Trust the Unmatched Power of the Risen Lord Jesus!

5th Sunday after Pentecost, 7/5/20
Acts 23:1-11


Trust the Unmatched Power of the Risen Lord Jesus!
I. In times of mounting opposition
II. To bless his kingdom work


According to an article in Christianity Today, dated Jan. 15, 2020, 8 Christians are killed every day because of their faith. Every week, 182 Christian churches or buildings are attacked. Every month, 309 Christians are imprisoned unjustly. I’ll let you do the math. On an annual basis those are some staggering numbers.

And while things are better for Christians here in the United States of America than in other parts of our world, as Christians, we still face “attacks” on our faith. It hasn’t happened yet, but we’ve come close to our government enacting a law that requires us to do something that violates what the Bible says. We’re thankful that, thus far, our federal courts have protected our freedom of religion. Individual Christians have been publicly maligned locally and even nationally for taking a stance on what they believe. It’s our constant prayer that our God directs the affairs of our world so that we can worship and live in a way that honors him and his word.

But don’t expect opposition to your faith to end anytime soon. In fact, if you take a close look at history, there has always been opposition to the truth of God’s word going on somewhere in our world. Whether it’s open aggression against Christianity by some world power, or a worldly culture doing whatever it can to resist Christian influence, there has always been opposition to Christianity. It’s nothing new.

But against every instance of opposition stands our almighty Lord Jesus, the Lord of the Church.

In this morning’s sermon text from Acts 23 we see St. Paul’s confidence in the Lord’s power on display in spite of powerful opposition to his faith.

Regarding persecution, Paul is a unique individual. He’s one of the few Christians I know of that not only knew how to dish our persecution, but also how to take it. You know his life story. When we first meet him on the pages of Scripture, he’s participating in a supportive way in the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. In short order, Paul was filled with zeal to wipe the name of Jesus from the face of the earth. He even went to foreign cities to secure the imprisonment of his fellow Jews who believed in Jesus as their Savior.

But the mercy and grace of God changed all that. In the last 30-40 years of his life—all lived as an apostle of Christ—few people suffered more for their Christian faith than Paul did. He was imprisoned, beaten, and finally murdered for his faith. Certainly, Paul bore physical scars as he continued sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ every day of his life.

And that was exactly the case on this day in his life as recorded here in Acts 23. We hear Paul sharing God’s truth with a hostile crowd and doing so with tremendous composure. There’s nothing in this account that even hints of Paul being fearful. Just the opposite. In spite of the fact that Paul was in front of a hostile crowd of powerful Jewish men, he’s the one who controlled the situation. Amazing composure!

How could this have happened? Why didn’t Paul cower? Why not keep silent so that his enemies wouldn’t use his words against him? Why not?

Because Paul had the utmost confidence in the power of the risen Lord Jesus. And his response to opposition calls for us to do the same. When you face opposition to your faith, trust the unmatched power of the risen Lord Jesus. Let’s focus on that power and what it means for us this morning.

Part I.

I’ve been told that it gets darkest before dawn. I have no idea if that’s true or not. But I do know what people mean when they make that statement. They are telling people that things are often at their worst just before things get better.

This was a dark day in the life of St. Paul. If fact, Paul might have considered it to be one of the darkest he had faced thus far. Just how did things get to this point that Paul is standing in front of a crowd of powerful Jewish men along with the commander of the Roman army stationed in Jerusalem?

Let me fill in some of the details for you. Paul had come to Jerusalem to deliver the offering he had received from Christians in Asia Minor for the poor in Jerusalem. While in Jerusalem, he had chosen to enter the temple. As he did so, he was careful to observe Jewish requirements so as not to upset the Jewish people gathered there. But some Jewish people who hated Paul and opposed him accused him of breaking Jewish law by bringing a Gentile person with him into the temple, an accusation that was entirely false. A commotion arose. In fact, the Bible states that the whole city of Jerusalem was in turmoil. Finally, the Roman commander had Paul arrested and bound with chains, and then he brought Paul into the Roman barracks to protect Paul from the crowd and to cause the commotion to die down.

Our text picks things up the next day. The Bible informs us, “Since the commander wanted to find out exactly why Paul was being accused by the Jews, he released [Paul] and ordered the chief priests and all the Sanhedrin to assemble. Then he brought Paul and had him stand before them” (Acts 22:30). This was not a trial. It was something like our modern legal depositions. It was an opportunity for the commander to learn the facts of the case before he presented Paul to the proper Roman authorities for trial.

As that fact-finding meeting began, Paul was physically threatened by the high priest. But he isn’t fazed for a moment. In fact, he calls things the way they are—that the high priest is a hypocrite. When those near him rebuked him, Paul stated that he didn’t recognize the high priest. A lot of ink has been spilled over this exchange. In my opinion, the best way to take Paul’s words is that they were freighted with sarcasm. Paul kept his composure because he trusted the power of the risen Lord Jesus.

And then he made a masterful move. Realizing that his opponents were comprised of two groups of Jewish leaders who didn’t agree on much, Paul sided with the one group and pitted the two against each other. It was a stroke of genius that showed Paul’s composure—a composure that was the fruit of his trust in the unmatched power of his risen Lord Jesus.

That risen Lord Jesus had appeared to Paul and directly called him to be his apostle to the Gentiles. As Paul carried on his life, he trusted that risen Lord Jesus in every opposition he faced.

That same risen Lord Jesus has called you—not in the same way as he called Paul and not to be his apostle to the Gentiles, but he called you nonetheless to be a member of his kingdom, his Church. And that Church will never perish, no matter what the opposition plans to do and even succeeds in doing. The Jewish religious leaders and even the Roman emperor were nothing compared with the unmatched power of the risen Lord Jesus. And that still holds true for you and me as members of his kingdom. It might look dark. In fact, we might conclude that we’ve never seen things worse than they are, but they are all nothing compared to the unmatched power of the risen Lord Jesus. And you are part of his plan for his Church. So, cast your fears and doubts aside. Place them at the foot of the cross where Jesus died for them and then look to his empty tomb as the eternal assurance of your forgiveness and life with him in heaven. Trust in the unmatched power of the risen Lord Jesus in times of mounting opposition.

Part II.

But Paul’s appearance before this group of notable people wasn’t the end of this event. The Lord Jesus knew what was at stake here. So, this is what happened next, “The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, ‘Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.’”

The Lord Jesus told Paul to take courage. He was going to need it. Paul was going to spend most of the rest of his life either in prison or under house arrest, all for proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. We think this event here in our text occurred about 58 AD. In 64 AD Rome burned and you know how Nero blamed the Christians for it. Paul would need courage.

But as dark as things seemed, the risen Lord Jesus was still in control. During those years in Rome, Paul proclaimed the gospel among the Jews in the synagogues of Rome, some of them of substantial size. The Holy Spirit used Paul’s ministry to convert some of these Jewish Romans to Christianity. Paul also shared the gospel with Gentiles, and the Holy Spirit did his work among them as well. As the influence of Jerusalem in Christianity waned, the influence of Christianity in Rome grew. And the rest is church history, all under the unmatched power of the risen Lord Jesus. In a little more than 200 years after Paul died, Christianity became a legal religion.

One of the things we celebrate this holiday weekend is that Christianity is still a legal religion here in the United States of America. Freedom of religion is guaranteed by our country’s constitution. What a blessing!

First, let’s confess the many times we failed to appreciate that freedom. We are free to worship the God of our salvation. May God forgive us for not exercising that freedom as we should. And he does, through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. And when our worship or our Christian lives face opposition, Jesus is still in control with his unmatched power. In spite of opposition, our Lord Jesus still has plans for his kingdom to grow, and those plans involve you and me sharing the gospel. Just as Jesus blessed Paul’s efforts according to his will, so he will bless our efforts according to his will. You can bank on that!

Trust in the unmatched power of your risen Lord Jesus as you live each day of your life! Amen.