Kindling The Fire

Doing something a little different today. 3 parts, mishmashed into one theme (disclose that theme @ end of message)

Today’s key passage is found in Acts 28:1-10

I want us to:

start in chapter 24,

to see how we get to chapter 27, as we examine chapter 28

(are ya with me so far?)

Chapter 24- Paul is accused of inciting an insurrection

Chapter 25- Since Paul is a Roman citizen, he makes an appeal to Caesar

Chapter 26- Leading up to the appeal, he recounts his early life before his conversion to Christianity and we’ll touch on that a little later

Chapter 27- We see that Paul begins his journey to Rome

The voyage is to be taken by ship from Caeserea(Kay-sa-REE-a) to Rome and it is about a 2000 mile journey, for safe travel reasons they will be hugging the coastlines of the Mediterranean Sea.

Along the way, Paul advises the Roman Centurion of a path they should take, but the centurion ignores Paul’s advice, and as a result a violent storm pushes the ship, carrying 276 passengers, many of them Roman prisoners, out to sea.

This storm lasts for 14 days, and was so violent that the crew feared the ship would go down at any moment. They couldn’t see any sunlight in the day, nor any stars, at night.

I can imagine they were feeling very claustrophobic.

Ship runs aground at Malta.

Malta is an island situated just south of Sicily, and east of North Africa. It was an important strategic military base because of how it sat in a tight area between Western Italy and Northern Africa. Whatever empire held this base, largely controlled what entered into that northern part of the Mediterranean Sea.

This geographical outlay is similar to how the Bahamas are positioned in relation to Miami and Havana.

The title of today’s message is:

Kindling the Fire

The purpose of the message is for us to consider what we do with our shipwrecks.

Because we all have them!

---Pray-----

Acts 28:1-10

Stand with me as we honor God while reading His word.

v.2- Besides being near the ocean, another favorite pastime of mine is being around a campfire.

In our backyard we have a burn pit that is about 15 ft wide, and about 2 ft deep, surrounded by a rock wall of about a foot tall.

I love getting Lisa and the kids together and listening to music while we watch the fire burn.

v.2 They kindled a fire and made us all welcome

You see, it was raining and cold.

v.3- Paul gathered a bundle of sticks (Tristan is usually our stick gatherer when we have a fire)

A viper came out because of the heat of the fire, and fastened on Paul’s hand.

v.4 Church I want y’all to catch this as I re-read v.4:

Read from my bible

No doubt this is a murderer:

A few years back, I brought a message titled: Damascus or Emmaus.

In that message, I assumed every one knew the story of who Saul was before he became Paul. I don’t want to make that assumption today.

I want to read a verse for you that introduces Saul to us. Acts 7:58

“And they cast him(Stephen) out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.”

Saul was a persecutor of Christians, and he condoned the murder of Stephen!

Read Acts 28:4 again then say:

Look what God has done with Paul, the murderer formerly known as Saul. These people were amazed that nothing happened to Paul after the serpent latched onto his hand! Paul was now one of God’s own!

This is what God can do, with lives that are misdirected, misused, broken and even evil.

We are about to discover the REAL reason for the shipwreck. Don’t misunderstand, the CAUSE the shipwreck was the storm, but that wasn’t the REASON for the shipwreck!

The storms of life were nothing new to Paul. Let’s look at Acts 16:25 “But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”

I’d like to set this “storm” up for us, as we consider how we handle life’s storms.

Beginning in:

v.16-slave girl with demon spirit who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling

v.17-she was shouting in the streets in a mocking way about what the apostles were doing.

v.18 after many of days of this, Paul had had enough, and commanded the spirit out of her. And the spirit obeyed the command and came out of her.

v.19 masters saw their golden egg had been cracked, they took these men to the magistrates and the multitude arose against them

v.23 beaten and thrown into prison