Good morning and what a big day for the 5MC! If you’re reading this you found the new website, the5mc.com, WELCOME! A few weeks ago during my 5MC early one morning, God put it in my heart to start a dedicated website just for His Word and the 5MC. Now I have to tell you, at the time I offered nothing but resistance to this idea. In fact, for most of the 5MC I feel like I have offered more than a little resistance. I mean this whole thing was started as a group text in Florida to encourage the young adults to practice the 5MC. Really God, I’m not a writer. I was just helping them along by reading with them and then letting them know on the group text what I had read that morning. You know basically, look I'm doing it too kinda thing. After we left Florida the group text fell away and I continued on with the 5MC. I was so moved by being in God’s Word for just 5 minutes every day for 30 days that I couldn't stop! But I needed a new format. I moved to our Captain Aloha Facebook page. This page was started back in Maui when we were selling t-shirts and caps to raise some extra money. Many of you found the 5MC there but God was regularly telling me to move it. I resisted. God where am I supposed to move it to?
We had 5 times the friends on our regular page vs Captain Aloha but I was hesitant to start putting the 5MC on there. Why, I don’t know. One morning, we had to be somewhere early and just as I was finishing up my writing, I went to post it to the Captain Aloha page and it wouldn’t load. I tried several times and it just locked up. I was so frustrated. Margie walked in ready to go and saw the dilemma. Just put it on our regular page and lets go. I don’t know why I was so hesitant but I was. In that moment of frustration I did. But with plans to take it down and move it to Captain Aloha later that night. My friends that day, the 5MC got so many likes and so many positive comments that I knew it was posted where God wanted it to be and I left it.
I have continued on our personal Facebook page but it has grown beyond that and a few weeks ago God spoke to me. Start a website for the 5MC. I could see where God was coming from but I still resisted, I’m just so dang stubborn! I had encountered so many people that ‘don’t do Facebook’ or they ‘only do Instagram’ and those people would never have access to the 5MC and the challenge to be in God’s Word daily. It was around that time that I came across a message from God in my 5MC one morning. One sentence. Simply give out the Word of God. Give out the Word of God and let God’s Word change lives. God's Word and God's Word alone will encourage all to spend time daily in God’s Word.
So here we are on the new website that God asked for. I was even shocked that I was able to get the exact domain name that I hoped for, The5MC.com! I thought for sure that domain would have been taken. I see that as just another sign that God is making a way for this ministry. I hope it blesses you, strengthens you and challenges you to spend 5 minutes every day personally reading Gods Word. Please ask your friends, family and co-workers to join along as we challenge all to spend 5 minutes in God’s Word each day on the5mc.com.
This morning I’m in Acts chapter 23 and Paul is going through what Jesus went through when He was being shuffled through the courts as they decided what to do with him. Paul will start out this chapter before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious court of the day, and then by a crazy turn of events will end up before Governor Felix over in Caesarea. Only God can orchestrate events like this that surround, guide and protect Paul, let’s take a look.
Yesterday, Paul was about torn to shreds by the angry Jewish mob for preaching to the Gentiles and he was saved by being thrown in jail. In this instance jail was good right? That’s something funny about following God, sometimes the bad things are actaully good things if we see them with the right perspective! Paul after being found to be a Roman citizen is brought before the ‘civil court’ to be heard. They didn’t know what to do with Paul so they sent him to the ‘religious court’.
As Paul stands before the Sanhedrin court he is not even given the opportunity to defend himself before being ‘struck on the mouth.’ (Acts 23:2) The Sanhedrin will not allow justice this day. There would be no eloquent speech from Paul this day, it will not be allowed. They do not want to hear from God, the hearts in this court will not hear it. How ironic that these are 'religious' men. At Southcliff, our home church, we have a saying, "its not about the religion, its about the realtionship." These religious officials had alot of religion but they did not know God. There's alot of people still like this in the world today.
Paul sees that half the council are Pharisees and half are Sadducees. In God’s Wisdom he does what any great military tactician would do in a pinch like this, divide and conquer. Paul is well versed in the differences between these two parties, I mean he WAS a Pharisee before his conversion! He knows that their single biggest doctrinal difference is about resurrection. Now, this is not concerning the resurrection of Jesus but that the dead had a hope of resurrection. The Pharisees believed it passionately and the Sadducees, not at all. So what does Paul bring up? Well of course resurrection. The place erupts. And I mean erupts. Up to this point our author, Luke, has used understatements in describing many of the mob scenes. I think Luke, being a Physician, must have been pretty dry. He writes very factually and doesn’t get too flowery or colorful, so for him to say here “a great clamor arose” (Acts 23:9) it’s really saying something. In fact it gets violent so quick that the bailiffs have to drag Paul out of there as they were “afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces by them.” (Acts 23:10b) For the second time in 2 days Paul’ safety is found in a cold dark cell.
Let me stop here and say something. I’ve never been a political guy. I’ve seen the political process bring about such evil and hatred in people that I steer clear. Today we have 2 parties, Republican and Democrats. So called conservative and liberal. 2 different parties with 2 different beliefs. My friends, it was no different right here in front of Paul. The 2 parties today are always ready for ‘a great clamor’ over just about any topic and the same was true in this court in 59AD. The problem is not Democrat or Republican. Sadducee or Pharisee. The true problem is not liberal or conservative. The problem is the heart of man. We are all born with a sin nature due to the events in the garden of Eden. It’s who we are. Do you have to teach a young child to lie, steal or fight with another child? Nope, it comes built into us, its natural. (We actually have to teach them to NOT lie, cheat and steal!) As we accept Christ as our Savior, we are at that moment changed. The Holy Spirit comes into us and we now have the spirit of the Holy God living in us, guiding us and convicting us. Listen to 1 Corinthians 5:14 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Make God your single focus, not politics, that’s what Paul is doing here.
So now Paul is safe and sound locked up in a cell, what are the angry Jews gonna do? 40 of them get together and make a vow to not eat or drink until Paul is dead. Wow…these guys are driven by their anger! You know, I’ve often experienced in my own life that anger might just be the biggest motivator there is. When you are consumed with rage you are a mighty force in this world. Satan is powerful in this arena, using anger, hatred and revenge as one of the greatest of motivators. These 40 vow to kill Paul and kill him quick.
Unbeknownst to them while they are planning to Kill him, Paul is having a very, very special visitor in his cell. Acts 23:11, “The following night, the Lord stood by him and said, ‘Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.” What encouragement is must be to have Jesus appear to you to have courage. I think Paul muts have been pretty low at this point. I think he was down in the dumnps and maybe really wondering what was going to happen to him. Jesus knows our hearts and encourages us when we need it most. So Paul is going to Rome and nothing can stop him. But what about the angry murdering mob? How does God deal with them? A single young man, Paul’s nephew.
Paul’s nephew (his sister’s son) must have been hanging around the court because he hears of the plot and goes to the jail to tell Paul. Paul tells him to go tell the court what he had heard. He does and God has it fall on the right ears, the chief captain of the Roman guard, an honest man. This captain is charged with protecting Roman citizens, even the ones in his jail, so he is determined to protect Paul at all cost. He is doing God’s work without even knowing it!
He assembles 200 soldiers, 70 horsemen, and 200 hundred spearmen to accompany Paul (on his own horse) out of town and to Caesarea to stand trial before Felix, the Governor of the province. Wow, little ol’ Paul is getting an escort of almost 500 men! When God does things he does them big! Paul went from being slapped in the face as a heretic in front of the Sanhedrin to getting escorted out of town like a king. You know Paul had to have at least cracked a little smile as he rode out of that town surrounded by 470 men. He saw God's plan working. When Jesus appeared in his cell and said He wanted him to testify about Him in Rome, He wasn’t joking!
Chapter 23 ends with Paul’s safe arrival to Caesarea where he addresses Felix. Felix hears that he is a Roman citizen and says he will allow him a trial when his accusers arrive. It won’t take long for the blood thirsty mob to find out where Paul went and they will be in close pursuit. (by now they must be pretty thristy!) I can’t wait for chapter 24 tomorrow. I love to read action/adventure books. Cussler, Lincoln & Child, you name it I love to read. I think the last few chapters of Acts are some of the funnest reading maybe in all of God’s Word. We have the shipwreck coming up in 27 and 28 and Luke uses so much detail it seems as if you are standing there on the deck of that tossing ship with the salty spray stinging your face! Don't miss it!
I’d like to close with an observation. Paul has now become a prisoner and will rarely see freedom again. Once in Rome he will remain under house arrest, chained up for over 2 years. When bad things happen to us is God punishing us? If I was locked up as an innocent man for 2 years, I would probably have intense moments of anger, fear, doubt and speculation about God’s plan for my life. But look to the example of Paul. He had persecuted and killed Christians, he had served Jesus and started churches, he will go on to write almost half of the New Testament but here he sits in jail in chains. Because of his walk through all of these ups and downs he will go on to write one the most famous verses in his epistles. Phillipians 4:13 “ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Paul is reflecting back here in this verse and saying, I’ve been on top, I’ve been on bottom, I’ve been rich, I’ve been penniless, I’ve been free and I’ve been a prisoner, but through it all, I can handle it with the strength that Jesus provides.
When life deals you blows and hardships, think back to this verse and how Paul meant it. Just because Jesus is your Savior doesn’t mean you won’t ever get cancer. Just because Jesus is your savior doesn’t mean you’ll never get divorced. Or suffer the loss of a spouse, child or parent. In retrospect, Paul actually says all these things happen to make us look to and rely on the power and strength of Jesus. One of my favorite verses is James 1:2-4, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you suffer trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces patience and let patience have its full effect, that you may be perfect and lacking in nothing.” Amen James, Amen.
Rely on the strength of Christ in your life today to guide you through whatever trial you may be dealing with. He is capable.
I pray that your personal 5 minutes in God’s Word today is rich, rewarding and filled with wisdom that will guide your steps to others that need His love.
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