Acts 18:2-23
You may be seated. Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to Acts chapter 18 today. Verses 18 through 23 will
be our passage. As you make your way there, I’ll
point out a couple things to be thinking of as we prepare
to read. One is, this is the sort of subtle ending of Paul’s
second missionary journey. You’ll see at the end of our
passage, verse 23, it speaks of him departing Antioch in Syria
and going back through the churches where he first ministered on
his first missionary journey. And so we get the beginnings
of a second missionary journey. Some ask why it’s kind of subtle.
And I think the answer is Luke intends to speak a lot about
the church at Ephesus. I’ll say more about that in just
a little bit. But one thing to remember as
we prepare to read is Paul’s missionary journeys follow the
pattern that Jesus gave in the upper room to his disciples.
He said to them, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea,
Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And so the apostle Paul
will leave Antioch in Syria, make his way on his first journey,
come back to Jerusalem, go on a second missionary journey,
come back as he does in this passage, and then he’ll go on
that third missionary journey and the gospel continues to grow
in all parts of the world. Before we read God’s word, let’s
ask for God’s help and blessing. Pray with me. Lord, what an amazing thing it
is to read in your scripture about how The message of Christ
goes from the mouth of men into the hearts and souls of those
being saved. So now we stand in awe of your
saving work. You’ve known us from before the
beginning of the world. You’ve set into motion all the
ways and the means for us to be convinced and converted and
comforted and built up in our faith. And we thank you that
every week, Every day, as we abide in your word, we can be
like the tree planted by streams of living water bearing fruit.
And so, Lord, make that so of all of us now. Let us sit today
and have our roots watered, our trees nurtured, so that we can
be fruitful. May we be like the The psalmist
says, may we bear fruit into old age, still being full of
sap, full of life, so that others may see and live also. This we
pray in the strong name of Christ, our great savior, the living
word, amen. Acts chapter 18, beginning at
verse 18, says this. After this, Paul stayed many
days longer, and then took leave of the brothers and set sail
for Syria. and with him Priscilla and Aquila. At Senchere, he had cut his hair,
and they came then, for he was under a vow, and then they came
to Ephesus, and he left them there. He went himself into the
synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. When they asked him to
stay for a longer period, he declined, but on taking leave
of them, he said, I will return to you if God wills, and he set
sail from Ephesus. When he had landed at Caesarea,
he went up. greeted the church, and then
went down to Antioch. After spending some time there,
he departed and went from one place to the next through the
regions of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.”
Well, don’t you love it when a story or a passage of scripture
picks up with, after these things, what’s the question you should
ask? What things? Well, you’re in luck, I’ll tell
you. After these things, well, remember
in our last study that Gallio, the pro consul of Achaia, had
protected Paul with a legal victory. The Jews once again attacked
Paul and said, he’s preaching, he’s teaching, he’s telling others
to live against our law. Gallio wanted nothing to do with
this issue. He washed his hands of it. He
said, you go and you deal with this yourself. And what it did
is it gave Paul the freedom. It gave Paul the Roman protection
to preach the gospel at Corinth. And so when we read after this,
it’s a significant statement pointing back to the religious
freedom. that in God’s providence, Paul
received from Galileo. And it says after this, after
that moment of legal victory, after that moment of religious
freedom being given to Paul for some time, it says he stayed
many days longer. We know from other places, Paul’s
ministry in Corinth was about 18 months long. So for about
a year and a half, his preaching, his teaching, his reasoning from
the scriptures, both convinced and converted sinners into faith
and salvation in Jesus Christ, but also comforted and built
up the saints in their most holy faith. And somewhere along the
way, Paul made a vow. He made a vow to God that if
God protected him, if God gave him blessing in his ministry
that he would go to Jerusalem and offer his hair, his cut hair,
his shorn hair as an offering to God out of thanksgiving for
that great blessing. But after these things, after
the religious freedom, after an 18 month ministry, not only
has Paul made this vow, which he must go to Jerusalem in a
timely fashion to keep, but he feels that the Corinthian church
is secure enough. It is firm enough. Uh, it is
in good enough order that if he leaves, they’re in good hands
and we’ll be able to continue in ministry. Now, some of you
are probably scratching your heads and saying, but Paul wrote
first and second Corinthians. Uh, Paul wrote other letters
to the Corinthians. They were a wild bunch. He should
have stayed there and minded the store. Well, handful of things
are going on in the life and the ministry of Paul. He’s established
the church and as a missionary, as a church planter, he goes
and he works and he goes somewhere else and works and he goes somewhere
else and works and he leaves them behind God willing established
enough where they can work on as a church of Jesus Christ,
sufficient leadership, sufficient preaching, sufficient gifts and
graces for them to carry on. And so after these things, after
the religious freedom is established, he continues on, he establishes
the church, but somewhere along the way makes that vow. Now you’ll
remember that Paul’s ministry on this second missionary journey
has been difficult. It began in difficulty as he
left Antioch in Syria. Paul and Silas end up leaving
Mark And Barnabas, remember that great, that great struggle between
those two missionary men, not taking John Mark. He was irresponsible
last time, not taking John Mark. He’s going to desert us again.
And so they separate their ways. And a lot of that situation will
be redeemed. We’ll find out in the future.
But as he carries on in his ministry, leaving Mark behind, he begins
a ministry with heartache. And then he bumps into the providence
of God that says, no, you can’t go here. No, you can’t go there. You carry on. And so he ends
up with the Macedonian ministry. And so at Philippi, with the
wind at their backs, they meet people. People are converted.
There’s a church established there. There’s an uprising of
Jewish opposition. And so they make their way to
Berea, Thessalonica, Athens. And now they’ve been in Corinth
these 18 months. But you can imagine in Paul’s
private prayer life, aside from all that public ministry, Aside
from all that discipleship, all that training he was doing in
his own prayer life at night, in his own thoughts on those
sleepless nights, he said over and over to the Lord, if you’ll
take care of me, if you’ll be with me, if you’ll grant me success,
I’ll make this vow. I’ll take this oath and I’ll
go to Jerusalem with my shorn hair, make an offering and tell
everyone how great you have been, how good you have been. And so
I think there’s a bit of urgency behind Paul’s desires to travel
because he wants to go and keep this promise made to God at Jerusalem. And so after these things, Paul
stayed 18 months. After these things, he took leave
of the brothers. Can you imagine what that would
have been like? We’re gonna get a glimpse of it in chapter 20
when Paul takes leave of the Ephesian elders. There’s a lot
of tears. There’s a lot of uncertainty.
Will the ravenous wolves among you eat up the church? You know,
we think about what’s going on in the world around us today,
and we think about how lovely it has been for most of our lives,
all of our lives, to be in church every weekend. We think about
how the Judeo-Christian values of America’s founding have really
prevailed until recently. And we could go to church when
we want to. In fact, we could change churches
if we want to. Only in America can you church
shop and church hop, right? But put yourself in Paul’s culture,
establishing one church, a beachhead, if you will, in the most rotten,
pagan, secular culture. What it must have been for him
to say, I gotta go. I can’t stay with you. I need
to leave you behind and entrust you to the Lord. You know, in
our day and age, we got seminaries cranking out pastors and, you
know, you put out a call for a pastor, you’re gonna get a
stack of resumes. But Paul takes leave. He takes
leave of the brothers and sets sail for Syria. He’s headed back to Jerusalem
to keep his vow, but he takes with him Priscilla and Aquila. He takes with him these two from
Rome that he’s met at Corinth, and I think what we have to understand
Luke is telling us is they’re gonna swing by Ephesus, and they’re
gonna take their tent-making ministry that they had to leave
behind in Rome because all the Jews were expelled, they’re gonna
leave behind their tent-making ministry at Corinth, and they’re
gonna go set up a franchise, if you will, in Ephesus. Remember,
tent-making is a lucrative trade, a lucrative business, probably
got a manager in Rome, a manager at Corinth, and so they’re gonna
go with Paul, and he’s going to establish a church, and they’re
gonna establish a franchise, and you see what’s taking place
there. They’re using their vocation to make church planting possible. They’ll stay behind in Ephesus
while Paul goes on to Jerusalem, but they’ll, as a couple, remain
in Ephesus some five years. establishing a business, establishing
a church, establishing all the things needed to make Christ
known to that great cultural center of the world. And so Paul
takes leave of Corinth to ultimately go to Jerusalem, but importantly,
I think, to stop by Ephesus and establish a ministry there that
he can return to one day and to nurture. They set sail from
Syria and they make a couple stops. The one stop is of course
Ephesus, but first stop on the way is to get shaved. Put the
hair in a Ziploc bag, put it in your luggage and make sure
it gets to Jerusalem. You heard all that language from
Numbers chapter six. The hair is brought to the door
of the temple. The hair is then offered on the
altar. Paul has, Told God, you take
care of me. I’ll separate myself from you
in a special way. Let’s think about that for just
a moment. Are we under obligation to God,
to rights and to rituals and to things? You know, we live
in a pretty hokey culture, don’t we? And we like to do things
that make us feel better about ourselves. And I want to say
this to you. All you need, all you need, and
it’s a lot, is faith in Jesus Christ. We see the American church
adopting pagan practices. We see the American church adopting
or maybe keeping Roman Catholic practices. And we give this up
for a season. We don’t do that for a stretch
and whatever. And all God requires is that
we receive and rest in Jesus alone for our salvation. Now
you’re free to make a vow. You know, we’ve seen in our culture,
people, they sign a promise statement. I’ll remain pure until marriage.
We see people make a vow, maybe not to do this thing culturally
or this thing morally. And God in no way puts us under
obligation. Oh, you need to, in addition
to faith in Jesus, do this and stand on your head and turn around
three times. But we sure like to impose that
on ourselves, don’t we? Or impose that on the church.
Now we’re free in Christ to receive and rest in him alone and be
forgiven. Yes, we should come to church.
That’s where God preaches to us. Yes, we should come to church.
Worship is due the holy one of Israel. And yes, there are some
things that are to our advantage for growth and grace, but chiefly
we need to rest in Jesus. and receive the forgiveness that
he offers through faith in him. But why would Paul make and keep
such a vow? Why would Paul make and go to
such great lengths to keep a vow? I think one of the things we
ought to understand about him is Paul was a mighty man doing
mighty things. I don’t know if some of you turned
on the 10 commandments last night. It’s an Easter thing, isn’t it?
You know, good old Charleston Heston is Moses. We’re studying
Moses on Wednesday night in our Exodus study. Boy, Moses was
a, he was a bad dude, wasn’t he? I mean, he worked out, he
carried two guns, the whole works. He was a big man on campus in
the sight of God’s people. Well, we need to think of Paul
that way too. Paul was an extraordinary mind,
but he had an extraordinary drive to fulfill God’s calling on his
life. You know, we live in American
culture where it’s easy to be lazy. 40 hour work week, that’s
all well and good. But if you’re like me, you can’t
get your job done in 40 hours. It takes more. And then there’s
other things in life that take hard work. We’re to work six
days and rest on the seventh. Paul was, as we might say in
our day and age, he was a machine. Yes, he was going to make a vow.
Yes, he was going to keep a vow. But he was going to start a church
in the city where he got his haircut. We get word that there’s
a little church in Centrae. We catch glimpses of it at the
tail end of Paul’s letters, where he says, greet the church that
is there. He’s going to build a great church, a wonderful church
in Ephesus and all the while on the way to Jerusalem to keep
his vow. Maybe some of you have made a
vow. Maybe some of you have promised
God some things. And what a great thing it is
to do to consecrate yourself to him, to separate yourself
to him. But let me do encourage you strongly,
receive Jesus as he’s offered in the Gospels. Rest in Jesus
alone for your salvation. Well, our passage tells us after
these things, after the freedom afforded Paul for preaching,
he continues in that ministry. He takes leave. He sets sail
with Priscilla and Aquila. He gets his haircut along the
way, but they stop. They stop in Ephesus and he goes
into the synagogue and reasons. They set up their tent making
business and we’re told he was asked by the Jewish congregation. Stay longer, stay longer, stay
longer. We love what you’re saying. We love this Christ that you’re
speaking of. He declined, our passage tells
us. No doubt because the winds, the shipping lanes, but also
Passover on a certain date, a certain time in Jerusalem. And he says,
if the Lord is willing, I’ll return to you. We know the rest
of the story. The Lord is willing. Paul does return and has a great
ministry to Ephesus. but he takes leave of them as
well. He sets sail. He lands at Caesarea,
which would be 60 miles or so from Jerusalem. And I want you
to notice, maybe you haven’t kept your Bibles open, but it
says in verse 22, when he landed at Caesarea, he went up. and
then it says he went down to Antioch. One of the most important
things that we can do as we read the Bible is to see the Bible
as a whole. Don’t just read a little verse
and say, that’s my verse, I love that verse, it’s about me and
God comforts me, that verse. Okay, that can happen and all,
but we really need to read the whole Bible and see God’s hand
in the whole of human history. And one of the things that’ll
happen when you read through the whole Bible is you’ll catch little
phrases You’ll catch words that begin to have meaning. Like for
example, in our Sunday school class this morning with the young
adults, we talked about the theme of exile. Exile is all through
the Bible. It begins with Adam and Eve in
the garden, and it goes all the way through the exile with the
Babylonians. And then Peter says to Christians
today, you’re still in exile. But one of the other phrases
that you’ll catch throughout the scripture is the going up
and the going down. We go up to worship God. But
even more importantly, when you go to Jerusalem, one goes up
and people say, well, how do you know Paul went to Jerusalem?
Got all these commentaries on my shelf. I read through the
week to get ready for my sermon and a bunch of them say, well,
Paul didn’t go to Jerusalem because it doesn’t say Jerusalem. Well, if you read
the whole rest of the Bible, when it says you go up and we
know he had a vow to keep and you go to Jerusalem to keep it,
Paul was on this voyage to keep his vow and to go into the temple
and to worship God, and even to tell the church there at Jerusalem,
James, the brother of our Lord Jesus, and all the others, of
all that God has been doing. Could you imagine being a fly
on the wall in the precincts of Jerusalem and hearing about
ships and walks? and Priscilla’s and Aquila’s,
and all the people, the beatings, the uprisings, Gallio, the proconsul,
and can’t you imagine all those people listening with bated breath?
We get the little after this, after these things, Paul gave
them the details. So he greeted the church, he
spent time with them, and then it says after some time he departed,
a couple times he’s departed, he’s moving on again, but he
goes to Antioch, And he spends some time there, maybe about
a year. That’s his sending church. That’s his home base, if you
will. Then we see Paul begin to leave
on that third missionary journey. And I want us to land for just
a second on the very last phrase of our passage. Paul was strengthening. the disciples. Sometimes you
wonder, you read the book of Acts and it’s the same history
over and again. He went there, he went there, he got on this
ship, he went on that ship. Can you get any meat out of this?
And you catch a little phrase like this, he strengthened all
the disciples. One of the great blessings that
we have as a church body I think, first of all, is the freedom
to come to church. That may disappear in our lifetime, my lifetime,
that may disappear. But while we have that freedom,
while we have that opportunity, we should afford ourselves of
every opportunity to come and to grow in grace and be strengthened. When you go out of these doors,
it’s a dark world. When you leave this sanctuary,
it’s a depraved culture. When you go out of these doors
and face the reality of the week, Life in a cursed world, the aches
and the pains and the losses and the crosses. Isn’t it so
much sweeter to go strengthened in the Lord? And we here have
that great privilege. You know, I’m no apostle, Paul.
I’ll never go around and do all those things that he does. But
one of the great blessings we have here is we get to come here. I don’t have to travel all around,
but we get to come here. The word is read and studied
and prayed and talked. And some of you here on Wednesday
night, we have a pretty good time talking about the word,
maybe in a little bit different way than we would in a morning
sermon or a night sermon. The Men’s Confession of Faith
Study Fellowship is a very sweet time. All of these strengthen
the disciples for our walk in the Lord. I don’t want you to
leave here today without a sense of wonder that God in his grace
has not only brought salvation to you, God’s word has convinced
and converted you, convinced you of your sin and misery and
converted you to salvation through faith in Jesus. But his word
also continues to comfort and to build you up in your most
holy faith. Don’t lose sight of that amazing
fact. Pray with me if you will. Our
Lord and God, we are grateful for all of your mercies that
are ours in Christ. And a passage of scripture with
going here and going there may seem to have nothing for our
edification, for our strengthening. But Lord, what an amazing thing
it is that down the line of history, here we sit, here we stand, here
we are, fed that great apostolic faith from your word that was
once and for all delivered to the apostles and now to us. Lord,
make us good stewards so that some 2,000 years from now, if
the Lord you should tarry, the generations who sit in a place
like this might know of Jesus Christ and be strengthened as
disciples. Hear us and help us, we pray
in the name of Jesus, our great Savior, amen. We want to prepare
for the Lord’s Supper, so if you’ll turn to page 259, we’ll
stay seated and sing together.