1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,000 Amen. 2 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:32,000 Amen. 3 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:29,980 We'll be right back. 4 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:59,980 God, you've provided for us. You've shown us how much you care from the very beginning. With God, you've guided us, helping us navigate through every decision, big or small. You've been present. It sounds so simple, but it's so important, just knowing you're there. 5 00:01:59,980 --> 00:02:29,960 You're there when we need you. You've been patient with us, helping us to grow and learn from all the mistakes we make. And like God, you forgive us, offering us grace so those mistakes can never define us. And most of all, you've loved us unconditionally as only someone filled with God's love could. 6 00:02:29,960 --> 00:02:59,940 So today, we thank you, dads, for all of this and so much more. Happy Father's Day. 7 00:02:59,940 --> 00:03:29,920 Good morning. We are very thankful that you are here with us this morning. We're going to, in just a moment, begin with 8 00:03:29,920 --> 00:03:59,900 the 103rd Psalm. Just a few verses of that, but I wanted to begin by just saying, Happy Father's Day. We are thankful for dads, and we're thankful for those who chose to be dads and who have stood in for dads, and we are so thankful for their influence on our life. And so as we gather this morning, one of the things that we're going to do today as we move through our time of worship, we're going to focus on the goodness of our Heavenly Father, who 9 00:03:59,900 --> 00:04:29,880 both shows us what fatherhood should look like as dads, but who also loves us as his children and cares for us and watches over us and helps us. And he also encourages us, especially dads. Sometimes it can be discouraging and difficult to be a dad, and so we look to our Heavenly Father who helps us and encourages us. So we're going to read from the 103rd Psalm, and then we're going to begin in verse 10. So if you would go ahead and be standing with me, and we will 10 00:04:29,880 --> 00:04:59,860 read this together. The psalmist writes this: "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far 11 00:04:59,860 --> 00:05:29,840 does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him." Let's begin with a word of prayer. Father in heaven, help us this morning as we begin our time of worship together. May you encourage us, may you strengthen us, may you help us to see your goodness as our heavenly Father. 12 00:05:29,840 --> 00:05:50,840 Thank you so much this morning for our earthly fathers and for those who have taught us and strengthened us and pointed us to you. We are so thankful for the good gift of fatherhood that you have given us. So be with us this morning as we worship. Help us to see your goodness. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 13 00:05:50,840 --> 00:05:54,840 We're going to begin this morning by singing "Come, now is the time to worship." 14 00:06:20,840 --> 00:06:48,840 Give your heart, come, just as you are to worship. Come, just as you are before your God. Come, just as you are before your God. Come. 15 00:06:48,840 --> 00:07:08,840 One day every tongue will confess you are God. One day every knee will bow. Still the greatest treasure remains for those who gladly cheers you now. 16 00:07:08,840 --> 00:07:36,840 Come, now is the time to worship. Come, now is the time to give your heart. Come, just as you are to worship. 17 00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:50,840 Come, just as you are before your God. Come. 18 00:07:50,840 --> 00:08:04,840 One day every tongue will confess you are God. One day every knee will bow. Still the greatest treasure remains for those 19 00:08:04,840 --> 00:08:30,840 who gladly choose you now. One day every tongue will confess you are God. One day every knee will bow. Still the greatest treasure remains for those who gladly choose you now. 20 00:08:30,840 --> 00:08:56,840 Come, now is the time to worship. Come, now is the time to give your heart. Come, just as you are to worship. 21 00:08:56,840 --> 00:09:19,840 Come, just as you are before me, you're gone. Come, come. 22 00:09:19,840 --> 00:09:36,840 Next, we're going to sing Graves in the Gardens. In Acts 27, where we'll be in just a few minutes, we're going to see kind of a difficult, stormy situation. Paul ends up shipwrecked and having to swim to shore. 23 00:09:36,840 --> 00:09:48,840 But we see through all of the difficulty and uncertainty and fearfulness and waves and wind and all the difficulties that God is at work turning things upside down. 24 00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:51,840 So we're going to sing Graves in the Gardens. 25 00:10:18,840 --> 00:10:25,840 Then you came along, and put me back together. And every desire is now satisfied, here in your love. 26 00:10:25,840 --> 00:10:30,840 Oh, there's nothing better than you. 27 00:10:30,840 --> 00:10:41,840 Then you came along, and put me back together. And every desire is now satisfied, here in your love. 28 00:10:41,840 --> 00:11:00,840 Oh, there's nothing better than you. There's nothing better than you. Lord, there's nothing. Nothing is better than you. 29 00:11:08,840 --> 00:11:35,840 I'm not afraid. To show you my weakness. My failures and flaws. Lord, you've seen them all. And you still call me friend. Because the God of the mountain. Is the God of the valley. 30 00:11:35,840 --> 00:12:02,840 And there's not a place. Your mercy and grace won't find me again. Oh, there's nothing better than you. There's nothing better than you. Lord, there's nothing. Nothing is better than you. 31 00:12:02,840 --> 00:12:29,840 Nothing is better than you. Oh, there's nothing better than you. There's nothing better than you. Lord, there's nothing. Nothing is better than you. 32 00:12:29,840 --> 00:12:56,840 You turn mourning to dancing. You give beauty for ashes. You turn shame into glory. You're the only one who can. You turn graves into gardens. 33 00:12:56,840 --> 00:13:23,840 You turn bones into armies. You turn seas into highways. You're the only one who can. Oh, there's nothing better than you. There's nothing better than you. 34 00:13:23,840 --> 00:13:50,840 Better than you, Lord. There's nothing. Nothing is better than you. Oh, there's nothing better than you. There's nothing better than you, Lord. There's nothing. Nothing is better than you. 35 00:13:50,840 --> 00:13:53,840 is better than you. 36 00:14:20,840 --> 00:14:22,840 Let's pray. 37 00:14:50,840 --> 00:14:52,840 Let's pray. 38 00:15:20,840 --> 00:15:30,840 Let's pray. 39 00:17:50,840 --> 00:17:52,840 Amen. 40 00:18:20,840 --> 00:18:22,840 Amen. 41 00:18:50,840 --> 00:18:52,840 Amen. 42 00:21:50,840 --> 00:22:12,840 Normally, this is the part of the service where we move into our time of communion. We're going to do things a little differently this morning as we look at God's goodness and His provision in Acts chapter 27 and the adventures of Paul. 43 00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:19,840 The chapter takes kind of a surprising turn at the end that I think will lead us to the table together. 44 00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:29,840 So we'll celebrate the Lord's Supper at the end of our time in Acts 27 this morning. If you haven't picked up communion, I'd welcome you or invite you to do so if you want to. 45 00:22:29,840 --> 00:22:41,840 We're using up the last of our emergency supplies. We ordered more this last week that came in, but we want to use up our emergency supplies before we break into the new stock. 46 00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:52,840 That's why they're a little bit different this morning, because with shipping delays, we never know when something's going to come in or not, so we try to have some extras on hand as well. 47 00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:58,840 So we're going to start, before we move into our message this morning, we're going to sing Cornerstone. 48 00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:06,840 I think the heart of Acts 27, in fact, the heart of all of the book of Acts, is that Jesus is at the center. 49 00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:13,840 You know, the book of Luke tells us, you know, what Jesus did here, you know, to the cross and resurrection. 50 00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:23,840 The book of Acts begins by Luke telling Theophilus that I'm going to tell you what Jesus continued to do, this time through his apostles and through his church. 51 00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:34,840 And we'll see how God is at work and is our cornerstone, which in a world that feels so shaky sometimes and so discombobulated and so confusing, 52 00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:39,840 this is an important thing for God's people to be reminded where our foundation is. 53 00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:44,840 So we're going to go ahead and sing Cornerstone, and then we're going to dive into Acts 27. 54 00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:31,840 My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus' name. 55 00:24:34,840 --> 00:25:01,840 My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus' name. 56 00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:28,840 Christ alone, cornerstone, weak made strong in the Savior's love through the storm. He is Lord, Lord of all. 57 00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:57,840 When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on His unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil. 58 00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:26,840 My anchor holds within the veil. Christ alone, call us Lord. We pray strong in the Savior's love. You're the storm. He is Lord. 59 00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:55,840 Lord our Lord. Christ alone, call us Lord. We pray strong in the Savior's love. Through the storm, He is Lord. Lord our Lord. 60 00:26:55,840 --> 00:27:24,840 And He shall come with trumpets sound. O may I then in Him be found, dressed in His righteousness alone. 61 00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:53,840 Let's stand before the throne. Christ alone, call us Lord. We praise all in the Savior's love. Lord of all, He is Lord, Lord of all. 62 00:27:53,840 --> 00:28:22,840 All right, before we dive into Acts 27, I just want to give you a couple notes. If you like following along on the handouts, the handouts contain a lot of what we're going to cover this morning, but they don't contain everything. 63 00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:31,840 You may have noticed that our whole text is not there. That's because our whole text is the 27th chapter of the book of Acts. 64 00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:42,840 And so in just a minute, we'll pray and we'll talk a little bit about some context for what's happening in Acts 27, then I'm going to kind of read through the whole chapter and comment on a couple parts. 65 00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:51,840 So if you would like to follow along, you can grab, there's some Pew Bibles there if you don't have one with you, or grab your phone and grab the app if you want to follow along 66 00:28:51,840 --> 00:29:01,840 as we go through Acts the 27th chapter to kind of see what's happening. I'm going to read it on some paper I printed out a little bigger, 67 00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:09,840 because as I get a little older, the print has to be a little bigger. And one of the ways, just a kind of a glimpse into how I write sermons, 68 00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:16,840 I print out my sermon text and I carry it with me and just make notes on it, and then eventually we'll kind of put it all together. 69 00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:20,840 Also on the back of one of these pages is a recipe for pizza dough. 70 00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:25,840 So if you're fast enough, you can catch our family pizza dough recipe. 71 00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:31,840 So we're going to go ahead and pray, and then we'll dive right into Acts the 27th chapter. 72 00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:35,840 Father in heaven, thank you for letting us be here this morning. 73 00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:44,840 We thank you for this chapter that at first seems like kind of a frustrating experience for the Apostle Paul, 74 00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:50,840 not being listened to, the struggle in the midst of the storm, the ultimately being shipwrecked, 75 00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:56,840 and help us to see that sometimes you lead your people into seasons of struggle and difficulty, 76 00:29:56,840 --> 00:30:00,840 but that even in the midst of the storms, we know that you are Lord. 77 00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:06,840 You're Lord of all creation, of the wind and the rain and the seas, and even of the shipwrecks. 78 00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:11,840 So I ask that you would encourage us this morning, help us to fix our eyes on you. 79 00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:14,840 It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 80 00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:21,840 So I don't know if you've ever had that experience where you are driving somewhere and you're trying to figure out if you are in your place. 81 00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:23,840 It's happened to me a few times in life. 82 00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:29,840 One of the, I think, most memorable for me was probably 12 or 13 years ago, 83 00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:38,840 and I was going to spend the weekend or spend Sunday and Monday with some friends who had a cabin in West Virginia. 84 00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:41,840 They said, "Hey, you want to come up?" It was Labor Day. 85 00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:46,840 They said, "Come up for Labor Day. You can camp, and we can hang out, run around in the woods, and we've got this great cabin." 86 00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:50,840 I said, "Yeah, it sounds great." They said, "I'll head up as soon as church is over. I'll head up." 87 00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:57,840 So they gave me directions, because at this point, GPS would not get you to where you were going. 88 00:30:57,840 --> 00:30:59,840 And the directions were a little bit concerning. 89 00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:03,840 Like, I got the main road part, and it's like you turn off the main road onto this side road, 90 00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:07,840 and then you're going to turn off that side road onto another smaller side road, 91 00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:10,840 and then you're going to see a chicken farm, and you pull in behind the chicken farm houses, 92 00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:16,840 and there looks like a trail going through the woods. Just follow that trail, and you'll eventually come to the cabin. 93 00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:22,840 And so I did okay with the main road. I got off onto the first side road, and it was starting to get a little bit concerning, 94 00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:27,840 because, you know, leaving Virginia, you've got four-lane roads, and then you go down to two lanes. 95 00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:33,840 And then I was on a road with, you know, it was two lanes, but there's no lines, because it's not wide enough for that. 96 00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:36,840 And then you go a little further, and it turns into dirt. 97 00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:41,840 And I'm going, you know, there's no cell service. There's no, you know, GPS wasn't going to find this, 98 00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:47,840 because it turns out it was not a real address. I see the chicken farm, and I was like, "Well, this seems kind of weird." 99 00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:52,840 Driving right through the middle of the guy's chicken farm, and I see the path going into the woods, and I'm like, 100 00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:57,840 "You know, they said this was where it was going, but this doesn't feel like I'm going anywhere." 101 00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:01,840 And you go through the woods a little bit on this little track, and then it's just a field. 102 00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:05,840 And it had been recently mowed, and there wasn't a lot of traffic to this cabin, 103 00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:10,840 so it's like, "Where do I go now?" Right here, I'm sitting in the middle of the field. 104 00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:14,840 At this point, I'm thinking, "You know what, I can just turn around, go home." 105 00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:18,840 I said, "Well, I'll start driving through the field." And so, but there's that uncertainty. 106 00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:21,840 And I got to the other side of the field, look around, there was the path going through the woods, 107 00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:27,840 and I eventually made it to the cabin. But there is that feeling where you're sitting there going, 108 00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:32,840 "Am I in the right place? Am I where I'm supposed to be?" Because none of this looks right. 109 00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:36,840 And nothing in my life experience really prepared me for driving, you know, 110 00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:42,840 like a 1999 silver Chevy Lumina covered in rust through a field in the middle of West Virginia. 111 00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:48,840 I was not prepared for that. One of the things that will happen to us in life 112 00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:54,840 is we'll frequently find ourselves in places where we didn't feel like we're prepared for. 113 00:32:54,840 --> 00:33:01,840 Where we're in the midst of a storm. The wind seems to be blowing and buffeting us back and forth. 114 00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:08,840 The circumstances are a struggle. Maybe it feels like it's a struggle for us to keep our head sort of out of water, 115 00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:12,840 and it may feel like we're just in danger of being overwhelmed. 116 00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:19,840 And one of the things that I think happens for us when we see difficulty and we see storms in life, 117 00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:26,840 we take that as a signal or a sign that maybe we shouldn't go the way that we're going, right? 118 00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:30,840 So when things for us become difficult or confusing or a bit of a struggle, 119 00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:36,840 we think, "You know what? Maybe I shouldn't go this way. Maybe I should find a way that is easier." 120 00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,840 And we've maybe said it or heard people say it, you know, 121 00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:44,840 "Maybe God is trying to tell me that I shouldn't go this way by putting this struggle in my path." 122 00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:51,840 Or, "If this is the way that I was supposed to be going, wouldn't it be much easier for me to make this journey?" 123 00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:56,840 And so for many of us, I think when we encounter difficulty and uncertainty and storms in life, 124 00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:05,840 our first thought is, "Maybe this isn't where God wants me to be because He would never put me in the middle of a storm." 125 00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:10,840 What you're going to see in Acts chapter 27 is God does exactly that. 126 00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:15,840 He puts the Apostle Paul in the middle of the storm. 127 00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:19,840 And the same is true for us as we walk through this life. 128 00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:26,840 Even when we are in the midst of God's will, what we will find is we will find ourselves facing storms. 129 00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:30,840 Because Paul in this chapter is clearly in the center of God's will. 130 00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:34,840 He's obeyed God. He's gone to Jerusalem. He's been in prison. He's proclaimed the gospel. 131 00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:37,840 Now he's heading to Rome, which God says, "You're going to go to Rome." 132 00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:43,840 So he's following God's will, but yet he finds himself in the middle of this storm. 133 00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:50,840 Paul is going where God wants him to go, and doing so is very difficult. 134 00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:55,840 So we're going to read through this text. And one of the things, like when I was in elementary school, 135 00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,840 and they were trying to help you understand the tone of the text, 136 00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:03,840 they said, you know, kind of go through and, you know, and underline everything that talks about how somebody's feeling, 137 00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:08,840 or something like that. I just want you to sort of mentally listen to these words 138 00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:14,840 and hear all the words for difficulty and struggle as we read through this text. 139 00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:19,840 So I'm just going to read through it, and then we'll sort of pause it at places and comment on it, 140 00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:24,840 and then we'll talk a bit about what we can learn from this in the midst of the storms of long life. 141 00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:30,840 So remember, Paul has been appealed to Caesar, his appeal to Caesar has been granted, so he has to go to Rome, 142 00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:32,840 and so here's what happens. 143 00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:37,840 When it was decided that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and some other prisoners, 144 00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:42,840 the centurion of the Augustan cohort named Julius. 145 00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:49,840 And embarking upon a ship of the Adramatium, which was about to sail to the ports along the coast of Asia, 146 00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:55,840 he put to sea, accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica. 147 00:35:55,840 --> 00:36:02,840 The next day we put in at Sidon, and Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him leave to go see his friends and to be cared for. 148 00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:06,840 And so it seems like the journey has been going pretty well so far. 149 00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,840 The centurion seems like a very decent fellow, right? 150 00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:14,840 They get to a port, and he allows Paul some leave, sort of lets him out on parole to go see the church 151 00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:20,840 and be encouraged by the church, and then in verse 4 is where it all starts to get difficult. 152 00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:24,840 And putting out to sea from there, we sailed under the lee of Cyprus. 153 00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:30,840 And so we'll hear that term several times. The lee is sort of out of the wind. 154 00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:35,840 So if you have wind blowing at an island, one side where the wind is hitting will be the windward side, 155 00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:39,840 and the side where the island blocks the wind is the lee side. 156 00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:45,840 So they're out of the wind going around Cyprus because the winds were against us. 157 00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,840 There's the first of our struggle language. 158 00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:54,840 And when we had sailed across the open ocean along the coast of Sicilia and Pamphylia, 159 00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:56,840 we came to Myra in Lycia. 160 00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:02,840 There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy and put us on board. 161 00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:09,840 We sailed slowly a number of days and arrived with difficulty off Nydas. 162 00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:18,840 And the wind did not allow us to go further, and we sailed under the lee of Crete off Siloam, coasting along it with difficulty. 163 00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:23,840 We came to a place called Fairhavens, which was near the city of Lycia. 164 00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:34,840 Since much time had passed, and the voyage was now dangerous because the fast, that's the Day of Atonement, end of September, beginning of October, was over, 165 00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:42,840 Paul advised them, saying, "Sirs, I perceive the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of cargo and the ship, but also of our lives." 166 00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:48,840 But the centurion paid more attention to the pilot, and to the owner of the ship, and to what Paul said, 167 00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:56,840 "Because the harbor was not suitable to spend the winter in, the majority," so they put it to a vote, "decided to put it out to sea from there, 168 00:37:56,840 --> 00:38:04,840 on the chance that somehow they could reach Phoenix, the harbor of Crete, facing both southwest and northwest, and spend the winter there." 169 00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:14,840 I want you to just sort of take a moment and consider that phrase, "We decided to put out to sea from there, on the chance that we could somehow reach Phoenix." 170 00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:25,840 So imagine you're gonna go on a trip, and so you go to the airport, and you get on the plane, and the pilot goes, "All right, we're gonna take off," and you get up there. 171 00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:34,840 We've reached cruising altitude, and on the chance we make it to Phoenix, right, you know, hopefully we'll all have a good time and live life, right? 172 00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:40,840 That's not something you want somebody to say when you get on an airplane, right? On the chance that we're able to land safely, 173 00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:52,840 on the chance that we reach our destination, but that's what this group decides, right? On the chance that we might be able to make it to where we're going. 174 00:38:52,840 --> 00:39:01,840 So you can kind of see some foreshadowing in Luke's account there. "Now when the south wind blew gently, supposing they had obtained their purpose, 175 00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:07,840 they weighed anchor and sailed along creek close to shore." So it seems like things are going well, and then verse 14, 176 00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:18,840 "But soon a tempestuous wind called a nor'Easter struck down from the land, and the ship was caught and could not face the wind, 177 00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:24,840 and we gave way to it and were driven along, running under the lee of a small island called Kata. 178 00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:33,840 We managed with difficulty to secure the ship's boat." So the ship's boat would have been like a life boat or an extra boat, 179 00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:40,840 and what they normally did was sort of towed along behind, but the ship has gotten so tossed around that that boat is in danger 180 00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:46,840 of either coming loose or turning into a projectile that crashes into the ship, so they pull it aboard. 181 00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:56,840 And what happens next sort of sums up how bad this storm was. After hoisting it up, they used supports to undergird the ship. 182 00:39:56,840 --> 00:40:02,840 You're in a ship, a wooden ship, and the big storm comes, and some guy says, "You know what we need to do to hold the ship together? 183 00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:07,840 Let's get some ratchet straps and run them underneath the ship, around to the top, 184 00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:13,840 and then we're going to tighten those up so the ship doesn't split apart and go every different direction." 185 00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:24,840 That's what they're doing, is they are running lines under the ship, tying them on top so that the ship isn't going to fall apart in the storm. 186 00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:31,840 Then, fearing that we'd be on the Sirtis, this is a sandbar that is miles and miles from anywhere 187 00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,840 to be sort of stuck in the middle of the ocean, the boat unable to move. 188 00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:39,840 They lowered the gear and thus were driven along, and so they would have lowered their sea anchors, 189 00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:45,840 which were kind of like parachutes that go in the water, that hopefully slow and stabilize the ship. 190 00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:50,840 But notice they're completely out of control, right? No sails, they're not facing into the wind, 191 00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:56,840 they're trying to stop from being sort of marooned off the coast of North Africa in the middle of the ocean. 192 00:40:56,840 --> 00:41:01,840 And since we were violently storm-tossed, they began the next day to jettison the cargo, right? 193 00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:05,840 The weight of the cargo would have weighed the ship down, made them feel the waves. 194 00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:10,840 They want to ride on top of the water, so they began discarding as much weight as they can. 195 00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:15,840 And on the third day, they threw the ship's tackle overboard with their own hands. 196 00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:19,840 This kind of says that they're becoming hopeless, right? We're not going to need these ropes anymore. 197 00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:26,840 When neither the sun nor stars appeared for many days, no small tempest lay on us, 198 00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:32,840 and all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned, right? 199 00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:39,840 The storm has been so bad, nothing they've done has worked. There is no hope. 200 00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:42,840 Verse 21, "Since they had been without food for a long time, 201 00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:48,840 Paul stood up among them and said, 'Men, you should have listened to me.'" 202 00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:52,840 Now, Paul is not saying, "I told you so," here. 203 00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:55,840 He's reminding them that he had predicted what was to happen, 204 00:41:55,840 --> 00:42:03,840 and that his words have the weight of being able to tell them something about what is going to happen next. 205 00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,840 "Men, you should have listened to me and not set sail from Crete, 206 00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:10,840 and incurred this injury and loss, yet now I urge you to take heart. 207 00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,840 For there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. 208 00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:17,840 For this very night there stood before me an angel of God, 209 00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:20,840 to whom I belong and whom I worship." 210 00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:24,840 And he said, "Do not be afraid. You must stand before Caesar. 211 00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:28,840 And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you. 212 00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:33,840 So take heart, men. I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told, 213 00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:37,840 but we must run aground on some island." 214 00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:43,840 When the 14th night had come, as we were being driven across the Adriatic Sea, 215 00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:49,840 right out of control for 14 days, about midnight, the sailors suspected they were nearing land. 216 00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:53,840 So they took a sounding and found 20 fathoms. That's how deep the water was. 217 00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:56,840 A little further, they took a sounding and found 15 fathoms. 218 00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:03,840 And fearing that we might run on the rocks, they let down four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come. 219 00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:07,840 And so they're trying to slow the ship down. So if you do come to this island Paul has been talking about, 220 00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:15,840 water's getting shallow, that you're not going to crash into it, maybe you'll be able to dock safely or ground the ship safely. 221 00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:21,840 And as the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship, and had lowered the ship's boat into the sea, 222 00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:26,840 under pretense of laying out anchors from the bow, Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, 223 00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:29,840 "Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved." 224 00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:32,840 Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the ship's boat and let it go. 225 00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:38,840 And so there's kind of a mini-mutiny that the sailors are saying, "Hey, we can probably make it in this little boat. 226 00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:44,840 Let's abandon everybody." And Paul goes to the centurion, "Hey, we need the sailors to get this boat to land." 227 00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:48,840 And so before the guys can get in the boat, the soldiers just chop the ropes off. 228 00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:55,840 Probably a little bit of a conflict, and the boat goes sailing away. Now there is no chance of escape. 229 00:43:55,840 --> 00:44:00,840 As the day was about to dawn, Paul urged them all to take some food, saying, 230 00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:06,840 "Today is the fourteenth day, and you have continued in suspense without food, having taken nothing." 231 00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:12,840 "That this boat, soldiers, ship, and crew have not eaten for two weeks." 232 00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:21,840 "Therefore, I urge you, take some food, for it will give you strength, for not a hair is to perish from the head of any one of you." 233 00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:25,840 Now we'll talk about this next verse in a minute, but just listen to see if it sounds familiar to you. 234 00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:34,840 And when he had said these things, he took bread, and giving thanks to God in the presence of all, he broke it and began to eat. 235 00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:40,840 And they were all encouraged, ate some food themselves, and there were 276 persons in the ship. 236 00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:45,840 And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, throwing out the wheat into the sea. 237 00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:50,840 Now when it was day, they did not recognize the land, but they noticed a bay with a beach, 238 00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:55,840 on which they planned to run the ship ashore. So they cast off the anchors and left them in the sea, 239 00:44:55,840 --> 00:45:01,840 and at the same time loosening the ropes that tied the rudders, then hoisting the foresail to the wind, 240 00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:07,840 they made for the beach. But striking a reef, they ran the vessel aground. The bow stuck remained immovable, 241 00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:12,840 and the stern was being broken up by the surf. And so what's happened is the front of the boat is secure, 242 00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:18,840 the back of the boat is being torn apart by the waves, and they aren't to the beach yet, right? 243 00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:23,840 There's still a whole bunch of water between them and this island. 244 00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:27,840 The soldiers' plan was to kill, lest any of them should swim away and escape. 245 00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:33,840 Remember, if you're a Roman soldier guarding a Roman prisoner, you're life. 246 00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:37,840 So if these prisoners escape, the punishment that would have gone upon these prisoners 247 00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:40,840 would have gone upon the soldiers. They say, "It's going to be easier. 248 00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:46,840 Just take the bodies to Rome rather than trying to wrangle these guys as we get to shore." 249 00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:48,840 Listen to the goodness of the centurion. 250 00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:53,840 "The centurion, wishing to save Paul, kept them from carrying out their plan. 251 00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:57,840 He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and make for the land, 252 00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:00,840 and the rest on planks or pieces of the ship. 253 00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:07,840 And so it was that all were brought safely to land." 254 00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:15,840 So as we consider this chapter full of detail and storm and fearfulness 255 00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:19,840 and loss and a hopelessness, and even physical hunger, right? 256 00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:23,840 You're so worried and so fearful that you don't eat for 14 days. 257 00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:28,840 I want to just sort of think a little bit about this storm, right? 258 00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:31,840 They ignore the common sense given to them by Paul. 259 00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:34,840 Their sort of struggle and fear and continual difficulty, right? 260 00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:40,840 All hope is gone. You've got a mini-mutiny, and then Paul almost dies at the hands of the people he's trying to save, 261 00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:44,840 and eventually everyone makes it to shore. 262 00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:49,840 And so I want us to think a little bit this morning about what we can learn from this text 263 00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:52,840 when we find ourselves in the midst of storms. 264 00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:57,840 Not necessarily a physical storm where the wind is blowing and the waves are crashing over us, 265 00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:01,840 but in those times when it feels like life is doing that to us. 266 00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:07,840 When we're struggling and we're uncertain, when we feel like we are out of hope. 267 00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:13,840 And so the first thing I want you to see from this text is that we should be thankful for the evidences 268 00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:17,840 of God's grace, right? 269 00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:23,840 So typically what we tend to do is we count up the problems, right? 270 00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:28,840 The hurts, the struggles, all of those bad things in life. 271 00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:33,840 And it's so easy to take everything that has gone wrong and sort of stack it up, right? 272 00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:38,840 This went wrong, and this went wrong, and they did this to me, and it's just been horrible ever since, 273 00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:47,840 that everything sort of begins to pile up in this giant mountain of our struggles and hurts and difficulty. 274 00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:53,840 I want you to see, first of all, how Paul is encouraged by God's people. 275 00:47:53,840 --> 00:48:00,840 And not just by God's people, but also this sailor, this centurion who does not believe in God. 276 00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:06,840 In this text, one of the things we see is the blessings of companions. 277 00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:14,840 When it was said that we should go to Italy, this is verse 1, they delivered Paul and some of the other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan cohort named Julius. 278 00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:20,840 And embarking on the ship of the Adamantium, which was about to sail the ports along the coast of Asia, 279 00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:25,840 we put to sea, accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica. 280 00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:29,840 Paul is about to walk into a very uncertain future. 281 00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:34,840 And one of the things we're going to see in this chapter, and also in the next, is that God's people 282 00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:37,840 walk with us when we go into uncertainty. 283 00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:42,840 And so we know that Luke is with Paul in this text, because throughout this whole thing he'll say, 284 00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:45,840 "We did this, and this happened to us, and we went here." 285 00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:50,840 And so Luke is very obviously writing this as somebody who has experienced it with the Apostle Paul. 286 00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:56,840 But what is also remarkable is this man, Aristarchus, from Thessalonica. 287 00:48:56,840 --> 00:49:02,840 We first meet him back in Acts, I think, chapter 19, where Paul is getting ready to go to Jerusalem. 288 00:49:02,840 --> 00:49:09,840 And Aristarchus volunteers and says, "I will go along, and I'll help Paul, and I'll watch out for him, 289 00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:12,840 and I'll help him as he carries this offering to Jerusalem." 290 00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:18,840 And Aristarchus doesn't just stop in Jerusalem, but evidently as Paul is snuck out of the city, 291 00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:25,840 as Paul is arrested, as Paul is put before these Roman officials, Aristarchus is there with him. 292 00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:30,840 And when Paul gets on the ship, Aristarchus is there with him as well. 293 00:49:30,840 --> 00:49:34,840 And it's in all likelihood that Paul wouldn't have been able to bring friends with him. 294 00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:38,840 He's allowed to bring Luke because it's his doctor and he has a physical condition. 295 00:49:38,840 --> 00:49:42,840 The only way in which he would have been able to bring Aristarchus with him, 296 00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:46,840 according to the traditions of the times of prisoners being transported, 297 00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:51,840 is if Aristarchus had said, "I am Paul's slave. I'm Paul's servant." 298 00:49:51,840 --> 00:49:56,840 If he hadn't humbled himself, he would not have been able to go with the apostle Paul. 299 00:49:56,840 --> 00:49:58,840 And you see the love that Aristarchus has for Paul, 300 00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:04,840 that he says to the Romans, "I'm Paul's servant, his slave, and I'm there to meet his needs." 301 00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:08,840 And what's interesting, if you look toward the end of Paul's life, for example, 302 00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:14,840 in Rome, as he writes to Philemon, or writes about Philemon to his, 303 00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:20,840 or writes to Philemon about Onesimus, he starts with this, "Aristarchus, who is with me, 304 00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:27,840 greet you," that Aristarchus stays with Paul, suffers with Paul, travels with Paul. 305 00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:36,840 There is a blessing with God's people. And one of the things in the midst of the storm that we see so clearly so many times, 306 00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:42,840 is how God's people stand with us, and rally around us, and how they help us. 307 00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:49,840 The second thing we see is we can be encouraged by the providence of God, and evidence of God's grace is his providence. 308 00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:56,840 And we see this in the blessing of this centurion. He's an important guy of the Augustan cohort, 309 00:50:56,840 --> 00:51:03,840 named for the emperor, after the emperor. And so when your legion is named in such a way, it denotes importance. 310 00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:10,840 This guy isn't just a regular sort of Roman soldier or even a commander, but he's a commander in sort of an elite unit, 311 00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:19,840 an important unit. And somehow Paul gets the Roman soldier who is good to those he is guarding. 312 00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:25,840 And I think that somehow has to do with God. How God works behind the scenes to make sure 313 00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:31,840 this is the guy who's guarding Paul on the way to Rome. Because not only has he let Paul out of the boat to go see his friends, 314 00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:35,840 knowing that Paul is going to come back, but when all the other soldiers are like, "Hey, let's kill all the prisoners 315 00:51:35,840 --> 00:51:40,840 because it's easier to transport a body than it is a live human being." What does this guy do? 316 00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:47,840 He stops them because he wants to save Paul. You see the provision of God. 317 00:51:47,840 --> 00:51:54,840 But we also see Paul encouraged by the blessing of God's word, and he'll testify to this, how that very night 318 00:51:54,840 --> 00:52:01,840 there stood before me an angel of God, whom I belong and whom I worship. And he said, "Do not be afraid, Paul. 319 00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:10,840 You must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you." You see, God speaks to Paul 320 00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:17,840 encouragingly through an angel. That yes, the storm is mighty. Yes, it has been difficult. Yes, it has been fearful. 321 00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:23,840 You don't have to be afraid because I am with you. You see, God speaks to us. 322 00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:31,840 God speaks to us. Maybe we don't see an angel all the time, but we do see his word. His word that assures us that he 323 00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:38,840 never leaves us or forsakes us. That he knows the circumstances. We don't have a high priest who cannot 324 00:52:38,840 --> 00:52:47,840 sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every way has been tempted as we are. We have an anchor in Jesus. 325 00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:52,840 One of the stories that I love in the Gospels, and it's recounted in Matthew and Mark and Luke, 326 00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:57,840 is Jesus in the boat with the disciples, and he's had a long day of ministry. He's preached, 327 00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:02,840 he's healed, he's taught, he's had controversy, and so he gets into the boat, and like a lot of us, 328 00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:07,840 after a long day, we get into a car, and somebody else is driving, and it's so easy to fall asleep. 329 00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:13,840 Jesus falls asleep in the boat. And in the middle of his nap in the boat, right, a storm arises, 330 00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:19,840 and the boat's about to sink, and the disciples wake him up and go, "Don't you care if we die, Jesus?" 331 00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:25,840 Jesus calms the storm with a word, and then he'll say to them, "Oh, you of little faith." 332 00:53:25,840 --> 00:53:30,840 And he's not making fun of their faith. What he's saying, I think, is he's gently correcting them, saying, 333 00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:38,840 "Why is your faith so small? Here I am, and I'm in the storm with you, right? I'm not watching you from the 334 00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:44,840 shore or from a distance, but while you are with me, you are safe, no matter how big the storm." 335 00:53:44,840 --> 00:53:50,840 And I think the message for us as we see Paul hearing God's word is to ask ourselves, 336 00:53:50,840 --> 00:53:54,840 "Are we, in the midst of our storms, listening to God's word?" 337 00:53:54,840 --> 00:54:00,840 It's so easy to become preoccupied and overwhelmed by our difficulties that we forget that God has 338 00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:08,840 spoken to us through his word. And we see that God does not abandon us in the midst of our storms. 339 00:54:08,840 --> 00:54:12,840 The other thing that I would have you to see is the importance of wisdom. 340 00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:19,840 In Acts chapter 27, in our storms, it's wise for us to act in a way that makes sense. 341 00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:24,840 In Acts chapter 27, 9 and 10, it says, "As much time had passed, the voyage was now dangerous 342 00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:30,840 because the fast was already over." End of September, Paul advised them, saying, "Sir, as I perceive, 343 00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:35,840 the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives. 344 00:54:35,840 --> 00:54:40,840 It was dangerous to sail at this time of year. In addition to the winter storms, the currents would shift 345 00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:47,840 and make travel much slower and much more difficult. Not a good time to sail." 346 00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:54,840 Now, Paul has extensively traveled by ship. We know in 2 Corinthians, he said, "I've been shipwrecked 347 00:54:54,840 --> 00:55:00,840 three times, a day and the night I spent in the open sea," meaning that he's without a boat, right? 348 00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:06,840 So Paul has had some experience, and so he says, "Look, guys, the season's getting late. Let's stay. 349 00:55:06,840 --> 00:55:14,840 Let's exercise some wisdom in the midst of this struggle of me having to go to Rome. Let's use our wisdom 350 00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:21,840 to choose the best path." What we also see is that wisdom so many times is overruled by our desires. 351 00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:26,840 But the centurion paid more attention to the pilot and the owner of his ship than to what Paul said 352 00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:32,840 because the harbor was not suitable to spend the winter in, and the majority decided to put out from sea 353 00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:37,840 from there on the chance they could somehow reach Phoenix, the harbor of Crete. And so what happens 354 00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:44,840 is this city is called Fair Havens. One commentator suggested it was named by the, like, sort of the 355 00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:50,840 Chamber of Commerce to be Fair Havens because it was not Fair Havens. It was a bad harbor, but it wasn't 356 00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:56,840 somewhere that you couldn't last the winter, right? It just wasn't ideal. The problem, the real problem 357 00:55:56,840 --> 00:56:00,840 at the heart of why they want to leave is this is a terrible town to spend the winter in, right? 358 00:56:00,840 --> 00:56:06,840 There's nothing happening. It's a tiny little town. You've got soldiers and sailors, and most 359 00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:10,840 commentators will say the reason they want to leave isn't because of the harbor. It's because they don't 360 00:56:10,840 --> 00:56:15,840 want to be stuck in this backwater town for the entire winter. That's why they're trying to get to 361 00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:22,840 another town before they stop for the winter, right? And isn't it easy to justify our desires, right? 362 00:56:22,840 --> 00:56:26,840 Their desire to be in a bigger town, and they look at the harbor and go, "Oh, it's a little small. It's kind 363 00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:29,840 of facing the wrong direction." It wasn't they couldn't stay there. It wouldn't have been ideal. 364 00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:35,840 But it would have been safer than the voyage that they were taking. And what you see is for the 365 00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:41,840 sailors and the soldiers, this storm was of their own making. Not for Paul, right? He doesn't have a 366 00:56:41,840 --> 00:56:48,840 choice in the matter. But sometimes the storms we face are because of the decisions that we make. 367 00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:56,840 The third thing I would have you consider about Acts chapter 27 is have you considered God's purposes for 368 00:56:56,840 --> 00:57:04,840 you in the storm. Paul has an opportunity to speak about God and his faith. And also think about this: 369 00:57:04,840 --> 00:57:10,840 what would have happened to this ship, the sailors, the soldiers, and the prisoners had not Paul been 370 00:57:10,840 --> 00:57:16,840 with them, right? They're not just traveling because of Paul. They were already going and they kind of tagged 371 00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:22,840 Paul in at the last minute. What would have happened to this group had Paul not been there? And they made 372 00:57:22,840 --> 00:57:30,840 those same decisions. They would have died in the sea. And Paul, in the midst of this, encourages them. 373 00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:36,840 He feeds everyone. And have you considered how you can share your hope in the midst of the storms? 374 00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:41,840 But not only that, notice Paul doesn't just share spiritual hope. He shares physical help as well. 375 00:57:41,840 --> 00:57:47,840 Make sure everybody eats. So in the midst of those storms that you encounter or see others encountering, 376 00:57:47,840 --> 00:57:54,840 we want to both encourage spiritually and help physically. 377 00:57:54,840 --> 00:58:01,840 I'm going to go to verse 33, as Paul talks about being nourished in the storm. 378 00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:07,840 And as the day was about to dawn, Paul urged them to take some food, saying, "Today is the 14th day. 379 00:58:07,840 --> 00:58:11,840 You have continued in suspense without food and have taken nothing. 380 00:58:11,840 --> 00:58:14,840 Therefore, I encourage you to take some food that will give you strength, 381 00:58:14,840 --> 00:58:18,840 for not a hair of your head is to perish from any one of you." 382 00:58:18,840 --> 00:58:20,840 Right? Food can be encouraging, right? 383 00:58:20,840 --> 00:58:24,840 We've maybe heard the term "hangry," or you've seen those Snickers commercials. 384 00:58:24,840 --> 00:58:27,840 It's like, "You're not you when you're hungry," right? 385 00:58:27,840 --> 00:58:29,840 And I know sometimes that's true for me. 386 00:58:29,840 --> 00:58:35,840 Rachel will attest that there are times I'll come home, and I'll be grumpy and, you know, grumping at the dog, 387 00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:37,840 and it's, "Oh, it's so loud in here," and the kids are running around. 388 00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:39,840 She'll go, "When was the last time you ate something?" 389 00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:41,840 I was like, "I don't know," right? 390 00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:44,840 She's like, "Maybe go eat some crackers or something," right? 391 00:58:44,840 --> 00:58:46,840 You know, "Have a sandwich," right? 392 00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:49,840 And I'm like, "That'll never help. That's a terrible idea." 393 00:58:49,840 --> 00:58:51,840 And then I go and do it, and what happens? 394 00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:53,840 Your demeanor instantly changes, right? 395 00:58:53,840 --> 00:58:56,840 And all of a sudden, things aren't as bad as you thought they were, 396 00:58:56,840 --> 00:58:58,840 not as terrifying as you thought they were, 397 00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:02,840 not as annoying as you thought they were, right? 398 00:59:02,840 --> 00:59:06,840 So when we're hungry, especially we're not talking about just missing lunch or skipping breakfast. 399 00:59:06,840 --> 00:59:09,840 We're talking about 14 days without food, right? 400 00:59:09,840 --> 00:59:15,840 So in addition to the struggles of the storm and expending all your energy to try to keep this ship together, 401 00:59:15,840 --> 00:59:19,840 you're also sort of physically without calories. 402 00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:24,840 And so your hunger influences your emotions. 403 00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:29,840 But I think Luke here wants us to see something more than a physical meal in this. 404 00:59:29,840 --> 00:59:30,840 Listen to what he says. 405 00:59:30,840 --> 00:59:35,840 "When he had said these things, he took bread, 406 00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:40,840 and when he had given thanks to God in the presence of all, he broke it and began to eat, 407 00:59:40,840 --> 00:59:44,840 then they all were encouraged and ate some food themselves." 408 00:59:44,840 --> 00:59:46,840 Those words sound familiar to you? 409 00:59:46,840 --> 00:59:49,840 Luke will record this in Acts 22. 410 00:59:49,840 --> 00:59:52,840 "And he had took bread," this is Jesus, "and when he had given thanks, 411 00:59:52,840 --> 00:59:55,840 he broke it and gave it to them, saying, 412 00:59:55,840 --> 00:59:58,840 'And we know the rest, right? This is my body, which is for you. 413 00:59:58,840 --> 01:00:02,840 Do this in remembrance of me, and likewise the cup after they had eaten. 414 01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:06,840 This cup is poured out for you as the new covenant in my blood.'" 415 01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:12,840 Right? You see Luke paralleling the language around the bread with Paul. 416 01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:17,840 And I don't think that is unintentional, right? 417 01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:20,840 Luke is a smart guy, a good scholar. 418 01:00:20,840 --> 01:00:28,840 What's interesting is the Lord's Supper in some religious circles will be referred to as the Eucharist. 419 01:00:28,840 --> 01:00:34,840 And what's interesting about that is that comes from a single Greek word, Eucharist, which means to give thanks. 420 01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:38,840 It comes directly from when Jesus gives thanks and breaks the bread. 421 01:00:38,840 --> 01:00:47,840 The word in Greek has its root in that Eucharist, Eucharisteo, to give thanks for something. 422 01:00:47,840 --> 01:00:49,840 And that's what Paul does, right? 423 01:00:49,840 --> 01:00:54,840 He takes the bread, he gives thanks, and they are encouraged. 424 01:00:54,840 --> 01:00:56,840 So is Paul celebrating the Lord's Supper? We don't know. 425 01:00:56,840 --> 01:01:07,840 It's possible, we know there's Christians there with him, that at least Luke and Aristarchus, maybe others have booked passage as well to try to help Paul and encourage him. 426 01:01:07,840 --> 01:01:09,840 We don't know. 427 01:01:09,840 --> 01:01:21,840 But it's very interesting, and I don't think it's accidental, that Luke uses the exact same language that he does when Jesus celebrates the Lord's Supper. 428 01:01:21,840 --> 01:01:28,840 I want to share with you this quote from a commentary on the Book of Acts that says this: 429 01:01:28,840 --> 01:01:33,840 "What is the response of the church in the midst of discouragement and fear? 430 01:01:33,840 --> 01:01:39,840 Like Paul, the church takes bread, blesses it, and breaks it, and begins to eat. 431 01:01:39,840 --> 01:01:46,840 What good will it do, the world may ask, in this sign of hope, in the power and the presence of God, 432 01:01:46,840 --> 01:01:56,840 this Eucharistic or thankful witness to our confidence in God's will to give us what we need, even in the midst of the storm. 433 01:01:56,840 --> 01:02:02,840 The church not only feeds itself, but is a witness to the world. 434 01:02:02,840 --> 01:02:09,840 The Eucharist is food of confidence, shared in the middle of the storm. 435 01:02:09,840 --> 01:02:20,840 We're going to pray and we're going to celebrate this meal of thanksgiving that nourishes us now and in the midst of our storms. 436 01:02:20,840 --> 01:02:29,840 Father in heaven, we thank you that you are at work in the midst of our storms, whether it's the small signs of grace, 437 01:02:29,840 --> 01:02:37,840 your people who encourage us and help us in your providential care, how you have worked things out on our behalf. 438 01:02:37,840 --> 01:02:49,840 Help us as we face these storms to do so with wisdom, to seek your strength and power. Help us in the midst of these storms to serve as a witness 439 01:02:49,840 --> 01:03:01,840 and a help to those who are struggling. Help us this morning as we come. May we be nourished by the Gospel, by the fact that you have loved us 440 01:03:01,840 --> 01:03:05,840 and your Son has taken our brokenness, our sin and our shame. 441 01:03:05,840 --> 01:03:12,840 He has risen again for our victory, and that we celebrate with thankfulness and hope because of what you have accomplished for us. 442 01:03:12,840 --> 01:03:17,840 It is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 443 01:03:17,840 --> 01:03:21,840 And this is from Luke the 22nd chapter. 444 01:03:21,840 --> 01:03:27,840 Jesus took bread when he had given thanks. He broke it and gave it to them saying, 445 01:03:27,840 --> 01:03:33,840 "This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 446 01:03:33,840 --> 01:03:53,840 And likewise, the cup after they had eaten saying, "This cup poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood." 447 01:03:53,840 --> 01:04:06,840 We're going to stand, and we're going to sing a song about trusting and praising God, even in the midst of the storms, a song called "Raise a Hallelujah." 448 01:04:06,840 --> 01:04:10,840 So we're going to go ahead and stand and sing. 449 01:04:16,840 --> 01:04:39,840 I raise a Hallelujah in the presence of my enemies. I raise a Hallelujah louder than the unbelief. 450 01:04:39,840 --> 01:05:02,840 I raise a Hallelujah. My weapon is a melody. I raise a Hallelujah. Heaven comes to fight for me. 451 01:05:02,840 --> 01:05:29,840 I'm gonna sing in the middle of the storm. Louder and louder. You're gonna hear my praises roar. Up from the ashes, hope will arise. Death is defeated. The King is alive. 452 01:05:29,840 --> 01:05:56,840 I raise a hallelujah with everything inside of me. I raise a hallelujah. I will watch the darkness bleed. I raise a hallelujah. 453 01:05:56,840 --> 01:06:23,840 In the middle of the mystery. I raise a hallelujah. Fear you lost your hold on me. I'm gonna sing in the middle of the storm. 454 01:06:23,840 --> 01:06:43,840 Louder and louder. You're gonna hear my praises roar. Up from the ashes. Hope will arise. Death is defeated. The King is alive. 455 01:06:43,840 --> 01:07:11,840 Sing a little louder. In the presence of my enemies. Sing a little louder. Louder than the unbelief. Sing a little louder. My weapon is a melody. Sing a little louder. Heaven comes to fight for me. Sing a little louder. In the presence of my enemies. Sing a little louder. 456 01:07:11,840 --> 01:07:31,840 In the presence of my enemies. Sing a little louder. Louder than the unbelief. Sing a little louder. My weapon is a melody. Sing a little louder. Heaven comes to fight for me. 457 01:07:33,840 --> 01:07:55,840 I'm gonna sing in the middle of the storm. Louder and louder. You're gonna hear my praises roar. Up from the ashes, hope will arise. Death is defeated. The King is alive. 458 01:07:55,840 --> 01:08:21,840 I'm gonna sing in the middle of the storm. Louder and louder. You're gonna hear my praises roar. Up from the ashes, hope will arise. Death is defeated. The King is alive. 459 01:08:25,840 --> 01:08:36,840 I want to thank you for joining us this morning. We're thankful to those of you who are here in person, and we are also very thankful to those of you who join us online. 460 01:08:36,840 --> 01:08:49,840 We're going to just have a couple of announcements. We'll be here Wednesday night at 7 p.m. for Bible study, and then next Sunday moving into the 28th chapter of the book of Acts. 461 01:08:49,840 --> 01:09:04,840 If you thought the storm was difficult for Paul, just read the first couple verses of Acts chapter 28, and you'll see he's kind of gone into another very difficult sort of slithery situation. 462 01:09:04,840 --> 01:09:16,840 So we'll be in Acts chapter 28 next week. I'm going to pray, read a verse from 2 Thessalonians, the third chapter, and then we'll sing the doxology and be dismissed. 463 01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:24,840 Father, thank you that through you we can sing in the midst of our storms. We thank you that you bring us through them. 464 01:09:24,840 --> 01:09:31,840 Help us to be a people who fix our eyes on you, that you would be our hope and our strength. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 465 01:09:31,840 --> 01:09:38,840 Paul will say this as sort of a quick prayer for the Thessalonian church in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3. He says this, 466 01:09:38,840 --> 01:09:45,840 "May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ." 467 01:09:46,840 --> 01:10:15,840 Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 468 01:10:15,840 --> 01:10:20,840 Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 469 01:10:45,840 --> 01:10:47,840 Amen. 470 01:11:15,840 --> 01:11:17,840 Amen. 471 01:11:45,840 --> 01:12:02,900 God bless you.