Worth Dying For: Shipwreck

Welcome Venture Church Father's Day. Next week our theme as dads Get Dirty.

Didn't expect that shocked response. For those of you don't know who I am,

I'm Brandon. I am the lead pastor of the church. I'm glad

that you are here with us on this Sunday. I want to take a

moment and let you know that Pastor Tony and I are doing a weekly podcast.

It's called Venture Unfiltered. You can find it on our regular Venture Apple

podcast. It's also available on Spotify. It drops every Thursday afternoon and Tony

and I discuss the weeks before message. We go really in depth on it,

things that maybe we didn't have time to talk about. This last episode,

we really went in depth on Pastor Tony is like incredible message from last

week about sharing your story. We give all kinds of advice about that,

give examples from our own life, and we also hit on other topics that

maybe other pastoral podcasts aren't quite brave enough to talk about because they don't have

nineteen years of history at the same church. So I can get away with

it, because you can't fire me, so I can get away with it.

All that to say, grab your Bible's Turn to Acts, chapter twenty

seven. We're winding down this journey that we've been on through the Book of

Acts. We started it in September, we divided it into three different volumes.

We are now on volume three Worth Dying For, and we are following

Paul on his journey to Rome. Now we know that this journey, historically,

at least you know, it ends up in Paul being martyred. So

we're on this journey together finally to Rome. Paul sensed when he was in

Ephesus that God was calling him to share his story in Rome. So he

traveled to Milidas. He called all the church elders from all the churches in

the region that he had led together and he shares with him that he's going

to travel and celebrate the Festival of Pentecost in Jerusalem and then he's going to

testify about Jesus in Rome. Well, he gets to Jerusalem and everything that

could go wrong goes wrong. Basically, him being there causes all the religious

people to stir up an uprising that leads to a riot. The Romans,

not knowing how to keep Paul safe through him in a prison cell. Feeling

like that was the only way to keep Paul safe. Then after a couple

days, they with an armed court take him all the way from Jerusalem to

Cesarea Maritima. He ends up under house arrest in Cesarea for over two years.

But my favorite thing that Paul does the entire time he's there. Paul

could have done what many of us do, what many of us think is

Okay, God has called me to do this, and until I have everything

in my life appropriately lined up for me to do exactly what God has called

me to do, which is testify about Jesus in Rome, I'm just gonna

wait until I get to Rome. But Paul's attitude was, if all God

has for me is this prison cell in Cesarea, well I'm gonna tell everybody

about Jesus from here. And for two years, any opportunity Paul was given,

he testified about Jesus. Unfortunately, it gave him the opportunity to share

the message of Jesus and how Jesus crossed his path and changed his life in

front of the leaders in the entire nation of Israel. It's kind of an

amazing story. Well, then, finally, after a couple of years Acts

twenty seven, Verse one, Finally, Paul is sailing to Rome. It

says when it was decided verse one, that we would sail for Italy.

We're finally going to Rome. Paul and some of the prisoners were handed over

to a centurion named Julius, who belonged to the Imperial Regiment. We boarded

a ship from the Adamantium about to sail for ports along the coast of the

province of Asia. I want to ask everyone to buy your heads, close

your eyes. I want you to repeat this prayer after me. Everyone say

Dear Jesus to my heart, change my life in Jesus name. Amen.

This map shows you the journey that Paul took from Cesarea. It's this red

line. This map is probably familiar to some of you. It's probably in

the back of some of your Bibles. It's easy to google. But this

red arrow is the journey that Paul took by boat from Cesarea and he eventually

ends up in Rome. They're going to keep this up for a little bit,

pretty fun for dian I. We are actually traveling this same journey we

leave on Tuesday. We are actually going in reverse. We're starting in Rome

and going this way. And while we're on that trip, we're gonna post

some videos. We're visiting some biblical sites while we're in Rome. We're gonna

visit the places where Paul was in Rome. We're gonna be where they believe

is the prison cell where Paul was in Rome. Where actually gonna go to

the location where historically they believe Paul was martyred, and we'll post some videos.

Just follow me on social media and you can see some of these videos.

Morrigan is preaching the next two weeks and he will show some of these

videos during his messages. But you'll be able to see those spots actually what

they look like today. Here's a fun fact. Did you know that in

the last ten years there has been eight hundred and ninety two shipwrecks around the

world. Fascinating seventy two of those we're passenger ships like the one Paul was

on, or like the one Diane are about to go on. Did you

know truth that the vast majority of the shipwrecks have happened in this region,

So be praying for Diane. This was a great thing to discover as I

was researching this message. Another interesting fact is there are four hundred and thirty

eight that they know of abandoned ships just floating around the seas and oceans of

the world. They were ships that ran aground, people evacuated the ships,

the tide rows, and the ships just set out to sea without any crew

and are just randomly floating around Well Acts twenty seven, Paul, All those

on the ship and the crew don't know this, but they are about to

become another statistic. They are about to shipwreck. This is a story about

an actual storm and an actual shipwreck. So we're going to tell the story

about the actual storm the actual shipwreck. But I want you to think about

the storms that you face in your life. We might not go through an

actual storm or an actual shipwreck, but we experienced these things in our life.

And today, using an actual storm and an actual shipwreck, I want

to share with you four signs that you know you're about to crash. Four

signs that you are about to shipwreck. Every single one of us has experienced

this. We've experienced a shipwreck in our finances. We've experienced where we've seen

people experienced shipwrecks in their marriage. We've experienced shipwrecks emotionally. I've shared with

you many times about how seven years ago I had a major anxiety episode in

my life, and it was I literally crashed emotionally. Some of you are

like me, and you've crashed emotionally before. But today I want to help

you because I want to show you signs that warn you you're about to shipwreck.

The first sign is someone always warns you ahead of time. There's always

somebody waving their arms saying, bad decision, go a different direction, don't

do it. Slow down. There's always somebody who loves you that's trying to

warn you what you're doing is not good. Well, as they set sail,

this was Paul verse nine. Paul warned them, man, I can

see that our voyage is gonna be disastrous. I love this. I call

this the this is bad statement. And he said it's gonna bring great loss

to the ship and the cargo and to our own lives. Also. Now,

the journey for these guys has already started rough, but Paul could tell

it was going to be bad. So we began to warn everyone. When

we experience a shipwreck in our lives, we can usually look back at that

person that tried to warn us. Our church this fall will experience our nineteenth

birthday. So it's nineteen years ago Die and I moved here and started Venture

Church. So we're about to be nineteen years old. Isn't that crazy.

In the first twelve years of our church, I did the vast majority of

our pre marriage counseling. See, we have a requirement, it's a covenant

that you make when you join our staff, which is that no one on

our staff performs a wedding ceremony if the couple does not previously get pre marriage

counseling. We do that because premarriage counseling sets people up to succeed in their

marriage. Pre marriage counseling is fun because you're meeting with a couple and you're

talking about deep things like conflict resolution and communication and finances and all the things

that you deal within a marriage, but you're dealing with it from an attitude

of hopeful expectation of what the future is going to be. Like. Why

do we require pre marriage counseling because we do a lot of marriage counseling because

couples have the We talk about the exact same thing in a marriage counseling setting

that we do in a pre marriage counseling setting, but it's with a totally

different attitude. Once you deal with this in your marriage, it's called a

crisis. In all the times that I have done pre marriage counseling, probably

three hundred of them, only three times have I ever to a couple and

waved my arms and said, don't do it. You should not get married.

And it's really hard for a minister to take a bold step like that,

and I've only done it three times. One time they listened to me.

They're both married to someone different. Happily, children lives are blessed.

Two did not listen to me, and their marriage is epically shipwrecked, horribly

bad. When you shipwreck there was always someone along the way that was waving

their arms saying, don't do it. This is bad. I remember I

had a little bit of discretionary income to invest. I had this great idea.

I was going to invest it in cryptocurrency. I'd already decided. But

I know the Bible, which says there's wisdom and multitude of counselors. Have

you ever already made a decision and thought, Okay, I'm just gonna get

somebody's advice because I'm supposed to. So I was in a board meeting,

and I know we've got a bunch of brilliant financial people on our board,

and I just, matter of factly before the meeting started, just said,

Hey, I'm about to invest his money in cryptocurrency. And one of our

financial advisors, I mean, this guy is brilliant. This guy has made

millionaires of multiple people because of his financial advice. In the most calmest way

possible tells me my idea is the dumbest thing he has ever heard. But

I'd already decided come on, so I didn't listen, and the rest is

history. Sometimes we are so determined to set sail to Rome that we don't

listen to clear warnings Verse eleven. This is kind of fun. The centurion,

instead of listening to what Paul said, followed the advice of the pilot

and of the owner of the ship. Have you ever noticed you can always

find someone that will tell you what you want to hear. No matter how

bad your decision is, you always have one lame friend who, instead of

telling you the truth, will tell you what you want to hear. Well,

in this case, the pilot, instead of heating the warning of Paul,

listened to the owner of the ship of course he wants him to keep

going. This is kind of funny. Verse twelve, it says, since

the harbor was unsuitable to winter in, so now it's wintertime. The majority

decided that we should set sail, hoping to reach Phoenix and winter there.

If you've ever wondered where the idea of being a snowbird started, it's here.

Two thousand years ago, people were buying places in Phoenix to avoid seattle

winters. Right here that was all free. So number one, there's always

people that will warn you. Number two, Once you set sail, there's

always a gentle wind that comes. This is the way the devil operates.

He's deceptive. Verse thirteen. When a gentle south wind begin to blow,

they saw their opportunity, so they weighed anchor and sailed along the shore of

crete. Other translations say when a gentle wind came, they thought they had

obtained what they wanted. It's always the way that it happens. It always

starts off when you make a bad decision that's leading to a shipwreck. There's

always something that goes right, and once it goes right, it justifies in

your head. I knew this was the good thing to do. I knew

that really smart person that told me not to do it didn't know what they

were talking about, and so we set sail. It's always at that moment

that relief comes, because in the back of your mind you're thinking, I

probably should have listened to the smarter person, and I didn't. Proverbs says

a lot about you and I making huge decisions and just deciding it ourselves.

Proverbs twenty eight twenty six says whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool.

Proverbs fourteen twelve says there is a way that seems right to a man,

but in the end leads to death. The scary thing about this gentle

wind is they didn't see what was coming. It's the progression of a shipwreck.

Someone always warns you. It always starts off. Okay, there's a

gentle wind, but then the storm hits Verse fourteen. Before very long,

a wind of hurricane force called the northeaster swept down from the island. The

ship was caught up by the storm and could not head into the wind,

so we gave way to it and were driven along by the way. When

you're about to shipwreck and the storm comes, that's when you start losing control.

That's when the storm begins to control your circumstances, begins to control the

direction of your life, begins to control your situation. The storm begins to

guide you. This happens often for people. I meet with people all the

time that a storm comes in their life and all common sense leaves and the

storm just steers everything they do. They just kind of ebb and flow based

upon where the wind is blowing them at the moment. And this happens in

These storms come and you're gonna face them. This is a part of life.

Every single one of us is gonna deal with financial issues. Most of

us are gonna make a bad financial investment like I did. We're gonna deal

with issues in our relationships, and we're gonna have health struggles and emotional struggles.

We're gonna have challenges with our kids, challenges in our business, challenges

with our friends. We're gonna have storms. We're gonna face these things.

I think there is a natural human response, by the way, not necessarily

the right response, but I think there is a natural human response to a

storm. Ironically, it parallels what they did in the middle of this storm.

We do the exact same thing when we face a storm and we feel

like our situation and circumstance has lost control. So this storm hits and the

first thing they do Verse seventeen is they passed ropes underneath the ship itself to

try to hold it together. Have you ever done this one? All of

a sudden, a storm hits and you're just trying to keep everything together.

I call this when you start binging. You start doing all the things that

you should have done years ago, but now you're trying to do them all

simultaneously at the same time. This is when people get really spiritual, really

fast. Man. They don't miss church, they don't miss prayer meetings.

They volunteer in everything. They're volunteering in the nursery, on the worship team,

in the kid's ministry, they're volunteering in women's ministry, men's ministry,

all simultaneously because they're trying to make up for all this lost time and hope

that this being a super Christian is going to hold everything together. So those

moments where you become super dad, it's where you become super wife or super

husband. It's in those moments you meet with the doctor and the doctor says

you have diabetes. You're heading towards heart disease, and all of a sudden

we become a binge dieter. Three. You start meeting every week with the

pastor. You got three counseling appointments a week. You're doing all these things

to try to tighten and hold the ship together, the whole time wishing you'd

have listened to that person that said don't sail, hoping you can go back

to the way that things were before. Human response to a storm because you

try to hold everything together. By the way, another human response to the

storm is what they did next verse seventeen. Because they were afraid they would

run aground on the sandbars of Certis. They dropped the sea anchor. Some

of us, that's what we do. We drop anchor. How do I

describe dropping anchor? I deal with people that are in the middle of the

storm all the time, and when a storm comes, you have to make

good decisions. Like when a storm comes, you often don't have a choice.

You have to make a decision. You have to make a bunch of

them, and you have to make them quickly. But because of the storm,

people drop anchor and they just stop. They're paralyzed. Instead of making

a choice here, they do nothing. They make They say things to me

like I just can't handle it. I'm too overwhelmed. I don't know what

to do. I can't do anything. And then they drop anchor and stop.

The problem is while you drop anchor and stop, the storm continues to

rage all the way around you. This is the moments where I mean people

quit everything when they drop anchor. It's a normal human response to a storm.

I think the last human response to a storm that we see here is

in verse eighteen says we took such a violent battering from the storm that the

next day we begin to throw the cargo overboard. On the third day,

they threw the ship's tackle overboard. I love the way that this verse ends

with their own hands, like we needed to know that, Like how else

are they going to throw it overboard with their feet? But it's telling us

they did this the things that they would need to have long term survival to

immediately make it through a storm. They lost all sort of rationale and common

sense and tossed it out, the things that they would ultimately need to staying

their life. In that moment of facing a storm, they cost it out.

I watch people do this all the time. They face a storm and

they start throwing everything overboard. They think, I'm telling you I can't be

a greeter anymore. That fifteen minutes every Sunday, twice a month, this

is just too much I can't do. So they cost it out. They

start thinking, I can't, I can't tithe anymore. I'm gonna cost it

out. I can't I can't spend the hour in fifteen minutes at church on

Sunday because it is smacked out in the middle of family time. So they

stop doing everything they should do in response because they start throwing everything out.

This is when people randomly quit jobs. This is when people are so frustrated

they just randomly pack up everything and move. I watched people do this stuff

all the time. The problem is in a human response to a storm,

you still crash. Again. Result of it is a shipwreck. I mean,

once you've left that harbor on that decision, the end is the end,

you're gonna crash. So it's not a matter of whether or not you're

gonna crash or shipwreck. Once you started sailing the room, the shipwreck is

happening. The question is are you going to survive the shipwreck. Progression of

a shipwreck. Somebody always warns you there's that gentle wind that comes. The

storm comes, and then it's followed by darkness. I guarantee every single one

of you here, those that are watching online, listening to the podcast,

you've experienced that season of darkness in your life. Bible says verse twenty.

When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging,

we finally gave up all hope of being saved. Have you ever been in

the middle of a storm that was so bad you knew this is gonna crash,

but you just consume at the darkness. And I called darkness that moment

where you just you feel like you have no hope of being saved. It's

that moment of darkness where God finally brings us to the point where we throw

our hands up in absolute surrender. Were like, Jesus, I can't make

it on my own. And I remember when I had my anxiety break seven

years ago. There came a point in the middle of this I just threw

my hands up and every one of my prayers was Jesus Help, Jesus Help,

And I have stories during that time where I would be at the like

I had used all of my finite knowledge to help me through something and it

didn't work, and I would just say, Lord, I don't know what

to do. I don't know how to make it through this. I am

just asking for help. It's always in those moments, you're gonna look smack

dab in the middle of the storm, and if you look close enough,

you will see Jesus there. Kind of gives you that ray of hope.

Somebody in the lobby after the first service said, I just kept thinking.

She said, I came to the service in the middle of a storm,

and she said, I'm leaving here today seeing a light at the end of

the tunnel. That's what Jesus does. You're able to once you've just kind

of let go of everything. By the way, it's also when you're in

the middle of that moment you stop trying to fix everything and you start accepting

responsibility. That's where you stop and you just say, Jesus, the number

of times I've prayed this one, Jesus, I don't deserve to be bailed

out of this. But if in all your providence and then all your sovereignty

Can you save me? Jesus? You help me, Jesus. Now,

I'll deal with all the ramifications and consequences of leaving the harbor and setting sail

to I will deal with that, But but will you save me? In

a couple of weeks from now, Tony and I recorded a podcast we're talking

about so this is like a preview. You're gonna want to watch this podcast.

We're talking about the Hillsong documentary that just came out on Hulu. We're

talking about church scandals, and as we talk about that, one of the

things that I just I begin to share as I talk about how it took

all of this happening in this pastor's life for him to finally start prioritizing the

things that mattered most. He was so worried about his fame and so worried

about his popularity that he'd forgotten what matters the most is that woman that I

married and those three children that God bless me with. And when he started

focusing on that family, all of a sudden, the storm began to calm.

It's when he took responsibility, he started prioritizing what mattered most. It's

in this moment of darkness where you throw your hands up, you say,

Jesus help. I love what happens. Next, the Holy Spirit speaks to

Paul, and Paul begins to encourage everyone. Here's what he says. He

says, this is Paul speaking Verse twenty two, says, I urge you

to keep your courage, because not one of you will be lost, only

the ship will be destroyed. Last night, the Angel of God, to

whom I belong and whom I serve, stood beside me and said, Paul,

don't be afraid. You're gonna stand trial before Caesar, and God has

graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you. So Paul looks

at all the men on the ship and he says, keep up your courage.

I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me.

I love the end, though, he says. But nevertheless, we're

gonna shipwreck, but you're gonna survive. Says moments like that that God reminds

us that he sees us in the middle of the storm, and he tells

us, Yeah, you're gonna reap. The consequence is of your action.

You're gonna crash, but you're gonna make it, you're gonna survive this fall.

I'm going to do a series through the book of Jonah, Jonah's super

fun book. Jonah gets a word from God, and he runs from God,

and you know the story, gets swallowed by a whale and Jonah.

Chapter two tells us the story of Jonah's prayer, thinking life is over in

the belly of a whale in the bottom of the sea, and he describes

his prayer this way. He says, I cried out to God, and

I repented. I begged for help, and it says, and my prayer

rose to you up to your holy temple. He says, in the belly

of a whale in the bottom of an ocean. God heard my prayer and

he answered me. And I love the end of chapter two because it says,

and the fish puked Jonah onto dry land. I'll have lots of fun

with that when it's coming. But God will show up in the middle of

the storm and I'll show you a way to survive. Here's what happens that

they crashed. The end of chapter twenty seven says he ordered those who could

swim to jump overboard and swim for land. The rest were to get there

on planks or on other pieces of the ship. In this way, everyone

reached land safely. God will always give you a plank to hold onto so

you can swim to shore. Sometimes, instead of trying to fix everything that

you messed up to begin with, look for the plank, hop on it,

swim to shore and survive. Paul wrote this to the church in corinth

And I bet he wrote this from that prison cell, think prison cell in

Rome, thinking about I remember when I shipwrecked. I mean, you gotta

think living through a shipwreck gives you a lot of stories to tell. So

here's what he wrote. Second Corinthians, chapter four, verse eight. He

said, we are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed. This

is like a promise to followers of Jesus. We are perplexed, but not

in despair. We are persecuted but not abandoned. We are struck down but

not destroyed, because God gave us a plank that we could hold on to

for dear life and swim to shore and survive. I want to ask everyone

to buy your heads, close your eyes. If you're here today and you

want to say, Pastor Brandon, man, I'm facing a storm. I

need to see Jesus in the middle of it, or maybe you're here,

your ship is crashed and you need the plank that you can grab onto for

dear life and swim to shore and survive. If that is you, I

want to close my time in praying for you. Will you raise your hand

up? All over? Wow? Can everybody stand up on your feet?

Just stand up? I want you to close your eyes. Heavenly Father,

you know every situation. You know every storm that people are facing. You

know the crash that has happened or the one that's coming. God. I

pray that in the middle of all of this they would be reminded that they

can be pressed against but not crushed, that they're not going to be abandoned,

that you care, You're with them, and you're going to provide a

way through God. I pray that they would leave today with hope that you

see them right where they're at, in the midst of their storm, in

the midst of their circumstances, and they would leave with hope that I'm gonna

make it through. God. We thank you for your word, which speaks

to us, which challenges us, which encourages us. In Jesus name,

I pray Amen