Being Long Suffering with Non-Believers - Life of Paul Part 79

Hey, we're glad you're here today. Welcome to all you guys down in Overflow 2.

If you brought a Bible, how about opening it to Acts chapter 21. And we'll be coming there in just a moment. But you know they call it the worm capital of the world. It's actually Wisconsin, Maine. The worms that come from Wisconsin are shipped all over the country and fishermen actually pay up to a dollar a worm.

For these things. They are iridescent. They average 12 to 15 inches long. Now that is one heck of a worm. Dennis Hill, the owner of Harbor Bait Company in town said, and I quote, they got worms other places, but they ain't nowhere near the size of ours, end of quote. These worms are as icky as they sound. They squirt red liquid at you when you try to touch them.

They've got poisonous fangs that protrude from their head that deliver a real bad bee-like sting. And the way that you harvest these worms is that at low tide, men go out, men who are called worm diggers, go out into the mud flats around Wisconsin and standing in hip deep mud, stinking brown mud. They use hoe-like instruments and they work their way through the mud until they find a worm and then they pull the worm out with their hands until they get it all the way out of the mud. One of the best worm diggers in Wisconsin is a fella named Doug Schmall. Doug's father was a worm digger. His grandfather was a worm digger. And Doug on a good day can make $180 in five hours digging worms. Now at 12 cents a worm, that's what he gets paid, that's 1,500 worms in five hours that he digs out. And then he takes the rest of the day off, he plays golf and hangs out down at the diner with all the other worm diggers there in Wisconsin.

The article that I was reading in National Geographic, Doug is quoted as saying, of course, there are $30 days too, that's why I have a hard working wife. Now when I read this article, the person who impressed me most in the whole story was the guy's wife. Here's this woman who goes to work and works hard so her husband can play in the mud, dig worms and play golf. You talk about a patient woman.

Ladies, what do you think? This is one patient woman. Well, we're going to talk about patients today. We're going to talk about long suffering today. Not so much when it comes to dealing with worm diggers like Doug, but when it comes to dealing with people who haven't yet come to Jesus Christ. And we're going to look at an incident in the life of the apostle Paul as we continue our study in his life today.

And then we're going to bring all of that forward and say, okay, so like what difference does that make to me? So here we go, a little bit of background. Remember the apostle Paul here in Acts 21 is on his third missionary journey. He's finishing it up.

It's the spring of 57 AD. And Paul is working his way to Jerusalem. He has an offering that the Gentile churches of Turkey and Greece and Macedonia have taken up and are sending to the poor believers in Jerusalem.

He's worked his way south down the coast of Turkey to the little town of Miletus. And as we finished Acts chapter 20, Paul left Miletus. Here in Acts 21, Luke begins by telling us all the places Paul stopped, and we're not going to read all that. Now, Caesarea is 65 miles from Jerusalem, and they did that on land. But I want to talk to you for a minute about the city of Caesarea. Caesarea was the second largest city in Israel at the time of the apostle Paul. It was a wonderful city that Herod the Great had built between the years of 22 and 9 BC. He had spared no expense in building this city because he had dedicated this city to his mentor, Emperor Caesar Augustus, his patron. And that's why he called it Caesar Rhea or Caesarea.

He had all kinds of things here. Palaces, temples, a sewer system, a hippodrome, even a wonderful theater in this town. And there were about 100,000 people living in the city of Caesarea when Paul arrived there at this time. Now, the other thing you need to know about Caesarea is that it was the Roman headquarters for the province of Judea. Meaning that the Roman army was stationed here, not in Jerusalem. That the Roman procurator lived here, not in Jerusalem. Pontius Pilate lived in Caesarea. He did not live in Jerusalem. You say, yeah, Lon, but when Jesus was arrested, Pontius Pilate was right there in town.

You're right. Three times a year at the great festivals, Passover was one of them. Pontius Pilate would take the army and go to Jerusalem just to make sure that with all these new pilgrims in town, trouble didn't break out. But he was only there for a week or so. Then he went right back to Caesarea.

This was his hometown. And as we're going to see in the next couple chapters, this is where Paul's going to be held in jail for over two years before he's sent to Rome. This is Caesarea. Now while we're on Pontius Pilate, I should mention to you that Pontius Pilate was used by critics of the Bible for many, many years to indicate that the Bible was wrong. That it was historically inaccurate. People said, you know what, the Bible over and over talks about Pontius Pilate. But when we look at the archaeological record, we don't find Pontius Pilate's name anywhere in the archaeological record.

Well, that was true up until 1963. 1963, digging right here, right at Caesarea, archaeologists found a big old slab of stone. And big as life, we've circled it in red on this stone, is the name in Latin, Pontius Pilatus, Pontius Pilate, right big as life on this stone. And if you go with me to Israel sometime, I'll take you to the Israeli Museum and you can actually see this stone.

You can actually touch it, if the guards not looking. And of course Pontius Pilate lived. Of course he was a real person just like the Bible says. Now we've got his name carved in a piece of rock right from Caesarea where his headquarters was.

And you know what we love to say around here, the more they dig out of the ground, the more the Bible proves to be right. And it did with Pontius Pilate. Well, this was Caesarea. Paul arrived here. He stayed with Philip. This is the same Philip who in Acts chapter 6 was appointed one of the first deacons in the church. This is the same Philip who in Acts chapter 8 led the Ethiopian eunuch to Christ, same guy. And let's pick up the story now, verse 10.

After we had been in Caesarea for some days, Luke writes, a prophet named Agabus came up from Jerusalem. He took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, the Holy Spirit says that in this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind to Paul and hand him over to the Gentiles. And when we heard this, we began begging Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, why are you weeping and breaking my heart?

I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the Lord Jesus. And since Paul would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, well, the will of the Lord be done. You say, yeah, Lon, why was Paul so hard-headed about this? I mean, why was he so stubborn and pig-headed when everybody was trying to talk him out of going to Jerusalem?

He was determined he was going. Well, the answer is found in Acts 20. He said in Acts chapter 20, and now, compelled by the Holy Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem. You see, the apostle Paul was convinced that going to Jerusalem at this moment in time was God's will for his life. And remember, the apostle Paul had made an absolute surrender commitment of his life to God's will, and that's what he says to these guys. Guys, I've made a commitment of my life to God's will, whatever. My number one concern is not self-preservation. My number one concern is doing the will of God, doing my duty, being a faithful soldier of Christ, and whatever it cost me, it cost me.

I don't really care. You want to know why the apostle Paul was the great servant of Christ that he was? Well, one of the reasons you're seeing right here, it was this kind of absolute surrender to God's will for his life that made him the man of God that he was. Well, Paul, Acts 21 says, actually did go to Jerusalem. And when he arrived in town, he met with the leaders of the Jewish church, you know, James and John and Peter and everybody.

And he told them all the great things God was doing among the Gentiles through him in Turkey and Greece and Macedonia, and they were thrilled. But then James spoke up and said, well, Paul, that's all wonderful, but you know, we've got a problem in this town with you. And he said this, you see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed in Jesus here in Jerusalem, and all of them are zealous for the Old Testament law. They, these Jewish believers and everybody else in Jerusalem, Paul, they have been told that you're teaching Jews who live among the Gentiles to forsake the laws of Moses, to stop circumcising their children, and to turn away from all of our Jewish customs.

Now, folks, these were false reports. There is no evidence anywhere that Paul ever instructed Jewish believers to do this. However, this is what everybody in Jerusalem was being told. This is what everybody in Jerusalem believed.

And you might say, well, Lon, so why was a rumor like this such a problem? Well, let Everett Harrison and his commentary on the book of Acts tell us. And he said, and I quote, these were false reports about Paul, but they made the task of the Jerusalem church in reaching Jewish people with the gospel very difficult, since everyone knew that Paul was a Jewish believer. The point is this, that this alleged repudiation of the Old Testament law, Paul didn't really repudiate the Old Testament law, but the fact everybody thought he did, this alleged repudiation was unbelievably offensive to the Jewish people of Jerusalem. They considered it downright treasonous. And what's more, they all knew that Paul was a believer in Jesus Christ. So what they did is they lumped those two things together. They said, oh, I understand now, become a follower of Jesus and become a traitor to your people.

I got it. Become a follower of Jesus and you don't circumcise your kids anymore. And you don't respect the Jewish law anymore. And you don't respect our customs anymore.

I understand. And so when you go out to talk to Jewish people about coming to Christ and this is what they think, folks, they don't listen to you. They go, uh-uh, if that's what it means to be a Jewish believer, what Paul's doing, well, Paul wasn't even doing it. But that's what they thought. We're not interested. We're not interested in believing in Jesus.

We're not becoming traitors to our people. You see the problem? You know, did you read in the paper this week about the criminal that the Israelis released from jail? He'd been in jail 18 years, mostly in solitary confinement. His name was Mordecai Venunu. And he is one of the most reviled men in all of Israel, one of the most hated men in all of Israel.

And let me tell you why. In 1986, this man, he was a technician at the ultra-secret Dimona nuclear plant in southern Israel. In 1986, this man released pictures that he had secretly taken inside the nuclear facility and information about Israel's atomic weapons program that he had gained while working in the nuclear facility.

He released them all to a British newspaper which published them on the front page of the news. And suddenly, all of Israel's nuclear secrets were out in the open for everybody to see. The Israelis caught him. They tried him. They sentenced him to 18 years in jail, mostly, as I said, in solitary confinement. He is considered the Benedict Arnold of Israel, the worst traitor you could possibly come up with.

Now let me tell you what the catch is here. In the early 1980s, before he ratted his country out, Mordecai Venunu, a Moroccan Jew, publicly converted to Christianity. Isn't that wonderful? In fact, when he got out of jail this past week, the very first thing he did was go right to Jerusalem to an Anglican church where the rector greeted him with open arms and hugged him. He stood with the rector and said, I would do it again. I did what's right.

And then he went in and celebrated communion. Now, you don't think that's a problem for people trying to evangelize in Israel? People go, oh, I understand. Convert to Christianity and become like Venunu. Convert to Christianity and sell you people out.

Oh, I understand. In fact, I talked to our branch leader for Jews for Jesus in Israel, Ephraim Goldstein, this week, and he said, yeah, he said, you know, this is certainly going to blow back on us, quoting him. It certainly isn't a red letter day for us in Israel that this guy got let out of jail and went right to church.

No, no, not a good day. Now, folks, do you understand that's exactly the situation that 2,000 years ago the church in Israel faced with Paul? Paul hadn't done what the Jewish people in Jerusalem thought he had done. He hadn't been a traitor to their people, but that's what they thought.

And just the rumor of that made it reaching them so hard. Does everybody see that? Well, James stands up and says, Paul, I got a great idea. I think we can fix this.

Let me tell you my idea. James says, here's what we want you to do, Paul. There are four men with us who've made a vow. Take these men, purify yourself with them, and pay their expenses so they can shave their heads.

Then everybody will know that there's nothing to these rumors they've heard about you. You say, Lon, what in the world are they talking about? A bunch of people shaving their head.

What is going on there? Well, these four men that they're talking about had taken a Nazarite vow. These four men, Numbers chapter 6, had committed themselves to God by this vow to a special time of devotion, a special time of dedication to God. And when that time was up, what you did, if you took a Nazarite vow, is you went to the temple, you presented yourself to the priest, you paid a very special person to shave all of your hair off as a sign your vow was over, you brought multiple animal sacrifices with you that you gave to the priest who sacrificed them to God there at the temple. There were a lot of expenses.

You had to buy all these animals. You had to pay this guy to shave your head. There were a lot of expenses associated with completing a Nazarite vow, and so what James says is, you know what we want you to do, Paul?

We want you to pay the expenses for these four men. That was considered a pious deed in Israel to pay for someone's expenses who was finishing a vow. That was considered a big good deed.

That was considered a huge mitzvah, if you know that word, to do that. And James says, if you do this, everybody then will know you're not against our laws, you're not against our custom, there's nothing to these rumors. Oh, and oh, by the way, Paul, James says, could I remind you that since you've been out in Gentile country, you just can't walk into the temple and pay these guys expenses because you're ritually unclean.

You first have to purify yourself with seven days of special ceremony, and then after you go through seven days of this stuff, then you can go in and pay their expenses. That's what we're asking you to do. You say, Lon, I don't know, man, it sounds like a big pain in the neck to me. Well, it was a big pain in the neck, friends. It was very inconvenient to have to do all this, and yet what did Paul do? Watch, verse 26, the next day Paul took the four men and began the purification process for himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice to the priests of the dates when his days of purification would end and the sacrifices for these other four men would be made for each of them.

In other words, Paul did, as inconvenient as it was, Paul did what James asked him, he was willing to put himself out to try to help improve the opportunity to reach people for Christ there in Jerusalem. Now, that's as far as we want to go in the passage for today because we want to stop and we want to ask a really important question, and you all know our question. So with them and with vigor and with vitality, I want to hear you guys do this. I want to hear you guys down in overflow, too. So here we go.

Ready, one, two, three. So what? Yeah. You say, Lon, so what? So what difference does it make to me? I've never been to Jerusalem and I hate worms. There's not a thing you've talked about so far that makes any difference to me. Well, let's see if we can't make that different, okay? You know, folks, when you watch this, when you read this passage, does it strike you as interesting that the apostle Paul would do what James asked him to do? Does it strike you as interesting that he would inconvenience and put himself out and go through all of this stuff that James says he should do?

It strikes me as interesting. You know, I frankly look at this and I say, number one, Paul didn't even do anything wrong. Why should he inconvenience himself like that?

And number two, think who he's inconveniencing himself for. These are the Jewish people in Jerusalem. Think what they've done to him. They ran him out of town when he was a young believer. They've followed him all over the world, undercutting and dogging his ministry. They organized a plot to kill him when he was in Greece a few months before.

They spit on the ground when they hear his name mentioned. And as we're going to see in the next couple of chapters here in the book of Acts, they're going to go to extraordinary lengths to try to kill Paul and wipe him off the face of the earth. And these are the people, these exasperating people, are the people that James is asking Paul to put himself out for, for something he didn't even do. Why would he be this patient and long suffering with a group of people this exasperating?

Well, you want to know the answer? Paul tells you. 1 Corinthians 9, he said, to the Jewish people, here in Acts chapter 21, he's talking about, I became like a Jew, I went down to the temple and did the whole thing, that I might win Jewish people. To those under the law, here in Acts chapter 21, I was going to go down and pay their expenses and do all this kind of stuff.

I became like a person under the law, even though as a believer I myself am not under the law, that I might win those under the law. Why did Paul do what he did in Acts chapter 21? Very simply, folks, because Paul cared more about winning people to Christ than he cared about his own convenience. He cared more about winning people to Christ than he cared about his own ego, his own pride, his own wounded feelings, his own exasperations. And Paul understood that the only way we can win people to Christ is for us to be patient with them, for us to be forbearing with them, and for us to be long-suffering with them, no matter how exasperating they may be in return.

That's the only way you reach people for Christ. You know, when I came to Christ in the spring of 1971, I drew up a top ten list. I had this little thing the Gideons used to give out, and it was your top ten list of people you wanted to see come to Christ. And number one on my top ten list was my dad. My dad's health was poor, he'd already had two heart attacks, and he was number one on my top ten list. And every time I got the chance, I would sit down and try to talk to my dad about Jesus Christ. Well, sometimes my dad would refuse when I was talking to him to even acknowledge I was there. He wouldn't even look at me. He acted like I didn't even exist. Sometimes we'd be sitting there and television would be on and he'd turn the television up so loud, you couldn't even hear each other talk over the television. Sometimes my dad, I'd be sitting there talking to him about Christ, he'd get up, walk out of the room like he was going to get a soda, and never come back. And I'm sitting there in the room, and he'd never return. I'm talking to myself, feeling like an idiot. And that went on for seven years, and I got so exasperated that many times I would pray and say, Lord, this is hopeless.

This is useless. This man is not the slightest bit interested in a thing that I'm telling him. All he does is abuse me and insult me and ridicule me and embarrass me. I mean, really, God, this is going nowhere. And you know, every time I would pray that, the Lord would say to me, Now, Lon, you've got to be patient with this man. You've got to be long-suffering with this man. Don't you dare give up on this man. You just go back in there and you be patient with him.

All right, all right, I'll do my best. Well, let me tell you the end of the story. My dad, seven years into this, had a heart attack, his third.

He was in the UVA hospital in Charlottesville. I drove down to see him, and I walked in his hospital room on a Friday night, and he was sitting up in bed in the hospital, and after about 30 seconds of pleasantries, he said to me, out of the blue, he said, Lon, you know, I've been doing a lot of thinking sitting here in the hospital. He said, and I've begun to think that maybe everything you've been telling me about Jesus Christ is right.

Dude, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. They're going to have to put me in the bed next to him in the room. I was like, oh, my gosh, I said, Dad, I didn't even think you were listening. You never acted like you were listening. He said, well, I was listening. And, you know, the next day, Saturday morning, I had the opportunity to get down on my knees with my dad next to his bed there in the hospital, and with my arm around my dad's shoulder, I had the privilege of praying as my dad asked Jesus Christ into his life to be his personal savior. Now, four days later, while he was still in the hospital in Charlottesville, my father had his fourth heart attack, and three days after that, he was with the Lord.

Seven days to the day from the day my dad prayed and asked Jesus in his life, he was with the Lord. But, you know, I learned something really important from that seven-year experience. I learned that if I would have allowed my frustrations and my irritations and my exasperations with him, if I would have allowed them to rule and win out, my dad wouldn't be with the Lord today. And, you know, the Apostle Paul, he had learned that very same lesson. He understood that if we're going to have any chance to reach people who aren't believers in Jesus yet, we're going to have to be patient, folks. We're going to have to be long-suffering with these folks.

We're going to have to be forbearing with them. And, you know what? The Apostle Paul didn't just do this for Jewish people. He did it for everybody. Look what he says in 1 Corinthians 9. He says, Though I am free from all men, I make myself a slave to everyone so that I might win as many people as possible to Jesus Christ.

I have become all things to all people so that by all means I might win some. The Apostle Paul looked back and said, you know what? God was infinitely patient with me in the process of my coming to Christ. And the people who tried to reach me, Paul says, were unbelievably long-suffering with me.

And, you know what? I wouldn't have come to Christ if they hadn't have been. Now I'm going to turn around and I'm going to treat people the very same way. And Paul says to us, Imitate me. Follow me as I follow the example of the Lord Jesus. He was patient with me. I'm being patient with other people.

Now you follow my example. And, friends, may I say, if you're here and you're a follower of Christ today, I guarantee you, you would not be a follower of Christ here today if God had not been unbelievably patient with you. And you would not be a follower of Christ here today unless the people who were trying to reach you and the people who were praying for you were unbelievably patient with you. I'll bet you a lot of you were exasperating people to reach for Christ. Some of you are exasperating even after you came to Christ.

But I bet you were really exasperating before you came to Christ. And if people were patient with you, and they were very patient with me, now it's our job to turn it around and be patient with other people. You know, we got an email, Ken Baugh, actually our Frontline pastor got this, from a young man who goes to Frontline. And I want you to hear his story about how he was patient with an exasperating friend at work and how that all turned out. Here's the story. Hello, Ken, he writes.

I've been attending Frontline for several months. I'm learning a lot about church ministry through Frontline and McLean Bible Church. Anyway, I'm writing to share this testimony with you. I considered my mischievous coworker, John, as a kind of uncle-like friend who I used to argue and debate with about religion. Ever since he discovered I was a Christian, it seemed to become his mission in life to disprove my beliefs in Christ. On several occasions, I can remember him picking fights with me over various matters of Christianity, and I would get upset. I think he enjoyed seeing me all distressed as a result of his torment. He would get me all worked up and upset, and later he'd come back and tease me by saying, We're still all right, right?

Then he'd give me a smile and a pat on the back. I think he enjoyed seeing me all worked up, but I also think he was sincerely searching for the truth. Even with all these arguments, debates, and fighting matches, I still had a growing desire to show him the truth about the Savior, so I began to pray for his salvation. Well, one day at Frontline, I heard that the church had bought over 10,000 movie tickets for The Passion of Christ that would be shown in various theaters. The ultimate attraction about this idea was that a pastor was going to give a brief message and lead in a salvation prayer after the movie was over. I said to myself, This is perfect for John.

Excitedly, I went to the booth after the service and bought two tickets. John went to the show on Monday night, February 23rd. Sadly, about a month later, John unexpectedly died of a massive heart attack while chasing his dogs out in the woods. During the funeral service three days later, John's niece went up to the stage to do a special song. Before she sang, she shared her firm belief that John is in heaven. She shared that John had told his mother that after seeing the movie, he accepted Christ as his Savior that evening in the movie theater.

I confirmed this with his mother after the service. That one night, all five years of my work paid off through the grace of God. Without it, without all that patience this young man showed and all that long suffering this man showed, John would be in a different place today. Folks, you got a John in your office, huh? Got a gal or a guy in your office who is so exasperating that you just want to pull your hair out sometimes. Got somebody in your office who their mission is to talk you out of your faith. Their mission is everywhere you go and everything you do to try to discredit you as a follower of Christ.

And the more you talk about your faith and try to help people come to Christ, the more they oppose you. Somebody that is so irritating and so hard to get on. Got somebody like that in your office? You got a John at your school, friends, huh?

Got a John in your neighborhood or maybe it's a relative who comes every Thanksgiving and from the moment they walk in the house to the moment they walk out the house, they got nothing but bad stuff to say about you and your faith. You got anybody like that you know? Well, if you do, I want to challenge you with the words of Winston Churchill.

He went to the Harrow School in 1941 and he said this, Never give up, he said. Never give in. Never, never, never, never give in. That's my challenge to you.

As long as there's breath in their body. Don't you dare give up on them. Don't you dare give in on them.

You know something I've learned over the years? The people who are often most vocal, most obnoxious and most difficult are normally people that are under the most conviction and they're the people who often end up coming to Christ. Don't you dare give up on them.

You stay with them. You be patient in your actions towards them and you be forbearing in your attitude towards them and you be long suffering in your prayer life for them because, friends, somebody did that for you and now it's your job to do it for others. And I believe that when we are patient in long suffering, when we return good for evil, when we return blessing for curse, when we return patience for exasperation to these people, you know what? I believe that helps Jesus Christ reach these people.

And so that's my challenge to you and I hope you'll take it seriously. By the way, if you're here and you've never trusted Jesus in a real and personal way, there's a great lesson to be learned from John's story. John wasn't planning to have a heart attack chasing his dogs, folks.

He did and he was gone, just like that. You know what? I don't know what tomorrow brings and neither do you, but I know this. That's why the prophet Amos said, be prepared to meet your God.

You know what? If you're prepared, it doesn't matter what tomorrow brings. And if you're here and you've never accepted Christ, you're not prepared.

And we want to see you prepared. So this would be a good moment. We're going to bow our heads right now and pray. This would be a good moment while other people pray for their friends who aren't believers.

This would be a good moment for you to pray and ask Jesus in your life. Let's pray together. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I want to give you a moment if you're a follower of Christ here today to pray for the Johns at your work, your school, your neighborhood, your family, those people that popped up on the screen when I asked you, who do you think of that's exasperating to reach for Christ?

And I want you to take a moment right now and hopefully pray that God would give you more patience, more long suffering with them, and that the Lord would help use you to reach them for Jesus Christ. You pray for your friends now. Lord Jesus, many of us today have prayed for moms and dads. Many of us in these quiet moments have prayed for brothers and sisters, grandparents, grandchildren. Some of us have prayed for professors at school or students that we go to school with. Some of us have prayed for neighbors or other relatives, people who are just exasperating in our attempts to reach them for Christ. And, Father, my prayer is that you, by the power of your Spirit in our lives, would help us to be patient and long suffering with them, just like this young man who wrote this email was with John for five years.

As long as there's breath in their bodies, help us to show nothing but forbearance towards these folks at work, at school, wherever. And by our returning good for evil and patience for exasperation and kindness for cynicism, help us to be part of the process you use to bring these folks to a life-changing decision for Jesus Christ. Help us to imitate Paul as he imitated you, being all things to all people, so by all means we can see some come to Christ. Lord, change our lives and change the way we relate to folks because we were here today and we learned from the Word of God. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. .