In spite of many warnings...

We're going to be stepping into the book of Acts here, chapter 21, verses 15 through 26, as Luke just read for us. And I just have a question for you. Have you noticed that life gets messy? Have you noticed that? Sometimes there are messes that have our attention. Sometimes there are messes that well we can hardly think of anything, but the mess Other times there are messes that we don't want even want to think about and we try to put them out of our minds And it's possible that we even have a collection of both of those right certain things boy this and this mess has my attention I can't help but think about the mess and then other times when, boy, I've got so many messes, I just don't even want to put any thought to it, and I don't know what to do about it. So have you noticed that? Life gets messy. And as a matter of fact, there are often multiple messes, and there may be messes of both categories, the kinds that you can't get your mind off of, and the kind that you don't want to think about.

So, given that life has messes, what are you going to do about it? Yeah, what are you going to do about it? Well, we're going to look at that today. What do you do about the messes? Multiple messes. Messes that have your attention. Messes that you don't want to think about. Here's Acts 21, 15-16. It reads this way, After these days we got ready and started... Notice the we.

So this includes Dr. Luke. He's with them in this group here. and started on our way up to Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Caesarea also came with us, taking us to Nason of Cyprus, a disciple of longstanding with whom we were to lodge. So here's the group.

It consists of a number of believers. representatives of the different churches in the New Testament, churches that Paul had just come from. He's brought a group of believers with him, and one of the reasons, as we're going to see, is because they're bringing relief funds, and that way they could help out the church there in Judea that was going through a difficult time. And he had mentioned this in some of his letters. But that's one of the reasons he was bringing representatives from the churches along with him, including Luke at this point in time. But also, this included a number of Gentiles along the way as well.

So it says on our way up to Jerusalem, and we think is up is north, right? Up is because they just come from Caesarea, which is right along the coast. That's interpreted as right near sea level. You can see the Mediterranean from right there. Up to Jerusalem, which is about a half mile in elevation higher. So it was definitely up. Doesn't matter whether you're talking north, south, east, west. Jerusalem is up, so it's a climb.

Some of the disciples from Caesarea, so that may have included Philip, the evangelist. We read about him earlier. He was the one who had brought the Ethiopian eunuch, for example, into the fold of the body of Christ, as well as a number of those in the church at Samaria. He had settled in Caesarea. He may have been one of them.

Taking us to Nason of Cyprus, this was probably a nickname or a shortcut name from Manasseh, may have been the longer form. He was from Cyprus, which is the same island that Barnabas was from. He had become a resident, apparently, of Jerusalem, or that area, and a disciple of longstanding, and it says, with whom we were to lodge. So they were going to stay there during their time. in Jerusalem.

So not just Paul, but all of the companions coming with him. So there would be a significant number of people, probably close to a dozen, who were there. And this fellow was, one, a Jew. Two, he was wealthy enough to have a room where he could accommodate a number of guests in his home.

And they were going to stay with them during their time there where they were bringing the funds to the church in Jerusalem and also the time of observing Pentecost as it would be carried out and the vows that they had made. Okay, so here is the big picture on Paul's third missionary journey. And we'll fall in with a certain section of that, a quarter of that, and this is what's reproduced on your handout.

So this is looking at going from Caesarea to Jerusalem. That would be typically a couple of days' travel on foot. It's possible they made this trip on horseback and did it much more quickly. There doesn't seem to be a description of a stop along the way, so that may in fact be the case.

So they would arrive in Jerusalem, and that would be this Jerusalem, the place where the church had begun, the place which almost a quarter century earlier by this point in time, the day of Pentecost, had introduced the gospel and begun the church there in Jerusalem and Israel. So let's ask the question, why would Paul come to Jerusalem? You can imagine this. Here's Paul.

He says in chapter 20, he's telling the elders from Ephesus, in every city the Holy Spirit tells me I'm headed for trouble as I go to Jerusalem. He is warned at least twice along the way after he tells the elders at Ephesus. He's warned twice. Things are getting rough. They're going to be rough in Jerusalem. He's had multiple warnings. The book of Acts records in the passages we just looked at two more warnings coming from the Holy Spirit through prophets and other believers. And so here, He is going from Caesarea to Jerusalem. Now, why would he do that, given all the warnings?

Isn't this amazing? Well, to think about it, what would be in Paul's mind? What would he be thinking here? You know, it's been a quarter of a century since he asked, what would Moses do? So that's not in his thinking, right? So, nah, we're going to cross that off the list. Paul is even a kind of a guy who would be way beyond what would Jesus do, okay? That's not even the way he thinks, right? So here's the Apostle Paul, and he's going to Jerusalem, and he has specific things that the Lord has told him that he is to do there. And it seems clear he is directed to go there.

And one of the things is to testify and to serve the saints. Let's take a look at this. In Romans, which he had written not that long before he was headed back on this trip, Romans 15, 25, 26, and 27, he says things like, but now I am going to Jerusalem serving the saints. What's he doing? Serving the saints. to make a contribution for the poor among the Saints in Jerusalem. So he is going along with all these others in order to help the Saints in Jerusalem.

And, as was studied not that long ago in the elective where we studied 1st and 2nd Corinthians, in both of those letters he gives instructions on how to make the collection for these Saints. And it's this specific contribution that he includes in that. To minister to them also in material things. So he is going there to accompany, along with others, to accompany these funds. And there's no way to wire it or send it as we have now. You can't just get on your phone and get the app and wire money to some place. You can't do it. There's no MoneyGram. There's no Western Union.

So he's doing that, and he told the saints in Rome that that's what he planned to do. In Acts 21.19, as we'll see just a little bit later in this passage, he began to relate one by one the things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. So not only is he bringing material support for the saints there in Judea, he's also doing as he had done before.

Acts 14.27, at the end of his first missionary journey, what does he do? He goes and tells the saints, here's how God has worked.

In 18.23, at the end of his second missionary journey, he's telling some more about, here is how God has worked in ministry. Notice he isn't saying, I did this, and I did that, and isn't it great for me, right? He's not doing that. He is instead saying what the Lord has done. And what we see here, he began to relate one by one the things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. So one of his other purposes, aside from bringing material support, is also to relate how God had been working among all the Gentile lands among the people there, as well as the Jews.

In Acts 23.11, so this is to come, but pretty soon, the Lord would stand by his side.

There it says, Acts 23.11, but on the night immediately following, this is right before Paul is about to be sent to Caesarea. The Lord stood at his side. So this is Christ standing at his side and said, take courage for as you have solemnly witnessed to my cause at Jerusalem.

So what did he do in Jerusalem? He witnessed to Christ's cause. So he's there not because he is just willfully insistent. He's there not because he's going regardless of all the cautions and warnings. He's going there as we see evidence beforehand and now afterwards when he's just about to head back to Caesarea, which by the way isn't that many days later.

Here is the Lord Jesus saying, you have been my witness, a witness for my cause in Jerusalem. You must also witness at Rome also. So here is assurance while he said earlier, I am willing to die for the gospel. I'm willing to die for the Lord The Lord assures him, don't worry Paul, you're going to make it not only out of here, but you're going to make it to Rome. Trust me. Trust me.

One of the other things that comes up in this passage, this is a passage that has the word disciples or disciple in Acts 21-16 twice, and then this is the kind of stunning thing, that word never shows up again in the entire, not just the book of Acts, in the entire New Testament never shows up again. This is rather mind-boggling.

Here's a word that has been used early on from Acts 6.1 as we saw earlier repeatedly again and again here twice in this verse Acts 21.16 We've got disciple and disciples, and it never shows up again, even once. Whoa, that's a stunner.

It has been used in Acts, from 6-1, now to 21-16, for believers in the body of Christ, male, female, Jew, Gentile, from the day that they believed, until the day that their activity or whatever they're doing is recorded. It's used for them. Male, female, Jew, Gentile, young believer, old believer, they're called disciples all the way through until here. Now that's fascinating. Why? Why does it suddenly stop? We're going to take a look at that.

Believers, We know from Matthew 28, 19, and 20, given to the church, initially assigned to the apostles, given to the church, the believers are to make disciples until He comes to take us all home to be with Him. Now, initially here, who are the most important disciple makers? The apostles. The Apostles are initially given this command. They are the most important disciple makers. As a matter of fact, that word make disciples is only used one more time in the whole New Testament. That's the use of the Apostle Paul in his first missionary journey. He made disciples. But now here in the church, whose responsibility is it to make disciples? Who is entrusted with that command to make disciples. Whose job is it? I can't see any reason other than that it applies to all of us.

But there's some very important things to observe. The New Testament makes it clear that the most important disciple makers are the men. Husbands and fathers are the most important disciple makers. Very important. Now does that mean that others are not? No, that's not my point. My point being that if you look at the husbands are to lead spiritually, that is critical. The husbands are to be disciple makers of their wives. And then Ephesians 6, 1-4, the fathers are the most important disciple makers in the home with regards to their children. Very key.

In the Ephesians elective that will be coming across soon, Ephesians 4, 20 and 21, it talks about learning Christ. Now notice the way that Paul writes that It is the verb for disciples, for discipling. He talks about learning Christ, learning Him. It's not just learning about Christ. There are people who can get doctorate degrees learning about Christ and they're still going to hell. That's not the point. It's learning Him personally. For the last time, disciples, but this isn't the last time for this slide. And you'll see why in a minute.

Until He comes for us, Jesus said, My disciples, and this is John chapter 13, verses 31 through 35, and John 15, 1 through 8. Can you remember two things? Jesus says, My disciples, two things. Remember two? I think so. One, in chapter 13, 31-35, love one another. Jesus had just gotten through washing all of the disciples' feet. Number two, in chapter 15, abide in Christ and He in us. Abide in Christ and He in us. Here's Acts 21, 17 through 19.

After we arrived, so here it is including Dr. Luke again, right? After we arrived in Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. And the following day, Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present. After he had greeted them, he began to relate one by one the things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. So here's James. So Paul met with James, Jesus' half-brother, and with all the elders of the church in Jerusalem.

What's interesting is none of the other apostles are mentioned either as a category or by name. It's possible that at this point in time they were all away on ministry. And one of the things that's interesting, though we think of improperly so, we think of the Apostle Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles. In truth, all of the apostles, with the exception of James, John's older brother, all of the apostles died outside of Israel.

Maybe that had already begun. One of the other fascinating things to ponder here, that while the apostles were all named a few times, and the last place where they are named as a list, and we saw it back in Acts chapter 1, the last place we saw them as a list, that was where Judas was replaced by Matthias. Acts chapter 1 is the last place when all the apostles are listed. They're listed individually after that in the book of Acts and in the New Testament, but all of them together, Acts chapter 1 is the last place. But what's fascinating is we don't know the name for sure of any elder in the New Testament, the whole New Testament, except for this James. James, Jesus' half-brother.

The elders are not to be prominent people. They're not to be people who are identified as making a big name for themselves, but rather are to be people who serve and who shepherd. They don't go for titles. As a matter of fact, the only shepherd who gets titled in the New Testament is Jesus. the great shepherd, the shepherd and guardian of our souls. He's the only one who gets titled. Nobody else gets that.

Now, in our modern practice, we've gone and put the title pastor and all sorts of other crazy titles on people. One of the wildest ones I saw was calling somebody the right reverend perbendery, and then it gives the guy's name. And I thought, what on earth is that? I don't want to get bent. Anyway, so you look at this, except for James. None of the other elders are named for sure. And I think that's on purpose.

Acts 21, 20, and 22 begins like this. And when they heard it, they began glorifying God. So what did they hear? They heard Paul telling them how God had worked. And so that's why God gets the glory and not Paul. So God gets the glory for this. He began glorifying God, giving God the glory for what God had accomplished as he began telling them on the third missionary journey as he completed it here.

And then come these words, And they said to him, You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. And of course that began on the day of Pentecost about 24 years earlier. And they are all zealous for the law. That word zealous means hot. And the law is referring to the law of Moses. And they have been told about you that you are teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or to walk according to the customs. What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. So we can't keep your presence here secret. We can't solve this problem that way.

So one of the questions was Paul actually telling the Jews this? Was he actually telling them, no, you don't need to keep any of the law, and you don't need to observe all that, and you need to just stop that. The core of Paul's message was this, that Jesus was the long-promised Messiah. Salvation was to be found in Christ. Trying to obey the law of Moses will not get you there. It will not get you forgiveness of sins. It will not get you righteousness. It will not get you justification.

Paul did abide by the law of Moses, at least in order that he might, one, carry on ministry with unbelievers, and two, maintain ministry with these Jews. He encouraged, in fact, other Jews to do so as a matter of carrying out ministry among the Jews. He called on the God-fearing Gentiles to live morally, and we're going to talk briefly and soon about what that means.

Now, remember, until He comes for us, Jesus said, My disciples do two things. Love one another, and they abide in Christ, and He in us. Acts 21, 23, and 24, therefore do this that we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. Take them and purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads. And all will know there is nothing to the things which have been told about you, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping the law."

Okay, so that's the plan. What's this going to turn into? It's going to turn into one of those messes. Oh, right? It's going to turn into a mess that the Apostle Paul has been warned about repeatedly for a while. So the plan was to have Paul do what?

To fund the keeping of the vows. That is, now that you're fulfilling the vow, you're going to do certain sacrifices and whatnot, and he's going to pay for those, since those have to all be paid for. And this was likely the Nazarite vow of Numbers chapter 6, verses 22 through 21. Not for just one, but for four men. So he was going to fund those. That would include the series of sacrifices at the temple.

So you go through the entire sequence, day after day after day after day. So that was the plan. As it turns out, and as we'll soon see, This would go on for four days. On the fifth day, a false rumor would blow this plan out of the water. All the warnings were going to come to pass.

Here's Acts 21-25, but concerning the Gentiles who have believed, we wrote having decided that they should abstain from meat sacrifice to idols and blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. So what James has to say is just this, James and all the apostles as was written back in Acts chapter 15 regarding the Gentiles, because remember the question back in Acts chapter 15 was do the Gentiles have to convert to Judaism to be saved? That is, do you have to go through, if it's a male, do you have to go through circumcision? For anyone, if then I'm going to become a Jew, and by the way, baptisms were conducted upon yourself, not somebody else baptizing you, right? So baptism, you'd have to baptize yourself. if a male should be circumcised, and you'd have to then introduce yourself into all the requirements of the Jewish law. But that was not necessary, even according to the Jews. As a matter of fact, the Jews then, and even today, don't aggressively pursue converts. And it wasn't the case then.

Acts 15, 28 and 29, this is a quoting from the letter that was written by the apostles and by the elders there in Jerusalem. Acts 15, 28 through 29 says, For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials, that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. So those were the requirements. They were very similar to the requirements of God-fearing Gentiles in the synagogues. It was, okay, this is what is actually required of Gentiles. And so this is really a very similar statement to that.

Acts 21-26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purifying himself along with them, went into the temple, giving notice of the completion of the days of purification until the sacrifice was offered for each one of them." So, what did Paul do with the recommendation that was given to him? He did exactly that. And he began going through that. How given the warnings that Paul was given, how given the warnings that he was repeatedly given, did he proceed with this plan? Did he know that there was a huge risk of having a major mess with the Jews? The answer is yes, he did. Why would he do it anyway?

You would think, at least you'd ponder the idea that the Apostle Paul would say, hey, James, look, I'm not getting into that. I know this is going to turn out really bad. So I'm just I'm just not going to do that. I'm going to lay low and stay out of this. Is that what he does? No. How can he go in and step into a situation that has a very high risk? Can we say a hundred percent that this is going to turn into a mess? Well, so why would Paul abide by the law of Moses while he was in Jerusalem?

And here's one of the points, 1 Corinthians 9, 19 and 20. which had only been written about a year prior. For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews. To those who are under the law as under the law, though not being myself under the law, so that I might win those who are under the law." Additionally, he was also addressing the needs of weaker brothers here. Was Paul under the law? No. Did he recognize that and even write that down a year ahead of time?

Yep. I'm free from that. But I'm going to follow that anyway. Even though I know there's about a hundred percent chance this is going to turn into a mess. I'm going to follow that anyway and I'm going to love the brothers and I'm going to trust the Lord through what is almost a certain mess coming right up. Until He comes for us, Jesus said, my disciples are to do just two things. What are those? Love one another. Abide in Christ and He in us.

This word disciples, as we mentioned, is never used again in the New Testament, not in Acts, not in any of the letters in the entire rest of the New Testament. The Bible does not explain why, but I think we have plenty of evidences to say why, and that is, out there in the Gentile world, that word disciples And the church was moving out more and more into this Gentile world. That word disciples was a word used for a trainee in the pagan temples. And it was used as a word for someone who was under training in pagan Greek philosophy.

That would be a point of confusion. But the principle of making disciples and Jesus having disciples continued on and continues on to this day. Such that we're to do two things, as Jesus spelled out there on the night before he was betrayed. Love one another and abide in Christ and he in us. Jesus had just finished when he said love one another. He had just finished washing all the disciples feet. And it was years later before they would understand what that meant. Jesus in John 15 said, I am the vine. My father is the vine dresser. You're the branches. Abide in me and I in you.

What does that abiding mean? It means dependence. It means intimacy with Christ. It means reliance upon Him for life, for the spiritual nutrients that we need. It means an intimacy with Him that continues. As we get into life's messes, and yes we will, as we get into all the messes of life, His command is that we love one another and that we abide in Him and He in us. In fact, 1 John and even into 2 John, those are the keys to those books. Abide in me, and I in you. And as we do, guess what?

God will provide all of the messes we need. God will provide all of the messes we need. Notice, we need. We need those messes. They're there on purpose. But so is the direction that we love one another and that we abide in Him and He in us. Let's pray. Lord, thank you.

As we look at this, we see Paul about to get into a mess. We see Paul along with other believers that he's ministering with alongside. He is about to get into some really big trouble, not that it's the first time. You had even warned him about it, but he steps into it just the same, loving the brethren and walking intimately with you, trusting you along the way, abiding in you and you and us.

We thank you, Lord, for that. insight in that direction. And we thank you. We see in the example in the Apostle Paul, no matter how messy it gets, and life gets messy, no matter how messy it gets, he continued to walk with you and trust you through it all. And we just pray that you would teach us these marvelous and precious truths, that we might discover their depth more and more. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.