Acts 27

This is about a vision given to Paul about his future.

What was the greatest storm you can ever remember? Tell us about it. The Bible tells us a story not many of us remember about the church’s first missionary. After traveling the the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, Paul was founding churches and caring for new Christians wherever he went, Paul decided to spend some time in Jerusalem celebrating the gift of the Holy Spirit. He didn’t know what would happen when he got there, but knew that there was trouble brewing and expected the worst.

The reality that faces us is that storms will come and go. Whether or not we face another Andrew or Katrina or Hugo or Camille, we will still have to find a way to walk through the storms of human life. Maybe the storm will be in the form of an unwelcome medical diagnosis. Perhaps it will be seen in the crumbling of relationships. It could be that an addiction reaches up and grabs you by the collar. Maybe someone in the church will say something to offend. It is within the realm of possibility that a storm may arise in your relationship with God. What was once alive and vibrant may shatter and become dry as dust. Something completely unforeseen could rise up and cause havoc in your life. It happens. Storms come. That is life.

Acts 27:25So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me.

Acts 23:11 The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”

These above are bookends to a much larger story!

Number One: When God speaks a word of direction delays are going to occur. When God speaks we want it! Bring it on. The Lord gave to Paul this vision but there were people dead set to kill him. Paul was in jail 2 years in Caesarea! Delays may occur. What can you thin of in your own life that was nothing but a huge delay? Something you say I know God has promised me this in His word. I am doing what he says why am I not free from this addiction, this brokenness, this loneliness. God has giving me guidance I have accepted him as Lord over my life! I want to be free now! I want what he has promised now! Why do I have to wait! All things Paul was sure to have thought in a summary of the storm in his life I just shared with you. God gives us the word of direction to encourage us things will be better! Could he calm the storm now of course he could but he hasn’t for a reason. Life teaches us so much what is it that God is showing you when you are faced with Delays in the direction he has given you this evening?

Number Two: Suffering and hardship may result. Threats on his life, he was intimidated and manipulated by governor Felix. A fierce storm came up and battered the tiny ship for fourteen days. The crew tried everything they could think of to get to land, but they couldn’t make headway at all. Acts 24:31Felix wanted a bribe from Paul. Paul cries out Take Courage I have faith in God. He was on his way to Rome. He was on his way to the vison God had given him. He was going where God had told he would get. Typhoon and all! Individual and family feel this! We as individuals see where God wants us to go in our own relationship with God and we can’t see how we will get there with so much suffering and hardship. Families go through this knowing how God would have us to be in relationship with each other yet we find hardship and friction between us. Sometimes because we say why are you making such stupid choices! Other times why don’t you let me in I love you I want to be with you in your time of frustration, anger, and loneliness. In any situation. At home at work at school, God shows us where he desires us to be. There will be delays. There will be suffering and hardship.

Number Three: When God speaks push ahead don’t look back! Preaching in Rome is a great vision! But he is in jail! He could have said why didn’t I listen to my family, and friends. If he hadn’t appealed to Rome he could have been set free 8Then Paul made his defense: “I have done nothing wrong against the law of the Jews or against the temple or against Caesar.”9Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, said to Paul, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and stand trial before me there on these charges?”10Paul answered: “I am now standing before Caesar’s court, where I ought to be tried. I have not done any wrong to the Jews, as you yourself know very well. 11If, however, I am guilty of doing anything deserving death, I do not refuse to die. But if the charges brought against me by these Jews are not true, no one has the right to hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar!”

12After Festus had conferred with his council, he declared: “You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you will go!”! Paul didn’t second guess! He didn’t look back. So often we as Christians will begin to play a Monday morning quarterback to things that happen in our lives at home at work at school and at church. We begin to doubt what Christ has really called us to do. As we track along as a new church so many things can come up and discourage us so many things can come up in our lives as we continue to renew and grow in our faith. God has spoke and is speaking. Just as he He has told his church through his word he has he told you where you should be in your walk with him. Are we listening. Our we being obedient. Are we realizing delays will occur. Hardship and suffering will come. Push ahead! Don’t look back!

Number Four: Believe Christ regardless of the cost. Chapter 28 arrives everything God has promised finally comes true! Finally it is about time! You know what happened? He is put in jail again! Do you think I have had enough? Lord I have been in jail before! I thought you had great things for me? He ministered to the jailer, gave encouragement to the believers who came to visit him. He wrote what we came to now as the prison epistles, Colossians Ephesians Philemon. The ministry he had was not what he thought it would be. But God blessed him and us through his ministry. We must believe in God’s ability to make what seems to be a bad situation a period of faith building, a period a growth for us in our relationship with God and others.

So many times we think my life isn’t what God promises it will be like, my family isn’t what God shows it to be like in his Word. My job isn’t full of the joy the Bible says it should bring. My personal relationship with You Oh God is not as it should be. It is not as free from the giving in to temptations as your word promises. My faith seems like it is growing weaker not stonger.

We are still in the shipwreck and typhoon at times and don’t see chapter 28 coming. Faith is not an emotion it is a conviction. Take Courage that the vision he has given to us will be realized in HIS TIME. We don’t know what shape our vision will take.

Prayer:

Number One: When God speaks a word of direction delays are going to occur.

Number Two: Suffering and hardship may result.

Number Three: When God speaks push ahead don’t look back!

Number Four: Believe Christ regardless of the cost.