Acts 21:17-22:21 - When You’re Falsely Accused

It's a vivid childhood memory. I was probably in kindergarten or first grade. I hit the exact grade. When we were lining up in school, we were gonna go on a nature hike. and the teacher had us all lined up in line ready to leave the building to go on this little hike. I was near the back of the line, and in the area where I was standing, some boys got to pushing and shoving each other. and I'm not saying I was always innocent in these situations, but on this occasion I was. I was not involved. and one of the boys pushed another boy and he fell out of the line onto the ground and Rod as he's following, the teacher turns around, sees the kid falling into the line and assumes that I was the one who shoved him and I become falsely accused of this incident and I was not allowed to go on the hike. I was sent back to the classroom and had to sit in the class why the rest of the group went on this hike because I had been falsely accused. Is that ever happened to you? I still remember all these years later, that pit in my stomach, that ache in my heart, that I had been falsely accused and paying the penalty for something I didn't do. Now, fast forward a flash forward a few years later, I was in college sitting in the back of the classroom, and again, this may not shock you. I often got in trouble for talking in class, but on this occasion, I was innocent. There was some other students near me who were talking. The professor spun around and called me out in front of the entire class and told me to quit messing around and pay attention. And I had that same feeling, that same emotional response that I had back in kindergarten or first grade when I got in trouble. It that same feeling, unjust, falsely accused, misunderstood. You're going to watch some football games later today, I hope. And there's going to be a player on one of the teams that will probably have a penalty called on him that he did not commit. The flag will be thrown and over the loudspeaker for all the thousands of people in the stadium to hear and for all of America to hear, they're going to call that guy's number and millions of people are going to think he committed some penalty, but he knows in his heart he did not. and he might have that same emotional response that I had all the way back in kindergarten or first grade. It's a terrible thing to be falsely accused. It's a helpless feeling to be misunderstood, to be not given the benefit of the doubt. Has that ever happened to you? Maybe it's happening to you right now. If if so, you might find yourself in the story today in acts chapters 21 and 22. We're gonna look at a series of events that happen in Paul's life. It's really a very lengthy story. it spans from the middle of chapter 21 all the way to the middle of chapter 23. We're not going to be able to cover all of it today. This is kind of a two-part message looking at this event that unfolded. I'll be back up here again next week, and we kind of outlined this where we're gonna go with Xs in this particular section, uh we decided one of us would take this whole thing and try to divide it up. Even today will be exhausting to get all the way through, so buckle up and hang on, we're gonna try to get through this today. But in the story, Paul is going to be falsely accused. And the false accusations made about the Apostle Paul are going to trigger a series of events where he's gonna continually be falsely accused, misunderstood, misrepresented, and you're gonna see in the story situations that you might have encountered, not to such dramatic scale as we're going to see in his life. But you might see, yes, something like that has happened to me today in what should have been a great time of celebration. Paul has returned from the third missionary journey. He's made his way finally to Jerusalem and he's very excited to share with the the church in Jerusalem all that God has been doing across the R Roman Eire through their missionary journeys. And he comes to the leaders of the Jerusalem church and he's going to learn about a rumor that has been started about him and it's gonna set off these series of events. I think you will find yourself here. And if you do, hopefully you'll find some help in this passage of how you might respond when you're falsely accused, when you are not given the benefit of the doubt, when your best efforts just don't seem good enough, no matter how hard I try with this person, I'll never win them over, no matter what I do, they'll they'll never see the good intentions of my heart. Maybe there's a time when you've tried over and over again to be obedient to what God has called you to do and you've been met again and again with opposition. Have you been there? falsely accused, misunderstood all the good intentions of your heart and yet the person won't round up with you. They always assume the worst. This is the situation Paul has found himself in and I think his response will model for us how m we might respond in similar situations. Let's jump in acts chapter 21, verse 17. When we'd come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. On the following day, Paul went in with us to James and to all the elder 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. So Paul had set out this gospel movement that had started in Jerusalem with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and people begin to trust in Jesus, people begin to follow Jesus, and the movement is spreading out around the world headed headed around the world throughout the Roman Empire. and Paul has headed out taking the gospel among the Gentiles, those nonJewish people in other parts of the Roman Empire. Now he's come back to report back to the church all that God has been doing, he meets with specifically, we' told James, this isn't James the apostle, James the apostle was killed in acts chapter 12 if you were with us then and recall that. This is James the brother of Jesus, or the half brother of Jesus, the author of the book of James in our New Testament, and the leader of the church in Jerusalem. Now this is a significant meeting. let's not a gloss over this. This is James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem made up primarily of Jewish followers of Jesus, and Paul, the missionary who has taken the gospel to the Gentiles across the Roman empire, seen by many and within the body there at that time, as the leader among the Gentile church coming together for this historic meeting to share together what God is doing among Jews and Gentiles as the good news of Jesus is expanding across the empire. I love how it says in the end of verse 19 they reported all that God had done among the Gentiles, a great reminder that anything of significance in our life is accomplished only by God's power and not our own creativity, or our own efforts. If something really important is going to happen eternally soon is gonna happen. It's because God did it, not because we got clever enough or or smart enough, or or creative enough. My prayer the last few months at Northland has been God, would you do something in our church and in our neighborhood that could only be attributed to your power? that people looking and say, yes, look what happened because Northland built a new building or or they came up with a really cool website of their live stream looked awesome, or or their staff did good things, but just God moved in a way and say look what God did. That's what they said that day. God is doing amazing things. In verse 20 says they glorified God when they heard it. So this is really amazing. They're sharing together, this is what God's doing in Jerusalem. this is what God's doing across the Roman empile empire, and they gave glory to God, but right after they gave glory to God, the conversation turns negative. verse 20. And they said to him, you see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. Yes, God has doing a great thing among the Gentiles, but there's still thousands of Jews who have believed, and these Jews, he says, are zealous for the law verse 21 they have been told about you. 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. Is that so often things can be so positive and so good, and then somebody has to bring up the bad news. Yes, God is on the move, but I have some bad news, Paul. There are some among our body, some among the believing Jews, who have been told that you are speaking against the customs of the Jewish people. You're telling people not to listen to the teachings of Moses. You're telling people to stop circumcising their children and to abandon Jewish traditions. This is this is absolutely false. Paul was not doing this. What Paul was doing was saying, you're not saved by circumcision. You're not saved by going to the temple. You're not saved by obeying the law of Moses. You're saved by putting your faith in Jesus Christ alone, that's what saves you. But in no way did he say, stop being Jewish quite the opposite. He continued to try to reach the Jewish people. He continued to practice Jewish traditions. In fact, if you remember, in acts chapter 16, he took a young man named Timothy with him on one of his missionary journeys. Timothy had a Jewish mother, but a Gentile father, a nonJ Jewish father, and Timothy had never been circumcised. And Paulivity, you need to get circumcised, not because you have to get circumcised to be right with God, but because other people are gonna say, hey, how come you got this Jewish guy with you who's not been circumcised? Timothy, you don't have to do this. God's not requiring this of you, but if you made this concession, it would be beneficial for the mission and for the unity of what we're doing together. Paul was always seeking the unity of the body, seeking to make concessions. This accusation was false, but they said it's out there, Paul, and when people find out you're here, there's going to be trouble, but we have a plan verse 23. Therefore, ado therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow, take these men and purify yourself along with them, pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in you to what they have been told about you, that you yourself also live according to the obserbs of law. What are you saying here? Paul, there are four guys among the body. they're they're Jewish men, they're followers of Jesus like you. They have taken a vow. Now, the vow is called a Nazarite vow. If you wanted to learn more about it, you could go back to numbers chapter six to learn more about this. But part of the vow was you'd let your hair grow during the course of the vow. when the vow was over, you would cut your hair, go to the temple, present the hair to the priest at the temple along with a sacrifice offering to finish out the vow. Said, Paul, here's what you can do. You can prove your street cred as a Jew, you can increase your street cred as a Jew if you'll go with these men to the temple when they present their hair. In fact, Paul, why don't you pay for the offering that they're gonna make? So you go with them, you come out of your pocket for the offering for what they're doing, and everyone will say, look at Paul's doing. He's still Jewish, get off his back. Great plan. And so Paul does what they instructed him to do, he's gonna make his way to the temple with these four men in order that they can fulfill the vow and prove that all these rumors about him are false. verse 26 Paul took them in, 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, this is this time of purification, when the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, seeing him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd, 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 in this place. Moreover, he even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place, for they had previously seen Trophhemus, the Ephesian with him in the city, and they had supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. So what's going on here? Paul, in an effort to satisfy the Jewish Christians to set to calm down the rumors about him, not believing the Jewish practices in Jerusalems anymore, goes to the temple, and in the temple, now he finds himself in trouble with non Christian Jewish people in the temple. You've ever had a time where you tried to do the right thing and only got you in bigger trouble. That's what's going on here. They're accusing him there. This is that guy, Paul, the Jews from Asia, what we talking about here? These are people probably from Ephesus. Paul had just spent nearly three years in Ephesus. He had a lot of conflict there with Jews who didn't like his preaching about Jesus being the Messiah, and some of these Jewish people from Ephesus have come to Jerusalem for Passover. They see Paul there and they go, oh, no, here's that guy again. That's the guy who has caused it all the trouble in Ephesus. and now he's come here. and they saw one of their friends, a man named Trophhemus, not one of their friends, but just one of their fellow Ephesian citizens in the city. and they said, we saw this guy walking around the city with Paul. Trophhe is a Gentile and Paul had took him into the temple, now that's false.s there's no evidence, it would have been crazy for Paul to have taken trophimus into the restricted area of the temple. What are they accusing him of? In a temple there there were se se just to make this very short and simple. There were certain sections of the temple that you could go in and certain sections you couldn't go in, depending on whether you were a Gentile or a Jew or a man or a woman or a priest. And so you'd start at the outside, there was the court of the Gentiles, and anybody could go in the court of the gentiles men, women, Jews, Gentiles, anybody could be in there. And after you went through that court, there was a wall on this side of that wall was the court of women. Now, only Jewish people could go in there. Jewish men, Jewish women, no Gentiles, and then you could go to the court of the men and then the holy of holies and so forth. And so out in this area, anybody can be there. Paul, you want to being trophous there, bring him there, no problem. But there was a four foot wall that went around that court, and there were signs on that wall that said nobody, no foreigner is allowed to come past this wall. Archaeologists have found these signs you can go to museums and actually find some of these signs that have have been discovered that that hung on that wall that said any foreigner who passes beyond this point will be killed. And so you're not going to take trophus in there, because Trophus is going to get killed, Paul can get killed. and in fact, it would be counterproductive to his mission, wouldn't it? Why did you go to the temple in the first place? to appease the Jews, to say, I'm still Jewish. You don't settle that rumor by going to the temple and taking a Gentile into the forbidden restricted area of the temple. He's been falsely accused of taking this man into that area. verse 30 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 in centurions and ran down to them, and when they saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. at this point mob justice takes over. They seize Paul. They drag him from the temple. They shut the gates of the temple so the rioting crowds and the Roman troops who are soon to arrive can't defile the temple any further and they're seeking to kill Paul. They're going to drag him outside the temple and they're going to kill him on the basis of this false accusation of taking this Gentile into the restricted area. Well, just at that moment, we're told that Rome comes to the rescue. The Roman Eire had a garrison there near the temple where they could keep an eye on all the activities of the Jewish people, just in case there was trouble. and they see the ruckus, they've they've grabbed Paul, they begin to beat Paul, they've drug Paul out of the temple. They're about to kill him, and the Roman soldiers rushed in, were told centurions plural. A centurion was 100 soldiers, so it's at least 200 soldiers. Can you get that image in your mind? A rioting mob of angry Jewish people about to kill Paul and at least 200 Roman soldiers rushing to the temple complex to put down the riot and see what's going on. They came up verse 333 and arrested him. They ordered him to be bound with chains, and inquired who he was and what he had done. some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another, and he could not learn the facts because of the uproar. He ordered him to be brought to the barracks, and when they came to the steps, he was actually carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the crowd, for the mob of the people were crying, were following crying out away with him, not knowing the full scope. The soldiers say, we got to figure out what's going on. People are shouting one thing, they're shouting another thing, and the leader of the troops says, I got to get to the bottom of this. So they chain him up between two soldiers and they drag him away from the temple, headed to the barracks where they could find out what the world's going on. What is this commotion? What is it the center of all of this? We're told in verse 36 that the excuse me, the verse 35 he was actually carried by the soldiers because of the moments of the crowd. That could mean one or two things. Either he was beaten so badly by the violent crowd that he couldn't even walk. So he's chained between two soldiers, beaten so bad that he can't stand up, they have to actually pick him up and carry him out, or the mob is still kind of pressing on him. He got to like lift him up and and rush him out of there. We want to spare his life, get him out of this crowd, find out what in the world is going on. Now, first story seven, something interesting happens. Paul is about to be beaten to death. Rome rushes in and saves his life. He's about to be rushed away from the violent mob to a place of safety and look what he does in verse 37. Paul about to be brought into the barracks, said to the tribune, may I say something to you? And he said, do you know Greek? Are you not the Egyptian then, who recently stirred up a revolt and led the 4000 men of the assassins out into the wilderness? Paul replied, I'm a Jew from Tarsus and Cilicia, citizen of no obscure city. I beg you permit me to speak to the people, and when you given permission, Paul, standing on the steps, motioned with his hand of the people, and when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language. So here's what's going on. The Hebrew language at that day commonly would have been Aramaic. The Romans would have spoken Greek. Paul knew both. So Paul is probably in the temple, speaking in Aramae. They also spoke Hebrew, but it was more in temple settings, more among the priests and the Levites who would speak Hebrew. most common people spoke Aramaic. He's probably talking to Aramaic, and then they drag him out, and he begins to speak Greek, and the soldiers kind of surprised. I thought, you're not the guy I thought you were, you're you're speaking this sort of sophisticated language, you in the world are you? And he said, I'm actually from Tarsus and Cilicia. and the guard says, oh, I thought that you were that Egyptian the Egyptian who led the revolt. A few years earlier, there had been a revolt by an Egyptian who had a band of what was called assassins or literally dagger men. They would go into the temple area with small daggers and stab the Roman Jewish leaders. He said, I thought you were those those guys, the assassins. We ran you guys out into the desert. I thought you would come back to start the revolt back up again. Paul said, no, that's not me at all. He said, would you allow me to speak to the crowd? Isn't that crazy? Here's the situation. Paul is nearly beaten to death. being taken to safety and he says in Greek, hey, sir, could you just give me a few more minutes to talk to the crowd one more time? And then goes, the crowd that's about to kill you? He goes, yeah, that crowd. He says, all right, whatever. And so Paul turns back to the crowd and now in Aramaic in the Hebrew language, he begins to address the crowd. What he does now at this point is he shares his testimony. He shares his testimony with them of how he became a follower of Jesus. It's a really cool model for us of how we could share our testimony with others. What Paul's gonna do is say, this is what my life was like before I encountered Jesus. Here's how I encounter Jesus and and now here's how Jesus changed my life. That's a simple story all of us can tell. This is what my life was like. Here's how I met Jesus, and this is how Jesus changed me. And Paul's case radically changed him. He shared a little bit about his Jewish credentials you can read through this in greater detail, but he said I was born in Cilicia. I was educated at the feet of Gamaliio, the leading Greek excuse me, the leading Jewish scholar of the day. I grew up at his feet in this city, learning the law. In fact, I was so serious about my Jewish faith that verse forces I persecuted the way to death. These people who are following Jesus, these Christians, I would I would capture them, arrest them, put them in prison, men and women. I would I would have them beaten. In fact, I got permission to go to the city of Damascus, he says in verse 5, where I was going to hunt down more of them, arrest more of them, beat more of them for teaching that Jesus is the Messiah, but then in verse six he tells how we met Jesus. He says on my way I drew near to Damascus about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me. I fell to the ground. I heard the voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? and I said, who are you, lord? And he said, I am Jesus the one you are persecuting. God met him on that road, blinded him with a bright light, a light so bright that in the middle of the day we' told it was the middle of the day and the light was so bright that how bright does a light have to be to be blindingly bright at noon with the sun blazing above the light strikes him blind he instructs him go to Damascus, and there in Damascus you'll learn moreaws led by the hand into the city of Damascus, where verse 12 he meets Ananias, where told in verse 12 Ananias was a devout man, according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who live there. he came to me and standing by me, said, brother Saul receive your sight, and at that very hour received my sight and saw him, and I said, and he said, the god of our fathers appointed you to know his will to see the righteous one, and to hear a voice from his mouth, for you will be a witness for him to every one of what you've seen and heard, and now why do you wait, rise and be baptized? Wash away your sins, calling on his name. In that moment, Paul, who had set his his whole life's focus on destroying Christianity, becomes a follower of Jesus Christ. He's baptized. It's a follower of Jesus Christ, puts his faith in Jesus Christ, and now devotes his life to sharing the good news of what Jesus Christ did in his life and what he come to do for others. erse 17, he said, my next step, my next step was to head to Jerusalem, and I went to the temple, this very temple, and here in this temple as I was praying, I fell into a trance verse 18 he heard the Lord say to him, make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly because they will not accept your testimony about me. And he said, Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another I imprison and beat those who believed in you. and when the blood of Stephen and your witness was being shed, my I myself was standing by and approving and watching over his garments, the garments of those who killed him, and he said to me, go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. God said, get out of the temple. It's time to go. I'm going to send you Paul far away. I'm going to send you the Gentiles, and that set out the mission that he's been on. We've been tracing for several weeks now. He was on for several years, taking the good news of Jesus to the Gentiles that the Messiah, the Jewish people had been longing for has come, and he didn't just come to say the Jewish people. He came to save everyone and you can be right with God through faith in him. He went out preaching that message. Now, what do we learn from this? That's a lot. We kind of flew through that faster than I would have liked to, but it's a very lengthy event. there's three lessons that we learned from this three realities we see in this that are true for Paul and true for us. And then I think from Paul's example, there are three ways we can respond. Let's walk through those. We see three things. N number one, we see that despite the truth, we will face false accusations. Despite the truth, we're gonna face false accusations. They there in verse 21 verse 19, they shared all that God had done in verse 20. They gave glory to God for what God had done, and yet there were complaints. In spite of all the positive things that God is doing, there will always be critics. There will always be people who see only the negative despite all of the positive. They'll be so blinded to it, and no matter what you do, you will never win them over. Paul cannot win these people over. In fact, every attempt has got him in bigger trouble. There were rumors about him. They had been told verse 21 they have been told about you. They relied only on the rumors that others, the gossip of others, and they'd formed an opinion about him. And then when he went to the temple trying to do the right thing, okay, so these people think false things about me. I'm going to prove him wrong by going to the temple, and now he gets the temple, and now there's a whole other crowd making false accusations about him. He just can't win. You ever been in that situation? Hard as I try, I just can't win. What do we learn here? We learned that, no matter what you do, sometimes you just won't win everybody over. There's opinions about you as a follower of Jesus. There are ways that people are going to make assumptions about you based on characterizationations and in movies and TV and and media and opinions of other people. And no matter what you do, people will make false ads false assumptions and jump to ridiculous leaps in their accusations. That was funny. This is a small, funny one. Years ago, there was a man who started coming to Northland. He was from somewhere in the north part of the United States. I can't remember where, and he told his mom he was going to a southern Baptist church and she said, now those are the ones who hold who handle snakes, right? He says, no, mom there no snakes at the church. in her mind, she's not Southern Baptists, those are the snake handling people. what does my son got in himself involved in? People will make these false assumptions. They have these ideas about Christians, about Christianity, and you might be the victim of that sometimes. People will assume the worst of you. no matter what you do, no matter how good your intentions are, no matter how loving your motives are, there will be some who, despite the truth, will falsely accuse you when you're falsely accused, you're in pretty good company. So was the apostle Paul. second, despite our good intentions, we will face rejection, despite our good intentions will face rejection, no matter how hard we try persecution and opposition and rejection is not only something that is likely. It is something that's exp not it's something possible with something expected. It has been promised to us, no matter how good your intentions are, not all will see it that way. Even the apostle Paul was falsely accused, and again, persecution puts you in pretty good company, persecution and rejection should not be reviewed as some sort of failure, sometimes it's just part of the plan, part of the territory. and third, despite our best efforts, we will face opposition, despite our best efforts will face opposition. You see the the uh the events that have unfolded you it started with Paul, good to see you, amazing what God is doing, but we got a little rumor going in the church. Some people are accusing you of some things. You're not Jewish enough anymore. And we got a plan, you just go to the temple and it'll probably fix this problem, set things right. Paul says fine, I'll do that. Paul goes to the temple and the temple, now there's a whole other crowd that, hey, this guy who's going to prove how Jewishy he is, now accused of taking a gentile into the restricted area, and now he's got a mob trying to beat him to death, and and then next thing you know, you're in Roman chains. He's gone in one day from rumors in the church to Roman chains bleeding from the beating he had at the hands of the Jewish people in the temple. This guy goes from one problem to another. And all I'm trying to do, Paul must be thinking, all I'm trying to do is settle down some rumors in the church for the sake of unity, and now I'm beaten and bloodied and chained up. Despite no matter about our efforts, it give you so frustrating to feel like you just can't win no matter what I just can't no one will understand my intentions of my heart. You ever feel that way isolated, lonely, discouraged, you're not alone. You're not alone. This is this is common to feel. I get discouraged at times and and I'll go through something in ministry as a pastor and I'll hand, just I wish we could I could do a better job with this. I wish we could fix this and there's this thing. I wish we and and then I'll I'll think, man, why everything as hard as I'm trying here. And then I'll go to lunch with pastor friends. I've got some friends in in the city that I'll have lunch with regularly and I'll listen to their stories and I'll go, man, I'm not alone. Same frustrations, same discouragement, same challenges. It's true. At generation after generation is all you're not alone sitting in this room if you feel discouraged, if you feel misunderstood, if you feel despite all of your efforts, your motives continue to be questioned. You're trying to live for Jesus. You're trying to show the love of Jesus to people, and it just lands you in more rejection and more opposition, more resistance you're not alone. How do we handle this? Three steps we can take. number one, we encourage you to be bold in the face of resistance. be bold in the face of resistance. Do not let the opposition, the resistance, the discouragement deter you from the mission that God has set you on verse chapter 21 verse 39, he says, I beg you, I beg you, permit me to speak to the people. Now, my request, if I amm in Paul's shoes, I'm going to be very honest with you, would be, I beg you, get me out away from these people. Please. These people are trying to kill me. They're making false accusations, they're trying to beat me to death. I don't mind the chains. You can take me to the barracks, just get me away from these people trying to kill me. Paul says, I beg you, let me speak to the angry mob. Why? Because he wanted to tell the angry mob about Jesus. He wanted to tell these people who wanted to kill him about the one who could forgive them and could save them. He didn't let his trials, his oppositions resistance deter him from the mission. What is the biggest obstacle you were facing to today? How might God use that to point people to Jesus? Don't take the easy way out. step up and take advantage of the opportunity. God put in front of you. The apostle Paul never let a good riot go to waste. He never let a good mob go to waste. Is he going to riot and and inform a mob and try to kill me? That's just a bigger crowd for me to preach Jesus to. Can we have that attitude, no matter how big the opposition, no matter how big the resistance, no matter what the trials are, this is just another opportunity for me to point people to Jesus, bold in the face of resistance, second, be compassionate in the face of opposition. How can I show compassion in the face of opposition? Paul made a concession for the sake of unity. These things they were saying about him were false. He wasn't preaching against circumcision. He wasn't telling people to stop following Jewish traditions, and what he could have done in that meeting with James, he would have never gotten beaten by the mob or put in Roman chains if he just would have said, guys, this is ridiculous. There's no evidence that I've said this. This is patently false. I'm not gonna go to the temple with these guys and need a haircut just to prove you that I'm really Jewish. But Paul loved the people and he loved unity and he said, I'm going to do whatever it takes to with a non-essential issues, I'm going to do whatever it takes to keep the unity. And we can learn a lot from that, can't we? What can I sacrifice for the sake of unity? What can I sacrifice for the sake of peace? Sometimes you can be proven right or you can have unity, but you can't do both. You can demand that you're right or we can be unified, but sometimes unity comes at the cost of being humble enough to say it doesn't matter. What does that look like in your life? It takes restraint. I'll confess for me, I look like my life and I think a lot in this room probably can relate to this. I have a lot of opinions. they don't need to all be shared. Sometimes what concession for the sake of unity is is just keep and quiet when you'd like to respond to that post on Facebook, when you're riled up about something and you may be right, maybe you're not. I don't know. but just because you' right doesn't mean you have to go say it sometimes for the sake of love, the sake of unity within your family, for the sake of unity among your friends, for the sake of unity within the body of Christ, we don't have to demand that we are right and prove that we are right. Paul said, guys have gone to the temple, these guys will calm down the critics, then let's go to the temple because I want our our family to be united. What sacrifice can you make for the sake of unity? And then Paul, to those who were seeking to kill him was compassionate enough to share the gospel with them. He never lost his love for people I got to confess if I'm staring on this mob, I'm going to have a you're dead to me attitude with this crowd. You want to reject God and go to hell? Fine. I tried, you beat me. I'm out of here. What does Paul do? Can I He says he says brothers? That's he starts and brothers? And they they just trying to kill you, Paul. You'd be dead right now if Rome hadn't showed up. And he goes, brothers, could you give me one more moment? I want to tell you one more time about Jesus. He never stopped loving people. How can you show the love of Jesus this week to someone who opposes you? someone who tried to harm you and you can use this opportunity to point them to Jesus. How can you show compassion in the face of opposition, then finally, be obedient to God's call, no matter what others say or do. be obedient to God's call, no matter what others say or do verse chapter 22 the last verse we read verse 21 go go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. Paul I'm going to send you to a group of people you would have never thought of trying to reach. I am going to send you far away from the temple and far away from the city where you were raised and you're going to go through one trial after another, persecution after persecution, false accusation after false accusation. Paul, go where I am sending you. and he was met with resistance time and time again, but he kept going because he knew God's call in his life and he wouldn't let anything deter him. Where is God sending you? What is God calling you to do? Will you go? Will you be obedient despite the cost? What sacrifice can you make for the sake of unity? How can you love those who oppose you? Where can you go even though it's going to be difficult and will you be bold in the face of resistance? Let's pray together. God, we will not find ourselves in the exact circumstances of Paul. We might not find ourselves in anything as dramatic, as violent as life threatening, but when we live for you and when we live out our we live out the gospel, when we seek to share the gospel, we will certainly be met with resistance. God, there's many in this room who, maybe even now, are discouraged because their intentions have been misunderstood. Their attempts have been met with resistance. They're striving to be obedient to you and to love people, and and while the motive of their heart is nothing but a desire to please you and to love others, their motives and their intentions have been misunderstood and misrepresented. God, would you encourage us today to have the heart that Paul had to be bold, no matter what comes our way to never stop loving people, regardless of what they say or do and help us to be obedient to your call, no matter what that costs us. God, let us see in this recording of these events, a model for us this week, and those times when we get discouraged encourage us, those's times when we are prone to uh bitterness, fill our hearts with love. The times when we want to quit give us boldness and a resolve to be obedient to you, regardless of what it costs, regardless of what others say, what others do. Thank you, Jesus for saving us. Let us be obedient to share that message, the testimony of what you've done in our lives with others around us. We pray for you