I. Hope and Heart
Acts 23–24 is a story about what Jesus does before the delay, not after it. Paul has just been beaten by a mob, put in chains, slapped on the mouth in front of the Sanhedrin, and dragged out of a meeting turned violent. Alone in a Roman barracks that night, he gets something better than a rescue: a visit. “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’” (Acts 23:11, ESV). Jesus doesn’t explain the riot, doesn’t predict the plot coming the next morning, and doesn’t give a timeline. He gives three things: his presence (“stood by him”), a command that is also a gift (“take courage”), and a promise with a destination but no date (“you must testify also in Rome”).
Then the delay begins. More than forty men take an oath to starve until Paul is dead. A nephew we have never met overhears it. A Roman tribune sends 470 soldiers to escort one prisoner sixty-plus miles to Caesarea. A lawyer flatters a governor. A governor who knows the Way “rather accurately” postpones the verdict, listens to Paul talk about righteousness, self-control and the coming judgment, gets alarmed, says “Go away for the present” (24:25), hopes for a bribe, and leaves Paul in prison for two years (24:27) to keep the people who wanted him dead happy. The promise was Rome. The reality was Caesarea, two years, and then a shipwreck.
The word Jesus spoke didn’t shorten Paul’s wait. It sustained it. And Paul did not treat the delay as dead time between the promise and the real ministry. Before the council he testifies to “the hope and the resurrection of the dead” (23:6). Before Felix in open court he confesses “a hope in God… that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust” (24:15). Before Felix and Drusilla privately he speaks of “faith in Christ Jesus” (24:24). And he does it “often” (24:26). The man waiting for his platform in Rome keeps using whatever platform is in front of him. The delay to the calling becomes the place of the calling.
And notice who is not doing that witnessing. Rome protects Paul, transports him, and gives him a hearing, but Rome never steps into the arena. Only Paul testifies. The world doesn’t applaud; Felix stalls. Faithfulness here doesn’t win admiration. It wins His presence. And because the risen Christ is “before all things” and “in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17), the delay isn’t coming apart. It is held, and so is its timing.
For Us CF: Many in our room have heard something from God. It might be a promise in prayer, a verse that leapt off the page, a prophetic word, or a quiet sense of “I’m with you; this isn’t over.” They expected the next thing to be a breakthrough. Instead, the next thing was a plot, a postponement, and a long stretch of nothing changing. This message is for them. A word from Jesus is not a schedule. It is a presence and a promise meant to carry you through the wait, not cancel it. And the same Lord who stood by Paul in the barracks stands by you in the waiting room, the courtroom, the hospital hallway, and the long middle of the story. You are never only waiting on God or waiting for God. You are always waiting in God. And while you wait, you can still be a witness to the resurrection right where you are.
II. Midnight Mantra
A. The Lord stands by me in the delay.
III. Welcome
A. Good morning. We’re glad you’re here.
B. Week 21 of Still Acting. Quick callback: last week Paul stood on the barracks steps, beaten and chained, and told a hostile crowd the story of the day Jesus met him on the road. No one can take my first love. In our final panel.
C. Today the riot is over and the noise dies down. What comes next is harder than a riot: a long, quiet stretch where nothing happens.
D. Today’s text: Acts 23–24. A word from Jesus in the middle of the night, and then two years of waiting.
IV. Hook
A. Intro
1. The tension: the hardest waiting isn’t when God is silent. It’s right after He has spoken.
2. When God hasn’t said anything, we assume it isn’t time yet. But when He gives you a promise, and the very next thing is delay, opposition, or nothing at all, you start asking a harder question: Did I hear Him wrong?
3. Main Point: Jesus doesn’t visit Paul to end the wait. He visits him to carry him through it.
4. Mantra for today. Say it plainly, out loud: “The Lord stands by me in the delay.”
B. Andrew Brunson
1. Andrew Brunson: a pastor from North Carolina who served a small church in İzmir, Turkey, for about twenty-three years.
2. October 2016, after a failed coup in Turkey, he was detained and later charged with terrorism and espionage. He faced the possibility of life in prison.
3. The charges were, in his words, “ridiculous.” Hearings came and went, with postponement after postponement.
4. He was released October 12, 2018, about two years later.
5. What I appreciate is his honesty. He went in expecting that if he suffered for Jesus, he would feel Jesus’ strength. Instead: “At times, I did feel forsaken. I expected strength, instead I felt broken.”
a) And afterward he said his faith had “deepened… it’s been tested and proven.”
He has said openly that he didn’t feel like a hero of faith in prison: “At times, I did feel forsaken. I expected strength, instead I felt broken” (PBS NewsHour interview). He went in assuming that if he suffered for Jesus, he would feel Jesus’ strength. Instead, he had to learn to stay faithful while feeling weak, and later said his faith had “deepened… it’s been tested and proven.” His book is God’s Hostage (Baker, 2019).
6. Two years. False charges. A legal system stalling for its own advantage. A faithful servant wondering where God was.
C. CF In Our own season of waiting as I mentioned at our Family Meeting last Tuesday night.
1. Dormancy – a time to receive from the Lord
Dormancy is a real season in the life of every branch in the Vine; it is not the absence of God but a hidden work of God to preserve, strengthen roots, and deepen dependence.
D. That isn’t only CF or Andrew Brunson’s story. It is almost exactly Paul’s story in Acts 23–24, with one difference: before the delay began, Paul got a visit.
V. Book/Look
A. Movement 1 — “The Lord Stood by Him” (23:1–11)
Invitation to notice: where do you need the Lord to stand next to you, not ahead of you or above you, but right beside you?
1. Paul before the Sanhedrin, the council he once worked for. “Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day” (23:1).
2. The high priest has him struck on the mouth. Paul snaps: “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall!” (23:3). Then he finds out who it is and owns it (23:5).
a) The great apostle loses his temper and then apologizes. Luke doesn’t clean Paul up, and that is good news for the rest of us.
3. Then Paul names the real issue: “It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial” (23:6). The room explodes, and soldiers drag him out before he’s torn apart.
4. That night, alone in a Roman barracks:
a) “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.’” (Acts 23:11, ESV) (read 2x)
b) Divine initiative, our response: Jesus initiates the night visit; Paul responds with two years of faithful witness.
5. He gives three things: his presence (“stood by him”), a command that is also a gift (“take courage”), and a promise with a destination but no date (“you must testify also in Rome”).
a) His presence: “the Lord stood by him.” Not an angel, not a messenger. The risen Jesus Himself, in a prison barracks.
b) A command: “Take courage.” The same word Jesus spoke to the disciples on the water: “Take heart; it is I.” He doesn’t say find courage. He says take it, as if He is holding it out.
c) A promise: “so you must testify also in Rome.” A destination, but no date.
6. What Jesus doesn’t give him: an explanation, a warning about the plot coming at sunrise, or a timeline.
7. Years later, before another Roman court, Paul writes: “At my first defense no one came to stand by me… But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me” (2 Timothy 4:16–17). He never forgot what it was like to have the Lord stand by him.
8. Pastoral line:
a) Jesus gave Paul enough to carry him, not enough to control the outcome.
9. “The Lord stands by me in the delay.”
B. Movement 2 — Protected by Ordinary Means (23:12–35)
Invitation to notice: what if God’s protection in your season isn’t a miracle, but a phone call, a relative, a stranger?
1. Sunrise: more than forty men take an oath not to eat or drink until Paul is dead (23:12). Jesus spoke courage the night before the threat was even formed.
2. The rescue? “The son of Paul’s sister heard of their ambush” (23:16). A nephew who overheard something. The only time Scripture mentions Paul’s family.
3. No angel, no earthquake, no chains falling off as they did for Peter in Acts 12. Just an ordinary kid who was brave enough to walk into the barracks.
4. The tribune sends 470 soldiers to escort one prisoner to Caesarea by night (23:23–24).
5. The irony: Jesus promised Rome, and Rome is paying for the first leg of the trip.
6. The point:
a) Most of God’s faithfulness in your waiting will look this ordinary. Don’t miss it because you were watching for lightning.
C. Movement 3 — On Trial for the Resurrection (24:1–21)
Invitation to notice: if someone put your life on trial, what would they find it’s really about?
1. A professional lawyer, Tertullus, flatters Governor Felix and calls Paul “a plague… a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes” (24:5).
2. Paul: no flattery, no fear. “I cheerfully make my defense” (24:10). Twelve days, no riot, nothing they can prove.
3. “But this I confess to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers… having a hope in God, which these men themselves accept, that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust. So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.” (Acts 24:14–16, ESV)
4. Track the witness. Paul is waiting for Rome, but he isn’t waiting to testify:
a) The council → the resurrection (23:6).
b) The courtroom → the resurrection (24:15, 21).
c) Felix and Drusilla in private → faith in Christ Jesus (24:24).
d) Felix, again and again → “often” (24:26).
5. Pastoral line:
a) The delay to his calling became the place of his calling.
D. Movement 4 — “Go Away for the Present” (24:22–27)
Invitation to notice: there are two people waiting in this scene. One is waiting on God. The other is keeping God waiting.
1. Felix knows the Way “rather accurately” (24:22), and he stalls anyway: “When Lysias comes down, I will decide your case.” Lysias never comes.
Felix, “having a rather accurate knowledge of the Way, put them off” (24:22). He knows enough to see the case is empty and isn’t willing to pay the political price of releasing Paul. So he postpones: “When Lysias the tribune comes down, I will decide your case.” As far as we know, Lysias never comes, and nothing is ever decided.
2. Grace inside the stall: “none of his friends should be prevented from attending to his needs” (24:23). Hold onto that; we’ll come back to it.
Paul is kept “in custody but [with] some liberty,” and “none of his friends should be prevented from attending to his needs” (24:23). The delay comes with friends in it.
3. Felix and his wife Drusilla, the daughter of the Herod who killed James in Acts 12. Felix had lured her away from her husband.
Then the private audience. Felix brings his wife Drusilla, “who was Jewish” (24:24). Some background makes Paul’s sermon topics hit harder:
Felix was a former slave who rose to governor of Judea (c. AD 52–59). The Roman historian Tacitus said he “exercised the power of a king with the mind of a slave” (Histories 5.9), known for cruelty and greed.
Drusilla was the youngest daughter of Herod Agrippa I, the king who killed James and was struck down in Acts 12. According to Josephus (Antiquities 20.141–143), Felix persuaded her to leave her husband to marry him.
4. Paul preaches to them about “righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment” (24:25). Not a general lecture. Straight at their lives.
So when Paul “reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment” (24:25), he wasn’t giving a general lecture. He was speaking straight to a corrupt judge and a couple whose marriage began in betrayal, about justice, desire, and accountability to God.
5. Felix is alarmed: “Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you.”
“Felix was alarmed and said, ‘Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you’” (24:25). (The KJV’s “when I have a convenient season” is the phrase many older believers will remember.)
6. He calls Paul “often,” but Luke tells us why: “he hoped that money would be given him” (24:26).
a) What gets left behind: Felix can’t let go of money, political favor, or (pointedly) Drusilla. He hears the gospel “often” and never follows. Paul has already left everything behind, so nothing Felix holds can buy him.
7. “When two years had elapsed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus. And desiring to do the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul in prison.” (Acts 24:27, ESV)
a) Two years. Luke covers them in half a sentence. Paul lived every morning, noon, and night of them. And he could have bought his way out, and he didn’t.
8. Paul waits on God with a promise. Felix keeps God waiting with a postponement.
a) Faith for the stay, faith for the go (Week 19): Caesarea is a stay Paul didn’t choose. The test is whether he invests where he is instead of treating it as a waiting room.
b) if you’ve been telling God “go away for the present, maybe later,” today is that opportunity.
E. The Turn — In the Arena, on the Margins
“It is not the critic who counts… The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again… who spends himself in a worthy cause…” — Theodore Roosevelt
1. Look at who is in this story. The tribune, 470 soldiers, a governor who knows the Way “rather accurately.” They guard Paul, transport Paul, and listen to Paul.
a) Not one of them steps into the arena. Only Paul testifies that Jesus is raised.
b) Rome can protect the witness. But only the church can be the witness.
(1) Be grateful when governments and courts protect God’s people. But no empire, party, or culture is going to do our witnessing for us.
2. Theodore Roosevelt, 1910:
Sorbonne address “Citizenship in a Republic”:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” — Theodore Roosevelt
a) “The critic” — Tertullus, the professional orator who points out how Paul has supposedly stumbled: “a plague… a ringleader… tried to profane the temple” (24:5–6).
b) The spectators in the stands — Lysias, the soldiers, and above all Felix, who has “a rather accurate knowledge of the Way” but watches from his seat and says, “Go away for the present.” Knowing the game from the stands isn’t the same as being on the field.
c) “Whose face is marred” — Paul was literally struck on the mouth (23:2).
d) “Who errs, who comes short” — “you whitewashed wall!” (23:3), and then a humble correction (23:5). The man in the arena isn’t flawless; he is present.
e) “Who spends himself in a worthy cause” — two years in custody, still testifying “often.”
f) But here is the gospel twist: in Roosevelt, the credit goes to the man in the arena. In Acts, the Lord comes and stands beside the man in the arena.
3. And don’t expect the stands to cheer. Eugene Peterson:
“…forces us, if we’re to stay true to the story we’re reading, to give up the notion that the Christian community can catch the admiring eye of the world if we just live rightly and obediently. We have ample documentation by now to disabuse us of such thinking. God’s revelation is rejected far more often than it is accepted, is dismissed by far more people than embrace it, and has been either attacked or ignored by every major culture or civilization in which it has given its witness.” — Eugene Peterson
4. Dean Pinter:
“God’s revelation was snubbed by magnificent Egypt in the first exodus led by Moses just as much as it was by mighty Rome in the second exodus led by Jesus. God’s revelation is refused, assaulted, or disregarded just as much in Renaissance Italy as in Enlightenment France; just as much in communist Russia as in Nazi Germany; just as much in Tokugawa Japan as in Maoist China; just as much in pursuit-of-happiness America as in tolerant Canada. The important point is that the community of Christ has survived in these different eras and cultures, but it has done so usually on the margins, not in the mainstream.” — Dean Pinter
a) from Egypt to Rome, Renaissance Italy to Maoist China, “pursuit-of-happiness America” to “tolerant Canada,” the church “has survived… usually on the margins, not in the mainstream.”
b) This is freeing, not depressing: faithfulness doesn’t guarantee admiration. It guarantees His presence.
The church in Acts doesn’t advance by winning Felix’s approval. It advances on the margins, through people willing to stay in the arena when the stands stay unconvinced. It is not that the church should seek the margins, treat rejection as proof of faithfulness, or adopt a persecution complex. Paul is courteous, honest, and “cheerful” in his defense (24:10). The point is that the world’s applause is not our measure, so its absence doesn’t have to discourage us.
5. Why the arena is worth it: the resurrection has started something
a) So why stay in the arena? Because, as Paul keeps saying, it’s all about the resurrection. If Jesus is raised, then the new creation has begun. Redemption and reconciliation are already underway.
b) Colossians 1:15-20
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” (Colossians 1:15–20, ESV)
(1) “Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him.” Felix’s judgment seat was made by Christ and for Christ. So was Caesar’s throne. The ruler who keeps Paul waiting is himself under the preeminent One.
(2) “The firstborn from the dead.” This is the resurrection Paul keeps preaching to Felix. Firstborn means first of many. Jesus’ resurrection is the first fruit of a harvest that includes “both the just and the unjust” (24:15).
(3) “Through him to reconcile to himself all things… making peace by the blood of his cross.” Reconciliation has already begun. The church is the living evidence, a body with Christ as its head (1:18), even when that body is on the margins.
(4) “In him all things hold together.” All things includes the plot, the nephew, the escort, the stalled court, and the two years. Nothing in Paul’s delay is coming apart, because it is all held together in Him.
c) So we live as a people of hope.
(1) Not because the world admires us, or because the timeline makes sense, but because Christ is risen, preeminent over every throne, and already reconciling all things.
6. Landing line:
a) “The One who holds all things together also holds the timing.”
7. “So how do you wait on the Lord’s timing when you’ve heard His word, you’re standing in the arena, and the stands still aren’t cheering? Let’s talk about waiting well.”
VI. Took – Waiting Well After the Word
One invitation: When the Lord has spoken and the delay comes, don’t let the delay make you doubt the word. Let the word carry you through it, and stay a witness while you wait.
A. The Pattern: Word, Then Wait
1. What happened to Paul isn’t unusual. It’s the normal way God works with His people:
a) Abraham: a promise, then about 25 years.
b) Joseph: dreams at 17, then slavery, prison, and being forgotten. “After two whole years…” (Genesis 41:1).
c) David: anointed as a teenager, then years in caves.
d) The church in Acts 1: “wait for the promise of the Father.” That’s where this whole series started.
2. “His feet were hurt with fetters; his neck was put in a collar of iron; until what he had said came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him.” (Psalm 105:18–19, ESV)
a) The promise doesn’t only comfort. It tests. Every morning it asks: Do you still trust the One who said it?
3. We usually treat a word of encouragement as the announcement that the wait is over. In Scripture it’s far more often provision for the wait that’s just beginning.
4. Jesus didn’t visit Paul on the night before his release. He visited him on the night before two years of nothing.
5. Pastoral Line:
a) “His word didn’t shorten Paul’s wait. It carried him through it.”
B. Mined, Not Manufactured
Visual moment: two diamonds, or two photos side by side on screen. Ask: “Can you tell the difference?”
1. This is not a sermon about your ring
Lab diamonds are real diamonds: same carbon, same hardness, same sparkle.
2. A natural diamond:
Clarity and inclusions in natural diamonds
A natural diamond formation happens under intense pressure and heat deep beneath the Earth’s surface. As they make their epic journey towards the surface, they are likely to pick up a few souvenirs along the way. Diamond inclusions are the geological equivalent of freckles, tiny little scars or marks our body might collect as we grow and age.
Inclusions in natural diamonds can be anything from tiny fractures and marks created in the intense formation process, to other minerals amassed within the stone. They tell us the diamond is natural, formed over time and completely one-of-a-kind.
It’s important to think of inclusions as birthmarks of authenticity instead of imperfections. If your diamond has a feather or a pinpoint, that’s an assurance of its origin, not a defect. They are beautiful reminders of your diamond’s identity and fascinating backstory.
https://adiamondisforever.com/about-diamonds/natural-vs-lab-grown-diamonds-the-truth-about-clarity-and-inclusions/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22738811686&gclid=Cj0KCQjwz4LWBhCMARIsAFEG5Mof9HMj-vv2vMzlk4Fr4R7ZbimpZ2H3QQ_IyJEUlpea_7Ag7C9Px8kaAtBTEALw_wcB
a) Formed roughly 90–120 miles underground, at around 2,000 degrees, under crushing pressure, over one to three billion years. Then a volcanic eruption carries it up.
3. A lab diamond:
Clarity and inclusions in lab-grown diamonds
Lab-grown diamonds are created in factory environments using HPHT (High Pressure High Temperature) or CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) methods. These processes aim to mimic Earth’s conditions in a much more controlled environment, which results in diamonds with typically fewer inclusions that can be made in a matter of week.
Fewer inclusions doesn’t mean none at all, though. LGDs can still have man-made inclusions that are often metallic or synthetic growth-related. In many cases, these imperfections are minimized or strategically placed. The result? Diamonds that look hyper-clean, almost pristine. Much like a filtered Instagram image – beautiful but often missing authenticity, a sense of character, a personality.
a) Grown in a chamber in a few weeks.
4. Gemologists can tell them apart, and the difference is time.
Over millions of years, trace nitrogen inside a natural diamond slowly clusters into a pattern that makes it glow blue under UV light. A lab diamond has never shown it.
5. You can copy the carbon. You can’t fast-forward the time. The waiting is written into the stone.
6. God doesn’t make lab-grown saints.
a) He could give you the look of maturity in weeks. He is after something with a story in it.
b) The formation happens ninety miles down, in the dark, where no one sees.
c) Paul’s two years get half a sentence.
7. Hidden waiting is not wasted waiting.
a) “…suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” (Romans 5:3–4, ESV)
8. Pastoral line:
a) “Lab-grown faith is fast. Mined faith carries a story. God isn’t manufacturing you. He is forming you, and the waiting is written into who you are becoming.”
C. Be Honest About the Wait
1. Pastor Mark Vroegop, Waiting Isn’t a Waste:
a) waiting on God is “living on what I know to be true about God when I don’t know what’s true about my life.”
2. That’s Paul in Caesarea. He doesn’t know the verdict or the timeline. He does know the Lord stood by him and said “Rome.”
3. Waiting puts us face to face with powerlessness, disappointment, pain, and uncertainty. The delay whispers lies:
a) “I must have heard Him wrong.” → But He stood by me.
b) “I’m being punished for my past.” → The cross is enough.
c) “I’m alone.” → “None of his friends should be prevented…”
d) “I’m just a victim of the system.” → I am a witness inside it.
4. “Define your waiting by God. Don’t define your God by your waiting.”
D. Personal — Four Ways to Wait Well
1. Hold the word.
Paul got one sentence, and it lasted two years and a shipwreck. In the storm he is still holding it (27:24).
a) Write it down: the verse, the prayer moment, the date. Read it out loud on the hard mornings. Keep a record of the times He has stood by you before.
b) hold the word God gave, not the timeline you added. Jesus said “Rome,” not “Rome by spring.” And hold your words in community, not alone.
2. Take courage for today.
Paul didn’t receive two years of courage in one night. He got daily bread. It’s manna logic: morning by morning.
a) A one-line prayer: “Lord, stand by me today. I take courage from You for today.”
b) Callback: “There is no hurry in the Kingdom of God.” Wait slowly. Abide.
3. Refuse the shortcut.
Felix wanted a bribe. Paul could probably have paid it and gone home. He refused.
a) The golden calf: “When the people saw that Moses delayed…” In the delay we build idols. Saul at Gilgal: “I forced myself.” Abraham and Hagar.
b) What “bribe” is the delay tempting you to pay? Compromise, manipulation, forcing a door, numbing the ache?
c) refusing the shortcut isn’t doing nothing. Paul made a full defense, used his citizenship, and later appealed to Caesar. See the doctor. Hire the lawyer. Advocate for justice. Just don’t trade your integrity for speed.
4. Witness where you stand.
Paul was promised a platform in Rome. While he waited, he used the one he had in Caesarea, “often.”
a) Name your Caesarea: the place you never meant to stay this long. Name your Felix: the people that place has put in front of you.
b) “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you” (Jeremiah 29:7).
c) If God never explained your delay, but someone in your Caesarea met Jesus because you were there, would it have been wasted?
5. A Word for Those Whose Wait Hasn’t Ended
a) Some here have waited far longer than two years. Some waits won’t resolve this side of eternity.
b) “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar…” (Hebrews 11:13, ESV)
c) This isn’t “hang on, it’ll all work out soon.”
(1) It’s something sturdier: the Lord stands by you in the delay, however long it lasts.
(2) And the resurrection Paul preached to Felix is the final answer to every wait.
E. Corporate — Be the Friends in 24:23
“Then he gave orders to the centurion that he should be kept in custody but have some liberty, and that none of his friends should be prevented from attending to his needs.” (Acts 24:23, ESV)
1. Luke doesn’t name them, but for two years someone brought food, letters, news, and prayer. A nephew showed up at just the right moment.
2. No one in Scripture waits well alone.
3. Who in our church is in a long, unresolved season: legal, medical, a prodigal child, infertility, unemployment, a marriage on hold?
4. Let’s be 24:23 people. Bring the meal. Send the text. Sit in the hearing. Remember the anniversary nobody else does.
VII. Bellringer
A. “You are part of something much larger than the part you play.”
VIII. Ministry Time
A. Invitation to Ministry Time
1. My Caesarea (where I’m waiting) and My 23:11 (what He has said to me).
2. Pray the text over them: that the Lord would stand by them, that they would take courage for today, and that His word would carry them through.
3. Ask for words of encouragement, “take courage” words that bring presence and hope, not dates or predictions.
4. Close by speaking it over one another: “The Lord stands by you in the delay.”
B. Prayer Requests
IX. Dismissal
X. Small Group Discussion Questions:
A. Read Acts 23:11 slowly. What does Jesus give Paul, and what doesn’t He give him? Why might that be enough?
B. Paul loses his temper in front of the council (23:3–5) on the very day Jesus comes to stand by him. What does that say about how Jesus meets us?
C. God protects Paul through a nephew, a tribune, and a Roman army rather than a miracle. Where have you seen God work through ordinary means in a hard season?
D. Psalm 105:19 says of Joseph, “the word of the LORD tested him.” Have you ever held a promise from God that seemed contradicted by your circumstances? What did that season test in you?
E. Felix hoped for a bribe (24:26), and Paul refused. What shortcuts are you tempted to take when God seems slow? (Think of the golden calf, Saul’s offering, Abraham and Hagar.)
F. Paul kept testifying to the resurrection in every room he was brought into. What is your “Caesarea,” the place you didn’t choose to stay, and who is your “Felix,” the person it has put in front of you?
G. “Waiting on God is living on what I know to be true about God when I don’t know what’s true about my life” (Vroegop). What do you know is true about God right now, even if you don’t know what’s true about your situation?
H. Felix kept saying, “Go away for the present.” Is there any area where you are the one keeping God waiting?
I. Rome protected Paul but never stood in the arena to witness. Where are we tempted to let institutions, culture, or politics do the witnessing we are called to do?
J. Peterson says God’s revelation “is rejected far more often than it is accepted.” Does that discourage you or free you? How does Colossians 1:15–20 change how you see the church on the margins?
K. Natural diamonds take millions or billions of years under pressure; lab diamonds take weeks. What has pressure plus time formed in you that a shortcut never could have?
L. Who in our church or your circle is in a long, unresolved season? What would it look like for our group to be the friends of Acts 24:23 to them this month?
M. Pray together: ask the Lord to stand by each person in their waiting, to give courage for today, and to make each of you a witness right where you are.
