Sosthenes

[00:00:00] Have you ever been in a spot where you weren't expecting a thing? Like you, you had an expectation of something and it didn't meet that at all. [00:00:17] When we moved here, our Girls were ages 12 and 10 when we started working here. [00:00:26] They are now 17 and 15 and I spent 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade. I spent four years watching you all do homecoming and thinking, oh, you poor things. [00:00:47] Just thinking like, oh, they've got to stay up late and wait for these kids, kids to get home and they've got to trust people driving out. It's just, it's terrifying. It's. [00:00:59] I just, I, I want. I saw you guys post pictures of your teenagers dressed to the nines with that, that's a drip for you guys dressed to the nines with like just beautiful pictures and smiling and, and all I saw was, oh, that looks exhausting. [00:01:27] And now that I'm there, I realize how right I was, but also how wrong I was. [00:01:36] Because just like having children, it's exhausting for all the best reasons to have an experience where you're out in the, you're, you're. [00:01:50] I don't know if y' all have ever been in a wedding photo session where the photographer's having to. Because once you send people to the reception, you want them to wait there and be hungry for a solid 45 minutes. [00:02:07] You want them to be confused about who gets to eat what. [00:02:13] And while we're in here, take. Taking pictures and to get people to smile and like, oh, look, oh, you were smiling but you were looking. Just take pictures is stressful and Rachel does that beautifully. She actually used to be a photographer and she was one of the best and she doesn't do it anymore because school is exhausting. [00:02:32] Great, great photographer. But we, she taking these kids pictures with a phone and it's a lot, but it's not what I expected. [00:02:46] It's a different type of exhaustion. It's a different type of weariness. It's a different type of stress. The stress that's worth it. [00:02:54] So sometimes you get good surprises. [00:02:59] When we started working in Teague, Texas, someone invited us over for supper. [00:03:05] They actually had a sign up sheet at the back and people signed up to feed us for the first month and they didn't bring it by the house because Uber Eats wasn't a thing back then. [00:03:18] And it still isn't antique Texas, by the way. [00:03:23] When these people had signed up and we called them and they called us and said, what time do you want to come over? And we said, whenever you want. They Said, no, whenever y' all are ready, whenever y' all eat, y' all just come over. [00:03:37] We said, okay, maybe 6:30. We'll be there at 6:30. [00:03:43] And when we showed up, they put us at a, at a window sill almost that had been extended. And then they sat in the living room and watched TV and would occasionally fire a question back in our direction. [00:04:02] And we were talking to. They were over here and we were talking to them, eating. And then we were done. [00:04:09] We left. [00:04:11] But when we got there, they said, you said 6:30, but we eat at 5. [00:04:18] Well, this wasn't what I expected. [00:04:22] This was kind of not the point of the exercise. [00:04:29] You're always thrown off whenever something's not right. [00:04:33] Some of you have had that experience when you go to a restaurant and they don't have that one dish that you get all the time, you get it every time. And they're out of the thing that you. Well, it's because of you. You keep ordering it every day. They ran out of food and now here they don't have it and you're just befuddled and you don't know, like, what do I get? What do you get? What do you. [00:05:00] When things aren't what you expect, it throws you off just a little bit. And that's minor for us. In minor ways. In minor ways, unexpected events throw us off. Can you imagine being someone who, after centuries of promises about the day of the Lord is going to show up? And you'll know it because all the prophets have told us that God is going to show up and do something fantastic and the earth is going to quake and the mountains will fall and the seas will repent of their sins, like over and over again. You've got all of these, like, these amazing things that happen when the day of the Lord comes and you are waiting on the day of the Lord and then someone shows up in your town, a short, bow legged, happy little man. [00:05:58] I'm sorry, that's the only description of Paul we have outside of the Bible. [00:06:04] Someone in their writings spotted Paul and said he was bald, short and bow legged, walked with a hitch and was the happiest man I've ever met. [00:06:21] So this, this guy, so. [00:06:25] So small in stature that his nickname was literally shorty. [00:06:31] They didn't change his name from Saul to Paul because it was just the Greek word that rhymed. [00:06:38] Paul is this like sense of, like small person. [00:06:42] Saul doesn't mean that in Hebrew. [00:06:46] So this guy comes in and says, it's already happened. [00:06:53] It happened 20 years ago. [00:06:59] So if Jesus died in the early 30s, Paul wanders into Corinth, probably early 51, 52, around there. [00:07:12] So about 20 years ago is his message is that thing you've been waiting for all of your life, the thing y' all have been preaching about for the past 20 years. Mind you, I'm here to tell you it's happened and you missed it, but you can join in now. [00:07:32] His name was Jesus. He lived in Israel. He was a. He was the son of a carpenter. He was the son of God as well. He made. They crucified him. You may have heard of that. [00:07:44] They crucified him. They. He resurrected. And he's alive now, sitting on the throne. He is our king. That's the message. And I can imagine being a person in Corinth, a Jewish person or a God fearing person in Corinth who goes to the tabernacle every Sabbath and prays for the day of the Lord. And then someone shows up and says, well, you're not just Thomas that went to the store when Jesus came to the house. [00:08:13] It happened 20 years ago, two decades ago, Jesus raised from the dead. [00:08:19] And so all of them are a little thrown off now. Some of them, as he goes, as he goes to the Corinthian synagogue, as he goes to the Corinthian synagogue and teaches about Jesus. [00:08:38] Some of them say, well, then let's get, get us signed up. [00:08:44] The leader of the synagogue there says, I'm with Jesus now. [00:08:50] Yes, Jesus is the Messiah. My Messiah is Jesus. Yes. And some of them are spitting mad. [00:09:03] I know that's possible because I've worked in restaurants. [00:09:11] I am. I get, I get that some people, when confronted with what they're not expecting, can roll with it and some people can't. [00:09:28] It's human nature. It's not that one group is worse or better than the other. It's just. Sometimes it's just what you like. It's your personality. It's just some people can go with the flow and some people would like to control the flow. [00:09:46] And I get it. We need both. [00:09:49] So I'm not angry here at the Jewish people. I get it that the people who didn't know, and they were, they didn't know what to make of this. [00:10:03] But Paul has a lot of success in Corinth in the early 50s. [00:10:09] He has a lot of success. He stays there a year and a half. [00:10:14] God makes promises to him. God comes to him and says, stay here. You won't, you won't be hurt. [00:10:25] He meets, he meets Aquila and Priscilla in Corinth. And that in scripture is the only time Aquila's name is mentioned first, because their work. Priscilla seems to be the predominant leader in the church. [00:10:41] And so from there on out, he's. It's Priscilla and Aquila. [00:10:44] But he meets that couple there and two other tent makers just like Paul. And they work together throughout the week. And then he goes into the synagogues on the weekends and proclaims Jesus as Messiah. [00:11:00] And some people love it and some people, it just anchors them. [00:11:05] Well, you know what happens whenever people get angry? [00:11:09] They go to talk to the manager. [00:11:15] And the manager here is Gallio. [00:11:20] Acts 18. [00:11:21] We'll start in verse 12. [00:11:25] But when Gallio was proconsul of Achai, the Jews made a united tack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal. [00:11:35] Luke does this whenever he writes. The Jews are the Jewish leaders, the people who represent the people that they are. So like, the head of the organization usually is the one that people look to for consensus. [00:11:49] But a lot of the Jewish leaders had been replaced because once you are, Jesus is the Messiah kind of person, you're not typically the head of the synagogue anymore. [00:12:00] Okay, so excuse me. Goodness. [00:12:08] So they go to Gallio and they say, this man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the law. Okay, this is a weird spot for Gallio. Gallio is not a Jewish person. [00:12:28] You may have guessed that. [00:12:30] He's a Roman governor in charge of a ki. He kind of oversees some things. He sits probably in a marketplace type area and can be approached on days like this. And they bring a bunch of people. They, they, they, they say Paul, Paul has been rabbling, rousing up the rabble rousers. [00:12:51] And they say he's just, he's teaching things that are against God. Do you have, do you have water somewhere that you can. [00:13:05] I need to get him one of those Gatorade bottles that they spray in helmets. [00:13:11] That'd be fun. [00:13:14] Did you hear that? [00:13:17] Thank you. [00:13:31] Wouldn't it be funny if I just downed the whole thing just then? [00:13:37] He's teaching things contrary to law. Well, there's two laws we got going on here, Roman law, and we have the Jewish law. And what they're really upset about is a little bit of both. [00:13:50] They think he's teaching contrary to the Jewish law, but what they really think they can get him on is that he's maybe teaching things that would be against your guys law. [00:14:02] One of the first times that the Jews are trying to publicly distance themselves from Paul's message as like a group. [00:14:16] But just as Paul was about to speak, and Paul loves to speak in court, I think he was probably a little upset that Gallio just interjected here. Paul was about to give a good speech. [00:14:29] He's about to probably convert Gallio. [00:14:32] But just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, if it were a matter of crime or serious villainy, not just, you know, jovial villainy, but crime or serious villainy, I would be justified in accepting the complaint of you Jewish leaders. But since it is a matter of questions or words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves. [00:15:04] I do not wish to be a judge of these matters. Now Gallio has actually taken a pretty responsible role here. [00:15:12] His the Caesar at the time, Claudius had just recently kicked all the Jews out of Rome. [00:15:21] That's why Priscilla and Aquila were in Corinth in the first place. [00:15:25] That he says in his own writings. [00:15:30] Claudius says they were having too many disputes about this person. And he spells it C R E S T U S Chrestus. [00:15:40] There's a good chance he probably just misspelled Christus. [00:15:44] They were having arguments about Christ and so he kicks them all out. [00:15:51] Gallio doesn't quite have that power. He can't play religious ping pong with the Emperor. [00:16:00] The Emperor has sent a lot of Jews to Corinth. [00:16:04] Now Gallio has to kind of deal with it. [00:16:08] And he's saying, I'm not getting in to your disputes. [00:16:16] And he dismissed them from the tribunal. [00:16:21] Well, when going to the manager doesn't work. [00:16:27] We've all been there. [00:16:30] You gotta find somebody to beat as a crowd really, you're amped up. [00:16:39] And so they grab someone. [00:16:42] Let's go to verse 17 Matt. [00:16:47] Then all of them seized Sosthenes, the official of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of these things. Ignore the problem, ignore the argument, let it go. [00:17:07] Their Sosthenes probably beaten for his own. You know, it's funny, we're not clear who beats him. [00:17:14] It's not clear whether it's the Jewish leaders or it's just the people in the market. [00:17:22] But they grabbed them, all of them, that's all. We're told Sosthenes doesn't stand a chance. [00:17:33] But he is the ire of this group. [00:17:38] And so I'm guessing he's the ire of this group because he's, he's siding with the rabble rousers, that is that if you wouldn't have, if you wouldn't have Believed Paul Sosthenes, you're an official here. [00:18:03] We can't get you to step down. [00:18:08] We're going to have a public beating. [00:18:12] We don't do public beatings anymore because we have Twitter. [00:18:19] So they drag him Sosthenes out and they beat Sosthenes. [00:18:25] They had in their mind a reason to. And that big systems are not beaten by big systems. [00:18:38] They are cracked by brave individuals at the bottom. [00:18:43] Corrupt big systems are not beaten by overtaking other big systems. It's just these little people at the bottom who make small little choices about things. [00:18:53] And Sosthenes, in the face of a Messiah, showed up 20 years ago. [00:19:03] Well, let's follow the Christ. [00:19:08] Jesus showed up. [00:19:11] Let's follow Jesus. [00:19:15] When someone in our church decides to follow Jesus, we celebrate them. [00:19:20] We get up on the stage and we get as close as we can to their choice. [00:19:26] We get as close as we can to their. To their union with God. [00:19:33] We sing, we celebrate. [00:19:39] Sosthenes was dragged into the court and beaten. [00:19:47] I get being confused, and I get. I see still to this day how when people are confused, they get angry. [00:19:55] And they still do it in the public square. [00:20:00] Just ignorance, agitated. [00:20:05] I can see it. [00:20:10] But Sosthenes was made. They tried to make an example out of him. [00:20:23] And there he stands with Paul. [00:20:30] One day when someone from Chloe's house show up, they rap on Paul's door, and Paul answers. [00:20:41] They say, we've got to tell you what's happening in Corinth. [00:20:48] It's not pretty. [00:20:52] Paul says, okay, yeah, okay, come in. [00:20:57] And Chloe's household sits down with Paul. And they say, okay. Some people are saying that they follow you. And some people say that they follow Peter. And some people are saying they follow Apollos. And Paul says, who's Apollos? [00:21:12] They say, oh, he's a great speaker. And Paul goes, we'll see if you've read First Corinthians three times this week. That's funny. [00:21:23] Paul has this, like, weird rivalry with Apollos that seeps out occasionally. He's like, yeah, he's a great speaker, but I didn't come to you trying to speak. Great. [00:21:35] It's funny. Go read it. [00:21:39] But they're saying, we're having communion. And the people who own the house, they're eating and they're getting drunk before the slaves show up from work and before the poor people show up and we're tired and hungry and all the food's gone. [00:22:00] It's not even communion anymore. [00:22:06] And he hears all this, and he looks at Sosthenes he said we should write them a letter. [00:22:24] You know, over and over again. I say, in Corinthians, Paul says. Paul says. And yes, it's probably a lot of Paul's voice and Paul's instruction, but when Paul writes them back, he says, paul called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and the brother of us, our brother Sosthenes. [00:22:58] There is no. He doesn't hear her say, you remember the one who got beat in Acts 18, but I'm 90% sure it's the same guy that they remember a time when the message was so overwhelming that they would. [00:23:21] That he would give up of self to help, to stand firm in it. [00:23:29] He's calling them back to their roots. [00:23:34] And their roots are this newly converted man who's an official being beaten in the streets. [00:23:48] It's one of the most powerful things Paul can say to this church. [00:23:53] Our brother Sosthenes. [00:23:58] Our brother Sosthenes, he. [00:24:06] He's writing to you with me and to this church of God in Corinth, to those who are sacrificed, I mean sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together. [00:24:22] To all those who in every place call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. [00:24:31] Notice here he's already talking about the unity that needs to happen in this church. [00:24:38] Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. [00:24:45] May you make a stand this week. [00:24:49] A stand in Jesus that is so pronounced. [00:24:54] It's not big, it's not in the streets, I promise you. It's not online, but it's with your neighbor, it's with your co worker, it's with your loved one, it's with your family member who irritates the fire out of you. [00:25:12] To have real conversations. [00:25:18] I was with a bunch of ministers first part of this week. [00:25:23] And one of the despair, one of the big despairs among ministers is the divide in our culture right now. [00:25:36] It's a big divide in our culture. [00:25:40] And one of the things that I kept speaking up about, because this is one of my little hobby horses, is that I don't think the divide is as big as online would make it seem. [00:25:54] Because I sit around the table with people I love who believe different things and they're closer than you would expect. [00:26:05] They love each other more than you could imagine. [00:26:11] And what we see when we wander into the Internet is this like this big fight that's happening that's on purpose. [00:26:26] And it's to sell you tires, get off of your computer and find Your way to a table, that little bit's for free. [00:26:42] But your public, your public stance in this world, you're standing in this. Jesus is my Messiah, Jesus is my Christ, and I am willing to, to do anything for that. [00:26:58] So we're going to take a stand like Sosthenes. [00:27:05] And then Sosthenes wrote the book that calls for unity in the sharpest and clearest of words from the jump, both their Savior and ours, both their Lord and ours. [00:27:27] Paul and Sosthenes calling us together to sit around the table and have hope in the resurrection. [00:27:38] That's what we need this week. [00:27:41] Sit around the table and have hope in the resurrection. [00:27:46] Whatever you need this morning, you know, in times like this, we do need to be shaped. [00:27:58] And so you may need to come talk to me and say, hey, I'm struggling with this or that. [00:28:03] I've got this going on. I need prayers. You may need to go grab somebody at the back. [00:28:07] One of our prayer team members will be back there praying for you whether you like it or not. And if you would like to, like, go say something specific, go talk to them, but you may need to go grab that person that you've argued with online this week and see them, hug them, and say, I'm sorry, that wasn't the place. [00:28:33] You may need to go to a person and have a difficult conversation in the street. [00:28:42] And so if we are to be the people of God, if we are to be the people of God, we are going to have to live that out publicly in real world spaces. [00:29:00] If you need anything this morning, whatever you need to do, please do it now. While we stand and while we sing.