Sermon Text:
Acts 23:12-22
When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. 13 There were more than forty who made this conspiracy. 14 They went to the chief priests and elders and said, “We have strictly bound ourselves by an oath to taste no food till we have killed Paul. 15 Now therefore you, along with the council, give notice to the tribune to bring him down to you, as though you were going to determine his case more exactly. And we are ready to kill him before he comes near.”
16 Now the son of Paul's sister heard of their ambush, so he went and entered the barracks and told Paul. 17 Paul called one of the centurions and said, “Take this young man to the tribune, for he has something to tell him.” 18 So he took him and brought him to the tribune and said, “Paul the prisoner called me and asked me to bring this young man to you, as he has something to say to you.” 19 The tribune took him by the hand, and going aside asked him privately, “What is it that you have to tell me?” 20 And he said, “The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the council tomorrow, as though they were going to inquire somewhat more closely about him. 21 But do not be persuaded by them, for more than forty of their men are lying in ambush for him, who have bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they have killed him. And now they are ready, waiting for your consent.” 22 So the tribune dismissed the young man, charging him, “Tell no one that you have informed me of these things.”
We don’t like very much to be told we’re wrong. Whadaya mean, I’m wrong?! I’m not wrong. After all… and then we think really hard. We go back over everything. We make a case for ourselves. I’m not wrong! After all, this, and this, and this, and this… And then we might even start attacking the person who’s saying we’re wrong. You’re the one whose wrong! After all… and then we begin making a big long list of reasons they’re wrong. Either by actually saying things, or by thinking them to ourselves, this is one of the things we all do.
It’s as natural to us inheritors of our first parents’ sin, as it was for them after they’d sinned. God confronted Eve with her wrong. She said it was the serpent who was actually wrong. God confronted Adam with his wrong. It was actually the woman God had put there with him who was wrong. In a way he was saying, you’re the one who’s actually wrong, God; you put her here with me. One of the characteristics of our sinful nature is that we don’t like to be told we’re wrong. Children on play dates, husbands and wives, co-workers in an office… I’m not wrong! Whadaya mean, I’m wrong?! You’re wrong!
What precedes our text is Paul telling a bunch of guys they’re wrong. And, of course, they are wrong. He’d been one of them. He recounts the story in the previous chapter of Acts. I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, 5 as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished.
But then something had happened (he goes on to say). He'd heard the voice of the Lord speaking to him on the road to Damascus. His eyes were blinded with a bright light. The Lord enabled him to see that he’d been wrong, and now sent him to tell them they’d been wrong. And like we said in the beginning: we don’t like very much to be told we’re wrong.
In fact, we have an amazing capacity to overlook our wrong, and to bear down on instances in which we think we’ve been wronged by others. What happens in our Gospel lesson is good example of this. Jesus’ parable is about a couple of men who owe debts to another man. In older-English versions of the Lord’s Prayer, sometimes we hear people say, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. So, the word debts is where we usually say the word trespasses. That’s an interesting way to think of it. Our sins are a debt that we owe to someone. The one who owes a debt is at the mercy of the one to whom he owes the debt. That other person is the one who sets the terms, then. The one who owes the debt doesn’t set the terms; he just does whatever the other says he has to do.
In Jesus’ parable a man sets very generous terms with his debtor for repayment. He cancels the debt. The debtor has begged for mercy, and the other has granted mercy. Now, that doesn’t mean he never owed the debt in the first place; he certainly owed it. But the one in control of the relationship determined to have mercy and forgive the debt (and it had been a very large debt).
But then, of course, the one whose debt has just been forgiven goes out and zeros in on someone who owes him a much smaller debt, demanding immediate repayment (while choking him), refusing the man’s pleading, and having him thrown in prison until he pays in full. The one who’d forgiven his debt, then, treats him harshly. He hasn’t been angry about having to forgive the debt (in fact, he didn’t have to; he chose to). He’s angry that the man can’t recognize his true situation, and what has been done for him. He can’t reflect gratefulness in how he deals with someone who owes him money. He overlooks his own situation, considering it to be of little importance. The idea that someone has spared him the worst circumstance is the farthest thing from his mind.
The men who are being talked about in our text are in the same boat. Paul has been trying to convince them that they are in a relationship with God (whether they see it or not) in which they’re not in a position to set any terms. They’re beggars before Him like the man was in Jesus’ parable. They’re in a position in which the only way for things to turn out good for them is if the one to whom they owe a debt chooses to have mercy and forgive the debt. And, of course, Paul’s message to them has been that gloriously, this is the case! God has put their debt on someone else, His own Son! They’ve deserved for Him to deal with them according to His wrath, throwing at them the whole severity of the Law and judgment; but He has chosen to punish His perfect Son, and to put that Son’s righteousness upon them. He has chosen to forgive their debt.
But they’re like the forgiven servant in Jesus’ parable. It goes right past them. They don’t have any appreciation of it. Like we said earlier, we have an amazing capacity to overlook our wrong, and to bear down on instances in which we think we’ve been wronged. And they think they’ve been wronged by Paul, who keeps going on and on about their sinfulness, and about their need to repent and receive God’s mercy, and about God’s mercy to be found in Jesus Christ. So they start attacking the person who’s saying they’re wrong.
They make a plot. They bind themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till [they’ve] killed Paul (more than forty men involved in this). They’re going to have Paul brought from the barracks in which he is being held, under auspices of determining his case more exactly; but they have in mind to kill him before he gets there. Paul’s nephew hears of it and goes and tells the official who’s in charge of him; and the whole thing is thwarted - this plan of theirs to attack the one telling them they’re wrong.
You have someone telling you you’re wrong. I’m doing it right now (I’m saying it to myself too). And of course, we are wrong. We’d be foolish to overlook it (though we’ve been very prone to do that). We’d be foolish to think, like those men in the text were thinking, that we have something about us that makes us powerful before God, that makes us able to set the terms in the relationship, that we’re able to make enough of a showing that He has to accept us on our terms. We are beggars before Him, whose only hope for things turning out good is the mercy of the One to Whom we owe a debt. There isn’t point in attacking the messenger. That wasn’t the solution to the men’s problem in our text. They could kill Paul; but they still had to deal with God, and with the debt of their sins.
The solution to their problem (and to ours) is Christ. Not only is He not prone to overlooking His own wrong, but He has no wrong to overlook. We might imagine that we have righteousness to present before God; but it’s only a deception like the men were under in our text. Jesus does have righteousness. He has accomplished everything we were supposed to accomplish, been obedient in everything. And because God is merciful, He counts what Christ has accomplished to us; to you. There isn’t any sense in trying to hold onto some imaginary righteousness of your own. You don’t need it. You have everything you need through the free gift of Christ’s blood shed for you. You have forgiveness of your debt. You have the promise of eternal life.
We said at the beginning, that according to our nature we tend not to like being told we’re wrong. We tend to say, Whatdaya mean, I’m wrong? - and to attack whoever is telling us that. We can be self-righteous, and unwilling to accept that we’re wrong, that we owe a debt, etc.
It can look another way too, to just as damaging a result (because the devil is clever). We can have recognized our wrong. And we can have recognized the debt we owe. And we can think about that for a minute. And we can have been told by someone like a pastor or someone else: God has been merciful to you. He has forgiven your large debt. You are free. Because of Christ, you are…right. And you can be thinking about your sins - about things you’ve done in the past, and about things you’ve recently done that make you feel so guilty. You can thinking about all the ways in which you are wrong. And you can say, Whadaya mean, I’m right? I’m not right. How could I be? You might be right - good for you; but I’m not. After all…and then in your mind you make a long list of all of the things that preclude you being right (because you recognize so substantially that you’re wrong).
Think of the king in Jesus’ parable in our text if you’re feeling this way. He did something there that is an absolute fact. The man couldn’t pay, so he cancelled the debt. The same has been done for you through the suffering and death of God’s only-begotten Son. His righteousness is your righteousness. It’s an absolute fact. It happened. In Christ, you are right. There isn’t point in clinging to your guilt. Cling to Christ, Whose innocent blood paid your debt. In Him, the wrong become right. In Him, you are right. Amen.