Preaching in Chains (Part A)

How many youth understand how much they are loved? How much care goes into them? When they're not home, when you're out doing whatever it is you're doing, playing sports with your friends in school, whatever you're doing, mom and dad's love does not dim. It's intense all the time.

Do something with that. That's the same for Christians. Christ loves us.

His love does not wane. in the book of Acts chapter 28, as he begins his message, preaching in chains. Acts chapter 28, we will start the exposition in verse 17, hopefully to the end, but we're going to take verses 23 and 24.

For those of you unfamiliar with what's going on, the apostle Paul has made it to Rome and he is still under house arrest and he is going to have the Jewish leaders meet him at his house there in Rome and begin to preach there also. So verse 23, Acts 28. So when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets from morning till evening.

And some were persuaded by the things which were spoken and some disbelieved. Preaching in chains is the title of this morning's message. And before I open up on our youth, I'd like to say to anyone who maybe has metaphorically chains upon them in life, something that is binding you, holding you prisoner. Are you still preaching in chains or has that knocked you out of the box? I can tell you Christ wants you to preach wherever you are, in season and out of season, in jail and out of jail. Christ gives us these examples throughout the scripture. Children born into a Christian home should thank God for their spiritual head start and do something with it.

If you are born to parents who love the Lord Jesus Christ, then rather than whining about being shielded from the knowledge of evil, how about you embrace what's going on? How about you pay attention? You know, if I were a sports coach giving you a pep talk, you'd be right there with me. But this ain't sports. Satan's not playing.

He's looking to take you out as soon as he can. And the dumber you are, the easier it's going to be. But this kind of dumbness I'm talking about is by choice, not because you are capable of beating him back. You have to learn how to surrender at an early age, identify things, how many youth understand how much they are loved, how much care goes into them. When they're not home, when you're out doing whatever it is you're doing, playing sports with your friends in school, whatever you're doing, mom and dad's love does not dim.

It's intense all the time. Do something with that. That's the same for Christians. Christ loves us.

His love does not wane. The Christian filled with the Spirit wants to do something with that, and the whole book of Acts has been about the first Christians. Later, other Christians will be thrown to the lions. We won't read about that in Acts, but we know about it from history. You can remain in God's care, or you can take your freedom and jump into Satan's doomed hands and be damned along with him.

It's serious business. Without Jesus in your life, whatever you achieve won't help you in the end. On the other side, the Christian life and the Christian quest is about growing in the grace and the knowledge of God. That grace part is about my interaction with other people. That is also me in Christ, of course, but it also has to do with how I treat others, how I react to others. I grow in the grace and the knowledge.

Sometimes you meet a Christian and they're growing in the knowledge, but they're not growing in the grace, and you just don't want to be around them. And then, to preach the gospel to lost souls, the growing and the flowing. He who believes in me, as the Scriptures have said, out of his heart will flow torrents of living water. That's the outflow of what Christ has done, according to the Scriptures. We've been watching these first Christians abide with Christ, and now it's our turn. The book of Acts closes with Acts chapter 28. Every Christian after has been a part of Acts chapter 29.

And so now we look at verse 17. So when the Jews spoke against it, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar, not that I had anything of which to accuse my nation. Well Paul is now meeting with the Jewish community here, not the Jewish Christians that belong to the church that is in Rome. There were about 13 synagogues in Rome at this time, historians tell us. The Jews had been in Rome for 100 years. Pompeii brought them back as prisoners from Rome.

And the population then began to grow once they got into the society. So the gospel reached Rome long before Paul arrived. In Acts chapter 2, at the day of Pentecost, we know that there were Jewish people from Rome in Jerusalem. Acts 2 verse 10, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, that's Gentiles who had converted to Judaism.

They were in Rome at Pentecost, and after the feast they would return back to Rome. But God knew that those now Christians needed more than God's plan of salvation, which they embraced. They also needed God's plan of development, sanctification, maturity in Christ, discipleship.

And they received this development in four stages. One were the disciples of Paul. Paul, you get to the last chapter of Roman, the Roman letter, and Paul begins to rattle off all these names of people that have been in his life. And now they're in Rome.

And so they were under his teaching. They had the doctrine and they were doing their work in the church that was there in Rome. And then Paul wrote the Roman letter to them. So there are two stages right there, Paul's disciples and other Christians, and then Paul's letter. And now Paul's arrival in Rome.

There'll be a fourth one when Peter gets there. Peter writes in his letter to the elect in Babylon, which is code, believed to be code for Rome. Because Babylon, ancient Babylon, was really just a hole in the wall at the time Peter wrote and likely not written to believers in Babylon itself. Anyway, these Jewish heads of the community, rabbis, they deserve to know why Paul was under house arrest and why he was chained to a Roman citizen. They wanted to hear it from him. Paul looked at all these guys as bulls-eyes. They were targets for the gospel of Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of their own religion.

So verse 20, he says, For this reason therefore I have called for you, to see you and speak with you, because for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain. Now, of course, this all began when he was wrongfully accused of bringing a Gentile into the court of the temple in Jerusalem. And he was arrested. The Romans wanted to get to the bottom of this. They found out he had committed no crime against Rome, but the Jews wanted him dead. And then the politics got involved and the Romans wanted to turn Paul over to the Jews and let them work it out. But Paul knew that they would kill him, so he appealed to Caesar.

And that's what he's trying to tell these men without bad-mouthing his accusers, the prosecutors, just trying to stick to the facts. So he gets to the point, here's why I'm under house arrest, and it is for the preaching of our Messiah coming, Jesus. It is because Paul believed what the prophets said. He believed his Bible, which was the Old Testament. The New Testament was under development at this time.

And he is suffering because he believed in his scriptures and acted on what he believed. Jeremiah talks about Yahweh being the hope of Israel in Jeremiah 17, 13. We Christians have been waiting over 2,000 years now for Christ to return. The Jews had waited 3,000, over 3,000 years for him, and they missed him when he did come. We who believe don't plan on missing the Christ. We are trying to do everything to be actually good servants of him. So scripture supported Paul's prophetic view, his views of prophecy and the fulfillment in Christ, the hope of Israel.

Many Jews will refuse this, many had, but many also embraced it. He says, I am bound with this chain. He's preaching under investigation. Well, that's a big deal because some people treat accusations as convictions.

He says, I am bound with this chain. 1 Timothy, which hasn't been written yet, he will write it later, and in that letter, writing to Timothy, a pastor, he's going to give some guidelines for bringing charges against the pastor, which are for everyone actually, but he singles out the pastors. It's not a foolproof system.

Jezebel used the law to steal the vineyard from Naboth by having false accusers come against him. But amongst decent people, it works pretty well. 1 Timothy 5.19, do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses.

And you've got to consider the witnesses, of course. Well, Christians violate that quite often. They'll go out and badmouth pastors as though it were law. And they'll do that to other people too, and that's unfortunate. Others, of course, know better. 2 Timothy, which was written probably about four years after the first Timothy letter, he says, the Lord grant mercy to the household of Anesophorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain.

There it is. That tells us there were those that were ashamed of Paul being under arrest, under investigation. Remember, he was in protective custody awaiting trial. He had not been found guilty of anything. And, of course, he was chained, but the gospel was not.

God made it work. We know that not only from this chapter, but also the Colossian letter that he's going to write while he's under arrest in Rome. And he says to them, remember my chains.

Meaning, I don't want to be in jail. But that's where he was. Was there any fruit there?

Absolutely. Philemon, chapter 10. Now, Philemon was from Colossae, where he wrote that letter. And Philemon was evidently a well-to-do man. He had slaves. One of them was Onesimus, not Onesophorus, who I read a minute ago.

I know that's important to you. But this one is Onesimus. And Onesimus ran away from Philemon and evidently stole some things too. And so he gets lost in the big city of Rome, which, where the one that was not ashamed of Paul, he sought Paul out. He looked for him high and low in that big city of Rome and found him. Well, this Onesimus, he gets saved by Paul while in Rome.

And not only does he get saved, he acts upon his salvation. Paul says, you've got to go back to Philemon. You're a fugitive.

You've broken the law. You've got to make this right. I know Philemon. And you've got to trust this to God. And so Philemon makes it back to Colossae and delivers this letter from Paul to Philemon. And there Paul wrote to Philemon, I appeal to you from my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains. The gospel's not chained. Paul's still free to preach. And he did that. And, you know, he is the manservant of the Lord. And he enters Rome away. He never thought he would, in handcuffs. But his God held the key.

That's not enough. You've got to know it. You've got to do something with believing that. He knew God held the key and he lived like he knew God held the key, even though he didn't like it.

Remember my chains. Well, verse 21, Then they said to him, We neither received letters from Judea concerning you, nor have any of the brethren who came, reported, or spoken any evil of you. Hmm. Well, they heard of Paul's Christianity. I'm going to pause here to point out something, that the Lord opens the doors for church growth. And I believe the Bible teaches that only the Lord is to open the doors for church growth. I don't know if a week goes by where I get somebody telling me, number one, how dumb I am as a pastor and I need to come to their conference and figure out ministry. Or I'm getting, you know, hey, you need to grow your church. You know, you're too dumb to know how to do that.

You have to send us some money so we can help you out there. Well, does that sound hard? I don't ever get accused of being lovable. I do get accused of being stern and I don't get it. Anyway, so I'm going to say this backing it up from scripture, which should get me off the hook, right? Like, hey, he's not stern. He's just quoting scripture because he enjoys it.

Doesn't mean he's a meanie. Revelation 3. This is the church that was very faithful, very small. God's going to open doors for them. He said, I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door and no one can shut it.

For you have a little strength, have kept my word, and have not denied my name. This is the church in Asia Minor, Philadelphia. Then in Acts chapter 2, and I'm going in reverse order chronologically. Acts chapter 2 verse 47, we read this about the Jewish Christians that were flooding into the church, praising God and having favor with all people, and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. Well, would you rather have the Lord add to your church or would you rather be involved? We don't want the congregants being little salesmen for the church. That's the Lord's, he's not a salesman, but he is Lord of the church. He is Lord of the harvest. And it is, as a pastor, I don't want to try to sell the church to convince somebody to return. That's none of my business. That's between the Lord and them. Zechariah 4, and this is when the temple of the Jews was supposed to be rebuilt, but the Jewish people weren't really moving to get it done. And God raised up Haggai the prophet and Zechariah.

God speaking to him said, not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord. That's how these things are going to get done. I happen to believe these things, and I try to adhere to them. I don't care if others are not doing it.

I don't mean that in a hostile way. If they're not doing it, that's on them. But I know what I understand the Scriptures to say, and I'm going to go with that. And so here, Paul, he is going to lay out to them the Gospel from their Scripture. He's not trying to appeal to them with anything outside of what the Bible says.

And if that doesn't do it, then it's not going to get done. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword. Well, that's spiritual too. He who lives by the Word of God dies by the Word of God because they don't depart from it, no matter what happens. And I hope I go to my grave holding to the Bible, to the Word of God. Verse 22.

But we desire to hear from you what you think, for concerning this sect, we know that it is spoken against everywhere. Well, it's been less than 30 years since Christ ascended to heaven, the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension of Christ. And Christianity is bad-mouthed in a lot of places, in the Jewish community especially, because they were non-conformist. They weren't asking other people how to be Christians. They were getting that from God, from the Old Testament, and from the apostles. And they did something with it. And in so doing, they offended people.

Jesus said, I've come to bring a sword. You can sugarcoat the gospel and you won't offend anybody, except people who don't sugarcoat the gospel. Anyway, they said, we want to hear from you concerning this sect. They classified Christianity as a heretical offshoot of Judaism. But actually, Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism, rendering it obsolete.

And moving forward, with or without them. Were they being honest? When they said, for concerning this sect, we know that it is spoken, but that's it, we just know it was bad-mouthed.

How could that be? How could Jewish leaders be unaware of Jews in Rome who had become Christians? As big a city as Rome was, the Jewish community always stays plugged in. There would have been family members that became Christians and did not become Christians. And would still remain in touch in some form.

And so, especially since you had Jews in Rome serving Christ, worshipping alongside of Gentiles. That would have been all over their radar. So I don't know if they were being so honest, acting and playing dumb.

You know, we don't want all we want to hear from you. Well, Paul doesn't get tripped up with that. They wanted to hear Christianity from Paul. They were going to get Christianity from Paul. Verse 23, and when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets from morning till evening. Well, he couldn't do, or he couldn't go to the synagogues as was his custom, as was the custom of the Lord before him, because he's under house arrest. And so, the delay allowed for those 13 synagogues to get it on the schedule and the leaders and representatives of the community and the rabbis would show up. He must have had a sizable room given to him.

Well, and that had to be coordinated too. Anyway, he says, to whom he explained, here in verse 23, and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God. Paul never changed his method with the Jews. With the Jews, he first went to their scripture. He did not have to explain when he said, Isaiah said. They didn't say, who's Isaiah? They knew who Isaiah was and they knew what Isaiah said. And so, that just was perfect.

You would think that, man, that is ideal. How could they say no? Well, they did. With the Gentiles, he would go to logic that we know of. He had, I'm sure, other moves, but we remember this from Athens. Either way, he would, both of them, would declare the whole counsel of God. That means he would speak from God's word. And he would do it without any weirdo ideas and private revelations. You know, someone coming along, God said this to me. Yeah, well, he didn't say it to us.

Peter wrote about this, knowing first that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation. God singled you out and the rest of us are just going to sit there and listen to what you have to say. Islam does it that way. They have their prophet and that's it. But that's not Christianity. Persuading them concerning Jesus.

Yeah, Jesus is Messiah who came and they missed it, but it's even more than that. Our approach, by the way, back to the Gentiles, I said it was a little different. Well, we usually have to point out sin and the guilt that it brings before a holy God.

That's one of the things we get to right away. The other thing we might have to get to fairly quickly is the trustworthiness of scripture. Well, the Jews had both of those. All their blood offerings was about their sin before a holy God. The trustworthiness of the scripture, they had no problem there. Here's where it gets to be.

Here's the wild card. Jesus is the single solution. Now, the Jews would have no problem with Messiah being the single solution. They just had a problem with who's the Messiah. The Gentiles have a problem. Well, it is one way.

Why not? I mean, what, you got many ways? Well, you know, who paves those things?

Who maintains those roads? Who says, you know, what proof do you have? All roads lead to Rome, but they don't all lead to heaven.

Only one. Well, so that's in method. So it says here, from both the law of Moses and the prophets. I'm in verse 23. This is what he used with these Jewish leaders. Single source, the scripture. This is how Jesus did it. Yeah, well, Jesus also had those phenomenal miracles, right? But that didn't save everybody or many that saw those miracles and did not convert, and many benefited from them.

Nine of them in one situation didn't even come back to say thank you. Luke chapter 24 verse 27, beginning at Moses. This is talking about Jesus. Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And the church has been doing this ever since. Hopefully, the true church.

Easy peasy. If you're going to preach to the Jews, Isaiah 9, Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Zachariah 14, just to name a few. It's all over their scripture.

I really have no excuse. You've been listening to Cross-Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply visit crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross-Reference Radio Podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross-Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Acts, right here on Cross-Reference Radio.