Faithful Through Trials — Acts 23

0:00 Bibles to Acts chapter 23. Acts chapter 23. Let's go before the Lord in a moment of prayer. Father, we wanna take this time to come before you and, Lord, ask for your help, for your guidance, for for your spirit to illuminate your word to us. Lord, we come here with the weight of our lives, Lord, with joys, with fears, with changes, with turning, with questions, with doubts.

0:50 We pray, Lord, with faith. And, God, we wanna take all of this. We wanna take our lives and place them in your hands this morning. We want to expose our hearts to your word. And, Lord, that can be a fearful thing, but we recognize that it is your word that is instructing our hearts.

1:13 We're not exposing ourselves to something that would hurt us or harm us or even forsake us, but God, we are laying our hearts bare before the one that loves us. God, we lay ourselves bare before you, our father. So, god, we come to you with that faith, and we ask that, lord, now in this meeting, would your spirit do his work? Take your word, Lord. Plant it deep into our hearts.

1:47 Let it be an anchor for our souls, Lord, one that we tether ourselves to in times of trial. Teach us now, Lord, for we need you. Pray that my words would be the words that your spirit himself would say to us. Lord, nothing more and nothing less. We want the full measure of his work this morning.

2:06 We ask all this in the name of our savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Before we get into our text, I kind of want to give us an idea of what we need to understand, what we're taking away. I don't want to waste your time and I don't want to waste my time either. We want this time to be purposeful.

2:28 So I wanted to use this story from scripture to hopefully prepare our hearts and get us ready for what is going to be in the book of Acts. So in second Kings, have this story of Elisha, a prophet of God. And Elisha comes comes to find himself in some trouble. So the king gets angry at him, and, the king of Syria that is, and he's coming against Israel to make war. This king is looking to destroy Israel, and we see after this that Elisha hears about this, and we actually see this picture.

3:14 We see that there's this army encamped around Elisha and the people that are with him. Thank you. And this would be a fearful sight. We've seen crowds of people. We've seen...

3:30 I mean, right now, this is a crowd of people, but imagine you're in the midst right here and everyone around you wanted to kill you. They're coming after you. They want to rip your throat out. We're not dealing with a happy crowd or a joyful crowd or a loving crowd. These people are coming after Elisha.

3:46 So you'd imagine, fear is a reasonable response. Fear would be a reasonable response in that moment. And Elisha's servant has this fear. He's like, there's an army out there. What's what are we going to do?

4:00 They're going to destroy us. They're coming after us. But Elisha, we see that he has composure. Who here wants composure? I could use some composure in my life, but Elijah Elisha, he has this composure before this threat.

4:19 He sees this force that's coming to destroy him, but instead of having this responsive fear, he's restful. He's composed. He's he has peace in himself. But his servant says to him, alas, my master, what shall we do? Then Elisha says, do not fear for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

4:46 Servants like, what are you talking about? Open your eyes, Elisha. Open your eyes. Look at look at what's before us. See the army.

4:57 See the threat. And look around. Do you see any help? Let's see what Elisha says. He says, Lord, I pray open his eyes that he may see.

5:16 This servant is thinking, Elisha, this is an old blind man. Not physically blind, but he is, he obviously doesn't understand the threat that we're against. Otherwise, he'd have a response of fear. But Elisha, his response is no, you need to see the situation for what it truly is. You are not founded in reality right now.

5:40 You need to open your eyes. And he asked the Lord, Lord, open his eyes that he may see. And then what do we see? That servant, he looks around and he says, woah, we are not alone. We are not alone.

5:57 He says, then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. So now we think about Elisha's response with the vision that Elisha had. Elisha saw the situation for what it truly was. A natural man, an unbelieving man that doesn't know God would look at this situation and think, no hope. You're done.

6:34 You're dead. There's nothing you can do. All you can do is maybe beg the... Beg for mercy for these men. But Elisha had a true understanding of what the God of the universe was doing.

7:07 This is reality. We're not fooling ourselves or making up this distant idea or just, you know, trying to make ourselves feel better. You know, I work with some people that are unbelievers, and there's this one guy that that he's an atheist. He doesn't believe that there's a God. And and his approach to the things I say to him is, that's nice, you know?

7:28 Like that, I can see how that can comfort you or soothe your heart. That's that's a balm for you. That helps you sleep at night. Brothers and sisters, if you are balming yourself, I don't know the word for that, if you are trying to comfort yourself with something that is false, you're harming your own soul. This is no good to you.

7:53 But listen and hear the hope. We we are comforted. We are healed. We are encouraged with the truth of God, with his gospel, with his son. What did we proclaim this morning?

8:14 The Lord Jesus, behold, look, see the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That's your sin. That's my sin. He did that for us. And he's with us right now.

8:32 Amazing. If only we had the eyes even now to see this. And I want you to hear, this is a message for believers along with unbelievers. We think, okay, it's the natural man that does not discern the things of God. And yes, this is true.

8:48 But as believers, we can quench the Holy Spirit. We can cover our eyes. We can close our eyes to the light of God surrounding us. That veil has been removed, but out of our active will, we can we can just tune it out. We can allow ourselves to be distracted by the lies of the enemy as believers and act in spiritual blindness when we need not to.

9:13 So please, if you know the Lord, don't leave. Please listen. This word is for you. So this is why I wanted us to look at this example from two Kings. So have this idea in your mind.

9:27 I need to see God. I need to understand what he's doing. And let's look at a New Testament illustration of these verses. So you really know, okay, this is for us. Old Testament, those principles are for us too, but now you really know.

9:42 Alright, so in first Peter, you don't have to turn there unless you really want to because we're gonna be jumping back to Acts. First Peter chapter four, it says in verse 12, beloved, do not think it is strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you. But rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you. For the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

10:33 On their part, he is blasphemed, but on your part, he is glorified. In verse 19, it says, therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God, meaning it's not suffering due to disobedience, commit their souls to him in doing good as to a faithful creator. And we see an we see an exhortation in verse seven of that chapter. It says, but the end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers.

11:11 Think about that. We can pray and not act... We can be spiritually blind when praying. It's saying be watchful. Turn your eyes to God when you pray.

11:26 Don't pray like the hypocrite. He has all these words that if a man stood next to him, he'd say, wow, this articulate man must know God, but his words don't get past the ceiling. But the tax collector, he had a right view of who he was and he, more than that, had a right view of who God is. And he said, be merciful to me, a sinner. And he left justified.

11:57 That prayer was effective. And why was it effective? Because that sinner, the one not deserving of grace, saw God for who he truly was and submitted himself to him. Brothers and sisters, we need to pray in this way. And now I want us to look in the book of Acts and hopefully this is all introduction or helpful context for how Paul has this composure, has this peace within him when his life is being threatened.

13:09 For as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness at Rome. And when it was day, some of the Jews banded together and bound themselves under an oath, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. What lies are you just accepting to be true? Are you believing lies about the character of God? That he truly isn't for you?

13:40 That when he said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you, maybe it maybe it was true up to this point in life, but now he kinda wants you to figure it out on your own. Or I don't know, the people of God hate me or something. That's, you know, I don't know, distrusting the people of God or something. What's actually going on? This is the enemy seeking to deceive and turn your heart away from God.

14:08 He's seeking to break that tether that anchors your hope to God and he's seeking to ruin your life. When you see destruction in your life, it's the enemy. We need to see things for what they truly are and something I wanted to bring up today is I think it's easy to see the enemy, his work in my life to be distraction. And that's a form of, I guess you could say passive destruction. Where, you know, things are going good in life.

14:39 I'm comfortable. They're not bad, know. There's, they're not that hard. I can go on. God's taken me this far, but I can go on from here.

14:49 And this is the enemy saying, hey, just keep going, you know. Like, don't turn, just, you're not turning your face away from God, but you're just, you don't need him right now. You don't really, you don't really need him. This is this passive work of destruction that the enemy is trying to do in our life. Seeking to slowly distract us, draw us away.

15:14 That we, it says in Hebrews, don't drift away. Don't drift away. This is the work of the enemy trying to destroy our life as believers. And we need to learn to see these things for what they truly are. This is this is this, my war is not with you.

15:38 How I fight this battle is I go on my knees before God. I commit myself to God and that's the war I'm fighting. It's recognizing this spiritual battle that's coming around us. But then the question is okay, we face a formidable enemy. How should we see this enemy?

15:59 Should we have fear in our hearts? When we see the threat of destruction, when we see these lies that are constantly coming after us, how do we respond to that? What you need to see is, okay, we have an enemy, but our God is greater. Our God is greater. He who is within us is greater than he who is within the world.

16:22 When we're fighting, we're not fighting a foe that has actual power to snatch us out of the hands of God. We're not fighting a foe that has the keys to death. That's been destroyed on the cross. The Lord Jesus, he has vanquished the enemy. We're fighting a defeated foe.

16:40 A defeated foe that wants to ruin us. That wants to ruin your testimony by bringing sin into your life. That wants to teach you deceptions against the character of God. But listen, listen, you are not you're not bound to that. You're not a slave to that anymore.

16:58 The Lord Jesus has broken our slavery to sin. He's broken the bonds of the enemy. Once we were sons of disobedience. Now we are children of God. You are not that man anymore.

17:12 You're not that woman anymore. When you encounter lies, when you encounter destruction, deception, the work of the enemy in your life, you're like, I don't know what to do. This is discouraging. Turn to God. Turn to God.

18:01 But then maybe the past couple years, it's been like, it's a struggle. It's a struggle. Three weeks ago, it was spiritual discouragement. It was, wow, Lord, I've been encouraged. I'm seeing your hand working in my life.

18:17 I'm seeing your restorative power. I'm seeing that growth in the spirit. And then three weeks ago, it's what if that's all a lie? What if what if that's just gonna fail? What if God's working your life?

18:32 Jeremy, you've seen yourself. You're you're the kind of guy that fails. That's that's who you are. And that that idea captured my heart three weeks ago. What's going on?

18:48 Is that just... Should I be surprised by that fiery trial? No. No. This is an enemy.

18:58 This is the enemy seeking to destroy, to deceive, trying to turn my eyes to my own capacities. And I look at myself and say, yeah, I think I will fail. But no. The response is, no. There is a God who's in the heavens.

19:15 And this God loves me. He's taking care of me. I've entrusted myself to him. He's helping me. Do I need to fear?

19:25 Do I need to be dismayed? No. I can press on in faith. Then two weeks ago, I got sick. And you know what?

19:37 There's levels of sickness, But for me, I'm a baby when I get sick. When I get sick, it's just the world is over. I just want to sleep. I don't want to do anything. And what was this?

19:49 What I had to learn there was, okay, Lord, I need your strength. I'm gonna come to your word. My brain can't comprehend anything right now. But I trust you're working. I trust that you're instructing my heart even when I don't see it or feel it.

20:05 And when I'm just too tired, I'm just going to sleep and I'm going to pray. Alright? I'm going let my body get some rest and I'm going to pray. Maybe this is not a studying time right now. Maybe this is the Lord putting me on my knees so I can pray and then ask him, okay Lord, help me.

20:21 Help me. And then last week or this past week, strength's coming back. I'm feeling better. But then like beginning of the week, just go to study like, okay, Lord, it's time. I'm ready.

20:34 I'm ready to like just get into it. My strength is back. I can study. You know, we're gonna we're gonna tackle this together. I come Monday, the word of God, I just come to it and it's like it's like a brick wall.

20:45 Like, Lord, I'm looking at this text and it's just like, my goodness, I don't see any... Where's the work of your spirit to illuminate your word to me? That's a promise, right? You've promised me that you would illuminate your word to me and help me understand these things. So what's going on?

21:03 So you pray. You go to the Lord. The Lord taught me, okay, trust me. Pray. Ask for my help.

21:10 You don't get past asking for my help. You need to ask me for my help. I'm with you. I'm with you. Then that following morning, okay, Lord, I need some help.

21:21 It's a little bit hard, but then like the Lord provides. Then he provides, then he provides, and it's just he just wants us to persist in prayer. Like, God, I need you. Please help me. The Lord has always been faithful to answer.

21:35 He's always been faithful to answer. By God's grace, I don't... I pray this is not a boast. By God's grace, the Lord has never left me alone coming up here. He has always provided.

21:46 Even if it's like thirty minutes before, like, God, this is not coming together, but the Lord has always provided. He's always come through. And then I forget, you know? I come into these last couple weeks and think, but God, what about this time? The truth is no.

22:04 Jeremy, it's been a couple years now. Alright? Look at what I'm doing. Look at what the enemy's doing. I'm working here.

22:13 I got you. I'm gonna help you. The enemy, he's gonna try to come and he's gonna try to discourage. He wants this work right here to come to nothing. He wants to destroy it.

22:22 He wants to discourage the body. He wants he wants us to fail. That's always gonna happen. Don't be don't be surprised. That's what he's doing.

22:33 Don't be discouraged. Trust in me. Trust in me. I'm with you. I'm with you.

22:39 I won't forsake you. He's he's promised, I will never leave you or forsake you. And God has proved that to be true. And we see this happening. The enemy, he comes and he he creates this plot, this scheme to use the Jews to deceive the centurion and bring Paul out.

23:15 This is the hand of God intervening and overcoming the work of the enemy. We need not believe. We need not be deceived that when the enemy is seeking to destroy us or seeking to discourage, that that's the final word. God's word endures. God's word is greater.

23:37 Our God is more powerful. He is able to deliver. He's able to work. And we see this in the text. God worked miraculously.

23:47 But think about this, the people of God could have missed out on that encouragement by not recognizing God's hand in this. They could have just been like, oh, that's cool. But no. If you get to see God's hand and acknowledge what he's done, you're encouraged in your heart. And we want to approach scripture with this similar sight.

24:08 What is God doing? And in life, look, open your eyes to see the hand of God. See his blessing in your life. See his deliverance. See his help and give him praise for it.

24:22 Don't just move on. Don't just... Don't be blind. When you see the hand of God, when you see blessing, recognize the hand that's behind that blessing. Recognize the hand.

24:39 And we'll keep going to verse 23 now. And it says, and he called for two centurions saying, prepare 200 soldiers, 70 horsemen, and 200 spearmen to go to Caesarea at the third hour of the night and provide mounts to set Paul on and bring him safely to Felix the governor. He wrote a letter in the following manner, Claudius Lycia, to the most excellent governor Felix, greetings. This man was seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them, coming with the troops. I rescued him, having learned that he was a Roman.

25:19 And when I wanted to know the reason they accused him, I brought him before their council. I found out that he was accused concerning the question of their law, but had nothing charged against him deserving deserving of death or chains. And when it was told me that the Jews lay in wait for the man, I sent him immediately to you and also commanded his accusers to state before you the charges against him. Farewell. What do we see here?

25:46 This is the natural man's response to this situation. He looks at this and says, oh, okay. Alright. There's a threat. I got you.

25:56 I got I got the horseman. I got the manpower. I got the plan to go at night. And he's like, I'll save you. I got that power.

26:05 How how would Paul see this? We don't have to wonder. Let's go to second Timothy In chapter four verse 17. How does Paul see the situation? He says, at my first defense, verse 16, no one stood with me, but all forsook me.

26:33 May not be charged against them, but the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that the message might be preached fully through me and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also, I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion and the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. So look at this.

27:01 The natural man says, look at this Felix, I saved Paul. You know, I knew he was a Roman. I knew that, man, we gotta protect this guy. I sent him to you. Look at all these horsemen and men that I sent, the perfect plan.

27:17 The natural man does not discern the mind of God. He does, he can't, he can't understand what God is doing. He can't see. He's blind to what God is doing. But look at Paul, he says, the Lord stood by me.

27:33 The Lord stood by me and he delivered me out of the mouth of the lion. Look at that. He recognized this threat, this this opposition coming against me. This is not just happenstance. This is the this is the work of the enemy, seeking to destroy.

27:52 But listen, he said, but the Lord delivered me from the mouth of the lion. He saw this situation for what it was and he ascribed glory to God. He said, to God be the glory for this great deliverance. Amazing. Would we not miss out?

28:53 This is how we see God truly for who he is. As indeed faithful, we bind ourselves to him. So those those p words I was using, position. We find ourselves in the trial. We say, okay God, I'm a man.

29:11 I am dust. I don't understand the things around me. They're beyond my power, my control, my strength. I can't deliver myself, but I commit myself to the God of the heavens. I commit myself to my heavenly father who loves me.

29:30 I commit myself to you, to God. Position. Person. God, I'm kidding. I'm committing myself to you.

29:41 Why? Because I know who you are. I know who you are, that you love me, that I can trust you, that for me to rest the full weight of my hope on your shoulders, It's a sturdy foundation. You won't fail me. I can stand on your promises.

30:01 I won't be ashamed. I won't be forsaken. I know who you are God. I know your character, your kindness. Power.

30:11 If the Lord leaves... Lord, if you leave me in this trial, if you withhold deliverance for this time, God, I trust your power to sustain me through it. But Lord, I know you have the strength to deliver me. That if deliverance will come, will be by your hand. God, all power is yours.

30:35 So let me not trust in my own arm for what can it do? What can man do where dust? But I trust the living God. I trust the living God. I trust you.

30:50 And now we see provision, providence. Lord, I don't see how you're going to work through this situation. I don't know how you're going to direct my path. I don't know how you'll deliver me, but I know that you're a providential God. You're a sovereign God that's able to work through these different forces in life.

31:15 Through me, through the work of the enemy, through the opposition, through all of this, you're directing. If there's a trial, it's not outside of your hand, Lord. If something... If if pain or suffering, if I have to endure that, I know that your hand is working in all of this. That you're protecting.

31:35 You're able to deliver. It's your providence. It's under your purview. So Lord, I trust you. I'll press on because I know that you will work things out.

31:48 What does Romans eight says? It says, oh, help me out. He worked all things together for good. Help me out. All things for the work good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes.

32:06 Love him and are called according to his purposes. Brothers and sisters, you've been called by God. A loving father has called your name. You've been saved by him. And God has shed abroad his love into your heart by the Holy Spirit and has created, produced a heart of love for his son.

32:27 He's produced that maybe it's not perfect, but it's being perfected. And what does God promise? This will be for your good. This will be for your good. It's not may.

32:39 It's not could. It will be. Why? Because it's God who promises. It's God who has the ability to actually do this.

33:11 So remember those Ps. Those have been helpful for me. And for the work of the enemy, Ds. Maybe it would be Fs, I guess, if you're using a great system. Not a very good joke.

33:23 But deception, destruction, distraction. Keep your eyes open. When you find yourself in the trial, what lies are the enemy trying to deceive me with? How is he trying to ruin my testimony? How is he trying to ruin my heart, bring destruction between my relationship with God or my relationship with other brothers and sisters?

33:47 How is he trying to ruin my witness? What do you mean you know God? This is how you act? How is he trying to ruin that? In distraction.

33:58 How is he trying to overwhelm me by the sight of the army that I can't see God? How is he trying to just get my mind off of this difficult situation by just numbing myself? What what fake snake oil bombs am I putting on myself to try to help my heart and just to get by? No. See through it.

34:46 And Lord, wow, we are children of God. How amazing. Behold what manner of love the father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God. Lord, let us hear that. Let us remember, hear that call, I'm your child.

35:11 Speak that to our hearts, pray. And Lord, like Paul, we want to entrust our souls to you. To the Lord God, our creator, our savior, our king. We see Jesus as our savior, our lord, our sustainer, and we trust his words to us. Words of salvation, words of hope, words of life.

35:39 Help us, oh lord, in these things. Bless this body. Be with us. Help us to grow up into the stature of the Lord Jesus. God, that's beyond us.

35:50 But with your power, it's possible. We want to be a beautiful bride for you. We pray this in Jesus name, amen.