Go with me back to Acts 21. Acts 21. Last Wednesday night
we saw the gospel in the names of the cities that Paul and the
men who were traveling with him, we saw the gospel in the definition
of the names of those cities that they went through. The first
six verses is where we were. And I want to begin tonight by
giving you a couple more definitions. There are five cities in our
text that we just read. And in those we see the gospel
like we did last time. The gospel is there too. And
then I want us to get into the heart of the message. I titled
this message Faith grace, growth, and rest. Faith, grace, growth,
and rest. Now in verse 7 we have two of
these five cities. The first one is Tyre. Verse
7 says, And when we had finished our course from Tyre, that name
means a rock. A rock. Christ is our rock, but
for some reason this flesh doesn't get it. This flesh doesn't get
it. Christ is our rock, but for some
reason this flesh just does not get it. This word is constantly
saying Christ is our rock. And this flesh goes, yeah. Alright, now I'm in a mess. I'm in a mess. I'm going down. This whole thing is going down. I'm in quicksand. I think I'm
in quicksand. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? And this
word says, I tell you exactly what you're going to do. You're
going to stand on Christ the rock. And we say, oh yeah. Thanks for telling me. And then
we go right out that door right there and we go, what in the
world am I going to do? You're going to stand on Christ
the rock. Oh yeah. I can't believe I forgot. What
in the world am I going to do? Stand on Christ the Rock. What in the world am I going
to do? Isn't that what we do? Why do we come all this time?
Why do we keep coming? Why do we keep coming? Why do
we keep coming and keep coming? We were just there three times
on one day. You're going to stand on that
rock. Oh yeah, that's the answer. Faith, grace, growth and rest,
all of that comes by seeing Christ. Seeing who Christ is, seeing
what he's done for us. He's our rock. He's our rock. Verse 7, and when
we had finished our course from Tyre, we came to Ptolemaeus. That name means war. War. Our rock went to war for
us. He went to war for us. Exodus
15 says, the Lord is a man of war. He's a man of war. Captain of
the host. He battled death. He battled
sin. He battled hell for us. In verse 8, the name Caesarea. The next day we that were of
Paul's company departed and came unto Caesarea. That name means
severed. severed. He was severed from
God for us. Severed from God. Isaiah 53 says
He was cut off out of the land of the living. The Father said
for the transgression of my people was He stricken. You know, we piddle down here
in our temporary things, don't we? We know everything is temporary.
We piddle down here in our temporary things. We stress over our temporary
things while every eternal weighty matter that had to be dealt with
was accomplished by Him. Every single one of them. The
things that were impossible to man He took care of it. He just took
care of it. He redeemed us back to God. Impossible. Impossible to man. He took care of it. The younger
of my two was coloring a picture not too
long ago at our kitchen counter. And I don't remember if we were
going somewhere and it's time to leave or if it was time for
bed, I don't remember what it was. But I said, it's time to
put that down, put it away, we got to go. And she said to me,
but daddy, this is my homework. She said, I have to turn this
into my teacher. And I thought at that moment
in time, and I thought this in love. I did not think this condescendingly. I thought this endearingly. In
love, I thought, how simple. How simple. That's all you have to be stressed
about. That's all you have in life.
And I was happy for her. So happy for her. That's a good
place to be. Stay there as long as you can. That's all you have
to be stressed about. I've got to finish coloring my
picture. I thought, and thankfully so,
you don't know anything about demands and deadlines. You don't know anything about
the heaviness of being a provider. And you know what? Neither do
we. Neither do we. We piddle down
here in our temporary things. We get our bank statement out
and we color a little bit in our coloring book. That's what
we're doing. I'm going to get my coloring
book and I'm going to color. While the unsearchable riches of Christ
await us in glory. Unsearchable riches. The one
who is providing for me. owns all the hills, all the cattle
on the hills, all the gold in the mines, the silver in the
mines, and everybody's heart who has their hands on it. The unsearchable riches of Christ,
while all that's awaiting us, we're trying to get this coloring
book to exactly $127.43. Wealth that can never be told. But see, here's the problem.
This is all I have for the rest of the week and I still have
to make my cell phone payment. God said, I made your sin payment. I made your sin payment. I bought
a place in eternity for you. It is paid in full. Free and clear. Don't stress
over your cell phone payment. Don't do it. But in his goodness,
he provides our cell phone payment too. You know that? He takes
care of it all. I was watching her at that counter
and I thought, oh, to go back to that. Why don't we? Why don't we? living under our
father's care. Why don't we? We have a rock
who went to war and was severed for us to redeem us back to God
Almighty for all eternity. In verse 10, the name Judea,
as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judea. That
name means, He shall be praised. We're going to praise Him. We're
going to praise Him. David said, For His goodness
and for His wonderful works to the children of men. Everything
He does is wonderful, just wonderful. And in verse 11, the name Jerusalem
means, Double peace, a double portion of peace. Now because
of that, because of all that right there, because of that
glorious good news right there, this ought to be the result in
us. This ought to be what reigns
in us. We're going to, I'm going to start back at verse 7, we're
going to work our way through these verses and at the end we're
going to see everything he's saying. Verse 7, when we had
finished our course from Tyre, We came to Ptolemaeus and saluted
the brethren and abode with them one day. And the next day, we
that were of Paul's company." Chapter 20 told us who those
men were. If you look at chapter 20, verse
4, it says, they accompanied him into Asia. Sopater of Berea
and of the Thessalonians Aristarchus and Secundus and Gaius of Derbe,
and Timotheus, and of Asia, Tychicus, and Trophimus, and then also
Luke, the man who was writing this book. Luke was with him
too. Back in chapter 21, verse 8 says, The next day we that
were of Paul's company departed and came unto Caesarea, and we
entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one
of the seven, and abode with him. Back in chapter 6, the apostles
were becoming too busy serving tables. That's what they called
it. Serving tables. Handling things
that just needed to be taken care of in the church. And so
they appointed seven men to be deacons. Men who would handle
things that had to be done. take care of things so that they
could give themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry
of the word. That's what they told them. We
need to give ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
They said, you men just handle stuff. You just take care of
it. So we won't be hindered from
studying and preaching, studying and preaching. And I want to
tell you something that is a great blessing to me. This is such
a great blessing to me. I believe that the Lord has given
you men and women a heart to handle things that need to be
taken care of. It is such a great blessing.
The physical needs of this ministry, in doing that, you have no idea
how vitally active you are in this ministry. If you did not
handle the things that need to be taken care of, they would
all come to me and studying would be put on the back burner and
this ministry would suffer. It would really suffer. In doing
what you do, we are together declaring this gospel to the
best of our ability. The things that you do are enabling
this ministry to declare this message and I'm grateful. I'm
grateful to the Lord for giving the heart that he's given to
everyone here. Philip was one of those men.
He was one of those men. Philip was also a preacher. He was a deacon and he was a
wonderful preacher. He was never a pastor but the
Lord used him mightily. He was the one who preached to
the Ethiopian eunuch. Isaiah 53 is where that eunuch
was reading. Led as a lamb to the slaughter,
he preached Christ to him and God saved that eunuch and then
Philip baptized him. And I'm positive that Philip
preached to his family, they have his own household. Verse
9 says, the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did
prophesy. Now they were not preachers,
these four Young ladies were not preachers. They did not stand
up in public and preach. That's forgiven, forbidden. It does not say that they even
expounded on the scriptures. What it's saying is they foretold
things that hadn't happened yet. We're about to see Agabus do
the same thing. The reason they did that was to fulfill scripture.
You can turn, if you want to, to Joel chapter 2, or I'll just
read it to you, one of the two. If you have a Bible like mine,
it's page 1138. But in Joel chapter 2 verse 28,
it says, it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out
my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters
shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams,
your young men shall see vision. The only reason that those four
ladies prophesied was to fulfill scripture. It had to be, so there
it is. And verse 10 in our text says,
as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judea a
certain prophet named Agabus. This is the same man who said
back in chapter 11 that there would be a great dearth, a great
famine throughout all the land, and there was. Verse 11, and
when he was come unto us, he took Paul's girdle, which was
his belt, probably it was a rope, he took Paul's girdle and bound
his own hands and feet and said, thus saith the Holy Ghost, So
shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle,
and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles." He told
Paul, you are going to Jerusalem, you are going to be bound, and
they are going to deliver you over to the Gentiles, the Romans.
And that's what they did. As we read on down, that's what
we'll find. They did just that. Verse 12,
and when we heard these things, both we, the ones who are traveling
with Paul, both we and they of that place besought him not to
go up to Jerusalem. Please don't do this. Please
don't do, we don't want this. We do not want this. Now these
men just heard a man say, Thus saith the Holy Ghost." And their
response was, we don't want this. Don't do this. We don't want
to have anything to do with this. Every work of our God, every
single thing that He does, is it good or is it bad? Is it right or is it wrong? Is the path predetermined or
is it random chance? We say these things. We know
the answer, don't we? You didn't have to ponder any
of those. We know what it is. Why then does this flesh say,
I don't want that. No, I don't want this. Why does
this flesh say that? I wish I could answer that. Why
does this flesh say that? Whatever happens, whatever comes,
I didn't want that. You know what I'm saying? You
know what Gabe Stoniker says when he says that? I don't want
good. I don't want right. I want what I want. Verse 12,
When we heard these things, both we and they of that place besought
him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, What mean
ye to weep and break my heart? He said, You're breaking my heart.
You're breaking my heart. Everybody's crying. He said,
I hate seeing you like this. Everybody's crying. Everybody's sad. But
he said, I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at
Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. What God puts in a, in a center,
in the heart of a center for Christ is real. It's real. He's saying, Christ
is my life. You're breaking my heart. He
said, Christ is my life. Christ is all. He's everything
that I need. He's everything. He's everything. And we have a hope in Him. And
we can trust Him. The Holy Ghost said, this is
what's going to happen. We can trust Him. We can trust Him. We're secure in Him. We don't
know the reason for these things. We don't know the outcome of
these things. But He does. He does. And we can trust Him.
Verse 14, And when He would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying,
The will of the Lord be done. The will of the Lord be done.
Now here's the reason why I titled this message Faith, Grace, Growth,
and Rest. It's because I don't know of
a greater example of faith than that right there. I don't know
of a greater example of faith than that right there. The will
of the Lord be done. The will of the Lord be done.
Some of you have heard the story of brother Walter Groover. There
was a time years and years ago, long time ago, he went into a
village. He used to go into the villages
and he would set up a projector and he had a short film he would
show and then he would preach. And if the Lord brought fruit
from it, then somebody would come up and ask him We will hear
that again. And if not, he went on to the
next village. So he went into this place and
he preached and some people heard him. There was a young man there,
an adult, but he was a young man who absolutely hated what
he heard. He hated Walter. He hated his
message. And he told him, get out of this
village and if you come back, I will kill you. I will kill you." The problem was there was also
a woman there who fell in love with the message. She fell in
love with Christ and with his grace and she said, please come
back and preach this gospel again. The man said, if you do, I will
kill you. So Walter told the woman, I'll
come back, but I'm going to. He had to go. It was going to
be a certain period of time before he could come back. And as he
was going out of town, the man said, if you come back, I will
kill you. Now, do you think that affected
Walter? You better believe it. You think that rolled through
his brain a couple of times? He went back. I can only imagine
him driving up or walking up or however he got there. And
when he walked into the village, all the people came and told
him, the man who wanted to kill you was just, however, a day,
two days a week, was just trying to get a coconut out of a tree.
And he fell out of that tree and died. Boy, wasn't Walter
lucky. That was God Almighty. Do my
prophets no harm. The word of the Lord had free
course in that place. Don't fear man, fear God. You know what God gave that man
the grace to do and say in his heart? I cannot imagine. I can't imagine. The only way
a man could do that is if God put him in that position and
gave him the grace and the faith and all of that to be able to
say, the will of the Lord be done. The will of the Lord be done.
That's faith. That's faith. It's also grace.
We preach grace. Ephesians 2 says, by grace are
you saved. What is grace? By grace are you
saved. What is grace? It's the will
of the Lord being done. That's what it is. Salvation
is of the Lord. It's His will and it's His choice
and it's His right being done. Aren't you so glad that that's
His will? Aren't you so glad that's what
He wants? That's what God teaches His child. That's the heart of
a believer. be done. That is the evidence
of saving grace. God reveals to a sinner, I did
not get saved, God saved me. The will of the Lord be done. Not unto us, O Lord, unto thy
name give glory. The will of the Lord be done.
The commandment is, seek the Lord while he may be found. David
said, when you said seek my face, That's when I started seeking.
When you said that, that saving grace, the will of the Lord be
done. That's all we have to say, isn't it? I would love to have
the kind of faith that honestly says that. Whatever the situation
is, the will of the Lord be done. This is our message we preach
here, the will of the Lord be done. Not our will, not at all. That is also growth in a believer. It's grace and it's growth. There is a big difference, and
I'm preaching to myself, there's a big difference in knowing something
and living something. You know what? There's a big,
big difference in knowing something and living something. We say
actions speak louder than words. Well, here I am preaching. Here
I stand up and preach. The will of the Lord be done.
Come on, everybody. The will of the Lord be done.
Here is an action that can only come from spiritual
growth. Here is an action that cannot
be accomplished by a sinner or by a believer until spiritual
growth is given. Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. That cannot be accomplished until
spiritual growth is given. You cannot stand still and say
the will of the Lord be done. You just can't do it, not until
God gives true spiritual growth. My life, all I've ever responded
with is, I'm gonna. Here's the new situation I'm
in. We're always in a brand new situation. Here's the situation
I'm in, and I'm gonna get myself in trouble. That's what I'm gonna
do, get myself in trouble. True spiritual growth says stand
still, The will of the Lord be done. Our Lord said, pray this
way. Our Father which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done. In earth as it is in heaven.
Last thing, there's rest in that. There's true rest in that. Persecution for us, we talk about
being persecuted. Persecution for us today is name
calling. That's all the persecution we've
ever had to endure is name calling. You know, they call you this
or they'll call you that. Persecution for them back then
was imprisonment and death. Paul said in verse 13, I am ready
not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name
of the Lord Jesus. If that's what God has for me,
Paul said amen. Amen. Yeah, but Paul, it's probably
not going to go the way you would like for it to go. It's probably
not going to go the way you would have chosen for yourself. Paul
said, if it is truly God's will, amen. If it's truly God's will,
so be it. That's what I want to see happen.
Now there is I want to walk out of here having gotten a hold
of this. This is what I want to walk out of here having gotten
a hold of. There is true contentment and true happiness and true peace
waiting for a believer as soon as God gives him a desire in
his heart to want the will of the Lord to be done. I'm going
to say that again because I want to get this. There is true contentment. That's all we want. We don't
want anything but contentment. There is true contentment and
true happiness. We get stuff because we think
it'll make us happy. And then we find out it didn't.
Well, shoot, now I've got to get something else. All right,
there is true contentment and true happiness and true peace
waiting for a believer as soon as God gives him a desire in
his heart to want the will of the Lord to be done. We say that
because we know we're supposed to. But there's true contentment,
true happiness, true peace waiting for a believer as soon as God
gives him that heart to want the will of the Lord to be done. That's where contentment is found
in his will. That's where happiness and peace
is found. in not only bowing to his will
but desiring it. Desiring it. Rejoicing in it.
No matter what it is. No matter what it is. I'm going
to show you an example of that and then we'll close. Acts chapter
5. Turn with me to Acts chapter
5. Peter and the other apostles
right here were arrested for preaching the gospel. They were
brought before a council, Acts chapter 5 verse 27. And when
they had brought them, they set them before the council and the
high priest asked them saying, did not we straightly command
you that you should not teach in this name? And behold, you
filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's
blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles
answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than man. The
God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged
on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his
right hand to be a prince and a savior, for to give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses
of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath
given to them that obey him. When they heard that, they were
cut to the heart and took counsel to slay them. That's it, you're
dead. But this man Gamaliel, he said,
wait, let's let them go, let's wait and see what happens. Now
look at verse 40. And to him they agreed, and when
they had called the apostles and beaten them, Now they wanted
these men dead. You think it was a slap on the
wrist? Here's your ticket and a slap on the wrist. They beat
these men. They beat them and they beat
them. And when they had beaten them, they commanded that they
should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. And
the apostles departed from the presence of the council rejoicing
that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple and in
every house they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. They went away rejoicing. You know, probably look like
this, just so happy. Rejoicing. Rejoicing. Why? The will of the Lord was
done. The will of the Lord was done,
whatever that may be. David said, it is good for me
that I have been afflicted. Who says that? A believer that
God has had mercy on put something in here. The Lord's will, that's
where I find my happiness, that's where I find my peace, that's
where I find my contentment. Lord, if you will, if you will,
give us faith, grace, growth, and rest in being able to say
the will of the Lord be done. Let us mean it. Let us live it. Let us want it, want it, and
let us find happiness and contentment in it for Christ's sake. All
right, let's stand together.