know, whatever it is, go do the things he's always wanted to do. He's, you know, maybe 50, 60 or something like this, retirement age. And he's like, I've worked hard. It's, let's go. I can, you know, there's some great islands in the Greek Isles that I got to visit.

How amazing that would be. But Paul is making a decision, and it's one we come to all the time, especially if you've had success in your life. 'cause whether you've had success or you haven't had success, I have found that the people that have reached the top of the mountain ask a question that people who have never reached the top of the mountain ask the same question. What next that'll happen? And when you accomplish your goals, the next question will be, what is the next mountain we climb?

And so Paul's in this place, I wanna give you a really, um, solid biblical framework. Just two points today on how we make those decisions. Are you in a place in your life where you're making a decision? And this is a critical decision for Paul. Critical. Is he gonna go to Jerusalem? And is he gonna go to Rome? And he was getting all of this, um, uh, communication from God and from others about what would come in front of him.

And so we see that this is happening here. Go to verse 10. Let's see some of this that was happening after we had been there a number of days, if you're following the trip, he was going back, uh, heading back to Jerusalem and finishing his third missionary jour journey, a prophet named Agabus. Great name, great name if you're having a child named him. Agabus came down from Judea, I think Jude Harry's son should have been named Agabus. But nonetheless, and he came over to us and he took Paul's belt and tied his own hands and feet with it and said, the Holy Spirit says, big claim, big claim in this way, the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles. Not the news you want to hear, right? This is the, the messages that Paul has been getting.

We'll walk through that chronologically in a second. He's getting all these messages like, here's the next place of your life. And it's not the isles off Melitas, it's not some little retirement villa, uh, off the coast of Sicily. It is being bound by the Jews. And then you're gonna go to, uh, the Rome, the Romans as well. At the time, I'm not sure he knew that he was gonna go to Rome, but this is the, this is the message he was getting.

Sometimes we're always expecting that message from God. That is, you know, more the message of our dreams, right? That's if God really loved us, he would just cash in all of our dreams, right? Because God's bank, God's a Vening machine, and I just go and tell him what I want. And look, I've worked hard, so now it's my time. Gotta get a little me time.

But Paul is not there and he's, and he's looking and he's discerning, just like you and me. What do I do next? How do I make this decision? Here's some things we learned along the way. Now I'll give you a few historical things we learned along the way, but lemme tell you two points that I think are really important as we close this message down about discernment and spiritual direction.

What are the next big steps? Where does my kid go to school? Should I get married to this person? Should I start a business? Should I leave a business? Should I stick with it and stay somewhere? Should I go home? Here's two things that we see. One, God speaks in community, God speaks in community. And I didn't put, but I put, and we are responsible for our own choices.

You're gonna see that here. There's this, there's this give and take, this push and pull of all these people coming to Paul and saying, don't go, don't go to Jerusalem. You'll see in a moment, it actually says that the Holy Spirit, that they discern through the Holy Spirit. And I've kind of wrestled with this verse to come to Paul and say, don't go to Jerusalem. I'm like, well, is Paul, but Paul was being told to go, so does the Holy Spirit contradict himself?

I think the answer is no. I think that they were being told what was happen gonna happen, and then just in their own heart, because they're, you know, like a good mom would tell a kid, you know, or whatever decision they're making, don't do it. I don't want you to do it. Decisions are made in community. Hearing from God is made in community, and we want to be inculcated in a discerning community. Uh, and then also you are responsible for the decisions you make.

And when it comes down to it, Paul has to make the decision for himself. Uh, if you are crowdsourcing the decisions in your life, uh, that's not the way to do it. We're not crowdfunding decisions. We're, we're, we're taking advice. We're listening to what discerning believers had to say, but in the end, we will stand before God one day and be responsible for all of our own decisions. And so we, and that's terrifying, right? But there's also a, a, a cool little grace verse in this that's gonna give you a, a pass on that.

I'm gonna hold off on that verse for just a second. But we are gonna stand in the judgment seat before God. And everything we say will be judged and everything we have done will be judged. Thankfully, if you know Jesus, the blood of Jesus will cover all those decisions. So you don't have to be terrified about that. So that's the first thing.

And the next thing, Paul never quit on a calling. There's no quitting Paul, right? He never quit on a calling. Now there's things he left and stopped doing, but when he knew God had called him to something, he never quit. Never quit. That is so important. Uh, the first one is gonna be God speaks in community. We're gonna go back to verse 10 in just a second, but I have a quote from Thomas Merton. I'm not sure that, uh, the team got it.

It was late. I was reading a book. You don't have it. Thumbs down, okay? But I'm gonna read it to you. It says this, to consider persons and events and situations, only in light of their effect upon myself is living on the doorstep of hell. That's by Thomas Merton. What do I mean by that? Just read it one more time. To consider persons, other people, the events and situations only in light upon their effect, upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.

I experienced some of that this week, and that's why it was so powerful to me when I stopped thinking about community. When I start thinking about the, what God's doing in this organization and in this church, and it just comes down to me. You better preach a good sermon. You better keep people happy. And you, you know, all of a sudden, everything that's happening here, I become the apex.

And that's what Satan wants to do. He wants to separate you, or as a mom, or as a teacher, or as a business person, every decision comes back to you. So if there's war in Ukraine, the thing that you first think is, rather than, Hey, all these people are being affected and being displaced, or whatever, you're thinking, how's that gonna affect me?

How's that gonna affect my finances? How's that gonna, is there gonna be nuclear war? How's that gonna affect me? Or, you look at a relationship and you see all these things happening and there's a, a cadre of things happening around you that God is doing. But it's all about, well, how does that affect me? How did that, how was I in that situation?

How did I come across it? And everything becomes, um, focused within yourself. When you start doing that, it'll oftentimes set you up to make all your decisions. As an island. We're not meant to be an island. And I realized as I was reading and preparing for this, how easy it is to slowly slip from hearing about God and community from mothers calling my mom, calling friends, asking my wife's opinion, calling close friends, having a stake with a friend. And at, at their house, I got invited to go have a steak with a friend at their house. And I thought, Hey, this would be a great to kind of flesh some things out.

That's the way we're supposed to hear. But what I tend to do is just isolate myself because it's all about me, right? So I'm just mental calculating. Thomas Merton says, and we live like that. We're living on the doorstep of hell. And it is really because it opens you up to anxiety, to fear. And all of a sudden when you realize that the world's about more than you, and you're not the center of it, but now the focus is on God and you are just revolving around God, then all those anxieties, the purpose of your business or the purpose of this church, the purpose of your family, the purpose of the school that you're going to, the decisions that you're making are really about him. What does it have to do?

And you see God and you circle around him and everything goes back to God as opposed to you. It opens you up. This is what Paul, how Paul lived. Paul lived in community and relationships. And Agabus is just one of these people who was part of Paul's life. I mean, as you read these last night, chapter 19, 20, 21, over and over again, people, people, I said that Paul greeted or gave a salutation to 86 different people in the books, the new, um, testament books that he wrote.

86 different people he mentioned by name in the letters. Paul was a people person. Verse 10, again, after we, who's, we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. We have to know that. Who wrote the book of Acts? It was Luke. So when it says we, Luke, okay? The doctor, Luke, one of the, one of the, one of the key followers of Jesus that is known, wrote a book of the Bible, was in the group. And he was there.

And he actually ends up being one of the people like saying to to, to Paul, don't go. Which is really interesting. I mean, if Luke tells you not to go right, don't listen to your own heart. It's Luke. Like, if somebody, if mom says something, you'd better do it. Or if dad says something, you'd better do it. But we hear in community, but in the end, we make our own decisions.

And so Agabus comes down who's part of Paul's, um, cadre of people who he is, um, leaning on to hear from God. And so it says in, uh, verse 10, after we had been there a number of days, we, Luke and a group of people, a prophet named Agabus, came down, uh, from Judea coming over to us. He took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and his feet, and said, the Holy Spirit says in the way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and we'll hand him over to the Gentiles. Not great news, not great news. Uh, the first thing that stuck out to me is this, is that Paul's path, the his path, what he decided, should I go left?

Should I go to Macedonia? If you wanna see a masterclass in decision making, go back and read through these scriptures again. Acts 19, 20, 21, uh, actually you could start at 18. You go to the first journeys all the way back. I think it's at 16. And he's just making decisions. He has a dream. Sometimes other times people speak to him. Sometimes it's the word.

But I put Paul's path was propelled by prayer, prophets, patriarchs, and people. Now that's seven pss in a 10 word sentence, you go ahead and try to do that. Paul's path was propelled by prayer. Why prayer. What does that have to do with the community? God made prayer so that we can not only be in relationship with just ourselves or won't only be in relationship with just ourselves, but that we can have community with him. You know, God doesn't need prayer.

Prayer wasn't created for God. He could just make everything happen. He doesn't need you to pray for something. He knows what needs to be happening. He could just make it all happen. God created prayer because he wants to have relationship. And it's a gift. The fact that God would give us prayer to be able to beseech him at any time of the day. Would you, would you want that, that, that on your phone any time of the day? Ah, help. I'm struggling.

I made a bad decision again for the 412th time. Ah, well I'll take the call you. He's not like that. You know, he is like, yeah, yes. Do you realize what a privilege it is to have prayer and community and then to pray for one another? Like to, to the reason we pray for one another. The reason we call out to people and say, Hey, would you pray with me?

Would you pray for me? Is 'cause it builds community hearing from God. You have to have prayer and prayer, not just to yourself, but your understanding. I'm praying to God and I'm praying with others. Who's on your prayer hotline? Who do you call? Who do you know? When you ask them to pray, they're not just gonna say yes, I'll pray for you.

Don't ever, well, lemme say, don't ever try not to say that. Like, if you're gonna pray for somebody, um, pray for them. Like stop. If they, they say, would you pray for me? Take your phone out. Or at least, you know, at least say this as the Lord reminds me. I'll pray for you. Or, you know what I mean? Or something like that.

But prayer is important 'cause it creates community. So the first one is prayer. Who are you praying with? Who are you? Who, who is that? If you're hearing from God, we gotta be praying for each, each other. Then I wanna put is prophets. Prophets are important, and prophets still exist today. Although biblical pro prophecy with a capital P is different than lowercase prophecy.

Where God is just using people in our lives who he speaks to in order to help us discern like a signpost. Prophets are like signposts and people have gifts of prophecy. I know that Pastor Sean has a gift of prophecy. I have a gift of prophecy. Um, you know, other people I could announce in the church. God has just given 'em a pro. Prophets.

Does it mean that they are Jeremiah the prophet? No. Does it mean they're like John who wrote the book of revelation and prophecy? No. The days of biblical prophecy are over. Okay? So if I get up here and say, second thought, Jesus is coming back on this date, and the Bible doesn't really mean this, it means this. And we are the true child and we are the 166,000 or 33,000 or whatever that 44,000. There we go. I knew I'd get it eventually if I do that, that doesn't work. But if I say to you, Hey, I just got, like, I got one last night. It was a friend of mine.

I just got a word as I was praying and I, and I just texted him, I said, Hey, this might be from God, but I feel like you're asking God a question right now. And the Lord says, press on. I hope that hits. I always kind of back it off a little bit 'cause I could be wrong, right? Like, I'm just lowercase. But prophets are important.

Find someone who has a gift of prophecy. Take a spiritual gifts test or find someone that like they tell you things. We're not fortune tellers. We're signposts that God uses in community. And God will give prophetic words to everybody. He will show you about your life. He will sometimes tell you, but some people, he's like, Hey, that person is super faithful with this, and that's their gifting. I'm just gonna use them to be a signpost for me.

People are either gonna point you to hell or to heaven. They're gonna point you in one direction or another. And we want to, and Paul was surrounded by prophets. And so we see Agabus here was a prophet. He wasn't a prophet in the nature of Jeremiah, those prophets, but he was someone in the cadre in the camp. So prayer, he had prophets.

The other ones is, um, that I saw is he had patriarchs. What do I mean by patriarchs? Well, there was no Bible when Paul was around, but there was the, the Torah and the text that, so he obviously had the, the scriptures. And so Paul would use the scriptures. The scriptures were written by whom? By people. God could have just written 'em like he did the tablets with Moses on the hill.

But instead he used individual people. And once again, community, he could have had one person write it, right? He could have had Moses write the entire Bible. Maybe just Moses and Paul. He could've just had two people, right? And it would've been sufficient. But God used all these different authors for 66 books in the Bible as people that have different perspectives. Men, women, poor people, rich people, kings, all these people are there. And as we, if we want to hear from God, we've gotta be leaning into the scriptures.

You want to be a person of God's word. Why? 'cause there's a key word in God's word. Two keywords, actually God's and Word. I want to know God, what I'm supposed to do. Then read his word. Read his word, open up the Bible. People regularly come to me, to me and they say, I don't know where to go in life. I say, are you reading the Bible? No. Okay, let's start there. Let's just start with the Bible. Open it up. Read the Bible.

If you don't, if you're looking for an answer, Proverbs is a great one. Then finally, people see, as I said, Paul is surrounded by people, and Paul is making decisions based on community. He's hearing from people, they're praying together and making decisions. What I said was interesting about this is Paul makes a decision that is contrary to every single person who speaks to him. Now, Agabus doesn't give a go here or go there. Agabus is just like, Hey, this is what's gonna happen. Like, so don't do it, Paul.

That's what everybody else was doing. You're gonna see, and what is so interesting is even with all those people who love Paul, right? And it's hard to make a decision that goes against what everyone else says, right? Even with all these people that are godly people. Yeah. Luke, Luke is in the, the posse. Luke is in the friend group here that is surrounding, uh, you know, you know the, the squad that is surrounding Paul Luke. And they're telling me, he says, when we heard this, I'll show that in just a second. And Paul has, has this, Paul has this answer that is so fashioned in conviction from having heard from God that he just knew in the depths of my heart and the smallest, most quiet voice in my heart, this is the right thing to do.

Sometimes Christian community doesn't always get it right. Maybe there was letting a little bit too much of their emotion. It, it was hard for me to wrestle with this. 'cause you got Luke and these other people and they're saying, Paul, don't go. I'm sure they're saying things like, there's so much more that could be done. What? You know, if we went back to Ephesus, I mean, um, Demetrius, the one who started the riot a few chapters back, um, who was the, the craftsman he had by his own admission said, all of Asia is falling to the message of Christ.

No one is worshiping this false God of Artemis anymore. Who we believe was Satan set up in the church at Ephesus, excuse me, in the synagogue or not, was not a synagogue. The temple of Artemis. All of it is falling. This is what Demetrius himself says. Later, when Paul was convicted in Jerusalem, if you read on to chapter 21 and beyond, they convict him. And they don't convict him for what he's doing in Jerusalem.

It says that that Jewish leaders from Ephesus came to Jerusalem and started a ruckus and said, he's messing up all of Asia. He was convicted in Jerusalem, not because of what he did in Jerusalem. It's because what he did on his missionary journeys, because that's the mission that God had for him. So everyone's telling him not to go. We could be so successful, but Paul knew in his heart, and he gives this answer, go to verse 13.

This is such a powerful verse. Then Paul answered, why are you weeping and breaking my heart? How's this verse? Oh my goodness, I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus, when he would not be dissuaded. We gave up and said, and this is a key statement when you're trying to help people discern the will of God, one, knowing when to finish, like there's a line here and I've given enough counsel and I'm done.

There's a difference between God giving God's counsel and manipulation, right? They say this, the Lords will be done. That is so mature, that is so mature. Both of these responses are mature. Yes, Paul, don't go. We could go back to E and says, we don't want to see, I mean, Paul was beloved. We missed that. Oh, Paul, just this mean guy whipping people with the scripture.

He was beloved over and over again. People were just weeping with him. And it's, and he says in the end, he goes, you're breaking my heart. Am I not ready to be bound but also dying Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus, the Lord's will be done. Uh, here's I told you I was gonna give you the chronology of how he heard from God.

I think this is really important. This might not be in your notes, but you can write these scriptures down. Paul first heard in Acts 1921. That's the first time he heard to go to Jerusalem, and God told him first. So before he told the plans to the people that were surrounding him, he believed that he had heard from God. So they were having a secondary hearing when Paul mentioned them, what God had said. Acts 1921 says, now, after these events, Paul resolved in the spirit, which means hearing from the Lord.

However, God was speaking to him to pass through Macedonia and to Acacia and to go to Jerusalem saying, after there I must also go and see Rome. So that's in 1921. Let's go chronologically to 21, uh, four, a little bit further on. When he was going to the next city, it says, having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days.

And through the spirit, they were telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem. This is the one that tripped me up, right? They were telling Paul through the spirit not to go to Jerusalem knowing that God doesn't contradict himself. And knowing in the end where God comes to Paul, when, when he's in Rome, it says the, the Jesus stands beside Paul when he's in the prison.

I think he's in Rome, he's in a prison. And Jesus stands beside him. And he basically says, I sent you to Jerusalem and I, and you had to go to Rome as well, and you were go, or you're going to Rome actually, and I you will testify about me in Rome. That's what he says to him. So we know by that scripture when Jesus himself stands beside Paul, when Paul has been taken into prison after he's gone to Jerusalem, that it was God's will. So Paul got it right. Okay?

So obviously what was happening is the people were hearing about the negative things that were gonna happen to Paul, but then out of their own nature, they were saying, Paul, don't go. We don't wanna see these things happen to you. We obviously have a agabus in Acts 21, um, 10, and then in Acts 21, 12, you can write that one. It says, when we heard this, people heard, uh, that when we heard this, the second time, we have a group of people telling him once in, uh, uh, acts 21, 4. And now in Acts 2112, when, when we, that's the Luke verse speaking, heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go to Jerusalem.

So there's two things, like I said a moment ago that are really important in hearing one. Um, Paul was faithful to what he was hearing. I mean, ultimately, look, you're responsible for your decisions. Paul's not gonna get to heaven. Let's say he decided to go to Malus, okay? He decided to go to Greece and take the Greece, i r a option, and he's standing in front of Jesus, you know, at the, you know, the great judgment or whatever, and God's like, Hey, I kind of called you to do this. I didn't kind of called you, I kind of, I did tell you to do this, and you you went to Melitas. Paul can't say, but Luke was there. Like Luke, he told me not to go, and all the people didn't want me to. No, Paul had a conviction.

We kinda lack conviction sometimes, right? Just knowing, not being, not being hard in your nature. I have a tendency to like kind of just, the only way I can make a decision is if I get really stout. And that's kinda a weakness sometimes. I can't just make a decision, say, well now, you know, that's kinda my decision. It's what I feel like I'm supposed to do. I always gotta, in order to make it, you know, it's gotta, I gotta get too staunch or whatever.

Paul was faithful to what he was hearing. And the, and secondly, the community was mature enough to know that God would sort it out. And that's really key. That goes back to Roman, something Paul would write, um, you know, had written in Romans 8, 28 and 29, all things this verse, put this on your fridge, all things work together for good, for those that love God and are called, called according to his purpose.

You know, even if Paul would've made a mistake and not have made the right decision, all things would've worked together for for good. God would've sorted it out in the end. Does that mean we can just be willy-nilly about our decisions? Well, if, if you want a bunch of strife and turmoil and going the wrong direction and a bunch of things in your life that, that aren't supposed to be that way, that God can sort it out, yeah, but it's not his best. You want God's best, right? That means that we are listening, we are trying to discern what God said.

So in these decision making, that's the first one that we see. Then finally, here's our second point. So the first was, I just wanna say it again. God speaks in community and we're responsible for our own choices. And maybe you have a choice that, you know, no matter what anybody's saying, God has told me to do this. And the second one is we close, or for the final point is this. Paul never quit on a calling. Verse 12, go to verse 12. When we, that's Luke and the group heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go to Jerusalem.

Then Paul answered, why are you weeping, breaking my heart? I'm not only ready to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. Paul had so many good and valid reasons to abandon the mission to the Gentiles. I mean, the mission to the Gentiles. He was going back to the Jews, but he knew he was gonna end up in, in Rome. And that's, he wanted to, why did Paul wanna go to Rome? Because he wanted to convert Caesar.

Remember he appealed to Caesar later on. That's how he gets sent to Rome. He uses this legal trick where they have to, you know, use government money to send him to Rome, and he can't be killed until actually he gets a, a, a hearing in front of, of, of Caesar. And he thought, well, hey, he's in charge of the whole world. I get to go stand in front of him. I'm willing to die, but at least I get to preach the gospel to Caesar. Like, that was the game plan, right? Like, I'm gonna die, which he did.

But I get maybe a chance to change the whole world. You know, a few Caesars later, maybe a couple, you know, 300 years later that Roman empire did become Christian and the Western civilization is built upon what Paul was doing. And, and, and the people, not just Paul, but I say Paul was pretty influential and pretty significant.

Don't underestimate how significant your life can be, even when you're living in the midst of the modernity of life, when things just seem mundane. How many times was Paul just walking on a road? Where should we go eating dinner? But in the midst of it, he's living a significant life that would change. And so we see that happening.

Paul was, had good and valid reasons. Paul had been, had been beaten, he'd been stoned to death. He had all these things that he had friends leave him. He had agabus coming to him saying, all these bad things are gonna happen. How many of us would be faithful to a calling if we knew that God had said in our heart, yeah, it's gonna, it's gonna end up bad, but, but I'm gonna love you more and I'm gonna be there with you.

How many of us would make the decision to follow Jesus into that? He had so many good reasons not to quit our to quit. So many good reasons. Maybe you have some great reasons to quit. Maybe you have some you've been just, you've been persecuted, you've put up with, you've put up with enough, you've had so much turmoil. You just, you, it's just time to quit.

Now, sometimes it is time to quit. Sometimes God, for your own protection, you need to set boundaries and whatever, but sometimes it's not. And Paul had every good reason to abandon his mission to the Gentiles. I say, what's really important, by the time Paul had completed his third missionary journey, he had exposed the majority of the near East to Christianity.

15 years, three trips, walking on foot, on horseback, going on, you know, first century ships, like that's how he did his thing. No internet, no printing, press maybe a little papyrus here and there. He was riding on or whatever it was in 15 years, even Europe. He even got into Europe. And the first person that he witnessed to, as you remember, was a woman.

The first person that heard the gospel in Europe was a woman he spoke to, um, which was interesting. And all of Asia. He was actually convicted for this very reason, like Paul just persevering. How many times could he acquit after the first journey? He was, he was, you know, beaten the second journey. Uh, he had raised people from the dead.

Ticus, we studied him three weeks ago. All these things that happened in this incredible story, I'm gonna say, few people experienced the results of long devotion in a single direction. Few people experienced the results of long devotion in a single direction. What do I mean by that? I mean, we give up too soon. Uh, our culture more and more is losing its resilience.

Its perseverance, its courage to fight to stand up. We just roll over if anything's uncomfortable, any so, so little things can dissuade us from the things that we are called to that change our world. Two takeaways. And then, uh, we have communion that we're gonna take. Number one, surround yourself with a discerning community. Surround yourself with people, with prophets, with the words of the patriarchs, with prayer.

If you want to be hearing from God, get off the island. Just pull a survivor and kick yourself. Vote yourself off the island. Get onto the cruise ship. That's a bad analogy, but nonetheless, find some people. Call, reach your friends. Hey, pray for me. Hey, what's your thoughts on this? Find wise and discerning people that, that you know here from God and ask God and sit and buy them dinner.

Meet with them. Surround yourself with a discerning community. One of the problems with our influencer community today online is they have nothing to say. And we're following a bunch of people who have no credibility or merit to tell us anything. I don't take much married advice from people that have never been married much. I take some because, hey, my parents did this and they've seen it and whatever. But you know, like I mentioned Dick Cotton earlier, 75 years of marriage, he said one thing to me one time, it's not super popular statement, but he said it to me, it's true. He said, if you want to, if you wanna stay married, every know the answer, stay married.

That's what he said. I was like, oh, okay. 75 years. Um, and it wasn't always great, he told me, but, um, yeah. And the second is this, take take measure of faith, hope, and perseverance before abandoning a calling. Take measure, measure your life like a, like taking a ruler or, or you know, a measuring stick out and begin to take measure of your hope because we have a society that's, that's gives up and perseverance. It says in the scripture, leads to hope and leads to character. The more you give up, the quicker you be. We can get into a give up culture. Just be just quitting.

Just quitting. It's too hard, too hard, too hard. We lose. The Bible says that leads to perseverance. Perseverance leads to proven character. And proven character leads to the goldmine of God's consolation. Hope. You see, when we persevere, all of a sudden God, he leads that to hope. We're meant to do that. Take measure of your faith, your hope, and your perseverance before abandoning a calling.

Some of you need to leave some stuff, some people have been in a, are being abused or in abusive marriages and you're like, Hey, check out. You're not allowed to hit me. I get that. So I'm not saying stay in abusive. These are decisions you need to make. What I'm telling you to do is to take measure, to take measure of how much hope do I have? How much faith do I have?

How much perseverance do I have? What is, what is healthy? What is wise? And take measure in that decision and then in the end, make a decision. Make a decision. You know, indecision becomes a, a, a trap sometimes where we get stuck in a question, questioning the question that we question, that we question at some point. Paul said, I'm going to Jerusalem. I will not be dissuaded.

I am going to Jerusalem no matter what Agabus says, Luke says the group, because Jesus Christ has made it clear in my heart that this is where I'm called to go and I'm willing to be bound and I'm willing to die for that. You know, at least Paul had something to live for. But it's also good to have something to die for, right?

It's good to have something to live for, but I think it's better to have something to die for, to say, Hey, I'll take a bullet for that cause I'll take a bullet for that person. I will stand up and I will become a, a, a, um, an obstruction in the things that are coming against my family that are things that are coming against our culture and the things that are coming against the name of Christ. I will become an obstruction to those things, and I'm willing to die for that. Everyone's looking for things to live for.

Sometimes we just gotta look for something to die for. And Paul was willing to die for Jesus. I hope we can do the same.