Today is a big day for Cornerstone for two reasons. First, we finally made it back to Acts! I last preached Acts in Juneand, Lord willing, we’re going to finish it by Easter. Second, today is the first day of our new worship service format—which is 20 minutes of worship, 20-minute message, and 45 minutes of discussion. And this is terrifying for me because I normally preach 30-35 minutes. So this is going to be an experiment, for all of us. How are you feeling about today? Happy? Sad? Anxious? That’s human.

Maybe as you look at your life, you’re just wondering, “God, what are you doing?” However you’re feeling and whatever you’re asking God, I hope we can find Acts 22:22-23:11 encouraging. Today I want to slow down and focus on what God is doing in Paul’s emotion and state. In 2019, I preached a sermon called “Wise Emotions.” Today I want to focus on SASHET, an acronym which Andy has been sharing:

S – Sad – Am I feeling sad or depressed?

A – Angry – Am I feeling angry or mad?

S – Scared – Am I feel anxious or fearful?

H – Happy – Am I feeling happy or joyful?

E – Excited – Am I feeling excited or looking forward to something?

T – Tender – Am I feeling loving or caring?

Apparently a sashet can be a little bag of potpourri. What’s your emotion when you smell one of those? Love, feel happy, or if you’re like me, a little bit of rage…? No matter your emotion or state, God is there and God is working. We see this in Paul’s story. The story of Acts is about the joyful yet often difficult expansion of the gospel message (the good news about Jesus) from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Peter takes the message in and around Jerusalem before Paul takes it to Turkey and Greece. Throughout his journeys and as we come to the end of Acts, Paul has faced many hardships.

He’s been ridiculed and stoned, imprisoned too. He’s about to be wrongly imprisoned, put-on trial, get shipwrecked, and suffer and eventually die for Jesus. Can you imagine how he must be feeling in today’s text? He has returned to Jerusalem after a long absence. But the Holy Spirit has told him “in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await” (Acts 20:22-23).

How would you feel? Would you be excited to go to Jerusalem? To do Jesus’ work? I know I wouldn’t. But no matter his emotion, God is there and God is working. And when Paul gets to Jerusalem, he’s arrested at the temple under false charges. He preaches that Jesus of Nazareth is God, and the gospel is for the Gentiles.

Acts 22:22-24 (ESV)

22 Up to this word they listened to him. Then they raised their voices and said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth! For he should not be allowed to live.” 23 And as they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, 24 the tribune ordered him to be brought into the barracks, saying that he should be examined by flogging, to find out why they were shouting against him like this.

Now how would you feel? I would be panicking. I would be A – Anxious, and worried that I was about to become T – Tenderized. The text doesn’t tell us what emotions Paul was experiencing, but he was able to think clearly enough to exert his rights, not just for his protection, but so he could share the gospel.

Acts 22:25 (ESV)

25 But when they had stretched him out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, “Is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman citizen and uncondemned?”

Now that got their attention! The centurion, an officer over 100 soldiers, ran and got the tribune, a commander over 1,000 soldiers, including several centurions. This tribune had rescued Paul when the riot at the temple started, but had also bound him in chains and was about to flog him, torture him with whips to pry out why the riot started. I probably would have spoken up much earlier, but here Paul speaks up, exerting his Roman rights for the sake of the gospel. Part of the perks of being a Roman citizen is you had the right to a tri