Surviving Storms - Lessons from Acts 27 - 28 & The Book of Jonah
Last week, we continued following Paul through the book of acts and saw how he turned obstacles into opportunities – especially in the way of spreading the Gospel. This week, we’ll see how Paul survives a shipwreck and how we too can survive the storms in our lives.
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Mon, Feb 11, 2024 10AM • 53:15Sermon by Gene SimcoSUMMARY KEYWORDSPaul, Jonah, storm, god, ship, people, buoy, good, church, shipwreck, place, happened, flotsam, sailors, boat, days, talking, pray, lord, told
Good morning.
Welcome. If you're new here among us, my name is Gene I serve here at C3 church as your pastor. And I want to begin today by talking about Bell buoys.
I said buoy, Bell buoys, you can laugh that's kind of fun. You thought it
If you're new, and you thought that welcome, you're in good company.
So, a bellboy, it's a navigational marker. So many of you must know what a buoy is in the water, right? So it's going to warn ships, you can navigate where not to go usually, right, so there might be what's called a shoal in the water. So it gets really shallow. And so if a boat runs into it, it's going to get stuck, and it's going to cause a really big problem. So the Belen buoy in fog, like, if you can't see it's going to make a noise, right? So have a bell on it and let the people know, okay, we should probably avoid that thing. Well, there's a poem 1896, I was about five years old, by Rudyard Kipling, you're awake?
Read, you can call the bell buoy. And essentially, this poem, it's kind of like a lot of old timey language. So it can kind of be hard to understand. So the basic gist is, essentially you have this bell buoy, and it's being made to talk and in the Bible, like Paul does this first Corinthians right Prosecco PC, that Greek literary device. So it's doing that the elbow is talking. And it's kind of like talking to a church bell. And these are two different kinds of bells. And it's basically painting itself out to be something that's in the thick of it, something that's weathering the storm versus this like sheltered church bell, right? So it's this contrast, right? So it's this repeating thing where the shoulder basically beware the shoulder, right? But will I take league with the or will I be company with the or I leave my place to be in the safety where you are. So the bell buoy is weathering the storm, it's out there in the thick of it while this church bells protected. And indeed, a bell buoy, only rings when the wind and the waves are crashing against it. That's when you hear the music that comes out of the bellboy.
So to do storms reveal what is inside a person.
And that's what we're going to look at today. We've been following Paul through x, or the book of Acts, we looked at the letters he wrote back to some of those places, we continue the last two chapters here. And so if you remember, what did he do, he was honoring to everybody, but he goes through all these different trials, and he strategically gets himself to go to Rome by appealing to Caesar. So a lot of people are confused about it. The officials were last week. So he has this trial with King Agrippa. Bernice and Felix like, what do we do this guy, he didn't do anything wrong. But if he hadn't appealed to Caesar, right, he would have been set free, but that's a part of the plan. So this week, we're going to see how Paul survives a storm, who will pick up right next 27 First one. When the time came, we set sail for Italy, Paul and several other prisoners were placed in the custody of a Roman officer named Julius a captain of the Imperial regiment. Eros, Dorcas, a Macedonian from Thessalonica was also with us, we left on a ship whose home port was Adramyttium, that's a tough one, even for me to say, on the northwest coast of the province of Asia, it was scheduled to make several stops at ports along the coast of the province. So what you have going on here is the way narrative picks up. So this means that Luke is with them with Aerostar guests. And so he has company there, and these are the witnesses to these events. So to summarize, the next day, they docked at Sidon. And Julius this commander who's like in charge of Paul, and the other prisoners there, he's very kind boy, let them go ashore visit friends so that they can provide for their needs. So he talked about this last week. Right? So honoring officials, Paul's very honoring to everyone, even the people who are holding him captive, even though it's not fair, very honoring, and you see how he's treated? So yes, there is, of course, what the Bible says about honoring officials, but at the same time, Paul's a smart guy, right? So instead of complaining and screaming and yelling at the guy who would get him nowhere, he just honors him. And it's getting him somewhere. So Luke is going to document lots of places doctor, real smart guy written in very, very good Greek as you read it. And so he just pays attention to like every little detail and scholars today. So you can just kind of like follow them through this journey. And it's like about right, it's pretty crazy, even though it's 2000 years ago. So the land admiral. And so what this commanding officer is going to do, basically, you have to imagine this army officer or something like that, taking around this group of prisoners, and what he's going to do is like commandeer things or he's going to get things along the way so he's not like a naval
Officer they have a special boats take Paul anywhere, anything like that. He's going to find ships and say, Hey, we need to book passage on the ship. And they're like, oh, you know. So it's that kind of situations. And that's what he does. He finds an Alexandrian ship bound for Italy. They go on board. But what happens is the wind is against them. So they have several days of really hard sailing, it's not good. They're struggling along the coast, loop documents, all these different places, they finally arrive at this place called Fair Havens. Well, irony there, the weather became really dangerous. So when it gets late, I'm not a sailing person. So I've just been told, when it becomes like fall or winter in the Mediterranean Sea, it's time to stop sailing, right. So this is what historians will say it's very dangerous, it's not a good time to go. Paul senses this, right? So he gives a short little speech, man, he said, I believe there's trouble ahead if we go on shipwreck loss of cargo in danger to our lives as well. But the officer in charge of the prisoners listen more carefully to the ship's captain and the owner than to Paul. And since Fair Havens wasn't exposed harbor logic would dictate not a great place. So the crew wants to go on to another place called Phoenix. Right? And it says Phoenix is a good harbor. But if you kind of know anything about the history, the geography what's going on at the time, Fair Havens is a much smaller town. And you got to think about a group of sailors or pirates, right, like being stuck in a small town with no, let's say, women there. So there's more of an economy in Phoenix for this type of behavior. So that's really where the crew wants to go, right. So like, it's stuck in this small little town, we want to go to a bigger city. So they do. And that you see through this whole thing, you see that the soul of the crew members of sailors, they go about like these plants that you'd naturally do through tough times here. So Luke is going to take you through it, sailors think they can make it pull up anchor, they sail for this place, but it mentions that there's a nor'easters, there's a big storm that hits them. So the sailors couldn't even like turn the ship in the wind, nothing. So they just kind of like go with it. What else can we do at this point? So they do a couple different things, right? So they pull the lifeboat and so they go through these plans. So the sailors like, Okay, here's what we do during this procedure. So they pull the lifeboat and there's like this lifeboat behind them to get that up. And then because it's dragging them down, they secure the ship with ropes, which is really interesting. The whole of the ships are worried about kind of breaking apart, and then the anchor, right, so the lower the sea anchor to slow the ship down. So trying that strategy. Next day gale force winds continued about or the ship, the crow starts jettisoning cargo if you don't know what that means, the rolling cargo overboard, right, let's get this ship light. So we can maybe weather the storm or not going to sink or something like that. But it raised on for many days, it says it blocks out the sun, the stars, and all hope is gone. X 2721. No one had eaten for all a long time. Finally, Paul called the crew together and said, Man, you should have listened to me in the first place and not left Creek, you would have avoided all this damage and loss. But take courage. None of you will lose your lives even though the ship will go down last night and Angel of the gods whom I belong and whom I serve, stood beside me and said don't be afraid Paul for your surely stand trial before Caesar what's more, God in His goodness has granted safety to everyone sailing with you. So take courage for I believe in God believe God, it'll be just as he said. But we'll be shipwrecked on an island. It's like good bad news here to the guys. Right? Like, okay, you know, shipwreck and what does that kind of look like? Right? So it says the 14th Night of the storms. This is really bad. And here's where Luke is really, really detail oriented. He talks about like dropping a weighted line, I'll translate it for you. 120 feet deep. Drop it again, 90 feet deep. So what's happening? They're getting closer to the shore, right? So they're afraid that they're going to be like driven against the rock. So what they do is they throw out the four anchors, they get real light now, right in the back of the ship, and they prayed for daylight so things are changing. Remember, they wouldn't listen to Paul. At first he's like, look, we're all going to die like now what do you know, right? Now he's sitting there doing things Paul does, right? Like, that's a good idea. Let's pray. Right? So what they try to do the sailors at first so there's the crew, right? The sailors. What they try to do is they try to lower the lifeboat down they figured Alright, we're going to escape. We're going to get out on this little boat here and not crash but the big one. So Paul warns them you will all die unless the sailors stay aboard. So the soldiers cut the ropes from the lifeboat let it drift away. Right so they listen to Paul again. Then there's this scene where Paul urges everyone to eat. Hey, you've been worried you haven't touched food for two weeks like these guys haven't been eating at all. So please eat something now. For your own good for not a hair on your head will perish. So he's like encouraging them reminding them and he does something is interesting. It looks like the Lord's Supper. It says he breaks bread and he gives God thanks for the bread
So they're having like this like kind of commute communal meal where Paul's praying for the meal and everything. And then they do something extra interesting. They eat, they're encouraged and then they throw even the wheat cargo over they throw everything over they know that
we're going to crash so we got to kind of get through this more jettisoning so they see land ahead and then they finally say Okay, cut off the anchors everything out, let him go in the sea lower the rudders, which would steer the ship raise the for sale, so they're going to let the wind drive them right into the beach, you know, so that they don't see. But Novell buoys the hit a shoal, it says, And they hit it too early. So basically, now you have this situation where there's a boat friend stuck in the shoal. And the back end is just getting slammed by these waves over and over again and everything is starting to break apart. So serious situation now, it gets a little bit worse for them, because the soldiers want to kill the prisoners. Why? Well, they might swim ashore beat me to shore and escapes, let's kill them. But Julius, he wants to save Paul. So he says, Nope, don't kill him. So here's again where Paul smarts. Save a lot of people. In this case, they save some lives here. So anyone who can swim, go for it. jump overboard, the rest of you grab onto the flotsam, all this debris in the water, and so they get ashore X 181 Once we are safe on shore, we learned that we are on the island of Malta, the people the island were very kind to us it was cold and rainy. So they built a fire on the shore to welcome us as Paul gathered an armful of sticks and was laying them on the fire a poisonous snake drip out by the heat beat him on the hand. The people on the island saw it hanging from his hand and said to each other a murder no doubt that he escaped the sea justice will not permit him to live. But Paul shook the snake off into the fire was unharmed. The people waited for him to swell up or suddenly dropped dead. But when they waited a long time and saw that it wasn't hard, they changed their minds and decided he was a god. So really superstitious people. We've seen this in Acts 14, right. They thought that Paul and Barnabas were gods Zeus and Apollo, real superstitious. They think that the snake is carrying out this justice or something like that politics at all. So now we went to a guy named Publius. He's like a first official or chief official on the island, right? And his issue is that his dad is sick. So he's sick with fever and dysentery. So Paul goes in and heals him, which is great. So now everybody in Malta wants to get healed. And so he heals everybody. And he does so much good there that the people then when they go on their way, they send him with everything they need for the trip. So there you go. Honor brings honor. Then we read that three months after the shipwreck, they set sail in another ship in other Alexandria and ship. It makes a mention of the twin Gods it's Castor and Pollux. So sometimes, you know, you see those ships in the movies, and they have something on the front. So that's what it has there. And Luke just decides to mention that they make a couple of stops, they arrive at Rome, the brothers and sisters at Rome and heard they were coming. And so they greet everybody, they needed a couple different places. And then it kind of zooms into where Paul is permitted to have his own lodging or his own private accommodation. So again, it brings honor, he's given really good accommodations, hey, this guy is not a troublemaker. He's not a flight risk, just set them up. So he's not like in this terrible prison cell really. Acts 2017, three days after Paul's arrival, he called together the local Jewish leaders. He said to them brothers, I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Roman government. Even though I had done nothing against our people, or the customers of our ancestors. The Romans tried me and wanted to release me because they found no cause for the death sentence. But when the Jewish leaders protested decision, I felt it necessary to appeal to Caesar. Even though I had no desire to press charges against my own people. I asked you to come to me here today. So we could get acquainted. And so I could explain to you that I'm bound with this chain. Because I believe that the hope of Israel the Messiah has already gone through replied, we've had no letters from Judea reports against you from anyone who has come here, but we want to hear what you believe. For the only thing we know about this movement is that it's pronounced everywhere. So time was set. And on that day, a large number of people came to Paul's lodging. He explained and testified about the Kingdom of God and tried to persuade them about Jesus from the scriptures, using Law of Moses and the books of the prophets. He spoke to them from morning until evening. That's a long sermon.
Somewhere for storing some are persuaded by the things he said. He just did not believe. And after that, they argued back and forth among themselves. They left with this final word from Paul, the Holy Spirit was right when he said your ancestors who there Isaiah the prophet couldn't say to these people, when you hear what I say, will not understand. You see what I do, you will not comprehend for the hearts of these people are hardened, their eyes cannot hear and if
close their eyes, their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear. And the hearts cannot understand and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them. So interesting. It's he's quoting the Greek Old Testament, not the Hebrew. So I want you to know that this salvation from God has also been offered to the Gentiles, and they will accept it. For the next two years, Paul's lived in Rome as an expense, he welcomes all visitors in boldly proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ, and no one tried to stop him.
So Paul survives the storm.
He gets to the goal.
And he gets to the destination.
So some interesting things here that I want to kind of share with you, which are cool. And then we'll kind of tied into how it applies to us.
Many people have looked at the book of Jonah, and said, Wow, there are a lot of similarities here and some differences. And even in the book of Acts through Paul's walk, you can see like some similarities and so most of you are going to if you've never had the Bible, if you've never been to church, you probably if I say Joe is okay to correct me because I switched it to it's like this dyslexic thing that I do.
Like, as I was going through it, I'm like, stop saying job. It's not your it's Jonah. It's Jonah. Right. So anyway, I might slip there. That's okay. So, Jonah, you know the story, right? So you've maybe you picture this dude in the belly of a whale, right? And that's kind of the picture you get.
And maybe you know why even whoever in the church right, obedience is the thing. So the story is pretty simple. It's a very short book for chapter book, interesting, prophetic book. It's in that category, because most of the time the prophets are going to preach to Israel or Judah. Right? So through this, they had the Civil War. And so you have the prophets warning them about what would happen but important in saying that is in the north, the Assyrians conquer them. So the North is the first to fall Israel and Judah. You have that right. So they fall first. So the Syrians are an enemy, and you got to know that so no matter what time job is in the Syrians, no bueno. For the Hebrew people like there, they don't get along. So what's going on here as you have this prophetic book, that is to the Assyrians. So yes, although some prophetic books will mention and denounce other nations like the Moabites, the Egyptians, Babylonians, so on so forth, even the Assyrians. This one is like just about going to them. So you have that Nova Dyer with the Edomites. But otherwise, it's mostly just to Israel or Judah. So it's an interesting kind of story very short, it's kind of thing if you blink, you're going to miss something. There's like a lot of details are just really packed right in there. So basically, Jonah, son of a mind side, the word of the Lord comes in and says, go to Nineveh, right, you're going to you're going to preach those people prophesy those people. Now, if you know this background, you know why he goes away, like the Assyrians, right? So and then it was in the Syrian city. So he boarded the ship from Joppa. And then goes, this wants to go to this place called Tarshish. So he's fleeing from the Lord. He's not going to Nineveh. So the Lord just brings a wind right against the ship. And it's, you know, going through this big storm. So now we get a picture of the people on the boat. So the crew, whatever it is, they're throwing stuff overboard, right? And then you get a picture of Jonah and he's dead should remind you of Jesus like sleeping at the bottom of the boat, you know, and the disciples are freaking out. He's kind of doing they just sleeping through the storm. So the captain comes in and says, What are you doing you sleeper? You know, get up pray to your God, you know, because that's what they're doing. They're praying all their different gods, maybe it'll help. Scene goes back to the crew, the crews casting lots like rolling dice, to see whose fault it is. And so the lots go to Jonah Jonah's fault. So they prepare this like butter. Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do for this whole line of questioning? So Jonah then tells him now we don't get this, but it says later because they knew he was fleeing from the Lord, which means he told them this. They didn't write it down. He's fleeing, Lord. No, you know, why would you do that? Well, what should we do?
Throw me overboard.
Like, throw me overboard, and it'll stop. It's my fault. Like, okay, so they probably think the same thing. So they're trying to roll against it. And it just, it's not working so fine. They're like, all right, he's going over.
So they pray that but they become God fearing they start praying to God. And then afterwards, this is a sacrifice and make a vow. So now Joe's overboard cutscene to this, it's really like Not a whale. It's a giant fish. Now, just to let you know, there are and I shared this when I when we went over the whole book really closely. There are people who have been swallowed by things like whales and then spit out and survived. It's gotten crazy. So this can happen. But he's in there for three days. And when he's in there, he does something that maybe we wouldn't do. I don't know. But he's like He writes this song. It's a it looks like a song when you read it. He's basically worshiping and praying to God. So then the fish vomited out. It says literally, so he's a short. Now the word of the Lord comes to him a second time. Let's try this again, Jonah. So finally John is like okay, so he goes in there.
About says the city it takes like three days to walk around and just see the whole thing. And he's prophesying against the city, right? He didn't want to warn him initially because then like him now he's prophesying against in 40 days his town will be destroyed basically. And something surprising happened is serious become God fearing right? So it says they put on SAF sackcloth and repent. And it's kind of funny. There's a little bit of comedy here because the king makes this decree, he does it, he adopts it. And then he has all the animals do it too. And so like, you know, imagine the sweaters if you're a pet lover, you know, you have this, the wool sweaters you put on your dog, and they're like, You don't seriously. So imagine you were sackcloth, because it's like rough and you're not supposed to be smiling or having a good time. that'll ensure that you're not going to have a good time, right in the heat wear wool sweater. Only my daughter can do that. It's really weird Florida kids, but that's another sermon.
Like, why are you wearing a sweater? It's 80 degree.
But anyway, so they're a sec, they repent. This is crazy, right? So God relents from his anger. And he decides not to destroy Well, remember, Jonah, he does not like them. So, you know, it's really kind of a little over the top. He's like, who should just die? You know, what I said doesn't come through. I knew you would do this Lord, right? Your merciful slow to anger, right? So his whole exchange is going to him between him and God, it ends up with him, looking to see what would happen the city like he's not believing God, maybe in 40 days, I'll hang out here and see what happens. Maybe there'll be destroyed. And so the shelter is built. The Lord uses an illustration to teach him a lesson. So he has this plant grow up and it provides him with more shade. And then he has like this heat, you know, blow against them, it gets really hot. And then a worm, reverse or the worm kills the plant blows all the heat against him. Right. And again, he gets so upset. He's really melodramatic.
He's like, he's like, I just want to just die. Like, over and over again. The story. I'm like, calm down, you know, just get out of the sun. So anyway, don't lose your mind at the beach. Right? So anyway, the Lord chimes in now he's like, why are you so upset with this plan? Right? You didn't plan it? You didn't make it grow? Right? And you're so upset about how much more should I be upset or like care for a city like Nineveh with 120,000 people plus, you know, all the different cattle as a teaches him this lesson here. Right? So that's Jonah. So some comparisons in there. Well, if you notice some of the things I said, you know about X, you know about Paul, just you got to know a little background, Paul, but Paul's from Tarsus. Where did he want to head? Tarshish Jonah, so very, very similar. Some have said, this is a place in Spain. And so if that's the case, where does Paul want to go? If you read Romans to Spain, I'm going to go to Italy and then just made wrong than the Spain? Well, that's if Tarshish is there where Jonah, one head had very least they both sailed the Mediterranean. There's a storm obviously, in both accounts.
At first, right the sailors
they don't listen. Throw me over the telecom the storm, they just don't listen to him. Same thing with Paul we shouldn't sell right, we could be killed. And listen, both accounts, jettisoning things right throwing things over both accounts and sailors become God fearing a lot more in Jonah a lot more emphasis there, but we see it they're participating in like this Lord's supper with Paul, what's really kind of interesting if you know a lot about the conversion, accounting, exactly what said the good translation, X nine when Paul gets converted, right? He's blinded for three days. Then Luke writes that when he gets his eyesight back, something like scales fall from his eyes, scales like on a fish jhanas and the fish three days, kind of interesting.
After both of these things happen, both of them are obedient, right? Differences. Jonah flees. Paul goes into the storm. The captain tells Jonah to pray and at first, he doesn't. Paul does. In these exchanges. The captain advises Jonah Paul advises the captain Joanie didn't listen to the captain, the captain did listen to Paul, kind of interesting thing. And at the ending here, it's very interesting. You have this prophetic book. And then this quote from Paul here that he's quoting, he's quoting Isaiah, in that the people were obedient to Jonah, but not everybody in Acts. And that's kind of interesting because both of these accounts speak of the Gentiles being saved. So think about it. Like why doesn't Jonah want to go? Well, these are Gentiles. They're just non Israelites put it that way.
I don't want to go, right. What is Paul kind of rebuke to people who don't believe with? Well, I'll go to the Gentiles then.
Very, very similar in that sense.
So I'll share a little something with you this morning.
If you've been listening for last couple of weeks is a few things have been building here and so I'm going to put it all together for us.
like talking you guys about
all combined, or last few weeks about the ultra like where we came from our church history. And I told you in the midst of about this prophecy, if you remember, there was like someone came in and prophesied about, like, you know, the stained glass that we had in the old church and water pouring down through it. So I'll tell you how that was fulfilled. It's pretty interesting. So just in case you haven't been here, or just a reminder,
before we were here, it was five years now five or six years six, and he tries to rush me to death, right? So
six years already here, we've been in this building for six years. Before this, we are in another building a little further north, a very big building a 45,000 square foot building really, really here just to give you an idea, this building is sitting in today. 17,000 square feet, so huge, really big building. And I told you in the past, but just a reminder.
Basically, we couldn't pay our bills or that church, they couldn't pay their bills. They've been around since 1980. Basically, why? Because they didn't do any discipleship. So the church and I've admitted this was a country club. That's what it was. It was a country club. It was really hard to get into. And yeah, we had to sign a book. I mean, it was just ridiculous. And they had this idea that a lot of churches did in the 80s and 90s. Hey, let's make our church a community center. Right. And so of course, everybody's like, yeah, that's a great idea. And they build the community center, but then they don't let anyone from the community in unless you're a member, right. So
that's what happened. And so they're all these like, 80 year olds are all and if you're 80, it's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But when that's all there is like, there's something wrong with it. It means you didn't do any discipleship. So I told you, we arrived at the time where they said, Okay, let's do way too little way too late. And we'll develop a modern service. And so that's the time but over 10 years now, and my wife and I might be going really well, whatever, join that church. And so what they did was they were like, oh, yeah, well welcome. Young people in here. But they can't worship in the sanctuary with the stained glass, they can worship in half of the gym. And that's what we did. We worship that half of the gym. That's what they let us do our church. But we liked it. It was intimate, it was real, whatever. And so we joined but it was still too little too late. There's no fixing that 45,000 square foot bill. I mean, tremendous. The insurance alone was unbelievable. And so the church was dying. But God had a plan, which was interesting. And so there was a church here before us, which was really cool. Because we got all like the fancy camera equipment stuff. We didn't do any of this.
So there's a Church here, and they wanted to try making mistakes. So they're like, Oh, God told us to come here. And that we should switch buildings. I was like, Here are the keys, you can have it
later, you know, good luck with that. Now, if you if you're new, if you're not new, you know, everything's very intentional, and that this church has tried everything through the years, like literally, the country club, we tried to be a mega church. That's how we know none of it works. So just don't do it. It's not biblical. So we really have tried everything. So anyway, this is right size for us. And we do a lot for the community here. It's perfect. It's really, really good. So what we didn't know through the process, is that we would have to go through a storm
to get here. We didn't realize that right? So some hints have been dropped, we didn't know. And so if you've been here for awhile, you remember Irma? So Irma, depending on who you talk to you right like you know, someone wants to like scare people away from moving to Florida. They're like we got a Category Search rule through you know,
I think it was a four I think it hit us at a for like a high for something. Not fun. That's basically how to if you haven't been through it. Not a lot of fun. But don't be scared, right? So don't do what I did. When I first moved to Florida from New York. I bought $300 and hurricane supplies I never used don't do it. It's not worth it. Like I bought an outdoor toilet. My neighbor's like bro. Toilets flush without the electricity.
They don't in some places, but where I live they do. I'm like, like, shall I get hurricane shutters? He's like, That's $5,000 I'll never get back. So anyway, in my neighborhood, not one window blew out. Nothing happens. And don't worry, we get called for flood insurance. I live all around like on the other side of 75. So we're like 40 minutes away. And at an insurance, you think she would want to sell me insurance, right? I'm like, I need flood insurance. She's like, Honey, it floods out by you. It's the end of the world.
Okay, so anyway, calm down, right. So that jettison some of that stuff. Right? So calm down. But anyway, so we were over the stage of being like really worried about and what we decided to do is use our building as a hurricane shelter. Why? Because we're going to do the opposite of what the old people did.
We opened up the whole gym and then you know you can put your sleeping bags down other cool thing I told you this in the past because I like to cook it's one of my hobbies lately. Anyway, I won't say any more about it.
Okay,
Has
anyone had a professional kitchen? Like really a professional is like I have dreams about it. I'm like, can we go back just for that? Anyway, maybe I'm going to show up and be like, Hey, can I just want to use the kitchen? But beautiful, like all gas stoves, big walk in cooler dead bodies? No.
But anyway, I thought this is great, right? Because you guys really are sick, the, the buoy thing was nothing that was like just the beginning.
Anyway, so you had the gas line. So that would work because we knew the electricity is going to go out. So gas stoves, we got gas stoves, big cooler, it'll stay cool in there longer than like the average fridge, and we got all shelter in the gym, the gym was like, a little bigger than this. It was really, really big. And so what we did was we made a plan. And so the plan was interesting. My wife and I were kind of towards the pastor at that time, he was mentoring me for a while and he's happy, just you guys just deal with it. Right? So we kind of organized the whole thing. And so there's my wife with the clipboard. And if you never it's really fun pens and clipboards and telling everyone what to do.
So my plan was, okay, we're not going to go in the sanctuary at all. Big stained glass, right? So no, we're not going to do that. We're all going to huddle in the gym, which is sleeping bags in the gym, we have this other place called the we call it the attic, it was really the youth group met so it was like in an attic and upper part of the building. So get this right. Like the modern service can't be in the sanctuary. They're in the gym, the kids youth pastor get in the attic. Right? So
that's what happened, right? But when you think about it, it was another level up so we could access from the gym, we get up second floor in case we had some kind of storm surge or something. And then on top of that there was like a hatch to just like this, like a flat roof. And you had a hatch that you could get out. So you know, in case we didn't build the ark, and we're done. You know, like, let's get up to that. I don't know, send the Raven out. But so anyway, that was the plan. We had a plan. So Irma hit. Now. It's like if you just moved here, whatever. If you live in like a normal neighborhood with like a concrete block house. Don't worry, you're okay, if you live pretty close to the shore, like, Don't worry, but you know, it can be serious. So I don't want anything to in here to scare you. But what happened was, I don't like you're watching it. So you're going through the thing, you're like listening to the radio or watching it if you could watch it a certain point, like everything goes out, and we're listening on the radio, but we can see when we could watch it the trajectory of this thing. And like if we're being honest, we always like we pray like to somebody else.
Go north kill for Myers like,
level, right? So everyone's being honest. That's what you're doing. You're like, no, go away. And here it comes. Yeah. And the thing just ticks up and like ads going to start and like, No, it doesn't. It's like until like, if you look at the if you had a map, like there's the church and Irma's, like, right, right through the center of us, I mean, right at us.
All right, there's going to be crazy. So
the winds are going, Oh, my God isn't too bad. You know, we're looking at some of the windows where we can see through the kitchen. It's bad, but I'm like, hey, you know, not too bad. And then we get up to like, I kind of go out to the lobby. And there's two sets of like professional glass doors, you know, so like, just glass doors with a steel frame. There's one on the outside, and we parked a bunch of cars up against it, you know, so nothing would bang. And we couldn't get out. No, just kidding, we could. And then another set of them. And then a lobby in the middle kind of like about the size of our lobby, right. So she's had to glass doors. I've never seen anything like this. Some of these were it got serious. Because I'm looking now in in this lobby, like, as the wind would go like a tremendous amount of pressure. And I don't know anything about science. So I don't know why it was happening. But it had a dropped ceiling, ceiling tiles and the ceiling
would come through. It's like,
like a train is coming through or something on the ceiling tiles at once would go.
I was like, what?
And then as soon as it went past, they'd all fall back into place. I was like, you've got to see this, right. I don't know why it was happening. But I figured it out later. Like there's like, well, not why but like what happened if you were in there was weird. So this whole thing is going on. And then it stops why the eye of the storm. And like if you've never been in the middle of it, I have a storm. The only way I can describe it to someone from up north. It's like going out in a snowstorm at night.
You can't you can hear like the snow. If you ever experienced that phenomenon where you can actually hear this, like, you could hear this like no insects, no birds, nothing left alive. Right. So the birds have gotten out of there going well. So they're out. You know, like, think about it, but like
that's it and that sound is just weird. Like the sound of nothingness. It's just very strange. So we're out there. It's like very bizarre. I feel like I'm on Mars, you know, really weird. Everything's kind of all torn up. And then we know we got to get back inside. Why? Because the back end of this thing is going to come hit us. So in this particular case, I'm not a meteorologist. The back end was alive.
got worse.
And so we're in the gym. And I cannot describe to you the sound it's like
is I did someone decide to I didn't know what was going on outside, but it was like, I don't know, it's something happened to the roof, like this. So loud on there.
And finally, as the roof started to get torn up, it was the AC unit rolling around like a piece of dice.
Now so just imagine like the wind so bad that your AC unit just goes when it comes up and rolls around, right? That's what's happening. But it's one of those big like 100 to 10 units. It's like a gigantic way bigger than your AC unit. Hmm.
All this water just comes like flooding into the gym, and debris from the roof all this stuff. So I'm thinking
the attics probably not a great idea.
That plan went out the window, right? Like, oh, I didn't think about this. So I'm like, Okay, everybody in the closets. You know the gyms like when you're a kid in the school that has like the closet three people the dodgeballs that was fun. dodgeballs all the mats, everything. So everybody in there because there's like a secondary set of rooms, you know, over the closets getting there's you don't get hit with anything or wet. So I'm thinking I'm like, we have to move somewhere. And I know that in between the precious sanctuary where we do not want to go, because it's glass and everything. And this room out through the lobby is another room. And that room has a lower seat as another ceiling. So another layer of protection, like a basement, right? So let's go there. All right, so you go to go there. And I'm like,
that's weird. And it slows down. I can get in the pressure from that inside of the lobby for some reason, like you can't open the door and like,
think about it. Like it's like a submarine. So once that happens, the people are stuck in there. See if the weights close one door, I just can't even describe it. It's open to you as crazy procedure like file, there you
go. Like everyone goes into the lobby, close that door. Okay, now you can open up and long the short of it as we get into this like Bible study room, this other room and we were safe. There. It was all good. I had to see like what happened to the sanctuary.
Sure enough, look in the sanctuary. Look at the stained glass that that woman had prophesied about water just pouring right through that stained glass, just like she said. So her interpretation of prophecy was that there's going to be a flood of people here.
No.
It was a prophecy about the storm. So we know in part and prophesy in part. And so there's good and the Bible talks about this all over the place. There's good to being prepared, right? And making plans. But again, we know in part, and we probably didn't they tell Paul don't go. They could only see a part of the prophecy and they didn't know his command from the Lord. Right. So it's a good thing, make your plans. Good. But we have to know when to jettison stuff. We can't hold too tightly to some of these plans, because especially in storms, they change sellers out of plan.
They had to change some things we need to do is follow His plan for us in faith. Not necessarily always our own.
Because when you hold too tightly to some of your plans, sometimes you think
that's what happens. Think about it. What happened if I was like some and just very Stoddard, this is the plan. We're going to the roof.
And some people killed.
I had to know when to just let it go. It's great. We spend this time doing that but yet so many of these situations just but I but I but I did that. It's like the glitch. Great. I know you took time coming up with that.
Oh, we can't do that anymore.
Faith. That's where faith kicks in.
Maybe you've heard of a couple of words. I want to share with you because they relate to what we're talking about. flotsam and jetsam. If you thought of the eels from The Little Mermaid, it's cool. But anyone? Okay, that's scaring me a little bit. I only know because my wife knows. She loves a little more. So anyway, flotsam and jetsam. So they think of like a Germanic word flutter right so float. flotsam. jetsam jettison, like old French word jettison to get rid of so what you have here in this concept and in this shipwreck not specifically mentioned this way in the Bible, but this is what happens. You have flotsam, which is unintentional wreckage, right? So like the stuff that the sailors were going to
swim on right the pieces of wood from the boat. And then you have
jetsam. The things that were jettisoned intentionally like the weak cargo, the anchors and maybe you know the stuff that was weighing down the boat, flotsam and jetsam. And so they're both in the water but they arrived there in two different ways.
In any storm,
you're going to have flotsam
unintentional wreckage. So whether it's a literal storm,
unintentional wreckage, or like kind of a figurative one. And so a lot of people here in recovery, right, congratulations, good for you. Your recovery. And so as you go through your steps, one of the things what are you trying to do like make amends, right? You're trying to
cover some of that wreckage, right? It's tough. So my wife and I are very close to this. So it hits home, right? A lot of wreckage, and you're cleaning out that wreckage. You're going to have it, but you got to deal with it. That's tough. And so pastor, life isn't perfect for everybody, even those calling themselves Christians. So you deal with divorce. And in any divorce, I've seen, wreckage. Sometimes it's intentional. But it's unintentional issues with the kids, whatever it is the baggage, you're going to have wreckage, when you go through storms. There's really not much you can do about it, clean up what you can.
And we go through storms, we must also
offload some things. We must jettison some things, these could be things weighing us down,
holding us back. So keeping us from that destination. So it brings us to a question, what things might we need to jettison for Jesus?
What should we get rid of? What's holding us back from where we really need to be?
Now we talked about this in the past, right? So maybe we need to jettison some things on the other end, bad habits, right? Addiction if that's the thing.
People
just don't throw anybody overboard of a ship and say I told you to do it.
But right toxic relationships, what some stuff that needs to go. Think about Jonah for a minute. He was the cause of the problem.
What did he say? jettison me. Don't bother with the cargo there. He tried that didn't work. Get rid of me your problem will go away. Are there some Jonah's in our lives in that respect?
And here's the thing.
This brings me to an uncomfortable question. Maybe some have not pondered.
What is the thing that we need to jettison?
Is you?
What if it's me?
What if I'm Jonah, not Paul?
Jonah knew he's causing the storm. And so we should ask ourselves a question because you can say, well, Jonah, he's disobedient. Right? Very self reflective.
Throw me over?
Did I cause this?
What's my role and responsibility?
In this situation? So it's really funny. So if you're doing counseling, if you're doing counseling, you may laugh. But when you're doing counseling basic, like you're sitting there, and you're like, sitting across from two people, like trying to argue about who's wrong or
something like who's worse? I don't know. Just stay quiet. They'll talk it out. Yeah, who's worse? Like, what it always is, like, come on. Very rarely does anyone say yeah, you know what, I'm for all I know, you're just dead wrong. You know, I've never had that happen. You know, like, and so I'll talk to people beforehand, right? So sometimes I'll call me individually, right? She's doing this or he's doing that.
And I'll listen for a while until you start talking about the Bible. And I'm like, shut up. So.
But I listen, and then I usually get here.
What might you have done to cause this reaction or response? Anything? You know, it's always like, Oh, but I'm trying like, okay, when we need I don't know if we need like, I want you to bring to the table what your list not, we know a list of what you might have done wrong. Here's the I want to hear about anything else. Please. Do not write covering up the buzzer. If you've gotten the Bible said to have a buzzer. It's not professional. We're going to upgrade it but we're getting there. Right? Like no, like just you just what you did wrong. Because I tell them like why are you coming to me? If you're not going to listen to the mediator
Right, I am trying to tell you guys what to do if you want a positive outcome or you're just meeting with me right as a formality, a checkbox, so you can go and just hate this person. Like if you want a real resolution start inwardly reflecting like Jesus says, right? Get the big log out of your ice, you can see the speck and this other person's eye it's important what is your role and responsibility in this really important step
you survive storms by being humble
and honest with yourself
you survived storms by trusting in God
doing what he said
writing it out changing plans as needed.
You survive storms through prayer
what Paul do pray
hopefully we'll hear something but we're just going to need to just write this out.
Trust just praying.
Important
is if our storms by being mindful of the goal.
How often do we get distracted by the storm? And we forget about what's really important.
Is arrived survive storms by being obedient. So obviously we learned that lesson from Jonah. Good bad example. Call. Good. Good example. Think about the level between this week and last week of obedience that Paul had.
Shipped shipwreck like No, thanks. I'm not getting on that boat. No.
Hopes for the ideal. He's like, maybe there's some other way you know, there's not okay, fine.
That's a level of obedience, like, what?
The antithesis in this case of Jonah.
So it's all this very brief story. And then we'll close here to the Bible study in passing, I can't remember a week or two ago.
I'm not a seafaring cat. And
I don't know too much about boats or anything like that, as you can probably tell, as I navigated this shipwreck story.
Not too much of fantasy, but I was on the sea, once in Brazil. And we are going from the mainland to a very small island, really small island, and a storm picked up. And it was a pretty small boat, you know, you feel really tiny, but you're on the open sea and can't see land, you know, we're a little boat. And the swells were like, whatever, like six to 10 feet, there really is a bad storm. And so the boats going up and down, and I get motion sickness. So it's just terrible. And I thought that this only happened in cartoons. But apparently this can happen in real life where someone turns the color green.
It's totally fine. But I'm not joking. It's like great Laos, like you're green. And so people began turning green and throwing up everywhere. I hadn't yet. And this is Brazilian guy sitting next to me. Just important. He says, look, just look at the horizon. And not nothing else. Like don't look at anything else. Just do that. Now. We're there. We're there training. Martial Arts is what we're doing. And so I was really good at the obedience thing. I'm good at just listening. Right? So I'm trying to do that. It was like kicked in the head, right? So just listen, right? So okay, and that's what I do. I like but I can see in my peripheral everybody's going down. Like it's such a Craziest thing. I'm like, not me, not me. Not mean
to the whole thing. Like it was a long time. I don't know how long was it had to be like an hour. It was unbelievable. I don't know if a blink is like this. But here's the thing. I didn't grow up.
I survived the storm, through obedience.
Obedience ever dropped. You know, it's nuts like this happened to me. Never mind, I won't get into
I'm not going to do. I survived by being obedient.
We did. It was as simple as that. I am how Jesus did that. Well, you have faith nothing, just by simply being obedient.
You survived the storms.
By having obedience,
faith
and hope in the destination.
We need to fix our eyes on our heavenly horizon.
Brings me to Hebrews 12. We've seen this in the past. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith. Let us strip off every weight that slows us down.
especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, a champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy waiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding his shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor, beside God's throne.
No matter what you're going through, and we're all going through something, we survived the storms, by fixing our eyes on Jesus.
Doesn't matter what it is, when the wind and the waves we need to be that which is built on solid, bedrock not sinking sand.
We need to anchor ourselves there. So that no matter how bad it gets, he endured and cross.
We know where our destination is. We pray for you.
What a thank you for this time for everyone who came in to hear your word, Lord, most of all,
from Colossians, this encouragement, since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor and God's right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. You died to this life and your real life is hidden with Christ and God. And when Christ who is your life is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.
So between now and then, Lord, I pray that you fashion us into instruments vehicles,
of your grace, mercy and your love.
Ask these things in Jesus's name.
Amen.
Good morning.
Welcome. If you're new here among us, my name is Gene I serve here at C3 church as your pastor. And I want to begin today by talking about Bell buoys.
I said buoy, Bell buoys, you can laugh that's kind of fun. You thought it
If you're new, and you thought that welcome, you're in good company.
So, a bellboy, it's a navigational marker. So many of you must know what a buoy is in the water, right? So it's going to warn ships, you can navigate where not to go usually, right, so there might be what's called a shoal in the water. So it gets really shallow. And so if a boat runs into it, it's going to get stuck, and it's going to cause a really big problem. So the Belen buoy in fog, like, if you can't see it's going to make a noise, right? So have a bell on it and let the people know, okay, we should probably avoid that thing. Well, there's a poem 1896, I was about five years old, by Rudyard Kipling, you're awake?
Read, you can call the bell buoy. And essentially, this poem, it's kind of like a lot of old timey language. So it can kind of be hard to understand. So the basic gist is, essentially you have this bell buoy, and it's being made to talk and in the Bible, like Paul does this first Corinthians right Prosecco PC, that Greek literary device. So it's doing that the elbow is talking. And it's kind of like talking to a church bell. And these are two different kinds of bells. And it's basically painting itself out to be something that's in the thick of it, something that's weathering the storm versus this like sheltered church bell, right? So it's this contrast, right? So it's this repeating thing where the shoulder basically beware the shoulder, right? But will I take league with the or will I be company with the or I leave my place to be in the safety where you are. So the bell buoy is weathering the storm, it's out there in the thick of it while this church bells protected. And indeed, a bell buoy, only rings when the wind and the waves are crashing against it. That's when you hear the music that comes out of the bellboy.
So to do storms reveal what is inside a person.
And that's what we're going to look at today. We've been following Paul through x, or the book of Acts, we looked at the letters he wrote back to some of those places, we continue the last two chapters here. And so if you remember, what did he do, he was honoring to everybody, but he goes through all these different trials, and he strategically gets himself to go to Rome by appealing to Caesar. So a lot of people are confused about it. The officials were last week. So he has this trial with King Agrippa. Bernice and Felix like, what do we do this guy, he didn't do anything wrong. But if he hadn't appealed to Caesar, right, he would have been set free, but that's a part of the plan. So this week, we're going to see how Paul survives a storm, who will pick up right next 27 First one. When the time came, we set sail for Italy, Paul and several other prisoners were placed in the custody of a Roman officer named Julius a captain of the Imperial regiment. Eros, Dorcas, a Macedonian from Thessalonica was also with us, we left on a ship whose home port was Adramyttium, that's a tough one, even for me to say, on the northwest coast of the province of Asia, it was scheduled to make several stops at ports along the coast of the province. So what you have going on here is the way narrative picks up. So this means that Luke is with them with Aerostar guests. And so he has company there, and these are the witnesses to these events. So to summarize, the next day, they docked at Sidon. And Julius this commander who's like in charge of Paul, and the other prisoners there, he's very kind boy, let them go ashore visit friends so that they can provide for their needs. So he talked about this last week. Right? So honoring officials, Paul's very honoring to everyone, even the people who are holding him captive, even though it's not fair, very honoring, and you see how he's treated? So yes, there is, of course, what the Bible says about honoring officials, but at the same time, Paul's a smart guy, right? So instead of complaining and screaming and yelling at the guy who would get him nowhere, he just honors him. And it's getting him somewhere. So Luke is going to document lots of places doctor, real smart guy written in very, very good Greek as you read it. And so he just pays attention to like every little detail and scholars today. So you can just kind of like follow them through this journey. And it's like about right, it's pretty crazy, even though it's 2000 years ago. So the land admiral. And so what this commanding officer is going to do, basically, you have to imagine this army officer or something like that, taking around this group of prisoners, and what he's going to do is like commandeer things or he's going to get things along the way so he's not like a naval
Officer they have a special boats take Paul anywhere, anything like that. He's going to find ships and say, Hey, we need to book passage on the ship. And they're like, oh, you know. So it's that kind of situations. And that's what he does. He finds an Alexandrian ship bound for Italy. They go on board. But what happens is the wind is against them. So they have several days of really hard sailing, it's not good. They're struggling along the coast, loop documents, all these different places, they finally arrive at this place called Fair Havens. Well, irony there, the weather became really dangerous. So when it gets late, I'm not a sailing person. So I've just been told, when it becomes like fall or winter in the Mediterranean Sea, it's time to stop sailing, right. So this is what historians will say it's very dangerous, it's not a good time to go. Paul senses this, right? So he gives a short little speech, man, he said, I believe there's trouble ahead if we go on shipwreck loss of cargo in danger to our lives as well. But the officer in charge of the prisoners listen more carefully to the ship's captain and the owner than to Paul. And since Fair Havens wasn't exposed harbor logic would dictate not a great place. So the crew wants to go on to another place called Phoenix. Right? And it says Phoenix is a good harbor. But if you kind of know anything about the history, the geography what's going on at the time, Fair Havens is a much smaller town. And you got to think about a group of sailors or pirates, right, like being stuck in a small town with no, let's say, women there. So there's more of an economy in Phoenix for this type of behavior. So that's really where the crew wants to go, right. So like, it's stuck in this small little town, we want to go to a bigger city. So they do. And that you see through this whole thing, you see that the soul of the crew members of sailors, they go about like these plants that you'd naturally do through tough times here. So Luke is going to take you through it, sailors think they can make it pull up anchor, they sail for this place, but it mentions that there's a nor'easters, there's a big storm that hits them. So the sailors couldn't even like turn the ship in the wind, nothing. So they just kind of like go with it. What else can we do at this point? So they do a couple different things, right? So they pull the lifeboat and so they go through these plans. So the sailors like, Okay, here's what we do during this procedure. So they pull the lifeboat and there's like this lifeboat behind them to get that up. And then because it's dragging them down, they secure the ship with ropes, which is really interesting. The whole of the ships are worried about kind of breaking apart, and then the anchor, right, so the lower the sea anchor to slow the ship down. So trying that strategy. Next day gale force winds continued about or the ship, the crow starts jettisoning cargo if you don't know what that means, the rolling cargo overboard, right, let's get this ship light. So we can maybe weather the storm or not going to sink or something like that. But it raised on for many days, it says it blocks out the sun, the stars, and all hope is gone. X 2721. No one had eaten for all a long time. Finally, Paul called the crew together and said, Man, you should have listened to me in the first place and not left Creek, you would have avoided all this damage and loss. But take courage. None of you will lose your lives even though the ship will go down last night and Angel of the gods whom I belong and whom I serve, stood beside me and said don't be afraid Paul for your surely stand trial before Caesar what's more, God in His goodness has granted safety to everyone sailing with you. So take courage for I believe in God believe God, it'll be just as he said. But we'll be shipwrecked on an island. It's like good bad news here to the guys. Right? Like, okay, you know, shipwreck and what does that kind of look like? Right? So it says the 14th Night of the storms. This is really bad. And here's where Luke is really, really detail oriented. He talks about like dropping a weighted line, I'll translate it for you. 120 feet deep. Drop it again, 90 feet deep. So what's happening? They're getting closer to the shore, right? So they're afraid that they're going to be like driven against the rock. So what they do is they throw out the four anchors, they get real light now, right in the back of the ship, and they prayed for daylight so things are changing. Remember, they wouldn't listen to Paul. At first he's like, look, we're all going to die like now what do you know, right? Now he's sitting there doing things Paul does, right? Like, that's a good idea. Let's pray. Right? So what they try to do the sailors at first so there's the crew, right? The sailors. What they try to do is they try to lower the lifeboat down they figured Alright, we're going to escape. We're going to get out on this little boat here and not crash but the big one. So Paul warns them you will all die unless the sailors stay aboard. So the soldiers cut the ropes from the lifeboat let it drift away. Right so they listen to Paul again. Then there's this scene where Paul urges everyone to eat. Hey, you've been worried you haven't touched food for two weeks like these guys haven't been eating at all. So please eat something now. For your own good for not a hair on your head will perish. So he's like encouraging them reminding them and he does something is interesting. It looks like the Lord's Supper. It says he breaks bread and he gives God thanks for the bread
So they're having like this like kind of commute communal meal where Paul's praying for the meal and everything. And then they do something extra interesting. They eat, they're encouraged and then they throw even the wheat cargo over they throw everything over they know that
we're going to crash so we got to kind of get through this more jettisoning so they see land ahead and then they finally say Okay, cut off the anchors everything out, let him go in the sea lower the rudders, which would steer the ship raise the for sale, so they're going to let the wind drive them right into the beach, you know, so that they don't see. But Novell buoys the hit a shoal, it says, And they hit it too early. So basically, now you have this situation where there's a boat friend stuck in the shoal. And the back end is just getting slammed by these waves over and over again and everything is starting to break apart. So serious situation now, it gets a little bit worse for them, because the soldiers want to kill the prisoners. Why? Well, they might swim ashore beat me to shore and escapes, let's kill them. But Julius, he wants to save Paul. So he says, Nope, don't kill him. So here's again where Paul smarts. Save a lot of people. In this case, they save some lives here. So anyone who can swim, go for it. jump overboard, the rest of you grab onto the flotsam, all this debris in the water, and so they get ashore X 181 Once we are safe on shore, we learned that we are on the island of Malta, the people the island were very kind to us it was cold and rainy. So they built a fire on the shore to welcome us as Paul gathered an armful of sticks and was laying them on the fire a poisonous snake drip out by the heat beat him on the hand. The people on the island saw it hanging from his hand and said to each other a murder no doubt that he escaped the sea justice will not permit him to live. But Paul shook the snake off into the fire was unharmed. The people waited for him to swell up or suddenly dropped dead. But when they waited a long time and saw that it wasn't hard, they changed their minds and decided he was a god. So really superstitious people. We've seen this in Acts 14, right. They thought that Paul and Barnabas were gods Zeus and Apollo, real superstitious. They think that the snake is carrying out this justice or something like that politics at all. So now we went to a guy named Publius. He's like a first official or chief official on the island, right? And his issue is that his dad is sick. So he's sick with fever and dysentery. So Paul goes in and heals him, which is great. So now everybody in Malta wants to get healed. And so he heals everybody. And he does so much good there that the people then when they go on their way, they send him with everything they need for the trip. So there you go. Honor brings honor. Then we read that three months after the shipwreck, they set sail in another ship in other Alexandria and ship. It makes a mention of the twin Gods it's Castor and Pollux. So sometimes, you know, you see those ships in the movies, and they have something on the front. So that's what it has there. And Luke just decides to mention that they make a couple of stops, they arrive at Rome, the brothers and sisters at Rome and heard they were coming. And so they greet everybody, they needed a couple different places. And then it kind of zooms into where Paul is permitted to have his own lodging or his own private accommodation. So again, it brings honor, he's given really good accommodations, hey, this guy is not a troublemaker. He's not a flight risk, just set them up. So he's not like in this terrible prison cell really. Acts 2017, three days after Paul's arrival, he called together the local Jewish leaders. He said to them brothers, I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Roman government. Even though I had done nothing against our people, or the customers of our ancestors. The Romans tried me and wanted to release me because they found no cause for the death sentence. But when the Jewish leaders protested decision, I felt it necessary to appeal to Caesar. Even though I had no desire to press charges against my own people. I asked you to come to me here today. So we could get acquainted. And so I could explain to you that I'm bound with this chain. Because I believe that the hope of Israel the Messiah has already gone through replied, we've had no letters from Judea reports against you from anyone who has come here, but we want to hear what you believe. For the only thing we know about this movement is that it's pronounced everywhere. So time was set. And on that day, a large number of people came to Paul's lodging. He explained and testified about the Kingdom of God and tried to persuade them about Jesus from the scriptures, using Law of Moses and the books of the prophets. He spoke to them from morning until evening. That's a long sermon.
Somewhere for storing some are persuaded by the things he said. He just did not believe. And after that, they argued back and forth among themselves. They left with this final word from Paul, the Holy Spirit was right when he said your ancestors who there Isaiah the prophet couldn't say to these people, when you hear what I say, will not understand. You see what I do, you will not comprehend for the hearts of these people are hardened, their eyes cannot hear and if
close their eyes, their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear. And the hearts cannot understand and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them. So interesting. It's he's quoting the Greek Old Testament, not the Hebrew. So I want you to know that this salvation from God has also been offered to the Gentiles, and they will accept it. For the next two years, Paul's lived in Rome as an expense, he welcomes all visitors in boldly proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ, and no one tried to stop him.
So Paul survives the storm.
He gets to the goal.
And he gets to the destination.
So some interesting things here that I want to kind of share with you, which are cool. And then we'll kind of tied into how it applies to us.
Many people have looked at the book of Jonah, and said, Wow, there are a lot of similarities here and some differences. And even in the book of Acts through Paul's walk, you can see like some similarities and so most of you are going to if you've never had the Bible, if you've never been to church, you probably if I say Joe is okay to correct me because I switched it to it's like this dyslexic thing that I do.
Like, as I was going through it, I'm like, stop saying job. It's not your it's Jonah. It's Jonah. Right. So anyway, I might slip there. That's okay. So, Jonah, you know the story, right? So you've maybe you picture this dude in the belly of a whale, right? And that's kind of the picture you get.
And maybe you know why even whoever in the church right, obedience is the thing. So the story is pretty simple. It's a very short book for chapter book, interesting, prophetic book. It's in that category, because most of the time the prophets are going to preach to Israel or Judah. Right? So through this, they had the Civil War. And so you have the prophets warning them about what would happen but important in saying that is in the north, the Assyrians conquer them. So the North is the first to fall Israel and Judah. You have that right. So they fall first. So the Syrians are an enemy, and you got to know that so no matter what time job is in the Syrians, no bueno. For the Hebrew people like there, they don't get along. So what's going on here as you have this prophetic book, that is to the Assyrians. So yes, although some prophetic books will mention and denounce other nations like the Moabites, the Egyptians, Babylonians, so on so forth, even the Assyrians. This one is like just about going to them. So you have that Nova Dyer with the Edomites. But otherwise, it's mostly just to Israel or Judah. So it's an interesting kind of story very short, it's kind of thing if you blink, you're going to miss something. There's like a lot of details are just really packed right in there. So basically, Jonah, son of a mind side, the word of the Lord comes in and says, go to Nineveh, right, you're going to you're going to preach those people prophesy those people. Now, if you know this background, you know why he goes away, like the Assyrians, right? So and then it was in the Syrian city. So he boarded the ship from Joppa. And then goes, this wants to go to this place called Tarshish. So he's fleeing from the Lord. He's not going to Nineveh. So the Lord just brings a wind right against the ship. And it's, you know, going through this big storm. So now we get a picture of the people on the boat. So the crew, whatever it is, they're throwing stuff overboard, right? And then you get a picture of Jonah and he's dead should remind you of Jesus like sleeping at the bottom of the boat, you know, and the disciples are freaking out. He's kind of doing they just sleeping through the storm. So the captain comes in and says, What are you doing you sleeper? You know, get up pray to your God, you know, because that's what they're doing. They're praying all their different gods, maybe it'll help. Scene goes back to the crew, the crews casting lots like rolling dice, to see whose fault it is. And so the lots go to Jonah Jonah's fault. So they prepare this like butter. Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do for this whole line of questioning? So Jonah then tells him now we don't get this, but it says later because they knew he was fleeing from the Lord, which means he told them this. They didn't write it down. He's fleeing, Lord. No, you know, why would you do that? Well, what should we do?
Throw me overboard.
Like, throw me overboard, and it'll stop. It's my fault. Like, okay, so they probably think the same thing. So they're trying to roll against it. And it just, it's not working so fine. They're like, all right, he's going over.
So they pray that but they become God fearing they start praying to God. And then afterwards, this is a sacrifice and make a vow. So now Joe's overboard cutscene to this, it's really like Not a whale. It's a giant fish. Now, just to let you know, there are and I shared this when I when we went over the whole book really closely. There are people who have been swallowed by things like whales and then spit out and survived. It's gotten crazy. So this can happen. But he's in there for three days. And when he's in there, he does something that maybe we wouldn't do. I don't know. But he's like He writes this song. It's a it looks like a song when you read it. He's basically worshiping and praying to God. So then the fish vomited out. It says literally, so he's a short. Now the word of the Lord comes to him a second time. Let's try this again, Jonah. So finally John is like okay, so he goes in there.
About says the city it takes like three days to walk around and just see the whole thing. And he's prophesying against the city, right? He didn't want to warn him initially because then like him now he's prophesying against in 40 days his town will be destroyed basically. And something surprising happened is serious become God fearing right? So it says they put on SAF sackcloth and repent. And it's kind of funny. There's a little bit of comedy here because the king makes this decree, he does it, he adopts it. And then he has all the animals do it too. And so like, you know, imagine the sweaters if you're a pet lover, you know, you have this, the wool sweaters you put on your dog, and they're like, You don't seriously. So imagine you were sackcloth, because it's like rough and you're not supposed to be smiling or having a good time. that'll ensure that you're not going to have a good time, right in the heat wear wool sweater. Only my daughter can do that. It's really weird Florida kids, but that's another sermon.
Like, why are you wearing a sweater? It's 80 degree.
But anyway, so they're a sec, they repent. This is crazy, right? So God relents from his anger. And he decides not to destroy Well, remember, Jonah, he does not like them. So, you know, it's really kind of a little over the top. He's like, who should just die? You know, what I said doesn't come through. I knew you would do this Lord, right? Your merciful slow to anger, right? So his whole exchange is going to him between him and God, it ends up with him, looking to see what would happen the city like he's not believing God, maybe in 40 days, I'll hang out here and see what happens. Maybe there'll be destroyed. And so the shelter is built. The Lord uses an illustration to teach him a lesson. So he has this plant grow up and it provides him with more shade. And then he has like this heat, you know, blow against them, it gets really hot. And then a worm, reverse or the worm kills the plant blows all the heat against him. Right. And again, he gets so upset. He's really melodramatic.
He's like, he's like, I just want to just die. Like, over and over again. The story. I'm like, calm down, you know, just get out of the sun. So anyway, don't lose your mind at the beach. Right? So anyway, the Lord chimes in now he's like, why are you so upset with this plan? Right? You didn't plan it? You didn't make it grow? Right? And you're so upset about how much more should I be upset or like care for a city like Nineveh with 120,000 people plus, you know, all the different cattle as a teaches him this lesson here. Right? So that's Jonah. So some comparisons in there. Well, if you notice some of the things I said, you know about X, you know about Paul, just you got to know a little background, Paul, but Paul's from Tarsus. Where did he want to head? Tarshish Jonah, so very, very similar. Some have said, this is a place in Spain. And so if that's the case, where does Paul want to go? If you read Romans to Spain, I'm going to go to Italy and then just made wrong than the Spain? Well, that's if Tarshish is there where Jonah, one head had very least they both sailed the Mediterranean. There's a storm obviously, in both accounts.
At first, right the sailors
they don't listen. Throw me over the telecom the storm, they just don't listen to him. Same thing with Paul we shouldn't sell right, we could be killed. And listen, both accounts, jettisoning things right throwing things over both accounts and sailors become God fearing a lot more in Jonah a lot more emphasis there, but we see it they're participating in like this Lord's supper with Paul, what's really kind of interesting if you know a lot about the conversion, accounting, exactly what said the good translation, X nine when Paul gets converted, right? He's blinded for three days. Then Luke writes that when he gets his eyesight back, something like scales fall from his eyes, scales like on a fish jhanas and the fish three days, kind of interesting.
After both of these things happen, both of them are obedient, right? Differences. Jonah flees. Paul goes into the storm. The captain tells Jonah to pray and at first, he doesn't. Paul does. In these exchanges. The captain advises Jonah Paul advises the captain Joanie didn't listen to the captain, the captain did listen to Paul, kind of interesting thing. And at the ending here, it's very interesting. You have this prophetic book. And then this quote from Paul here that he's quoting, he's quoting Isaiah, in that the people were obedient to Jonah, but not everybody in Acts. And that's kind of interesting because both of these accounts speak of the Gentiles being saved. So think about it. Like why doesn't Jonah want to go? Well, these are Gentiles. They're just non Israelites put it that way.
I don't want to go, right. What is Paul kind of rebuke to people who don't believe with? Well, I'll go to the Gentiles then.
Very, very similar in that sense.
So I'll share a little something with you this morning.
If you've been listening for last couple of weeks is a few things have been building here and so I'm going to put it all together for us.
like talking you guys about
all combined, or last few weeks about the ultra like where we came from our church history. And I told you in the midst of about this prophecy, if you remember, there was like someone came in and prophesied about, like, you know, the stained glass that we had in the old church and water pouring down through it. So I'll tell you how that was fulfilled. It's pretty interesting. So just in case you haven't been here, or just a reminder,
before we were here, it was five years now five or six years six, and he tries to rush me to death, right? So
six years already here, we've been in this building for six years. Before this, we are in another building a little further north, a very big building a 45,000 square foot building really, really here just to give you an idea, this building is sitting in today. 17,000 square feet, so huge, really big building. And I told you in the past, but just a reminder.
Basically, we couldn't pay our bills or that church, they couldn't pay their bills. They've been around since 1980. Basically, why? Because they didn't do any discipleship. So the church and I've admitted this was a country club. That's what it was. It was a country club. It was really hard to get into. And yeah, we had to sign a book. I mean, it was just ridiculous. And they had this idea that a lot of churches did in the 80s and 90s. Hey, let's make our church a community center. Right. And so of course, everybody's like, yeah, that's a great idea. And they build the community center, but then they don't let anyone from the community in unless you're a member, right. So
that's what happened. And so they're all these like, 80 year olds are all and if you're 80, it's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But when that's all there is like, there's something wrong with it. It means you didn't do any discipleship. So I told you, we arrived at the time where they said, Okay, let's do way too little way too late. And we'll develop a modern service. And so that's the time but over 10 years now, and my wife and I might be going really well, whatever, join that church. And so what they did was they were like, oh, yeah, well welcome. Young people in here. But they can't worship in the sanctuary with the stained glass, they can worship in half of the gym. And that's what we did. We worship that half of the gym. That's what they let us do our church. But we liked it. It was intimate, it was real, whatever. And so we joined but it was still too little too late. There's no fixing that 45,000 square foot bill. I mean, tremendous. The insurance alone was unbelievable. And so the church was dying. But God had a plan, which was interesting. And so there was a church here before us, which was really cool. Because we got all like the fancy camera equipment stuff. We didn't do any of this.
So there's a Church here, and they wanted to try making mistakes. So they're like, Oh, God told us to come here. And that we should switch buildings. I was like, Here are the keys, you can have it
later, you know, good luck with that. Now, if you if you're new, if you're not new, you know, everything's very intentional, and that this church has tried everything through the years, like literally, the country club, we tried to be a mega church. That's how we know none of it works. So just don't do it. It's not biblical. So we really have tried everything. So anyway, this is right size for us. And we do a lot for the community here. It's perfect. It's really, really good. So what we didn't know through the process, is that we would have to go through a storm
to get here. We didn't realize that right? So some hints have been dropped, we didn't know. And so if you've been here for awhile, you remember Irma? So Irma, depending on who you talk to you right like you know, someone wants to like scare people away from moving to Florida. They're like we got a Category Search rule through you know,
I think it was a four I think it hit us at a for like a high for something. Not fun. That's basically how to if you haven't been through it. Not a lot of fun. But don't be scared, right? So don't do what I did. When I first moved to Florida from New York. I bought $300 and hurricane supplies I never used don't do it. It's not worth it. Like I bought an outdoor toilet. My neighbor's like bro. Toilets flush without the electricity.
They don't in some places, but where I live they do. I'm like, like, shall I get hurricane shutters? He's like, That's $5,000 I'll never get back. So anyway, in my neighborhood, not one window blew out. Nothing happens. And don't worry, we get called for flood insurance. I live all around like on the other side of 75. So we're like 40 minutes away. And at an insurance, you think she would want to sell me insurance, right? I'm like, I need flood insurance. She's like, Honey, it floods out by you. It's the end of the world.
Okay, so anyway, calm down, right. So that jettison some of that stuff. Right? So calm down. But anyway, so we were over the stage of being like really worried about and what we decided to do is use our building as a hurricane shelter. Why? Because we're going to do the opposite of what the old people did.
We opened up the whole gym and then you know you can put your sleeping bags down other cool thing I told you this in the past because I like to cook it's one of my hobbies lately. Anyway, I won't say any more about it.
Okay,
Has
anyone had a professional kitchen? Like really a professional is like I have dreams about it. I'm like, can we go back just for that? Anyway, maybe I'm going to show up and be like, Hey, can I just want to use the kitchen? But beautiful, like all gas stoves, big walk in cooler dead bodies? No.
But anyway, I thought this is great, right? Because you guys really are sick, the, the buoy thing was nothing that was like just the beginning.
Anyway, so you had the gas line. So that would work because we knew the electricity is going to go out. So gas stoves, we got gas stoves, big cooler, it'll stay cool in there longer than like the average fridge, and we got all shelter in the gym, the gym was like, a little bigger than this. It was really, really big. And so what we did was we made a plan. And so the plan was interesting. My wife and I were kind of towards the pastor at that time, he was mentoring me for a while and he's happy, just you guys just deal with it. Right? So we kind of organized the whole thing. And so there's my wife with the clipboard. And if you never it's really fun pens and clipboards and telling everyone what to do.
So my plan was, okay, we're not going to go in the sanctuary at all. Big stained glass, right? So no, we're not going to do that. We're all going to huddle in the gym, which is sleeping bags in the gym, we have this other place called the we call it the attic, it was really the youth group met so it was like in an attic and upper part of the building. So get this right. Like the modern service can't be in the sanctuary. They're in the gym, the kids youth pastor get in the attic. Right? So
that's what happened, right? But when you think about it, it was another level up so we could access from the gym, we get up second floor in case we had some kind of storm surge or something. And then on top of that there was like a hatch to just like this, like a flat roof. And you had a hatch that you could get out. So you know, in case we didn't build the ark, and we're done. You know, like, let's get up to that. I don't know, send the Raven out. But so anyway, that was the plan. We had a plan. So Irma hit. Now. It's like if you just moved here, whatever. If you live in like a normal neighborhood with like a concrete block house. Don't worry, you're okay, if you live pretty close to the shore, like, Don't worry, but you know, it can be serious. So I don't want anything to in here to scare you. But what happened was, I don't like you're watching it. So you're going through the thing, you're like listening to the radio or watching it if you could watch it a certain point, like everything goes out, and we're listening on the radio, but we can see when we could watch it the trajectory of this thing. And like if we're being honest, we always like we pray like to somebody else.
Go north kill for Myers like,
level, right? So everyone's being honest. That's what you're doing. You're like, no, go away. And here it comes. Yeah. And the thing just ticks up and like ads going to start and like, No, it doesn't. It's like until like, if you look at the if you had a map, like there's the church and Irma's, like, right, right through the center of us, I mean, right at us.
All right, there's going to be crazy. So
the winds are going, Oh, my God isn't too bad. You know, we're looking at some of the windows where we can see through the kitchen. It's bad, but I'm like, hey, you know, not too bad. And then we get up to like, I kind of go out to the lobby. And there's two sets of like professional glass doors, you know, so like, just glass doors with a steel frame. There's one on the outside, and we parked a bunch of cars up against it, you know, so nothing would bang. And we couldn't get out. No, just kidding, we could. And then another set of them. And then a lobby in the middle kind of like about the size of our lobby, right. So she's had to glass doors. I've never seen anything like this. Some of these were it got serious. Because I'm looking now in in this lobby, like, as the wind would go like a tremendous amount of pressure. And I don't know anything about science. So I don't know why it was happening. But it had a dropped ceiling, ceiling tiles and the ceiling
would come through. It's like,
like a train is coming through or something on the ceiling tiles at once would go.
I was like, what?
And then as soon as it went past, they'd all fall back into place. I was like, you've got to see this, right. I don't know why it was happening. But I figured it out later. Like there's like, well, not why but like what happened if you were in there was weird. So this whole thing is going on. And then it stops why the eye of the storm. And like if you've never been in the middle of it, I have a storm. The only way I can describe it to someone from up north. It's like going out in a snowstorm at night.
You can't you can hear like the snow. If you ever experienced that phenomenon where you can actually hear this, like, you could hear this like no insects, no birds, nothing left alive. Right. So the birds have gotten out of there going well. So they're out. You know, like, think about it, but like
that's it and that sound is just weird. Like the sound of nothingness. It's just very strange. So we're out there. It's like very bizarre. I feel like I'm on Mars, you know, really weird. Everything's kind of all torn up. And then we know we got to get back inside. Why? Because the back end of this thing is going to come hit us. So in this particular case, I'm not a meteorologist. The back end was alive.
got worse.
And so we're in the gym. And I cannot describe to you the sound it's like
is I did someone decide to I didn't know what was going on outside, but it was like, I don't know, it's something happened to the roof, like this. So loud on there.
And finally, as the roof started to get torn up, it was the AC unit rolling around like a piece of dice.
Now so just imagine like the wind so bad that your AC unit just goes when it comes up and rolls around, right? That's what's happening. But it's one of those big like 100 to 10 units. It's like a gigantic way bigger than your AC unit. Hmm.
All this water just comes like flooding into the gym, and debris from the roof all this stuff. So I'm thinking
the attics probably not a great idea.
That plan went out the window, right? Like, oh, I didn't think about this. So I'm like, Okay, everybody in the closets. You know the gyms like when you're a kid in the school that has like the closet three people the dodgeballs that was fun. dodgeballs all the mats, everything. So everybody in there because there's like a secondary set of rooms, you know, over the closets getting there's you don't get hit with anything or wet. So I'm thinking I'm like, we have to move somewhere. And I know that in between the precious sanctuary where we do not want to go, because it's glass and everything. And this room out through the lobby is another room. And that room has a lower seat as another ceiling. So another layer of protection, like a basement, right? So let's go there. All right, so you go to go there. And I'm like,
that's weird. And it slows down. I can get in the pressure from that inside of the lobby for some reason, like you can't open the door and like,
think about it. Like it's like a submarine. So once that happens, the people are stuck in there. See if the weights close one door, I just can't even describe it. It's open to you as crazy procedure like file, there you
go. Like everyone goes into the lobby, close that door. Okay, now you can open up and long the short of it as we get into this like Bible study room, this other room and we were safe. There. It was all good. I had to see like what happened to the sanctuary.
Sure enough, look in the sanctuary. Look at the stained glass that that woman had prophesied about water just pouring right through that stained glass, just like she said. So her interpretation of prophecy was that there's going to be a flood of people here.
No.
It was a prophecy about the storm. So we know in part and prophesy in part. And so there's good and the Bible talks about this all over the place. There's good to being prepared, right? And making plans. But again, we know in part, and we probably didn't they tell Paul don't go. They could only see a part of the prophecy and they didn't know his command from the Lord. Right. So it's a good thing, make your plans. Good. But we have to know when to jettison stuff. We can't hold too tightly to some of these plans, because especially in storms, they change sellers out of plan.
They had to change some things we need to do is follow His plan for us in faith. Not necessarily always our own.
Because when you hold too tightly to some of your plans, sometimes you think
that's what happens. Think about it. What happened if I was like some and just very Stoddard, this is the plan. We're going to the roof.
And some people killed.
I had to know when to just let it go. It's great. We spend this time doing that but yet so many of these situations just but I but I but I did that. It's like the glitch. Great. I know you took time coming up with that.
Oh, we can't do that anymore.
Faith. That's where faith kicks in.
Maybe you've heard of a couple of words. I want to share with you because they relate to what we're talking about. flotsam and jetsam. If you thought of the eels from The Little Mermaid, it's cool. But anyone? Okay, that's scaring me a little bit. I only know because my wife knows. She loves a little more. So anyway, flotsam and jetsam. So they think of like a Germanic word flutter right so float. flotsam. jetsam jettison, like old French word jettison to get rid of so what you have here in this concept and in this shipwreck not specifically mentioned this way in the Bible, but this is what happens. You have flotsam, which is unintentional wreckage, right? So like the stuff that the sailors were going to
swim on right the pieces of wood from the boat. And then you have
jetsam. The things that were jettisoned intentionally like the weak cargo, the anchors and maybe you know the stuff that was weighing down the boat, flotsam and jetsam. And so they're both in the water but they arrived there in two different ways.
In any storm,
you're going to have flotsam
unintentional wreckage. So whether it's a literal storm,
unintentional wreckage, or like kind of a figurative one. And so a lot of people here in recovery, right, congratulations, good for you. Your recovery. And so as you go through your steps, one of the things what are you trying to do like make amends, right? You're trying to
cover some of that wreckage, right? It's tough. So my wife and I are very close to this. So it hits home, right? A lot of wreckage, and you're cleaning out that wreckage. You're going to have it, but you got to deal with it. That's tough. And so pastor, life isn't perfect for everybody, even those calling themselves Christians. So you deal with divorce. And in any divorce, I've seen, wreckage. Sometimes it's intentional. But it's unintentional issues with the kids, whatever it is the baggage, you're going to have wreckage, when you go through storms. There's really not much you can do about it, clean up what you can.
And we go through storms, we must also
offload some things. We must jettison some things, these could be things weighing us down,
holding us back. So keeping us from that destination. So it brings us to a question, what things might we need to jettison for Jesus?
What should we get rid of? What's holding us back from where we really need to be?
Now we talked about this in the past, right? So maybe we need to jettison some things on the other end, bad habits, right? Addiction if that's the thing.
People
just don't throw anybody overboard of a ship and say I told you to do it.
But right toxic relationships, what some stuff that needs to go. Think about Jonah for a minute. He was the cause of the problem.
What did he say? jettison me. Don't bother with the cargo there. He tried that didn't work. Get rid of me your problem will go away. Are there some Jonah's in our lives in that respect?
And here's the thing.
This brings me to an uncomfortable question. Maybe some have not pondered.
What is the thing that we need to jettison?
Is you?
What if it's me?
What if I'm Jonah, not Paul?
Jonah knew he's causing the storm. And so we should ask ourselves a question because you can say, well, Jonah, he's disobedient. Right? Very self reflective.
Throw me over?
Did I cause this?
What's my role and responsibility?
In this situation? So it's really funny. So if you're doing counseling, if you're doing counseling, you may laugh. But when you're doing counseling basic, like you're sitting there, and you're like, sitting across from two people, like trying to argue about who's wrong or
something like who's worse? I don't know. Just stay quiet. They'll talk it out. Yeah, who's worse? Like, what it always is, like, come on. Very rarely does anyone say yeah, you know what, I'm for all I know, you're just dead wrong. You know, I've never had that happen. You know, like, and so I'll talk to people beforehand, right? So sometimes I'll call me individually, right? She's doing this or he's doing that.
And I'll listen for a while until you start talking about the Bible. And I'm like, shut up. So.
But I listen, and then I usually get here.
What might you have done to cause this reaction or response? Anything? You know, it's always like, Oh, but I'm trying like, okay, when we need I don't know if we need like, I want you to bring to the table what your list not, we know a list of what you might have done wrong. Here's the I want to hear about anything else. Please. Do not write covering up the buzzer. If you've gotten the Bible said to have a buzzer. It's not professional. We're going to upgrade it but we're getting there. Right? Like no, like just you just what you did wrong. Because I tell them like why are you coming to me? If you're not going to listen to the mediator
Right, I am trying to tell you guys what to do if you want a positive outcome or you're just meeting with me right as a formality, a checkbox, so you can go and just hate this person. Like if you want a real resolution start inwardly reflecting like Jesus says, right? Get the big log out of your ice, you can see the speck and this other person's eye it's important what is your role and responsibility in this really important step
you survive storms by being humble
and honest with yourself
you survived storms by trusting in God
doing what he said
writing it out changing plans as needed.
You survive storms through prayer
what Paul do pray
hopefully we'll hear something but we're just going to need to just write this out.
Trust just praying.
Important
is if our storms by being mindful of the goal.
How often do we get distracted by the storm? And we forget about what's really important.
Is arrived survive storms by being obedient. So obviously we learned that lesson from Jonah. Good bad example. Call. Good. Good example. Think about the level between this week and last week of obedience that Paul had.
Shipped shipwreck like No, thanks. I'm not getting on that boat. No.
Hopes for the ideal. He's like, maybe there's some other way you know, there's not okay, fine.
That's a level of obedience, like, what?
The antithesis in this case of Jonah.
So it's all this very brief story. And then we'll close here to the Bible study in passing, I can't remember a week or two ago.
I'm not a seafaring cat. And
I don't know too much about boats or anything like that, as you can probably tell, as I navigated this shipwreck story.
Not too much of fantasy, but I was on the sea, once in Brazil. And we are going from the mainland to a very small island, really small island, and a storm picked up. And it was a pretty small boat, you know, you feel really tiny, but you're on the open sea and can't see land, you know, we're a little boat. And the swells were like, whatever, like six to 10 feet, there really is a bad storm. And so the boats going up and down, and I get motion sickness. So it's just terrible. And I thought that this only happened in cartoons. But apparently this can happen in real life where someone turns the color green.
It's totally fine. But I'm not joking. It's like great Laos, like you're green. And so people began turning green and throwing up everywhere. I hadn't yet. And this is Brazilian guy sitting next to me. Just important. He says, look, just look at the horizon. And not nothing else. Like don't look at anything else. Just do that. Now. We're there. We're there training. Martial Arts is what we're doing. And so I was really good at the obedience thing. I'm good at just listening. Right? So I'm trying to do that. It was like kicked in the head, right? So just listen, right? So okay, and that's what I do. I like but I can see in my peripheral everybody's going down. Like it's such a Craziest thing. I'm like, not me, not me. Not mean
to the whole thing. Like it was a long time. I don't know how long was it had to be like an hour. It was unbelievable. I don't know if a blink is like this. But here's the thing. I didn't grow up.
I survived the storm, through obedience.
Obedience ever dropped. You know, it's nuts like this happened to me. Never mind, I won't get into
I'm not going to do. I survived by being obedient.
We did. It was as simple as that. I am how Jesus did that. Well, you have faith nothing, just by simply being obedient.
You survived the storms.
By having obedience,
faith
and hope in the destination.
We need to fix our eyes on our heavenly horizon.
Brings me to Hebrews 12. We've seen this in the past. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith. Let us strip off every weight that slows us down.
especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, a champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy waiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding his shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor, beside God's throne.
No matter what you're going through, and we're all going through something, we survived the storms, by fixing our eyes on Jesus.
Doesn't matter what it is, when the wind and the waves we need to be that which is built on solid, bedrock not sinking sand.
We need to anchor ourselves there. So that no matter how bad it gets, he endured and cross.
We know where our destination is. We pray for you.
What a thank you for this time for everyone who came in to hear your word, Lord, most of all,
from Colossians, this encouragement, since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor and God's right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. You died to this life and your real life is hidden with Christ and God. And when Christ who is your life is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.
So between now and then, Lord, I pray that you fashion us into instruments vehicles,
of your grace, mercy and your love.
Ask these things in Jesus's name.
Amen.