Now,
I’m going to preface all that I have to say today by stating up front that I
have no idea what it’s like to be in a situation like the one we have in our
text today. I’ve spent a lot of time out
on boats in my life, but I’ve never been through anything like this. I know some of you have, but the roughest
rides that I’ve had have all been matters of simply not having enough warm
clothes later in the evening after the sun went down and the waves being just a
bit rougher coming in than they were going out.
However, I will tell you that this chapter of Acts has been greatly
studied both for its theology and teaching as well as its nautical accuracy. If you’re interested, there’s a book entitled
The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul
written in the mid 1800’s by a Scottish man named James Smith that goes into
great detail about the conditions surrounding Paul’s voyage. So, as far as the factual information that
I’m going to give you today, you’re just going to have to trust me.
If you recall,
last Sunday we saw Paul make an appeal to stand trial before Caesar. Well, after speaking before Agrippa and
Festus, Paul had to get to Caesar. Nero
wasn’t coming to Paul, and unfortunately, he was on the complete opposite end
of the Mediterranean Sea from where Paul was at the moment. Another factor to consider is that it was
August, which meant that it was cold and windy.
Now, even in my limited boating knowledge I know that those aren’t a
perfect combination. Now some wind is a
good thing, but these winds were more like hurricane force winds, which also
resulted in massive waves. Ships could
still sail, but they had to stick to routes closer to the shoreline instead of
heading out into open waters. The
primary downside to this was that it took longer. Also, Paul, along with numerous other
prisoners, a Roman centurion named Julius, Luke, Aristarchus, some guards, and
several others, weren’t sailing on a military ship. They were sailing on merchant ships that they
found leaving one port and heading to another along the route to Rome. It took several weeks for them to travel what
looks like a relatively short distance on a map. Before long, August had turned into
September/October and the weather simply wasn’t fit for travel. Paul (who mind you sailed an estimated 3000
miles during his lifetime) suggested to the centurion Julius and the other
guards that they really ought to wait for a while. However, they didn’t want to wait in that
particular ports and the captain of one of the ships said it would be fine for
them to sail ahead, so they did.
What happened
was that Paul was exactly right; the weather was too rough. Now, I won’t go through every detail, but
they were having to tie ropes around the ship in order to make sure that it
would stay together. They were having to
throw cargo overboard to lighten the load on the ship. They couldn’t tell if it was day or night
because the darkness never left the sky.
I mean, can you imagine hours and days going by without ever being able
to tell if it was day or night? And it
wasn’t as if they could really rest or anything since they were constantly
having to defend off massive storm surges and crashing waves. Finally, the ship came crashing into the
coast of Malta, where everyone departed from it and went about their business. Like I said, I don’t want to explore every
detail of what happened (mainly because I don’t have time), but there are some
astounding things that took place within the span of this chapter.
Paul’s life was
spared simply because there was a Roman Centurion on board who had to deliver
Paul safely to Nero. Paul was given a
message that no one would die when “an angel of the God to whom [he] belong[ed]
and whom [he] worship[ed]” came to him.
The angel told him, “Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand
before Caesar. And behold, God has
granted you all those who sail with you.” Now, obviously the phrase “God
has granted you” tells us that Paul had been praying for all those on
this ship. Immediately prior to Paul’s
calming the men he told them they should have listened to him but then
encouraged them to take heart. Instead
of Paul hoping that somehow all of this chaos would lead to his being freed, he
was instead praying for the safety of all those on board. There’s also the other intercessions made by
Paul throughout this chapter that we could look at. And that’s not even mentioning the reason for
Luke changing the pronoun in the beginning of this chapter from “he” to “we”,
signaling Luke’s presence on the ship.
I have to be honest
with you; as I’ve looked over this passage for the past few weeks trying to
decide what exactly to pull out from it I have struggled. Then, I took a step back; I took a look at it
from 30,000 feet as I heard one political analyst say during the election
coverage this past Tuesday. Our theme
for the book of Acts as we’ve approached in over the last 7 months has been to
look at the early church and to let our view of it help our understanding of
what the Church (and Christians) ought to look like today. Well, let’s do that with this passage. Let’s back up and take up the question of
what this passage here about Paul going through a storm and ultimately being shipwrecked
teaches us about who we ought to be as both a Church and members of that
Church.
One of the most
commonly used (and even overly used) analogies that we find when it comes to
interpreting Scripture is that of storms.
Any time we find a storm in Scripture, we’re quick to want to equate it
to a storm of life, a season of personal difficulty for ourselves. I’ll never forget my first Sunday evening as
a youth director. I was woefully
unprepared and had spent so much time worrying about games, food, and all that
other mess that I forgot to plan a Bible study.
When I got to the church, I ran to a resource shelf and grabbed a book
called 10 Minute Prep Youth Studies
(my kind of book I thought). The very
first lesson was on Jesus calming the storm in Matthew 8 (mind you I didn’t
even take the 10 minutes to prep). I’ll
never forget the last line of that devotional, “If Jesus could calm the storm
that day, what storms can he calm in your life?” Now, it’s true that Jesus can calm the storms
of life, but that isn’t exactly what that particular passage teaches; it
teaches more the power of Christ and the power we have through faith in
him. And that’s just one example of storms
being interpreted that way in Scripture.
However, what does all that mean for our interpretation of the storm in
our text today?
Well, I want us
to look at it like this: what was Paul
doing; why had he even begun this voyage?
Yes, he was on his way to Rome to stand before Caesar, but he was
fulfilling the mission, the task that God had given him. Remember what we read Paul saying last
week? “Whether short or long, I would to
God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I
am.” Paul’s purpose and mission
was to proclaim God’s word and to see others come to saving faith. Now, this mission and Paul’s unyielding
desire to see it fulfilled had caused him great difficulty. We’ve seen him in prison. We’ve seen countless plots devised to have
him killed. We’ve spent the past few
weeks seeing him imprisoned by Roman officials.
Mind you, that’s just the information that we have recorded in the book
of Acts. That doesn’t even include the
things that we know from extra-biblical sources about Paul’s journeys. Add in all of the travel and you start to get
the picture that Paul had it pretty difficult since his conversion.
Well, our text
for today is no different. Paul, as we
saw earlier with the words of the angel, was fulfilling God’s mission to him by
standing before Caesar and boldly proclaiming the truth of the gospel. However, what the angel didn’t promise Paul
was that everything was going to be perfect.
Just in this text alone we see that Paul had to endure captivity
(although Julius did grant him a great deal of freedom), being made to sail in
harsh conditions, weathering the hurricane-like storm, and also the threat of
being killed by the soldiers on the ship.
Now, this doesn’t even take into account what happened to him after he
was back on dry land in Malta (not the least of which was his being bitten by a
snake), a text that we will examine next Sunday. Yes, Paul endured some very difficult times
and situations in his life, many of them coming as a direct result of his
desire to share the gospel.
However, I want
you to notice how Paul viewed things in his life, even the hardships. Paul never for one second thought that God
had abandoned him. He never doubted that
God was right there with him every step of the way. Even in those moments where Paul thought that
his death was emanate, he still felt God’s presence. After all this is the same person who penned
Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for
good, for those that are called according to his purpose.” You see, Paul knew that whether he lived or
died, that God was using him to fulfill His will. Paul had an assurance that no matter what,
God’s will would be done. Paul would
either be seen safely through whatever the hardship was so that he could
continue to proclaim the gospel, or he would be called home to reside with
Christ for all eternity. In Paul’s mind,
and we know this especially from some of his other writings, he really was in a
win/win position. There was no possible
outcome that could happen that Paul would view as him missing out or losing.
This past
Wednesday, at our Women’s Bible Study, we looked at something called
“conditional worship”. This is when we
praise God because we’re getting something.
It’s the thought of “as long as God is good to me and blessing me then
I’ll continue to praise him.” However,
this type of worship and view of God doesn’t maintain when hardships
arise. The prosperity gospel (that if
you love God He will shower you with prosperity) used to be real big in many
parts of this country. When economic
times were good, faith was high.
However, when housing markets, stock markets, and employment rates
plummeted, so did the faith of many supposed Christians. You see, it’s a difficult thing to praise God
even in the midst of the storm. It can be
a tough thing to praise God when you have a sick relative, when your family is
literally falling apart, when your prayers have seemingly gone unanswered, or
when bad news seems to be lurking around every corner. However, that is exactly what we’re called to
do.
My faith is
something that I hold as unshakeable at this point, but it wasn’t always
so. There have been times in my life
(even times when I was training to become a pastor) when I didn’t always
worship God accordingly. There were
times when finances were running out, opportunities weren’t coming open, family
was suffering, and bad news swallowed anything good that I honestly didn’t see how
I could praise God. But God, in his
providence, placed people around me to help me praise him even during my
struggles. Some pointed me to the
blessings that I could see and others helped me to see how God is just as
worthy of praise in seasons of hardship as He is in seasons of struggle. And you know what happened as a result of
this continuing to praise God during my seasons of struggle? My faith actually grew. I truly understood that God is in control and
that just because things don’t go the way that we want them to go doesn’t mean
that they aren’t going the exact way they need to go.
I’m sure that
Paul would have wished for an easier life, a smoother sea, or a more accepting
audience. We know from his own words
that Jesus wished for forgiveness of sins to be achieved by some other means
(Matthew 26:39). We know that none of us
like to suffer or endure hardships. However,
we all must go through them. We all must
endure them, but instead of just weathering them and riding them out, we need
to praise God. We don’t just need to
wait until it all passes so we can starting praising God again, but we need to
thank God for continuing to bless us and continuing to sustain us. We need to follow the example of Paul and not
be discouraged because things aren’t going the way we want them to, and we need
to trust that they are going the way that God wants them to. This trust, praise, and faith during the
storms of life will help you to strengthen your own faith, and it will also be
a faithful exercise of proper worship and adoration of God. Yes, God can carry us through the storms of
life and He does. However, remember that
it’s not always going to be wonderful times.
It’s not always going to smooth sailing.
Troubled times won’t always equal great blessings, at least not in an
earthly sense. Sometimes it’s about
continuing to praise God even during the storms. It’s about strengthening our reliance upon
and trust in God to fulfill Romans 8:28.
It’s about praising God in good times or bad. It’s not just about enduring, but praising
God while enduring. Glory be to God; in
the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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