Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

When you think of suffering, does the idea of benefit ever enter your mind?

If you’re like me, then benefit is probably nowhere near the top of the list of the thoughts you have about suffering.

Today we are going to continue our study of the book of Acts, and we are well into Luke’s section of the book where he focuses in on the Apostle Paul’s last years of life.

Paul was the missionary extraordinaire, he was the Apostle who led the charge of Gentile evangelism and church planting, and he wrote most of the letters we have in the New Testament.

But our passage today does not highlight Paul’s successes or contributions to the establishment of the early church.

Rather, Luke highlights in Acts 21 Paul’s suffering… and I think Luke is lifting Paul up as an exemplary Christian sufferer… one who followed well the path Jesus Christ walked before him.

Talking about suffering is never fun, but my aim today is to observe how suffering is talked about in our passage (and in the broader New Testament) and how God seems to use suffering to shape and form His people.

Let’s pick up the storyline of Paul’s traveling itinerary, reading from Acts 21:1-16…

Acts 21:1–16 (ESV)

1 And when we had parted from them and set sail, we came by a straight course to Cos, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara. 2 And having found a ship crossing to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail.

3 When we had come in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left we sailed to Syria and landed at Tyre, for there the ship was to unload its cargo.

4 And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days.

And through the Spirit they were telling Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.

5 When our days there were ended, we departed and went on our journey, and they all, with wives and children, accompanied us until we were outside the city.

And kneeling down on the beach, we prayed 6 and said farewell to one another.

Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home.

7 When we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemais, and we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for one day.

8 On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him.

9 He had four unmarried daughters, who prophesied.

10 While we were staying for many days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.

11 And coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘This is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’”

12 When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem.

13 Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart?

For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

14 And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, “Let the will of the Lord be done.”

15 After these days we got ready and went up to Jerusalem.

16 And some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us, bringing us to the house of Mnason of Cyprus, an early disciple, with whom we should lodge.

Main Idea:

Christians will suffer in this world, and all we face is according to God’s will; therefore, we ought to look for and appreciate the benefits of suffering.

Sermon

1.

Following Jesus

It was about a month ago, when we were studying the end of Acts 19, that I pointed out how Luke seemed to be intentionally describing Paul’s “resolve” to “go to Jerusalem” and then to “Rome” (Acts 19:21) as a sort of echo of Jesus’s own resolution to “go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51).

In Luke’s Gospel, he recorded the increasing opposition against Jesus from the Jewish people, Jesus’s teaching about His impending death, and Jesus’s emphasis on the cost of discipleship.

In Luke 9:23, Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

Then, in Luke 9:51, he wrote, “When the days drew near for [Jesus] to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”

And, of course, it was in Jerusalem where Jesus was betrayed, condemned, and then crucified.

This bigger picture of the story makes Jesus’s words all the more stunning… Jesus knew He was about to “take up his cross” literally, by way of Roman crucifixion, and He called “anyone” who “would come after” him to do the same (Lk.

9:23).

It’s no surprise, then, that Luke is holding up the Apostle Paul as a model follower of Jesus as he now faces his own brutal death at the hands of Jewish opposition and Roman executioners.

Paul was on his own way to Jerusalem, like Jesus before him, and Paul was also “resolved” to finish his course (Acts 19:21).

In fact, Luke has told us no less than three times in two chapters that the Holy Spirit had clearly “testified” or “declared” or “warned” that Paul would soon be “imprisoned” or “chained” or “fettered” and “afflicted” or suffer “tribulation” (Acts 20:23).

And yet Paul repeatedly affirmed his intention to “testify to the gospel of the grace of God” whatever the cost might be (Acts 20:24).

I’d like to note three quick things for us to keep in mind as we study through this passage today: (1) Jesus is the unique Savior, (2) Paul was uniquely called to his ministry of suffering, and yet (3) the pattern of Christian discipleship is a life of suffering to one degree or another.

First, Jesus is the unique Savior.

Only Jesus, as the unique God-man, could live and die in the place of sinners.

His suffering definitely sets an example for Christians to follow, but only after we understand that His suffering cannot be repeated.

Others may die more gruesomely and even more painfully than Jesus, but no one has ever or will ever suffer the penalty of God’s justice as the perfectly righteous one in the place of those who are guilty.

Jesus is the unique Savior of sinners, and we can never do what He did… We must first trust in or believe in Jesus as the Savior, and only then may we aim to live as His disciples.

…If you want to talk more about what it means to trust in Jesus as Savior or what it means to live as His disciple, then let’s talk more after the service.

Second, Paul was uniquely called to a ministry of suffering.

As I pointed out last week, Paul was an Apostle “untimely born” (1 Cor.

15:8), and his conversion to Christ included a divine call to be an Apostle “before the Gentiles” (Acts 9:15).

When Paul met the risen Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus, Jesus not only commissioned Paul as an Apostle but He also told Paul “how much he must suffer for the sake of [Christ’s] name” (Acts 9:16).

Clearly, right from the beginning, Paul was set apart as a special witness or “instrument” of Christ who would uniquely “suffer” during his distinct apostolic ministry (Acts 9:15-16).

Third… though Jesus is the unique suffering Savior and though Paul was called to a unique ministry of suffering, still, both Jesus and Paul establish a pattern that we see play out in both example and teaching throughout the New Testament.

It’s hard to read any of the New Testament without seeing either an example of a suffering Christian or a teaching on how Christians ought to suffer well.

Paul himself seems to have made this teaching part of his message when he left churches in Lystra, in Iconium, and in Antioch.

Luke said that Paul and Barnabas “had appointed elders for them in every church,” and they “encouraged them to continue in the faith… saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22-23).

Martin Luther called this theologia crucis or the “theology of the cross.”

Luther said, “He who does not know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering.

Therefore he prefers works to suffering, glow to the cross, strength to weakness, [and] wisdom to folly…”[1] But seeing the climax of God’s wisdom and strength and glory in the suffering of Christ upon the cross flips all of this upside-down… and the Christian gains a new perspective of suffering.

It's interesting to me that Luther cited Paul’s words from Acts 14 in the last two statements of his 95 theses, saying, “94.

Christians should be exhorted to be diligent in following Christ, their head, through penalties, death, and hell; 95.

And thus be confident of entering into heaven through many tribulations rather than through the false security of peace [Acts 14:22].”[2]

Indeed, we regularly need to be reminded and exhorted to follow Christ into suffering and to enter the heavenly kingdom through tribulations, because we are prone to avoid such things.

Brothers and sisters, I think we all might do well to see the Apostle Paul in this passage as a model disciple of Christ who faced suffering on every side and who even committed himself to go toward the suffering… in order that he might be a faithful witness for Christ, and because he knew that whatever he faced was according to God’s plan.

Friends, we are not Paul, but we would all do well to follow his example.

2. According to Plan

I just said something that may have slipped past some of you, and some of us may even have a hard time accepting that it’s true.

I just said Paul knew that whatever he faced – both the good and the bad – was ultimately according to God’s plan.

And this is manifestly true from the entirety of Paul’s ministry, but it’s especially prominent in our passage today, which is why I’m focusing on it.

We already considered that Jesus explicitly told Paul that “suffering” would be a major feature of his ministry (Acts 9:15-16), but let’s note in our passage how God is repeatedly mentioned as the one who is both warning of the suffering to come and also “willing” that Paul endure it (v14).

The warning and willing actually begin just before our passage, in Acts 20:22.

You might remember from last week that Paul met with the elders from the church in Ephesus, and he urged them to “pay careful attention” to themselves and “to all the flock” or “church of God” (v28).

But Paul’s commission of those men to faithful pastoral ministry was spurred on by Paul’s understanding that he was “constrained by the Spirit” to “go to Jerusalem” (v22).

And the Holy Spirit “testified” to Paul that he was sure to face “imprisonment and afflictions” (v23).

In these two verses, we see (1) that God warned Paul of the suffering that was coming and (2) that Paul’s suffering was according to God’s will… God was in some sense “constraining” or “compelling” Paul to go toward suffering (v22).

The next two warnings and willing show up in our passage, at the end of v4 and in v10-14.

In v4, Luke briefly mentioned that “through” or “by” or “because of” the “Spirit” the “disciples” were “telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem.”

The way the English translation comes across, we might be tempted to think that “the Spirit” was the one moving or compelling “the disciples” to “tell Paul not to go” (v4).

But this would mean that the Spirit of God was in conflict with Himself… saying both that Paul must go, and that Paul must not go… and that doesn’t make sense.

It seems more likely that Luke is saying that “the disciples” had also come to know what “the Spirit” warned about Paul’s visit to Jerusalem and that it was “because of the Spirit’s” revelation or “through the Spirit’s” warning that “the disciples” made their own desires known to Paul, which was that Paul “not… go to Jerusalem” (v4).

In other words, the Spirit warned of suffering, and the disciples wanted Paul to avoid it… but the Holy Spirit intended or willed that Paul go toward the suffering.

This interpretation becomes clearer, I think, in v10-14…

In v10-11, Luke recounts a visible and verbal prophecy from “a prophet named Agabus.”

Luke says that Agabus “took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, ‘Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘This is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him in the hands of the Gentiles’’” (v11).

Then, in v12, Luke includes himself among those who “urged [Paul] not to go up to Jerusalem.”

Can you imagine?! Paul is hanging out at the “house of Philip the evangelist” with the rest of his entourage (v8).

He’s traveled all the way back to this port city just West of Jerusalem in order to be in Jerusalem by Pentecost if possible, and his whole band of traveling missionaries and other disciples he’d pickup up along the way have come along with him.

Then, after breakfast (that’s speculation on my part) Agabus comes in and gives a word from the Lord along with a visual illustration… And then, Luke and everybody else plead with Paul (with tears) to turn around and get as far away from Jerusalem as possible.

But v14 tells us they all came to understand that this warning from the Holy Spirit was not to discourage Paul from going, but rather to prepare him to suffer well according to the “will of the Lord” (v14).

Paul, for his part, reaffirmed his readiness to suffer “for the name of the Lord Jesus” (v13), and when all his friends realized that “he would not be persuaded,” they stopped trying and said, “Let the will of the Lord be done” (v14).

This passage makes it clear that it was indeed the “will of the Lord” for Paul to suffer at the hands of injustice.

Paul’s suffering was not accidental; it was on purpose.

The Jewish leaders and the Gentile officials all had their purpose, and it was malicious.

But so too did God have His purpose for Paul’s suffering… and we can know that because Paul’s suffering was according to God’s plan.

Friends, do you have a category for perceiving that any suffering or affliction is ever God’s will for you?

Suffering was certainly God’s will for Paul, so we cannot deny that it is at least sometimes God’s will for His people to suffer.

But I’m arguing more than that this morning.