Another significant feature in Acts 21:1-16 is the value and importance Paul placed on fellowship. These verses give us a whistle-stop journey from Kos to Rhodes to Patara on to Tyre, Ptolemais and Caesarea, and in these latter places, Paul made a point of seeking out other believers and spending time with them:

• We sought out the disciples there and stayed with them seven days. (Acts 21:4)

• We continued our voyage from Tyre and landed at Ptolemais, where we greeted the brothers and sisters 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. (Acts 21:7-8)

• After this, we started on our way up to Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Caesarea accompanied us and brought us to the home of Mnason, where we were to stay. He was a man from Cyprus and one of the early disciples. (Acts 21:15-16)

This highlights for us the high value Paul placed on the Christian community. Far from being a lone ranger, he travelled with other believers, worked alongside local churches and, busy though he was, wanted to spend time with other Christians whenever the opportunity arose.

This year has proved a difficult year for Christian fellowship, since government regulations have been intent on social isolation as a means of suppressing the coronavirus. For many months, church services have been suspended and the normal means of regular fellowship have not been allowed. Hopefully this has shown us how much we need each other and heightened our appreciation of each other and the importance of fellowship. It is certainly possible to maintain fellowship through a variety of other means, but it is sadly also true that we can become used to this isolation and fail to appreciate the necessity for fellowship. Fear and apathy can mask our common need for community, and we need to take note from Paul’s example and seek out believers whenever we can, for we are built up by fellowship and strengthened and encouraged in the Lord as we gather together with other Christians. We can’t wait to be back together in our building next Thursday!

The prayer ‘Your will be done’ (uttered by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane as recorded in Luke 22:42 and Matt 26:42) represents for us Jesus’s total surrender to God’s will. He knew the agony that awaited Him on the cross and was fully aware of the spiritual and physical anguish which faced Him there. Not surprisingly, we see that He did not relish this prospect. He actually asked for the cup to be removed: ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but Yours be done.’ (Luke 22:42) Nowhere do we see the humanity of Jesus more clearly than in this scene; the writer to the Hebrews comments, ‘Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered.’ (Heb 5:8) Yet we see from this scene that surrender to God’s will is possible, even when suffering is great. Jesus is able to offer us the greatest example of obedience we can ever hope to see and because of His sacrifice is able to lead us to that same place.

Surrender to God’s will is costly. It means laying aside our will and choosing to obey God rather than our own human instincts and desires. It means giving God first place in our lives and being prepared to lose everything (as Abraham was prepared to do when God called him to offer his precious son, Isaac, on an altar or as Ezekiel had to do when faced with the loss of his beloved wife.) Often, it can be just as hard to face the suffering of a loved one as it is to face suffering oneself. The believers experienced this when faced with Paul’s journey to Jerusalem; they knew the trials facing him and would dearly have loved for him not to go there so that he could be spared from suffering. Paul knew, however, that he needed to complete the task Jesus had set him (Acts 20:24) and that he was willing to die for the name of the Lord Jesus. (Acts 21:13) At this point, the believers had to stop their arguments and simply pray, ‘The Lord’s will be done.’ (Acts 21:14)

All of our prayers ultimately need to include this surrender to God’s will. It’s not a phrase we say lightly, not a mantra to be tacked on to the end of our words glibly or without thought. Instead, it’s the painful yet joyful expression of trust in the goodness and grace of God which can transform our lives. Jesus said ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.’ (Mark 8:34-38) We don’t ask for God’s will to be done because we don’t know how to pray (though that is very often our experience!) but because we know this is the highest good for ourselves, our families, friends, communities and world. We surrender to God because that is the pathway to real life.

Agabus (who featured earlier in the book of Acts (Acts 11:28)) is named as a prophet, someone who spoke the word of the Lord to the people. His prophecy in Acts 21:10-11 shows him acting out a prophecy, taking the linen belt from Paul and binding his own hands and feet with it as a visual sign of what would happen to Paul in Jerusalem.

This visual enactment of what will happen was something with which people were familiar from Old Testament prophets. Ahijah, for example, took hold of Jeroboam’s cloak and tore it into twelve pieces to symbolise the division of Israel following Solomon’s death. (1 Kings 11:29-39) Isaiah went around stripped and barefoot for three years as a sign against Egypt and Cush (Is 20:1-6). Ezekiel lay siege to a model of Jerusalem as a visual aid to the people about the coming judgment. (Ezek 4:1-17) – and this not for a day or two, but for well over a year! God speaks to us not only with words, but sometimes through these dramatic ‘mimes’ or dramas; He knows that we learn not only from what we hear but from what we see as well. As photographers frequently remind us, ‘a picture speaks a thousand words.’

One of the things we must acknowledge about prophecy is that it is rarely heeded at the time. Prophets are frequently ostracised, judged, condemned and hated. (Matt 5:12, Matt 23:30-37, 1 Thess 2:15) This is because they speak the word of God to us, bringing us back to truth in stark, unequivocal terms. They do not allow us the luxury of complacency or self-indulgence, but bring us face to face with the holiness and majesty (and demandingness) of God. For most of us, we prefer to focus on the idea that prophecy is to build us up than to confront us with God. (Is 30:11) This is to take a very narrow view of prophecy. Discipline is a vital part of parenting, and God’s judgment and corrective discipline are not meant to leave us in a state of condemnation, but to lead us to repentance and faith.

We need the gift of prophecy in our churches today, but we also need prophets. We need people who will speak fearlessly and unashamedly of God and who will bring His word to our hearts. Agabus is only mentioned twice in the New Testament, but each time he teaches us much about faith and courage. May we too know God speaking to us in such ways.

Proverbs 15:22 says, ‘Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.’ There is no doubt that the advice and counsel of wise Christians can be extremely helpful to us when facing awkward decisions, but an additional difficulty comes if we receive conflicting advice. What do we do, then?! When making choices, it isn’t always possible to please everyone, and we can be thrown into further confusion if the advice we receive is contradictory.

Sometimes, the conflict comes because we are asking for advice when we have actually already decided what we want to do and are therefore not inclined to listen to any counsel which contradicts the plans of our own heart. But sometimes, we genuinely do want the advice and counsel of others, but are confused when this leads us in totally opposite and mutually exclusive directions!

Paul faced the dilemma of conflicting counsel with regard to his journey to Jerusalem. He felt compelled to go there by the Holy Spirit (Acts 20:22), but throughout his long journey there, he met with people who strongly urged him not to go there (see Acts 21:4, 12). He heard prophecy from a respected church member (Agabus) which indicated the unfavourable outcome awaiting him in Jerusalem. (Acts 21:10-11) Yet he persisted in heading towards Jerusalem despite all who urged him not to. Was he simply being obstinate? How does this situation help us in our own moral dilemmas and difficult decisions?

Firstly, we must remember that God will never contradict Himself, even if we need discernment in understanding what He is saying. Secondly, we must learn to differentiate between prediction and prohibition. Paul was under no illusions that going to Jerusalem would mean a comfortable outcome for him. He knew that the Holy Spirit had warned him of hardships and prison (Acts 20:23), so Agabus’ prediction that he would be bound by Jewish leaders and handed over to the Gentiles (Acts 21:11) was no surprise to him. He repeatedly told others that he was prepared to die for the Lord and that his personal safety and wellbeing were not his highest concern (Acts 20:24, Acts 21:13). We should not be surprised to find that this answer was difficult for those who loved him to accept; similarly, no advice that is ever given to us will be completely impartial or without personal emotion and involvement, and these elements must be weighed in our response. No one person has a monopoly on truth and each one will be working through difficult implications in the advice they give.

The advice of others is often helpful and crucial in allowing us to work through the implications of choices and to see aspects of decisions which perhaps would otherwise be invisible to us. At the same time, each decision we make must be ours alone and must reflect the inner conviction of what God Himself is saying to us. It’s all too easy to be swayed by reason and advice; sometimes, we must remember that what God calls us to do does not make rational sense and does not guarantee easy outcomes. Paul continued on his journey to Jerusalem not because he was simply being awkward or because he was a masochist; he continued because he was convinced that this was God’s will for him. There can be no substitute for hearing the gentle whisper of God and knowing the personal leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit in our decisions.

This year has proved difficult and stressful for most people in different ways. We have been so alienated from usual routines and weighed down by anxieties and fears, and because of this, one of the things that is at risk of being harmed is our friendships. Friendship does not necessarily need physical contact to thrive (my best friends all live away from me and I rarely see them), but the emphasis on lack of social contact this year puts friendships lower down the pecking order in some respects and means it can be difficult to maintain and develop those relationships.

There are, of course, many ways of staying in touch with people these days, including Zoom, Facetime, WhatsApp, letters, cards and texts, even if we cannot meet up in person. There are many ways we can still meet up, including going for a walk outdoors. But busyness, work, juggling so many different aspects of life and the inertia which in some ways lockdown produces have all taken their toll on friendship. We have had to work hard at our relationships at home after being thrust into 24/7 contact earlier in the year; for parents with young children, it has been difficult to do anything other than just exist, and all these things may mean that we have allowed our friendships to drift.

Few of us acknowledge that friendship requires commitment and effort and even fewer of us recognise how precious friendship is. Friendship is that relationship of choice. You can’t choose your family, the saying goes, but you can choose your friends. Friends are those people with whom we feel an affectionate affinity, who love us unconditionally and who care about us without necessarily demanding anything of us! Friends support us, cheer us up, listen to our moans and groans and put perspective back into our lives when the daily demands of shopping, cooking, washing up, eating, cleaning and working all threaten to weigh us down. (And that’s without a pandemic to contend with or any of the more difficult stresses of life!)

The Bible celebrates friendship and urges us to love one another deeply, from the heart. (1 Pet 4:8) Maybe today can be the day you reach out to a friend, even in lockdown, and remind them you care. Maybe it will mean putting aside the ironing in order to go for a walk with someone who is desperate for an adult conversation after hours of toddler speak. Maybe it will mean phoning or texting and listening to someone vent about things that are getting them down. Maybe it will mean choosing a card or present and posting it out so that someone will know they’re still loved when they feel isolated from the world. A little friendship goes a long way in these strange times and it’s good never to take anyone’s friendship for granted, for as with all relationships, neglect can mean the friendship withers and dies, and that’s a lonely place to be.

In the film ‘Braveheart’, William Wallace is a freedom fighter, a late 13th century Scottish warrior. Even in his dying moments, the word ‘freedom!’ is the cry of his heart, and freedom is at the heart of the Christian faith.

Freedom is important and highly valued, but is a difficult topic at times, for one person’s freedom can limit someone else’s freedom and we can all have preconceived ideas about what freedom is. Certainly the right to religious freedom has long been acknowledged as something given by God Himself, but over recent months we have seen an elected government taking away many basic freedoms without much consultation, and this second lockdown has raised many questions about our civil liberties. Information used to justify it was out of date and it is deeply disturbing to many that the Government has implemented measures to prevent people from seeing family members and many other freedoms we probably took for granted before. Even if we believe this was done with the best intentions, as Theresa May pointed out, ‘my concern is that the Government today, making it illegal to conduct an act of public worship for the best of intentions, sets a precedent that could be misused for a government in the future with the worst of intentions, and it has unintended consequences.’

Freedom in the Christian life is not simply about our civil liberties, however. Eph 2:1-2 reminds us that we all followed the way of this world before our conversion, being imprisoned in a way of life that was hostile to God. Col 1:13 tells us that Christ has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and Paul speaks about the mastery of sin which effectively curtails our freedom (see Rom 6). Christ has come to set us free from this mastery (see John 8:31-34, Gal 5:1). He has come to see us free from the devil’s lies.

Lies obscure our vision and distort how we see things and people. The enemy constantly tells us lies about God (persuading us that He is mean, waiting to catch us out, hateful, vengeful, bigoted, prejudiced and uninterested in us.) All these lies – which we can so easily believe – captivate us, but truth liberates.

We can, however, surrender our blood-bought freedom, as Paul reminded the Galatians. God gives us real freedom and even allows us to choose to follow Him. We are urged to surrender our lives to God (Rom 6:12-14) so that we are freed from the captivation (mastery) of sin. Then we need to grow. Growth is natural but not inevitable as any pot-bound plant reminds us. We need to realise what God has done for us (1 Cor 6:19-20) and then can grow into all that God intends for us. All who belong to God are liberated and have a freedom of incredible extents, a freedom that goes beyond any natural freedom, but also a freedom that can be surrendered, abused, or used. When we understand we have been bought with a price – the life of the Son of God – we can choose to honour God with the freedom He has given.