Seeing God’s Providence

Amen. As you grab your seat, grab your Bible open to Acts chapter 23, Acts chapter 23. My name is Brent. I’m one of the pastors here. And I’m so glad you’re here. I really am. I’m glad you’re here. But I’m also curious how you got here. How did you get here? And I don’t mean what kind of vehicle did you arrived in or who picked you up or where you walked from or rode your bike or whatever you did to get here physically.

I mean like how did you get to a spot in your life where you’re walking through the doors of Gospel City Church on Sunday morning, June 5th at 11:00AM? What circumstances, situations, conversations, decisions have you made in your life to get you to this moment in time? Have you ever stopped to consider that? As you look back on however many years you’ve walked on this planet, what are the things that have led you to this moment?

One of my favorite movies of all time is a movie called “That Thing You Do.” All right. It’s one of those movies I grew up on and I could quote every single line of this movie to you, right? If you’ve never seen it, it’s this movie that follows the meteoric rise of a pop rock band in 1964. They write a hit song and it goes viral before viral is the word you use for stuff like that. And so they climb the charts and they get all this fame and success. And it’s all these little moments that just happened and it led the band to these awesome opportunities.

And one of my favorite lines is they’re about to play the Hollywood television showcase, right? Live television in 1964, right, was a big deal. So the band is at the pinnacle of their success and the guitar player turns around to the drummer and he says this famous line. He says, “Skitch, how did we get here?” Right? He’s just so amazed. Like what happened?

And the drummer replies and he says, “I led you here sir, for I am Spartacus.” It’s a great movie. That makes no sense in this context, but you should go watch it. Great film.

And so we get through seasons of our life. Like I stand here this morning and I say, “Man, how did we get here?” I remember thirteen plus years ago now walking into this small little church building that a group of fifty to sixty people had rented to gather together as a core group with this idea, this plan, this God’s mission to plant a church in Granger, Indiana at NorthPoint Elementary School on Cherry Road. And that decision of walking into that small little church building set a trajectory for my life that has led me now to stand here in front of you, all of us here together, in the fruits of what God did in that little church building. That’s crazy to me to think that. How did we get here? It’s amazing.

But sometimes we use that phrase, “How did we get here?” in a negative sense. Looking around at your life and it’s so far away from what you would have planned. All the things you’ve gone through, the things you’ve encountered, this is not the vision I had for my life. This is not what I wanted it to look, feel like at all. How did we get here?

And the truth is that in the life of every believer, every person, who calls on the name of the Lord, there is both those situations going on throughout your life all the time. I’ve never met a person whose life has just been up and to the right the whole time, just success after success after success. There are down moments, low moments in our life that are hard and we walk through them. And then we get to the mountaintop as we’ve seen in Acts, just the up and the down effect of Acts. we get to that mountaintop and we look back and we say, “Oh my gosh, God was in the valley. He was there and He was working something to bring me up to this moment.” Both are true.

And so as Christians, as followers of Jesus, how do we navigate the ups and the downs? How do we look for God in all of the moments? And I believe that this morning in Acts chapter 23 we’re going to see a great example of putting our hope not in human plans but in God’s providence. What I want us to walk away with this morning is a simple but powerful truth from Paul’s life that can be applied to myself, to you today. It’s this: God’s providence is over any human plans.

And what do we mean by providence? I want to give it a quick definition. John Piper wrote a book aptly titled Providence. And here’s a definition that he gives. It’s called “The act of God’s providing for or sustaining and governing the world.” The act of God’s providing for or sustaining and governing the world.

And now this morning we’re not going to have time nor am I prepared to unpack the entirety of what God’s providence is. But there are two distinctions I want to make as we start to think in that vein this morning. One is you might use the word providence and sovereignty interchangeably. And I’ve often prayed, “Lord, I trust you. You are sovereign over this situation.” That is a good and right prayer to pray.

But when we think about sovereignty, that is God’s nature. That’s who He is. That’s His right, His ability to control things. He is sovereign. He has the authority to do that. But His providence is the action, His providing in those situations. So while sovereignty is His right, providence is His action of doing so and acting on it.

The second distinction is providence is not the same as fate. Right? As we start to unpack this you might start to think, My pastor is a fatalist. Right? Everything is going to happen no matter what I do. I have no control. It’s left up to fate. That is not what we’re talking about.

Fate says that it must be, so it is. Like you think of an avalanche crashing down a mountain and wiping out an entire town. No one was going to stop that avalanche from happening; it was just destined to be so and so it happened. But there was no point. It was meaningless. Why did the avalanche occur? If fate is in control, there is no reason beyond that moment.

Whereas providence says that God wills it, so it must be so. And there is always a purpose and a meaning behind it. God is working towards an end goal, which is His glory, His mission, His fame.

And so in every situation we can look and we can say there is God’s will and that is why it is occuring. The difference between fate and providence would be a blind man stumbling around in the dark and someone with perfect vision with all the lights on. They know exactly where we’re going. There’s a purpose in every step.

And what we’re about to read in Acts 23 I believe is an awesome example of God’s providence over any human plans. And the first thing we’ll see is that God’s providence is over religious dissension. God’s providence is over religious dissension.

Just a quick recap of where Paul is at. Paul is in Jerusalem. His sights are set on Rome. Many people have tried to deter him from doing that, to go to Jerusalem and eventually to Rome because so much pain awaits him. But he is convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is what the Lord has for him. His ministry lies first in Jerusalem and then on in Rome. And at the moment it’s not going too well for him. He’s in custody by the Roman government. He had stirred up some Jews just because he talked about Jesus being risen from the dead and that he was called to go and preach that truth to Gentiles. And so the Jews didn’t like that at all and tried to destroy him.

And so Claudius, who is the tribune, kind of the governor of that area, is taking him out of that situation and just assumes that he’s an insurrectionist or a criminal. And so he’s going to beat him to try to get some answers out of him, right? An interrogation tactic. And Paul casually mentions, Hey, I’m a Roman citizen. And so that warrants him a fair trial to actually go through the proper things to be proven guilty, not just assumed guilty in this moment.

And so we pick up in verse 30 of Acts 22 right above the start of chapter 23. It says this. But on the next day, (Claudius) desiring to know the real reason why he was being accused by the Jews, he unbound him (Paul) and commanded the chief priests and all the council to meet, and he brought Paul down and set him before them. (Acts 22:30)

So again, Claudius, he wants answers. He wants to know why are the Jews so angry at this guy. I can’t get a straight answer from anybody. And remember this Roman outpost is just set up. There’s a staircase leading up to it down from where the Jews were gathering. And so he reaches out to the Sanhedrin and he says, You guys need to get together in the room and figure this out. I’m sending Paul down to meet with you.

And so they have this meeting, and here’s what Paul does. Chapter 23 verse 1.
And looking intently at the council, Paul said, “Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day.” (Acts 23:1)
I just need to state Paul is not probably doing too well. He has wounds. He’s tired. He just slept, not in a hospital to recover; he slept in a prison cell much like the one Jesus would have been kept in before His execution. And so he’s hurting. He’s got to be tired and frustrated. And he’s just been set in a room before some of the most powerful men in Jerusalem. And he still has the confidence to look them in the eye and to say, This is a sham. There’s no reason I should be here. I’m in good conscience with my God. So if you’re about to bring something against me, just know I don’t know what it is, and neither does God because I’m clear.
And whether or not it’s because he said anything or the way he said it or what he said, we don’t know. But look what happens next. Verse 2.
And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. (Acts 23:2)
Now I’d love to call somebody up to demonstrate this really quick. I’m just kidding. This is not a little slap. This is, the word is to to inflict damage, to strike dead. So this is someone just hauls off and hits Paul hard in the mouth, which is not a fun place to ever be hit. And talking about just an insult in front of a large group of men. You just pull a guy up and slap him across the face as hard as you can probably with a backhand or something. I mean, it was disrespectful. It was trying to put Paul in his place.
And here’s Paul’s response in verse 3.
Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! That’s not my choice of insult, but Paul liked it. Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” (Acts 23:3)
Now I read that and I’m kind of like, “Yeah, Paul!” This is like the bully getting what he deserved right? It’s like, Tell him what’s going on. And he didn’t say anything untrue. That word “whitewashed wall” is reminiscent of when Jesus talked to the Pharisees and the Scribes and He says, “Woe to you you whitewashed tombs.” Like you look good on the outside but you’re dead on the inside. This wall, this fabrication, it has no integrity. It doesn’t stand on its own but you’ve painted it to look like it has some structure. He’s calling this man a hypocrite, which he was accurate. This Annanias was an awful, evil man.
And then he’s saying, Your whole office is to hold up Moses’ law and you just broke the law by hitting me. Because Moses said you cannot condemn a man before you have accusations, and he’s been tried before you. So you’ve just punished me for something you haven’t even proven. So you’ve broken the law in your attempt to uphold the law.
And he obviously didn’t know who he was speaking to and so those around him, probably the same guy who hit him, is like, Whoa, you can’t say that.
Verse 4. Those who stood by said, “Would you revile God’s high priest?” And Paul said, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’” (Acts 23:4-5)
One there’s a couple probable reasons why Paul didn’t recognize that this was the high priest. One, they’re in an informal setting. They’re not in a normal meeting place of the Sanhedrin. And so it’s kind of like if you were at Target and someone was like, “Dude, that’s the pope.” And he was just like in sweats.
You’d be like, “I don’t think that’s the pope. I don’t know. I don’t recognize him.” Right? Because he’s not in a church with the liturgical clothes on. And so this is kind of an informal meeting. You know maybe on a Saturday morning they drug the Sanhedrin in and they’re coming off of donuts and coffee with their family. I don’t know. Nobody looks like how they should look and so Paul is a little confused at who he’s talking to.
Second reason is we can gather from Scripture that Paul has really bad eyesight. He doesn’t see too well. And so that coupled with them not looking the same, it’s a dim lit room. Maybe he has no idea who’s actually talking to him. He just knows there’s a mass of accusers in front of him. And so he’s talking to whoever will listen. But he recognizes that he made a mistake and he goes back to “What does God’s Word say?” proving that he is loyal to God’s Word, to these men, saying, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. God says that this is not right that I would do that.
And so he is going to change his tactic a little bit. So he’s like, Ok, I’m kind of figuring out who’s in the room right now. And so I don’t want to get hit in the mouth again. So I’m going to kind of flip the scene a little bit.
Look at verse 6. Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.” And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. (Acts 23:6-8)
Now I want you to imagine something like a senate meeting, right? A bunch of people gathered together from different political parties, different beliefs, and they’re there to talk about one topic. And then someone decides to stand up and say the one controversial thing that would divide the left and the right. Right? Something like…you’re so curious as to what I would say. You’re like, “What’s he going to say?” No, I won’t do that. We don’t need that in the room this morning.
But there was this debate that swept over our nation recently. I lost friends over this. There was a lot of hot debate. I’ve been in heated arguments about it. And it was the question of, “In the entire world, are there are more doors or wheels?” Think about that for a second. The whole world. Are there more doors or wheels? Now I mean this is a heated debate and it’s just such a silly thing to fight over. And it’s so obviously wheels that anything else is just ludicrous to believe right? People are like, I’m going to find a stone right now. Like it’s doors. I’m team doors. But this was a thing that got like a lot of people, Like it’s so obvious.
So it’s not hard for us to imagine that something like a theological issue that people were, you know, really about, like we would have no idea what this looks like in our world. A theological issue that people don’t agree on and someone says, “This is what I believe.” And now the two sides are at each other’s throats. Right?
And so Paul is identifying himself with the Pharisees saying, This is why I’m here is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And now the room is divided.
Verse 9. Then a great clamor arose, and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and contended sharply, “We find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?” And when the dissension became violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away from among them by force and bring him into the barracks. (Acts 23:9-10)
Didn’t we just do this?” Claudius must be thinking. Didn’t this just happen the other day when he is in a situation where people are trying to tear him limb from limb just because of something he said? And so now he has to send more soldiers down, pick him up over their heads again and carry him back to the barracks. And Paul is in the exact same spot he was the day before. If I was Claudius I’d be like, I just need an answer. Can somebody tell me what’s going on before you try to kill the guy?
If I was Claudius I’d be thinking a little bit like, This sounds like their problem. Like if they kill him it’s not really my fault. Like I’ve done everything I need to do. Just let them have him. But instead he removes, he saves his life. He removes him again from that situation, proving that the Lord has providence over religious dissension and will use it to, again, stir on Paul’s life and continue him on the mission.
So he’s back in the barracks. And the other crazy thing I think is that the Pharisees in that moment deem Paul as innocent. Right? The scribes and the Pharisees say, “We see nothing wrong in this man.” But yet Paul is still in chains.
So the saving of his life by Claudius, the fact that he’s still bound, it’s all God’s providence. How do we know this? Look at verse 11.
The following night the Lord stood by him and said, “Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.” (Acts 23:11)
So Paul in his cell, back in his cell, discouraged. I can’t get anywhere. It’s just the same obstacles over and over again. These men won’t listen to me. The Roman government doesn’t care. How am I supposed to continue my ministry? What is this supposed to look like? Am I doing the right thing?
So many warnings, right? Agabus with the belt. Like so many warnings. Don’t do this. Did I miss it? Did I mishear? Right back in Acts chapter 16 we see that Paul tried to go places and he’s forbidden by the Spirit. The door was closed to him and he and he maybe is asking in this moment, Lord, are you closing the door? Am I supposed to do something different than what I’m trying to do?
And God could have sent an angel. He could have spoke to Paul in a dream. He could have wrote on the wall. All that would have been awesome. But because Paul is testifying to the risen Jesus, Jesus comes in the flesh and stands next to him and says, “Take courage.” That’s not a little like pull him in for a hug and say, It’s ok. I’m right here. It is a command to Paul to be courageous, to continue on. You are doing the right thing. Do not be frightened. Do not be dismayed. The Lord God is with you. You’ve done well here. The next step is Rome. You’re going to Rome, Paul.
What an encouragement to Paul in that moment. And you can see that things are turning the right way. And just pausing there for a second, pretending you can’t read ahead. Only knowing what we’ve read in Acts so far about jail cells and scenes where angels and Jesus shows up, you know what I want the next few verses to read? “And the chains immediately fell off Paul’s hands and his feet and the gates sprung open and the Spirit of God carried him to Rome where he lived out the rest of his life preaching the gospel.” Credits. Close your books. Acts, done. What a great end to the story that would be.
But it’s kind of like when you are watching the movie and it feels like the resolution is coming and you know the runtime. And you’re like, There’s forty-five minutes left in this movie. I don’t think this is going to go the way we think it’s going to go. Right? There’s more drama coming. The tension is still building.
So while God is provident over religious dissension, we’re about to see that God’s providence is over heinous crimes as well. Back to the text. Verse 12. 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. There were more than forty who made this conspiracy. (Acts 23:12-13)
So Jesus spoke to Paul in the prison cell but then left him there. To continue on, he was doing what God had called him to do and the next thing that happens is now forty men decide to take an oath that they’re not going to eat or drink until they kill Paul. This is just ludicrous because in Matthew chapter 5 Jesus speaks directly against this oaths. This is what Jesus says in Matthew 5: But I say to you, do not take an oath at all either by heaven, for it is the throne of God or by the earth, for it is his footstool or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not take an oath by your head for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply yes or no. Anything more than that comes from evil. (Matthew 5:34-37)
So these men say, You know what? We’re done waiting for the Roman government. It was way easier to kill Jesus. We just stirred people up and Pilate took care of the rest. So we’re going to take it on ourselves. And more than that, we’re going to take an oath. This is not like, sometimes I’m like, Hey, I’m not going to eat sugar for a month. And then three days later I’m like pounding Reese peanut butter cups in the pantry. That’s not this. This is like, If I don’t kill Paul, may God kill me. I won’t touch food or drink until his blood is on my hands.
So not only are they doing the very thing Jesus told them not to do, but they’re also making this evil oath about murdering an innocent man. And the Sanhedrin, the religious council, goes along with it.
Verse 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. 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. We need you to lie for us. And we are ready to kill him before he comes near.” (Acts 23:14-15)
So the plan is made. The trap is set. They’re done waiting around for other people. They’re going to do it for themselves. Let this be a word of caution to us about how our world operates. When words fail, when diplomacy fails, the next course of action is violence. All right, nobody will listen, nobody will understand what I want them to do. Nobody will be obedient to my exact needs. Then I’ll remove them. I’ll take them out. We’ll go from fist to cuffs as they would say. Right?
And Jesus in Matthew 5 He talks about not taking that oath and then His next words are don’t retaliate against those that hurt you and love your enemies. And so here we see this group of men just opposite of the way Jesus called us to live. First we’re going to take an evil oath, then we’re going to retaliate because we’re sick of what Paul is saying and he’s our enemy. So we’re not going to love him; we’re going to kill him.
But in God’s providence this group of men and the Sanhedrin aren’t the only ones that hear the plot to kill Paul. Verse 16.
Now the son of Paul’s sister heard of their ambush, so he went and entered the barracks and told Paul. (Acts 23:16)
I mean, ok, I love how Luke just drops this in here. I imagine Luke is very strategic. Everything that fits the mission. Like gathering all the facts. Like he’s not like an investigative reporter like, I’m going to get all the juicy details. Just the facts. Let’s move the story along. What do people need to know?
And so he gets to this part and he’s like, this kid finds out. Paul has a sister. She has a kid. So it’s Paul’s nephew. Anyways. And we’re like, No, no, no, no, no. Paul has a sister? When did this happen? We just found out Paul has a dad who was a Pharisee. I need like the origin story of Saul, right, on Disney Plus to come out. Like little Saul and his sister running around and she’s like, “You’re so slow, Paul.”
And he’s like, “I’m content in weakness and insult, for when I am weak He is strong.”
“Guys, he’s preaching again.”
I would love that. I need it. It’s coming.
But we want to know, right? It’s like there are some things there that I desire to know. Like what’s the family story? Why is his sister in Jerusalem? Why isn’t she in Tarsus where the family estate is from? Like he’s Saul of Tarsus. And is his nephew starting to become a Pharisee and so they moved to Jerusalem? Like that would be kind of cool. Like following Uncle Paul’s footsteps. And why didn’t he stay with his sister when he was in Jerusalem? Is there a beef there? Like I need to know these things. Right? And the truth is we’re never going to know. We don’t know. This side of heaven we’ll never know those things. Why? Because they don’t matter, so we’re not going to keep talking about it.
But talk about God’s providence that Paul’s nephew, somebody who loved Paul, cared about his life, would overhear this plot to kill him and then finds a way to get into the barracks and tells him. Verse 17. Here’s what happens next.
Paul called one of the centurions and said, “Take this young man to the tribune, for he has something to tell him.” 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.” The tribune took him by the hand, and going aside asked him privately, “What is it that you have to tell me?” 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. 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.” So the tribune dismissed the young man, charging him, “Tell no one that you have informed me of these things.” (Acts 23:17-22
Now just quick, none of this is normal. Right? The fact that one, Paul’s nephew got into the Roman barracks. The fact that he was able to talk to Paul. And then the fact that Paul calls over a centurion. He’s a prisoner. He has no authority in that place. He calls over a centurion who is like a captain over 100 men. He has authority. And he tells him what to do. Hey, go and take this kid to your boss. He has something he wants to tell him. That’s not a lot of information to go on.
And so now this guy is next on the line. I’m going to take some kid to my boss and say, Hey, this might be relevant or have nothing to do with anything. I’m not doing that. But he does it. God’s providence. He goes and he tells it.
And then the tribune, the high man of authority, decides he’s going to listen to a kid. Why? He’s got to be so piqued with interest about what is up with this guy. I’ve tried twice now to get answers. I’ve got nothing. And now there’s a kid who’s saying he has some information. Like please tell me. Tell me anything that will help me in this situation.
And so he believes him and he sets up an awesome plan to get Paul out of that situation. Look at this. Verse 23.
Then he called two of the centurions and said, “Get ready two hundred soldiers, with seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen to go as far as Caesarea at the third hour of the night. Also provide mounts for Paul to ride and bring him safely to Felix the governor.” (Acts 23:23-24)
Forty hundred seventy men as personal bodyguards removing Paul under the cover of night, riding on a horse so he doesn’t have to walk sixty-five miles to Caesarea so these men can’t even get close to him. God’s providence to protect Paul.
Why would he do that? I mean Paul is this little stout, balding man. Doesn’t seem to pose much of a threat. Probably could have got by with ten guards to guard him. But there was such animosity between the Jews and the Romans at that point that they just wanted to stop any sense. They wanted to show strength. They wanted to show power.
And so God’s providence over a heinous crime is the response to the crime being this 470 person entourage to carry Paul to a place that was majority Gentiles, the very people that Paul was called to preach to. Removing him from Jerusalem where it was mostly Jews who were… they’re done listening to him. They will no longer ever again hear about the resurrection. And the next thing we see about the temple years from now is the Jewish revolt and the destruction of the temple. Paul’s ministry is done there and God provides a way for him to get to a land full of Gentiles who are willing and able to hear the gospel. God’s providence.
And you have to imagine there was about forty men showing up to breakfast the next morning like real sheepish. Like, Hey, Paul is gone. So we’re going to have some eggs. Hope that’s ok. They didn’t just starve to death. They for sure ate and felt stupid about it. So God is provident over that heinous crime. He provided a way of escape for Paul.
And then the last thing we’re going to see is that God’s providence is over political injustice. Verse 25.
And he (Felix) wrote a letter to (Claudius) to this effect:
“Claudius Lysias, to his Excellency the governor Felix, greetings. This man was seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them when I came upon them with the soldiers and rescued him, having learned that he was a Roman citizen. Left out the footnote about almost beating him and whipping him. But I digress. And desiring to know the charge for which they were accusing him, I brought him down to their council. I found that he was being accused about questions of their law, but charged with nothing deserving death or imprisonment. And when it was disclosed to me that there would be a plot against the man, I sent him to you at once, ordering his accusers also to state before you what they have against him.”
So the soldiers, according to their instructions, took Paul and brought him by night to Antipatris. That’s like the halfway point. They stopped for the night. And on the next day they returned to the barracks, letting the horsemen go on with him. When they had come to Caesarea and delivered the letter to the governor, they presented Paul also before him. On reading the letter, he asked what province he was from. And when he learned that he was from Cilicia, he said, “I will give you a hearing when your accusers arrive.” And he commanded him to be guarded in Herod’s praetorium. (Acts 23:25-35)
So Paul is in chains but he got an upgrade in lodging. He’s now in a palace. This would have been Herod the Great built this city of Caesarea. He’s long gone but this palace remains. And so that word praetorium would have meant a part of his palace. So Paul is in some nice digs but he’s still bound. He’s still under guard. He’s still imprisoned. And Paul is probably waiting. Like, Where is the Rome part? I just saw Jesus. He left me, so this must be part of the plan still. So I’m waiting for when do I get to Rome?
Well Caesarea would have been the Roman seat of government in that area, not Jerusalem. Caesarea would have been like the seat. And so Felix here is a man of authority who can get him to the proper places like Rome. And so Paul is probably waiting, thinking that this will happen in the next couple of days. What we’re going to see over the next couple of chapters over the next few weeks together is that Paul ends up waiting over two years before he’s moved on to Rome. Two years after the Lord stood in his jail cell and said, “You will testify about me in Rome.”
That’s not a short amount of time for someone to wait imprisoned, having the same conversations over and over again, lost in their political system, completely unjust. He was declared innocent in that letter but kept in chains. There’s been no compensation for the way he was treated as a Roman citizen. His accusers keep coming. Nobody can clearly identify what they’re claiming against him and he gets passed on from governor to governor. Changes of power happen and people are like, Oh, Paul is still here? Like so much injustice.
Why wasn’t he freed upon the arrival of Caesarea? Why is he still bound? This is not fair. It doesn’t seem right. But God’s providence is over political injustice and we’re going to see that eventually he appeals to Caesar, which is the thing that will get him because he is bound and he’s in their system. It will get him to Rome. they will charter his way to Rome.
You know what I love about this chapter in Acts is that nothing miraculous happens other than the Lord showing up to Paul. And He doesn’t break him out of prison. He’s done that a few times now. There’s no like miraculous encounter that can’t be explained by coincidence or happenstance. It all just seems kind of natural. This is the way it would flow because of the way hte systems were set up.
And yet because we can look at the full picture, we can start to see God’s fingerprints throughout the whole thing working Paul’s journey into a place where he will be sent to Rome to fulfill what the Lord said to him in that jail cell. “Take courage. The Lord is at work.”
So let this serve as an encouragement to us, church. Let us, yes, pray. Pray for God’s miraculous moves in your life. To see things that no one else could do, to see God do a miracle. But do not miss and do not forsake the small incremental shifts that God has in your life, seemingly normal everyday happenings, that God is working to bring you to a place to use you for His glory.
And you’re like, That sounds great, Brent. I want to do that. But I look around and I see the religious dissension of churches in America. I see the heinous crimes happening day after day. And I see the political injustice that just runs rampant. And there’s a part of me that’s like, “God doesn’t want anything to do with this. He’s hands off saying, ‘You guys are left to yourself.’ And let’s just pray for the day that God just comes and like stamps it all out and burns the whole thing down and rebuilds it the way He wants. Let’s just pray for that. That’s God’s providence is that He’s just going to start all over. This can’t be what the Lord has for us.”
Let me remind you of Ephesians 1:11 that says, God is working all things according to the counsel of his will. The truth this morning church is that God’s providence isn’t always about in the moment where things are hard and evil is rampant that He smashes it and overcomes it. It’s not evil vs. God’s providence. It is God redeeming the evil and bad things in life to work towards His end goal of His glory. Using the hard thing in your life.
Oh, what a miserable existence it would be to live in a world where the hard things, the bad things we go through, are meaningless. They just happen and if God chooses He can remove you from it, but when He doesn’t, what faith can we place in a God who operates in that vein? But rather we trust in the God of providence who is working all things together for the good of those who love Him.
So as we close, I want to give you this: four things you can do when things don’t go according to your plan, not God’s plan. But when things don’t go according to your plan, how do you start to see God’s providence in it all? The first thing you need to do is maximize the situation you’re in. Paul did not waste whatever circumstances he found himself in. He looked for the opportunities for God to be glorified. Whether it was before the Sanhedrin and proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus yet again to them, he maximized every situation he was in. We need to do the same. We need to look at our life not as, This is such a hard season. I can’t wait to get through it. But rather, God, what do you have for me in it right now?
There’s a loved family here at our church, Bryan and Lindsey Springham, who just gave birth to a little girl, Lacey. And she was born prematurely. They’ve spent weeks now in the NICU. And you just look at that situation and you’re like, God, they prayed, they asked for a child, and You provided. And then this? And they have to walk through the uncertainty of what’s going to happen. Will there be complications? Will she make it?
No parent is like, Let’s spend time in the NICU. It’s the last place any parent actually wants to be. And yet I was talking to Bryan this week about how the nurses have encouraged them to talk out loud to Lacey. And so they’ve been reading The Jesus Storybook Bible to her and leaving it on the stand next to her bed. And some nurses have just asked, “Oh what is that?” And they’ve had these little moments of conversation that they’re praying could turn to something deeper. Or maybe it’s just a seed that’s planted and ten years from now a nurse comes to Jesus Christ because of that little moment that led them on a trajectory to then see the gospel of Jesus.
Maximize the situation that you’re in. You have no idea what God is working out. But also we need to maximize the situation we’re in because sometimes when things are hard and we run up against it we just stop and we sit and we wait for God to fix it until we’re ready to move on. Or if it doesn’t match exactly what we think our life should look like. Like, Hey, if I was holding the pen it would be this. So anything else doesn’t matter.
Young people, I feel this so often where it’s just like sometimes you just need to move. Just start doing. Don’t wait for everything to line up perfectly, the stars to align.
You’ve heard the story about the woman in the hurricane? You’ve heard this story? If you have, humor me for a second. So there’s a woman and she’s in her home and the news alert comes on. There’s a massive hurricane and she needs to evacuate her home. And so she starts praying and she says, “God, I know that You can save me. I trust You to save me.”
There’s a knock on her door and she answers it and there’s a guy with a truck. And he says, “Hey, I’m headed out of town. Feel free to throw your stuff in the back. I’ll get you to safety.”
And she’s like, “No, no, no. I’ve been praying. I trust God. he’s going to save me.”
And he’s like, “Oh, ok,” and he leaves.
And the water starts to flood in and rise and she has to go to her second story. So she’s in her second story bedroom and she starts praying more fervently. “God, I trust that You’re going to save me. I believe You can.” And she hears a bullhorn outside. And she looks out her window and there’s a guy in a boat.
And he says, “Hey, I’m here. Throw your stuff in. I can get you to safety.”
And she’s like, “No, it’s ok. I’m a Christian. I’ve been praying. God is going to save me.”
And he’s like, “Ok!” And he leaves.
And the water rises even more and now she’s on the roof of her house. And she’s praying the hardest she’s ever prayed in her whole life. She’s saying, “God, I know You can save me. I trust You. save me!”
And she hears the whir of helicopter blades coming in and a guy lowers a ladder. And he says, “Hey, I’m with the Coast Guard. I’m here to rescue you. Go ahead and climb the ladder.”
And she goes, “No! It’s ok! I’m a Christian! I’m trusting God to save me!”
And he says, “Ok,” and he leaves. And the woman drowns and dies. That’s not how you thought the story was going to go, but that’s what happened.
So she’s dead. She’s standing before the Lord in heaven. She says, “Lord, I prayed to You and I trusted You. Why didn’t You save me from this hurricane?”
And He says, “What are you talking about? I sent a truck, a boat and a helicopter and you did nothing.” Sometimes we need to stop looking for like the, “Oh, God is speaking from the heavens.” Sometimes we need to trust that the things we’re walking through, the seemingly normal things, are exactly what God has in your life for that season. Maximize the situation you’re in.
Secondly, show humility even when it’s hard. Show humility even when it’s hard. We don’t always respond right when things don’t go our way. We get angry. We might vent about life. We might be frustrated. We might take it out on our loved ones. We might just walk around like Eeyore, like, Woe is me. I’m basically the same as Job.
And trust me, I’ve been there. I’ve been so frustrated with life. I’ve let my emotions dictate how I operate in my circumstances. But sometimes we need to just show humility and admit that we were wrong. And we see it in Paul. He lashes out and then he humbly says, You know what? God’s Word says this and I’m going to move forward with that. Admit your mistakes and wrong thinking and move forward.
Thirdly, we need to trust God beyond the present. Trust God beyond this moment. I read this quote by Jeremiah Burrows this week. He wrote a great book called The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. And this quote is in there. It says, “In a clock, stop but one wheel and you stop every wheel, because they are dependent upon one another. So when God has ordered a thing for the present to be thus and thus, how do you know how many things depend upon this thing? God may have some work to do twenty years hence that depends on this passage of providence that falls out this day or this week?”
We must all start to look beyond our current situations, our current circumstances, and frankly church, we need to stop looking at just our own lives as the sum total of everything. I’m here to tell you today, you are not the center of the universe, nor am I. You are a part of a story that you did not begin, and you will not write the last page.
So if instead of your life being about every moment being exactly what God has for you in that moment and exactly how you want it to be, can you look at it as a sum total of God using every moment to bring you to a place where you can glorify Him with your whole life? You will start to see God’s providence in the hard things and in the good things. They will all be the same leading to the same place if we trust God beyond the present.
Lastly, we need to prioritize holiness above everything. I was struck by Paul’s words before the council where he said, “I have lived my life before God and all good conscience up to this day.” And that night in prison, Jesus commends him for his testimony about Jesus because of his desire to commune with God, his prioritization of holiness in his life. His authority that he felt, the confidence he had in what he was doing, it did not come from his own abilities or the fact that he had it all figured out or even that he was right.
It came because he knew that he was walking with the Lord, that he was following what Jesus had called him to do. Nothing else mattered to him. Is it all that matters to us? Or do we value something else that the world could offer us than what God gives us? Have we compromised on our morals and values in places in our life simply because we want more status or we want more followers or we want more acclaim for ourselves? Are we willing to say holiness is the goal? Everything else can fall away.
And listen, this is not a call to perfection. As long as I, Pastor Micah, any of your staff and elders and as long as you come to this church, there will be problems. There will be sin. We will do things wrong. But if we start to look at our lives as, Lord, can You make me holy as You are holy? Can I start to think and operate in a way that wants to glorify You rather than my own desires? We will stop being so frustrated that the pen isn’t writing the story the way we would have written it and decide, God, I trust that You’re holding the pen and You’re working everything together for my good.
Would you stand with me as we close this morning? Later on in his life, Paul is going to write from a prison cell, still bound, still waiting for the Lord to free him. And he writes to the church in Philippi these words: Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. He stood next to me. I’ve seen Him. he’s right here. So don’t be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
God, I don’t know why You’re doing this or what’s going on, but Lord, I want to trust You. And when we do that, what happens? The peace of God which surpasses all understanding, the world will look to you and say, “Why do you have such peace in your life? Your life looks terrible.”
And you say, “It’s not about my life. It’s about what God’s doing in my life. That peace will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus so that you can be a follower of Jesus who declares God’s providence is over all. He’s working all things together. Even when I can’t see it, even when I can’t feel it, I believe that God is working.
And so this morning church, can we trust in our God’s providence and can we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that His providence is over all? Amen? Amen.