Word of Salvation – Vol. 42 No. 18 – May 1997

 

A Promising End

 

Sermon by Rev. R. Brenton on Acts 28:11-31

 

My Brothers and Sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ.

When you get carried away reading an action-packed adventure story, you always wonder what is going to happen next.  And you can’t wait to see how the adventure is going to end.  As a rule, a good story comes to a conclusion.  In the end the weary travellers reach their destination, or the separated lovers are reunited, or we find out whodunit.

Have you ever read a story in which you were nearing the conclusion, only to find, much to your dismay, that the last few pages had been torn out?  Here the storyteller has built up the suspense and filled you with wonder about the way it’s all going to end.  But alas!  You are left hanging there without an ending!  What a let-down!  Nothing is so frustrating as a story without a conclusion.

A moment ago we read from the final chapter of The Acts of the Apostles.  This book from the New Testament side of God’s Library tells the story of Jesus’ disciples from the time Jesus was taken up to heaven.  Acts (as the book is commonly called) tells how the disciples (now called apostles – “sent ones”) were sent on a mission to the world, empowered by Jesus’ own Holy Spirit to be his witnesses, first in Jerusalem, then in the surrounding districts of Judea and Samaria, then on to the ends of the earth.  So, Acts begins by whetting our appetites for a journey to the ends of the earth.  And we are not disappointed, for as we read through Acts, we are gripped by what Jesus Christ is doing through his agents.

We see them, filled with the Holy Spirit, preaching with boldness and sweeping thousands into heaven’s kingdom.  We see them under threat of persecution choosing to obey God rather than man.  We see the hated race of Samaritans believing the Gospel and receiving the same Spirit as the believing Jews.  We see Peter reaching out to the Gentiles in Caesarea because God has declared them to be clean.

We see the conversion of the greet persecutor, Saul, and his commission as Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles.  And we go with him on his missionary journeys to Philippi and Athens and Corinth.  We see Paul stand trial after trial, defending the Gospel.  And we go with him, shipwrecked, all the way to Rome to meet Caesar.  Clearly, we are caught up in action that is going somewhere.  We sense that we are being driven toward a conclusion, and that we will come to that signpost at the end which reads: Mission Accomplished.

But when we come to the end of Acts, the 28th chapter, what we get is this: Paul reaches Rome, spends a week relaxing with some Christian brothers before rounding up the leaders of the Jews to preach to them the kingdom of God.  As it turns out, some of them are convinced by what he said, but others refuse to believe the Gospel and walk away from Paul while he is still preaching.

Undaunted, Paul hangs in there for the next two years and goes about his usual business of boldly preaching God’s kingdom and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ.  Basically Acts ends with just another run- of-the-mill episode in the life of Paul, the Apostle.  There is no indication here that Christ’s mission to the world has come to an end; his agents are still at work.  There is no assessment here of what has been accomplished; no evaluation of the mission’s success.  Acts simply has no conclusion!  Yes, of course Acts ends.  But it doesn’t conclude anything.  Is it any wonder that some readers have complained of being left hanging – with that let-down feeling?

Well, what can we do?  We can sit here and stew over the lost conclusion of Acts.  We might wonder how in the world the last pages got torn out of the book – if indeed they were torn out.  Or, we might wonder why the inspired historian, Luke, never got around to writing his conclusion.

But where will all of our stewing get us?  We would only be wondering about things we know nothing about.  Sure, the ending of Acts may disappoint.  We readers may feel let down, for want of a fitting conclusion.  We may speculate about torn out pages or an unfinished story.  But the bottom line is that we have no evidence to support such speculations.  We must simply make do with what we have in this 28th chapter.  Even if we cannot draw a conclusion from it, we must still listen for God’s message in it.

Let me urge you now to look once more at this chapter, and to listen closely to what the Holy Spirit is saying to the church.  My brothers and sisters, on the surface this incident from Paul’s life appears to be run-of- the-mill.  As I said already, there was nothing extraordinary about Paul spending time with his brothers in Christ; nothing extraordinary about Paul preaching to the Jews.  Paul did these things wherever he went.  What he did need not strike us as extraordinary.

In this instance, however, Paul’s activity is significant because of where he is and what he says.  Paul is now in Rome, of all places – a long way from his home in Antioch or Jerusalem.  Acts chapter 27 makes us aware of the long and dangerous voyage which brought the Apostle to this place.  Of course, whether some place is faraway depends on where you are standing.  Wellington is a faraway place at the remotest end of the earth for an American or a Hollander.  Wellington, though, is very much at the centre of things to a Wellingtonian.  We can say the same for Rome.

In Paul’s day, Rome was the political centre of the world: the seat of Caesar who ruled over the world’s greatest empire.  Rome’s rule reached clear across the sea; Caesar had Jerusalem under his thumb!  Most people living in Paul’s day would agree that Rome was not far away at all.  No matter where you lived, Rome was very near.

The book of Acts looks at Rome from a different standpoint: God’s standpoint!  According to Acts, God’s city Jerusalem – is central because God lives there and rules from there.  It is headquarters for God’s mission to the world.  Rome is far away from Jerusalem.  From God’s standpoint, Rome is about as far away from Jerusalem as you can get.  If God could only get a foothold in Rome, the Gospel of God’s kingdom would be guaranteed access to the ends of the earth.

Listen!  By recording Paul’s arrival in Rome, the inspired storyteller is assuring us that God’s mission is sure to be accomplished.  The last great bastion has now been breached.  Paul has gotten up and over the wall – so to speak.  From Rome the witness for Christ reaches the ends of the earth.  It’s virtually guaranteed!

So, Paul is in Rome.  And that is significant.  Just as significant is what he says from Rome.

Luke tells us in the verses 30 and 31 that Paul spent two whole years in Rome in his own rented house, welcoming all who came to see him and boldly proclaiming to them the kingdom of God and teaching them about the Lord Jesus Christ.  This statement simply sums up the general content of Paul’s message: he preached Christ and the kingdom!

But I must be specific and tell you what Paul said on a particular occasion.  For this is the message the Lord would impress upon us in these last pages of Acts.  May I draw your attention now to the meeting the Apostle arranged with the Jewish leaders.  He called them all together to explain to them the kingdom of God and convince them from the Law of Moses and the Prophets that Jesus was the Christ as was his custom.  Some of them were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe.  Since all were not convinced, the unity of the Jewish leadership was in jeopardy.  The leaders began to argue amongst themselves.  It seems that at this point Paul began to preach in earnest to persuade the unconvinced to receive Jesus as the Christ.  Paul did so by calling to mind one of the greatest preachers of good news that God’s covenant people had ever had; the prophet Isaiah.

Like gospel ministers today, Isaiah sensed a profound call to the ministry.  The experience was one Isaiah could never forget.  it happened in the year King Uzziah died.  Isaiah saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted.  God was surrounded by winged seraphs who sang, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”  Seeing himself in the light of such glory made Isaiah cry out “I’m unclean!  I’m ruined!”  But the Lord graciously took a burning coal from his altar and purged Isaiah’s unclean lips and atoned for his sins.

Then the Lord called Isaiah into the ministry.  The Lord said to him, “Go to this people and say to them, ‘You will ever be hearing but never understanding, you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.’”  Why say this?  “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes.  Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them” (Isaiah 6:1ff).

Imagine receiving a call to be the minister of God’s word for a church full of people who don’t understand a single word you say – who just don’t get the message!  It’s not that the members of your church can’t make sense of what you’re preaching about.  They know full well what you are saying.  They know what your doctrine is, and where you stand on the burning issues of the day.  The members of your church will even make it a habit to tell you what a beautiful sermon you preached as they greet you at the door after the worship service.  But they won’t DO anything with the message that they hear.  They won’t turn and be converted from their selfish, sinful ways.  They won’t reckon with the One who is able to save, heal and transform.

God never meant for his message merely to be a pleasing rhythm vibrating over the surface of our ear drums; He meant for his message to be taken to heart – deep below the surface into the core of our human being.  When this happens, our hearing becomes understanding.  God wants us to come to grips with Him now while He speaks His truth to us.  He wants us to take what we see to be true into our hearts.  Sight must become insight – perception – or there will be no conversion, no dying to our sinful ways and living God’s way.

Well, Isaiah was called to be the minister of God’s word for a church that refused to reckon with God’s message.  Sure, the members would come together in congregational formation to hear all his good sermons.  And let me tell you, Isaiah’s preaching was tops.  No one could hold a candle to this preacher.  He had style and grace and beauty – earning plenty of applause.  But his message was not obeyed.  His congregation heard what they wanted to hear, and saw what they wanted to see.  But when it came right down to the nitty-gritty of facing up to God and doing His will, it was as if they plugged fingers in their ears and screwed shut their eyes.  They simply didn’t want to know; didn’t want to see.

But this was no surprise to the preacher.  Isaiah had been forewarned.  God had told him how sinfully stubborn his congregation was.  And he told Isaiah to expose this sin – to go and say to the church, “Look at you!  You show up for the worship service, but you’re not really listening to the sermon!  Sure, you sit there all nice and polite like you’re paying attention, but you just don’t get the message!  The part of you that really needs to do the hearing and seeing – your heart – hides from the Lord under hard-as-sin callouses.  You’ve said ‘No Way!’ to God’s Way so many times that you don’t even hear what He’s saying anymore.

And to think that there could be such a church as this!  But there was such a church way back in Isaiah’s day.  And they persevered generation after generation.  Like children who do the right motions while singing their songs.  Old First Church of Jerusalem just kept right on attending worship and listening to beautiful sermons.  Give ’em credit!  When the Lord Jesus stepped inside some 600 years later, there they were, sitting in the same old pews.

Some things never change – least of all the calloused hearts of churchy people.  Even Jesus, who was God’s Message in Person, could not break through the crusty hearts of this church.  Like a mother hen who spreads her wings to gather her chicks, Jesus opened his arms to this congregation and pleaded all day long with them to turn their hearts toward home.  But they would not!

Now Paul, the Apostle of Christ Jesus, calls for an assembly of the leaders of Old First Church who were living in Rome.  Acts tells us that wherever Paul went he ministered God’s word first of all to the scattered members of Old First Church.  This was the priority, the pattern of his ministry: to the Jew – the Old Church – first, and then to the unchurched – the Gentiles.

I want you to notice what finally happens at this particular meeting with the leading members of Old First Church living in Rome.  Keep in mind that Paul has been going from city to city assembling the members of Old First Church to hear the Gospel of God’s kingdom.  And in every place the word of God divides like a sword between those who believe in the Lord Jesus and those who remain in their unbelief.  The prevailing response, though, is unbelief.  Rome is no exception.  But at this particular meeting Paul ends his message by reminding the members of what their former pastor, Isaiah, had once said about their plugged up ears and screwed shut eyes and calloused hearts.

Having come to the final point, the members of Old First Church do something they have never done before.  They stand up, step out of their pews, and walk out of the meeting!  At last, after all these years, the congregation of Old First Church is moved by the Message – not to come forward and embrace the Lord Jesus, but to leave church and reject him.

My brothers and sisters, this walk-out marks the end of Old First Church.  It is the death of the Old Church.  New life had been offered to them time and again, but they would not come to Jesus for it.  They have now walked away from the Lord for the last time.  This is a sober, yet significant moment in God’s dealings with his sinful people.

I say that this is significant because the church is now open to seat a congregation who will listen.  As Old First Church was getting up to leave, Paul told them of the New Church that would take their place.  “Therefore, I want you to know that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!”

Imagine receiving a call to be the minister of God’s Word to a church full of people who will listen and actually hear what God is saying!  Imagine belonging to a church in which the members who hear the sermon truly take it to heart – who hear with understanding and see with insight – and turn their hearts, in step with the Spirit, toward home, embracing God the Father, through Jesus His Son.

Well, you say, that’s the kind of church I want to belong to.  What could be better than joining hearts and hands to do God’s work with people who are listening to God’s will?

Jesus said, “I will build my church.”  When he said that, he never told anyone how much time it would take to gather all of us living stones and form us into a holy congregation.  Come to think of it, all that Luke – who is telling the story of this building project – all that Luke could see was the freshly laid foundations of Christ’s church.  How, then, could Luke, who is chronicling the early stages of this project, possibly come to any conclusion?  How could he sum everything up when everything was far from finished?

Let me suggest to you that Acts comes to no conclusion because there was nothing concrete for Luke to conclude.  The acts of the Apostles – their work as witnesses for Jesus Christ was anything but over at the time of Luke’s writing.  In fact, the acts of the Apostles continues to this very day as God’s people bring their witness to the world.  Their work goes on.  The time to draw conclusions has not yet come.

Without a conclusion, Luke ended his story the best way he knew how: he gave us God’s promise.  And that, my brothers and sisters, is all we really need.  In this Day of Grace we live by faith – believing in what we hope for, in what God has promised – and not by foregone conclusions that we can see with our eyes.

And so God promises a listening people.  Those who were unchurched way back in the days of Old First Church are now getting the Message.  They are hearing God’s sermon.  And they are listening.  The wonder of it all is that wherever people are listening to God’s Word, there is the Lord Jesus – God’s “Amen” – making the promise come true.  Jesus is right there in the midst of his listeners building his church.

So, you want to belong to this kind of church?  Then find the church where people are listening to God’s message – where people are making beautiful sermons by doing what the sermon says.  Better yet, make sure that you are listening!  If you will listen, then the church you belong to becomes ever more truly the church of Jesus Christ.

And finally, if the Lord should put his hand upon you and call you to be a minister of His Word, take heart!  Go and give God’s Word to the people.  If it is God’s Word that you preach, they will listen.  How can I be so sure?  Because we are living in the Day of Grace – the era in God’s redemptive plan in which closed hearts are being opened and hard hearts are softened, made as soil for the seed of God’s Word.  So preach the Word, brother!  And witness, my brothers and sisters.  There’s good soil out in the field.  They will listen!  And one day, Lord willing, even the Old First Church walk-outs will perk up their ears!

Well, here we are today – once more listening to God’s Word.  What are we to make of this sermon?  What conclusion should we come to?  I hesitate to say what exactly this sermon is leading to.  But I freely say that it points to a most promising end.

Amen.