82 Acts 22:22-29 Your Will be Done

June 01, 2025

Christopher C. Freeman

Title: Your Will Be Done Text: Acts 22:22-29 FCF: We often struggle trusting God when we are in difficult situations Prop: Because God providentially works to accomplish His purposes through man’s choices, we must trust the Lord. Scripture Intro: [Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Acts chapter 22. In a moment we will read from the LSB starting in verse 22. You can follow along in the pew bible or in whatever version you prefer. Since Acts chapter 19 we have been in the final Act of the unfolding narrative of the book of Acts. In his part 2 of this gospel sent to Theophilus, which is designed to assure him of the truth of what he has believed, Luke is demonstrating the continuing saving power of Jesus. The Kingdom of God continues to invade the world through the power of the comforter, the third person of the Godhead the Holy Spirit. This last act began when Paul turned his attention toward going to Jerusalem. God has called him to go there and to suffer in chains. Paul goes willingly even against the advice of others who warn him. He knows the warnings but also knows that God has willed that He go to Jerusalem. This final act is the great culmination of the Lord Jesus’ command to His apostles to take the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. And while it is true that the gospel has gone to Rome already… Paul will take it directly to the Emperor’s throne. But before he does… he must go through many twists and turns along the way. If you have grown tired of hearing about God’s providence and sovereign hand in the book of Acts… the last few chapters are gonna be a bit of a slog for you. Because God’s providence will be laced to many of the episodes left in this book as we hasten toward the end. Stand again with me to give honor to and focus on the reading of God’s Word. Invocation: Sovereign Lord, You are in absolute control over all that happens. But we also are responsible to act according to Your revealed will and live in this world making wise decisions based on information and resources that You have given us. Help us Lord neither to forget or disbelieve that nothing is outside Your control nor allow us to abdicate the agency we possess to do justly and live wisely. Help us Lord in this text to strike the balance of these two paradoxical teachings so that we may be both in the world but not citizens of it. Bless us with understanding from the Spirit we pray in Jesus’ name… Amen. Transition: Let’s once again hop right into this new episode of the ongoing adventure of Paul at the hands of the Jews and the Romans. I.) God providentially works to accomplish His purposes through man’s sin, so we must trust the Lord. (22-24) a. [Slide 2] 22 - And they were listening to him up to this statement, and then they raised their voices and said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live!” 23 - And as they were crying out and throwing off their garments and tossing dust into the air, i. The following episode is broken up into two scenes. ii. The second scene occurs in the barracks of the Anatolian fortress. iii. The first scene occurs as an interruption to Paul’s defense of himself before the mob in Jerusalem. iv. These two scenes compose our two primary points in the sermon. v. In this first scene we see the rather disheartening and disappointing story of how the mob in Jerusalem was listening quite closely to the testimony of Paul. vi. How is that disheartening and disappointing? vii. Partly because the gospel is preached clearly and effectively. 1. Jesus is presented, on full display, as having the same essence and status as God the Father. Jesus is Yahweh. 2. Jesus is the LORD who is obviously not dead but has risen and furthermore is in heaven. 3. Jesus is the LORD whom Paul is persecuting by imprisoning and killing His People, which are people of The Way. 4. Jesus is the name on which Paul was to call for the forgiveness of his sins and to be baptized in the Spirit. 5. Jesus is the name in which Paul was to be baptized in water. 6. Jesus is the LORD who commands Paul’s purpose and destiny to go far from Jerusalem. 7. Jesus is the LORD who sends him to the Gentiles. viii. But all of this is so good. And they were listening. When does it become disheartening? 1. When they stop listening. Indeed, they stop listening so aggressively that they interrupt his story. a. Paul is following a typical style of speech one would use to defend themselves in court. b. Scholars point out that the style is truncated and incomplete. c. This clues us in to the fact that Paul wasn’t done. d. No doubt he intended to speak about the wonders he had beheld as God did miraculous things and led many pagans to confess this Jewish Messiah as LORD. e. No doubt Paul would have ended by telling them about Trophimus who was one of these and how he did not bring Trophimus into the temple. f. But Paul never got to that part of his defense. Why? Because they interrupted him. g. Why? 2. They interrupt him in anger because of their national pride and racist bigotry against the Gentiles. a. It was the mention of Paul being commissioned by Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, to go and take something Jewish to the pagans… which provoked the crowd to lose their marbles. b. What do I mean by that statement? c. Well first they demand Paul’s death. i. Because Paul has the audacity to suggest that the Jewish Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Man, the Son of God, would command him to take the message of hope to the Gentiles – they determined he was unworthy to live. ii. How did they get there? iii. Think of the illustration Jesus uses in Matthew chapter 7 during his sermon on the mount. iv. He says do not give what is holy to dogs and do not scatter pearls before swine. v. Contextually Jesus is talking about correcting ungodly behavior in others. vi. As He completes that teaching he gives this illustration. vii. In the context then this communicates the idea that just as dogs will not make any distinction between temple food that has been sanctified for worship purposes and other forms of food and just as pigs won’t differentiate between pearls under their feet verses anything else – so also a man who never desires to be corrected and is convinced he is never wrong should eventually be left alone in his error. viii. We know the Jews generally felt this way toward gentiles. Ther are even biblical references to pagans around them being viewed as… dogs and swine. ix. In other words, if the gospel was so great, and it had a Jewish origin, a Jewish Messiah, and is offered to the Jews first – it would be absolutely unthinkable to offer it to dogs and pigs. x. But what is their mistake? You see it already, don’t you? Their mistake is two-fold 1. God never indicated anything but the plan for all the nations to be His portion. a. For a time, Israel was His portion. b. But He makes it absolutely explicitly clear in the Old Testament, that God owns the whole earth and that He will one day reclaim the nations through His Messiah. 2. Secondly, they miss the concept of not being able to determine if someone is a dog or pig until you try to feed them something holy. a. This is the same context where Jesus invites people to knock to receive a good gift from God – much like holy food and pearls. b. This is in the same context where Jesus cautions that false teachers can be judged by their fruit since bad trees bear bad fruit. c. In other words, the entire context essentially says that you can’t judge a person by anything but their reaction to holy things. Do they desire holy things or not? xi. They had mistakenly assigned the status of “unworthy of holy things” to people whom God has always said He was going to reclaim. xii. Therefore, in their eyes, Paul is guilty of blasphemy because he has offered the things of God to pagan people. xiii. And all this stems from the question – who are the people of God? xiv. Are they born into it… or are they born again into it? And Nicodemus’ interaction with Jesus clearly tells us the answer. xv. Even Nicodemus, a teacher of the law, a member of the Sanhedrin – must be born again. xvi. There are only two families and they are not Jew and Gentile. They are children of the Serpent and children of the Seed of the woman. xvii. Which means you are either born once and die twice or you are born twice and die once. ix. These first century Jews heard the majesty of the gospel. But what prevented them from hearing more? What prevented them from believing? Ultimately – it was their love for their sin. x. Indeed, they loved their national pride and their racist bigotry SO MUCH… that they started tearing off their clothes and kicking up dust. They throw a religious tantrum. They are demanding Paul to be killed. xi. Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. xii. This Jewish mob is the same as every other person who has been given the gospel and has not turned from sin. They actively choose their sin over salvation. Because you can’t have both. b. [Slide 3] 24 - the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks, stating that he should be examined by flogging so that he might find out the reason why they were shouting against him that way. i. Here we see the Roman commander being utterly in the dark as to what is going on here. ii. Why is that the case? iii. There are two potential reasons. 1. First, Paul spoke in Aramaic. a. The likelihood that the Roman Commander spoke Aramaic is very small. b. And when the people violently yell against Paul, they probably did so in Greek. c. So, the commander hears Paul speak and suddenly the crowd turns on him. 2. Second, the layers and flavors of all of this are abundantly Jewish. a. Even if he did understand some of it, there is so much pent-up national pride and bigotry here that it would be difficult for someone outside the culture to see it. b. All he knows is that they were listening intently one moment and then just suddenly snapped and demanded his death. iv. Now, since the commander has already tried to get answers from the crowd and come up with pretty much nothing, he intends to flog Paul until Paul confesses what he has done to provoke them to this point. v. Roman commanders were given liberty to beat confessions or statements out of people, especially when all other non-violent forms of questioning had been exhausted. vi. And right here at the climax of the episode and at the end of scene one – let’s take a commercial break and take a moment to digest what we’ve learned. 😊 c. [Slide 4] Summary of the Point: In this episode Luke communicates the same truth in two specific ways. The primary point, which has been on display for us ever since Paul turned his face toward Jerusalem, is God’s providential hand in leading Paul where He wants Paul to go so that Paul can fulfill the mission that Jesus laid out for him on the road to Damascus and so that the church can fulfill the command of Christ to go to the uttermost part of the earth. But sometimes God’s providence to accomplish His Will includes the sinfulness of men. There are actually several examples in Scripture where God uses the sin of people to accomplish His greater will. Jacob stealing the birthright from Esau, Joseph being sold into slavery, Pharoah’s refusal to listen to God’s commands, David taking a census, Judas Iscariot betraying Christ, and the Jews and Pontius Pilate killing the Messiah, just to name a few. Certainly, each of these were against the revealed moral will of God and each offender is guilty for their sin, yet God used each sin to accomplish His grander purposes. And here, God’s will is for Paul to go to Rome. Part of that plan goes forward because of the stiff-necked arrogant and bigoted sinfulness of the Jewish people. If God does this, if God can and obviously does use even men’s sin to accomplish His purposes, what does that mean for us? I use Paul as an example. Even though he hasn’t done much yet in this episode, we have seen him up to this point trusting the Spirit’s leading and even being willing to die for the sake of Christ if that is what the Lord wills. We too must trust the Lord. Even when so many around us are disobeying Him and it is because of THEIR sin that we are in a tough spot… we can still depend on God being Just and having a plan that cannot be thwarted… even when sinners sin. Transition: [Slide 5(blank)] But God’s providence does not move forward simply in the moral choices of men to obey or disobey the Lord. Even in our amoral seemingly innocuous choices, God moves providentially. Let’s look. II.) God providentially works to accomplish His purposes through man’s agency, so we must trust the Lord. (25-29) a. [Slide 6] 25 - But when they stretched him out with leather straps, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, “Is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman and uncondemned?” i. Although this verse is relatively brief, Luke actually indicates 3 separate violations of Roman law code. ii. Cicero, a well known Roman Statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator and writer, in his Oration against Verres said, “it is a transgression of the law to bind a Roman citizen; it is wickedness to scourge him. Unheard, no man can be condemned.” iii. He goes on to say that to kill a Roman citizen is almost always murder. iv. All of these sayings were codified into Roman law and practiced throughout the empire. v. First, it was not lawful to bind the hands of a Roman Citizen. 1. Paul here is stretched out. This implies that he is bound to some kind of apparatus designed to stretch his extremities and his skin tight so the whips can cause more pain and distress to the body. 2. This would require his hands and perhaps even his feet to be bound to the apparatus itself. vi. Second, it was not lawful to flog or scourge a Roman citizen. 1. The Roman scourge was one of the most painful and feared methods of torture that the Romans had save crucifixion. 2. The flog had a wooden handle with several strands of leather tied to it. At the ends there were tied various assortments of objects designed for bludgeoning, slicing, or tearing. 3. Depending on the motivation of the Roman centurion, these whips could be calibrated to cause intense pain all the way to catastrophic injuries to the body leading to death. 4. This is why it was unlawful for any Roman citizen to be flogged for any reason. vii. Third, it was not lawful to condemn a Roman citizen without a trial 1. The trial doesn’t have to go in the person’s favor, or even be fair, but it must be had. 2. No one can be condemned if they have not been tried. 3. And every Roman citizen has a right to appeal to Caesar. 4. The governor judging during the appeal does not have to grant it, but if he does not, he must supply valid reason for denying that option for a Roman citizen. viii. Paul once again uses his status as a Roman citizen to get him out of a tight spot. ix. The question arises, why does Paul wait to use his status as a Roman citizen until this moment. Why didn’t he do it earlier and why didn’t he endure the scourging for Christ’s sake? 1. Both questions enter us into the realm of speculation. So, let’s answer the question with more questions. 2. Why didn’t Paul claim his status sooner? a. Well, how would it have looked to the Jews if he at the top of the steps asked to be treated with the dignity of a Roman citizen? b. Could that have sparked more outrage from the crowd? c. Could that have confirmed in their mind that he was guilty since he was trying to use such a means to get him out of trouble? 3. Why didn’t Paul simply take the beating to suffer for Jesus? a. Is there not places in scripture where Jesus Himself suggests that if we can flee persecution we have that option to do so? b. Did not Jesus tell Paul when He was converted that He would take the gospel to Kings? c. Since it was a real possibility that he could die from being scourged, how would God’s will be fulfilled in His life? d. If he dies of his scourging, is this really dying for Jesus’ name or for something else? x. The bottom line is that if God affords us opportunity to deescalate a situation or flee persecution, we most certainly should. xi. We know God’s will for Paul was to go to Rome. And Paul seemed to know that he had more to do before he would expire. So, he chooses to invoke this status to save his life. It is a relatively amoral choice… neither obeying nor disobeying a command of God. b. [Slide 7] 26 - And when the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported to him, saying, “What are you about to do? For this man is a Roman.” 27 - And the commander came and said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman?” And he said, “Yes.” i. We see the immediate change and fear come over all involved in the story here. ii. The centurion who was in charge of getting information out of Paul any way he could – went to the commander and expressed his concern over his order. iii. The question “what are you about to do?” sounds like insubordination to us the way it is translated – but the phrase is most likely idiomatic and might be better understood as – “Are you really sure you want to do this? This guy says he is a Roman. iv. The question comes up; did Paul carry his papers with him or were there even papers to prove Roman citizenship? v. There certainly would be pedigree papers for Roman citizens although they had a nasty habit of being forged. vi. The most secure way to find out if a person was a Roman citizen was to check the hometown for a record of citizenship, or to ask trusted officials on the status of people. vii. But this centurion doesn’t do that. He just assumes Paul is telling the truth. Why? viii. Well – if you were caught impersonating a Roman citizen, your sentence would be quite severe often ending in death. It would be foolish to trade a flogging for the death penalty. Therefore, the centurion assumes Paul speaks the truth. c. [Slide 8] 28 - And the commander answered, “I acquired this citizenship with a large sum of money.” And Paul said, “But I have been born a citizen.” i. The Roman commander, assessing the modest condition of Paul not only the way he is dressed but also who he is, or isn’t, draws a direct comparison to himself. ii. The Roman commander confesses to Paul – I purchased my citizenship with a great sum of money. iii. This could have been an honorable purchasing of citizenship but more than likely this was a bribe which were prevalent during Emperor Claudius’ reign which occurred in the 40s and early 50s. iv. To be a Roman military commander, like this man was, you would need to be appointed to that position by influential or powerful people in the Roman Empire. Which means that this commander was probably from a wealthy and influential Greek family who secured his future with bribes. v. But Paul doesn’t look like he has two pennies to rub together. vi. The commander is effectively saying, “How is it that YOU were able to have enough to purchase this?” vii. This is when Paul reveals that he was born a Roman citizen. viii. The only way this works is if one or both of your parents were Roman Citizens. ix. We don’t know anything about Paul’s parents other than this. x. Also, a person who purchases or earns their citizenship within the Roman system is not socially on the same level as a person who inherited it from birth. xi. Much like the concept of Old and New Money, so is the concept of a natural born citizen vs. a person who purchased their citizenship. xii. So once again Paul proves to be of a higher social status than even this Roman Commander. xiii. This is why we see what happens next… d. [Slide 9] 29 - Therefore those who were about to examine him immediately withdrew from him; and the commander also was afraid when he learned that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him. i. Here we see the reaction of every solider involved in this. ii. They are caught. iii. This man’s pedigree is well above everyone there. And they did not give him a trial, they have bound his hands and were about to flog him. iv. Now technically he hasn’t been condemned or punished yet so he could still get a trial and they did not flog him – but they did bind him. v. That is why the commander is worried. vi. He might get repercussions back on him because of this. Everything he’s spent and done to get in the position he is in may be for nothing because of this. e. [Slide 10] Summary of the Point: In the previous point we see that God works providentially, even using the sin of men to accomplish His purposes. But God also uses human agency to accomplish His purposes too. God willed that Paul would go to Rome and that he would be housed there and permitted to defend himself and the gospel there. How do we know that? The same way we know that the person you married is the one God willed you to marry. It happened. 😊 So how did God achieve that? Well first He uses the sinfulness of the Jews to get Paul safely into the hands of the Romans. Next God uses the human agency, the free and amoral choice of Paul, to use his citizenship as a means to gain a trial and an audience before the governing officials. In many ways this is a decision of Paul’s borne from his desire to survive, an option he had because God both provided it to accomplish His will. While it may be a stretch to assume that every single amoral choice we make is used of God to accomplish His decreed will, we can safely assume that no choice we make can undo God’s will. Because God providentially works in this way, we can trust the Lord and we can learn that that trust does not necessarily mean twiddling our thumbs waiting for Him to save us. Sometimes that means using the tools and situations he has given us to our advantage in an unselfish and righteous way. Conclusion: So what have we learned today and how do we live? Whare some basic applications for faith and practice we can draw from this text? Basic applications for faith and practice: [Slide 11] In studying the book of Acts we’ve seen several times over the Lord demonstrating His sovereignty by providentially orchestrating events to occur for the expansion of His church. Our God does whatsoever He wishes. He has Divine Freedom to do that which He wills and no one can thwart Him in this. His will is for the church to expand to the uttermost part of the earth and even go to Rome and the gospel presented and defended to the highest government officials within the Roman Empire, if not the Emperor himself. In that process, and in this text we’ve seen God use human choices to accomplish His divine plan. God orchestrates both the sinfulness of men and the agency of man to accomplish His will in this text. This motivates us to trust the Lord to accomplish His will while still using our own agency and responsibility to make wise choices and obey what He has commanded. But what does this mean for us specifically? 1.) [Slide 12] Mind Transformation: “What truth must we believe from this text?” or “What might we not naturally believe that we must believe because of what this text has said?” We must affirm that God uses human responsibility and agency to accomplish His hidden will. a. In this text, and even as early as Peter’s Pentecost sermon we see the apostles making this point very plain. b. God’s decreed will, His hidden will, the will which he orchestrates all things to accomplish, cannot be broken, it cannot be toppled, it cannot be prevented. c. But rather than God programming us all like robots to simply do what He has willed, instead God infallibly uses and orchestrates our choices, even our bad ones, even the ones that don’t seem to matter much, to accomplish His purposes. d. Some have said, well God doesn’t care whether I wear a red shirt or a green shirt today. e. Whether or not God cares, I cannot say, but what we do know from the scriptures is that your selection of a color for a shirt will not keep God’s hidden will from coming to pass, but He may use it to make it come to pass. f. Take a moment to praise the Lord and marvel at how big and great and unlike us He is. g. Our plans are constantly changing. In fact we are often irritated or overwhelmed when too many of our plans go awry. We have to pivot and move and alter direction. We have to ebb and flow to try our best to stay on course and oftentimes end up failing. h. God’s decreed will has been published. The end from the beginning has been written. So much so that Old Testament writers say, “Who can thwart the will of God? Who can tell Him no?” i. Some suggest that God is operating in the present with us and because He is faster, stronger, more knowledgeable, and more powerful than we are, He can take decisions of men and weave them in real time to make His hidden will come to pass. j. While this could be one explanation, if it is true then the scriptures are absolutely silent that this is the case. k. Since we have observed that God is not like us, since He is holy, shouldn’t we expect Him to accomplish His plans and purposes differently than we do? Not through exertion, effort, modification or alteration but through some other separate means? l. Instead, the scriptures seem to indicate that all things that occur, including the decisions of men, are part of this plan of God. As if they are already set. As if it is already so. m. Peter’s sermon at Pentecost seems to show exactly this with reference to the Jews killing Christ. n. Peter almost makes it seem like God planned for them to do this. o. But even in his sermon Peter reveals that although God had orchestrated their decision to accomplish His will, that they were still held accountable for their decision. p. We must affirm that God uses our choices to accomplish His hidden will and that God has even, in some sense, orchestrated them to do so. q. But how can this be? 2.) [Slide 13] Refutation: “What lies must we cast down” or “What do we naturally believe, or have been taught to believe, that this passage shows is false?” We must deny that human responsibility and agency and God’s absolute sovereignty cannot co-exist. a. The bible clearly teaches both the responsibility and agency of man and God’s absolute sovereignty. b. If everything that happens is orchestrated by God’s will to accomplish His eternal decrees, how can men truly be responsible for their actions? How can men’s choices have any agency? It seems like we are merely robots. c. If men are truly free to do whatever they want and are free to execute agency in life, how can God truly be in control of everything that happens? What do we do when God specifically tells us that he uses sin to accomplish a purpose that He has already designed. What do we do with passages where God hardens hearts or sends agents to lie to people? d. In this we have quite the conundrum and Christians have been wrestling with this tension for hundreds of years. e. If you are expecting this 40-year-old pimple faced pastor to tell you how it all fits together… 😊… well then, I’d like to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. I also have the Old North Church available. 😊 f. I don’t know all the answers. I do know that most solutions to this paradox tend to supplant one side or the other. Either God isn’t really sovereign or man doesn’t really have any freedom of choice. g. In my view it seems like it is simply a matter of perspective. i. From God’s view, having all knowledge, power, goodness, holiness, strength, etc… it simply doesn’t make any sense that ANYTHING in His creation is left to chance or left to the choice of something within creation. Nor does it make any sense that God would weave our choices in real time to bring about His will. It must have been planned from before the foundation of the world. ii. From man’s view, we clearly make decisions and act on impulse as well as making logical informed decisions. Some choices we wrestle over and spend lots of time figuring out. Some choices we are guided by God’s moral law. It sure doesn’t seem like God is making me do anything at all. h. So let me provide two thoughts that may help… it may hurt… but at least it helps me to harmonize these two things without (I hope) stealing from either side. i. First, God’s decretive will is hidden. It is unknown, not only to you and I but to humanity in general. Even the Angels are not privy to His hidden will. Fallen or otherwise. 1. How does this help harmonize these two? 2. Well, if we are robots and all our actions are predetermined, then we might expect some kind of coding or trail that that is the case. 3. When we think about DNA, computer coding, machines great and small, we recognize that the only thing you are getting out of them is what you are putting in. 4. As close as AI gets to thinking for itself, in the end it is still 0s and 1s borrowing and stealing from what has been given to it and using that information to make assertions. 5. But God has completely hidden His will from us. We have absolutely no knowledge of all that He has planned for our lives, let alone the world and His Kingdom. All we have is His revealed will called the Scriptures. 6. What does that mean? 7. It means that we cannot be robots because we lack some very important details about the plan of God. 8. And since we lack those pieces of information, our choices seem by all perceptions to be completely free and spontaneous. 9. And we would never know any different and we certainly wouldn’t act any different. We make decisions from the perspective and to some degree the reality that we are completely free in those decisions, 10. Even though they are predetermined, we would never know it. 11. And when we choose to sin against God, even if that was predetermined, God holds us accountable because we acted on what we knew and not what He had hidden. ii. Second, God is our creator. 1. Now many of us have no problem saying that God is the creator of our bodies. That is easy to square with. 2. But what about our minds? What about our souls? What about our personalities? Has God created us as a clock maker, putting all the pieces together and setting us to function and form on our own? Or has God created us, even our inward parts, to be exactly WHO WE ARE? 3. We talk about Paul being born a Roman citizen. Was Paul’s personality woven to who he was by God? 4. I think if we are going to remain biblical, just like we would reject God using evolution as a natural mechanism for creating the world, we must also reject God allowing our personality to develop naturally. 5. Instead, God created you and I from the ground up. Not just our bodies but even our souls and our minds. I am who I am because God has made and is continuing to make and remake me this way. 6. And because He made me, He knows me. And because He knows me, He knows how I think, how I feel, how I relate, and what I will do in any given situation because He made me the way I am. 7. But again – I don’t see any of that. I don’t know the inner workings and the miniscule details He has poured into me. To me, I just make choices and decisions in my life based on what I’ve seen and observed of my surroundings and of myself. But just like I don’t know everything about what is surrounding me… I don’t even know everything about me. 8. I am, therefore, responsible for my choices, even though God has handcrafted everything about me to do exactly as He has willed. i. Again, I don’t expect that to solve anything for you. But it has helped me to make sense of both of these things being true and letting them both be 100% true. j. Mankind must exercise responsibility and agency because God has made that to be our perception of reality ... k. But nothing happens unless God has orchestrated and designed it to happen… l. So what do we do with such huge truths? 3.) [Slide 14] Exhortation: “What actions should we take?” or “What is this passage specifically commanding us to do that we don’t naturally do or aren’t currently doing?” We must trust the Lord in all situations knowing that no one can thwart His hidden will for our lives or His church. a. The practical side of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility is actually one of the most overlooked and valuable aspects of these doctrines. b. Everyone gets hung up on the salvation topic about election and man’s responsibility and how they mesh together and we forget to keep going down the rabbit hole to talk about what else is there. c. If God is in absolute control, so much so, that even when men sin, He has orchestrated those actions to accomplish His hidden will – what does that mean for us when we are like Paul, victims of other people sinning against us, harming us, rejecting God, and hating us? d. Do we fear? e. Do we fret? f. Has God taken a vacation? Has He fallen asleep? Is he helpless to prevent men choosing to be wicked? g. NO! We are right where God wants us to be! h. God promises to work out all things for our good if we love Him and are called according to His purpose. i. What does that mean? j. It means that even men exercising their choices to sin against God and us… is still for our good. k. Not one person, exercising their free choice, are able to thwart or undermine God’s will for His church. l. That is why Jesus said that the gates of hell will not stand against it. m. Why? n. Because it can’t. Even the thoughts and plans of Satan himself are part of God’s hidden will to accomplish His purposes. o. As Martin Luther said, “The Devil is God’s devil.” p. How do you fight against a God like that? q. You can’t. You aren’t able. 4.) [Slide 15] Exhortation: “What actions should we take?” or “What is this passage specifically commanding us to do that we don’t naturally do or aren’t currently doing?” We must faithfully exercise our human responsibility and agency. a. Whether we are talking about what shirt to wear, whether or not to tell the Romans about to beat you that you are a citizen, or whether you will repent and believe the gospel… we must recognize that from man’s perspective we know we have responsibility and agency. b. We must believe and be convinced that God controls everything because that isn’t what we see with our eyes. We must be told to believe it because it is only accessible with the eyes of faith. c. But that we have human responsibility and agency to act – is the reality in which we live on a consistent basis. d. Nevertheless, we may swing the pendulum too far and succumb to thumb twiddling and fleece laying. Constantly looking for a sign we are paralyzed and arrested into inaction. e. God didn’t tell the Jews to love their national pride and bigotry. He didn’t tell Paul to use his citizenship. But these people made decisions at that moment that God orchestrated to accomplish His will. f. We too must be people ready to act upon what God has revealed to us. We must pursue wisdom and counsel and act based on what we know and trust that God will not allow our destruction – even if we make a “mistake.” g. Even our sins… God can use for our good. h. Even accidents… God can use for our good. i. So exercise that human responsibility. 5.) [Slide 16] Evangelism: “What about this text points us to Jesus Christ, the gospel, and how we are restored” Salvation is a sovereign act of God wherein we are commanded to respond. a. Seeing all that we have about how God operates… I have a final plea to you who are here today. b. God promises that all who believe and continue to believe on Jesus, all who turn from their sin and keep turning from it, all who depend on Jesus and keep depending on Him – all who call on the name of Jesus will be saved. They will be forgiven. c. God certainly has elected His people for this. He has preordained this. He has determined even the good works that His people will do in their lives. d. It is all set. It is all determined… But to you… from your perspective… all you really need to know is that God has commanded you to turn from your sin and to completely trust in what Jesus has done to save you. e. So, what are you going to do about that? That is what you are responsible for. [Slide 17 (end)] Let me close with a prayer by the church father Augustine of Hippo. Framer of the universe, grant first that I may call on you. Please stoop to my level to set me free! You are God, through whom are all things, which of themselves were not. You are the God who keeps from perishing even that which would destroy itself. You are the God who created this world out of nothing—a world which all eyes see is most beautiful. You do not cause evil, but you limit that evil. And to those who flee to you for refuge, you turn evil to nothing. You are the father of truth and wisdom, the father of the true and crowning life, the father of our awakening, and of that pledge that bids us return to you. I pray this in Jesus’ name… Amen. Benediction: Now may He who has rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, Fill you with all knowledge so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God. Until we meet again, go in peace.