Saved to Save Others | Acts 27:27-44

Acts chapter 27, we're gonna be in verse 27, and I'm sure, um, as everyone knows,

Acts 27 · chapter mention

the past few days everyone's been kind of focused on what happened back on

25 years ago, uh, on September 11th.

And, uh, I don't know about you, but I, I always for, you know, just feel

like I need to watch something just to remind myself and see what hap-

there's always new stories coming out.

But the one thing that I, that I noticed as I was watching a, a

couple of the sh- the documentaries this year was, uh, how people…

I mean, you think about it when you're watching, like, how people would just

stop and go back in and save other people or lead other people out of the

building, lead people out on the streets.

And it was, it was just a r- I was thinking to myself as, you know, I

remember one story of this guy saying he was running down the stairs, and, uh,

as he's running down the stairwell, he heard people yelling that they're stuck,

and they were stuck in an elevator.

And he tried to, him and another guy tried to pry the elevator

open, but they couldn't do it.

And then they, uh, they, they were using like a, a, a restroom…

You know, like how restroom keys have like sticks on them?

So that's what he was trying to do, but he couldn't do it, and somebody ran in

an office and got a leg to a chair, and they couldn't pry the doors open, so they,

they shoved those, uh, the stick and the chair through the, through the elevator

to see if they can save themselves because they're like, "You know, we, we got it.

We can't keep trying.

We're, we're leaving."

And he's like, "I don't know if those people ever got out."

And I was thinking to myself, would I have just stayed there longer, or would

I have even tried to save other people?

You know, you, it, it, it brings you to yourself.

Would I have tried to help people?

Would, would I…

You think you would, but you know, when, when it's like push comes to

shove and you know you only have moments or you don't really know

what's gonna happen, what would you do?

And the reason I bring that up is 'cause in today's text we're gonna see a story

of people trying to save other people.

And, and that's really the point I wanna get out of this, this text

this morning, is we're really gonna see two pe- two sets of people.

Those who are like, "You're on your own," and then those who are like,

you know, "We wanna save people."

And the question comes again back to which one are you?

Which, what would you have done?

So as we go through the text this morning, I want you to be thinking

about that a- and how you can, you know, save other people in a sense, right?

That's the title of this morning's message, Saved to Save Others.

It really gives us our purpose as believers, what we are

called to do in this world.

And there's a lot of things that would prevent us or distract us,

and, and priorities in our lives that would keep us maybe from making that

a, a, a mission in our own lives.

So we are gonna pick up the, the text from last week where Pastor Jared was,

uh, about to describe a shipwreck, right?

The Apostle Paul and his fellow prisoners and soldiers and voyagers are on a ship.

Um, and they've been, uh, you know, on the ship for 14 days, we'll see.

But before we get into verse 27, I think it's really important that we go back a

few verses and look at what the Apostle Paul says in verses 22 through 26, 'cause

it kinda sets up what is going to happen So if you remember, they're, they're

sailing and they're having some rough seas, and they're staying close to the

island to prevent the winds, you know, from, uh, from disturbing the ship.

And they're, uh, they've been suffering a little bit.

And this is what the Apostle Paul says in verse 22.

He says, "Yet now I urge you to keep up your courage, for there shall be no loss

of life among you, but only the ship."

So in fancy terms, like, "Hey, we're gonna survive.

The ship's not going to survive."

And he says…

And he gives them the reason why he says that, right?

Like, who's the Apostle Paul?

Who are you to say this?

You're a prisoner.

He says, "For this very night an angel of God to whom I belong

and whom I serve stood before me saying, 'Do not be afraid, Paul.

You must stand before Caesar.

And behold, God has granted you all those who are sailing with you.'"

So he's got a message, right?

And it's been the same message over the past few chapters that we've been

studying, that God has a determined to get the Apostle Paul to be his

witness in Rome before Caesar, and he's continuing that message.

Now he's carrying him about a different way.

And the Apostle Paul says, he says, "Therefore, keep up your courage,

men, for I believe God that it will turn out exactly as I have been told.

But we must run aground on a certain island."

So again, he reiterates, "Hey, I trust God.

We're gonna make it, but we're gonna run aground on an island."

He doesn't know the specifics.

He just knows God's promised to get me somewhere.

And you guys are gonna make it, too, but the ship's not.

So that's the message he's given, and as we'll see, not everybody believes it.

And maybe even at some times the Apostle Paul doubted it, right?

Because when circumstances get a little crazy, how many of us don't

go, is, "God, are you watching?

Do you see what's going on?

Did you really tell me to go this way or that way, to do this thing

or to move here or to move there?"

Whatever the case may be.

We don't see that from the Apostle Paul, but he's human.

I know sometimes as I've been reading through Acts, I'm like,

this guy's, like, superhuman.

He's…

I'm becoming a big fan of the Apostle Paul just in my own study time.

Okay, so that's where we are.

We're at, we're…

He's given this, uh, encouragement to the people, and we pick up in verse 17.

"But when the 14th night had come, as we were being driven about in

the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors began to surmise that

they were approaching some land."

And they took soundings and found it to be 20 fathoms.

And a little farther on, they took another sounding and found it to be 15 fathoms.

If you don't know what that is, they dropped some type of measuring

rod or something down to the ground to see how far the ground was.

So they could see it's getting smaller and so on, means they're

getting closer to, uh, land.

So that's how they know

And fearing that we might run aground somewhere on the rocks,

they cast four anchors from the stern and wished for daybreak.

And as the sailors were trying to escape from the ship and had let down the

ship's boat in the sea on the pretense of intending to lay out anchors from the

bow, Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, "Unless these men remain in

the ship, you yourselves cannot be saved."

Then the soldiers cut away the ropes and the ship's boat, excuse me, of the ship's

boat and it f- and let it fall away.

So what happens here is we see the perspective of the sailors.

These are obviously professionals.

Um, they've heard the Apostle Paul's word, but what they're

seeing is this circumstance like, "Hey, we're gonna run aground.

We're gonna crash."

And so you see they, they're like, "Okay, we're gonna weigh anchor,

and we're gonna wait it out."

But as the Apostle Paul, or as Luke tells us, the Apostle Paul goes, "No,

they're, they're trying to escape.

They're getting on a ship saying, or one of the, the boats on the ship.

They're letting it down, and they're saying, 'We're gonna lay anchor,'

but they're really gonna escape."

See, they, they were led by their fears.

They were like, "We're out of here.

You guys are on your own."

And the Apostle Paul tells the soldiers, "Hey, these guys, if they

don't stay on the boat, we are all gonna, we're not gonna survive, right?

We need those sailors here on the ship to get us to where we need to go.

And if we let them go, then we're all gonna perish."

This is what the Apostle Paul is telling the centurion.

If you remember from our study last week, the centurion's name is Julius,

and he likes the Apostle Paul.

If you remember earlier in the chapter, he let the Apostle Paul have visitors

and to move about, and we'll see a little bit at the end what he does as well.

But he tells Julius, "Hey, you gotta stop these guys."

And they do.

So they, before the guys were able to get on the boats, they cut the ropes,

and they can't get on it, and they stay.

That was the result.

So unlike the sailors, the Apostle Paul cared for people.

He wanted people to be saved.

He's showing how much he cares.

He believes God's promise even though he doesn't really know how it's gonna happen.

He's like, "Hey, we need these sailors on the ship."

The sailors, again, were led by their fears.

They were like, "We're scared.

We don't know what to do.

It's beyond what we can do.

We're out of here.

It's every man for himself."

So you see the difference.

Obviously, as we, as we look at the Apostle Paul, he's the one that

we want to e- emulate, emulate.

What can we learn from the Apostle Paul's actions?

I'm gonna give you some points of application.

Well, we can remember that God is with us in every situation in life.

Remember, the Apostle Paul started this by saying, "God is with us.

He's gonna get us there."

He believed it.

Obviously, the sailors did not.

They let the circumstances that they saw dictate how they responded, and out of

their fear they said, "We're out of here."

But the Apostle Paul, he was different, right?

Let me ask you guys, as a believer, we need to remember, we don't need to fear

all the storms that come in our life.

Again, we are not promised smooth sailing in this life

But we know that God's with us.

Do you really believe that when you guys are going through hard times?

Do you really believe that God's with you?

When you're in the midst of the storm of life and the circumstances that you're

in, do you respond like these sailors do, in a sense like abandoning ship?

I'm out of here.

It's too difficult.

I can't follow God anymore.

I have to do things my way.

I'm experienced enough, and I know how to get out of this.

It might be a little different than what God would tell me, but I'm gonna do it.

Again, that's when you, that's when we let our fears control our decision-making.

We don't trust God in the midst of the storm, even though

He's told us He's with us

Or are you like the Apostle Paul?

Do you trust the Lord when you're in the midst of this, of the storm?

Also, as I mentioned at the very beginning when I was talking about, uh, the

documentaries that I've been watching over, over the past couple of days, do

you think about the others' wellbeing in the midst of the storm, right?

There's other people in our lives that we affect when we abandon ship.

Think of a marriage, right?

When one of the partners says, "I'm out of here."

The effect that that has on everybody else in their life.

It's not just about him and his wife or her and her husband, it's about the

kids, the relatives, the f- the friends.

Everybody's affected.

Do you think about other people when you're in the midst of a storm?

Early, uh, if you turn with me to Mark, I wanna show you

something in Mark chapter 4.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

This is the, the episode in the apostle's life, or the disciples'

lives, when they're in the boat with Jesus and the storm comes.

It's similar to what happened with the Apostle Paul, but yet these men act a

little differently in the sense that they're afraid, and they show their fear.

In Mark chapter 4, starting in verse 35

Mark 4 · chapter mention

Look at what it says.

And it says, "On that day when evening had come, he said to them," this is Jesus,

" 'Let us go over to the other side.'

" You see how he's saying, "We're gonna go to the other side."

Just like going back to Acts where the Apostle Paul says, "We're gonna get to

this island safely, but the ship won't."

So Jesus has told the disciples, "Let's go to the other side."

And it says, "And leaving the multitude, they took him along with

them, just as he was, in the boat.

And the other boats were with him."

So there's a bunch of boats heading across the sea.

"And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking

over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up.

And he himself was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.

And they awoke him and said to him, 'Teacher, do you not

care that we are perishing?'

" Do we not, how many times do we not do that, right?

Lord, don't you care what's going on in my life?

I'm drowning.

I'm in the midst of a storm.

I'm suffering.

And obviously, the question is, of course, the Lord cares.

He's just not handling it the way you want him to handle it.

That's what's happening here in the text in Mark.

"And being aroused he rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Hush, be still.'

And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm.

And he said to them, 'Why are you so timid or afraid?

How is it that you have no faith?'

And they became very much afraid and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that

even the wind and the sea obey him?'"

See, they truly didn't understand who they had in the boat with them.

They s- they followed him, but yet they truly didn't understand it.

They truly didn't believe who he was, in the sense that, hey, L-

the Lord can handle this storm.

They allowed the circumstances in their life to get them to fear and to,

like, say, "Lord, you're not watching.

You're not doing what I want you to do.

G- wake up."

The same thing again, going back to the Book of Acts happens here, and

the, the, the sailors in the sense are saying, "We're gonna handle it our way."

The Apostle Paul's like, "No, I already told you we're gonna make it

So what we learn from the Apostle Paul is that remember that God is with us in every

situation, even when the storms are rising

The other thing we need to remember that we can learn from

the Apostle Paul is to remind those around us that God is in control.

Right?

The people around us need to be reminded, "Hey, God's in control," right?

That's how we encourage one another.

God is here.

God is faithful.

God is good.

I know it looks bad.

I know the situation is dire.

It looks like how could God allow this to happen?

But we know who God is, w- and we need to remind people.

That's what the Apostle Paul did here.

Right?

He was reminding them, "Hey, take courage.

We're gonna make it."

So not only did he save, uh, you know, was worried about himself, but he

was worried about the other people.

Said, "We have to keep these sailors in the boat for us all to survive

As Christians, that is our calling.

Paul in First Lent, uh, Thessalonians 5:14 said this to the church: "We urge

you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the faint-hearted, help the

weak, and be patient with everyone."

The point there is encourage the faint-hearted.

That's our job.

We need to encourage those who are losing heart in our lives, in their faith, right?

Brothers and sisters in the church that you know who are struggling

with their faith, encourage them.

That is our calling.

We need to help other people.

That's what the church is called to, and that's what we see the Apostle Paul

doing here at the beginning of this text

I like what Isaiah says in Isaiah 35:3-4, and it's similar

Isaiah 35:3–4

to what the Apostle Paul said.

Says this, "Encourage the exhausted, strengthen the feeble.

Say to those with anxious heart, 'Take courage, fear not.

Behold, your God will come with vengeance.

The re- the recompense of God will come, but He will save you.'"

Now, obviously, this is talking about vengeance, but I wanna make

the broader point is that, hey, we're told as believers to encourage the

exhausted, strengthen the feeble.

Say to those with an anxious heart, "Take courage and fear not."

The Apostle Paul said that a number of times, and we'll see he'll

say it again, is, "Take courage."

It's okay, I know there's a storm.

Take courage.

God is in control.

It's a message that we need to give to other believers

And the result of that will be when we believe God is in control, neither we

or those around us have to be gripped with fear and uncertainty, right?

When we understand that we don't have to fear things, we don't have

to be uncertain, because we know God is control- is in control.

Let me ask you this morning, what is it in your life that

keeps you from living that way?

What are you fearing?

What fear is controlling you this morning or has a, the ability to keep

you f- from keeping your eyes focused on God and focused on the situation?

This happens all the time in everybody's life.

But we have to remember that God is in control even in

the middle of that situation.

Let's look at the next section in verses 33 through 48 as the voyage continues.

So the sailors, they're staying on board.

Now we see what the Apostle Paul, how he encourages everybody else on

the ship in verses 33 through 48.

It says, "And until the day was about to dawn, Paul was encouraging them

all to take some food, saying, 'Today is the fourteenth day that you've

been constantly watching and going without eating, having taken nothing.

Therefore, I encourage you to take some food, for this is for your preservation.

For not a hair from the head of any of you shall perish.'

And having said this, he took bread, gave thanks to God in the presence of

all, and he broke it and began to eat.

And all of them were encouraged, and they themselves also took food.

And all of us in the ship were two hundred and seventy-six persons.

And when they had eaten enough, they began to lighten the ship by

throwing out the wheat into the sea."

So here again, we see the Apostle Paul, right?

He's, he's saved, uh, this, the ship in the sense that the sailors aren't leaving.

Now he's encouraging everybody, "Hey, let's eat.

We need to eat.

We haven't really eaten anything in fourteen days, and we need to

sustain ourselves for this trip."

He recognizes that, so he tells them, "Take some food."

And he reminds them, "Hey, take some food," in the sense this

is an encouragement, right?

"Don't worry because God's in control.

Remember, I told you God's gonna save us."

And he says that again.

He says, "Not a, not a hair from the head of anyone shall perish."

He's encouraging them.

He's reminding that God's in control.

And then he shows that he believes it too by thanking God, right?

He, he, he eats, he thanks God for preserving them,

and he takes bread and eats.

And then as a result, what happens?

It says everyone was encouraged.

The actual words they said, it's, it's became cheerful.

They got happy.

They were excited.

"Okay, let's eat.

God's in control."

And they all ate.

They were no longer focused on their fear.

They said, "Okay, let's take time to eat."

Many commentators say it wasn't that they hadn't eaten anything

in 14 day, but it didn't…

It's like they hadn't had a meal, like a sit-down meal.

They might have just been snacking to sustain themselves.

And Paul is saying, "No, we need to sit down, show that we trust

God in a sense, and let's eat.

Let's focus on eating to preserve ourselves."

And that's what they did.

And then, they, and then as they did that, you notice what did they do?

It says in verse 28, "After they had eaten, they began to lighten the ship

by throwing out the wheat into the sea."

So they all worked together to s- to save the ship.

Okay, they're encouraged.

They've kinda got refocused.

Okay, you know, maybe they're not, like, full-on believers, but hey, this

guy knows something that we don't know.

We're gonna trust his God, and we're gonna help.

We're gonna work together to solve this problem, right?

Remember, the sailors, they were gonna jump ship saying everybody's on their own.

Now they're like, "Okay, you know what we need to do?

We need to lighten the load to save the ship."

Luke is portraying Paul as a good Christian caring

for his fellow passengers.

And Paul sets an example for us to follow in, in doing that.

This is our second point of application.

Paul sets an example for us to follow.

How do we do that?

How do we follow Paul exam- Paul's ex- example here?

Well, number one would be this: care genuinely for our

fellow passengers in this life.

We're all in, so to speak, rowing.

Don't mean to be morbid, but we're rowing to the end, right?

To our death.

And there's people that are going with us.

Do you genuinely care about them?

We should, as believers, we should, right?

We're called to what?

Love our, our neighbors, right?

To love our neighbors.

That's one example we see from the Apostle Paul.

What else did he do?

He encouraged everybody with the promises of God.

That's what we should do, encourage others with the promises of God.

He encouraged non-believers, right?

The sailors and the soldiers, and maybe the other prisoners, we don't know if

they were believers or not, but he was encouraging them with what God told him.

I think sometimes we downplay, including myself, what we have here,

God's promises, and we don't share them with other people because we

say they're not gonna believe it.

Who cares?

It's still true whether they believe it or not, and we should

share those promises with others.

Another example that we can follow from the Apostle Paul is to live

out our faith in front of others.

That's what the Apostle Paul did, right?

He told them what God said, and he believed it, and he thanked

God in front of them for what God has done, and he ate, right?

He prayed in front of them, he was faithful to God in front of

them, and he ate in front of them.

He trusted them.

In a sense, he let them see what he really believed by living it out

That's what he says in 1 Corinthians 10:33 in a sense about living out

1 Corinthians 10:33

his faith for other people, right?

It's not just about him, 'cause the Apostle Paul could have just

kept quiet and says, "Well, God says he's gonna get me there.

I'm just gonna trust him in a sense, and sailors wanna leave, that's fine.

God still will get me there.

If you guys don't wanna eat, I'm gonna eat.

I'm still gonna get there."

Right?

Uh, it's, it's the sen- "Hey, I'm going to heaven.

That's your issue if you're not."

But the Apostle Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 10:33, "Just as I also

1 Corinthians 10:33

please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit

of many, so that they may be saved."

Paul shows his heart.

He wants everyone to be saved.

Don't we see that throughout the Book of Acts?

The Apostle Paul preaches to anybody and everybody anywhere, because

he wants all people to be saved, and that, that's a question to us.

Do we want all people to be saved?

Do we live like it?

Do we sacrifice like it?

Do we put other people's needs in s- in front of our own

so that they might be saved?

That's something we all need to ask ourselves.

We need to live out our faith in front of others so that they might be saved.

It's not just about us, right?

We aren't saved just for us.

We are saved, in a sense, to help save others, that God might use us.

And I know theologically you're like, "Well, I don't save anybody.

God does."

I know that.

But God uses ordinary means to bring people salvation about, in

the sense that he uses us to be his hands, his feet, his mouthpiece.

He's chosen to use us

Let's see what happens as we conclude this text.

Let's read verses 39 through 44.

So it says, "And when day came," so this is day 15, "they could not recognize

the land, but they did observe a certain bay with a beach, and they resolved to

drive the ship onto it if they could."

So they wanna, like, direct the ship into the beach.

So and it says, "In casting off the anchors, they left them in the sea,

while at the same time, they were loosening the ropes of the rudders

and hoisting the foresail to the wind, and they were headed for the beach.

But striking a reef where two seas met, they ran the vessel aground,

and the prow struck fast and remained immovable, but the stern began to be

broken up by the force of the waves."

So the ship's stuck, right?

The front of the ship's stuck into these, uh…

into the rocks, and then the back of the ship is getting torn…

or no, is being pushed and into the rocks and is being torn apart.

That's the picture they have right now.

So the ship's done for.

Now verse 42.

And so now we see what the soldiers decide to do.

"And the soldiers' plan, uh, was to kill the prisoners, that none of

them should swim away and escape."

So the…

now it's the prisoners…

now, now it's the soldiers' turn.

The sailors are on board.

Now the prisoners are worried about their own necks because if they lose the…

uh, s- excuse me.

The soldiers are wanting to save their own necks.

If they lose any prisoner, then they are liable to the, uh, the

higher-ups for that prisoner.

Like, a life for a life.

And so they said, "No, we're, we're just gonna kill all these

guys right now 'cause if they jump overboard, they're all gonna escape."

So that's what's going on.

And then here's where our friend Julius, uh, creeps up again

or, or enters into the story.

"But the centurion," that's Julius, "wanting to bring Paul safely through,

kept them from their intention and commanded that those who could swim should

jump overboard first and get to land, and the rest should follow, some on planks and

others on various things from the ship.

And thus it happened, and thus it happened that they were

all brought safely to land."

So again, we have the ship falling apart, and so there's fear now in the

soldiers about saving their own necks.

They're not worried about saving other people.

And as I said, they wanna kill all the prisoners.

And Julius steps in.

Again, God uses Julius Right?

Ordinary means to bring about his plan, right?

'Cause God's plan was to do what?

To bring Paul to Caesar.

And so God is using Julius to that end.

So Julius says, "Hey, we're not killing these guys," right?

Because he wants to save Paul.

And he said, "Everybody, if you can swim, jump overboard and swim to shore.

Everybody else, grab a piece of the ship and float to shore."

And what was the result?

Verse 44, "Everyone was brought safely to the land."

Just as God said through the Apostle Paul it would be.

Right?

Again, going back to verse 22, which I read at the beginning.

He said, "No loss of life among you, but only the ship."

That's what the Apostle Paul was told.

No one's gonna lose their life.

We're only gonna lose the ship.

And again, he said it in verse 26, "Therefore keep up your encouragement,

for I believe God that it will turn out exactly as I have been told.

But we must run aground on a certain island."

He didn't know the island, but he knew he was gonna run aground,

and that's what happened.

So Paul trusted God, and it came about just like God said it would.

He might not have known all the specifics, but he knew, you know what?

One thing, not a hair from anybody's head is gonna perish.

We're all gonna make it, only the ship's gonna be destroyed.

John MacArthur in his commentary on this section says this: "God's

power and providence had triumphed."

That's the conclusion.

It was about God's power and providence.

God's plan, God's power triumphed over everything else, over their fears,

over the desires of the sailors, over the desires of the soldiers So what

last lesson can we learn from this section as we close this morning?

Well, I think we see at this very end, and something we all need to remember,

is that God keeps His promises.

God does what He says He's going to do.

Again, how often could Paul have doubted or questioned God's promises, right?

We're not told that he did.

He might not have shared his concerns with Luke.

Right?

A lot of us, if we're honest, we sometimes doubt and question God,

but we don't let that known, right?

We don't want to seem that we don't have faith in God in a certain situation

We might say to ourselves, "Did, did God really say that I mentioned this to the

"Did God really tell me to do that?"

You know, sometimes we flippantly say, "God told me," and I'd

be careful when you say that.

Did God audibly tell you to do that?

You might feel an urge to do something prompted by God's spirit or, or

just weighing out the different decisions in life, and God gives

you wisdom to make a decision.

But don't blame God for your decision-making

What about those who heard Paul's promises from God?

They might've said, "Did you really hear God, Paul?

I mean, you're a prisoner

How do we know you hear God?

They don't know who the Apostle Paul is.

They probably obviously didn't call him the Apostle Paul, right?

They, he was a prisoner

They could have all said, "Did God really say that?"

Wasn't that what…

Isn't that exactly what Satan said to Eve in the garden?

In Genesis 3:1, he said, "Indeed, has God said you should not eat

Genesis 3:1

from any tree of the garden?"

It's doubt.

You sure God said that?

Are you sure God really s- spoke to you this morning, told you to do that?

Instead of keeping God's promises, right?

Sometimes we could let the circumstances drive us to make decisions and

doubt what God has told us.

But if it's in God's word, I would say God said it.

You don't have to doubt God's word.

And by the way, there's nothing wrong with doubt in the sense, right?

The Bereans in one sense doubted, right?

They, we're going to check out the scriptures and see if what

you're saying is really true.

They doubted the Apostle Paul, right?

There's, you can doubt men, but don't doubt the word of God.

So God keeps his promises.

So instead of doubting God, keep trusting God.

Keep trusting God's promises, and encourage others to do the same, right?

That's what we see the Apostle Paul doing.

And lastly, I would say this: Because God keeps his promises, you can trust

him even when your circumstances make his promises difficult to believe.

How many times has that happened in your life, where it does not look like this

is gonna turn out in a favorable way?

Right?

It's a difficult circumstance.

But let me ask you this again, do you believe God's promises

that you can trust Him?

What about when the circumstance that you're in contradicts God's promises

What do you do?

Do you trust Him more?

Do you trust more in God's…

trust Him more than in what you see?

That's what I mean to say.

When things look off, okay, are you gonna trust God, or are

you gonna trust what you see?

Right?

Like, this shouldn't be happening.

God doesn't like this.

This is against God's will.

It doesn't mean that God's still not working through that process.

We just need to trust Him, and that's really the hardest

thing, right, is waiting.

Are you willing to obey God while you wait for His promises to be fulfilled?

That's the other thing.

Right?

In one sense, we are, are we not all waiting for the Lord to come back?

Is that a promise?

It is.

He's gonna come back one day.

The hard part is waiting, right?

We have to wait for that

Sometimes you may even doubt, "Well, maybe He's not coming back," right?

"That preacher said He was coming back in 1980, 1988, 1990, 2020.

I, I don't know."

First of all, don't believe any preacher that says he knows when God's coming back

We don't know.

No man knows the day or the hour when the Lord will return.

We just have to be faithful to trust in God's promises.

Again, we see that the Apostle Paul knew he was gonna get to Rome.

He didn't know how, he didn't know when, but he trusted Him.

And in the process of that voyage, he told everybody else, "We're gonna get there.

Trust me, God's gonna get us there."

And because of that, he was very effective for the Lord.

That's what the Lord wants to use us for, right?

He wants to use us in this world.

He wa- He saved us not just for ourselves, not just to conform us into the image

of His Son, but also to help save our fellow travelers along the way.

Let's resolve to do that this week.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank You so much for this reminder from the Apostle

Paul's life that we are all fellow passengers, fellow sojourners in this

world, along with other believers.

And help us, Lord, this week to re- to encourage one another, to be

reminded of Your promises, whatever those might be to us in the certain

circumstances that we are in.

Help us, Lord God, not to be led by our fears, and help us, Lord, to reach out to

those around us who need Your love, who need to be encouraged with Your promises,

and who need to know Your promises.

Help us, Lord, when we doubt and when we struggle to trust You and to wait

patiently for You to act or move on our behalf, and ultimately for You to return.

We love You, Lord, and we thank You for this, this encour- these

encouraging words this morning, and we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.