Steven Furtick - Whatever, Whatever (01/27/2026)
This sermon tackles the topic of fear, using Acts 27-28 where Paul endures a shipwreck. The preacher argues that the voice you choose to believe in a storm—whether driven by senses or Spirit—shapes your future. He encourages fixing your focus on God’s promises to maintain courage, concluding that even when “snakes” bite, you can shake them off because your faith is in God, not your circumstances.
The Voice You Believe Shapes Your Future
I want to preach to you today on the subject of fear. And I don't want to just stay at a surface level. I want to preach a message about facing your fear, about how to feel fear in your life, your heart, your mind, and what to do about that. Each week we're taking a confession. Last week, God says, I am. Because until you know who you are, you'll never know what to do. God says, I am. And I hope that you've been realigning some of the things that you say to yourself about yourself this week. That was the goal.
And basing it on who God is, not just how you feel or what you see when you look in the mirror, but what God has said about you as his dearly loved child. That was last week. And this week, our confession is, God says he will. And we're going to have a lot of fun with this. I've entitled my message for today, It Will Happen. It will happen. Touch the best-looking person sitting around you and tell them it will happen. Oh, I just caused all kinds of trouble. Might have got somebody a date, though. You never know.
Today, our text will be from Acts chapter 27. And if you act right while I preach and give me some response, then I might even get into 28 a little bit. But we'll have to see about that. I'm not going to bring out the dessert until I see how you act for the meal. It's going to be good. I always try to preach to you the stuff that I preach to myself. And I figure that way, you know, the cook needs to eat what he's serving to others. If it's not good enough for me to eat.
So this has been very encouraging to me because I have a lot of fears. And I'll be happy to share some of those with you as the message goes along. So you can be encouraged by my dysfunctionality. It's my greatest strength is my willingness to be screwed up publicly. In this passage, the Apostle Paul is in trouble. He's going through a storm and he has to decide what voice he will believe about the storm he's going through.
The thesis for the series and the book, the voice you believe will determine the future that you experience and the way you experience your reality. And we're going to pick up right in the middle of Paul's problem in Acts 27, verse 9. The winds are starting to blow contrary. The sailors are having a difficult time. Paul is on board a ship with 275 other prisoners. And there must be a part of him that can't believe he's facing prison again.
He's got to go stand trial before Caesar. He's not on a cruise ship. He's in Royal Caribbean. He's not headed to Rome because he always thought it would be nice. He's not tasting wine. He's chained as a prisoner. And if that wasn't bad enough, he's now got to face a storm on that ship. And this is where we begin in verse 9. It says, Much time had been lost, and sailing had already become dangerous, because by now it was after the Day of Atonement.
So Paul warned them, the other men on the ship, "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." But the centurion, he's the guy who was in charge of transporting the prisoners, instead of listening to what Paul said, followed the advice of the pilot and of the owner of the ship. Now, I wrote down in my notes, of course he did. That makes sense.
If you've got to make a sailing decision, it makes sense to ask the pilot of the ship, not the preacher who happens to be on the ship. Sometimes preachers think they know everything. And so Paul's given advice about where to steer the ship, and they ignore his advice, and they pay for it. Because on this ship, Paul doesn't just represent a preacher or just a prisoner, but he actually represents the purpose of God and the voice of God.
Point One: Steer by the Spirit, Not Your Senses
And so when he speaks about, hey, we're going to be in trouble if we keep going this direction, he's warning them on behalf of God. I want to give you three things, and I'd like you to write these down. They'll be here on the teaching screen. Do you like this little screen I use, or is it kind of cheesy? I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out if I like it, but sometimes I like to do it. Just mix it up. Keep you guessing. Will there be a screen? Will there not? You never know. Story at 11.
All right. So, I wanted to tell you today that when you find yourself in a storm, and you will, steer by the Spirit, not by your senses. Steer by the Spirit, and not by your senses. It's so easy to steer by your senses, because we're trained to walk by what we see, and we're trained in so many ways to respond to what we feel. And that's exactly where the men got in trouble on this ship. I'm not going to belabor this point, because next week I have a message about how do I know the difference if it's God speaking to me or the chatterbox.
Because I hear you talking about all this chatter that goes on, but sometimes doesn't God want to say things to us, and should we block that out? Next week I'm going to show you three things that can help you distinguish whether the voice you're hearing is from God trying to correct you and protect you, or the enemy trying to destroy you and distract you. There is a difference. God will warn you, but he will never create worry within you.
When God warns you, he'll give you a specific instruction, and it'll mobilize you and make you stronger. When the enemy threatens you, he won't make you stronger. He'll make your faith weaker. When God instructs you, he'll give you a specific warning. He'll show you something, maybe through someone, maybe through his spirit, maybe through his word, and he'll show you something you need to correct. The enemy will never do that. He'll just threaten you in a vague way until you can't even figure out what's wrong, but you just find yourself up at night worried about things.
When I talk about fear, I'm not just talking about the big fears that we all face. I'm talking about just that sense of anxiety that we learn to live with as if it's normal, that sense of dread that we just learn to carry around with us and drag behind us and just go through life kind of worried about what they'll think and worried about what they'll say and worried about if I fail and worried about if I succeed. If I succeed, there's more pressure. If I fail, they're all going to laugh at me.
And just going through life afraid, just going through life nervous, just nervous when things are going good, because if things are going good, it can't be long. What goes up must come down. I'm just worried. I'm just scared. I'm just anxious. And so God gives a warning that is ignored. I need to tell you that when you ignore God's warnings, you will always suffer loss. How many of you will testify? Be real enough to raise your hand and say, I have ignored some warnings before that God was trying to give me, and I suffered loss. Yeah.
I'm not going to preach about that, but I want to point it out because your life is being steered by something. Are you being steered like these men on the ship? Just by what you can see, they had their nautical maps spread out. They knew how to sail. They thought they knew exactly what they were doing and where they were going. But we walk by faith, not by sight. And if you steer your life by your senses, you'll end up in trouble. If you send emails based on what you feel in the moment, you'll end up in trouble.
Save the text and see if you still want to send it tomorrow. I can't tell you how many texts I've written that I never sent. Because I'll be steering by my feelings, see? But your feelings can't forecast the future. Only God's Spirit can. And so you've got to learn how to steer by the Spirit. Isn't that good? Wouldn't that save us a lot of time and trouble? It sure would. And so they ignore Paul's advice. Instead of hearing God's voice above all others, they hear all other voices above God's.
The voice you respond to will determine the future you experience. Are you steering by your senses or are you steering by the Spirit? Well, Paul was right. They kept sailing along. They refused to stop. And verse 14 picks up and says, 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.
When Fear Drives You: From Precaution to Paranoia
That phrase is so descriptive. Driven along. That's how a lot of us live our lives. Driven along. When a thought of panic comes, we just go with it. When a thought of worry comes, we just go with it. When a fear of rejection comes, we just clam up and we just go with it. You know, the Scripture says that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but power, love, and a sound mind. We'll talk about that verse at the very end of the sermon, time permitting.
But for right now, I wanted to speak to somebody who's being driven along by the winds and the waves of your life, by the feelings and emotions of fear, by the thoughts of anxiety that are keeping you up at night, have you so nervous. You're playing out scenarios over and over again in your mind, just driven along. You can't even function correctly. You can't even give yourself fully to the people who are all around you, who love you, because you're so worried about losing them that you can't even interact with them.
You're driven along by a spirit of fear. You're driven along through life. You don't really have an anchor in anything. Just driven along and just always watching out for what's going to happen next. There's a fine line between precaution and paranoia, and some of us are crossing it. We've just been driven along because the winds are contrary, and so it says they were driven along by the winds and the waves. Verse 16. As we passed to the Lee of a small island called Kota, we were hardly able to make the lifeboat secure.
Everything's unstable. Life feels that way sometimes. So the men hoisted it aboard, and then they passed ropes under the ship itself to hold it together, because they were afraid that they would run aground on the sandbars of Sirtis. They lowered the sea anchor and let the ship be driven along. They just let it be driven along. Now it's at the point where there's nothing we can do. It's just gone. The situation is beyond our control. Verse 18. We took such a violent battering from the storm that the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard.
Now they're wasting supplies and wasting money, all in an effort to lighten the ship so they can somehow save it. Verse 19. On the third day, they threw the ship's tackle overboard with their own hands. Verse 20, to me, is very poignant in describing fear's ultimate goal in our lives. If we let it go unchecked and drive us along, it will eventually come to this point. Luke, who is recording the book of Acts, says, When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and the storm continued raging, when the storm continued raging.
So when the trouble first started, we were okay. We were doing what we could do. We were anxious, but we were still active. But now it's gotten so bad we can't see any signs. We can't see any stars. We don't know what to guide by. It's gotten really dark. And when it got to that point, it says, that we finally gave up all hope of being saved. We gave up all hope. Now we've gone from despair to depression. They say that the clinical definition of depression, if you study people who are truly depressed, is that they have given up hope that they will ever feel any different than they do right now.
They’ve given up hope that life will ever be any different than it is right now. Luke says, that's how bad it was. We couldn't see anything. What we were guiding by got lost, and so our hope was gone. We gave up all hope. And I'm speaking to somebody today, God knows who you are, who has become hopeless, hopeless that you're ever going to progress past this fear, that you're ever going to change from this state that you're in.
It was one thing when you could see the star to guide you by, but now that you're in a storm and you have no star, you've lost your hope. You see it? He said, we finally gave up all hope of being saved. But, you know, Luke is writing Acts 27. He's the one recording it. But Paul is the main character of the story. And so I've got to imagine if Paul was reading, you know, Acts chapter 27, that Luke wrote, "we gave up all hope of being saved." Do you say, wait a minute, what do you mean we? What do you mean we?
Because, see, everybody else has given up hope of being saved. They've completely capitulated to fear. And yet, in the midst of all of these voices, don't you know they were all freaking out? "We were going down on this ship, and I don't even deserve to be a prisoner, and it ain't fair, and I didn't even do it, and I had an alibi, and I wasn't even there." And they're all talking about loss and despair. And then Paul speaks up. You're going to love this. Verse 21, it says, After they had gone a long time without food, Paul stood up before them and said, This guy. "Men, you should have taken my advice."
And some of you are very confused. You're thinking, I didn't know Paul was a woman. Wait for it. No, I'm just teasing. I'm just teasing. Holly said she was going to get that verse printed. She said, That's my new life verse. "Men, you should have taken my advice." Wouldn't that make a great Mother's Day sermon? Men, you should have... Okay, I'm going to move on from that. I felt some hostility. Fifty percent of my love just left the room. Let's see if I can get back.
"Men, you should have taken my advice. I told you so. You should have taken my advice not to sail from Crete. Then you would have spared yourself this damage and loss. But now..." I love those two words. I wanted to point out the context of the conflict in this passage. Because it's one thing to believe that God will get you out of a storm if he put you in the storm. But don't a lot of our fears come from believing that we got ourselves into this mess and now we can't depend on God to get us out?
Like, if God lets me be thrown in the lion's den, okay. God's going to shut the mouths of the lion. I read that he could do it. If God sends me into a storm and I was just obeying him... But what about if it was my fault? And that's where real fear kicks in. It is one thing to believe that God will do it. He will deliver you. He will save you if you know he's the one who brought you here. But what about if I lost my job because I was lazy? You don't have to tell anybody else. You can stick to your story about how the boss didn't like you.
But what if you know deep down in your heart that you could have done more to keep your job? And so now you're unemployed and you know that you're at least part of the cause for why you lost your job. Now will God do it? What about if your relationship is on the ropes because you weren't as loving and tender as you could have been? What about if you were a little neglectful? See, it's not just the predicaments that God gets me into that I'm worried will he get me out. There's some stuff I get my own self into sometimes.
And then I get afraid. Well, I guess since I got myself into this, I've got to get myself out. You'd be surprised how much of our fear is based in regret. That something that I did or didn't do is now catching up with me. And so now I'm out here on my own. But Paul says in verse 22, put it back on the screen. He said, "but now". But now, if I had time, I'd take the rest of today and talk about living in now. How Hebrews says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen."
So when you can't see the stars, come on, somebody, and when you've lost all hope, God says, but now. Yeah, there are some things you could have done differently. Yeah, there are some contributions that you made to this conflict, but now, but now. Somebody shout now. Come on, shout it in the top of the room. Say now. Can't change what I didn't do. Can't change what I should have done. Can't complete what I left unfinished. Some things are just the way they are, but now, now, now, now. He said, but now.
Point Two: Fix Your Focus and Keep Up Your Courage
Well, put the verse back up. I don't remember what he says next. "I urge you." Oh, here it is. This is good. "To keep up your courage." That's part of my second point. I want to tell you number two. There's only three. We're making excellent time. Fix your focus and keep up your courage. Fix your focus and keep up your courage. Touch somebody next to you as soon as you're done writing down that point and say, keep it up. Keep it up. Keep it up. Come on. If you're still writing the elbow, then tell them, keep it up. Right there in the ribs. Keep it up.
Fix your focus. Now, Paul goes on to say, "keep up your courage because not one of you will be lost. Only the ship will be destroyed." There's good news and there's bad news about this boat. It ain't looking too good for the boat. But keep up your courage because we're going to make it. God told me so. Keep going. Next verse. "Last night, an angel of the God to whom I belong, I know who I am and I know whose I am, and whom I serve stood beside me."
I'm glad he doesn't just go before me or behind me, but he stands right by me in the midst of trouble. He's a multi-directional, Omni-directional God. He's a 360 God. He doesn't change positions like, you know, I better get back. He just got you. He said he stood beside me. I'm getting happy preaching this to myself. Sometimes I don't even need you here to preach. I'm just preaching to me. He said, "don't be afraid, Paul." This is what the angel told him. He said, "don't be afraid, Paul. Paul, you must stand trial before Caesar, and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you."
In other words, I'm not focused on the storm I see right now. I'm focused on the future that God has promised me. So he says, don't be afraid, Paul. "So keep up your courage, men. Keep up your courage. For I have faith in God, that it will happen. It will happen. Just as he told me. Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island." The ship's going down, but keep your courage up. How do you keep your courage up when the ship's going down? It's the essence of faith. You have to learn to separate out your courage from your conditions.
See, if your courage is tied to your conditions, when your bank account goes down, your courage goes down with it. If your courage is tied to your conditions, when a certain relationship in your life starts going down, your courage goes down with it. How do you keep up your courage? Apparently, even when my conditions are outside of my control, my courage is never outside of my control. Your courage is under your control. He didn't say, God's going to keep up your courage. So stop praying, "God, give me courage." Because he's going to say, I gave it to you. Now keep it up. Keep it up. Feed it.
You've been feeding your fears, and now they're eating you alive. And you've been surveying your conditions, and you've lost all hope. But Paul said, fix your focus. See, sometimes you can't fix the situation, and all you can fix is your focus. Paul said, right now, all I see is a ship going down, and I know that's all you see, and I know that's all you can think about, and I know that's all you can focus on, but last night I saw an angel. I'm not looking at what I'm going through right now. I'm looking toward my future, and I'm looking back at what God spoke to me in my past, and so my focus is fixed.
We always want God to stop the storm. Sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes what he wants to teach you to do is to fix your focus in the middle of the storm. Is this not what we see with Peter? "Jesus, if it's you, tell me to come." "Come." Peter starts walking. The wind starts blowing. As long as Peter looked at Jesus, Peter was fine. When he looked at the wind and the waves, what's that? Focus. When he started thinking about how rough it is out here, let me ask you a question. Was Peter any more able to walk on water if it hadn't been raining than if it was? If the winds hadn't been strong, is he any more able to walk on water? If the conditions had been clear? It's not about the conditions. It's about your courage.
You can walk through stuff and live through stuff and be brave through stuff. I've met people who were dying and knew they had three days to live, who were bolder than most of us who are going to live for 70 more. Why? They weren't focused on the fear. I'm going to teach you a trick. Your fear is powered by your focus. If you take the focus away from the fear and put your focus on your faith, faith is also powered by focus. So you don't need God to stop the storm for you to get your courage up. You don't need God to fix the ship for your courage to come up. You just need to fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising his shame.
I touched somebody next to you, say he's preaching now. Tell him he's preaching to me. He's preaching to me. Yes, I am. I'm trying to help somebody see that your hope is not supposed to be in the boat. The reason all the other sailors were so scared is because they were trusting in the boat to get them to the other side. Paul said, you know, it's a funny thing about the boat. I like it. I prefer it. It's better than doggy paddling. But I had a meeting with God. And if there's one thing I know about God, it's that my life is in his hands.
Oh my God, I just thought of that old Kirk Franklin song. Oh man, it was the first song. I remember the first time I heard this song. This song made me fall in love with gospel music. I'm going to sing just a little bit to you, but I don't know if I can remember all of it. But it said, "you don't have to worry and don't you be afraid. Joy comes in the morning. Troubles, they don't last always. For there's a friend named Jesus." You put me in a higher key. "Who will wipe your tears away. I'll take it up. And if your heart is broken, just lift your hands and say, Oh, I know that I can make it. I know that I can stand. No matter what may come my way, my life is in your hands."
I'm going to sing the third verse too. "So when your tests and trials, they seem to get you down. And all your friends and loved ones, they are nowhere to be found. Remember there's a friend named Jesus who will wipe your tears away. And if your heart is broken, just lift your hands and say, oh, I know that I can make it. I know that I can stand. I know that I can stand. No matter what may come my way. My life is in your hands. My life is in your hands." My life, my faith, my hope is not in my circumstance. My hope is not in this boat. My hope is in my God.
And he didn't promise me that he would save the boat. He didn't promise me that I would never cry. He promised me when I did, he'd dry every tear from my eye. He didn't promise me I'd never hurt. He said, when you do hurt, you can lift your eyes to the hills from whence cometh your help. Your help cometh from the Lord. My hope is not in this boat. If the boat goes down, my faith is in God. See, the boat might break. The relationship might not turn out like you want it to. And if your hope is in that boat, my friend, your faith won't make it.
Staring Down the "What If": The Power of "Even If"
I remember in 2012, when my dad first started, I'm going to be delicate how I say this. I believe that my dad, when he was diagnosed with ALS, I believe he lost his mind from a combination of the pain of the disease, some of the medications that he was on, and just the fear of the whole process. The disease itself wasn't affecting his mind, but I believe that something happened to him for a period of about 10 months. The most difficult challenge our family has ever been through. He left us, and he went to go live by himself.
When he first did, he was so despondent. We all knew he was suicidal, and he had said as much. When he left, and there was nothing I could do to get him to stay, and there was nothing I could do to bring him back, and sometimes you've just done all that you can do. You've thrown all the cargo off the ship. You've thrown all the tackle off the ship. You've thrown all the stuff off, and that beating keeps coming. I was contemplating the fact that my dad could very well kill himself, and what was a good relationship with him will end with him being by himself, and there's nothing any of us can do about it.
One night in particular, the fear became so strong in my own heart that that would happen. I wrote about this in the book, but I didn't name the situation, and now I'm telling you the situation behind the story. I remember that the thoughts were coming. Sometimes you can't solve your own problems within your own mind. You've got to get outside of yourself and let somebody else talk to you about it. I called this counselor that I knew of that I had never talked to before, and I said, you deal with high-pressure situations all the time. I think my dad may very well kill himself tonight or tomorrow.
You know all the things that start happening in your mind when you're facing a desperate situation, and fear's greatest hit is called "what if." What if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, and it'll lead you down all these paths, all these problems, all these predicaments. I was telling the counselor, I'm afraid he's going to kill himself, and I expected him to Just say, he's not going to do that. Just calm down. Be rational. But what he did instead was one of the greatest gifts anybody's ever given me. It was a gift of perspective, and I've never forgotten it.
He said, Stephen, what if he does? What if he does? He may. We hope he won't. We pray that he won't, but what if he does? And I said, that would be the hardest thing that I've ever gone through. It would be terrible. And he said, right, it would be a nightmare. It'd be a living hell. You would never be the same. It would wreck you. But, he said, would God get you through it? This is where fear either takes over our life, or we push back against it, and realize that, catch this phrase, even if the worst-case scenario plays out. God will be there when the boat breaks.
And I used to think that fighting fear was all about pushing it back. That's never going to happen. That's never going to happen. I need to be more optimistic. And I do think it's important that we don't walk around all the time playing out the worst possible scenarios in our head, because most of the things we worry about never even happen. I like how Joyce Meyer says it. She says, I'm going to do my best Joyce impression. She said, "worry is down payment on a problem you may never even have." I know my impression wasn't good, but the quote was solid. Amen.
We were watching a movie the other day. They said, on the movie, they said, most of the biggest challenges that you'll face in your life will be the result of things that never even crossed your worried mind. They will blindside you at 4:30 on a Thursday afternoon. You won't even have known that you needed to worry about them. Additionally, most of the things that we worry about create other problems that we didn't even know to worry about when we started worrying about the one that was never going to happen to begin with. Worry has babies. Worry creates all kinds of conflict that you were never going to have to face if you had turned it over to God in the first place. Far from solving your problems, it exponentially increases them.
So I don't believe we should walk around in a state of worry just playing out all of our worst case scenarios. But every once in a while, it's good to stare that fear in the face and say, well, what if, devil? What if he does? You know, my dad did not end up taking his own life, and we got to celebrate the end of his life with him as painful as it was. We got to be there, and I thank God for that. But the gift of being able to go down to the bottom of that fear and saying, even if the worst thing happens, because sometimes it does. Sometimes it does. I know that's not the churchiest answer, but sometimes it does.
When I announced the title of this message, many of you were excited. I said, it will happen. Whoa! But what if it happened? The other "it." I think it's a great gift when you find out, when you press down to the bottom of that and say, God would still be at the bottom. My faith is in God, not in the ship that I'm sailing on. What if, what if, what if... Stop. Well, what if... I remember telling Elijah one time, Elijah, if you keep jumping around like that, what if you break your bed? He said, well, what if... Here's what he knew. You give me another one. You ain't gonna let me sleep on the floor. That's a great phrase. Well, what if. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. But even if it does, it probably won't. But even if it does, God would be there at the bottom. He's the God of the valley too. And we might have to breaststroke our way to the island, but we're not dying out here.
Put the verse back up. I think it's verse 22. The last line of that verse after the semicolon, he says, "Only the ship will be destroyed." Now, is that encouraging or discouraging? Depends on which part of the sentence you focus on. If you start with, "the ship will be destroyed," that's bad. But if you back up one word, "only", what does that imply? The ship's going down, but boys, we're not. Only one word stands between fear and faith. Only one word. God, I'm preaching this now.
Because when Jesus was buried in the ground, they thought it was over. So they got their boats back out and went fishing. Their faith was still in their boats. But when Jesus came walking to them on the water, he said, Boys, get out your boat. I got up out of the ground. The worst thing happened. They spit on me and killed me and called me dead. But on the third day, I Rose. So the ship's going down, but I'm not. I might lose this relationship, but you know, here's what happened to me. There's been a fair amount of negativity concerning our church in public spheres in recent days.
And the devil starts messing with me, saying, Well, what if people start believing this crap eventually and think you're a horrible monster and leave your church? What if everybody leaves? And I used to say, Yeah, I used to go, It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. Would you still serve me? Would you still serve me? Are you still that same boy that would stand up and preach in front of five people when you were 16 years old and spend 20 hours preparing the message while your friends were at a keg party? Would you still serve me? And it didn't take me long. I said, of course I would, God. I'll preach to somebody, somewhere. I'll keep preaching. I'm the same dude. So set me free.
Now, God's so cool because the church has actually grown by several thousand people in the last couple of months. Yeah, God's really cool. But I had to come to a point where I said, I'm not counting on this boat to get me to the other side. My hope is not in the boat. I love this church, but my faith is not in this church. My faith is in the God who said, "Upon this rock, I will build my church." I'm not counting on the boat to get me to the other side. I'm counting on the one who made the wind and the waves. I'm counting on the one who made the tree that made the boat. I'm counting on him.
One time they wanted to kill Paul, Don. They wanted to kill him. And so he had this... That's so funny. He said, I'm a little bit torn. I'm a little bit conflicted. He said, Part of me wants to live so I can tell more people about Christ. But there's this other part of me. I wouldn't mind seeing Jesus. Because I know it's going to be great. And so if I stay here, I'll just hang out with y'all and keep preaching. If I die... What are you going to do with a guy like this? This shipwreck don't scare a guy like this. He don't need the boat. Even if I drown, I don't really die. Even if I drown, I don't really die. You catching it? He came that I might have eternal life. Even if this ship goes down, my faith will stand. Fix your focus and keep up your courage.
Point Three: Shake the Snake and Feed the Fire
It says in verse 41, It happened just like Paul predicted. The ship struck a sandbar and ran aground. The bow stuck fast and would not move. And the stern was broken to pieces by the pounding of the surf. And so the pounding keeps coming. But now Paul's not focused on the pounding. He's focused on his purpose. He's not focused on the pounding. He's focused on God's promise. And it says in verse 42, I felt sorry for Paul when I read this. The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners. Paul was one of them. To prevent any of them from swimming away and escaping. "Thanks a lot for saving our lives by being on this ship and praying to God, Paul, now we're going to kill you."
But how many of you know that when the enemy has a plan to take you out, God has a plan to keep you in? Look at verse 42. It says, verse 43, "The centurion wanted to spare Paul's life and kept them." Do you know how many things God has already kept from happening in your life? Do you know how many times he's stepped in and intervened that you don't know about? Do you know how many times you would have been in a car wreck if you didn't have to go back to the house and pick up that one thing that you forgot and you didn't even see what would have happened at the stoplight when the guy who had been drinking... You're telling me you can't trust God now? He kept them. He kept them from carrying out their plan.
And he ordered those who could swim to jump overboard and to get to land and the rest were to get there on planks or on other pieces of the ship. See, you're going to make it. But it just might not be the way you imagined. It says Look at the next line. Don't you love studying the Bible? In this way. "everyone reached land safely." Not the way they wanted to. Not the most comfortable way. Not the most convenient way. My faith isn't in how it will happen. My faith is in the God who said it would. I don't know how. I don't know when. We might have to grab a hold to a board and float in. We are going to make it though. I'm going to make it.
I might lose my job. I'll get another one. It might be inconvenient. I might have to finish my degree later. I might not be able to finish it right now. I'll make it. And so our faith is all wrapped up in the way we want it to happen. And anytime it doesn't happen the way we planned it looks like I'm not going to be able to retire now when I thought I would. Looks like I'm never going to get married now. I'm 17. I still don't have a man. I look like I'm never going to have him. You know, dramatic people. But they got to the shore and you can make it if your faith isn't in the boat. You can make it if your faith is in the right place.
Now I'm concluding. If you want this little chapter 28 thing make some noise real quick. I got one more thing to show you. I got one more thing to show you. You chose wisely because this is good. See, Paul makes it through the shipwreck. Makes it through the storm. Survives the assassination attempt. And then chapter 28, verse 1 you're expecting like a victory party because it's the last book in chapter in the book of Acts. And so the islanders are all going to you know open up some corona party on the beach like you see on the commercials. You know what I'm saying. Like find your beach and they're going to it's prisoners, man. It's not like a Christian meeting. It's not a Christian cruise ship. Okay. So they're going to party a little bit but that's not what happens. Look.
Verse 1 chapter 28 "Once safely on shore we found out that the island was called Malta and the islanders showed us unusual kindness" because when you get to the place where you're going that you didn't expect it that you would ever end up God will often have people there to do things for you that you couldn't have seen before you got there. So don't worry about who leaves you on the way because God will always have somebody waiting in your future to help you accomplish what he's given you to do. "They showed us unusual kindness and they built a fire they built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold" so now we've got a fire going everything's good and so we're roasting marshmallows singing Kumbaya
Look. Verse 3 "Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and as he put it on the fire... a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand." everybody say poor Paul. this guy the hits keep coming. he's already on trial he's already a prisoner he's been through a shipwreck and now here comes the snake. he builds a fire just trying to be helpful. And the heat from the fire drove out the snake. I did want to point out to you, as we round this corner into our final approach, that whenever you light a fire, you can expect some snakes to come out.
So when your passion for God increases, and you start burning bright for the things of God, and you start trying to serve God, and you start trying to commit to God, don't be surprised when it brings out the snakes, because the same fire that warmed them is the same fire that drove out the snake that wanted to kill him. So the fire brings out the snakes. And it says in verse 4, when the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, "man, this man must be a murderer. For though he escaped from the sea, the goddess Justice has not allowed him to live."
I don't notice anybody in the passage trying to help Paul get the snake off his hand. They're having a committee meeting about why the snake… I think he's getting bit by a snake because he did something wrong. They're pontificating about his problem. Worst thing in the world. And remember how I told you Luke was the one writing the book of Acts? You know, Luke was a medical doctor. And so I'm interested to see how he describes the snake bite. Look at verse 5. It's very succinct. It says, "But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects."
If I had time and if I thought you could handle it, I would preach about shake the snake. If I thought you could handle it. Okay, just real quick then. Let's talk before we finish. Let's talk about shake the snake and feed the fire. Shake the snake. You have to learn how to shake the snake and feed the fire. See, Paul doesn't get bit by the snake and scream. He doesn't get bit by the snake and stand there in a state of shock. Paul looks at the snake and he says, Oh, this too? And I'm asking myself, How did he have the presence of mine? Because I'm scared of snakes. How many of y'all are scared of snakes? Okay, turn to the person next to you who doesn't have their hand up and say, How does it feel to be stupid? Snakes are scared. So, if the snake bites me, I don't have the presence.
But Paul knew something. He knew something. He had something. He said, Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. God didn't bring me through that shipwreck to let me die from this snake bite. So, I know what to do. Now, I'm using this as a metaphor. I'm saying that there are snakes that will attack your thinking. There are snakes that will attack your faith. Notice that God didn't let Paul step on the snake's head. That's how we want it. Show me the fear and I'll crush it. God says, No, got to let it bite you. Because I got to prove to everybody around you that I can let the fear bite you and even try to attach itself to you. But you know what to do when the snake starts biting. I want to teach you to shake that snake, shake that word, shake that trouble, shake that bad report, shake that test result. Shake three people around you and say, Shake that snake.
One more thing. I can't leave this alone. It said not only did he shake the snake, but he shook it back in the same fire that made it come out to begin with. Now I'm thinking about 2 Timothy 1, verses 6 and 7. Paul was preaching to Timothy when Timothy was under fire. Timothy was facing some real hardship. He said, "Timothy, I want to remind you now to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you, for God has not given us a spirit of fear," shake it off, "or timidity," shake it off. What are they going to think about me? Shake it off. What if it doesn't work out? "God didn't give you a spirit of fear, but what? Of power and love and self-discipline." There's so much power in you that you can get bit and still not be stopped. That's when the people in your life will know there is a God. Shake it. Back into the same fire.
Man, when they started talking this week on the news about our baptisms, oh, I got hot. Yes, sir. I got hot. They were saying that we manipulate our baptisms, that we have people planted in the audience who pretend to go be baptized. For the record, we have never planted anybody in our church to pretend to be baptized. I am too scared of God to do something like that. Please. Please. Now, hey, hey. It's one thing. It's one thing. Listen. If you want to pick on my house, okay. Okay. But it's different territory when you start picking on people who made a decision to be baptized for Jesus Christ. To take the fact that we have volunteers who get up and lead the way so people know where to go and to act as if they were pretending to be baptized and to negate the sincere faith decision of precious people who had one of the most meaningful experiences of their life, that's just sick. That's sick.
At the same time, I know that this is not the last thing that's going to be said about us unless we put the fire out. Unless we just stop growing. You don't baptize anybody, they won't talk about how you did it. Next time, it won't be baptism. We already know that the local media, some of the people are planning other stories. We already know. So here it goes. My friend called me this week. He's been in ministry longer than I've been alive. He was mad. He said some non-preacher words. He said, what are you going to do? I said, I don't know, because all throughout all of the media attention, I've been saying, I'm not going to go up there and defend myself. I'm not going to go up there and defend myself. I'm not going to turn this pulpit into a press conference. That's not what this pulpit is for. I said, I don't know. I can't be defensive. When I hung up the phone with him, I felt like God said, then don't play defense, play offense. I thought about it for a minute. Holly was waiting on me. We were going out to eat for my birthday. Oh, it was a real happy birthday. I'm glad you think it's funny. And God said, shake it back off into the same fire. Feed the fire.
So tonight we're going to have a special baptism service at Elevation Church. I hope you can come. Absolutely. At Blakeney and Matthews and even at Lake Norman, why only those three campuses? Because that's the only three buildings that we own. We're doing it everywhere we can. We're going to hijack the normal Sunday night, and I'm coming. I'm going to preach on baptism for 30 minutes, maybe 35. A few worship songs, and if you've never been baptized, to publicly confess your faith in Jesus Christ, profess your faith in Jesus Christ, or maybe you were baptized, but it wasn't your decision. It was as a child. Maybe you're a new follower of Christ. If you want to come be baptized tonight, we're going to baptize people in the same fire, the same power. Do you understand what I'm saying? Amen.
I'm preaching to you personally as well. I'm telling you that any time you start pursuing God with a passion, don't be surprised when something slithers up to bite you. Amen. But if the shipwreck didn't kill you, if God brought you this far, the same God who got you to this point, if you'll just shake that thing off and don't let it stop you, it might bite you, but don't let it stop you. It might try to hurt you, but just don't let it stop you. Just shake it off. The hymn writer said, "Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come. 'Twas grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home."