Acts - Week 18 (27:20-38)

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message well.

Friends, we are drawing near to the conclusion of the book of

Acts, which I'll be honest, anytime we come to the close or

near the close of a series, I always feel a little a little

sad. It's always a little sad because

every book of the Bible, everything that we get to

experience in God's word, it's man if you allow it to be, It's

so incredibly fulfilling and it will teach you so much.

And so to next week is our last week in the book of Acts.

And then as you're probably aware of, starting on September

7th, we're going to be hanging out with Moses all fall.

And I'm really looking forward to that.

But it will be sad to leave Paul where he is, but that's how that

goes. Speaking of Paul, it's been

interesting since probably around chapter 20 or 21.

We've watched as Paul, just like this dude, cannot catch a break

to save his life. I mean, it's been really bad for

him. And interestingly, like as

we're, as we're moving forward into this week, things aren't

really going to get much better, quite frankly.

Like it's going to go from bad to worse in a lot of ways.

And so he's dealt with corrupt officials, he's had bogus

trials, and he's been basically in lock up now for over 2 years

waiting for somebody to exercise some justice on his behalf.

And it's just not going that well.

Well, God has told him you need to go to Rome.

You will go to Rome and you will preach the gospel to Caesar

himself. So in God's good plan, God puts

Paul on a boat, on a ship. That's chapter 27 of Acts.

Paul gets on the boat and gosh, again, it's just, it's

ridiculous. It's going to go from bad to

worse. And I'll tell you what, if you

feel like you can understand that maybe you've been

experiencing some things lately, or maybe they're long gone or

whatever, where you're like, man, I, I cannot catch a break.

I, I'm glad you're here today. I really mean that.

Because quite frankly, you will need to hear Paul's story.

You will need to pull from that what God wants you to hear.

And so I am absolutely thankful that you're here today if you're

going through some stuff. And if you're not, it's still

good for you to hear because it is inevitable.

You will have trials. You will have tribulation.

Jesus promised you what a good promise, right?

Well, anyway, yeah. So we're going to be in the

middle of Acts chapter 27 today, and it's a longer chapter, and

Acts 27 · chapter mention

I'm not going to read the whole thing.

We're going to read kind of the middle section of that, which I

think is kind of the heart of what we all need to hear.

And so here's what I would do. I would encourage you go read

all of Chapter 27. It's going to take you about 5

minutes, but it's worth your time.

You're going to get some more details and stuff like that that

are really beneficial. And if you want a little bit

more, let me make a ridiculously shameless plug and say if you

want more details and commentary and thoughts on the on Acts 27,

you can listen to the podcast tomorrow afternoon.

It should drop. And then Pastor Matt and I will

explore some more ideas that we didn't have time for today.

But As for today, let me set this up and tell you that we're

going to learn at least three things.

We're going to learn that it's important to be a truth teller.

We're going to see the necessity of the storm.

And then we're going to hear what it we're going to hear how

to survive and thrive in the storm.

Again, how to be a truth teller. That's important see the

necessity of the storm and then we're going to learn how to

survive and thrive in the storm. And so today we read Acts

Acts 27:20–38

chapter 27 verses 20 through 38. Guess I'm looking back here.

Is that TV on? Can we get that?

If not, that's OK. I'll I'll take I'll take this

one. Acts 2720 through 38 Reading in

Jesus name. When neither sun nor stars

appeared for many days, and no small Tempest lay on us, all of

our hope of being saved, saved was at last abandoned.

Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul stood up

among them and said, Men, you should have listened to me and

have not set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and loss

yet. Now I urge you to take heart,

for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the

ship. For this very night there stood

before me an Angel of God, to whom I belong and whom I

worship. And he said, Do not be afraid,

Paul. You must stand before Caesar,

and behold, God has granted you all of those who sail with you.

So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be

exactly as I have been told. But we must run aground on some

island. When the 14th night had come, as

we were being driven across the Adriatic Sea about midnight, the

sailors suspected that they were nearing land.

So they took a sounding and found that and found 20 fathoms.

That's 120 feet. A little further on they took a

sounding again and found 15 fathoms.

And fearing that we might run on the rocks, they let down 4

anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come.

And when the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship

and had lowered the ship's boat into the sea under pretense of

laying out anchors from the bow, Paul said to the centurion and

the soldiers, Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be

saved. Then the soldiers cut away the

ropes of the ship's boat and let it go.

As day was about to dawn, Paul urged them all to take some

food, saying, Today is the 14th day that you have continued in

suspense and without food, having taken nothing.

Therefore I urge you to take some food, for it will give you

strength, for not a hair is to perish from the head of any of

you. 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.

Then they were all encouraged and ate some food themselves.

We were in all 276 persons in the ship, and when they had

eaten enough, they lighten the ship, throwing out the wheat

into the sea. Here ends the reading of God's

Word. I think because of who I am, I

think most of us love a really good I told you so.

When we're the ones who are saying it to somebody else, I

do, I really do. Although in my, let's say more

mature, more mature years, I've backed off of that a little bit

because it just makes me a scoundrel when I say it and

people don't like me. But I, I do think it's, it's,

it's appropriate to every once in a while put out.

And I told you so. Now that may not always sound

like that exact phrase. It could come off like, oh, see,

I was right, or it could be, you know what called it predicted

it. Just call me Nostradamus.

You know, you can get creative with this.

Have some fun with that. When you're going to tell people

that they were wrong and you were right, like get creative.

It'll be way more fun for you. Don't shake your head.

It's true. It's going to be it's going to

be fun. Think of some fun ways.

Let me let me give you at least some insight on this.

Depending on the relationship category that you talk about, it

may be more or less appropriate to give a go to a good old

fashioned, I told you so. So for your with your spouse,

yeah, I would, and this is just a recommendation.

I would use it maybe rarely unless you're just like looking

to pick a fight. Like if you if you really just

want to like pick a fight, you go ahead and do it.

And some of you in this room have done that.

And maybe you just did that recently.

And so like an elbow is coming your way.

That's fine. Now your boss, I would caution

you about telling your boss. I told you so.

I, I mean, you're, you're looking at losing your job if

you do it the wrong way. So just be very cautious with

that one. Co workers maybe more often,

perhaps, especially if it's going to bring them to a point

where they can actually be more productive at work.

If that's what it's going to take, then sure.

And then maybe finally, if you have kids, if you have children,

you know what, this might be the case where you say I told you so

most often you want to know why? Because these beautiful, tiny

little people, they think we know nothing.

They do. They're like, you're so old.

What do you know? Well, every once in a while it

is probably appropriate to remind them that our age and

intelligence is superior. Just going to leave that there.

Now getting to Paul, why does he do this?

Ask the question, why does Paul do this?

Does he do this because, you know, in the fruit of the

spirit, he didn't mention tact. So he feels like, sure, let's do

that. Does he?

Does he say I told you so because he's bitter and he's

prideful and he needs that. Does he does he do it just

because he's downright petty? No, I will tell you that he does

not say I told you so for any of those reasons.

The reason that he said I told you so is because he needs those

sailors and those people to know that God is always right.

God is always right. When God says something to do or

not to do, it is correct. It is the best possible outcome

every time because quite frankly, Paul knows and

everybody who's on that ship knows that it's not like this

guy has a lot of nautical expertise.

This is his third shipwreck. Like if you're, I don't know if

you really want to listen to this guy, but if he's got the

word of the Lord given directly to him, we ought to listen

because God is always right. And here's the thing, God in his

Word and through his Holy Spirit speaks wisdom and truth.

And we are called to speak into people's lives that same wisdom

and truth. Therefore, it is sometimes

appropriate to gently and lovingly and tactfully remind

them of that truth. Now that's probably not going to

sound like a snarky I told you so, But what that is going to

sound like, especially if you've been giving them godly wisdom

already and they work against that to their own, to their own

diminishing returns. You might say, it's OK to gently

bring that back and say, listen, do you remember when I told you?

And then give them God's word again.

And that's the thing, friends, like we all need accountability.

We all do I I need that Like we, we all need that sense of

accountability. And as we are speaking God's

word and his wisdom to each other and to our neighbor or to

family members, whatever, it's, it's good to come back to that.

Not because we're right, not because we're this grand great

thing, but because He is, because he is always right.

He never leads us astray. So I'm going to leave that there

for now. If you want to share some fun, I

told you those stories with me. I probably won't put them on the

podcast. I don't know.

We'll see. Depends how funny they are.

Anyway, here's what I want us to do.

I want us to spend probably the majority of our time seeing the

necessity of the storm. I think that's really important.

Here's the thing. Ask another question.

If God really wants Paul to get all the way to Rome and to

preach the gospel to Caesar, why would he allow the the the the

multi week storms? Why would he allow Paul to get

shipwrecked? Why would he allow going on and

on and on? Why would he allow those things?

You know what that question sounds an awful like?

Why does God allow bad things to happen?

If you've never asked that question, either you have a

tremendous faith that is greater than my own, or you haven't been

through anything yet and you will.

Why does God allow these things to happen?

The most difficult things in life, the metaphorical storms

that we endure are the things that actually shape us the most,

right? If you've been through anything,

you you know that to be true. So every athlete, every high

level athlete, every high level executive, every person of real

substance who has achieved a lot, you know what they will all

say universally, They will all universally say that they didn't

actually learn a lot from their winds, but they learned an awful

lot from their losses. They learned a lot through the

storm, the winds that those are great, like sweet, but like they

didn't learn a lot. It is in the storms where we

learn the most, where we get wisdom, where we get wiser.

Let me give you an example of this.

There's a financial guru who a lot of you probably know named

Dave Ramsey. And in the mid 80s, Dave Ramsey

was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of about $4

million. Now go back 30-40 years.

That's a lot of money, right? It still is today, but even more

than so, he's worth all this money.

He's got all this money out on real estate and the banks call

back the loans. Like out of nowhere they call

him back. He goes bankrupt.

Not only does he go bankrupt, but he's got some 100 thousands

worth of dollars of back taxes that he owes to the IRS.

He is just broken. The storm has sank his ship.

What does he do? Here's what he does.

He learns. He doesn't.

He doesn't claim to be a victim of anything.

He just learns and he starts thinking how?

Where did I go wrong? Where was my mistake?

And what happens is after, as he's reflecting on this over a

long period of time, he ends up developing a system that creates

financial stability and wealth over a long consistent period of

time, right? It's called Financial Peace

University. And quite frankly, one of the

reasons why I can stand before you on this stage today and why

I can have way too many pairs of shoes, Lord help me, is because

of Dave Ramsey and his failure. Because he taught me through his

failure and then his work, what it looks like to be responsible

with money, what it looks like to give God what he, what he's

given to me and like how to have a healthy view of that and to

and to do that. And I'm not the only one.

There's millions of people out there who will say Dave Ramsey's

failure, Dave Ramsey's storm is the reason why I'm financially

stable today. That's a cool thing.

Now, let in saying all that, let me tell you that not everybody

grows in the storm. You know, people like this,

maybe you've been one. Not everybody grows in the

storm. And here's the thing, I don't

want that for you. I don't want you to come out of

the storm stunted or worse than when you went in.

So let me just point out three things that will stunt you in

the storm. First and foremost, if you are

fixated on the injustice of the storm, in other words, this

isn't fair, this isn't right, none of this is my fault, on and

on and on. You essentially create a victim

mentality for yourself. That's what you do.

And if you do that, the the problem is at some point it'll

start to feel good to be the victim.

Do you know what I mean? So people talk to you and

they're like, oh, how are you doing?

And they make that little voice to you.

It's ridiculous. How are you doing?

They're they frown up and eventually you get so used to

that level of attention that you don't want to stop being a

victim because you love that. You love that people are

actually seeing you and paying attention to you and they care

about your heart and your life. But if you stay a victim, if you

push for that, you'll never grow.

You'll always be the victim. You'll always be the person who

says, if I had, if I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have it at

all. Don't be that person.

Second thing, if we can, we cannot grow in the storm if we

can't see the reason for it. And we do this all the time.

We say, Lord, if you would just tell me why this terrible stuff

is happening to me, I'll be OK with it.

No, you won't. Don't lie to yourself.

You won't be OK if you know why. Let let me give you a great

example of this and I'll be as brief as I can because it's a

big story. We've talked about Joseph

before. Joseph is last half of the book

of Genesis. So Joseph is sold into slavery

by his brothers. Why?

Because he's a jerk. They hate him because he's been

handed everything. He's a jerk.

And so they sell him into slavery.

I'm sure he was asking, Lord why this isn't fair.

No answer. And then after being sold into

slavery, he becomes this really good slave.

And then he gets framed and then he's thrown in a dungeon and

he's like, oh, Lord, why No answer?

And then after being thrown in that dungeon and remaining there

for a number of years, he's brought into Pharaoh's house.

And, and through his time of pain, through his time in the

storm, God has shaped him in the storm to be not an egotistical

young punk, but somebody who thinks deeply, somebody who

seeks after God with his whole heart.

And all of a sudden, God gives him this revelation that ends up

helping hundreds of thousands of people not starve to death.

Lord, why? Why?

You see, here's the thing. We're never going to grow.

Joseph got to see the why. We don't always get to see that.

If you think about Job, for example, maybe the most famous

sufferer of all time, Job never even got the why.

God helped him and he and he and he gave him back more than what

he had in the 1st place, but he never heard the why, he just had

the trust. So if you get stuck in this

thing of why, why, why, why me, why me, why me, you won't grow,

you will stay stunted and you will be bitter and angry.

Third thing, and I'll make this one quick, if you try to avoid

the storm altogether, you try to avoid suffering by any means

necessary, guess what? A, you won't be able to do it

because it's coming, but B, when it does hit you, you'll be so

shocked that it's there. Let me give you a quick example.

If you're raising kids and you basically put them in this

little bubble where they never have to endure anything

difficult, where everything is handed to them, you know what

kind of people you end up raising?

I will tell you because there's a lot of them out there.

There are it's people who insist that everything needs to be

given to them. It's people that do not have the

guts and the courage to make it through the storm because oh,

why is this happening to me? Poor me, poor me, poor me.

Don't do that to them and don't do that to yourself.

You deserve better, but you will not thrive in the storm if you

try to avoid it. You have to go through it.

You have to go through it. There's no getting around that.

Let me move forward here a little bit.

Now, where are we going with all this?

I'm going to give you the 10,000 foot view of the why.

Now, some of you are probably, hopefully, if you're still with

me, you've got some level of baited anticipation of, Oh my

gosh, the pastor is going to tell me why I suffer.

No, I'm not. No, I'm not.

Not really. I don't know the particular

issues that you may be going through right now or at any

given point in your life unless you share those with me.

And even if you share those details with me, I'm not

necessarily going to be able to tell you why.

But here's what I can tell you about the why.

And it's like the 10,000 foot view.

The reason why we go through storms, the reason why we suffer

is to know God. Do you get that?

The reason why God allows the storms to come into our life and

to rain and to move us and to rock us is so that we can meet

Him. It's so that we can meet Him.

Think about this. When the sailors are on the

boat, you know what they start doing?

They do what any smart sailor does, which is it gets really

rough. It gets really crazy and they

start throwing everything overboard.

They start throwing it all out of the ship.

And the reason why they do that is they're trying to lighten the

burden on the ship. And so everything that they

thought was going to save them, everything that they thought was

going to make them a bunch of money, they have to throw it all

away. And then you know what they do

in this particular occasion, they run the ship into the

ground. I'm going to ask you pause for a

second. What do you need to throw

overboard? What have you been relying on

that can't save you? Think about it.

What what, what ships that you think you're steering?

Do you need to run into the ground because they're not going

to help you in the end? What are those things, man?

You need to think about that. You need to, you need to pull

yourself together on this one because quite frankly, it, it

could be a job, it could be a career, it could be money, it

could be a person. But I got to tell you, and I

mean this, none of those things and not even the people closest

to you, none of them will be able to save you from the storm.

Only God can do that. They might help you steer the

ship, but God is the only one who's going to save you in the

storm. You need him.

And the storms are there to remind you of that.

The storms are not there to to break you.

They're there. They're there to make you.

It's not there to break you. It's there to make you make you

do what make you lean on him. That's why they're there.

And that brings us to kind of our, our kind of concluding

idea. OK, how do we survive and thrive

in the storm? I, I want to show you something

that it's kind of funny. I've been missing all my own

slides. I should really have the back do

it because I'm not good at this. And then Matt, you know what can

we can we take a second? Let's let's take a breath, Let's

turn around and all look at Matt and say hi.

Hey, Matt. You know, one of the things I

love about Matt is that when I do something weird, he always

makes the face. I love it so much.

And and I just he made a face and I was just like, oh, I wish

everybody could see that face. It's why it's why, honestly,

it's one of the reasons why we need to have like video for the

podcast because it's I wish you could see what I see.

Anyway, Matt, I love you. Thank you for being a good

sport. OK, back to what we were talking

about how to survive and thrive in the storm.

Now let me pause here before we get into this and tell you that

an important way to read your Bible that I don't think a lot

of people do is to ask the Bible questions and then let God

answer. Ask it questions and let God

answer. Some of us read the Bible and we

read it in kind of a devotional sense, like, oh, that's pretty

cool. Like Jesus loves me and that's

that's that's awesome. Yep.

And that's true. But I want you to start reading

God's word with expectation, with expectation, because for

example, as I'm reading this text this week over and over

again, something happened to me. I had I had the burning

question, Lord, like, what? What do you want me to do when

life gets rocky? What, what do you want me to do

in the midst of the storm? How am I supposed to endure

this? Like is there an answer that you

can give me that helps me endure this?

Ask the question, get an answer. Here's the answer.

Here's how you survive and thrive in the storm.

First and foremost, you see who you belong to.

That's number one. Second of all, you worship

through the storm, and third of all, you give thanks in the

storm. Let me describe these three

things for you really quickly. The definition of the Greek word

that we translate to belong, it actually means legal ownership

in possession. That's what it means.

It means legal ownership and possession.

So think about what Paul is saying here in the midst of

everything going wrong. His life has been terrible for

probably the last 20 years as far as human standards go.

And you know what? He's not fazed.

Why? Why is he not fazed?

Because he knows that Jesus Christ is in legal possession of

him. He belongs to Jesus Christ.

My goodness, friends, if you know who you belong to, there is

nothing that should make you afraid.

I understand the hard things happen in the financial stuff

and the relationship stuff. I've, I've been there, I get it.

But man, at the end of the day, or even in the middle of the

day, if I need it, if I remember to whom I belong, all of a

sudden it resets my point of view and it puts me back in a

place of safety and security and hope and love, because I know

the one who I belong to was the one who decided not to belong to

heaven anymore. Do you see that?

Do you get that in God's Word that Jesus Christ, our perfect

Savior, left heaven? He left the place where He

belongs to come down here so that you can belong to Him.

Do you see it? 2nd, we need to worship in the

storm. Gosh, you know what worship

means? I'm going to give you a pretty

fair definition. We think about worship.

We say we're coming to worship. Well, that means singing songs.

That means listening to a guy talk too much.

OK, fine. But you know what real worship

is? It's acknowledging God for who

He is. That's what worship is.

So you know what worship sounds like in prayer.

Father, you are sovereign. You are holy, You are great, You

are full of mercy and love. You are my King, You are my

Savior. That's worship.

That's worship. And when you worship in the

middle of the storms, when you worship in the midst of

hardship, again, it's going to reset your heart.

It's going to put you back into a place where you can see the

priorities of this life and you can finally see them clearly.

You can finally start to see that it's not about the stuff

you obtain or the OR the title that you have at your job.

It's about worshipping and knowing the God of the universe,

which is what he designed you for.

Worship in the storm and then finally giving thanks in the

storm. You want to survive and thrive

in the storm. Start with a heart of gratitude.

I'll tell you what, friends, it is weird.

And if you come to my office and things are really going sideways

in your life, it may not be the first thing I'll tell you, but

we're going to get there. I'm going to get to the point

with you where I'll tell you. And what do you have to be

thankful for? What, how is God still holding

you tight in his hands despite anything that's happening in

your life? How is he still doing that?

How is He still being faithful to you, man?

An attitude of gratitude. It moves our hearts in such a

way that even when the worst things happen to us, and I mean,

let's, let's just skip everything else and let's go

right to the end, even when death comes our way, you know

what happens? If I am thankful to God for the

life He's given me, I can be thankful to God for the life

that He's going to give me. And even death itself cannot

stop me for being thankful for what's coming, because I know

what's coming, because I know what Jesus Christ promises.

Jesus Christ promises life eternal.

He promises peace. He promises A reformed body that

doesn't deal with pain and sickness and death and disease

because he has beat all of those things when he came out of the

tomb. Be thankful.

Be thankful in the storm. I hope that makes sense to you,

those three things. And let me let me make you a

promise, not like like a car salesman kind of promise, but

let me make you a real promise that sticks.

When you do these three things, when life gets hard, it doesn't

necessarily take the hard thing away, but it will absolutely

change how you feel and how you move through the storm.

And that's worth it. That's enough because God will

always be with you. He has promised that.

Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we

thank you for who you are. We thank you for your incredible

mercy towards us. Lord, you.

You see our hearts. You know our thoughts.

You know the things that are inside of each one of us that

are not honoring to you, and despite seeing all those things,

you love us anyway. Lord, I pray that when the

storms come for any of us, that we would fix our eyes on you,

that we would not be moved or shaken by the world that brings

us trouble and by Satan himself, but that we would hold on tight

to Your gospel, that we would cling to the cross, that we

would hold on to Jesus Christ. Lord, let that be the position

of our hearts that we might endure and that we might worship

and glorify. And thank You for the entire

thing. So Father, do that work through

Your Holy Spirit in each one of us, and we pray this all in the

name of Jesus Christ, who is our Lord and our King.

And all God's people said Amen. Thanks for listening to ERC

Sundays. To support the work God is doing

at Emmaus Rd. Church, visit

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