Paul on Trial

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Thank you. Thank you. Hey, good morning, everybody. Evelyn Gayle, be quiet. Yeah, I'm all about it. All right, we're going to get started today. We're going to stand and be reading Psalm 100 together. And we're going to be reading the whole thing, but don't worry, it's just four verses, so we'll make it out before lunch today. The title in front of the psalm is, His Steadfast Love Endures Forever. And it begins, a psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know the Lord, he is God. It is he who made us and we are his. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name for the Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever

and his faithfulness to all generations this is the word of the Lord let's pray God we thank you so much for the opportunity to gather here today and to worship you and to be encouraged by your word and to be encouraged by those that are here and those that are watching online we thank you for the words that are in the psalm that we can know that we are yours and that we are your sheep and we're so thankful for your steadfast love that endures forever. Be with our service today and allow it to glorify you. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, we're going to begin with our first Song, Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.

Joyful, joyfully, I dare thee, God of glory, Lord of love. Hearts are full like clouds before thee, opening to the sun above. Melt the clouds of sin and sadness, drive the dark of doubt away. Giver of immortal gladness. Fill us with the light of day. Thou art giving and forgiving. Ever blessing, ever blessed. We'll sing of the joy of living. Ocean depth of happy rest Thou art Father, Christ our brother All who live in love are Thine Teach us all to love each other Lift us to the joy divine Mortals, join the mighty chorus Which the morning stars began Father, love is reigning o'er us Brother, love binds man to man Ever singing, march beyond white Victors in the midst of strife Joyful music lifts us onward In the triad song of life Oops, sorry, I hit the wrong button there.

That's okay. Good job. We're going to move on to our prayer and share time. If you're watching online, there will be a phone number that you can text if you have any prayer requests or anything you'd like to send us, please text that number, and then we'll be here, we'll be muted here, so just give us a few minutes as we have that time together, and then we'll be back after that to move into our time of communion. And so our next song, if I can get it to work right, this one Luke picked this morning because he really wanted to sing it, Holy, Holy, Holy.

Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty Early in the morning Our song shall rise to thee Holy, holy, holy Merciful and mighty God in three persons Blessed Trinity

Holy, holy, holy All the saints adore Thee Casting down their golden crowns Around the glossy sea Cherubim and seraphim Falling down before Thee Who was there not, and evermore shall be? Holy, holy, holy, though the darkness hide thee, Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see Only Thou art holy There is none beside Thee Perfect in power In love and purity

Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty All my words shall praise thy name In earth and sky and city Holy, holy, holy Merciful and mighty God in three persons Blessed Trinity Thank you. Thank you. I'm not alone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we're going to sing above all before we join together in communion.

Above all powers, above all kings, above all nature and all creation, above all wisdom And all the ways of man You were here before the world began Above all kingdoms Above all thrones Above all wonders the world has ever known Above all wealth and treasures of the earth There's no way to measure what you're worth Lucified, laid behind a star Live to die, rejected and alone Like a rose, traveled on the ground You turned the ball and thought of me Above all Above all powers, above all kings Above all nature and all creative things Above all wisdom and all the ways of man You were here before the world began Above all kingdoms Above all thrones Above all wonders The world has ever known Above all wealth And treasures of earth There's no way to measure

What you're worth Crucified, laid behind the stone You lived to die, rejected and alone Like a rose, trembled on the ground You took the fall, and thought of me Above all So over the past couple weeks, the girls and I have been kind of going through proverbs together right before bed just a verse or two or three or four and one of the great things about proverbs is that it's very much about a family it begins with some letters from a father to a son and it ends with some letters from a mother to a son and so you have mom and dad both offering wisdom and guidance and from a sort of a parental perspective I enjoy it because the The first several chapters of Proverbs are a letter from a dad and it's basically this

refrain of, listen to your parents, listen to your parents, listen to your parents, which I think is something that I, a message that I appreciate. And in Proverbs chapter 3, as we were reading last week, the writer says this, a letter from a father to a son, and he says this, starting in verse 1, My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments for the length of days and the years of life and the peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart, so you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your path. Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord. Turn away from evil. And it will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. And when we come around this table, there are a lot of wonderful things that happen. We are refreshed and encouraged by the good news of the Gospel that God loved us, and He sent His Son to die for us and to take our place. And we're reminded of grace and mercy and hope. But this is also for us a family meal. As we partake with our Christian family, our brothers and sisters in Christ, we're reminded that we are walking through life as we follow Jesus. We're walking with brothers and sisters in Christ. That we are not alone.

There is a family that surrounds us. But Paul will say there is something else that this meal calls us to. And it's a call to look at our life. and to see how we are walking as we walk with God and as we walk with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And I think those words in Proverbs 3, 5 are so important to us as we evaluate our lives this morning. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord. Turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Let's pray. Father, we are so thankful for the good news of the Gospel

that brings us hope and peace. We're thankful that we get to partake of this meal this morning with brothers and sisters in Christ who encourage us and who help us, and when necessary, they correct us. And we thank you so much for the blessing of the church that you have given us. And as we look at our lives this morning, as we consider where it is You have called us to walk, as we consider that we are called to walk in righteousness, empowered by the strength of Your Spirit, help us to not trust our own understanding, but to lean on You with all of our heart and all of our might. Help us to not seek wisdom in our eyes, but to look to You. May this be a moment of peace. May it be a refreshment to our soul.

And may it be a moment where we focus on You. We thank You so much for Jesus and for grace. It's in His name we pray. Amen. Paul, after instructing the Corinthian church on the Lord's Supper, will remind them of where this meal began. It began with Jesus, who on the night before He went to the cross, He took bread. And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

All right, we are in Acts, the 24th chapter, this morning, and things have kind of moved very, very quickly since Paul has got to Jerusalem. He got to Jerusalem in Acts 21, met with the apostles, and then everything just kind of moved very, very quickly. In fact, by the time we get to Acts 24, you'll hear it this morning, Paul has only been in town for 12 days. We have gone through several riots. We've gone through an arrest. We've gone through an assassination plot and attempt. We've gone through a group of 470 soldiers escorting Paul to protect him from those who would seek to kill him. He is now standing before the Roman official of the province, Felix, who turns out to be kind of a real shady guy. So, in sort of keeping with the way that Luke has been writing, which is very fast and furious during this point,

we're going to pray, and then we're just going to dive right in to Acts, the 24th chapter, starting with verse 1. So let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for your church and for your word. May it encourage us this morning. May it direct us in love, in hope, as we see the Apostle Paul sharing the good news of the gospel with those who had treated him very unfairly, who had kept him in prison for two years for no reason. And he is continually sharing the good news, the path of righteousness you have called us to walk, the call to walk, the importance of walking that path. Help us this morning. May you encourage us, may you convict us, may you strengthen us. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. So as we said, Paul has been escorted.

In the middle of the night, you've got 200 soldiers, 200 spearsmen, 70 guys on horses. They escort Paul out of town to their first stop, and from there on, Paul will take a horse with the cavalry. The rest of the way, moving fast in order to avoid the assassins who have sworn to neither eat nor drink. He arrives to the praetorium where Felix was ruling. He's there until his accusers show up. A few days later, they show up, and this is what happens. After five days, the high priest, Ananias, came down with some elders and a spokesman and one Tertullus. They laid before the governor their case against Paul, and when he had been summoned, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying, Since through you, he's speaking to Felix here, we enjoy much peace, And since, by your foresight, most excellent Felix, reforms are being made for this nation,

in every way and everywhere we accept this with all gratitude. But to detain you no further, I beg in your kindness to hear us briefly. For we have found this man a plague, one who stirs up riots among all the Jews throughout the world and is the ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. He even tried to profane the temple, but we seized him. By examining him, you yourself will be able to find out from him everything about which we accuse him. The Jews also joined in the charge, affirming that all these things were so. And so as we begin this trial before Felix, who quite possibly holds in his hand the power of life and death over Paul, we see that Paul, first of all, as he faces his opponents, he's outnumbered. You have the Jewish high priest who is both a religious and political figure in this time period.

He's brought along part to the Sanhedrin, likely both Pharisees and Sadducees. We don't know how many of them, but a decent-sized group. And then they've also brought a lawyer, a Greek by the name of Tertullus. And it's interesting, his name is actually Tertius. But when you spell it this way, what it means is little Tertius. So it's kind of a nickname that Luke gives him. Either Luke gives him or they call it likely this guy is kind of a short little lawyer. He's kind of a little smarmy. He's kind of really, really annoying. He's also incredibly dishonest, as we will see. He's not a good guy. And so you've got the high priest who's very important. You've got his council, the Sanhedrin, Pharisees, Sadducees. And then you've got their lawyer, little Tertius, he's likely brought along because hopefully he's able to speak well to the Roman government, right?

He's familiar with their protocols, and usually when you're trying to convict somebody, you want the best guy that you can get. So likely he has a reputation with being able to make his case and get the conviction. And so he's going to present the case, and right away he begins with flattery, right? He's going to sort of get into the good graces or seek to get into the good graces of Felix. And look at what he says. We're just going to kind of walk through this. Since through you, we enjoy much peace. That's lie number one, right? There has been literally no peace in this area. In fact, Paul, when he was arrested, the Roman who arrested him thought he was this Jewish assassin who was from Egypt, who brought in all these assassins, got into this big battle, and he's surprised that Paul can speak Greek

because he thought he was some kind of sort of crazy assassin seeking to destroy and cause chaos in Jerusalem. There has been really no peace. In fact, Felix at one point will just arrest a whole bunch of people for unrest and just crucify him right down the sides of the street. There has been no peace. But this guy starts by saying, we enjoy much peace, and by your foresight, most excellent Felix, reforms are being made in this nation. There's no reforms being made in this nation. In fact, when at the end of this chapter, we read at the end of two years from now, when Felix is relieved by Caesar, he does so because he has engaged in constant misconduct, right? Roman governors oftentimes kind of do whatever they wanted, but he is so bad that Rome goes,

we don't want you as governor anymore because you're so corrupt. And in every way and everywhere, we accept this with gratitude. We're so thankful for your peace and your reforms, and the reality has been violence and corruption. This guy, right away, you can tell that he is sort of a constant liar. And he's going to bring up three false accusations against the Apostle Paul. First of all, Paul is a habitual troublemaker. He'll refer to him as a plague, right? And this is a big deal in the Roman Empire because law and order is their thing, right? They don't want uprisings. And so if you have somebody who is accused of showing up and instigating political violence, not just in one place, but throughout the empire, right? The Romans take that very seriously. His second charge is that Paul is a religious extremist.

Look at how he refers to him. He says he is a ringleader in the sect of the Nazarenes. And at this period of time, before the destruction of Jerusalem, because of rebellion, right, there's all kinds of people, Jesus will actually predict this, false messiahs showing up and saying, hey, I'm the one sent by God, and they'll raise up some people and there'll be a battle and everybody will get killed, and a little while later somebody else will show up and say, I'm the one sent by God, and they'll raise up a little army and they'll try to fight the Romans and they will be killed. And so what this lawyer is trying to do is paint Paul with that same brush. He's a religious extremist seeking to overthrow Rome. Paul, also the third accusation, is that Paul is trying to profane the temple.

This is a particular trouble spot. When the Apostle Paul is arrested in Acts chapter 22, the reason that Roman soldiers were so quick to get into the temple and grab him is not because there were a bunch of Roman soldiers there worshipping sort of peacefully. It's because the Romans had to build a tower overlooking the temple courts because there was so much political upheaval. They were on call like a SWAT team 24 hours a day to go in there and put down any kind of violence to stop any kind of riot. And so here he is saying, well, Paul was causing problems in the temple, right? And so this was a big deal also for the Romans because it's a troubled spot already. And he's saying he's coming into this troubled spot and making it worse, right?

And they're constantly twisting the truth. In fact, if you go back, Paul is a troublemaker, a plague. He's sort of instigating riots. It's actually the Jewish people who are following Paul from city to city instigating the riots. At the end of verse 6, they'll say this, right? We seized him. No, you started a riot, tried to kill him, and the Romans came in and seized him. Almost at every step of the way, this guy has twisted and turned the truth. And if I was the Apostle Paul in that moment, I would be so incredibly frustrated. Because you have taken what is true, and you've twisted it into falsehoods. You've lied about how happy and how great this governor is. And I, personally, would be seething over this miscarriage of justice. So let's take a look at how Paul responds,

because he doesn't respond how probably I would have responded. He responds in a much better way. When the governor had nodded to him to speak, Paul replied, knowing that for many years you have been a judge over this nation, I cheerfully make my defense. You can verify it is not more than 12 days since I went up to worship in Jerusalem, and they did not find me disputing with anyone or stirring up a crowd either in the temple or in the synagogues or in the city. Neither can they prove to you what they now bring against me. But this I confess to you, that according to the way, that's what Christianity was called by many, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the law and written in the prophets,

having hope in God, which these men themselves accept, that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust. So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man. Now, after several years, he's been out of town preaching the gospel for several years, I came to bring alms to my nation and to present offerings. And while I was doing this, they found me purified, not defiling, but purified in the temple, without any crowd or tumult, but some Jews from Asia, they ought to be here before you and to make an accusation should they have anything to say against me, or else let these men themselves say what wrongdoing they found when I stood before the council. Others in this one thing that I cried out while standing among them.

It is with respect the resurrection of the dead that am I on trial before you this day. So, right, Paul's words, notice how different they are from his accusers. His attitude and approach are night and day difference. Look at what he says to Felix, right? There's none of that manipulation. You bring peace. You bring reforms. Everybody in this town loves you. Look at what he says. You've been judge for a long time, right? Knowing that for many years you have been judge over this nation, I cheerfully make my defense, right? So what is it my mom told me growing up? If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. So what is the one good thing that Paul can say about Felix? You've been here a long time, right? That's all he says.

It's like, hey, I'm very happy to make a defense before you. We all know you've been here a long time, right? And then he immediately begins his defense cheerfully, right? He's not angry. He's not bitter. He's not hostile. He doesn't lie about the facts. He's happy and thankful to be able to present his case. And that's a completely different attitude that you see. He presents his case differently, too, because he constantly points to facts and to truth rather than just assumptions or rather than simply saying something with no foundational evidence, right? Paul doesn't just sort of provide some kind of generality, but he goes, look, check this out for yourself. And so he starts like this. How did I start riots, right? I've been here for 12 days. I didn't argue or preach prior to all this.

I wasn't the one who started the problem. And then secondly, he says, it's true I follow the way, but we aren't extremists. In regards to those who are attacking me, we believe in the same God, we believe in the same Scriptures, and some of them even believe what we believe about the resurrection of the dead. He says, I didn't come to start problems in the temple. I came to bring a gift for those who were suffering because of famine. More than that, when they found me in the temple, I was properly purified according to Jewish law and doing good things, not preaching or causing dissent. And then they'll sort of say, as a side note, right? The people who started this unrest, they're not even here to accuse me. They didn't even show up. And so here you are making charges,

and you don't even have the people who supposedly saw the whole thing happen. And if you hear what Paul says as he lays out facts, and at one point he will say, you can verify this yourself. He's not afraid of questions. Because the truth doesn't have to be. When you stand in the truth, you don't have to worry. about somebody asking questions about what you have done, right? And so without reading ahead in our text this morning, just hearing what we've heard so far, right? Paul's case, you have to be feeling pretty good about it, right? They don't have any evidence. They don't have any accusers, right? He isn't the problem. They are. This case immediately should be thrown out of the courtroom because there's no evidence. Paul has presented his evidence. I was here at this time.

You can tell, here's what I was doing, you can check that. The people who actually started this, they didn't even show up to court, right? So look what Felix does, right? It seems like it's pretty open and shut. But Felix, having a rather accurate knowledge of the way, so he knows about Christianity, knows what they believe, put them off, saying, When Lysias the Tribune comes down, I will decide your case. And he gave some orders to the centurion that he should be kept in custody but have some liberty, and that none of his friends should be prevented from attending to his needs, right? So Felix knows about the political and religious situation, and his ruling is ridiculous, right? Here's his ruling. When Lysias, the tribune, comes down, I shall decide your case. When I hear from the Roman guy who arrested Paul, I will come and decide your case. Here's the thing.

He's already heard from this guy. This guy, when Paul goes, he sends a certified letter to Felix say, here's what I know. In fact, here's what that letter said, right? He's already sent this letter, and it says this. You can find it in Acts chapter 23. I found, this is Lysias, his testimony, that he was being accused about questions of their law, but charged with nothing deserving death or imprisonment. And it was disclosed to me that there would be a plot against the man. And I sent him to you at once, ordering his accusers to also state before you what they have against him. So the guy who arrested Paul, the one that Felix says, I've got to wait until I hear from him. He's already heard from him, and this guy says, let him go.

He's done nothing wrong. And so what does Felix do? Locks him up. Now he does have a little bit of liberty. His friends can come and see him. They can bring him food. They can bring him clothes. They can make sure his needs are met, but he is still in Roman custody. And you get this glimpse of the character of Felix, right? He doesn't seem like, so far, he's a very good guy. And you look at him and say, well, he seems kind of terrible. And the answer is, he is. He's an incredibly terrible human being. History testifies to the fact about him, and nothing that history has to say about him is good. And what you're going to find is this chapter ends with this. Whereas Paul has been before Felix, now Felix will be before Paul.

After some days, Felix came with his wife, Drusilla, who was Jewish. More about that in just a minute. And he sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus. And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, go away for the present. When I get an opportunity, I will summon you. At the same time, he hoped that money would be given to him by Paul. So he sent for him often and conversed with him. When two years had elapsed, Felix was seceded. He wasn't just sort of had somebody else take his job. He was literally removed from power by the Roman Caesar. And deciding to do the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul in prison. So you meet Felix and his wife, Drusilla, neither of which have any kind of a good historical reputation.

So Drusilla, his wife, she is the great-granddaughter of Herod the Great. Remember the guy when Jesus is born, he hears about the Messiah being born, and so he sends his soldiers to Bethlehem to kill all the babies under two years old? Right, that's her grandfather, great-grandfather. Her great-uncle meets a guy by the name of John the Baptizer and chops off his head. Her dad kills the apostle James in Jerusalem, right? So she already kind of has a bad family past with this. She's a Herodian. She's of the family of Herod. And there's literally nobody in that family with that name who is a good person. But she's also Felix's third wife. And how that happens isn't that he sees her, they fall in love, they get married. Actually, she's married to somebody else, and he sees her, and he's an older man.

She's like 20 years old, and he goes, man, she's beautiful. So he hires a magician from Cyprus, and they set to work trying to woo her. It eventually ends in adultery, and then she'll leave his husband and marry him, right? And then his reason for keeping Paul in custody, he's hoping that Paul will bribe him, right? He heard that Paul had come to Jerusalem with this money as an offering to help people there in Jerusalem. And he's going, well, if he can come up with money from elsewhere to help them, I'm sure he can come up with some money to help himself, right? And so part of the reason he keeps calling him back is he's hoping that Paul will bribe him for freedom. So he's not just immoral, but he's corrupt as well. I want you to hear about Paul's message.

As Felix, it's interesting, he thinks Paul is standing before him, but the reality is he's standing before Paul. Paul immediately begins to preach to him about Jesus. And he will say that your hope is to place your faith in Jesus Christ, right? Not in yourself, not what you can gain, not in your political office, but your hope must be in Jesus, right? The same message that you and I need to hear, that our hope has to be in Jesus. It's so easy for us to hope in what we can accomplish and what we can do and what we can achieve and in our position and our stuff. Paul starts by telling him to hope in Jesus. And as Luke unpacks his message, he sort of summarizes it like this, that he starts by talking about righteousness.

And the picture of righteousness here is the difference between right and wrong. So sometimes we have things that need to be calibrated. I remember back, it's been like nine or so years ago, I was cooking hamburgers at kind of this charity event fundraiser, and the health inspector came by, and he said, did you calibrate your meat thermometer? And I said, I didn't even know that that was a thing. And he's like, yeah, it's a thing. Because if you're cooking this burger to 165 and your meat thermometer is 20 degrees high, you're actually giving somebody a burger that's very undercooked. And so he showed me how you take a thing of water and put a bunch of ice in there and you take your thermometer and stir it around. This was before digital thermometers were a real happening thing.

And there's a little bolt on the bottom. You can twist it. And so you get it down to where it should be right about 32 degrees. See what it is. sort of calibrate your thermometer and what Paul is doing when he talks about righteousness right and wrong and where we should be is he's seeking to calibrate felix's sense of right and wrong right he's showing him what's right showing him as what's wrong and he's trying to calibrate his conscience into right and wrong right to say this is right this is wrong right this doesn't just need to happen with Felix, right? It needs to happen with us as well. Because so many times when it becomes with right and wrong, we can find wrong so easy to justify as right, right? Our consciences can become sort of scarred to what's wrong. We stop feeling guilty about wrong

or maybe we find it funny. And just like Felix, we have to be calibrated. And so what Paul does is through God's Word and calling him to faith in Jesus. He seeks to talk about righteousness, about getting your sense of right and wrong aligned with God's sense of what is right and wrong. It's not just a message that Felix needs to hear. It's a message that we need to hear. The second thing that Paul will say to Felix is that you are not the standard for what is right and wrong. In fact, you are a terrible standard for what's right and wrong. This guy is greedy. He's immoral. He seeks every kind of pleasure. He's incredibly cruel. And Paul summarizes it like this, or Luke summarizes it like this, self-controlled. So our desires so many times are for the wrong thing.

So this past week, actually Friday, I had my three-month post-transplant visit. And so I was sitting there with our transplant coordinator, Jackie, and we're kind of going through the blood work. And I said, you know, she's going through and she's like, looks at it. She's like, well, your kidneys are doing great. Looking at your other blood work, you could probably stand to eat a vegetable once in a while. And I said, well, I'll live how I live. I'll eat what I eat and I'll die how I die. And she's like, no, that's not how this works, right? You need to eat some vegetables. And I said, well, you know, part of the problem is you have me on this particular medicine. And one of the well-known and well-documented size effects of this medicine does amazing things, but it also makes you hungry all the time, like specifically for ice cream, right?

So you're giving me a medicine that specifically makes me want to eat ice cream 24 hours a day, and then you're like, maybe you should make some better choices. And I said, how am I supposed to do that when all I crave is ice cream? She goes, a whole thing called self-control. And I said, well, that's not the conversation that I wanted to have today, right? So so many times we take our desires, right? And we can justify it. I want that. And what Paul says, my desires aren't what I should be led by in this life, right? Because you and I, so many times, we desire that thing for us, which is the worst. And we will chase that to the ends of the earth. And so when Paul talks about self-control, he's saying, your desires can't be what leads you, Felix.

And as we hear this, we have to hear that our desires can't be what leads us. For Felix and Drusilla, if they wanted it, whether it was pleasure or wealth or position or fame, they simply ran to it. They saw their desires as their God. You and I can't do that. We can't look to our desires as God. And so when Paul talks about self-control, it can sound to us like he's saying, good luck, go out there and work really hard. There's only one other place in the New Testament that Paul talks about self-control. There's only one other place in the New Testament Paul uses this word. It's in the book of Galatians. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. Paul will say that self-control doesn't come from your willpower,

but it comes from the fact that the Holy Spirit has transformed you and strengthened you. And so he has said, Jesus is your hope. He said, your standard of right and wrong needs to be calibrated, and you need to trust that God will direct you and equip you and help you as you walk in the way of righteousness. And then he will say this, it is very, very important. There's a lot of things we can take for granted. We all get junk mail from time to time. And I remember my grandma, she would get these catalogs back before, like, the Internet and everything. And you wanted to buy something, you got it in a catalog. And so she would get all these different catalogs all the time. And I remember I was talking to her once because I brought her the mail.

And the one catalog says, this is your last catalog ever, right? And what they want you to do is order something so you keep getting the catalogs, right? And I said, Grandma, this is your last catalog. She's like, no, it's not. Like, you'll see another one next week. Sure enough, right? And so they try to make it sound urgent to push you into a decision even though it's not. And so we've become very adept at looking at things. When somebody says it's urgent, we go, no, it's not. I don't have to deal with this right now. What Paul is saying when he talks about judgment, he is saying there is a deadline on this decision. About trusting Jesus. About walking in righteousness equipped by the power of His Spirit for self-control. There will be a time when you can no longer make this decision.

there is judgment and either you are saved through Christ by grace and mercy or you are not and he is saying there is a hard deadline there is judgment he's not trying to be dramatic he's not trying to play on Felix's emotions he's simply telling him that this is important this can't be neglected this can't be pushed back and you know what Felix does first of all I think he sees the truth of Paul's message. You know why? Because he reacts with fear. Acts tells us that he immediately becomes afraid or agitated and he says, Paul, go away. We'll talk about this later. Right? Paul strikes a nerve. But we also find that he's curious because he keeps calling Paul back to talk and back to talk and back to talk. But the problem is, all that Felix

ever does is talk. He never makes a decision, never hopes in Jesus, never empowered by the Spirit to walk in righteousness and be able to stand before God on that final day, not in fear, but in joy, because he's been saved by grace, right? And so Felix constantly sort of just pushes it down the road. It won't be the last time we see that in the book of Acts. And so the question, I think, for us, and we talked about it a little bit as we gathered around the table is what is it that we're focused on? Felix, you see the extreme of focused on everything that he desires. And Paul calls him rather to a different focus, a focus on Jesus. But also Paul stands for us in this text as an example. Here's a guy who

has treated you badly. He's ruled unfairly simply out of political motivation to keep the Jewish people happy even though he knows you're innocent. He's kept you because he's seeking personal gain. He's trying going to get a bribe from you. Do you know what Paul doesn't do? He doesn't dismiss him. He doesn't treat him badly. But for two years it seems he continually shares the gospel. Paul doesn't give up. Paul keeps sharing about. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.