November 16:
Call: Acts 28: 11-16
Read: Acts 24: 10-17; 26: 19-21
Text: Acts 28: 17-28
Closing: Acts 28: 30-31
Rome
"After three months [on Malta] we put out to sea"
"We landed in Syracuse where we stayed three days"
"From there we sailed to Rhegium"
"After one day a south wind came up,
and we arrived on the second day in Puteoli."
[a community perhaps 75 miles south of Rome]
"There we found brothers and sisters who urged us to stay with them for a week."
"In this way we came to Rome."
In this way, Paul, and Luke, and others came to Rome
Paul had wanted to visit Rome.
In fact, he had expressed that
in his letter to the church and believers at Rome.
Where he wrote in verse 10 of chapter one
"I am always asking [in my prayers] that somehow, by God's will, I might succeed in visiting you at last."
And now he is there.
He is in what we sometimes call "The Eternal City."
The seat of the Roman Empire
The home of the Roman Emperor.
However, Paul arrived as a prisoner
And I am willing to bet that he did not anticipate
That this was how God would answer his prayers
But He had finally succeeded in visiting the Romans.
It is with his time in Rome
That the story of Acts
Which began for us eleven weeks ago
With Christ's ascension
And with his commissioning his followers
Comes to an end.
Now, if you have been paying attention to the chapters we have covered in our journey through the book
You will recall that last week we concluded with Chapter 17
While Paul was still in Athens
On his second missionary journey.
Today - with the exception of the brief reference in our reading -
We find that we have skipped all the way to chapter 28
In order to put his time in Rome in perspective
We will sprint through the chapters we have skipped
Which tell of
Paul's third missionary journey
His arrest and trials
His troubled trip to Rome
We will look at them in less detail than we have other chapters
Not because they are unimportant
But to bring our look at Acts to a close in time for Advent
And to next week on Christ The King Sunday
Use the entirety of Acts to reflect on our roles
as the King's sheep or subjects
Paul finished his second journey
By leaving Athens and heading to the wild city of Corinth
And then proceeding to Ephesus
Which was in the province of Asia
Which God had blocked him from visiting earlier
And he returned home to Antioch
through Caesarea and Jerusalem
But he was sent out a third time as well
This trip featured two years in Ephesus
Ending when his presence caused some riots
and forced him to flee to Greece and Macedonia
Returning home, hoping to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost
He landed at Tyre
Which enabled him to stop in Caesarea to spend some time with Philip, one of the seven deacons
The one who converted the Ethiopian Eunuch
While there, Paul was warned to not go to Jerusalem
But Paul would have none of that
"I am ready not only to be arrested but even to die in Jerusalem for the sake of the name of the Lord Jesus. [21: 13]
and so he headed directly to that city
meeting first with James and the elders
then undergoing a purification ritual. [21:26]
At the temple, Jews from Asia grabbed him, claiming:
"He teaches against our people"
"He brought Greeks into temple"
Their actions caused such confusion
That the Roman commander came
He stopped the Jews from beating Paul
But then arrested him
The soldiers were about to whip and question Paul
when he revealed that he was a Roman citizen
The commander decided to take him to the Jewish council
This degenerated into a dispute between the Pharisees and the Sadducees
To save Paul from a murder plot the commander took him to Caesarea
And trial before the Roman Governor Felix
Felix, fearful and also hoping for a bribe
Directed Paul to go away
And promised, "I'll send for you"
But for two years Feliex did not send for Paul
Then he was replaced as governor by Festus
Who in turn sought the advice of King Agrippa
Festus summarized the situation to the king
"...they didn't charge him with any of the crimes I expected. Instead they quibbled with him about their own religion and some dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive [25: 18-19]
When Festus introduce Agrippa, Paul explained,
"Today I am standing trial because of the hope in the promise God gave our ancestors." [26:6]
But while Festus could find nothing wrong,
He was happy that Paul, as a Roman citizen,
Appealed to be sent to Caesar
And so, under the supervision of a centurion named Julius
Paul and other prisoners set sail for Rome
They got caught in a storm with hurricane like winds
The ship tossed and turned
The passengers and crew were frightened
The storm lasted for two full weeks
Then, as they approached land
They came aground on a sandbar somewhere off shore
The ship couldn't move The stern broke into pieces
The people swam or floated ashore
To discover that they were on the island of Malta
And that is where they spent the winter
And where Paul spread the word of Christ
By healing a great many.
And then, after three months they put out to sea
They landed in Syracuse where they stayed three days"
From there they sailed to Rhegium"
After one day a south wind came up,
and they arrived on the second day in Puteoli.
where brothers and sisters urged them to stay"
As noted earlier in this way Paul finally came to Rome.
And what do you suppose that Paul did while in Rome?
Luke tells us: [Acts 28: 17-28]
What Paul did
Was what Peter and John and the other apostles had done
What Paul did
Was what Stephen had done
What Paul did
Was what Philip had done
What Paul did
Was what Barnabas, Timothy, and Silas, had done
And yes, what John Mark had done
For in Paul's letters
to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to Timothy
he pointed out that John Mark was with him
and that the man
whom he refused to take on his second journey
had become a help and a comfort to him
most likely while he was in Rome
What Paul did was preach the good news of Jesus the Christ.
What Paul did
Was to witness for Christ
And to use all his energy in making disciples for Christ
What Paul did was not let anything -
A shipwrecked journey, murder plots, imprisonment
Or even his numerous rejections by Jewish leaders -
Interfere with his fulfilling the Great Commission
He wasn't always successful
As Luke wrote,
"Some were persuaded by what he said
but others refused to believe."
But he always tried.
What Paul did was just what we are expected to do.
And we have known that since the very first chapter of the book with which we have now spent one quarter of a year.
And so we close Acts by asking ourselves: "Are we even trying?"