Is two years a long time? Well, that depends on your perspective! If you are ninety years old and are reflecting back over your life, two years seems like a tiny blip in time. If you are fourteen years old and eagerly anticipating the day when you can get your driver’s license, two years seems like an eternity. How about if you had to spend two years in prison for a crime you did not commit? I suspect that two years would seem like a long time.
Well, that is exactly the situation Paul found himself in! His trial before Governor Felix didn’t amount to anything. He neither committed a crime nor received a fair trial, and two of the best years of his life and ministry wasted away in a lonely prison cell in Herod’s Palace in Caesarea because the governor didn’t have enough guts to do the right thing. His life was still in jeopardy!
For just a minute, imagine yourself in Paul’s situation. You have dedicated yourself to serving the Lord as a missionary. You faithfully spread the gospel all over the world, but you barely survived a brutal beating at the hands of a mob who wanted to murder you and were accused of a crime you didn’t commit and. You can’t get a fair trial, you’re sitting in prison, and you have no idea what is going to happen to you. Are you picturing it?
Now I want you to answer me this: Would you feel like God was in control of your life? Honestly, if all of these things happened to you, would you feel like God was holding you in the palm of his hand? If this was your life, would you still believe in God’s sovereignty over all things? Would you still believe in God’s providence? I bet most of us like to believe we would, but these circumstances are pretty difficult. Some of us have had our confidence in God shaken by far less than this.
In this morning’s text, Luke is trying to reaffirm our confidence in God’s providence despite the difficulties we face in life. He does this by showing us how God was working in and through the difficulties in Paul’s life. As we work our way through this passage and see what God was doing in Paul’s life, I hope that we will be able to see God’s providence in action in and through the difficulties of our lives.
1.) God’s Providence & Protection (1-5)
Felix was eventually ousted from power and Festus succeeded him as governor over Palestine. Only three days after arriving at the Governor’s mansion in Caesarea, he met with the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem. He knew that if he was going to restore peace to the region, it would be important to get the Jewish religious leaders on his side. He hadn’t been in Caesarea long enough to even learn that Paul was a prisoner left over from Felix’s rule, but the chief priests and Jewish leaders did not forget that Paul was still in Roman custody. Their hostility toward him did not die down during the past two years.
The Jews tried to take advantage of this new and unsuspecting governor by requesting that Paul be brought back to Jerusalem to stand trial again. Now Festus had no idea that they were preparing to ambush and murder him along the road and it would have made complete sense for him to grant them this little favor and earn their cooperation, but Festus was a little more honorable than his predecessor and was unwilling to commit himself to any “favor” before he really knew what was going on. Instead, he mentioned that he was returning to Caesarea soon and he invited them to go with him to press charges against Paul there, if he had done anything wrong.
By requiring a trial in Caesarea, Festus unknowingly protected Paul. Here is where we see God’s providence providing protection for Paul. Festus went to Jerusalem to get the Jews on his side and he had the perfect opportunity to do so by granting them this little favor, but God’s providence was guiding Festus’ actions. He had no idea that God was using him to protect Paul’s life from danger. Paul himself had no idea that the Jews were plotting another ambush or that God was using Festus to protect him.
This is exactly the way God’s providence works. He uses all sorts of people and situations to protect us from dangers that we aren’t even aware of. So often we go through life totally unaware of the dangers that are all around us. Most days just seem like ordinary days and it is so easy to become frustrated or disappointed with God when things don’t turn out like we want them to, and yet we have no idea of how many times he has protected and delivered us from dangerous situations.
For instance, last Sunday after church I decided to go for a bicycle ride. It was a beautiful day and there had been a little restaurant I have been wanting to try in Phillipsburg, QC along Lake Champlain. I had to be back in time to get ready for our youth group BBQ, so I was in a little bit of a hurry. It was a beautiful ride over, but the restaurant was packed when I got there. When it took 25 minutes just to get a menu, I knew I wasn’t going to have enough time to eat, so I decided I would just go back home.
Already feeling frustrated because I wasted so much time waiting to eat and pressed for time, I was downright angry when it took another half hour to get through the Morse’s Line border crossing. I have been through that border crossing many times and it usually only takes one or two minutes to cross, but for some reason the guards decided to remove the passengers from the car ahead of me and take them in for finger-printing. When they told me that this would only take a few minutes, I said, “No problem!” But when a few minutes turned into a half hour I started to have a problem. Didn’t they know I was in a hurry? Didn’t they know I was almost starving to death? Didn’t they know I had to get back to do God’s work at our youth group BBQ?
Even though I was mostly frustrated with the United States Customs Service, I have to admit that I was a little frustrated with God too. It is amazing what thoughts can pass through your mind when you are standing with your bicycle in the middle of the road waiting to get back into your own country. I whispered, “God, why would you want me to just stand here and waste all of this time?”
Once I finally got through the border and realized that it was actually an hour earlier than I thought it was, I calmed down a little and began to enjoy my ride again. When I came off Morse’s Line Road and turned left onto Gore Road, it dawned on me that God may have held me up at the border to protect me from an accident with some driver who wasn’t paying attention. We all know that the worst drivers in Franklin live along the Gore Road. No, I’m just kidding. The worst drivers in Franklin live along Browns Corner Road.
In all seriousness, God’s providence may have been protecting me from some danger that I didn’t even know about. How about you? Has God’s providence ever protected you from a danger you didn’t know about? Next time you find yourself in a difficult situation, God just might be using it to protect us from danger. He did it for Paul; he does it for us!
2.) God’s Providence and Plan (6-12)
After spending a week or so in Jerusalem, Festus went back down to Caesarea and set up another trial for Paul. The religious leaders made the same bogus claims and false accusations that they did two years earlier and Paul presented the exact same defense. Again, there was not enough evidence to convict him of a crime against Jewish or Roman law, but Festus was in the same precarious position that Felix was in: there was strong political pressure to appease the Jews.
Festus asked Paul if he was willing to go back to Jerusalem and stand trial there. He knew there would be even greater risk by returning to Jerusalem and affirms that he was already standing before Caesar’s court. He declared his innocence, denied any wrong-doing, and challenged the governor to execute justice.
At this point Paul had said everything he could possibly say and he realized that he was not going to receive a fair trial in Caesarea. Therefore, he appealed to be transferred to Rome and have his case tried before the Emperor and the Roman Supreme Court. Every Roman citizen had the right to appeal to Caesar when they felt like they received an unfair trial in their local precincts. Paul knew his life was in grave danger because of the political pressure Festus was facing. He felt that his only chance of survival was to appeal to Caesar.
This is where God used providence to orchestrate his plan for Paul’s life again. Remember, back in Acts 23:11, Jesus personally appeared to Paul one night and told Paul that he would be a witness for the gospel in Rome. During the two years Paul was wasting away in prison, he had no idea how God was going to execute this plan, but now it was beginning to make sense. If he appealed to Caesar, his life would be spared and he would have the opportunity to share the gospel in the most influential city in the world. God’s plan for Paul to go to Rome happened through the providence of an appeal to Caesar.
Over the last three chapters of the book of Acts, Luke has highlighted this theme of God’s plan and providence—that is how he works through all the little details of our lives to fulfill his will. When I think about this, the image of a jigsaw puzzle come to mind. Now most of us have a hard enough time putting a one thousand piece puzzle together, but can you imagine trying to put together a one million piece puzzle? Impossible, right? For us, yes! For God, no!
So often it seems like the events of our lives are a million unrelated pieces. We instinctively believe that they somehow all fit together but we don’t see how. We have never seen the big picture, but God has! There is a big picture for all of us and every one of those little details and events is an intricate and indispensable piece. Every person we meet, every place we go, every conversation we have, every joy we experience, every frustration we face, and every pain we feel is a little piece of God’s plan for our lives.
Again, none of us has ever seen the big picture, but God has! He is the one who has created the picture. He is the master puzzle builder who is putting the picture of our lives together one piece at a time. Although we will never see the whole picture on this side of eternity, isn’t it interesting to look back through our lives and see how God has put some of the pieces together? This is God’s providence at work.
How has God used your experiences to shape who you have become? How has he used your relationships to form you? What joys has he given you to encourage you? What tragedies has he given you to mature you? What opportunities has he sent you to guide you? These are all providential puzzle pieces that form the beautiful picture of God’s plan. The providence of an appeal to Caesar was an intricate piece of God’s plan for Paul’s life and ministry in Rome. How is God using his providence to complete the picture of your life?
3.) God’s Providence and Life & Death (11)
Before I conclude this morning, notice Paul’s words in verse 11. He exhibits a willingness to die and a desire to live for Christ. If he was found deserving and it was God’s will for him to die, he was content to follow the path. He knew that even death is a piece of God’s providence. But he clearly displays a desire to live and carry on the work of the gospel in Rome. These words show that Paul had come to grips with God’s providence in life and death. Whatever happened to him, he knew that God would providentially use it to accomplish his larger plan.
Have we come to grips with God’s providence in life and death? Do we possess this same willingness to die yet desire to live? Are we willing to accept God’s providence of death if that is God’s plan for our lives?
Earlier this week I read a story about St. Francis of Assisi, a famous monk who lived in France about 800 years ago. One day he was outside hoeing his garden when someone walked up to him and asked him, “If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today?” That is a good question to ask ourselves. If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today? Do you know what St. Francis said? He said, “I would keep hoeing my garden.” He believed that he was doing exactly what God wanted him to be doing. He believed that tilling the soil and growing vegetables for himself and the other monks was important work. He believed that God’s providence led him to tend the garden and the prospect of death wasn’t going to change that!
How would the prospect of immanent death change what we do? I hope that we are living in such a way that it wouldn’t change much! I hope that we are so aware of God’s providence in our lives that we would continue to do what we have been doing. Paul was willing to accept God’s providence of death, but he desired to keep doing what he was doing. How about us?
Well, if nothing else, this passage certainly shows us God’s providence in action. God orchestrated all of these events in Paul’s life—protected him from the plots of the Jews, kept him alive, and was about to take him to Rome. I truly hope that this text has boosted your confidence in God’s providence! I hope that it will help us become more aware of his providence in our lives!