Acts 27:1-25
The God of the Storm
I have been waiting for Chapter 27.
If the book of Acts was a movie, chapter 27 would be the climax.
I don’t know about you, but My favorite part of any movie is when the hero comes in and saves the day.
It makes me wish Acts had a soundtrack. We have certain music in our heads associated with this kind of scene, don’t we?
In the old west movies it was the trumpet of the cavalry, coming to save the day.
In more modern times it’s the Star Wars theme, or the Indiana Jones music.
I was watching the fireworks on Lake Union the other night, and they started to play the William Tell overture.
Now, nobody associated that with the William Tell opera.
But everybody recognized the piece and all started shouting "Hi ho Silver, away!"
If Acts had a soundtrack, at the beginning of chapter 27, the music would start off slowly and ominously.
Maybe that music from Jaws. You know (Da Dum, Da Dum...)
And then in the background you’d hear the wind blowing and the waves rising.
And then maybe that music from the Wizard of Oz.
You know, when the wicked witch is on her way to get Dorothy.
And then the hurricane hits in full force.
And the waves crash against the hull.
The crew is screaming, the captain is shouting orders.
The tension mounts, all hope is gone, and then...
The climax music. Here comes the hero.
I’ve been accused of having an overactive imagination, but for me it helps this book come alive!
This is not just some dry history book, this is human drama at its most dramatic.
Storms and shipwrecks and lives hanging in the balance.
But you know the main reason I like this chapter?
Because it’s not just about how God dealt with a bunch of guys on a ship 2,000 years ago.
This is how God deals with us right now, today!
Chippie the parakeet never saw it coming. One second he was peacefully perched in his cage. The next he was sucked in, washed up, and blown over.
The problems began when Chippie’s owner decided to clean Chippie’s cage with a vacuum cleaner. She removed the attachment from the end of the hose and stuck it in the cage. The phone rang, and she turned to pick it up. She’d barely said "hello" when "ssssopp!" Chippie got sucked in.
The bird owner gasped, put down the phone, turned off the vacuum, and opened the bag. There was Chippie -- still alive, but stunned.
Since the bird was covered with dust and soot, she grabbed him and raced to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held Chippie under the running water. Then, realizing that Chippie was soaked and shivering, she did what any compassionate bird owner would do . . . she reached for the hair dryer and blasted the pet with hot air.
Poor Chippie never knew what hit him.
A few days after the trauma, the reporter who’d initially written about the event contacted Chippie’s owner to see how the bird was recovering. "Well," she replied, "Chippie doesn’t sing much anymore -- he just sits and stares."
Every felt that way? Sucked in, washed up and blown over? Sure you have!
Like these men we’ll read about, you’ve been on stormy seas, and if you haven’t - you will!
Like these men, your boat has been thrown around.
You’ve been plunged into the eye of the storm, and if that hasn’t happened yet, just wait - it’s coming.
Maybe it’s a family disaster. Death or disease or divorce.
Maybe it’s a financial storm. You’ve lost your job or gotten heavily in debt.
Maybe your tempest has come in the form of depression, whose gale force winds can rip down your sails and leave you dead in the water, feeling overwhelmed and underpowered.
I don’t know what it is, or what it will be in your life, but I know this...storms will come!
And the lesson of Chapter 27 is not primarily that God delivered 276 men on the Adriatic sea.
The lesson for you and for me is that God delivers us from the storms of life.
We begin on calm waters in Chapter 27 and verse 1.
“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.
We boarded a ship from Adramyttium 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.
The next day we landed at Sidon; and Julius, in kindness to Paul, allowed him to go to his friends so they might provide for his needs.”
The first way God works in our lives in stormy times is by putting the right people in the right places at the right time.
With Paul he started with a man named Julius.
Now, I don’t know who Julius was, but I know who put him there.
Julius was a man who showed kindness to Paul when kindness was exactly what Paul needed!
Not only does he save Paul’s life later in the chapter, but verse 3 tells us that he allowed him to go to his friends in Sidon.
And then I think, “what friends in Sidon?”
We have no record of a church in Sidon, before or after this, but there they were!
They just happened to stop in Sidon and Paul just happened to have Christian friends there...that is if you believe in coincidence.
But I stopped believing in coincidence a long time ago.
There didn’t just happen to be a group of believers in Sidon, God put them there!
And at least one of the reason, we see here, was to minister to Paul at a time when he desperately needed his friends.
Two other men were put there for Paul and they’re both mentioned in verse 2.
The first is Luke. You say, I don’t see Luke’s name.
No, but the verse starts out, "We boarded a ship..."
Who do you suppose the "we" is?
Luke has been Paul’s sidekick and trusted friend for years now, and once again, God put him on this boat! To be there for Paul when Paul needed him most.
The last person God put in Paul’s life, at least here, was a man called Aristarchus.
And though Luke could be listed on the ship’s log as Paul’s personal physician, it was a good chance Aristarchus was something else.
Scholars believe that in order for Aristarchus to travel with Paul on this journey, he had to become Paul’s personal slave!
Has God put people in your life who love you like that?
He has in mine.
He’s put people in my life who, I believe, would not only lay down their freedom, but their very lives!
That’s how God works.
So take heart when the seas get stormy, and look around for the people God places in your life.
He’s put them there because he loves you and because He knows you can’t make it on your own!
Like it or not, we need each other!
And God will not abandon us or leave us alone.
It has happened too many times in my life that God has put the right people there at the right time.
Because the storms of life aren’t meant to be weathered alone.
And we’re foolish if we try.
God will put people in our lives at the right time and at the right place who will be with us through the storm.
Well, next we see another way God deals with storms.
He warns us away from them.
Look at verse 7.
“We made slow headway for many days and had difficulty arriving off Cnidus. When the wind did not allow us to hold our course, we sailed to the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone.
We moved along the coast with difficulty and came to a place called Fair Havens, near the town of Lasea.
Much time had been lost, and sailing had already become dangerous because by now it was after the Fast. So Paul warned them,
"Men, I can see that our voyage is going to be disastrous and bring great loss to ship and cargo, and to our own lives also."
Sometimes we’re headed for a storm and we don’t see it!
In this case God put Paul in their lives to warn them that trouble was coming if they didn’t turn back.
The writer of proverbs said,
“The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.” Prov 12:15
I thank God for the people in my life who have warned me!
Now, I haven’t always listened, and many times I’ve played the fool, but more and more I’ve learned to listen to the advice of Godly people.
And more and more these days I seek it out.
God puts warners, the Biblical word is "admonishers", in your life.
And when God does that, the best thing you can do is listen to them!
Most of the time, however, when we’re set on a course of action, the last thing we want to do is listen to someone else!
But remember Proverbs 12.
“The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.”
Young people, sometimes the last people you want to listen to is your parents, but God put them there!
And He put them there as warners!
How do you think they know that if you hang out with the wrong people you’ll get in trouble?
It’s not some great parental wisdom that tells them that.
They know from experience!
I don’t know how many times I’ve counseled with a teenager in trouble and had them say to me, "I wish I’d listened to my parents!"
Sure they seem old-fashioned, sure they’re behind the times.
But most of the time their advice is exactly what you need to hear, whether you want to or not.
Well, the crew decided to ignore Paul’s advice.
Look at verse 11:
“But the centurion, instead of listening to what Paul said, followed the advice of the pilot and of the owner of the ship.
Since the harbor was unsuitable to winter in, the majority decided that we should sail on, hoping to reach Phoenix and winter there. This was a harbor in Crete, facing both southwest and northwest.
When a gentle south wind began to blow, they thought they had obtained what they wanted; so they weighed anchor and sailed along the shore of Crete.”
Two mistakes the centurion made here.
First, in verse 11, he followed the advice of the experts rather than God’s spokesman.
And second, in verse 12, he followed majority rule.
Do you know how dangerous that is?
12 men went into the land of Canaan to spy it out.
Ten came back and said, "There are giants in the land! We look like grasshoppers to them! There’s no way we can beat them!"
But Joshua and Caleb had a different report.
When they looked at the land, instead of giant warriors, they saw a mighty God who could do anything!
Look back over the history of the Israelites and take a look at all the disasters that took place because the majority ruled.
Over and over, we find the prophets, ostracized and alone, hated by the very people they were sent to speak to.
Why? Because the majority wasn’t willing to listen to God’s message!
What does that tell us about the leadership of God’s people today?
Thank God we’ve gotten away from the dictatorial style that used to be so prevalent.
But let’s not forget that leaders were meant to lead!
You don’t lead by taking a poll of the followers and then doing what the majority wants!
That’s not leading, that’s following!
The shepherd doesn’t take a survey of the sheep to find out what pasture they want to go to.
He just starts leading.
Now, this doesn’t mean that leaders can afford to be insensitive to the followers.
It doesn’t mean ignoring their legitimate need and desires and opinions.
But it does mean, for both leaders and followers, that God never intended His people to be led by majority rule.
He never has and He never will.
Now, that was sort of a side-road. Let’s get back to the ship, because I think I see some clouds on the horizon.
Take a look at Verse 14:
“Before very long, a wind of hurricane force, called the "northeaster," swept down from the island.
The ship was caught by the storm and could not head into the wind; so we gave way to it and were driven along.”
Now skip to verse 18:
“We took such a violent battering from the storm that the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard.
On the third day, they threw the ship’s tackle overboard with their own hands.”
God uses storms.
Did you know that storms are some of God’s best tools!
And though I don’t believe he causes every storm, I know that he uses every storm.
And one of the ways He uses them is to help us clear the decks!
When the storm hits and your life is thrown upside down, that’s when we start thinking about what’s really important, isnt’ it?
Sometimes we need to clear the decks, don’t you think?
I don’t know about you, but sometimes my deck gets cluttered.
It gets cluttered with unimportant things.
It gets cluttered with useless things.
It gets cluttered with things that don’t belong there in the first place.
And God has used storms in my life to help me clear the decks.
I thank God for the storms in my life.
I thank God for the storm that brewed in my life a few years ago.
Most of you know that it came in the form of an addiction to prescription drugs and alcohol.
And I hesitate to talk about that very much, especially here, because I don’t want to glorify my experience.
But I do want to glorify the God who delivered me.
And so I will tell you that when the night got dark and the waves kicked up and it became a matter of life and death...I had no choice but to clear the decks.
I took everything I had, everything that was important to me...and I offered them up to God.
I cleared the decks.
I gave God my family.
I gave God my ministry.
I took everything I owned and everything that was important to me...and I let go of them.
I gave them to God.
And I don’t know if I can say this clearly enough to make you understand, but I’m dead serious when I say that I didn’t expect to get them back.
I didn’t deserve to get them back.
I had messed up too badly, I had forfeited every right I’d ever had to those things.
And when I offered them up to God, I literally walked away.
Verse 20 is a pretty good description of how I felt about then.
“When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved.”
Acts Chapter 27 and verse 20 is one of the saddest...and power-packed passages in the entire Bible.
It’s sad whenever people give up hope!
"Hope springs eternal!" the poet said, but he was wrong!
Sometimes when the night gets dark...we give up.
And it’s one of the best things we can ever do!
Yes, God uses storms to help us clear the decks, but he also uses them to show us our powerlessness!
"When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved."
And that’s when God sent the angel!
Isn’t God’s timing amazing?
He could have sent the angel anytime.
He could have sent it a week before.
He could have told Paul before he ever stepped on the boat, "Hey, you’re going to have a shipwreck, but everyone’s going to be fine."
But he didn’t send it a week before.
He waited...until they gave up all hope of being saved...by themselves!
You see, they’d done everything they could!
They’d trimmed the sails, they’d dumped the cargo, they’d cleared the decks.
They did everything that was humanly possible, and it wasn’t until they’d exhausted all their ingenuity and all their resources, that God said, "Alright, now I’m going to save you."
Look at verse 23:
“Last night an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me
and said, `Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.’”
Did you know that God won’t save you from the storms in your life until you give up on doing it yourself?
And it wasn’t until my deepest, darkest night.
It wasn’t until all my hope was gone.
It wasn’t until I gave up all hope of being saved...on my own...that God finally said, "It’s going to be alright."
One of my favorite Bible stories took place in the valley of Valley of Harod.
Camped in the valley were 135,000 Midianites.
Camped at the spring of Harod were 32,000 of Gideon’s finest soldiers.
And Gideon, showing either complete foolishness or utter faith in God, decided to attack them even though they were outnumbered by more than 4 to 1.
They get up early in the morning, while it’s still dark and they start out.
32,000 men, about to fight a battle they had no hope of winning.
Think they were scared? You bet they were!
These guys could count! They knew the Midianites had better weapons and superior numbers and knew the terrain better than they did.
But to their credit, they marched out of camp that morning, ready to die.
But before they got two steps, God spoke to Gideon.
Do you remember what he said? I love what he said, and I wish I could have seen Gideon’s face when he said it.
He said, "Gideon, you’re making a mistake. You have too many men."
Now, Gideon could count, too!
And he had to be wondering what in the world God was talking about.
But to his credit, he didn’t argue.
So God went on.
"Announce to the people," he said, "that anyone who trembles with fear may turn back."
22,000 did.
22,000!
Some simple math will tell you that left 10,000 men.
And now, instead of 4 to 1, the odds were more like 13 to 1!
Again, Gideon had to be wondering why God was doing this!
So he goes to the Lord and said, "Ok, we’re down to 10,000. Is that better?"
And God said, "Still too many."
This time they went down to the stream to drink and every man who put his head down instead of watching for the enemy was sent home.
That left Gideon with a whopping total of 300 men.
300 against 135,000.
What do you think the men were thinking?
You know what they were thinking!
"This is hopeless! This is crazy! How can 300 men win a battle where they’re outnumbered 450 to 1?"
You know the simple answer? They can’t!
And then God does the strangest thing of all.
As the men are sitting around the camp sharpening their swords, honing them to a razor’s edge.
Each one of them thinking, "This sword has to kill 450 men in order for us to win."
Gideon walks into camp, takes away their swords...and hands them 3 things.
A trumpet, an empty jar...and a torch. (repeat)
Somebody had to ask the question, "What do expect us to do with a trumpet, a jar and a torch? Scare them to death?”
And Gideon said, "Exactly. Now, here’s the plan.
In the middle of the night we’re all going to march into their camp and blow our trumpets."
That’s the plan? Yep.
We’re going to blow our trumpets.
Right, and Oh, then I want you to take out your torch, which is hidden in your jar and yell as loud as you can, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!"
You think these guys were excited about this?
But they were brave men, and they were loyal men.
So clutching their trumpets in one hand, their jars in the other, they went.
They topped the hill and there, spread out before them, was the vast army of the Midianites.
It must have looked like a small city!
Everywhere they looked there were tents and horses and chariots, and the fires winked at them in the darkness.
And down off the hill walked Gideon, and behind him walked 300 brave men.
Gideon gave the order and at that the sound of 300 trumpets filled the air.
300 pots smashed on the ground.
300 torches lit up the perimeter of the camp.
And 300 voices shouted, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon."
And then it happened.
The Midianites burst from their tents, ran for their weapons.
As the terrified Israelites got ready to die...the Midianites started killing each other!
It was impossible, but there they were, toe to toe, hacking each other to pieces!
The ones who weren’t doing that started doing something equally strange!
They started running!
So what did the Israelites do? They started chasing them!
Can you see it? 100,000 men screaming, running across the desert chased by 300 guys...with trumpets!
Do you know why God lets us get into impossible situations?
Do you know why it’s only when we give up hope in ourselves that He saves us?
Well, we don’t have to guess about that.
He told Gideon in the 7th chapter of the book of Judges.
Let me read it to you.
"In order that Israel may not boast that her own strength has saved her."
Paul told the men about the angel, he told them they were going to be saved, and then he made the definitive statement of chapter 27.
In verse 25 he says,
“So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me.”
I have to tell you one more story.
It’s about a woman of faith in my last church.
Recently she went through a storm in her life in the form of the big C. Cancer.
When she told me about it, I asked how she was doing and she said, "I’m ready for whatever happens."
And then she said, "You know, now it’s time for me to start practicing the faith I’ve been talking about all these years."
I didn’t say it, but I thought, "No, you’re ready because you have been practicing that faith!"
I hope you’re ready for the storm when it comes.
I didn’t say, "If it comes", but "when it comes."
Every one of us will go through storms in our lives.
And when they come, I hope you trim the sails.
I hope you dump the cargo and clear the decks.
I hope you do everything humanly possible to deal with that storm.
And then? Well, then I hope you give up.
Ask God to deliver you from the storm, and then believe that God will fulfill his promise...and deliver you from the storm.
