In this sermon, the preacher discusses the different seasons and changes that Christians go through in life. He emphasizes that it is normal to experience both victories and challenges, just like the apostle Paul did. The preacher encourages the audience to not be discouraged when the devil seems to have a victory, as there are lessons to be learned in every season. He also highlights the importance of not making quick judgments about others, as people often either overestimate or underestimate individuals based on their actions.

Let's pray. Lord, give us ears to hear, and anoint my mind and my heart and my mouth to speak only those words you want me to hear, adding nothing, but not afraid to say anything, Lord, that you know would benefit your people. For we pray it in Jesus' name, amen. We're getting near the end of a long journey. We've been going through the book of Acts, someone pointed out to me, since last year. On and on and on and on, but there's so much good food in there. We're getting near the end, chapter 28. In fact, we're in chapter 28, and we learned last week about the Apostle Paul in custody. The former persecutor of Christians is now the persecuted one, and since the religious establishment wanted to kill him in Jerusalem, he appealed to the Roman government, of which he was a citizen, and now he has appealed to go to Rome to be tried by Caesar in the high tribunal there. So he's on his way, and we learned last week that he went on a cruise like you don't wanna know about. He was in a ship that ended up being shipwrecked on an island. He knew somehow, didn't we learn that last week? He knew by the spirit that the ship he was on was in for deep trouble, got hit by a nor'easter, but they wouldn't listen to him because what would a preacher know? Sure enough, it turns out that he became the one calm and in control on the ship while everybody else was panicking, fearing for their lives. So the Bible tells us that they ended up on an island. They actually got stuck in a sandbar, it seems, on an island. Now he's heading to Rome. He was told by the Lord he should end up in Rome. Even when he was in prison, an angel of the Lord came to him and said, just like you've witnessed from me here, you're gonna have to go to Rome. You witnessed in Jerusalem the seed of the Jewish religion, and now you're gonna also end up at the headquarters of the Roman Empire, the city of Rome. But my goodness, what a circuitous route he's taking. Who would ever think he'd go there as a prisoner? See, when God tells you he's gonna do something, he doesn't always show you how he's gonna do that thing. And sometimes our mind goes to thoughts which God has to remind us. Your thoughts are not my thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways. He will be faithful, but you better get ready to go God's way because he has a different itinerary in mind than most of us have. Let's remember this. When a minister usually gets a sermon, he gets a message, he's reading, he's studying, and then he comes to some passage, he feels some burden or burning in his heart, the way it happens with me, and then I get an indication that is not just for me, but that's to preach to the church or the pastors or wherever I might be. But we're going through the book, so I have no choice. I'm reading the book, I'm reading the chapters, and now we have to stop when you read through a book, and that's a good way to study the Bible. Read through a book of the Bible. Don't just read here, there, and everywhere. You can't read that way. I try to always be reading through a book of the Old Testament and a book of the New Testament. And that way you get sequence and you get context and you learn better. So as I go through this, I'm in chapter 28, so I have to read it and step back and say, now what are the lessons for us 2,000 years later? Why would God inspire Luke to talk about Paul's trip? It's not Paul's sermon. It's not some answer to prayers. It's a trip. It's a shipwreck. It's an island. So let's find out what happens here in the last chapter of the book of Acts. We won't get to the very last verses. God willing, we'll do that next week, but let's look at what we have. When we were safely ashore, that's where they got shipwrecked now, we learned that the island was called Malta. Malta is in the western part of the Mediterranean, south basically of Italy. So he's getting closer to Rome. The natives there were very friendly to us. Some translations have the barbarians, which is really misleading because to the Greek mind, the Roman Empire, anyone who didn't speak Greek or Latin was considered a barbarian. So this doesn't mean they were like cavemen running around there. It just means they didn't speak Greek or Latin. The natives of Malta, the Maltese, were very friendly to us. It had started to rain and was cold, so they built a fire and made us all welcome. Paul gathered up a bundle of sticks and was putting them on the fire when a snake came out on account of the heat. Snake was hidden in the sticks and fastened itself to his hand. The natives saw the snake hanging on Paul's hand and said to one another, this man must be a murderer, but fate will not let him live even though he escaped from the sea. But Paul shook the snake off into the fire without being harmed at all. They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after waiting for a long time and not seeing anything unusual happening to him, they changed their minds and said, he is a god. After three months, we sailed away on a ship from Alexandria called the Twin Gods, which had spent the winter in the island. And we arrived in the city of Syracuse. That's not upstate, that's in Sicily. So now he's getting really close to the main body of Italy, in Syracuse, and we stayed there for three days. From there, we sailed on and arrived in the city of Regium. The next day, a wind began to blow from the south, and in two days, we came to the town of Puteoli. We found some believers there who asked us to stay with them a week, and so we came to Rome. The believers in Rome heard about us and came as far as the towns of, market of Appius and three inns to meet us. And when Paul saw them, he thanked God and was greatly encouraged. And when we arrived in Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself with a soldier guarding him. And what's interesting, we'll go further next week, God willing, but it's in that house where Paul is, and it's in Rome, seemingly, now he's not in a dungeon, he's not in a prison prison. He's in a house under guard, and he's chained to a soldier. This is the way they watched over these prisoners. So he's hooked up to a Roman guard, a Roman soldier, and he spends now a long time there, a couple of years, we're gonna learn. While he's there, he writes Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. Those are called the prison epistles. Now later on, he's at the end of his life when he writes 2 Timothy, he's in a prison prison. He's not now hooked up to some guard. And what's interesting here, as Acts ends, as we'll see next week, it ends abruptly. It's like, what's the conclusion? There is no conclusion. It's just Paul's there, and it seems from his other letters that he got out of that and made another trip and ministered and ended up back in a prison prison, or whatever happened to him when he writes 2 Timothy, and he already knows that his end is near. But now he's under guard in Rome in a very unusual situation where he has some freedom. He can receive visitors, as we'll find out next week. A whole bunch of people will come. They can minister, they can feed them, they can bring them clothes. It's funny how life is, right? There's seasons to life. Sometimes you get a beat down when you're a Christian like Paul did, and other times you spend three years in Ephesus and everything is looking good. Life has seasons and changes, and the way we're made, we like everything to stay the way it is, but that's not the way God has our lives. How many have gone through some seasons in your own life? Lift your hand up high if you've gone through some seasons. Well, that's the way life is. Don't think there's something wrong with the devils getting a victory. No, there's seasons in life. What can we learn from this now? Why would God inspire Luke to tell us these stories or the account of Paul's trip? I want you to make notice we're gonna just learn three things. The first thing I want you to notice here is the fickleness of people. The name of this message is people because what I wanna cover is Paul encountering two groups of people here, and next week we'll do another group of people. Paul encounters people on the island of Malta, and then some Christians just outside of Rome, and then he comes to Rome. When he gets to the island of Malta, he's a prisoner. He's under guard, but because of the shipwreck, they either swam to shore or they held onto pieces of wood and they got to shore. And now they find themselves on the island of Malta. Everyone else is part of the ship's crew or soldiers. He's a prisoner. Luke is with him. The people from the island show him considerable kindness and friendliness. And it's cold and it's raining and they start a fire and they wanna get some chow served. So Paul, showing himself helpful, showing himself kind. You know, a Christian should be helpful and industrious and not be a taker but be a giver. He goes and says, let me help you with the fire. So he gathers a bunch of brushwood and twigs and whatnot and he carries it toward the fire. But what he doesn't know is that in those branches and in that is a snake. And when he gets near the fire to put it in the fire, the snake jumps out and catches him and hooks into his hand, his arm. And it seems like people from Malta know that is a poisonous thing. They say and start yelling, the whole bunch of them, aha, he's a prisoner and even though he escaped the shipwreck, fate, justice, the gods have paid him his due. He's a murderer and now he's gonna die from the snake bite. See, you might escape from a shipwreck but then a snake will get you in the end. The dude is a murderer. He keeps on feeding the fire, shakes off the snake, it goes in the fire and now they're waiting for him to swell up, for him to drop dead. But he doesn't, he just keeps rolling. And now when they see him not die and they don't see him swell up, now they turn around and say, he's not a murderer, he's a god, he's a god. And that's strange, they knew he was a murderer and now they know he was a god or he is a god and he's neither. He's not a murderer and he's not a god, he's just a Christian, just a man of God. So what's that tell us? We see it over and over again in the New Testament that you can never go by what people say. And there's something interesting here because people are usually of extremes. He's a murderer? No, he's a god. Wow, there's a lot of territory between those. Notice how quick they made the jump. And that's how people are with us many times. They either think you're the greatest person in the world, which you're not, or you're a demon, which you're not. I notice over the years, traveling, getting emails, either people appreciate something that God has blessed me to say or do and they think I'm Superman or they're offended by something I say and do and I'm a demon. Very few know the truth, which is I'm just an ordinary person, just an ordinary man. Nothing extraordinary at all. Now, this is what happens usually in life, though. People make judgments and we're the same way. We either get over-impressed or we reject people and see bad things in them. And brothers and sisters, I don't think we're wise when we do that. You know, in another place, we learned that Paul and Barnabas, God used them and they thought they were gods and started to sacrifice animals to them and they had to stop them and say, stop it, stop it, don't worship us, we're just regular people. Now, imagine if your happiness and your contentment is based on the fluctuations of how people look at you and what they think of you. He's a murderer, he's a god. A lot of us live with the anxiety and the up and down-ness of hanging on to people's opinion. What do peers think of us? What do folks think of us? What do folks on the job think of us? And we're always living and acting and thinking through everything we say and all of that. Will this be approved? Will they be impressed? I got to dress in a way that will impress them. I got to look like I'm together and all of that. And in the end, people are just so fickle. How many have had someone turn on you in a New York minute? Anybody ever have that happen? They can turn for nothing, for nothing. So this lesson to us is a very interesting lesson. If Paul never believed them when he said they were a murderer, he was a murderer and he never believed them when they said he was a god. Because as I said recently to you, one of the greatest lessons in life is nothing is as it seems. Whatever you think of me, it's not what it seems. No matter how high opinion of me, it's not what you think. No matter how low you have an opinion of me, it's not what you think. I'm somewhere in the middle needing Jesus every single day of my life. How about you? Can we all say amen to that? That's why preachers, pastors who play to the crowd to create an image of invincibility or something very dangerous and they're deceived, they're totally deceived. We're all just regular folks. Number one, making those distinctions with people and getting overexcited with someone and avoid casting someone away and saying there's no hope for them, they're no good. That's not a good thing to do. And never make people's opinion of you the cause of your happiness because now you will be a yo-yo for the rest of your life. You will be going up and down. Some days you'll be so good because someone will say something good about you and you'll impress someone and you'll be so high and then you'll meet someone who thinks you're good for nothing and then you'll be low. What kind of life is that? I'll tell you what we should do. It's let's live every day to make Jesus happy because if you go to bed at night, listen, if you go to bed at night and there's peace and a good relationship with the Lord and your fellowship is sweet with Christ, then it doesn't matter what people think. That's such a sad thing about life. Wait, such a sad thing about life. You see people living for the approval of other human beings. When there will always be people who don't like you. Right now today there are people right now breathing who can't stand you. What a sobering thought. Am I right or wrong? Come on, do I get an amen? They do not like you. You haven't done anything against them. You've never hurt them. They do not like you and guess what? Tomorrow they'll dislike you even more no matter what you do. So let it go. Let it go. Oh, to walk with Jesus. To have friendship with Jesus. Paul is totally above it. I'm not a murderer, I'm not a God, forget about it. I'm not going by what you say. I just know he loves me. He loves me. I am a friend of God. He loves me. I belong to Jesus. Come on, let's say amen to that. That's where we find our security. In sociology you learn some concepts like the concept of the image that you think people have of you and you're always trying to improve that image. It's not just your self image. It's the image that you think others have of you and now you have to reinforce and improve that image. What a lot of energy that takes. And for what? For what? When you die, when you and I die, do you think it'll matter what anyone thinks of us? It won't matter one bit, but it'll matter what God thinks of us. So let's do vertical first and let God take care of the horizontal relationships. Can we give a final amen to that point? Let's live vertical and let God take care of the horizontal. Number two, again, not to read, not to overemphasize this point, but it is noteworthy. How many times have we run into this in the book of Acts, especially in the life of Paul? As he's approaching, gets on a different ship because the first ship is all discombobulated. So he gets on a different ship and now he's sailing from Malta and he hits into Syracuse and now he's heading up into Rome, into Italy. And as he gets near Rome, somehow the Christians hear that Paul is coming and before he can even get there, they go to two towns that are near Rome and they meet like a welcome committee. And the Bible says, when he saw them, he thanked God and was deeply encouraged. He was comforted. So let's think about that. When you've had a life like the apostle Paul and you've been in prison, you've been beat. Already in his life, he has spent a bunch of nights in the open deep, in the water. He's been beat, he's been in prison, he's been in trouble in the country, in the cities. He's been persecuted. He's been hated. He's been rejected. It takes a toll on your nervous system because as I said last week, even Christian rubber bands can break if they're stretched too far. So one of the ways that God has given us and we have denied ourself this blessing, we've denied ourselves this benefit, one of the ways that God encourages us and strengthens us through fellowship with other Christians, talking to other Christians, loving other Christians, when he saw them, he thanked God. Now you've never met these people. He thanked God and he was greatly encouraged. We find this again and again in his letters. He's in prison somewhere and he says about a certain man, he looked for me and he found me. I think it's Epaphras. He found me and he greatly refreshed my spirit. I have found that one of the ways the devil wants to destroy us and work against us is to isolate us from other Christians. Most people think as long as I read my Bible, as long as I come to church and I pray at home, then I'll be strong. Listen, those are vital elements in spiritual growth, the word and prayer. But one of the things God has given us to strengthen us and encourage us is the mingling together and fellowship with other believers. And when Satan wants to do you and I harm, he tries to isolate us. Oh, I know this like the back of my hand, not just from my own life, but from counseling a lot of people. He isolates you from other brothers and sisters because he knows the encouragement and inspiration and blessing that there'll be in your life. So he has to cut you off from them. Now he does it many ways. He doesn't say to your mind, I'm gonna cut you off from being with Christians. This is why the Bible says, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves. And more than that, they continued in fellowship, breaking bread, eating meals together, talking, laughing, praying, crying. One of the ways Satan does that is not by telling you I'm gonna do it, but by showing you the faults of other people or planting in your mind that they don't like you. Right now while I'm speaking, right now in some people's minds here, the enemy has told you this lie that those people don't like you. You're not accepted by them. I say not by the Holy Spirit. I say that because in a crowd this large, of course there's people who have this rejection complex. No one cares about me. No, that person of another race, I don't trust them. Oh, he uses any kind of guise. Just cut you off from fellowship. Now, he doesn't like that you come to church, but if you're gonna come to church, all right, you're going to church, but he'll cut you off from fellowship because this is not real fellowship yet. We're worshiping, we're hearing the word of God, we're praying, but it's not one-on-one. It's not loving, talking, laughing, encouraging, sharing, crying. Karen, would you pray for me? Tyron, would you pray for me? I'm going through something, Tyron. Would you please pray with me personally? That's what he doesn't want you to get near, so he's gonna isolate you by you're too busy, no one likes you, those are a bunch of hypocrites. There's just a whole bunch of stuff. I know it like the back of my hand. I've heard it from hundreds and hundreds of people over the years. I ask them, who's your best friend in the church? No one, but I'll tell you what, if they cut you off from God's best friends, they'll try to get you some other best friends who will do nothing but bad in your life. He who walks with the wise is wise. Bad company corrupts morals. Who you run with, who you talk to on the phone, who you hang out with, don't tell me it doesn't have an influence on your life. It has an influence on your life. It can be for good or for bad. Now, we're not to cut ourselves off from people who are not Christians. Obviously, how would we love them and minister, show Christ to them like the BT Kids at the university? Of course, we have to be with everyone, but Christians, when he saw them, oh, thank God. I can see them, oh, this is Paul. This is the one who used to persecute the church and now he's such a strong leader and such a great man of God, and they're hugging him, and they're kissing his neck, and they're loving him, and he can just fall in their arms. Haven't you ever needed anybody to just love you and encourage you? As I said last week, but it bears repeating, you don't know what anyone's going through. I just heard this amazing thing yesterday through talking with a great, great man of God, great Christian author. We were talking about a very, very famous preacher from 70, 80 years ago whose writings had blessed both me and him. This man was considered, in his day, maybe the best Bible teacher in America. His books are still read by pastors everywhere, and he pastored 18 years in a certain large city in the Middle West. So while we were talking, this man was a scholar. He said, you know, Brother Jim, I have enjoyed him too. You know, he didn't have a very happy marriage. I said, I didn't know that. He said, yeah, while he was ministering in Chicago for 17 years, his wife never left Texas. This was in the 30s and 40s. He didn't just jump on a plane, but if the woman says she's not gonna go, what are you gonna do? No, let's talk real talk. What are you gonna do? Not gonna divorce her. There's no biblical grounds in a way, certainly if you're not a minister. So he'd go down there and take a train, long train ride, see his wife. Maybe she just said, I don't want Chicago. I don't like the winter. But I feel, honey, that God called me there. Well, I'm not going. What are you gonna do? Disobey God, embarrass your wife, shame her, or make a scene? So this man whose writings I've appreciated lived 17 years under that strain. How'd he do that? I know one thing, he not only met God in the word and prayer, but can you imagine what Christian fellowship must have meant for him? Can you imagine what brothers and sisters encouraging him must have meant for him? Haven't you ever needed desperately encouragement and you can't even tell people why you need the encouragement? Is there no one here who understands that? Lift your hand if you can empathize with that. Because we go through stuff in life that God uses brothers and sisters in Christ to help us get through. And I plead with you, I plead with you today, if you are hurting, if you have no one to encourage you, you can't live that way. The apostles needed people to encourage them. How would you live like an island? How could you live separate? How could you live isolated? And I'm telling you, it's Satan that's isolating you. Just like those predators, especially female lions, they try to run and get one of the animals, one of those elk or one of those things out, one of those large deer-like animals out in Africa, they'll try to get them discombobulated and the next thing you know, the animal's running here, everywhere it sees a lion and the next thing you know, it gets separated from the herd and it is doomed. You're dead, that animal is dead. The only safety was in the herd. So if you're here today, you're listening, watching on the webcast, if you're isolated, don't give the excuses, Pastor Jim, you don't know what happened to me in my previous church. I know all the war stories, we've all been hurt by people, but don't you get it? If you get separated from brothers and sisters, if you have no one you talk, I'm not putting my game out in the street, I'm not putting my business out in the street, that's not the point, that's another device of the devil. He wants you to be still and not tell anybody anything. Tell God everything and then find someone you can trust and share and pray and Paul thanks God for them. I think that's a rare thing for most of us, we don't thank God for other Christians. We thank God for a raise, we thank God for a healing, but I'll tell you what, the longer you walk with the Lord and the more that you analyze your own weakness, the more you start thanking God for brothers and sisters. Can we just put our hands together for the body of Christ? Oh, I'm shy, listen, I could go on now for an hour. Oh, I'm shy, I'm not made that way, I don't have that kind of personality. It's all just nonsense, it's all just excuses the enemies put in your mind. We are the body of Christ and we need each other. Everyone say amen to that. Amen. And lastly, and finally we came to Rome. I wanna close with this. The Lord had laid on Paul's heart, you're gonna have to go to Rome, you're gonna go to Rome and witness for me. And then when he was in prison in Jerusalem, the Lord came to him and said, just like you've witnessed to me here in Jerusalem, you're gonna go to Rome too. And now the Roman leaders, authorities have said, to Rome you have appealed and now to Rome you will go. To Caesar you have appealed, to Caesar you will go. Caesar being the emperor. But if you read this story with a natural mind, you would say there's no way he's gonna get to Rome. He's gonna get killed before he gets them. Those religious, Jewish religious leaders are gonna assassinate this guy. He'll never get out of their clutches, they have him. He gets out of their clutches. And now he's on a boat, that boat's going down. No, the boat's not going down. Because God said he's gonna go to Rome. How can a boat go down if you're gonna be in Rome? And now the snake bites him and he's gonna die. He can't die, don't you get it? He can't die because God told him you're gonna go to Rome. How can a snake kill you in Malta if God said you're gonna be in Rome? Don't you get it? When God tells you something, he's gonna do it. The timing might be not your timing. The way you get there is not gonna be the way that you think you're gonna get there. And you will go through trials and tribulations, but you gotta hold on to the thing. What God showed me he's gonna do in my life and in my family, he's gonna do in my wife and in my family. My life is gonna be blessed by God because God showed that. That burden I have to do, that's something for God that he made real to me, it's gonna happen. When I don't know, and I don't care how negative it looks, what God has spoken, he will perform. So now what's your Rome? God told Paul, no, Rome's the destination. You're gonna get there. Doesn't look like he's gonna get there. To the natural mind, there's no way he's gonna get there. I remember your word to your servant, Lord, for you have given me hope. Maybe it's a call to a ministry, maybe it's the solution to a problem, maybe it's the job that you've been out without one for 14 or 15 months now, but God has said, I will provide, and you're wondering, how in the world is this gonna come to pass? But that's the way God does sometimes, so that he'll get even more glory. He showed Joseph that one day he would be in a position of authority, and then his brothers in the Old Testament reject him and sell him down the river, and he's a slave, and then he's working for Potiphar, then the wife lies about him, he ends up in prison, and the Bible says, and the word of the Lord tried him. When you're pacing a cell for a couple years, and all these dreams you had, they seem like a billion miles away, but what God has shown us, he will do it. He's gonna take us home to heaven one day. I don't care how many fights or battles you have. He's taking us home. How many are with me on that? How many are heading to heaven, no matter how the route is? We're heading there. But there's other things in our life, dreams, things we've aspired to that God has put in our heart, not pipe dreams, not fantasy. God said, no, you're gonna do that one day. You're gonna get there one day. Everybody close your eyes. If you're here and you're on the way somewhere, a Rome that you know what that Rome means to you, that word that God spoke to Paul has a counterpart in your life, a calling, a ministry, something you know God put in your heart, an answer, a deliverance you know. God, pastor, God showed me that, but man, it's hard to believe that sometimes. It's hard to hold onto that sometimes because everything looks like just the opposite. God wants me to tell you today, I believe, you're gonna make it. You're gonna get to where he told you you're gonna get to. You will see the answer of God in the land of the living. You're not gonna die, you're gonna live, and you're gonna see the blessing of God. If you wanna reinforce that, just get up out of your seat now. Then say, pastor, that last part was for me. I absolutely am gonna trust God that he's gonna take me where he said he's gonna take me. Just get out of your seat and stand right here. Just for someone here, don't think about next week or next month. The Lord wants you to know, just concentrate. He's gonna keep you today. You're gonna get through today. Don't worry about next week, next month. Just live a day at a time. Tomorrow's not promised to any of us. He will keep you today. He will hold you today. He's working out his plan today. You're gonna make it to Rome. You're gonna get there. Lord, we put ourselves in your hands today, and we're thankful that that which you have spoken, you will also perform. The promises of God are yay and amen in Christ Jesus. We ask you to save us from worry, anxiety, unbelief, so that we can just rest in you. The timing is yours. How you're gonna do it is yours. My thoughts are not your thoughts, but one thing we know, you will get us to the place that we need to be. That you will do. You've shown yourself faithful in the past, and you will do it again. We pray that you will help us not to live for the opinions and approval of others, because they go up and down and change like the weather, but help us to live with our eyes on you, loving you, trusting you, confident that you love us. And then, God, take care of what other people think or say. That doesn't matter to us now. We just want your arms around us. Help us to love each other more. Help us to be more vulnerable to those that you've sent in our life to be a blessing. Help us not to be isolated, lone rangers. And we say, the blood of Jesus is against you, against all of Satan's lies. You love us, and the people of God love us. Help us to be open to their love and concern and help. And help us to help one another, Lord, and encourage, be an encourager. Don't let any of us discourage anyone today. Don't let one discouraging sentence come out of our mouths or thought, but help us to just say things that are edifying and kind, and gestures that are good. We pray all of this in Jesus' name. And everyone said. Amen. Okay, now you have a minute to just hug each other and love each other and bless each other. Shake hands with each other. Come on, say something good.