I had this job one summer where I delivered eggs to omelet shops, small groceries, bakeries and such on the East side of the San Francisco Bay. It was a crazy job fraught with difficulties and adventure. You would think the most difficult place to make deliveries would be Berkley because of all the one way streets….and because of the colorful people, but the truth is, I ran into more problems in the city of Oakland.
In Oakland there always seemed to be a road closed, an accident, or hundreds of orange traffic cones funneling traffic from five lanes to one lane, and for absolutely no apparent reason. I typically would finish all that merging from five lanes down to one, travel for a mile or so in the one restricted lane lined on each side by orange cones and then back to five lanes. There was no construction, there was no accident, there was no maintenance, no workers, no trucks - just a lot of orange traffic cones. I could never figure it out.
So when I was in Oakland, I was always trying to find my way around these barriers, roadblocks and bottlenecks.
One afternoon I was making a delivery to this small grocery store near Lake Merritt - this is the small grocery store where the guy always feigned to be out of cash and every time asked to pay for the eggs, “next time around.” So we would have this little conversation about actually paying for the eggs next time around and my time there always ended with me taking back the eggs to the van where I would be met by the guy who had somehow “found” the exact amount of cash needed. Same routine, every time without fail.
Well, one afternoon it took me about a half an hour to pick my way through the parking lot to this small grocery store, it was exhausting. When I was done with my delivery and the whole “I’m out of money thing” with the guy who ran the grocery, I could see that going out of the parking lot the same way I came in, was out of the question.
Then, over to my right I saw traffic moving briskly through the nearby parking garage and I could see that that was my ticket out of there. The problem was, when my boss trained me on the egg route, he told me, “Under no circumstances, ever drive the egg van into that parking garage.” My boss never told me why, he was just very adamant that I never enter the parking garage.
Well, this was Oakland California, so I figured the boss didn’t want me to go into the parking garage because it was a place where I could easily get robbed, mugged, or held up. I looked around me, it was broad daylight, about two in the afternoon, there were people everywhere - I would be perfectly safe in the parking garage.
So, I got into the egg van and headed for the parking garage.
There was a long line of traffic heading into the parking garage, but it was moving right along and I knew I would be through it quickly. All I had to do was drive through the first floor and out into the city street. So I entered the parking garage.
Everything was going smoothly, I was almost through the garage, there were only four cars in front of me….and that’s when I hear this loud screeching sound, and the egg van came to a complete stop.
The egg van was too tall for the parking garage. I was now stuck in this parking garage, the parking garage I was never to enter by the way, and there was a long line of cars behind me. The cars behind me started sounding their horns.
I saw that I could not go forward, I could only go backward. So I got out of the van and explained the situation to the drivers behind me. They graciously moved out of the way, but by the time I got back into the van a new line of different cars were behind the egg van honking at me. This went on for over 45 minutes, but I eventually was able to back out of the parking garage.
Later that week, I had a call from my boss checking up on how things were going. He said, “I heard about the parking garage in Oakland. You made quite a scene I hear.” I admitted my folly and explained how difficult it was to get out of the situation.
My boss just laughed. He said that the reason he told me to never go into the parking garage was that the exact same thing happened to the last guy who had the job. He got the van stuck in the exact same place I did months before, but the last guy didn’t cause all the commotion that I did. I asked, “What did the guy do to get out of the garage? How did he get out of the garage without causing commotion?”
“Dan just let some air out of the tires. Then, Dan drove right out of the parking garage and went on his way.”
When the egg van was stuck in the garage I didn’t see anyway to get around the roadblock I had created, but there was a way, all I had to do was let a little air out of the tires. There was a way around the barrier I created.
In our Scripture today, Paul is being held prisoner, unable to leave his quarters for two years while being chained day and night to an elite Praetorian Guard….still Paul is able to spread the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, still Paul is able to talk about Jesus.
For us, we have barriers, roadblocks and bottlenecks that prevent us from spreading the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; Each of us run into obstacles stop us from talking about Jesus. These obstacles may be real or they may be imagined; These obstacles may be of our own invention, like me getting the egg van stuck in the parking garage, or these obstacles may be placed upon us by others. Whatever it is, somehow, some way we face barriers, roadblocks and bottlenecks that prevent you and I from talking to others about Jesus.
But, what does Paul show us today? Paul shows us that there is absolutely no barrier that cannot be overcome when it comes to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing, absolutely nothing can stand in the way of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, things may appear to stand in the way of the Gospel, but the truth is, nothing can stand in the way of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing.
Paul has made his way to Rome from Caesarea By The Sea, to the city of Rome via sailing ship. It was a crazy trip, it was an impossible trip - Paul’s ship even sank in a storm, but the Lord Jesus Christ wanted Paul in Rome, and so Paul finds his way to Rome.
As you may remember from our study in the book of Acts, Paul had come back to the city of Jerusalem after being on the road as a missionary for many years. In Jerusalem Paul visited the Temple and was attacked by an angry mob. The Temple leaders accused Paul of causing religious disruption. From that first encounter in Jerusalem, Paul had been bounced from Roman authority to Roman authority for over two years and each Roman authority was not sure what they should do with Paul. Paul fearing that he would be sent back to Jerusalem where he would not get a fair trial, appealed to Caesar.
Any Roman citizen who was accused of a crime could appeal to the judgement of Caesar if he believed he was not being treated fairly by the court system. This is what Paul does, and so Paul is taken to Rome where he sits under guard for over two years waiting his turn to go before Caesar.
Paul faces four barriers while he is in Rome: First Paul faces the barrier of location, Paul is unable to place the gospel where it would be most effective; Second Paul faces the barrier of close observation, everything Paul does is watched and analyzed - how Paul lives his life is under observation 24 hours a day; Third, Paul faces the barrier of prejudice, rumor are that Christians are not all they are cracked up to be, and finally Paul faces the barrier of self empowerment; Paul is only a human, he naturally wants to empower himself, but Paul must surrender to the Holy Spirit to break ANY of these first three barriers.
Paul faces these barriers of location, close observation, prejudice and self empowerment and yet he overcomes each of them. We face each of these as well, except we believe we can only overcome these barriers on our own.
Now, it is true that Paul is not locked up in a prison. Paul has been given permission to rent his own housing. Essentially, Paul was under house arrest.
We are not sure what Paul rented while he was in Rome, a single standing dwelling or an apartment. The housing Rome at this time was mostly tenement complexes. These were crowed three to four story tall buildings that housed multiple families. Most of the population in Rome lived in these tenement houses. Tenement housing was generally of poor construction, made of wood and not great places to live - they really were fairly similar to project housing of our day. These are the type of building Nero longed to rid Rome of. These tenements frequently caught on fire killing those inside, so it is not creative thinking on Nero’s part when he orders the tenements set on fire, blaming the fire on the Christians….it is very possible that Paul lived in one of these tenement houses since they were the most common housing available.
Paul may not be in prison, but his housing was most likely nowhere near first class.
Paul is stuck, Paul cannot leave his housing - right there the gospel should be stopped cold, but it is not is it? Paul could have schemed all day on how to sneak out of his housing, but Paul doesn’t scheme does he? What does Paul do? Look at verse 17, Paul cannot bring the gospel out to people, so Paul brings people in for the gospel.
Don’t we always dream of a better place to spread the gospel? Someplace else is always a better place to spread the gospel. Here I am stuck at work. Here I am stuck at school. Here I am stuck at home. Since I am stuck here, there is no sense in telling anyone about Jesus Christ around me - I couldn’t possibly be placed by God right here to spread the gospel….someplace else would be better.
Back in 1991 I did an internship as a hospital chaplain in Philadelphia. At that time, AIDS was a new thing, and honestly, the hospital wasn’t sure how to handle people with AIDS, they were not sure what precautions to take when treating AIDS patients, so they took every precaution possible.
I had an AIDS patient arrive in my chaplain area and so when I visited him, the hospital made me dress up like I was working with nuclear materials. This guy’s name was Timothy and since everyone was afraid of AIDS, Timothy had no visitors except the nurses who would race in and out of his room as quickly as they could.
So, as Timothy and I talked, I found that he had led quite the wild life, but recently had become a Christian. Timothy wanted to tell his friends and family about Jesus Christ, but here he was stuck in this room - no one would take his repeated phone calls home, no one would visit him. Timothy’s main concern that day was how he could get his window open far enough….so that he could jump out. I had no advice on opening the window.
However, we did talk about God honoring prayer. We prayed that Jesus would answer Timothy’s heartfelt prayer that he tell others about Jesus Christ.
About a week later I was able to stop by to see Timothy again. I stopped by the nurses station to let them know I was going in to see Timothy. The nurse seemed surprise and asked me if I had an appointment with Timothy. An appointment. I didn’t need an appointment, I was a chaplain.
It turns out, I did need an appointment to see Timothy. Within a short week Timothy went from a pariah, to Dr. Phil. Timothy had started to dispense advice and pray with anyone who came into his room, and people’s lives changed. Nurses and different hospital staff who previously wouldn’t open his door, literally lined up to talk with Timothy.
Do you think any of that was an accident?
Location, location location - The Gospel will not be stopped, if we, like our brother Timothy are open to the Holy Spirit.
Not only is Paul restricted by location, Paul is also under 24 hour guard. Paul is chained to a Praetorian soldier, the ancient equivalent of an electronic monitoring bracelet. These men guarding Paul aren’t just any ordinary Roman soldiers, these are the elite soldiers of the Roman empire, the men who guarded Caesar himself, the men who guarded the imperial palace itself. Paul is not walking out of that house.
It turns out that guards and staff in Caesars own household had become believers. Paul was able to reach the place we would consider impossible to reach - the imperial palace in Rome. Paul doesn’t have to go to the house of Caesar, the house of Caesar, comes to him.
Again Paul is stuck, he is under 24 hour observation. Now, you can be sure the soldiers talked to one another about Paul, I mean they were with him for two years. The guards were changed every four hours. Now, if what is happening here isn’t obvious to you….well, then I don’t know what to say. Now these men were certainly not men who would be open to the gospel, these men wouldn’t be Paul’s first choice to talk to about Jesus - but you work with what God sends you.
First God has placed you where you are, even if you think you chose to work where you work or that you chose the classes you now take. Second, God has placed the people around you for a purpose. Open your eyes, your missing out on the greatest opportunity of your life - and it is right before your eyes.
The people we live with, the people we work with closely, the people like our relatives who know our flaws well appear to us, to be the people we are least likely to reach. But the truth is, God has placed these people in your life and in spite of your flaws, if you are open to the Holy Spirit, these people are very reachable - It is Jesus Christ who you are to point them to, not your own holy life.
Paul is also restricted by prejudice, both religious prejudice and racial prejudice. In verse 22 we see that the local Jews in Rome have heard that, “...people everywhere are talking against this sect.” The local Jews enter into conversation with Paul thinking that Christians are not all they are cracked up to be. Paul has an uphill battle when he talks about the gospel.
Additionally, when Paul speaks to the Roman guards, he speaks to men who have no respect for someone who is Jewish, most Romans did not like Jews. To the Roman soldiers Paul the Jew was a low life and of no real concern to them. It is apparent that no matter how eloquent Paul was, his race would have gotten in the way. Prejudice against Paul strips away any education, high social standing, or respect. Paul is just another guy with a religious message because of prejudice.
Paul cannot rely on who he is to further the gospel here in Rome. The same for us. When we go out into the community, we may be something here at church, but in the community, no one really, honestly, cares about who we are in the church. You and I, we are just regular people of little consequence when we step outside Christian circles. We need more than who we are to overcome the barriers set before us.
From the start, people are prejudiced against us when we bring the Gospel, it might be because of our ethnic background, our family background or even our social class - there is always resistance to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, but you see the Gospel is about Jesus, not about us, therefore we can overcome no matter who we are.
This brings us to our final barrier, and the one that allows the other three to be overcome. We come to the barrier of self empowerment. Self empowerment may not seem like a barrier, in fact, self empowerment may seem like an advantage, but when it comes to living out our Christian walk, in the end it self empowerment more of a disadvantage than an advantage.
You see, the way Paul overcomes the barriers he comes up against is not with cleverness, or great wisdom, or by showing his impressive credentials; Paul overcomes each of these barriers by looking beyond what he could see with human eyes. If Paul looked at him self and said, “I can overcome this” not much would have happened. If Paul looked at himself and said, “I am self empowered, I can overcome,” very few would have heard the gospel.
But, Paul instead relies upon his faith in Jesus and upon the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why Paul is successful when he should have no success.
The final word in the book of Acts is the word aÓkwlu/twß, aka-lutos. Luke very purposely places this as the very last word in the book of Acts. The word aÓkwlu/twß means unhindered. The preaching of the gospel is not unhindered because of who Paul was, it was unhindered because of who Jesus is.
As we have worked our way through the book of Acts we have seen again and again that the book of acts is not primarily about the Apostles; The book of Acts is is not primarily about the church - the book of Acts is primarily about Jesus Christ. If the Gospel was about the church or about the Apostles it would have ultimately failed. But the Gospel is ultimately unhindered because the Gospel is about Jesus.
Luke’s final thought in the book of Acts is this: You and I can overcome any barrier set before us in spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ, not by who we are, or by out
