This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
In life, sometimes you have decisions you're going to make
about some type of plan you might have.
It's always good to run your plans past the Lord and ask Him
what he thinks you should do. Wait on the Lord and pray and
ask him what you should do. A lot of times we don't think
that way. We just respond out of our
emotion or our mood or human reasoning, and we just do what
we think we're going to do. Most of us have been part of a
team at some point. Whether it was at work on a
sports team or as a member of a music group, we work together
for the good of the whole. Sometimes we took constructive
criticism or had to listen to other people's opinions.
Today, Pastor Clark reminds you that this is especially helpful
to remember in your relationship with Jesus.
Consult him on everything. He's a perfect leader and
teammate. Why would you want to make
decisions apart from him now? Here's Pastor Clark in Acts
Chapter 27 with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Paul is going to Rome. He's wanted to go to Rome pretty
much his whole ministry life, and it just seemed like there
was always things in the way that prevented him from getting
there. And so now he's going to have to
take a long voyage and a couple ships and have his life risked
and we're going to read about that.
Now. The one thing to I think to
consider this voyage ends up in shipwreck.
In shipwreck, I've never been. I've been at sea and I've been
in boats and that kind of stuff, but I've never been shipwrecked.
It's a very terrifying thing to experience if the boat is
starting to take on water and it starts to go down and you might
die, right? But I've been shipwrecked in my
life personally, through circumstances of my own doing
and sin and ruining my life when I was a younger man doing things
that cause consequences to happen in my life.
And then I've also been in situations, even as a Christian,
where God has allowed me to go through tough times and
challenging times and life threatening times and tragic
times that teach me how to depend more on Him and how to
surrender to him and how to yield to Him and how to get out
of the way so that he can have His way.
So if you're here today, you might be in a a place of feeling
like there's no hope. Or maybe you're sensing that
there is hope, but you're wondering when that hope might
appear for you. You're feeling like your life's
wrecked. Or maybe you've made decisions.
Maybe there's relationships that are unreconcilable.
Maybe there's health issues you're dealing with that are
just very, very challenging. Maybe there's issues with
children or fractured friendships that you wish
weren't fractured. There could be all kind of stuff
that you personally are dealing with today.
And I'm here to tell you as we study this chapter, that you're
not alone, that everyone who lives life goes through times of
challenge and adversity and difficulty.
It's not uncommon. It's normal.
And the apostle Paul, who walked totally with the Lord, was
totally committed to the Lord, also went through these things.
Just because you're a Christian doesn't mean you escape
adversity or challenges or difficulty when you're a
Christian. God uses these things, and he
even allows warfare and the enemy at times to attack us in
order that we might draw closer to the Lord.
And sometimes when you're going through something, you want to
say, well, God, if you really care about me, if you really
love me, why are you putting me through this?
But God always has a reason in time to get us through whatever
it is we're getting through to begin to understand one thing
for sure. I can't live life without the
help of the Lord and neither can you.
Lord speak to us today about how we can make application and
parallel what Paul went through in our own personal life today.
And perhaps what it is that we're facing, what it is we're
dealing with, the tragedies we've been through, the things
we're trying to overcome. God show us how Paul depended
upon you and we ask all these things in Jesus name, Amen.
First one. And when it was decided that
they we should sail to Italy, they delivered Paul and some
other prisoners to one named Julius, a centurion of the
Augustan Regiment. So this Julius is a very
powerful leader. He's going to watch over the
prisoners, especially Paul and those who had gone with him in
order to make sure that they make the journey and get the
room. So entering a ship of the Adrum
ATM, we put the sea meaning to sail along the coast of Asia.
So if you look at a map, they're coming out of the Bible lands
and they're coming up the coast up toward Greece to come around.
And this group of people that went with Paul that mentions a
couple names here. First of all, Luke is giving the
declaration here. What happened in this chapter?
And so he was with Paul and then Aristocas, a Macedonian of
Thessalonica, was with us. This is another brother in the
Lord. It also had travelled with Paul
and Paul was allowed to have some help.
Luke was his physician, so he was there to minister to Paul's
health issues. And Aristarchus was a brother
who was also allowed to come on. The ship basically took the
place of a slave, but also prisoner that he might be with
Paul. And so they're heading up the
coast of Macedonian of Thessalonica was with us.
And the next day we landed at Sidon.
And Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him liberty to go to
his friends and receive care. So Paul had a lot of freedom
because of his testimony. He wasn't a prisoner because of
doing something like a crime of murder.
Like most of the prisoners on this boat, we're going to be
delivered to Rome to be killed basically for their crimes.
Paul was a political prisoner and so Julius gave him some
freedom. So Paul stopped here at Sidon,
doesn't tell us who we saw, but he was with different people,
friends that knew him and they ministered to him.
And Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him liberty to go to
his friends and receive care. And when he put the sea from
there, we sailed under the shelter of Cyprus.
Now Cypress is going up there near the coast of Greece,
beautiful place in the world because the winds were contrary.
And when we had sailed over the sea, which is off Cilicia and
Pamphylia, we came to Mara, city of Lycia.
Now, if you took the time and looked on the Bible map, you
just see how they're gradually moving through these waters to
head up to Rome. They are the centurion found an
Alexandrian ship sailing to Italy and he put us on board.
And so now there's this opportunity to get going faster.
It's a bigger ship, about 146 feet long, about 36 feet wide
that covered, carried grain from Egypt and Egypt brought food to
Rome. So they were always given
preference on the seas and access to the harbors in Italy.
And so all this stuff is on water, what they're doing
dealing with here. And it says when we had sailed
slowly many days, we arrived with difficulty off sign us, the
wind not pretty permitting us to proceed.
We sailed under the shelter of Creek off Saloma, passing it
with difficulty. We came to place called Fair
Haven near the city of Lacia. So they're going up the coast
past Lebanon. Now they're off the coast of
Greece and Crete, and they're trying to find a place that they
can be for the storms to be able to not destroy them.
And Fair Havens is, is is one-on-one side of Crete there.
So now when much time had been spent and sailing was now
dangerous because of the fast. And this fast relates to Yom
Kippur, the Day of Atonement, October, the Jewish feast of
fasting isn't good to be traveling in the waters past
October and going into the winter time.
So that was 1 issue there that gave us the insight of when this
was occurring and Paul's giving them his opinion though his
sense, his warning. He says in verse 10 men, I
perceive that this voyage will end with disaster and much loss
not only of the cargo and ship but also our lives.
So in life, sometimes you have decisions you're going to make
about some type of plan you might have.
It's always good to run your plans past the Lord and ask Him
what He thinks you should do. Wait on the Lord and pray and
ask Him what you should do. A lot of times we don't think
that way. We just respond out of our
emotion or our mood or human reasoning and we just do what we
think we're going to do. But that's not how God's created
us to live. And we're learning to depend on
the Lord. We don't immediately depend on
the Lord when we get saved. We still have a lot of self
pride, whatever we think. We know how to handle things and
what to do and all that kind of stuff.
And it's interesting when you tell someone that cares about
you as a deep Christian, what your plans are, what you're
going to do. A wise Christian would say,
well, have you prayed about that?
Have you asked the Lord what he might want you to do?
And sometimes you get a shock look from the person.
Well, well, no, I, I didn't do that.
Well, it's always good to ask God what his thoughts are and if
there's any reason why you shouldn't do what it is you're
planning to do. You want the Lord to reveal it
to you. You want him to speak to you so
that you would not bypass his perfect will for your life.
Paul, knowing the Lord and walking deeply with the Lord,
had experience in the sea. In Second Corinthians Chapter
11, it says he was shipwrecked 3 times.
So this guy knows what he's talking about.
He can tell by the winds and what's happening in the
environment and the seas that this is not a good plan to
proceed. And so he's giving them his
insight and he's telling them if you're going to ruin everything,
you're going to lose your cargo and risk all of our lives.
Verse 11 Nevertheless, the centurion was more persuaded by
the helmsman, the captain of the ship and the owner of the ship
than by the things spoken by Paul.
And because the harbor was not suitable to winter in, the
majority advises set sail from there.
Also, if by any means they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete
opening toward the southwest and northwest and winter there.
So that would have been more in the direction of Italy.
It was only about 40 miles from this point to Phoenix and they
thought they could make it because they had already
travelled all these miles and and made it thus far.
This particular port, this Fair Haven was a real small community
and the people that ran the ship, the crew, they didn't want
to be there over winter because it was a boring place, wasn't
much to do. They wanted to go to a more
happening place that they'd have entertainment, do whatever crazy
stuff they wanted to do. So that was one of the reasons
they wanted to get out of that Fair Haven harboring and go to
this Phoenix place winter there. So in verse 13, when the South
wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their desire
putting out the sea, they sailed close by Creek.
So it started out good the journey, the wind was perfect,
nice sail looked like it was going to be smooth ride.
I'm sure the captain of the ship looked at Paul and said, you
know, you're wrong. I'm right kind of thing, but not
long after verse 14, a temptress head when a rose called your
Clyde. And this is translated the
typhoon or a severe northeasterly storm.
If you've ever been to the shore on land and you have a vacation
and all of a sudden the winds start coming up and it gets to
the temperatures drop and the waves start looking really crazy
and the lifeguards won't let you in the in the water.
That's a discouraging time because northeasters could last
a week and your whole vacation and all the money is spent to be
at the beach. You know, you can't go in the
water. You can go up maybe to your
knees and that's it. So this is what's happening
here. This is a very, very serious
storm and it's scary. Someone said it's like they were
in this really cool boat and this floating and the sun and
the gentle breeze and all of a sudden they're like a toothpick
in the mid midst of 40 foot swells, that this is
unbelievable. So the ship was caught and it
could not head into the wind. So we let her drive.
So they didn't have the ability to steer this boat.
Now this boat was taken by the wind and being pushed down more
toward the coast of Africa instead of the shores of Italy.
And they couldn't even really tell where they were going.
And running under the shelter of an island called Claudia, we
secured the skiff with difficulty.
They're trying to stabilize us, this huge vessel, and when they
had stake taken it on board, they use cables.
So they're pulling the the lifeboat out of the water to
skiff and getting it into the big boat because it would start
smashing the other boat. And they undergirded the ship
and with these cables to sort of wrap it around to prevent it
from coming apart because of the waves less they should run
aground on the sands. They struck sail and were so
driven and because we were exceedingly Tempest toss the
next day they lighten the ship. So they're starting to dump
stuff out of the boat. The cargo, which was worth a lot
of money, they had to begin to get rid of it because of the
weight. They're they're lightning the
ship. On the third day we threw the
ship's tackle overboard with our own hands.
So not any are they getting rid of the grain.
But now they're getting rid of any kind of physical bedding or
any kind of equipment. It isn't necessary right now.
And they're getting rid of all of it.
It says in verse 20 now when neither sun nor stars appeared
for many days and those small Tempest beat on us all hope that
we would be saved was finally given up.
Have you ever been in a situation where you're going
through something that you feel that there's no hope left and
they're ready to give up? I'm sure you have been.
I know I have been. There doesn't seem to be any
answer, any reason for why it is what it is you're going through.
And it's a really time of testing your faith and how well
you know God because God will never fail you.
He promises us throughout the Scriptures, Jesus never fails.
Our faith fails. We get our eyes off of the Lord,
We get our minds and our hearts out of the word of God, and then
all of a sudden we have nothing to stand on, do we?
There's no stability. Everything's uncertain.
Everything's up in the air and they're at a point right now
that they are basically hopeless and they're giving up.
I don't know where you are today, but I'm here to tell you
and encourage you. Don't give up no matter what.
Get close to God. He's ready to do something.
You get close to Him, He'll reveal himself to you in ways
that you never even knew Him. I hate to say it, but we're all
at least I'll say myself, knuckleheads.
I'm going to say that about you. But God has to many times cause
stuff to happen in order to get our attention, to show us like
we're missing things. We're not seeing things the way
he wants us to. We're maybe not living the way
he wants us to live. He's he loves us so much that
he's going to do everything he can sometimes.
And he starts gradually many times to get your attention.
And then if you don't listen, then maybe things get a little
bit more challenging, more difficult.
But here's Paul in this situation.
He's a human being like the rest of them.
I'm sure he's freaking out too, in his ways.
A lot of people are seasick. They can't even think about
eating anything. But Paul begins to speak verse
21. But after long abstinence from
food, then Paul stood in the midst of them and said, Men, you
should have listened to me and not have sailed from Crete and
incurred this disaster and loss. Has then anybody ever told you
after you made a decision and everything fell apart?
I told you so. You shouldn't have done that.
Always Monday morning quarterbacks always telling you
how you should have handled it differently.
Well, that's the last thing you want to hear at that point in
time because, like, you already made the decision and
everything's messed up. You don't need to tell me that.
I already know I've messed up, right?
So he says. And now I urge you in verse 22
to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but
only of the ship. Now they must.
Some of them had to think he was nuts.
The ship is going everywhere and it is like, no way, how are we
not going to die? But Paul during this journey was
also sharing the gospel. And I'm sure there was people on
the ship at that time because of what was happening, said, hey,
Paul, what do I need to do to be saved?
Is there an afterlife? The other is, let me tell you
about it. Let me tell you this life's real
short. You want to put your trust in
Jesus because one day you're going to leave this world and
you want to be where he is. You don't want to be in hell.
You want to be in heaven with the Lord.
And he's made a way because of what Jesus did on the cross to
die for us and to forgive us of our sins, to cleanse us, forgive
us, give us new life. So there is probably a lot of
deathbed conversions here. I always like visiting hospitals
when someone's getting ready to die and they still have
consciousness and their loved ones ask the pastor to go and
talk to the person who's in the bed.
The person in the bed knows that it's coming down the home
stretch and they're going to pass from this life.
And that's when you begin to tell them about the gospel.
And I'm amazed. And how many people are
definitely prepared at that point to hear it and to believe
it and to depend on the Lord so they can go into heaven?
Isn't that wonderful? God in his mercy, He does that.
And occasionally someone will say anything.
You don't know if they believed or didn't, but you know, you,
you, you tell them the truth and you trust the Holy Spirit to do
what only He can do. And so Paul's telling them
there's not going to be any loss of life.
And this is amazing here, verse 23.
Now we know. And Acts 23 verse 11, Paul was
in jail and he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to get the
Rome. Jesus showed up personally and
spoke to Paul and told him that you're going to get the Rome,
don't worry about it, I'm going to get you there.
So Paul tucked that down in his heart, a promise from God to
hold on to. But now he's got another
spiritual encounter. For there stood by me this night
an Angel of the of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve,
saying, do not be afraid, Paul, you must be brought before
Caesar. And indeed God has granted you
all those who sail with you. So the Angel reminded Paul,
don't you remember? Jesus told you you're going to
get the roam. Paul's faith, I'm sure wasn't
shipwrecked, but he's, you know, he's human.
Like, you know this stuff. You know what's going to happen
here? He needed the confirmation from
the Lord that it was going to be OK and they were going to get
through it. Don't be afraid, Paul.
So Paul's being admonished not to be afraid.
And fear is a horrible thing, isn't it?
Fear can really mess you up. It can cause you to just freak
out. It can cause you to be hopeless.
It can cause you to hear stupid things in your head that are
lies from the devil. It can.
It can cause people to do horrible things.
Fear. God hasn't given us a spirit of
fear, the Bible says, but a power and of love and of a sound
mind. When we have fear, we have to
call it out as a lie because God does not give us that spirit,
does He? And we have to acknowledge that
and ask the Lord to replace the thoughts that we have that are
causing the fear with the things that He tells us to think upon.
Paul, think on these things, whichever things are pure,
lovely, just, and a good report. That's a discipline.
It's real easy to get down the fear track and to stay on that,
right? No, I'm not going to fear, I'm
not going to live with this in my head.
Lord, take this out. Help me.
Ask the Lord to help you. He will stabilize my thoughts.
God give me truth to think on and not lies.
Therefore take heart men. And He says that to us today.
Take heart brothers and sisters, for I believe God that it will
be just as it was as he told me. I believe God.
Who do you believe in your life? You believe Fox News, CNN, Wall
Street? Or do you believe the God of
heaven, the creator of the universe?
Everything in your life, in my life, is designed by God to
cause our faith to increase, not to decrease.
Adversity and trial and heartache and tragedy are
allowed in our lives to deepen us, not to destroy us.
If we believe God, no matter what, we're going to get
through. Amen.
If we don't believe God, it is hopeless.
There is no answer apart from God Himself.
So God tests us. And in every situation, He knows
where you're at. Clark needs more faith.
He needs to go deeper with me, and I'm going to allow this to
occur so that he's on his face crying out to me like he never
cried out to me before. Someone told me this morning
they were moments from death. Kidney operating at 2%.
A Christian told his brother that God will do whatever he has
to do to get us back with him. It will allow adversity.
It will allow us to get smacked around in life.
It will allow all kinds of things to happen to us that we
don't like and we don't think it's fair.
Until finally we say, I give up Lord.
We're so glad you joined us today on this edition of Living
Waters of Grace. Pastor Clark is teaching through
the Book of Acts, which is the only book that chronicles the
history of the early church immediately after Jesus's
ascension. It gives us a front row seat to
how the Gospel began to move outwards, starting in Jerusalem
and reaching into the heart of the Roman Empire.
In just three decades, a small group of frightened ordinary
believers became a bold, spirit empowered movement that
transformed the known world. Acts is not just a history
lesson. It's a reminder of what God can
do when His people are surrendered, obedient and filled
with the Holy Spirit. Their perseverance still
inspires us today. May we follow their example and
live faithfully for Christ in our own time.
We hope today's message encouraged you.
Living Waters of Grace is a ministry of Calvary Chapel,
Westmoreland. If you're in the Greensburg, PA
area, we'd love to have you join us in person.
Our Sunday service begins at 10:30 AM at 400 E Pittsburgh St.
Unit 6B. Be sure to visit
calvarychapelonline.com to confirm times and learn more.
If you are in the Greensburg area, you can listen to Grace FM
on the new 91.7 frequency. Please pray about supporting
this outreach. Gifts can be sent to Grace FMPO
Box 716, Greensburg, PA 15601. Stay connected through Facebook,
YouTube, or our Calvary Chapel Westmoreland app.
Join our e-mail list, submit prayer requests, and give online
all at calvarychapelonline.com. Thank you for tuning in and
spending this time in God's Word.
Be sure to join us again for Living Waters of Grace.