Following Jesus Means a Lifetime of Goodbyes
Sermon by Mark Johnson of Steiger Minneapolis
After we had torn ourselves away from them, we put out to sea and sailed straight to Cos. The next day we went to Rhodes and from there to Patara. We found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, went on board and set sail. After sighting Cyprus and passing to the south of it, we sailed on to Syria. We landed on to Tyre, where our ship was to unload its cargo. Finding the disciples there, we stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. But when our time was up, we left and continued on our way. All the disciples and their wives and children accompanied us out of the city, and there on the beach we knelt to pray. After saying good-by to each other, we went aboard the ship, and they returned home.
We continued our voyage from Tyre and landed at Ptolemais, where we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for a day. Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven. He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.
After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way, the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles’”
When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.”
-Acts 21:1-14
Paul is on his last missions trip, and he’s visiting all the churches he has planted over the previous years. Wherever he goes, people he knows flock to him, because they love him so much. In fact, after meeting with the leaders from Ephesus, Luke tells us that saying goodbye is like a “violent ripping.” As hard as it is, Paul tears himself away from his friends and continues to head toward Jerusalem. Everywhere he goes on the way there, people give him words from God about hard things that are going to happen. Finally, he arrives in Caesarea, and Agabus—who accurately predicted a famine years before—prophesies difficulty and suffering as well. Paul tells everyone that they’re breaking his heart, because he knows that it’s going to be hard but that he is even willing to die for the Gospel.
I think this section of Scripture shows us some things about what it’s like to follow Jesus that we don’t always hear talked about.
First, following Jesus means a lifetime of goodbyes. At our church, our mission is to release people to do ministry. That means that—like the church in Antioch sending out Paul and Barnabas—we will send out our best people, some of whom might not come back. And we will miss them. But we are going let them go.
We all have to say goodbye to people we love at some point. If we don’t lose them because they leave, we will be separated by death sometime. There are two extreme ways people deal with this: Some try to hold tightly onto people and never let anyone leave. But we cannot hang onto people when God is telling them to go. God has a heart for the entire world, and we need to let people go where God calls them. The other extreme reaction people may have is never to love anyone so that it doesn’t hurt when they leave. Some people never invest in others and always protect themselves. That way, they can leave without thinking anything about it, because they haven’t invested enough for it to hurt to leave. That is not the life God calls us to live. He called us to love one another, to be crazy about each other. We can’t live life trying to protect ourselves and always having superficial relationships so we never get hurt.
The proper response to a lifetime of goodbyes is to treasure the time we have together, because we know it will not always be like this. We need to love each other passionately and completely, but have an open hand on people, so that if God wants us to leave, we will go wherever he asks.
Following Jesus also means sometimes being led into difficult circumstances. In this passage, Paul believes that the Holy Spirit is telling him to go to Jerusalem, so he sets his sights there and is going to go, regardless of the difficulty. People keep getting pictures of how bad it is going to be and tell him not to go, but Paul knows it is what God has called him to do, so he has to do it.
Sometimes we get the idea that God will never lead us into anything difficult or dangerous. But that is not biblical. Paul suffered, and so did Jesus. Jesus was led into the desert—a place associated with danger, evil spirits, and wild animals—and then went on to Jerusalem to face torture and death. If you are in a place where you feel like you are dying because it is so difficult, it is possible that God has brought you to that place. It might be the will of God for your life right now. You might be there for a purpose—so God can teach you and use you to change the world. Of course, we shouldn’t get too extreme and start attributing evil to God, but the truth is, we’ve gotten soft. In the past, people welcomed suffering as a form of purification and preparation for heaven. There is a story in 2 Samuel 16 where King David has been kicked out of Jerusalem, and a guy named Shimei is following him yelling curses. David’s attendants want to kill the guy, but David will not let them, because he says God might have told Shimei to curse him. We need to look at life with the idea that God might be behind the difficulties we are experiencing. When Paul insists on going to Jerusalem, people ultimately conclude, “God’s will be done.” And it is.
While a lifetime of goodbyes and difficulties do not sound pleasant, they show us that following Jesus also means a lifetime of being led by the Spirit of God. In this passage, it is clear that God led people through prophetic words. He did it then, and he does it now.
However, we need to address the fact that Paul claims the Holy Spirit is leading him to Jerusalem, while other people say that the Holy Spirit is warning him not to go. Someone is wrong. It is possible that Paul is wrong, and that God is trying to use other prophets to tell him not to be stupid. Or it is possible that the others are wrong. Back in Acts 19, Luke writes that Paul purposed in the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem, so the reason he was going in the first place was the Holy Spirit. But then in Tyre, people tell Paul not to go, and then Agabus—a prophet with a good reputation—warns him as well.
Another puzzle is that even though Agabus is known as a prophet, the details of his prophecy over Paul do not come true. He says that the Jews will bind him and hand him over to the Romans, but actually, the Romans rescue Paul when the Jews try to kill him. How do we deal with this? I think it is possible that Agabus did have a vision of what was going to happen. Prophetic people often get pictures about things, and sometimes they do not understand exactly what they mean. This happens in Scripture, too. Peter does not understand what his vision of the sheet holding unclean animals is about. So it is possible that Agabus sees an accurate picture but gets the interpretation wrong because it just looks bad to him.
God wants to speak to his people in prophetic ways—to encourage them and to give guidance. But we need to be humble when the prophecy is for someone else. We need to ask God to help us communicate rather than getting on a chair and claiming, “Thus saith the Lord.” If you make that kind of claim, you’d better be right!
God has always spoken to his people through prophets. In the New Testament, it says that he is going to pour out his Spirit on all people. And Paul says to desire the spiritual gifts, especially prophecy. I think this is because if we speak to people’s cores—to their pain or to their dreams—it sets them free. This is supposed to happen in the church; I think we should expect it especially in small group settings. God wants to do more among his people, and he wants to use you. He has something to give people through you.
Let’s not get goofy with this, but God has given us gifts, and he has called us to use them. What if we went to our churches or our small groups with eyes that looked at people asking what we have to give them. Paul said to earnestly desire gifts, which means that we should be looking to give things to the people around us. God wants us to be led by the Holy Spirit, and it isn’t rocket science to hear his voice. We need to spend time in the Word, ask him to lead us, and then trust that he is.
It’s possible that there are people in your life who are broken, whose hearts hurt, who have been seeking God on certain issues, and God wants to give them an answer through you. We should seek him on that. We serve a God who is alive, not dead. It’s not about knowing facts, but about a living relationship with a living God. We need to really know that Jesus is alive, that he’s not just a bunch of jargon, and that we can know him. And if you don’t know him, you need to take care of the stuff that gets in the way of that—the sin, the saying that you’re going to do your own thing. But it’s easy to get rid of that stuff, because Jesus took care of it. Cry out to him, say, “I need you to forgive me; I want to know you,” and you can know him. Don’t miss out on that chance.
Following Jesus means a lifetime of goodbyes and of being led into difficulty, but it also means a lifetime of being led by the Spirit. God did not leave us alone; he didn’t just create us and say, “Okay, now go for it.” He is here with us. Expect him to lead.
