Marcus Mecum - What to Do When Your Life Is a Wreck
1 Timothy 1, let's look at verse 18. If you're there, say, "Uh-huh. Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, holding on to faith and a good conscience, and some have rejected so have suffered shipwreck in regard to the faith". Verse 20, "Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to satan and taught them not to blaspheme".
I wanna talk to you from this verse of scripture and if you've got Acts 27 close, you can grab that, I'm just gonna use that as our dictionary to walk through this idea in talking about what to do when your life is a wreck. What do you do when your life is a wreck? Now, let's just be honest, we're all rubberneckers. We can't help it, we can't look away, our curiosity just draws us in. When you look at someone's life and you just think, "Man, their life's a wreck". Or maybe you're here today and your marriage is a wreck, maybe your kids are a wreck, maybe you're an emotional wreck. Nobody wants their life to be a wreck, but what do you do when your life is wreck? Well, Paul here tells Timothy, "I need you to go to Ephesus. It's a wreck. It's a shipwreck, it's a shipwreck specifically in regards to faith".
And so we get the opportunity to go deep sea diving and look at the old shipwreckage of Ephesus. We get the opportunity to go down into the murky waters and look at the loss of life but also discover some ancient treasure, maybe pull it up to the surface so it can enrich our lives today. The picture is real simple, in the same way that ships are easily swallowed by the ocean. So, our lives can end up devoured by the tumultuous waters of life. And so, Paul is painting a picture of a group of people whose lives are shipwrecked. They're threading water at best, some are drowning, they're in dangerous waters, great threats are all around them.
And Paul is sending Timothy into this wreck that has been made of the church of Ephesus. Eva Hart, who's a Titanic survivor, said "The sounds of people drowning is something I cannot describe to you. It's the most dreadful sound and it's followed by the most terrible silence". So, Timothy, Paul is saying to him, "There's been this awful wreck and I'm sending you, I need you to go on a search and rescue mission. You're gonna have to sift through the carnage, you're gonna have to sift through the cries, you're gonna have to sift through the heartbreak and see if there's any survivors". I wanna talk to you about this because life is full of ships. Ships that didn't make it. We all have 'em, friendships, relationships, leadership, fellowship, stewardship, discipleship, ownership, Lordship, worship. And many in here, you can grab one of those and say, "I've suffered shipwreck".
Ships are a picture of the church. We see that with Noah and the ark, we see Jesus is often found in boats, specifically he would grab Peter's boat, the apostle Simon-Peter, and he would preach to thousands of people and he would use the boat as his platform to preach to many, and then he turned around and blessed the apostle Simon-Peter's boat for being willing to use what he had to advance the gospel and to minister to broken people. So, here we have the story of Ephesus, that shipwreck, we don't know exactly how they ended up here. It could've been a great storm, it could've been one of the great winds of life, took advantage of a weakened place that they were in, it could be just the waves of life came crashing on them, some disaster, some battle.
Maybe a human err led to it, but somehow, they ended up in a wreck and we can learn how to work on the areas of our life that are a wreck by looking at the church of Ephesus. Paul understood shipwreck firsthand in 2 Corinthians 11:25. He said, "Three times I was shipwrecked, I spent all night and a day in the open sea". Imagine being Paul, he's there in the cold, dark, frigid waters, floating all night and all day. I can imagine the kind of prayers that he would have prayed. I could imagine the kind of cries that would have some from the apostle. Cries for help, maybe cries that were filled with questions. "How did I end up here? Why is this going on in my life? Where's God at in all of this"? But three times he was shipwrecked, all night and a day, he's there floating in the open sea, and so Paul understood how to talk to us about the wrecks of life.
In Acts 27, Paul, in detail, we get to see his fourth shipwreck. The Bible says it was a wind of hurricane force. It says there was violent battering of the storm, that the people were so afraid, they'd given up all hope of ever being saved. Two hundred and seventy-six lives were on board, and to survive, they start throwing cargo overboard. I want you to get the picture, they're throwing cardboard, they're throwing all of these things off the ship because their life is being threatened by a shipwreck. Worry sets in, panic, and fear, and so, they try to make a decision in that kind of a state and the decisions are to throw some precious cargo overboard. And that's what we all do when we face a shipwreck in life, is we start trying to throw things out of our life, we start trying to remove things from our life, or maybe we pull things in.
Maybe we add some things to our life. But either way, Paul invites us to be a rubbernecker in the shipwreck of Ephesus. And Paul tells Timothy, "There's two people that I want you to study. I want you to look at Hymenaeus and I want you to look at Alexander". And he says that, "They rejected holding on to their faith and they rejected a good conscience". Rejected is nautical term that means to throw overboard. Here, you have these two men that had faith at one point. You have these two men that understood the importance of having a clear and clean and good conscience before God, but yet, somehow in the middle of the storms of life, the shipwrecks of life, they decided to take the precious cargo of their faith and the precious cargo of their good conscience before God and they threw it overboard.
And the Bible says the result was they suffered shipwreck. Cargo is anything that we carry in life. It's the things we accept and maybe it's some things we've rejected. The storms come, and when the storms come, the cargo in your life matters. Acts 27:10, "Men, I can see that our voyage is going to be disastrous, bring great loss to the ship, the cargo, and to our lives also". Just something about when you're in the storm or you're facing a wreck that you have to look at the cargo in your life. What kind of things are you carrying? What kind of people are you carrying? What kind of things have you accepted into your life?
Jonah, the Bible says, is in the middle of a great storm, and he is willing to step up to the plate and tell all those who are there with him, "Hey, I'm the problem, I'm the issue. I'm not the kind of cargo you wanna go through a storm with. I'm disobedient, I'm rebellious, I'm running from God, I'm resisting what God's called me to do". And in this kind of a storm, Jonah says, "Throw me overboard". And so, they throw him overboard and the Bible says they ended up surviving the storm and they didn't end up shipwrecked. In Luke 17:2, Jesus said, "It's better to have a millstone tied around your neck and be thrown in the midst of the sea than to harm a child".
What's he saying? "Hey, I don't know what you're going through in life, but one of the things you have to make sure of is that you keep compassion. The cargo of compassion, keep it in the ships of life, especially when it comes to the vulnerable, especially when it comes to the young, especially when it comes to the child". And he said, "If you wanna know what it's like to throw the compassion of God out for the next generation," he said, "This is what it's like, just go ahead and tie a chain round your neck, jump up on a bridge, tie that thing, that chain to a washing machine," that's what a millstone is about like, "And throw it over into the river". He said, "That's exactly what's gonna happen to you".
You throw compassion overboard, guess what, you're going overboard with it. What's he saying, there's some things you gotta keep close. There are certain attitudes, certain mindsets, certain disciplines, you gotta keep close. You can't let 'em go when your life's a wreck, that's when you have to hold on to them more than ever. The disciples in Mark 4, are going through a great storm. The waves are so significant that the boat is sinking because the water has filled the boat. And the Bible says that they go to the back of the boat in the bottom, Jesus is sleeping and they cry out, "Do you not care? Do you not love us? Do you not see that we're about to die? Do you not see that we're drowning here? Do you not understand that this ship is about to wreck? Do you not get it"?
And the Bible says that they had to wake Jesus up and he came up out of the bow of that ship, goes up to the front and speaks to the waves and to the wind and to the storm to be still, and he brings peace to the situation, and this is the key. They had to realize when you're in the great storms and wrecks of life, you've got to make sure that you keep the precious cargo on board, you gotta keep that relationship with God close, you gotta keep Jesus and your relationship, and your intimacy with him and your love for him, you've got to keep that close, don't throw it overboard. The people that throw it overboard, they end up, their life is a wreck.
So, you gotta learn in the confusion and panic of the storm, what things to throw out and what things to hold on to. Hymenaeus and Alexander throw two things overboard. If you wanna be part of the 8%, these are two things that you're going to need in all the ships of life that you have. In any ship you want it, your relationship, your marriage, your kids, your spiritual life, your discipleship, your stewardship, the Lordship. Any area of life, you have to keep these things on board. Don't throw these two things overboard or you'll suffer shipwreck. Number one, it says that they threw faith overboard, they rejected holding on to their faith.
In Acts 27, it says that, "As they're facing the ship being wrecked, a group of guys start acting like they're letting some anchors down but what they're really wanting to do is sneak off on to a life boat and escape the storm". And Paul looks at these men and says, "If you go at life that way, if you go at this shipwreck that way, if you go at the storm this way, you will, without question perish". What's he saying? He's saying, "Listen, we're all in this together at some level and whenever you get super overwhelmed with all the storms of life, the instinct is self-preservation, the instinct it save yourself," and Paul says, "The surest way to end up losing the very thing you wanna keep, is by living your life just about me, myself, what I can do saving myself".
So, when your relationships are in the storm, when you're facing a wreck, don't throw faith overboard. When it comes to your fellowship in the house of God with the people of God whether it's a small group or serving, don't throw your faith overboard, don't lose your confidence in the importance of serving, using your gifts, going the extra mile, going a little bit further, putting yourself in environments where there's godly people that can surround you, pray for you, lift you, 'cause what are we doing? We're saying, "You're not alone". But every now and then, you don't have the faith you need for that relationship, so guess what? You need some fellowship around you, some people that will help you not throw faith overboard. Discipleship, stewardship, or Lordship, don't throw faith out is what the apostle is saying.
Think about it like this, so many people, they've given up Lordship. Jesus is not Lord. Lordship looks something like this when the disciples are in the storm, Jesus is in the bottom and in the back of the boat. He's in the bottom, look at it, and he's in the back, and he's sleeping. Until they were willing to go wake him up and say, "You're not gonna stay in the bottom in the back of our life. You're gonna come to the front, we're gonna bring you to the top and we're gonna bring you to the front," that's Lordship, that's why we start January, not because every day is good, being a man or a woman of God.
Sometimes, we're in storm, sometimes we're in wrecks, and sometimes, we just slip, the Lordship slips and he starts ending up in the bottom and it ends up in the back and you gotta wake your spiritual life up, that's what prayer and fasting is about, that's what we're doing in January, we're waking our spiritual life up and we're saying, "Come on, we need you to come up and we need you to end up in the front and we need you to help us by being Lord". I don't know how to get through the storm, I don't know how to survive the tragedy, I don't know how to get through the wrecks of life, but what I do know is if I'll put him at the top and in the front, if I'll put him first, my chances of getting through things is great, but in the bottom and the back, I probably won't survive the shipwrecks of life. Worship, what's your worship look like? Have you thrown your faith overboard?
When we worship as a church, when we come and we sing. The word worship means to ship worth. That's what we're doing, we're taking a moment and we're shipping. We're saying, "God, you're worthy, God, you matter, and we're grateful and we're thankful and we're willing to not let go and throw our faith overboard". When we sing, a lot of people just think you're just singing a song. In America, if we go to war with another nation, we take our warships, w-a-r ships and we send them out with our fighter jets on there and then they attack, the jets take off from the warship and attack the enemy. Well, as a believer, your warship, W-A-R ship is your worship, W-O-R ship. The point is, is when you worship, you're preparing for the battles. When you worship, you're putting yourself on the offense and you're putting the devil on the defense and you're beginning to launch the attack.
When I sing songs and when I declare the faithfulness of God and I grab a hold of the prophecies that have been spoken over my life, the words that have been spoken over my life or just the promises of God's word, we sing and we declare, what we're doing is our worship, is our warship, it's how we fight the battles, that's what Paul told Timothy. "Hey, if you're gonna fight this battle, you're gonna have to grab a hold of some of the prophecies and promises as you go through the shipwrecks of life".
Acts 27, Paul, and every person on board, the Bible says they fasted for 14 days, they had food on board, but for 14 days, it was a forced fast, but they're fasting. And during that fast, as Paul prays, an angel told Paul, "Everyone is going to make it. Not one person is going to perish". I want you to imagine all across this room there are people, that in their minds, like those who are, they've given up all hope in an area of their life. They said, "It's done, it's over, there's no chance, and there's no hope". But I believe the same angel that spoke to Paul to tell those 267 passengers, that not one of them would perish, that same angel can speak into your life and into the areas that are a wreck in your life and can let you know if you'll do everything you can to pray and to fast over those areas that look like they're a wreck, look like there's no hope, look like there's no way, if you'll put God first in those situations, that same word and that same angel is available to you.
God gives Paul a dream. God can give you a dream during the fast, God can give you a strategy, he can give you ideas, he can open up doors, he can close doors, he can guide you, direct you, he can deliver you, he can free you. And all of that happened in the middle of a wreck, but yet they prayed and they fasted and God gave them dreams, God released angels, God gave them a prophesy that they could fight and they could battle against all the things that were saying, "You're done and it's over". God gave them a word and a dream so they could stand the test, so they could work through the battle, so they could fight through the struggle. In Isaiah 58, it's the fasting chapter. Hebrews 11, the faith chapter, 1 Corinthians 13 is the love chapter. Isaiah 58:6, "Is this not the kind of fast I have chosen"?
That's what you wanna do during a fast, what fast has God chosen for you? We're calling a corporate fast which is something biblically we're called to do. God consistently calls not people just to the private fast, but to corporately come together and fast. They're different, they're the same in what you do but they're different in that we're doing this together. And there's a fast God's chosen for you. I don't know what God's called you to abstain from for a spiritual purpose. I'm working through God leading me and guiding me through the things I'll push back, but I need to know what's the fast he has chosen. Because if I find that, if I hear from him in that area, he's gonna give me the grace to finish the fast, since, "He'll loose the chains of injustice, he'll untie the chords of the yoke to set the oppressed free and break every yoke".
This lets us know that one of the things you wanna do with your fast is look at the area that the enemy's got a yoke on your life, a chain on your life and target that area during the fast. Every habit, every addiction that's ungodly, unholy, not best for you, not best for your health, not best for your mind, not best for your lungs, not best for your heart, not best for your liver, those things. The yoke, bad attitudes, bad behaviors, the yokes, the yokes, wrong relationships, those yokes, you can target those yokes with fasting and prayer and the Bible says, "The promise is he can break every yoke".
It's a quiet church, it's okay. It goes on to say that God will guide you, direct you, that he'll satisfy your needs, he'll strengthen you, he'll rebuild, he'll raise up, I could keep on going. It talks about that sabbath and the Lord's holy day, to honor it, to not go your own way when it comes to your church life, but you gotta continue to make sure that you don't do as you please, but you stay focused on, "Okay, God, I'm gonna keep you out front, I'm gonna keep you as the Lordship in my life". And the key is, Paul is looking at this shipwreck in Acts 27, he knows they're not going to make it. The ship has crashed, but the Bible says, "They reach out and they grab a hold of a plank".
Just a plank. That's all they had. But God's word was, "If you'll just hang on to that ship I've given you, hang on to that, it may just look like a plank. It may not look like much to others, but if you'll hang on to that thing that doesn't look great but it's there, it's something, you gotta hold it. Maybe it's a slight improvement, maybe it's just a little bit better than what it once was, maybe you're just a little bit stronger, maybe you're just a little bit wiser, maybe you're just a little bit more courageous. Hang on to that plank, grab a hold of that thing and don't allow the ships that God's given you to sink. Find a plank and hold on. Don't throw faith overboard, in Jesus' name".
There are some things that only happen in our life through prayer and fasting. Jesus said, "This kind only comes out through prayer and fasting". Some things will never heal, some areas you'll never be delivered from until you add prayer and fasting together, couple them together, join them together, allow them to unite and work together and to help you break free from some things that you need freedom from.