In this sermon, the speaker focuses on the story of Paul's journey to Rome as described in Acts 27. He highlights Paul's unwavering faith and fellowship with God, despite facing numerous challenges and hardships. The speaker emphasizes the importance of having a personal relationship with God and being open to His guidance and messages. He also points out that even in the midst of chaos and fear, Paul remained calm and at peace, trusting in God's promises.

We're getting near the end of our study in the book of Acts. And as I mentioned last week, the difficulty in doing expository preaching, or the challenge of it, is that as you go through the book, you have to look at the chapter whether you like it or not, or whether it hits you at first glance, and you have to say, why did God put that in the book of Acts? Why did Luke write it? And what's the lesson for us? Sometimes it's obvious, it's easy. You just see this thing, they pray, God answers this, that, and you go, oh, that's a lesson for us. This chapter is maybe the hardest. Yeah, it is the hardest in the whole book of Acts. Because chapter 27 of the book of Acts is about Paul's sailing on a ship, really two ships, on his way to Rome. Paul was once persecuting the Christians. He hated the name of Christ. He went from persecutor to apostle, to leader, to spiritual giant, because of his powerful conversion experience when he saw Christ on the road to Damascus in Syria. The book of Acts follows Paul and his missionary journeys. What are missionary journeys? Paul goes out and he preaches the good news of Jesus that he learned from Jesus himself. And he shares it, and churches are started. And in some places, he stays three years. Other places, 18 months. Some places, he ends up in jail. Other places, he's kicked out and just escapes with his life, barely. Now, he has been arrested. And it actually worked out for his good, because the crowd was going to kill him in Jerusalem. And now, he has appealed as a citizen of the Roman Empire. He has appealed to Rome and said, don't bring me to Jerusalem where he fears they'll kill him. I appeal to Rome, and according to the Roman law, which was strict and adhered to with great scruples, they are now going to move him to Rome. He's already had this thing in his heart. I must go to Rome and preach the gospel. Why was Rome so important? Because Rome was the capital of the Roman Empire. The same Rome that's in Italy now. In fact, you can still see some of the buildings and some of the stones and the Colosseum and the things that existed when Paul ended up in Rome. So, Paul is on the west coast of Israel, and now he is going on a ship. But this is not the love boat. This is not a cruise on the canard lines. This is going to be lots of trouble. And the whole chapter, basically, is about what happens to him on these ships. One ship he transfers to another, and a horrific storm that hits them. The ship is almost shipwrecked. He almost dies, along with probably more than 200 people that are on the boat. And at the end of the chapter, he gets unloaded because they hit a sand reef. They get unloaded on the island of Malta. Malta is below Italy, and he starts in Israel. So, this ship is going to be thrown about all across the Mediterranean Sea. And this chapter is there for us. I don't want to read the whole chapter because it has a lot of, Luke uses a lot of technical terms about sailing and what they did with the sails and the winds and all of that. So, I've picked out, by the grace of God here, hopefully, something that will describe the story. When it was decided that we would sail for Italy, Paul and some other prisoners were handed over to a centurion named Julius, who belonged to the Imperial Regiment. We boarded a ship. Notice we, so Luke is with him. We boarded a ship from Adramithium, about to sail for ports along the coast of the province of Asia. That's Turkey to us. And we put out to sea. Aristarchus, or Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica was with us, probably a convert of some of Paul's ministry. The next day, we landed at Sidon. And Julius, in kindness to Paul, allowed him to go to his friends, Christians, so that they might provide for his needs. Jumping ahead, we moved along the coast with difficulty and came to a place called Fairhavens. Near the town of Licia. Much time had been lost, and sailing had already become dangerous. Why? Because by now, it was after the Day of Atonement, which was late September, early October. So Paul warned them, men, he's the prisoner on the ship, heading to Rome. 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, that's a guy over a hundred soldiers who was in charge of Paul, instead of listening to what Paul said, he followed the advice of the pilot and of the owner of the ship. Later on now, when a gentle south wind began to blow, they saw their opportunity. So they weighed anchor and sailed along the shore of Crete, another island in the Mediterranean. Before very long, a wind of hurricane force called the Northeaster swept down from the island. Now they're in trouble. The ship was caught by the storm and could not head into the wind. So we gave way to it and we're driven along. In other words, out of control now, just giving the wind is going to blow it wherever it's going to be blown. We took such a violent battering from the storm that the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard. On the third day, they threw the ship's tackle overboard with their own hands. When the neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved. After they had gone a long time without food, Paul stood up before them and said, men, you should have taken my advice not to sail from Crete. Then you would have spared yourselves this damage and loss. But now I urge you to keep up your courage because not one of you will be lost. Only the ship will be destroyed. Last night, an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve, he stood beside me and said, do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you. So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island. It's as if he saw it rather than heard it. It's as if he saw something and saw the ship run aground on an island. And now he's repeating what he saw because the word of the Lord in the Bible, when it comes to believers, both Old and New Testament, often comes in a vision form. It's an image, it's a picture, but it's not of your own conjuring, not of your own mind or emotions. It's something that God puts in. So what can we learn from this? And the end of the chapter is boom. They get grounded and they're stuck on the island of Malta. And the last chapter, which God willing we'll do next week, is what happens on the island and how he finally goes to Sicily and then goes up and ends up in Rome. And what happens to him in Rome, the book ends. I want you to notice one thing before we focus on Paul who says, listen men, I want to identify myself to you. I belong to God and I serve and worship that God. I not only have a relationship with him, I have fellowship with that God. That God who sent Jesus Christ, his son into the world. That Jesus who changed my life because I hated him. I hated the thought of him. I persecuted the church. I made sure people died who confessed Christ. I tried to get them to blaspheme. This was part of his story everywhere he went and most assuredly on the boat too, on the ship. But notice how he identifies him. I belong to Jesus and I serve Jesus. I'm not some wind being blown around in the wind. I'm not some guy just on the ship. I belong to Christ and I fellowship with Christ and I serve Christ and I worship Christ. But before we focus on that and what it meant and the results of it, I want you to notice this little picture. They're sailing away from Caesarea and they stop at a place called Sidon and there Julius, the commander, has compassion on Paul and says, okay, go and see your fellow Christians. And they minister to him and they talk to him and they supply some needs. Because remember, when you were in prison back then, there were no three squares a day and there were no prison uniforms. You had to get your own food and if you didn't get your food by somebody bringing it to you, then guess what? You starve to death and you die. That's your problem. You shouldn't have got arrested. And there were no clothes, so you're just in tatters. As I was reading that, I pictured that because when you read the Bible, you should try to image it and see as you, the words become a picture in your mind and see what God might point out to you. So here he is and he gets off the ship. He's been in the slammer for more than two years. He's already been, we know from another letter that he wrote, been shipwrecked three times, not even counting what's gonna happen to him now. He spent a day and a night in the open sea. Not an easy life. He's been in trouble in the city, trouble in the countries. He'd been beat half to death. He's been stoned a few times. He's been left for dead. They scourged him with the 40 lashes minus one a couple times, which killed a lot of people. But this indomitable, strong in his faith, guy named Paul is still going on for Jesus. And as he gets off this boat, they don't know all he's been through, but they're able to talk to him. And love him. He's been all alone in a cell. He hasn't had any Christian fellowship. And now these can minister to him, give him some food. He probably got his ribs sticking out of his chest. And they can love on him and they can talk to him. Because everything that he went through left a mark on him. He says in another letter that he writes, don't anybody challenge me because I still bear on me the marks of Jesus Christ. And he didn't mean anything like stigmata and these things about people who claim they have the nail prints in their hand and all of that. What he was saying was, I bear in my body the marks of my devotion to Jesus Christ because I got half killed for him. This of course is strange language to us because we live in America and America has developed its own gospel that if you serve Jesus, everything goes smooth and you drive a bigger car and you have a bigger house. But that's not true at all to the Bible. How many know that say amen? All of the stuff he went through has left scars on him. You see, all of us have a nervous system. All of us have a memory bank. All of us have a body that you can get scarred up. Some injuries, they linger with you and they still bother you, right? They still hurt even after it. And then you can be lonely. And then you can be attacked by the devil in your mind. Then you can be discouraged. Have you ever been battling with discouragement in your life? Do you know how strong that can be? Where you feel your life is useless or that you won't achieve what God wants you to achieve. These are all real emotions and just because Paul is an apostle, he's not Superman. No, no, no, he's not Superman. You read his letters, he shows you how human he is. In one letter he says, troubles without, fears within. I got troubles all around me, wherever I go, plus I have fear that I have to battle with. No matter how strong you are in the Lord, you have to deal with fear sometimes. Am I right or wrong? You have to deal with anxiety sometimes. What, your child starts going off into left field, you don't feel that? No, but you're a believer, you still feel it. And what I want to say about that is this, it struck me, I wish I was there, a fly on the wall that could have seen that. Because they had a chance to minister to him. They couldn't know everything he's been through, but I bet God put it in their heart to just love on him and feed him and give him some clothes and speak words of encouragement to him. Which reminds me that it's so sad that so many Christians have so few brothers and sisters who really encourage them and minister to them in everyday life. This was no meeting, this was not a crusade. He didn't go on a line to get prayed for. This was just believers showing concern and love and giving encouragement, trying to strengthen him both physically and spiritually. And don't we all need that? Because this is something I learned a long time ago. Nothing is as it seems. A great man of God told me that years ago. I remember him saying it and I've been pondering it ever since. Nothing is as it seems. You know when we had the two minutes and we greeted each other? And you saw those people shaking your hands and hugging you? You have no idea what they're going through. No, no, they're happy. They were smiling. That's not always the case, is it? Nobody knows what these choir members are going through. You think you know me? You see me in a suit. You have no idea what I go through. You think you do. You think you know me. You don't know me. And I don't know you. God knows you. You come here, some of you, hoping me or someone else will encourage you. But I'm gonna ask you, who encourages me? So every contact we have, every conversation we have with another believer, we gotta ask God for insight. Can we say something good? Can we encourage them? Because you don't know what they're going through. Some are half a step from just being totally crushed. You never know when my heart has been broken. You don't know that. You can't know that. You don't know the pressure that I sometimes have upon me, trying to lead the church and face certain challenges over the years. You have no concept. And I admit that I don't know about you. But would to God we would be more sensitive to each other. Do I get a witness here? And that we would love each other more and never talk negative and hurt each other and be more sensitive to what we can say. Because if Paul needed encouragement, he speaks about someone in another epistle that when he was in prison, this person came and it says in the Greek, he refreshed my spirit. You ever have somebody just refresh your spirit? They're just so kind and loving and full of faith that they just refresh you. You just wanna get up and keep serving God. And then have you not been with people who drain you? Have you not been around people who you wanna take your life after you have a conversation with them? You wanna just, Harry Carrey, just, ah, just end it all. So negative, so down, so into their life. They'll talk for 20 minutes. They don't give a care about what you're going through. It's all about them and what they're going through. Don't you want God to change us so that we could be sons of encouragement, daughters of encouragement like Barnabas was? How many want God to do that? Wave at me, because you know what? Nothing is as it seems. No church that you visit, no matter how good it seems, it's not that good. There's problems in it. No situation is as bad as it seems. God's doing something in it. I learned that now. I've always kept that in my mind. No, you hear some preacher, you go, that guy is the great, he's not. Trust me, he's not. Jesus is the greatest. Can we say amen? Jesus is the greatest. Nothing is as it seems. Jim Simbala is not as he seems because there's battles and things going on. None of us knows the other person. And a lot of times in life, are we not too ashamed or too shy to say to someone, man, I'm just struggling today, you know? Now, thank God we have Jesus. But many times Jesus wants to use us people to encourage like they minister to the apostle. So let's sum this up here. He gets ministered to and then he gets on the ship. And now this man who belongs to God, who's in fellowship with God, who serves God, who worships God, who talks to God. I'm talking about all day long. He got a thing going with Jesus. He talks to Jesus, listens for Jesus, wants to please Jesus. Not just a relationship now, fellowship. You can have a mother or a father or a sister or brother, have a cousin and prove it by a birth certificate, but you can have no fellowship with them. This is more than relationship, being born again. That's all important. I'm talking about fellowship now, fellowship. I know someone here in the church who has a sister. And for a while, she and her husband were cut off from that sister. Just cut off because of misunderstanding and bad feelings and all of that. Was that her sister still? Yeah. Did she have fellowship with her? No, didn't talk to her. This man belongs to Jesus and he has fellowship with Jesus. He's best friends with Jesus. Now notice what happens when you have that life of friendship with Jesus, fellowship with Jesus. Not just going to church on Sunday. God's calling us to something more than that in this chapter. Notice what happens. Paul knows things that can't be known unless God told him. He's no expert on ships. He's not a sailor. He's not a captain. He doesn't own a shipping line, but he says to them all, look, I can see we're in for trouble on this sea. How do you know? What are you, a meteorologist? How do you know? What do you got, radar and you figured out? No, none of that existed. In fact, what made it so fearful when it says we could see neither the sun nor the moon for three days, that's the only way back then they could know where they are. They read the sky and it got so dark and stormy that for 72 hours, nobody saw anything. Now you don't know where you are and the wind is just blowing you. But before it ever happened, Paul said, I can see we're in for trouble. You shouldn't sail from here. But you know what? They didn't listen to him. What does he know? He's a preacher. He's a preacher and a tent maker as his trade. He doesn't know about sailing. He doesn't know about being a naval officer here. So what was happening there? How did he know that was going to happen? Did you know that the Bible tells us that those who walk in fellowship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit, they can receive through the gifts of the Spirit, knowledge and understanding and insight and wisdom that doesn't come through the brains or the senses. You don't think it out. You don't figure it out. You don't see it with your eyes. None of the five senses are involved. And yet, you know, God shows you. God shows you. It's called a word of knowledge. First Corinthians 12th chapter. In this sense, it has a prophetic element to it because it's about the future. How would he know a storm is going to hit? But he knew. Did you know that if we would walk closer to Jesus, he would show us all kinds of things probably that we would need to know about our future or about what's happening around us? You would have insight to what the devil's trying to do in your family. Not by your brain cells. You could be a high school dropout and know more than a PhD because God can show it to you. How many are fanatical enough to believe that God still does those kinds of things? Well, of course, if he hasn't changed, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We know now from the Bible that Paul says, we're in for trouble. How do you know? I'm not listening to you, preacher. God's calling us all to a receptivity and an openness and a communion with the Lord so that the Holy Spirit could drop things into our lives about our children, about this or about that. Yes, God can do that. Yes, he can. It's so interesting when that happens. I remember one day my daughter, this is the truth, my daughter was going to school at Regent and three of her male friends came and one of them really liked her and I think she might have been dating him and they all came, the three of them, to visit my house in Queens and meet my wife and I. I opened the door and the three of them were there and Sue came and said hi to all three of them and I was introduced to them, whatever their names was and this one of these guys was named Brian but he wasn't the one who liked her and that she was seeing and I walked up the stairs and I walked in the bedroom. My wife, if she was here, would tell you. I said, Susie's husband is downstairs. She said to me, oh, that guy that she's dating? I said, no, the other guy. She said, no, you're wrong. That's not the guy, it's not Brian. It's Brian, I'm telling you, it's Brian but sometimes they don't believe a prophet when he speaks. That was my problem. I knew that. More importantly than that, God can show you what's going on in your life supernaturally or prepare you for what's coming. He can show you who to stay away from and who not to stay away from even though you don't figure it out with your brain but that comes when someone walks with the Lord, has fellowship with the Lord, is open to the messages of the Spirit. Notice also because of this fellowship that he has, even though the ship is falling apart and at one place they have to get this material to hold the boards together of the ship or the thing would disintegrate. It's all in this 27th chapter. The only one with peace in the whole thing is Paul. Everyone else is panicked, even the veteran sailors, even the captain, even the ship owner. Everybody is scared to death. They start fasting because they figured that might placate the gods if they don't eat and Paul is just like, yeah, guys, eat something. You really should. You don't have to worry about anything because God told me we're gonna make it. No, we're not gonna make it. No, we're gonna, how do you know we're gonna make it? Wasn't I the guy that told you there would be storms? You didn't listen to me then and now I'm telling you, be of good cheer. Notice the testimony that that leaves with other people when God gives you insight and peace. I wonder what happened to all those sailors who were on that ship as their lives went on. They could have never forgotten that guy named Paul. Like the dude knew the storm was coming. The dude said we would make it and we made it. Now, how did he know that? And while we were all panic-stricken, he was cool as a cucumber. That's one of the things that God wants us to have through walking in close fellowship with him that we're different from the world. While everyone's going nuts, we don't go nuts. When everyone's losing their temper and going, we go just, we're calm. Well, how many want that peace that passes all understanding? And what a testimony that is. We can know things not revealed to the senses through fellowship with Jesus. We can have peace and leave a testimony with people who don't know the Lord. Remember, they had no Bible. Paul couldn't say, guys, pull out your Bibles and let's turn to the book of Revelation or Romans. No, it hadn't been written yet or it certainly wasn't in circulation. Did you know that you and I are the only Bible someone's gonna read tomorrow? Do you know that people are now so biblically illiterate Bible reading? Well, first of all, reading is in the decline in our country, unfortunately. And Bible reading, 1,200 stop reading the Bible every day in America, 1,200 people. So the only Bible that a lot of people are gonna have tomorrow is you, is me. No, no, I want them to read and study the Word. They're not, they're gonna study you, chapter and verse. So what they're gonna gather about Jesus is gonna come from you and me. And what a witness Paul was. See, we've made religion something that it wasn't back then and I'm not sure we have improved it. I don't think we have. Do you know how illiterate people are now biblically, I mean? Did you know a guy visited here, I think a year and a half ago or something? And he, I preached something from the Gospels. And while I was preaching, I said, and Paul said, you know, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Or I quoted Paul. And then later on, I said, and remember what Paul said, because I wanted the congregation to know I'm not only reading from the passage in the Gospel, I'm backing it up with New Testament verses, right? That's logical, right? That's what we're used to. So this guy was so blessed by the choir, he might've come forward to receive Christ. He was excited at the end of the meeting and he went to the security desk and he said, man, this was the bomb. This is like, I'm into Jesus now. The way they were swaying and the way they sang and what I felt and the love and all of that. But I gotta ask you one question, security people. Like, where's this dude in your church, Paul? Because the pastor said twice, Paul said this, Paul said that. This is a heavyweight dude because that was strong what he said. Could I meet him? I remember that. That was my bad. I have to be more careful now and not assume anything. That's why I explained who Paul was at the beginning. So tomorrow, the only Bible some people are gonna read is gonna be me. I wonder what they're gonna read about Jesus. I wonder if they're gonna see his kindness. I wonder if they're gonna see his power. I wonder if they're gonna see his mercy or they're gonna see some judgmental person. Paul, through fellowship, I belong to him. I serve him. I talk to him. He talks back to me. We have a relationship and fellowship going on through that. He knew things he couldn't know and he had peace that passes all understanding and what a testimony that left. One last thought which I'm seeing work out over the last year or so in my life in several ways or as I observe life. Why were all those men and women, if they were women in the boat, why did all of them survive that storm? Because Paul was in the boat. They could all been statistics but the blessing of God on Paul saved their lives. And it says there, the angel said to him, for God has graciously given you the lives of all the people on the boat with you. But it wasn't because of them. It's because of him. That tells me that those who walk in fellowship with Jesus and who God has his hand on, they bring a blessing not only to them. They bring a blessing to other people who just rub next to them. Can we all say amen? Did you know that if you walk with Jesus and serve Jesus, you'll bring a blessing on your children and your grandchildren who are not even born yet? Well, why the blessing on them? Because of the blessing on you. They get the overflow. They get the fruit that grows over the wall. I'm watching that unfold now in many myriad ways that the blessing of God on a person, a church, a man or a woman, not only is for them and even their immediate family, it flows over and other people are blessed by the blessing of God to try to tell them, look and see what God will do. So when we walk in fellowship with Jesus, we not only are blessed ourselves, all kinds of blessings come on people. I'm a recipient of that. My mom and dad, well, let's take my mother. For those of you visiting, she's sitting over there. She really looks pretty today. And that's interesting because she's going to be 100 on November 21st, the prettiest 99-year-old in the world. So my mother, let's see this. I hadn't thought of this through publicly. So there was a child or some relative of hers of the Slieva family, S-L-E-E-V-A, 10 children. Mom and her mother and father were from Poland. One relative got sick with a terrible skin disease or something as a child, and some minister came from Brooklyn and went out there and had the faith to pray for the child. They were just traditional Roman Catholics, didn't know the Lord as their savior, just so. The child got healed from somebody that you would never know his name, not a famous person, just a person, a man of God, full of faith in fellowship with Jesus. He prayed, the child got healed. When the child got healed, since it was a relative, my grandmother and grandfather and some of the older children went, this Jesus is real. This Jesus is real. So they converted and received Christ as their savior. When they stopped being part of the religious system that was in their town, they were persecuted. An uncle tell me they would take garbage and dump it on the lawn of the house where she lived. The neighbors would, you know, like, oh, you're better than us, you're holy rollers, you're not with the rest of the family. Because in this case, it was mostly a Polish community and they're overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. And some Roman Catholics, like some other types of Christians, are not so meek and mild in understanding. So now my mom and dad, my mom finds Christ, meets my dad in New York who knows the Lord. And now they get married. But they're Christians. And then I come into the world and all the blessing that's on them, I get the overflow of that. I grew up in a Christian home. Now my dad starts drinking when I'm 12. Gotta tell it like it happened. So for 20 some years, he drinks, loses his job. I grow up around a lot of negative stuff. But I still saw my mother hanging on to Jesus. And then I go into the ministry and my dad's still drinking. And then I see God deliver him in answer to the prayers of a lot of people, including myself. And he's sober as a judge for the last 10 years of his life. Why am I here today? I got a lot of overflow from other people who were blessed. I had aunts and uncles telling me about Jesus. You know, once a little boy, I had an aunt who I went up to Milford, Connecticut for the summer, my mom and dad trying to get rid of me for a few weeks just to get a little rest. And I went there and my aunt took me to a little church, a small little church, not even 50 people in the church. And it was coloring or something or just fussing because I didn't pay attention to preachers or whatever. And the meeting ended and they started singing. And I put down what I had and I, there was something in the room or someone in the room. And I turned to my aunt, a little tyke of a boy, and I said, Aunt May, what is that? It was as real as those flowers, as real as that, though totally invisible. And she said, oh, Jimmy, that's the presence of the Lord. Not every kid is told that. No, I said, really? She said, yeah, he'll come sometimes and he'll make you get just loud and boisterous. Other times, like now, you just weep in his presence when you think how much he loves you because they walk with God. I got a blessing. Whatever you know, whatever you do for the Lord, you're gonna pass it on to someone else. All those people on that boat, they were saved from death for only one reason, one guy on the boat. Oh, amazing. For God has granted you everyone's lives on the boat because they happen to be on the boat with the man of God who walks with Jesus. The Lord's here now. Close your eyes. Everybody, close your eyes. Help us to walk closer to you. Holy Spirit, show us what we need to have shown to us. Speak to us. We don't want fanaticism and being weird. We want the true ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We don't want religiosity, tradition. We want Jesus, the living Jesus. Give us peace in every kind of situation. Help us to be the Bible that someone will read tomorrow and they're gonna see Jesus on every page. I thank you that the blessing you put upon your people overflows to others, even unborn. Help us to be an influence for you. And now as we dismiss, even as we hug each other or say a word of kindness, help us to remember that nothing is as it seems. These battles that are being fought here, help us to be strengthened by your word and your presence and by the love of other believers. We ask this in Jesus' precious name and everyone said. Let's just give one last standing ovation, shall we? Come on, let's just praise God for who he is. Turn around and hug a bunch of people. Come on, everyone turn around, hug somebody. Come on, don't be in isolation, let's hug somebody.