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.

Sermon Text

Acts 18:1-11

After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2 And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, 3 and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. 4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.

5 When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. 6 And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” 7 And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue. 8 Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. 9 And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, 10 for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” 11 And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

Dear Fellow Redeemed:

In our Gospel lesson this morning, there is a man about whom St. John writes: And he himself believed, and all his household. We hear basically those same words in our text this morning. It says that a certain man, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. Then it goes on to say: And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. 

Just in case we don’t say it clearly and simply enough: that is the goal here - believing. You’re a small group now; but you’re hardy. And the point of you getting up on Sundays and coming over here and into this place is that, having believed, you now continue to believe. Wouldn’t be any reason otherwise, would there? In believing that the Christ is Jesus (as Paul was testifying in the synagogue in Corinth), you stand on the Last Day before the God Who demands perfection (that you know you haven’t accomplished); but you do so with Christ having taken the punishment for all of your sins. You simply believe it, and forgiveness is yours as a free gift. And along with that gift of forgiveness comes eternal life in God’s kingdom.

Our text is a bit of a slice of life when it comes to believers in the early church (and we could even say, when it comes to believers in this world). There’s a little mention of what we might call Christian fellowship in the text. Paul meets up with fellow Jews, Aquilla and his wife Priscilla, who have recently been banished from Rome. He stays with them, and they work together as tent makers (they see to the needs of their bodies in this world, just as you do when you work at your job at home or outside of the home). And then in this slice of life, Paul is reasoning with Jews and Greeks in the synagogue on Sabbaths, trying to persuade them to believe what you believe.

But this work doesn’t always have the result he would like it to have. Sometimes the people oppose the message he is preaching. It even says they revile him; they get angry, and abusive, and insulting in their opposition of him (sometimes they even try to kill him). And his regular way about things, then, is to do kind of a gesture - shaking out his garments (like Jesus kind of told His disciples to do in these situations - Luke 9:5; 10:11), and say what amounts to: You know what? I gave it my best shot here, guys. No one could say that I didn’t try to get you to acknowledge that you are headed for disaster, and that I didn’t try to get you to put out your hand and receive what God is offering you in His grace and mercy. And then, he’s essentially saying, If you’re not going to take it, then I’m going to offer it others who maybe will. And then he goes to the Gentiles.

And then, in this slice of life, we hear of more Christian fellowship. Paul goes to the home of another man, Titius Justus, who John calls a worshiper of God. Nearby is also Crispus, a believing synagogue ruler, whose family is among many Corinthians who have believed Paul’s Gospel message and been baptized.

The message they’ve been hearing from Paul, of course, is the sort of thing we have heard in our Gospel lesson this morning. It’s the message about Jesus, who (in this case) receives word from a Gentile official in Cana whose son is ill (at the point of death, even). He believes Jesus can help. He thinks (very reasonably) that in order to do so, Jesus will have to come down with him to his house. He’ll have to be in the same room with the boy, certainly. That’s how doctors carry out this kind of work. But Jesus doesn’t have the limitations that doctors have. He doesn’t have to go anywhere in order to make something happen. He simply tells the man, “Go; your son will live.” The man learns later, that it was when Jesus said those words that his son started to improve (eventually getting well). Jesus is God in human flesh, Who brings God’s mercy for sinners.

This is the sort of message Paul has been preaching in the synagogues on Sabbath days. It’s the same sort of message you hear on Sundays in this place. 

You have your own slice of life we could talk about in a couple of paragraphs like are in our text. Our Lord’s Days are Sundays. You come here and interact with the same message Paul was proclaiming on the Lord’s Day of his time. You hear about Jesus, without Whom life would have an uncomfortable uncertainty. You maybe don’t think about this very much - what it would be like not to know Jesus (after, all, you know Him). But there would be this uncertainty about what happens next. When the thought of dying comes up (and it does, because it happens to everyone), you would be forever trying to convince yourself that you must be good enough to be in a good place after all of this. What have I ever done that was so bad? -you’d be saying to yourself. But then you’d be thinking back like I do sometimes, on those things you’ve done in this life that bother you - that you wish you could go back and undo. You’d be trying to convince yourself that none of those things matter (because what else are you gonna do?). But you wouldn’t have any real peace about it; it would be a lot of bravado with nothing at all to back it up. 

Of course, the Bible says that before we’ve even drawn our first breath in this world we already have the corruption of our first parents. We’ve inherited it from them. The Bible talks about the hope that we have in Christ; and what it really means is the belief, the knowledge, the confidence of His atonement for sins being a reality, a done deal. But without knowing Jesus, you’d just be hoping you’re good enough (in the sense that we usually think of that word). You’d be wanting it to be true that you’ll be okay when all of this is over, but not really knowing it to be the case.

Think about how encouraging it was for Paul, and about how encouraging it can be for you, what happens at the end our text. The Lord says to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, 10 for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” 

There are some things about that statement that we might say, give earthly comfort, right? God has in mind, apparently, for Paul to continue to be able to do what he does, to speak this Gospel message boldly, knowing that at least for the time being, he will be safe in doing so. He is surrounded by fellow believers among whom he will be safe and cared for. 

Even more importantly, though, there is eternal comfort in the Lord’s vision to Paul. God Himself is reaffirming that the message about Jesus that Paul is proclaiming is His message. That message is what truly unites sinners with the perfect God. It is His message of reconciliation. He has drawn sinners to Himself through the sacrificial death of His only-begotten Son. Him rising from death means they will rise too. Their sins are taken away entirely - already punished and and done away with in that sacrificial death.

So, the Lord says, go on speaking and do not be silent. Keep reasoning with Jews and Greeks in synagogues on Sabbaths (and with Gentiles too). Keep testifying that the Christ is Jesus. Do it with confidence, knowing that the Lord is with you - because it’s His message!

The encouragement to remain in this message is for you this morning as well. In the slice of life that is written about you, there are frustrations. You might sometimes feel as opposed when it comes to this faith you have, as it says Paul was. You feel awkward saying anything about it in public because it might be offensive to someone. You feel very misunderstood, right? The world characterizes what you believe in a way that makes it seem foolish, even hateful (it isn’t true, but it’s presented that way). On top of it all, you have continuing guilt over sins that you continue to commit (because you’re a sinner). You might even feel like a hypocrite coming here on Sunday morning. You slink up to the Lord’s Table to receive His Supper, feeling most unworthy (so do I, by the way).

That being the case, think about what the Lord is saying to Paul in this vision. He’s encouraging him, of course. But He’s claiming as His own message the message Paul is preaching. It’s the message of forgiveness for sinners in Jesus Christ. Forgiveness for you is also being proclaimed in that message. You stand before God with a clean conscience - not because of anything you’ve been able to accomplish for yourself, but because of what Christ has accomplished for you. Keep coming here, then, to hear this message. Keep bringing everyone in your household that, having believed, you continue to believe. That’s the goal. Amen.

Gospel Lesson: St. John 4:46-54

[Jesus] came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household. This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.