Shipwreck And Salvation (2023) Series

SERMON OUTLINE:

The Passengers (vs 1-2)

The Route (vs 2)

The Choice (vs 9-12)

The Storm (vs 13-26)

The Speech (vs 21b-26)

SERMON BODY:

Ill:

• Many Christians use car stickers to witness to their faith i.e., Bible verse or a fish sign.

• Many non-Christians also use car stickers displaying messages.

• Some advertise a club or society e.g., Scouts, or the Caravan Club.

• Some tell you where they have been, e.g., Poulton’s Park, Alton Towers.

Some are humorous:

• i.e., ‘99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name’.

• i.e., ‘Dyslexics of the World: 'Untie!'’

• i.e., ‘Be nice to your kids…they will choose your nursing home’.

• i.e., ‘I love cats...they taste just like chicken’.

• My favourite car sticker is:

• i.e., ‘If you can read this, I’ve lost my caravan!’

Some car stickers reveal a person’s hobbies or desires:

• i.e., ‘I would rather be skiing,

• i.e., ‘I would rather be skydiving etc.’

• i.e., ‘I would rather be sailing’.

• Acts chapter 27 starts off with people wanting to be sailing,

• i.e., Those who own the cargo ship want to get their grain to its destination.

• i.e., The Roman Centurion wants to transfer his cargo (prisoners) to Rome.

• i.e., The apostle Paul is desperate to sail to Rome and speak with Nero.

• Acts chapter 27 starts off with people wanting to be sailing,

• But it finishes with everybody sinking!

• Now with such a long passage, we don’t have time to go into all the detail,

• We have 44 verses in 27 and another 10 in chapter 28.

• The verses contain more than one miracle,

• Hard to do justice to these supernatural events in a few minutes,

• So, I want to be selective and focus in on the big part of the narrative – the shipwreck.

• And even with that I am going to struggle to cover everything in my allotted time.

• So, let’s divide it up under five headings.

(1). The Passengers (vs 1-2):

Ill:

• Do you recognise these words, “Captain's log. Stardate 4513.3. A”

• They were spoken by Captain James T. Kirk (actor William Shatner),

• At the start of every episode in the original Star-Trek series.

• TRANSITION: From space to the sea,

• These first two verses of this chapter, reads like a page out of a ship's log.

• It gives us the list of passengers who were on-board this voyage.

“When it was decided that we would sail for Italy, Paul and some other prisoners were handed over to a centurion named Julius, who belonged to the Imperial Regiment. 2 We boarded a ship from Adramyttium (Ad-ra-mid-i-um) about to sail for ports along the coast of the province of Asia, and we put out to sea. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was with us.”

• Let’s take a quick look at the passenger list:

• We know from verse 37 that there were 276 people on board.

• So, let’s look at them all one-by-one…just kidding!

Question: Who were 276 people on board?

Answer:

• (a). Well, there were no sightseers on this trip!

• In Bible days people did not go on cruises, so no tourists on vacation.

• (b). Obviously that number included the crew who were operating the cargo ship,

• This was a working vessel – verses 6&38: it was an Alexandrian grain freighter.

• And so, it would have had a small group of experienced sailors to operate it.

• (c). Prisoners (vs 1) made up the vast amount of people on board ship.

• (d). Soldiers (vs 1) whose job of course was to guard those prisoners.

Note: Let’s pause and mention a three of those passengers.

(a). Dr Luke (vs 1).

• Notice the little word ‘we’ in verse 1 (& vs 4 & 6).

• “When it was decided that we would sail for Italy”,

• This informs us that Luke who penned the book of Acts,

• (As well as the gospel of Luke that bears his name).

• Has re-joined the apostle Paul once again on his travels.

• He has been absent from the storyline since chapter 21 verse 18,

• But now he’s back.

• So, Luke is writing as an eyewitness, first-hand account to these events.

Luke was such a good, thorough and comprehensive historian.

• That out of all the many stories told in antiquity regarding shipwrecks.

• This is one is one of the most famous, because of the details that Luke records.

Quote: Ray Steadman.

“And yet he (Luke) was such a careful historian that the detail which he gives in this chapter about ancient methods of sailing affords more insight into sailing practices on the Mediterranean in the first century than all other ancient manuscripts put together.”