Acts 25: Resurrection Still Matters

We read Acts 25 and follow Festus, Agrippa, and Paul to the moment where everything hinges on one line: a certain Jesus who was dead, whom Paul asserts to be alive. We trace why the resurrection sits at the core of Christian faith and how it gives real hope for grief, aging, and everyday fear.

• Festus inherits Paul’s case and seeks Agrippa’s insight 
• The charge narrows to the claim that Jesus is alive 
• Early Christian belief centers on resurrection, not as a late idea 
• Jewish expectation and the Messiah reframed by the empty tomb 
• Modern doubt, hard hearts, and the need for God’s move 
• Practical hope for death, grief, and getting older 
• Prayer for our church to live with resurrection hope

God bless you guys. I love you. And I'll end it with a prayer for you guys and just pray wherever you are.

Transcript

Symbols Of Faith And Their Limits

Reading Festus, Agrippa, And Paul

The Line That Changes Everything

Was Resurrection Central Or Later

Jewish Expectation Meets An Empty Tomb

SPEAKER_00 0:20

We're jumping back into the book of Acts, Acts chapter 25 today. And we have a good bit of reading and we'll read it probably again next week. And we will end up uh briefly focusing on a particular area in this scripture. And next week we will expand on this. To be honest, I want to save most of this for in person. So I'm a little selfish in sort of minimizing uh this service. Uh so it will be a little shorter than normal, but at least we'll be on the same page next week. Uh as we jump into this, when we think of Christianity, what are some images, some symbols that come to mind? Maybe you've seen the fish, right? Uh not nearly as popular as what it was uh when I was growing up. I used to see those little fish on the back of a lot of cars. It helped that we had the fish, which was a Christian radio station as well. What about WWJD? Remember those bracelets from back in the day? Um might make you think of Christianity or might make you think of uh people with multicolored arms. Uh maybe you think of just a church building. You see a church building and you think Christianity and church. And of course, we have the cross itself, which is probably out of all of those the most popular one for good reason, by the way. That being said, the significance of the cross, what happened on the cross, is finalized by the event that is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Uh, we have Good Friday, of course, but the holy week ends with a celebration that is Easter. It all works in conjunction together, but the resurrection is the final sign, it's the final step, it's the final brushstroke of what is salvation. It's it's what finalizes it. It's this beautiful, uh, amazing thing. And the cross, of course, is it's foolishness. It is significant. It does mean something special, but it's the resurrection that makes people scoff and makes people sit in anguish in between belief and unbelief. That being said, well we will get a glimpse of that in today's scripture, Acts chapter 25, verses 13 through 27. You can pause this and go find a Bible if you want to, or you can just listen along to the soothing sound of my voice. I'm joking, of course. Verse 13. Now when some days had passed, Agrippa, the king, and Bernice arrived at Caesarea and greeted Festus. And as they stayed there many days, Festus laid Paul's case before the king, saying, There is a man left prisoner by Felix, and when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priest and the elders of the Jews laid out their case against him, asking for a sentence of condemnation against him. I answered them that it was not the custom of the Romans to give up any one before the accused meet the accusers face to face, and had an opportunity to make his defense concerning the charges laid against him. So when they came together here I made no delay, but on the next day took my seat on the tribunal and ordered the man to be brought. When the accuser stood up, they brought no charge in his case of such evils as I supposed. Rather they had certain points of dispute with him about their own religion, and pay attention here, and about a certain Jesus who was dead, but whom Paul asserted was alive. Being at a loss at how to investigate these questions, I asked whether he wanted to go to Jerusalem and be tried there regarding them, but when Paul had appealed uh appealed to be kept in custody for the decision of the emperor, I ordered him to be held until I could send him to Caesar. Then Agrippa said to Festus, I would like to hear the man myself tomorrow. And he said, You will hear him. Verse twenty three. So the next day Agrippa and Bernice came with great pomp and circumstance, and they entered the audience hall with the military tribunes and the prominent men of the city. Then at the command of Festus, Paul was brought in, and Festus said, Key Agrippa and all who were present with us, you see this man about whom the whole Jewish people petitioned me, both in Jerusalem and here, shouting that he ought to not live any longer. But I found that he had done nothing deserving death, and as he himself appealed to the emperor, I decided to go ahead and send him, but I have nothing definite to write to my Lord about him. Therefore I have brought him before you all, especially before you, King Agrippa, so that, after we have examined him, I may have something to write, for it seems to me unreasonable in sending a prisoner not to indicate the charges against him. What we have here for a large portion of the scripture is Festus recounting part of chapter twenty four, and of course, part of the first act of chapter twenty five, which we covered last week. Festus inherited this problem, Paul, from Felix. And after his examination in the tribunal, he can't find clarity about the situation. The real reality is he is fairly clear that Paul is innocent, but because of political pressure, there's nothing he can do. And now Paul has appealed to Caesar, and Festus doesn't know how to sit essentially send Paul off with a write-up with the proper information to give to Caesar so he knows what's going on. He wants someone more familiar with the Jewish people and their religion to add clarity and judgment to this particular issue. And so who Festus seeks help from are these people, King Agrippa and this woman named Bernice, which uh he's related to King Agrippa. There's some perhaps some incestuous stuff going on here that doesn't really matter. Uh, but they weren't necessarily great people, but they were related to King Herod uh of Jesus' birth stories. They were Jewish, and according to Rome, they were the key of the Jews, and they were well versed in the Jewish culture and religion. All of this is interesting. I love history. I was a history major, so I love all this stuff. I love digging into the details, but ultimately what drew my attention in this, in all of the scriptures that we just read, was this thing that Festus says in verse 19. And the only way I can describe how this sort of stood out to me would be to if you were to imagine a word search puzzle, which Tara is obsessed with right now, and you look at that word search puzzle, and there's only one word in the word search puzzle, and it's very obvious, and it's in the middle of the puzzle, and it just sticks out like a sore thumb. That's what verse 19 is for me. So we have this narrative happening, and we have this background info being being shared. And then in the midst of all this, there is this little theological detail that I love. Verse 19. Rather, they had certain points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus who was dead, but whom Paul asserted was alive. I love it. A certain Jesus who was dead, but whom Paul asserted to be alive. Which I just love it. I love it. You can see a bit of ignorance on this point in uh in certain believers and non-believers alike that you rub elbows with or that you see and experience in this day and age. You you have famous uh the famous uh sort of deconstructionist theologian like Marcus Borg, who essentially built his entire career on a Christian theology uh that was based with a big asterisk uh next to the resurrection. He's very doubtful. In fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't believe in the resurrection, still calls himself a Christian, still writes theology books. People eat it up, even though it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And then you have people who somehow argue that their resurrection was a late-developing aspect of Christianity. Like as they were collecting the Bible 300, 400 years later, after the uh death and resurrection of Christ, then they started coming up with the resurrection. And they, against clear textual proof, like we just read, and against external proofs that you find in several uh Roman documents, say the first Christians really just liked this Jesus person. They didn't really believe in the resurrection, or that they somehow manufacture this resurrection and to make this new religious group and to inspire growth. Well, the evidence in the scriptures and the evidence from from academics, uh uh saved and unsaved alike, they don't support these claims. From the very beginning, from very early on, it was the resurrection that proved that Jesus uh was divine of nature, that he was perfect in righteousness. And and it was the the launch of something new for the world. Uh, the resurrection was central. It was it was it was right next to the cross. In fact, it sort of enabled and submitted the cross as mattering because if Christ stayed dead, the cross doesn't matter. But he didn't stay dead, he rose, and so the cross matters more because of the resurrection. In fact, Festus seems to grasp the importance of the resurrection in the Jews' objections to Paul. If the resurrection is true, then from a Jewish perspective, there wouldn't be a way for them to not admit that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied about in the Old Testament. In fact, Paul will point that out very soon. Many Jews did end up coming to that conclusion. Don't forget that all the first Christians were Jewish people. They believed, they understood, they saw the connection, they understood the significance of the resurrection as it applied to their Messiah and what turned out to be the Messiah of all of creation. But there were many who simply stopped their ears up and refused to listen to the revelation of the resurrection. By the way, people still do that today. There are people who can hear a thousand rational arguments for God. They can know a lot of great Christians, but it just won't matter. Their minds are made up, their hearts are hard, and what they need is a move of God in their life, which hopefully we can be involved in sometimes, but they need God. Festus perhaps understands and senses a little bit of this resurrection issue, but it will be King Agrippa, a Jew, who would be well versed in the Old Testament, who will end up recognizing the real significance of the resurrection as Paul delivers his defense. We'll see that play out in the next service. So what? What does the resurrection mean for us now? Does the resurrection still matter today? Uh, if it does matter, how does that play out in your daily life as a believer? If the cross is the symbol that we choose to represent us so often, how can we make sure the resurrection plays just uh just as large of a role in our life as the cross? Many of these questions um we will address next week. But I do want to end on this. The resurrection gives you hope. It gives you help. It is it's practical hope for practical problems that we all face. The the problem that every single person will face in their life is that you will lose loved ones and you yourself at some point will face your own death. What every human has to experience that in the resurrection is the hope that transforms uh that fear and that anxiety. Let the resurrection give you hope this morning. Let it change the way that you face your own mortality, let it change the way that you face your own birthdays. I I'm not a fan of birthdays, and sometimes I've just got to be a little more mature in Christ and recognize that birthdays nothing to be afraid of. Getting older is nothing to be afraid of. Death is nothing to be afraid of in your life or in your loved ones' lives. Not saying it won't hurt, not saying there's not gonna be moments whenever it weighs on you a little bit, but ultimately resurrection gives us an astounding hope for what is beyond. God bless you guys. I love you. And I'll end it with a prayer for you guys and just pray wherever you are. Father, we love you, we thank you for your word. We pray that everyone stays safe and warm. Protect anybody who has to be out in this. Lord, I pray right now for us, this little church, that you will give us resurrection hope. Resurrection hope, Lord. We love you so much. Can't wait to gather together next week. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.