Alright, if you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 15, 32-33. Peter already read it, but I want to just review it to make sure that you know the text that we're going to be on today. Romans chapter 15, 32-33, reading out of the NASB. I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be rescued from those who are disobedient in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may prove acceptable to the saints, so that I may come to you in joy by the will of God and find refreshing rest in your company.

Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen. That's great. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the many blessings that you've given us in our lives. We thank you for the freedom that we have to be able to gather and worship you without concern of physical safety. We know, Father God, that we are tremendously blessed to be able to gather together, to have your word, to have fellowship among brothers.

Help us, Lord God, to fill our hearts with gratitude that our worship truly may be in spirit and in truth. May your word and your word alone go forth. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You know, one of the observations that I've had throughout the years just working with just various people that as the years go by, I'm more and more convinced the power of the community that we belong to.

And I'm not simply just talking about Christianity. You know, whatever decade you grew up in, the impact that was made in our lives, it just gets impacted and it just kind of stays with you for a long, long period of time. So you know, even the kind of music that we kind of lean toward, a lot of that depends on what decade you grew up in as a teenager.

Right? So I grew up in the, you know, in the late 70s and early 80s as a teenager. And so whenever I hear music from that generation, like a lot of endorphins get released and I have a lot of fond memories during that time. So even now, every other music past that generation sounds like trash to me, you know.

But whenever I hear the music from the 80s, right, so you guys who are from different generation may differ with me. But even fashion, right, certain things that was so cool a decade later is so weird. And certain things that you guys in your 30s, you thought you were so cool in your 20s, it's all corny now already, right?

And then the people who are younger, whatever generation you are in, whatever period that you were teenagers, and we don't do this consciously. It just, that's the generation that we were in and that happened to be the fashion, it had to be the culture and without making a conscious choice, it happened.

Like why certain hairstyles look better to you than other hairstyles, why certain genes have to be tighter than the previous generation, I don't know. You know what I mean? But these things are done without thinking because you're being influenced by whatever is surrounding you. Now all of this to say that we have to be very, very cautious that our faith in God isn't simply a reflection of the community that we belong to.

That we have to be careful that just because you were born in a Christian home, you were raised in a church, or you went to church all your life, and that we learned how to conform to that. And a lot of times we're not even thinking, like, am I doing this because this is my community and these are my friends and this is my family?

How much of this is a real faith that's driving us? And again, you don't need to make a conscious choice, it just happens. Just like why certain hairstyles, why certain music, why certain fashion seemed better to you than the previous generation after that. In the same way, like why certain things are more important to you in this generation maybe than the previous generation of Christians or prior to that.

Is it the Word of God and the Spirit of God that is conforming and changing us, or is it just happens that that's kind of like the culture, that's the age that we live in? If we're not careful, we can easily succumb to conforming rather than being transformed. In Romans chapter 12 too, it said, "not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind." So is our mind being renewed by His Word?

And are our hearts and what we value being transformed by the things of God? Or are we just conforming because that just happens to be the generation that we're in? And if that is the case, Jesus' greatest rebuke were to the Pharisees who said, "You are like whitewashed tombs where on the external, on the outside, you know how to be religious, you know how to be good, but inwardly, there was never any kind of transformation taking place." I've known plenty of people who are very disciplined in their walk with God.

They read their scriptures every single day. I've known people, I've had people in my life where they woke up every morning from 5 to 6.30, every single morning, six days a week, prayed fervently, at least what it seemed like from the surface. I've known people who are very generous in the church.

On the outside, they had all the indicators that may look like that they were great Christians, and yet their hearts were filled with bitterness and anger and splendor. And every time you have an opportunity to sit down and talk with them, all you hear about what is going wrong and how they are wronged by everybody and anybody.

And their hearts are filled and all you hear is over and over again, those things. If we're not careful, we can allow just the external, we're just conforming to what's going on, but there's no real transformation taking place. The reason why this is so important is because Paul has been preaching the gospel and he's ending this letter at the end of chapter 15, asking them, urging them to pray, to agonize in prayer together.

And he said, we talked about last week, how the prayer has to be motivated and moved according to the will of God. He's asked for prayer by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Holy Spirit. So we talked about last week how our prayers have to conform to God's will.

You can't just come to God with a wish list and say, these are things that I desire of God. And part of the reason why sometimes our prayers are so ineffective is because we've never made up our mind that Christ was going to be Lord over our lives. That Christ is Lord on Sunday, Christ is Lord at church, but he's not Lord over all of our lives.

So we're still continuing to pursue the passions of this world and then we just kind of fit in Jesus in between. And then one of the first places where that gets revealed is in our prayer life, because we can't pray according to his will. We talked about that last week.

But the second part that he says, he says not only according to his will, the Lordship of Christ, but according to the love of the Holy Spirit. People appeal that even in our prayers, it has to be in line with the Holy Spirit. There are things that you just cannot do if your heart is not engaged.

And one of the primary things that you can't do, I mean worship, right? There's a huge difference, and you know as well as I do, there's a huge difference between singing and worshiping. You can come in here and open your mouth and sing songs, because you like singing, you like the beat, you like the music, you like being in a room filled with people doing the same thing, but all it is is singing.

And there is a huge difference between singing and worshiping. Worship is not something you can do when your heart is not engaged. And prayer is no different. Prayer is not something that you can do when all it is is just a bunch of things that you should say to God, and then you just repeated these phrases and you just happen to say it to God.

Because prayer ultimately is petitioning God. But in petitioning God, if your heart is not engaged, those prayers are going to be empty. It's no different than if a child asks for something, but they don't really care if you give it to them or not. You don't jump for that, you don't sacrifice for that, you don't pour any energy into that.

So Paul says, according to his will, according to the love of the Holy Spirit, in Galatians 5.22, the fruit of the Spirit is love. He says joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness, they're all kind of interconnected, but the first thing that he mentions of the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love.

And as you know, in the New Testament, whenever you see a list of things and you see the first thing that on that list, that it is not there randomly. When we make a list of things that we like, we have to say, well, first I like this, and second I like this, third I like this.

In the New Testament culture, whenever they wrote it, it was assumed that first, second, third, without saying it, was there for that purpose. That's why Apostle Peter was always on the top of the list of the apostles, because he was the leader among the apostles. He was the most influential among the apostles, at least the first 12.

So when it says the first fruit of the Spirit is love, the first evidence that the Holy Spirit is indwelling in you is love. The first evidence that you are walking in the Spirit is love. The true evidence that you are walking right with God, that you are spiritually mature, is not discipline, even though that's important.

It's not your Bible knowledge, even though that is important and it's crucial. First and foremost, he says, is love. That's how you know when somebody met Christ. That's what he means when he says the fruit of the Spirit is love. So therefore, even our prayers to be effective, he says, it must be by love.

Second Corinthians 5.13, "For if we are besides ourselves, it is for God. If we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us. Having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all die." The word for control in some of your translations says to compel, or in some of your other translations it says to constrain.

Paul is writing to this Corinthians church, his second letter, a very difficult letter because he is wrestling with this church because they didn't like what Paul had to say. They were questioning his apostleship, that maybe some of these things that he's saying, like they don't want to hear. And so he's literally wrestling with them in these two books.

And when he says the reason why he is enduring, and he's not shaking off the dust and moving on, he says it's because the love of Christ controls him. It compels him. It constrains him. It's motivating him. He's not just saying this kind of passively. He's concluding that the root of why he keeps doing what he's doing, despite the hardship, heartache, the many tears that he must have shed in particular for this church, he said it's because of the love of Christ.

It's because of what Christ has done for him and why he does what he does for them. We see that even with Jesus. If you take compassion out of the gospel, the gospel makes absolutely no sense. Why would a holy God care about us? I mean, think about it.

I mean, if you're driving on the road and if you ever see a roadkill, you know, you ever see a roadkill, a squirrel, a possum, you look at that and maybe some of you, oh, you're squeamish, you know, like, oh my gosh, that's disgusting. When's the last time you had compassion?

You know, when's the last time you thought about the possum's parents? I wonder if his brother and sister is looking for him. Look what happened. Like, when do you feel compassion for that possum? You say, ew, get that off the road. I don't want to see it anymore. Why does God have compassion for us?

What is it that we have that motivated him, moved him to send his only begotten son to take our place of punishment? In Matthew 9, 36, Jesus, seeing his people, felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dispersed like sheep without a shepherd. And in conclusion, he said, therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out more workers.

So what motivated him? What compelled him? And then compelled him to tell his disciples to pray? He says compassion. He felt compassion. The word compassion literally in the Greek means to have your bowels moved. Now, in the English, that means something else, right? So it's like, well, it was a bowel movement that caused, you know, the gospel to happen.

But the better understanding of that in our context, if you've ever had news that was so gut-wrenching that you felt like what? You got punched in the what? The gut. Punched in the bowel. It was so strong. It made me cause you to be nauseous. That's how strong that emotion was.

Whatever it was. It was maybe anger. It was sadness. Whatever it was, it was an emotion that you could not control. That's the word that is being used here. When Jesus saw the multitudes, it felt like it went punched in the gut. And then he turned to his disciples, I have compassion for them.

And you ought to beseech the Lord of the harvest. And the word beseech isn't simply to ask and pray. It means to beg. To beg. Come before the Lord and beg for more workers to come and help with this work. That's what Paul is asking here to be compelled by the love of the Holy Spirit to pray for this gospel ministry.

Matthew chapter 14, 14. When he went ashore and saw the great crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. Matthew 15, 32. Jesus called his disciples to him and said, I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat.

Over and over again, the scripture says Jesus was moved because of compassion. We see it with the leopards. We see it with the demon possessed. We see it with the widows and their son. We see it with the two blind men. Over and over again in the New Testament, the word compassion is used to describe God's motivation behind why he did what he did.

So everything that we sing, every Bible study that we have, every endeavor of the church, if you take compassion out, it makes no sense. Part of the reason why evangelism is so weak in our generation, I don't believe it's because of lack of training. They say, oh, you know, we're not being trained, so therefore we're not evangelizing.

If we just had more training, we would be doing more evangelism. Or maybe if we had more opportunity, and if I was living in China or certain places of the world, I would do more evangelism. In the end, much of the lack of evangelism in our generation is because of lack of compassion.

Because we see the lost who do not know Christ, and it does not move us. We believe theoretically and theologically that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The wrath of God is being revealed, the wickedness of all mankind. It has much as a point for all men to die.

After this comes judgment. These are in the scriptures, repeated over and over again. These are songs that we sing. This is a Bible study that we have. And yet when we see the lost and we live among them on a day-to-day basis, it does not move us. When we are moved with compassion, we will find a way to get trained.

We have videos online. We have other people. We can get on campus and say, "I'm not evangelizing because we don't have a program. We don't have a designated time. We don't have the proper training." All of that is a smoke screen for a lack of compassion in us. If we had compassion, we would move because that's exactly what moved Christ.

And that's why he says to pray, pray for this gospel ministry by the will of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Holy Spirit, to pray. The opposite of compassion is to be callous. The synonyms of callousness is to be cauterized, to have thick skin, to be hardened, insensitive, deadened in feeling, indifference to suffering, cold-blooded, emotionally hardened.

In every way, all of these things affect the way that we pray. Just like we can't worship when our hearts have become hardened. You can't fake that. You can't fake coming in here and worshiping God and raising your hands and being emotional and trying to milk moisture out of your eyes.

You just can't fake that. Neither can you in prayer. If our hearts have become hardened toward the things of God, what causes you to be desperate is not you say, "You know what, I'm going to be desperate now in my prayer. I'm going to force myself to have a sense of urgency." Over and over again, the scripture describes unbelief as to being hardened.

Second Corinthians 3.14, it says, "But their minds were hardened, for to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted because only through Christ is it taken away." You know, we typically think, especially in a Bible teaching church, that only if we had more knowledge, only if we had more teaching, only if we had more theology, because our hearts have become corrupted.

The Bible says not to trust it. It is deceitful. But our mind, if we can engage our mind in theology, if we can engage our mind in proper teaching, then we'd be much better off. But the Bible says that even your mind can become hardened until the Spirit of Christ transforms and renews and revives us, that even our understanding of theology and right and wrong can become hardened because it is spiritually discerned.

A spiritually discerning mind isn't simply a mind that has read more books and has done more Bible study. A soft mind, soft heart, and soft life is an individual who has been deeply convicted and moved and compelled by the love of Christ. Hebrews 3.13, "But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." What hardens us?

It can be neglect. It can be compromise. In this particular passage, it says sin. If you get in the habit of sinning and repenting and sinning and repenting and sinning and repenting, we may say, "Of course, God says, you know, God will forgive seven times seventy." But just like an arm that's been broken over and over and over again, it becomes weaker and weaker.

In a life that sees sin as something that is not utterly sinful, eventually it hardens our own heart. And though we repent and though we receive forgiveness, our hearts become harder and harder and harder, and we become more and more callous. And so what happens is we start to engage our body without engaging our mind or our heart.

And we're no longer moved. When was the last time you really wept for lost souls? Think about the things that bother us, emotionally move us, and things that consume your mind. How much of that are eternal stuff? How much are these things that are, whether you get it or don't get it, it just makes your life a little bit easier?

How much of our crying out before God are things that have eternal consequences? Matthew chapter 24, verse 12, Jesus says at the end, "And because of lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold." What does it mean to grow cold? To become callous. To become hardened.

Because sin and unrighteousness has become a normal part of our culture, sometimes even inside the church, the first thing that you see is a hardened heart. When you have a hardened heart, it affects the worship and it affects our prayer. That's why Paul says to pray by the love of the Holy Spirit.

Until the love of Christ compels us, you will never pray for the lost. Until the love of Christ compels us, it affects everything that, it affects our worship, it affects our fellowship, it affects our Bible study. You can be disciplined, you can engage in all the religious activities and be an A student and everything that you're doing, but until your heart is broken because of what Christ has done for you, and until you recognize the brokenness of Christ's heart for the lost, your worship will always be superficial.

Your prayers will be offered up but never with any kind of urgency. If not today, next month, if not next month, next year, if not next month, maybe next decade, the next thing you know you wake up, 20, 30, 40 years have gone by and you think that that is normal Christianity and it is not.

It contradicts everything that we see in Scripture. It contradicts what we see in Paul's life. It contradicts the command that he gives to the New Testament. You know what's interesting is, Paul says to pray by the love of the Holy Spirit, the opposite of that, the love of Christ, is callousness, but the two things that he prays for here is for his own protection in order that he may continue to be fruitful in the Gospel.

Those are the two things that he prays for. You know what's interesting is the first thing that he says of them, he said, "Prayers to God for me that I may be rescued from those who are disobedient in Judea." The word for disobedient here in Greek, and you're going to be able to recognize this in English, is apetheo.

What does that sound like? Apathy. It's interesting that he uses the word to pray by the love of the Holy Spirit and not in apathy, and he describes those who are persecuting him are those who have hardened their hearts against God. To protect them from these people who have chosen to be apathetic, chosen to be obstinate against God, unpersuadable by the things of God, because they've committed themselves for themselves, and as a result of that, they live unrepentant lives.

Imagine Apostle Paul. Before he met Christ, he thought beating Christians was God's work. He was responsible for the death of the first martyr in the New Testament, and all the while thinking that he's doing God a favor. That's how hardened his heart was toward God. These Jews obeyed the commandment of God.

They kept the Sabbath. They made sure that every part of the law was obeyed meticulously, all the while thinking that they're moving up in this ladder of righteousness, and yet when the very Messiah that they've been waiting for and praying for for hundreds of years was standing right in front of them, not only did they not recognize him, they ended up crucifying him.

That's how hardened their hearts were. We can easily be susceptible to a hardened heart, or we can be in the church all our lives, 30, 40, 50, 60 years, singing the songs, doing the Bible study, maybe even participating in short-term missions, maybe even leading worship, maybe even as a pastor, and yet never knowing and being compelled by the love of Christ, because that's how deceitful sin is when we are at the center and Christ is not the king.

He prays for protection, but the prayer for protection wasn't simply because Paul was afraid. You know, typically when we pray for protection, it's because we just don't want to be hurt. We don't want to be uncomfortable. We don't want to get sick. And so in this journey of doing whatever we're doing, we're praying for protection, we're praying that we won't be persecuted so that we can have an easy, comfortable life.

Paul's prayer for protection wasn't that. Paul was praying for protection so that he may continue the gospel ministry. Think about what he was praying for. The gospel message was very offensive, so it was no surprise why they wanted to get rid of him, because the more popular he got, the more the gospel started messing up even their economy.

People started destroying the idols and the whole economy was based upon selling idols. And so the more popular this gospel message got, it ruined them. It ruined their family. It ruined their idols. Jesus was a very popular man until he began to call out the sins of the leaders of Israel.

If you remember the gospel account, the first half, first about half a year of his ministry, and he began to perform miracles, people were traveling days. These are Pharisees, Sadducees. I don't know if they got on horses or they walked or I don't know how they got there, but they traveled about two days distance to come to Jesus because they thought maybe he's the Messiah.

So they didn't hate him. They wanted to be near him. It wasn't until Jesus saw them coming and he began to call them out, "Bear fruit in accordance with your repentance." That's how the book of Romans begins. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Those who are under the law are condemned under the law.

Those who are outside the law are condemned outside the law. So the core of the gospel message is to bring a sinner and recognizing his sin and to repent and submit to God. That's at the core of the gospel message. So Jesus says, "They do not want that." Those who reject him, they reject his lordship.

They reject the fact that he calls them to repentance. They reject the fact that he says that they are wretched and poor and blind and they need the forgiveness of Christ. He said, "Why do we need all that? We were children of Abraham." So when he began to call them out from their sins and call them from repentance, to turn from their wicked ways, that's when they turned against him and they eventually crucified him.

And then Jesus said to his disciples, "If you follow me and you proclaim the same message as they hated me, they will hate you." So Paul takes up his cross, Peter and the apostles take up their cross, and every single one of them who preached the gospel met the same fate as Jesus.

Not everybody was crucified, but everybody was persecuted. What is strange in our generation is that we have so-called gospel proclamation and yet nobody is offended. And I'm not talking about being jerks. I'm not talking about walking around saying, "Hey, you're going to go to hell. You're going to go to hell," and showing no compassion for the lost.

But when we are surrounded by people in our lives and say, "Hey, good. You know, you're such a good guy. You're a Christian. You're so generous and you're so kind and you're so patient." Great. I mean, if you take the preaching of the gospel out of Christianity, who wouldn't want to be around Christians?

Because we're called to turn the other cheek. We're called to feed the poor. We're called not to slander, not to commit adultery. When I was a youth pastor, I had, you know, like a youth group filled with kids that parents dropped off. And parents don't come to church, but they would drop off their kids because they wanted to be good kids.

Some of them were doing drugs and the parents said, "We have to send them to church and hopefully you can fix them." But as soon as they started really committing their life to Christ and they say, "You know what? Maybe I want to go into ministry," and the parents would turn and get angry with me.

If you take the preaching of the gospel out of Christianity, who wouldn't want to be around Christians? I remember, you know, years back, you know, I had to supplement my income as a car detailer. I had no idea what I was doing, but I did it because people wanted to pay me, so I did it.

So I made these little cards and I put it in people's cars and I said, "For $30, I'll come and detail your car," right? And I survived like that for about a year. But I remember thinking, like, I have to come up with a name. And so the first idea that I had was, you know, I want people to know that they can trust me because literally they're handing me their car.

You know, some of these cars are like $70,000 car and I walk in, they just give me their car key and I walk out. And these people are crazy. They don't know who I am. They just saw a little sign that I put on their car. So I thought, I need to come up with this name.

The first thought that I had was I was going to put "Integrity Car Detailing" so that they can trust me, right? So I remember thinking that that's what I was going to call my car detailing, you know, business. And I went to the Yellow Page to see, you know, Yellow Page.

Some of you guys don't know what Yellow Page is, right? It's a book that was yellow. It had a lot of phone numbers, okay? So I went there to see. That's where people would advertise and put their business name. And I would go in there to look auto detailing.

And I had a list of integrity. Everybody had the same idea. Integrity plumbing, integrity roofing, integrity landscaping. And everybody had the same idea because, you know, like you want to tell people, "Hey, you can trust me." Who wouldn't want to be around good Christians who are living with integrity, who's not going to lie, who's not going to cheat you?

You know, they're going to turn you on the cheek. They're not slandering. They're generous. They're sharing. They're good neighbors. Why would they hate you? Why would they persecute you? The reason why the persecution came is because Paul was consumed with preaching the gospel where the gospel was not preached.

He was determined to go and shake up the ground, shake up the economy, shake up the families, and to tell them that the path that you are on leads to condemnation until you turn and repent. That's why they hated Jesus, and that's why they hated Paul, and that's why the Bible says they will hate us.

Even if you're meek, even if you're patient, even if you're one of the most kindest people in the world, it's the message itself is offensive to this world. Unless they believe and repent. Paul was not simply asking for safety and comfort. He was asking that he would be able to continue to preach the gospel.

I'm going to ask you guys to turn your Bibles to Acts chapter 20. For the remaining about 10 minutes, I want to show you how God answered Paul's prayer. Paul prayed for protection. Paul prayed that he may be able to come to Rome. He prayed that he may be able to bear fruit while he is there.

I want you to see how God answers this prayer. It took me almost three and a half, four years to finish 16 chapters of the book of Romans. We're not done yet. We're almost there. I'm going to go through eight chapters in 10 minutes in the book of Acts.

Chapter 20, Paul is at the end of his third missionary journey and he's about to head back to Jerusalem. People are beginning to say, "If you go to Jerusalem, you become famous enough that they're waiting for you." Paul tells this church of Ephesus that he had a really close tie with and he spends all night praying with them, thinking that he may never see them again.

He chooses to go. Then chapter 21 is when he begins to set sail. He says, "I'm ready to go. I don't know, whatever's going to happen in Jerusalem, let it happen. I'm going to come. I'm going to preach the gospel. That's my plan." He gets to Jerusalem, chapter 21, and starting from verse 15, he goes straight to the temple in verse 27.

Now you remember Jesus, when he was going to the cross, one of the first things that he did on the last week of his life after he comes into Jerusalem, he goes straight to the temple. The reason why he goes to the temple is because that's the epicenter of the Jewish leadership.

Jesus was basically getting things rolling because he was headed straight to the cross and he knew that he was going to be crucified by the hands of the leaders of Israel. In order to get their attention, he goes straight to the temple and he begins to challenge the teachings of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes at the temple itself.

Paul does the exact same thing. He goes to Jerusalem, he goes straight to the temple, and he begins to preach the gospel. After he begins to preach the gospel, sure enough, they get stirred up and they get angry with him. Verse 30, it says, "All the city was provoked." I'm sure Apostle Paul and his companions were not surprised by that because that's exactly what happened to Jesus.

But look what happens in verse 31. "While they were seeking to kill him, a report came up to the commander of the Roman cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. At once he took along some soldiers and centurions and ran down to them, and when they saw the commander and soldiers, they stopped beating Paul." So who comes to rescue him?

The Roman soldiers. So starting from chapter 21 all the way to chapter 28, Apostle Paul is under the protection of the Roman guards. Maybe he's in prison, but throughout the whole time, until he gets to Rome and preach the gospel, the reason why he lives is because the Roman guards are there protecting him.

I don't know. In my mind, I don't think when Paul prayed, "Pray for my protection," he said, "Can you pray that the Roman guards would come and protect me?" I'm sure he didn't have that in mind. Maybe he was thinking angels. Maybe he was thinking like splitting of waters.

Maybe something supernatural. But the Roman guards became protective. Chapter 21. So they guard him. They start removing him from the scene because this mob wants to kill him. But Paul says in chapter 21, verse 37, he says, "You know what? Before I go, let me address the crowd." It's like, "What?" "Yeah.

Now that I'm safe, now that they can't beat me because you're here, can I talk to them one more time?" And then in chapter 22, he turns around and he begins to address them. And guess what he does? He doesn't sit there. He's like, "How dare you beat me?" He turns around.

He's like, "I know why you're angry." And then he preaches the gospel again to this angry mob. And because of that, obviously, they are stirred up and they are enraged. And now, if they wanted to kill him before, now like, "We got to get rid of this guy." They wanted to kill him.

And then the Roman guards step in. They protect him. And they say, "You know what? Let's beat him a little bit, at least to appease the crowd because they want to kill him. But at least if they know that if we're going to take care of him, then maybe it'll kind of diffuse some of the anger." So they start to beat him.

And Paul says in chapter 22, verse 27, "Is it right for you to beat a Roman like this without a fair trial?" And they freak out. "You're a Roman citizen?" And he says, "I got my Roman citizen. I purchased it. How did you get it?" He said, "My father was a citizen, so I was born into it." It's like, "Oh my gosh, yours is legitimate.

If we keep beating him, we're going to get in trouble." So they actually back off. They actually back off. And then they, again, we can't treat him like this. And then so they decide, "You know what? Maybe, you know, how do we diffuse this situation?" So we don't want the responsibility with this guy.

So let's take him to the council. Let's take him to the leaders of Israel. So chapter 23, they take him to the council of Israel. These are the same people who crucified Jesus. He's standing before the high priest. And then he stands there before the same people made the decision to kill Jesus.

The Roman guards, to diffuse the situation, and whatever happens to him, like it's out of our hands, Peter stands before, and Paul stands before him, guess what he does? He preaches the gospel. He begins to preach, and he says, "I'm here because of the hope that I have for the resurrection." Well, which resurrection is he talking about?

The one that you killed. The one that you paid money to the Roman guards to keep their mouths shut. The one that you threatened in the beginning of the book of Acts, saying that if you keep doing this, you're going to be beaten. In front of those same people, he turns around and he begins to preach the gospel.

And as a result of that, he stirs them up even more. So each chapter, their anger for him is just being stirred up. "Oh my God, he's going to preach again? How dare he?" By the time you get to chapter 23, verse 12, "So when it was day, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves under an oath, saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul." That's how determined they were.

They made a vow. And it says, verse 13, there was about 40 of them. Every time I read this, I chuckle because I think about what happened to these people because it doesn't tell us. Because Paul clearly doesn't die. They say they weren't going to eat or drink, and I'm thinking, how long did it take before the first guy decides that he was going to eat the matzah?

And I can imagine maybe three days. "I'm still thirsty. Maybe that was a rash vow." And then some of the hardcore is like, "How dare you? We made a vow." And then the first guy just kind of like, "I don't feel so good. I think I got a cold.

My mom is sick." So I can imagine the first few guys, they had some excuse, they went back home, and then the hardcore guys, "No." Four days, five days go by, and they're all... Anyway, I could just milk this forever, but it just, in my mind, it's very comedic because it doesn't tell us what happened.

And I don't think they starved to death. At some point, I have a feeling they start eating. It's like, "Ah, maybe we're a little bit too rash. Maybe Jesus isn't that bad. Let's go home." They find out their conspiracy. They go and tell the leaders. And then, and this, look at what happens.

Chapter 23, verse 23, "As a result of this vow, he called to him two of the centurions and said, 'Get 200 soldiers ready by the third hour of the night to proceed to Caesarea with 70 horses and 200 spearmen.'" 200 Roman guards with horses and spears, God sends to protect this guy, this guy that they wanted to kill, right?

And he said, "Pray for protection." 200 soldiers. Now, they don't know that. They don't know that this is God answering prayer. They don't know that this is what Paul is praying, right? So from this moment on, 200 soldiers are attached to Apostle Paul, and no matter where he goes, now he can preach the gospel because physically he's protected.

And that's exactly what happens. They move him along. They take him to the governor, Governor Felix, and he stands before the governor. And instead of pleading his case, he just says, and he begins to preach the gospel. He said, "I don't understand this guy. This guy, people are trying to kill this guy.

We need 200 men to protect him, and he just won't relent." So he doesn't know what to do with him. So as a result, he just keeps him in prison for two years. And the two years that he's there, he's writing letters, he's meeting with people, he's preaching to the guards, and he's still continuing to do gospel ministry.

And he says, and as a result of his imprisonment, he says, "Many other brothers have become emboldened, and now they're beginning to preach the gospel everywhere because of his imprisonment." I mean, I told you he was obsessed. This man was obsessed. They keep him in prison for two years, hoping that maybe that he's going to bribe Felix, but that never happens.

So two years he's doing ministry. And then finally, the leadership changes, and then he said, "You know what? Let's move on, because I don't want the responsibility over this guy anymore." They send him off to King Agrippa in chapter 25. So he stands before the king, and he gets a hearing from this king.

King Agrippa was one of the kings of Israel that was stationed there by the Romans. So they're kind of puppet figures. But yet, nevertheless, he was the king. He stands before the king, and as soon as he gets a chance, he begins to preach the gospel to the king.

He said, "This is why they hate me. This is why these Roman guards, this is why I was in prison. This is why I'm standing before you." And he begins to preach. And the king of Agrippa, in chapter 26, verse 28, just, "I don't understand this guy." He says, "In a short time, you will persuade me to become a Christian?" And Paul said, "I would wish to God that whether in a short or long time, not only you, but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am, except for these chains." He said, "I'm not going to relent.

Whether in chains or not in chains, whether short or long time, whether before you, before the guards, whether I'm in prison or free, my life obsession is to get the gospel out." Paul was not asking for physical protection. Paul already said he's ready to die. For to him, to die is gain, because that means he gets to go to what he's been longing for faster, to be with Christ.

But to stay is also great, because that means more fruitful labor for me. And so, how do you kill the joy of a man who rejoices if he dies and he rejoices if he lives? All because he is consumed with the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is part of our joy.

The reason why you are so frustrated, the reason why you feel like you lack purpose and direction is because you have created your own will. And you're begging God to get him to bend towards you, and he won't bend, and you're frustrated. But here's this man who's chained, at times even beaten and stoned.

He was consumed. As a result of that, Agrippa says, "You know what? I can't deal with this guy." And Paul says, "I appealed to Caesar because he's a Roman citizen." He said, "Well, I could have possibly let you go, but since you're appealing to Caesar, I have to send you off." So he sends him on a boat in chapter 27, and he begins his journey to Rome.

But even this journey to Rome isn't wasted, because he's going as a prisoner. And there are over 200 guards on that ship, and then this huge storm comes in, and it looks like they're going to drown. And so the guards don't want to lose the prisoners, so they're thinking, "You know, we should throw all these guys off and then drown them to save ourselves." But, because Paul made such an impression upon the leadership and upon the people on the boat, he said, "You know what?

We're going to be determined. We're going to somehow get him on this boat, and we're going to get him there." Eventually, God prophesies that no one's going to die, and he answers the prayer, and all of them are saved, and they get shipwrecked on an island. And on this island, he gets bitten by a viper.

And the people on the island are thinking, "Well, surely this must be a sinner, because even after all of that, he's going to die. So the gods must be angry with him." So initially they say, "You know, this guy, he probably deserved it, whatever it was he did." When they see him, they don't die.

They say, "He got bitten by a viper? He doesn't die? There's something supernatural going on. Maybe he's a god." So they turn from calling him a sinner to a god, and then while he is on that island, a prominent man's father, he gets sick, and then Paul goes and he heals him, and then it begins to stir.

And so during that trip from Jerusalem to Rome, all these things happen, so that by the time he gets to Rome, Paul's no ordinary prisoner. He's kind of won over those people. They're waiting for him to come. He gets to Rome in chapter 28, verse 15, "And the brethren, when they heard about us, came from there as far as the market of Appius, and three inns to meet us.

And when Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage." He gets a free ride, right? That boat ride was free. And meanwhile, he was able to witness to all these people, so he was praying for fruitfulness, and all that was happening all along the way. And finally, he comes to Rome, and all the leaders of Rome come to him, asking him, and he's able to spend time with them, but that's not where it ends.

He said, "All the Jews," in verse 17, "hear about him. After three days, Paul called together those who were the leading men of the Jews, and when they came together, he began saying to them, 'Brethren,'" and begins to preach the gospel to them. "In the comfort of his inn, with the protection of the Roman guards." You can't ...

I'm pretty sure when Paul was praying for this prayer, for protection, for fruitfulness to get to them, he wasn't imagining the Roman guards. He wasn't imagining the free boat ride that took him there. He wasn't imagining in the comfort of his inn, and people coming to him and asking him, "What are you about?" and then preaching the gospel in Rome, almost ...

I mean, even though he's a prisoner, he's being treated like a royalty, and he's preaching the gospel to them. Verse 21, "We have neither received letters from Judea concerning you, nor have any other brethren come here, reported, and spoken anything about you, but we desire to hear from you what your views are for concerning this sect.

It is known to us that it is spoken against in everywhere." Verse 23, "When they had set a day for Paul, they came to him at his lodging in large numbers, and he was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God, and testing to persuade them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and from the prophets from morning until night." He had a captivated audience that was coming to him at his own inn, protected by the Romans.

It was better than a movie. If you didn't see the connection between the prayers in Romans and what was happening here, you may not have never seen it. I mean, this is exciting. Part of the reason why our Christian life is so exciting is because we are walking with Christ, and God answers our prayers in the context of following where he goes.

And why so many Christians are frustrated with their life is because they are outside, living outside of the will of God, and they are wondering where this life is. I thought if I went to church, if I went to Bible study, if I chose the right group and had the right friends and were disciplined the right way, that this life would be abundant.

And then when they don't experience that, they think there is something wrong with Christianity. But we are not going where Christ is going. We are not doing what Christ is doing. We are not saying what Christ is saying. And that is maybe the reason why we are not experiencing the life that Christ is giving.

Even in the context of people wanting to kill him, he saw God being faithful to him. In verse 30, "And he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters, and was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered." Unhindered.

And people are vowing to kill him. Everywhere he went, they picked up rocks to stone him. God sends the Roman guards, hundreds of them, to protect him. God orchestrates these things so that he can show up to Rome, and it almost kind of gives him a platform. "Paul, preach now." That's what makes Christian life exciting.

You will never have the kind of assurance of your prayers when you pray than when you have committed yourself to preaching of the gospel. You will never experience the intimacy of God's heart until you understand God's brokenness for the lost. You will never know the urgency of this spiritual battle until you have been on your knees, crying out for those who do not yet know Christ.

You will never understand what propelled Christ to hang on that cross and then called his church to do the same. "Go preach the gospel, make disciples of all the nations." You will never understand the heart of Christ until you understand the brokenness, the compassion of our Christ for you, for me, and for the world.

The Bible doesn't explain to us what happens after chapter 8. According to church tradition, Paul is released after two years. He ends up getting the support that he needs and then he actually goes out to Spain. Eventually, when his work is done, he is recaptured and he's beheaded. And as he prayed in Philippines, he went to the Lord in glory.

And that's where he is. I pray for my own life. I pray for your life. I pray for our church. I pray for our generation. That we would not be whitewashed tombs. That we would live consistent with the gospel that we love, that saved us, that we sing, that we proclaim and be on our knees, get on our feet to spread this gospel.

Because then and only then will prayer make any sense. Then and only then will worship be vibrant. Then and only then our fellowship is more than just gathering of Christians. Then and only then will you really understand what it means to have life and to really have this life abundantly.

When you are no longer grasping onto the life here and eager to go to the life that he has prepared for us, he who finds his life shall lose it. He who loses his life for my sake shall find it. Let's pray.