A few weeks ago, I preached on the idea of prophesy. I said that the will of God for you is to manifest His grace visibly in your life. His will may not be riches, fame, power, although if it is, then that’s fantastic. But all those things are secondary and tertiary. It is not blessings for your life that He wills you to live. God wills you to live and have life for His glory and His purposes. God’s will for our lives is that in everything that we do on a daily basis, that we do in prophesy.
We speak to build people up and encourage people and console them—that is a long way to say, to love people with everything within us to love. If you don’t remember; or, you weren’t here for that, go to the website, and download the podcast, and ponder on it. Today, I’m piggy backing off of that idea of prophesy and additionally the idea that we shouldn’t stop until the walls come down and will tell you this morning that we should not stop encouraging. There should never be a moment in our lives when we decide it is no longer a time for us to be encouraging. Let’s go to Acts 27, verse 21.
Just a little context for you. The Apostle Paul was arrested and imprisoned for no reason other than preaching the gospel. If you think America is no longer a Christian nation, I’m going to tell you that nobody in the Bible ever lived in a period where Christianity was the mainstream religion that was widely accepted. The United States is no different. Believers and followers of Christ, despite their vocalization of what seems to be morally upright and therefore Christian-like, who would stake their lives on the way Jesus lived and acted, are a large minority.
Paul being arrested under false pretense, did what he thought was smart—he appealed to the Caesar, perhaps not so that he could plea his case, but so that he could get an audience before the Caesar and share the good news of Jesus Christ with him also. Paul had a one track mind. So being arrested and therefore having to had been moved from where he was (Caesarea) to Rome, where Caesar was, the Romans assigned to transport Paul for allegedly being a treasonous citizen of the Roman Empire had to hire a boat and sail across the Mediterranean Sea.
You can look at the map on the wall to understand how far this journey actually was. You can use the legend on the top to measure in your brain, or I can tell you that it was about 1,500 miles. That’s approximately the distance between Glen Cove, NY and Fargo, North Dakota. If you had to drive that, it’s about 23 hours. Yes, it is far and that’s driving 65 miles an hour. So now imagine, the average speed for the boats described in Acts 27 had a max speed of 5 nautical knots (or 5.6 mph). Doing that math, even if you didn’t stop, that journey by boat would take 268 hours or 11 days. This is an extremely long trip. It’s a trip that I wouldn’t want to take with most of you and I’m pretty sure you feel the same way.
Now on this 11 day trip there was lots of bad weather, to say the least, and then there was a nor’easter. We pick up the bible somewhere in between the orange line on the map that says “lost in storm at sea.” Verse 21.
20 When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned. 21 Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and loss. 22 Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. 23 For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship,24 and he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ 25 So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. 26 But we must run aground on some island.” (Acts 27:20-26)
They were about two weeks in a storm with no reprieve in sight (v20). It just kept going and going. Sometimes, that’s how life feels doesn’t it? It may not have been two weeks, it may be two months, two quarters, two years, two decades, your life is turbulent and there is no sun and no stars, nothing to give you any hope that it will be over soon. You begin to abandon your hope. This word in verse 20, “hope” or in the Greek “el-epis” appears 54 times starting with the book of Acts. What’s interesting here is that this word is indeed the direct translation of hope; but more than that, it is the expectation of faith. What Luke is writing about the situation is that there was no expectation left that any of the men would survive this boat trip. They were getting ready to die.
Some of us here in this room or listening to this podcast are in that predicament. We are ready to call it quits and relegate ourselves to the oblivion we occupy. This is not the reason Jesus saved us. We need to understand that we were never meant to die lost at sea, on a boat to nowhere just because we don’t see hope. Do you all know what I’m talking about?
I want to do a little side bar Bible look up because when we talk about this situation that Luke is referring to because he’s on the boat too. It makes me think of a story that Paul tells the Romans in chapter 4 of his letter to them. I want to encourage you to look at the entire chapter at home this week because it’s incredibly powerful and there’s so much that needs to be unpacked in that, and I know when we read it now I’m doing it an incredible injustice, but here’s my attempt to do so anyways. We’re going to skip down to verse 16.
16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. (Romans 4:16-21)
Abraham is the “father of faith” because despite his circumstances, he grew strong in his faith. He did what was contrary for him to do and believed even more so that God would do exactly what He promised to do. Who needed to hear that today? You’re here right now taking notes because your life isn’t sunshine, swimming pools and rainbows. Despite you being in the richest, most powerful country in the world, you’re hopeless. I don’t blame you. The world and everybody in it has gone insane and your life reflects that insanity. Baton Rouge, Minnesota, Dallas, France, Turkey, and that’s just in the last two weeks. We, in the 21st century, have been responsible for killing more innocence than the first 20 centuries combined. Abraham teaches us something: we need to have the confidence to believe when there is no reason to be confident enough to even believe. He knew the God he chose to follow. The God of the impossible. The God of the improbable. The God who loves the orphan, the widow, and foreigner.
Let’s go back to the book of Acts. You need to see this in verse 21 where Paul says, “you should have listened to me…” You know sometimes when you ignore God’s warnings? It feels like you’re making progress, but even the progress you think you’re making is ultimately leading you to disaster. For example, what gain do you have to make more money if you have to cut corners to do it? And you’re not even going to like yourself when you see yourself in the mirror? I want you to touch your neighbor and say, “You should listen to God.” But that’s okay, we all make mistakes, sometimes we fail to listen because we’re poor listeners. I belong in that bucket too.
Let’s go to verse 22. Paul says, “Yet now I urge you to take heart…” here’s what you need to gain from this right here. You don’t have any control over what may be happening in your life, but just like Abraham, there is one thing you can do, there is one thing that you can always do: keep having the confidence that something will happen in the name of Jesus because God promises. Therefore, you need to keep up your courage. You need to tell people who are hopeless to keep up your courage. The Apostle Paul stood up and he did what he didn’t have to do: he began to encourage. He didn’t stop encourage until they got to Rom either. This is the point of Acts 27. It’s not the shipwrecks. It’s not the places they stopped at. It’s the distance they travelled while keeping their courage through encouragement that just didn’t stop.
You know what’s amazing? Paul wanted to encourage people. That word, “encourage” literally means “to give courage.” Don’t stop giving yourself courage. Don’t stop giving other people courage. God doesn’t stop giving you courage. You have nothing in your control except the courage that God gives freely into your life despite everything in your life. You’re here today so that I can preach these words and give you courage. You’re going to work tomorrow so you can give somebody some courage. You’re going out with your friends on Wednesday or Friday or Saturday so you can give them courage. You’re going to pray to God because He gives you courage. Tap your other neighbor and say, “keep up your courage.”
Keep your courage if you’re single, you’ll meet somebody perfect for you. Keep your courage if you’re not working a great job, you’ll get a job that you love to do. Keep your courage if you’re sick, you’ll get better. Keep your courage because God has a plan for your life and He’s not even started with you yet. You need to keep your courage because that’s the will of God. God does exactly what He says He’ll do. Look at that in verse 25. I know you see it.
The story in Acts 27 ends not quite how you would imagine it ending. The ship, well, it gets wrecked because it hits a reef and the people on the ship have to swim or float to shore. But nobody dies, all 276 people on the boat survive. Paul encouraged the people on the boat saying that they wouldn’t die because God knows the plans He had for each and every one of them. They were alive, but perhaps not the way they thought. Are you worshiping the way you want God to do it, or are you worshiping the God who said He would, and trusting Him to do it any way He sees fit. He said He’d provide for you, but He didn’t always say how He would provide. He said that He would be there for you, but He didn’t always promise that you would feel it. He promised to meet every need, but He didn’t say give you everything you wanted. I came to tell you that it will happen. It might take a little longer than you wanted it to. It might look a little different than you thought.
Don’t stop encouraging one another. Don’t stop believing in God. Don’t stop pursuing your dreams just because your ship is wrecked and storm has you on the ropes. Don’t stop. Don’t throw away your confidence. Have endurance. Don’t lose courage.
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