Acts 27: The Shipwreck That Proves God Is In Control

We read Acts 27 and sit in the weight of a storm that does not stop, yet God still keeps every promise. We wrestle with what an answered prayer really looks like and why living like God is faithful can make people pay attention without us saying much at all. 
• Paul’s voyage to Rome and the Acts 27 shipwreck story 
• Why Luke’s detailed sea travel account is historically precise yet spiritually useful 
• The centurion’s unexpected kindness and how God uses unlikely people 
• God’s sovereignty in the storm and why the ship can break while people survive 
• Redefining miracles and answered prayer as endurance through hardship 
• How faith produces calm leadership that helps others get to shore 
• Anxiety, control, and the nonstop “storm” broadcast of modern media 
• The gap between knowing truth and letting truth shape daily life 
• Why authenticity matters more than church polish for a spiritually hungry culture 
• A personal reminder that faith matters most when life gets tested 

Transcript

hy This Sea Account Matters

inding Spiritual Profit In Details

od’s Control In The Storm

od Uses Unexpected People

he Miracle Is Making It Through

onfidence That Leads Others

nxiety And The Need For Control

top Living Like Everyone Else

hat People Are Actually Looking For

hen Faith Finally Gets Tested

rayer And Final Charge

SPEAKER_00 0:20

We have a chunk of scripture to read today. And I when I say chunk, I mean it's a it's a chunk. Alright. It's a good bit, but that'd be okay. I wish I had Morgan Freeman to read this for us. I guess I could have found. I think he did a Bible, like an audio Bible. I could have found it and displayed that. But instead you're stuck with me. Alright, but we're reading Acts chapter 27, verses 1 through 38. It's a lot of verses. A lot of verses. Are you ready? It should be on the screen. My beautiful, wonderful, intelligent, smart wife is doing that. The iPad lady. I guess Brandon's the iPad boy. Yeah, this is she's like, Yeah, get on with it. Go. Go. This is this is her only criticism is that I I dislike to talk and talk and talk. But then I don't talk the rest of the week to anybody else. So this is all it this it all gets out all at once. And then I'm done for the rest of the week. That's how it goes for me. All right. I'll take my wife's advice. Let's let's get going. And when it was decided that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan cohort named Julius and embarking in a ship of oh gracious Adoro, Mentium, whatever. That's not it. That sounds like something from a Marvel movie, but which was about to sail to the ports along the coast of Asia. We put to sea, accompanied by Aristocrastus, whatever. Aristicus. Aristocats. Everybody wants to be a cat. All right. And a Macedonian from Thessalonica. The next day we put in by the way, I practiced those and it just didn't matter. Um the next day we put in Decidian, and Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him leave to go to his friends to be cared for. And putting out to sea from there, we sailed under the Lee of Cyprus because the winds were against us. And when we had sailed across the open sea along the coast of Sicilia and Penphilia, we came to Myra and Lycia. There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy and put us on board. And we sailed slowly for a number of days and arrived with difficulty off of is that it does look like a misspell. But it's not. Sinitus. Kinnitus? Sinitus? That does I I could have sworn that was a misspelling. There we go. The scripture's only getting longer and longer as I had to pronounce words. And then winds did not allow us to go further. We sailed under the Lee of Crete off of Salama Salome, coasting along it with difficulty. We came to a place called Fairhaven, near which was the city of Laisa. Since much time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous, because even the fast was already over, Paul advised them, which means it's getting closer to winter, by the way. We won't talk about that, but just so you know, there's a fast close to winter time. That's what he's talking about. It's getting close to winter. Paul advised them, saying, Sirs, I perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives. But the centurion paid more attention to the pilot and the owner of the ship than to what Paul was saying. And because the harbor was not suitable to spend the winter in, the majority decided to put out to sea from there on the chance that somehow they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete, facing both southwest and northwest, and spend the winter there. Now when the south wind blew gently, supposing they had obtained their purpose, they weighed anchor and sailed along to Crete, close to the shore. But soon a temptid a temptuous wind called the northeaster struck down from the land. And when the ship was caught and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and were driven along, running under the lee of a small island called uh Cotta. We managed with difficulty to secure the ship's boat after housing it. They used supports to undergird the ship. Then, fearing that they would run aground on the citrus, they lowered the gear, and thus they were driven along. Since we were violently storm-tossed, they began the next day to jettison the cargo, and on the third day they threw the ship's tackle overboard with their own hands. When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and s no small temptus lay on us, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned. Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul stood up among them and said, Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and incurred this inner injury and loss. Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only the ship. For this very night there stood before me an angel of God, to whom I belong, and whom I worship, and he said, Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand before Caesar, and behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you. So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told, but we must run aground on some island. We're getting close to being done. When the fourteenth night had come, as we were being driven across the Adriatic about midnight, the sailors suspected that they were nearing land. So they took a sounding and found twenty fathoms. A little further on they took a sounding again and found fifteen fathoms, and fearing that we might run on the rocks, they let down four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come. And as the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship, and had lowered the ship's boat into the sea under the pretense of laying out anchors from the bow, Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, Unless these men stay within the ship, you cannot be saved. Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the ship's boat and let go. As as day was about to dawn, Paul urged them to take some food, saying, Today is the fourteenth day that you have continued in suspense and without food, having taken nothing. Therefore I urge you to take some food, for it will give you strength, for not a hair is to perish from your head of any of you. And when he had said these things, he took bread, giving thanks to God in the presence of all, he broke it and began to eat. Then they were all encouraged and ate some food themselves. We were in all two hundred and seventy-six persons in the ship. And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship by throwing out the wheat into the sea. Almost finished here. Now when it was day, they reckon they did not re uh they did not recognize the land, but they noticed a bay with a beach, on which they planned, if possible, to run the ship ashore. So they cast off the anchors and left them in the sea, and at the same time loosening the ropes that tied the rudders. Then hosting the foresail to the wind, they made for the beach, but striking a reef they ran the vessel aground. The bow struck and remained immovable, and the stern was being broken up by the surf. The soldiers' plan was to kill the prisoners, lest any should swim away and escape, but the centurion, wishing to save Paul, kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and make for the land, and the rest on planks or pieces of the ship, and so it was that all were brought safely to land. I need a drink of water. Thank you for your patience with that. Right, so if if you remember, Acts chapter 26, Paul is basically giving his testimony, and at the very end, they basically go through with the plan that Paul's requested to go to Rome, and so he's going to Rome. Paul's on his way. He's placed in the custody of a Roman centurion, and they find passage to Rome. And that's a very simple sentence to describe a very interesting and dangerous and complex journey that Paul goes on here. And the account that we just read here in Acts chapter 27, which is where we were, it's one of the more detailed, and matter of fact, it's one of the most detailed and most accurate accounts of sea travel in the Mediterranean that we have in ancient times. Everything about this is factual. Everything about this fits perfectly. There have been countless studies from sailors and from uh classic historians who have looked at this and have even done the journey themselves in some way. So that this is from a technical standpoint. Uh, Luke does a masterful job of showing us what's happening here. He gives us a beautiful and brilliant picture of what's going on. And even outside of Christian circles, this scripture gains a bit of attention because of how good it is and how it's describing how accurately the sea travel of the Mediterranean, which is of interest to some historians. And all of that's fun to read about. I think it's fun to read about under certain circumstances. Uh it's fun to talk about. Unfortunately for us, I don't think that conversation matters all that much in our attempt to take this scripture and place it in our heart, in our mind in a way that will produce spiritual results, practical spiritual results. Additionally, to be very honest with you, to look at a scripture and a text like this and come up with a sermon or sermons is a bit of a challenge because it's just like you're reading a travel magazine a little bit. You're reading a recounting, a history of a particular event. Paul's not necessarily preaching. God is clearly evident. Paul is Paul, and there's angels and there's prayer and there's all these things, but it's not necessarily the easiest scripture to look at and to pick out some stuff that we might be able to take home with us. But we can do that. But what spiritual profitability is it for us to know the weather off the coast of Crete 2,000 years ago? What practical spiritual use is it for us to know the direction the wind was blowing, to know all the technical uh directions and the islands and the bays, the cities that are mentioned here. It's all interesting. And I promise you, if this was a different setting, we would start talking about this, and you would slowly find a polite way to remove yourself from the conversation. Because that's how much this stuff does actually interest me. It's just not profitable here. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. I've cornered you before talking about things. Uh we had a three-hour lunch. Sorry about that. Both of you. But hopefully, right? The scripture's in the Bible for a reason, so it's not random. Nothing's random with God. So it exists for a reason. And I do think that there are some clear things in here that we can take, that we can apply to our lives that's outside of just historical and contextual information. One thing we see throughout this account is that this centurion treats Paul with unexpected kindness and respect. Paul was a Roman citizen, and so that matters to this, but he's still a prisoner. He's not a free man. And there's no reason for the centurion to allow Paul so much leeway and influence and respect on this journey. There's no reason he should have allowed Paul to go to his friends in Sidian, right? There's no reason why he should have saved Paul from the soldiers who wanted to kill all the prisoners. And yet, the centurion does do this. He's not Jewish, he's not a Christian, there's no reason for this. He's Roman, he's Latin. Whether it be Melchizedek, whether it be the Pharaoh and Joseph in the Old Testament, the ravens with Elijah, or the myriad of characters that come along with uh Judah in exile and countless others along the way, God will use anyone, he will raise up anyone to help his people. God does not abandon us. God is not uh basically at the mercy of existence. He will raise up people to take care of his people. And simply from a contextual inference from all the scriptures that exist in scripture, we can take heart knowing that God is going to take care of us, even if it means he has to raise up someone random that we wouldn't expect to take care of us. We never know where it's going to come from. We never know how it's gonna happen, but God will do this. He has done it. And don't be surprised when it happens in your life. This is an example of how in control God is in our lives. He's in control. And it matters that God's in control, it matters that he's not surprised. It matters that he actively works for his people, for his glory, for his honor, for his mission. What's amazing to me about God is that wrapped up in his mission to restore earth to what it was supposed to be, is that he cares for us on an individual level. So his grand plan to rescue existence, salvation, the gospel, is wrapped up in him taking care of us, even if it seems like it has nothing to do with his glory and his honor, but it does. Our thriving, right? The blessings he offers us, the rescue that he gives us, it points to his glory, it points to his power, so that hopefully others will see it and come to know him. But he's in control, and this leads us to the meat of our focus today. It seems fairly obvious that one of the reasons this journey is described in such detail is to show how in control God is, even in the midst and in spite of the storm. Here's what every single one of us know in this room right now. There are problems. And we have problems. Maybe not right now, but someday you will have problems, or sometime you have had problems. The problem with problems is that they compound. And so a problem one day can easily turn into a problem for a week, a problem for a month, a problem for a year, a problem for a decade. Stress happens. All kinds of problems and issues happen all the time. There are injustices, there are accidents, and I certainly pray and hope that we avoid all the serious ones that can happen. I hope we avoid it. I don't want to I want to avoid it. I want God to take us on through nice and easy and let nothing bad happen to us. But sometimes it doesn't happen. There are storms in life as an exercise of imagination. Does anyone still have an active imagination in here? I do. I daydream way too often. Sometimes I daydream so much on the road, I sort of come to in the part in the driveway of my house. I'm like, I don't 100% recall every turn how I got here because I daydream. I've got an active imagination. So let's all practice and exercise our imagination muscle. And let's put ourselves in Paul's position or the his companion's position. They are these people on this ship. It's a decent sized ship, by the way. And so they're on these small people on a decent sized ship in a larger sea in the middle of a storm. Right? It's like this cone of significance, right? And you start with little tiny people, and everything just keeps bigger and bigger and bigger. And there's the storm, the winds, the waves, the the everything's going wrong. And they are doing everything in their power. These are experienced sailors. And they were taking desperate measures to rescue themselves and save themselves from the storm that is destroying them. And nothing works. Everything in their power they are doing, and nothing works to fix the storm. They're too small in comparison to the storm that they are facing. And I am sure in this room, there have been moments in our life, maybe you're going through it right now, I don't know, where the storm is just bigger than anything that you can throw at it. There's nothing you can do on your own to solve the problems that you were facing or that you are facing. At the end of the day, at the end of the day, what Paul knows is that God has told him something that he's going to go to Rome. Angel shows up and reminds him, hey, you're still going to Rome, buddy. And by the way, everybody else is going to be safe too. Paul only knows what God has told him. God said it, and so in clarity and plain language, Paul has a confidence to encourage and to lead in the midst of the storm. He's not an experienced sailor, but because of his confidence, because of God's word in his life, he has the ability to speak out and to make a difference. I'll come back to that in just a second. First, though, what's interesting to me, if we look at this entire storm and what happens, is that the miracle is not a calming of the storm like we see with Jesus and his disciples. That's not the miracle. It's not the miracle. What we see is God's word being trustworthy in the midst of the storm. That's the miracle. What is the miracle is that they survive because God told them they survive in the storm. The storm doesn't disappear, they make it through the storm. How many times do we pray for the storm to cease? How many times do we pray for the ship to survive, metaphorically speaking? How many times do we beg God for us not to have to jump out of the boat and get wet? How many times do we pray that and God doesn't seem to answer that prayer, and yet here we are still standing, and we have survived the storm, but it seems like God didn't answer our prayers. Except for he did answer our prayers, we survived. Matter of fact, if we go back, and this is not in the notes, if we go back and look at at Jesus calming the storm in the boat, right? There's a storm. Again, experienced sailors with the disciples, and Jesus is in the front of the boat. He's asleep, sleeping in the storm. I like a good nap in the rain. I don't know how I'd feel about that in a boat, but Jesus is asleep in the storm, and the disciples are freaking out. They think they're gonna die. And they in desperation, wake, Jesus, wake up! Wake up, rescue us, save us, and and basically owe you of little faith, they say. Jesus says. The miracle was that they were gonna make it despite the storm, and Jesus in his grace and his mercy answered their prayer anyway, but they were gonna make it anyways. With that reflection and with that in mind, I think that ought to expand our expectations and our our uh considerations for what an answered prayer is. I know it's frustrating when it seems like God does not answering our prayers specifically like we want him to answer. I know it's frustrating whenever we're praying desperately for the storm to cease, but the storm won't cease, and we're getting soaking wet and the ship's breaking apart and we've got to jump in. We don't know how we're gonna make it to shore. I know that's stressful when it seems like God is just ignoring our desperation. I know it is, but maybe God's not ignoring us, maybe he's doing what he's gonna do, and you make it to the other side because God is faithful, his word is trustworthy. Change what we think of whenever we consider what a miracle is. A miracle is not just necessarily the storm disappearing. The miracle might be you made it through it, and now you can continue on your mission. God's faithful either way. And if we truly believe that God is faithful, if we believe that he's in control, that he does care, that he does hear us, that he does remember us, that he is not ignoring our pain and our suffering, he's not ignoring what we're going through, he's not ignoring our hopes and our dreams, which he placed in our heart and in our mind in the first place, he's not ignoring any of that. If those things are ingrained into who we are, and this gets us back to our previous reflection on Paul's confidence and ability to lead to the storm, if you've got that kind of confidence and God's faithfulness in your life, it then enables you to step up in the conflict. It enables you to step into the storm, to step into problems, to step into stress, to step into division and divisiveness with a clarity and with a courage and a calmness that will force others to pay attention to what you are saying and what you are doing because you are different than what they are. You are responding differently because you have something on the inside of you that they don't have. Not for your own glory, not for your own prestige, not for your own position, but for the advancement of the gospel. When you get the faith and belief in who God is in your very life and the very substance of who you are, you can walk into the worst moments of existence. And you can be an anchor, not just for yourself, but for the people around you, and you can help them get to shore. Believe that God is in control and live your life like it. Anxiety, at least partially, I know there are chemical imbalances, and I know there's all sorts of PTST and other things that can create stress and anxiety. But on a very, very basic, basic level, a lot of anxiety boils into the fact that you have no control and you don't know what's gonna happen, and you want to know what's gonna happen, and you want to have control. But if we can get an understanding of God's faithfulness and his sovereignty into our hearts and into our minds, and we can really make it a part of our lives. I'm not saying you're not gonna have moments where you struggle, but I'm gonna say your anxiety should disappear rather quickly. We live in a world that constantly broadcasts the storms that make up our existence. Go to social media, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC NBC, whatever it doesn't matter what it is. X, Instagram, it just does not matter. It is boom, boom, boom, war, famine, hurt, sickness, illness, disaster, storm, war, blood. Ah, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, over and over and over and over again. This political election, that political election, this, this political party, that political party, this contention, that contention, this bill, that bill. And it's just in our face all the time. And the reality is we all face that differently. Some people, they face that uh bombardment of storms by walking into oblivion. Meaning that they're just going to turn it all off in their head, in their mind. They're gonna find a way just to have a good time in life. Right? And in some regards, maybe a piece of that's okay. You can't control this or that. So what's the point in bothering about it, right? But they take it to an extreme where they are completely oblivious to what's going on in life, and they are just existing almost on a pure biological, this makes me feel good. This this is what I should be doing. I want to do this, so I will do this no matter what. That kind of life. Some people respond to this and they go the opposite direction and they fixate. They fixate on this problem, they fixate on that problem, they fixate on this. The world is ending because of this. I'm gonna fixate on this. My house is gonna burn down because of this. I'm gonna fixate on this. They fixate, they fixate on all of these things, and that's their existence. That's how they deal with it. Some people deal with it because and they deal with it by uh medication. They go get some some chemical help, and some of them probably need it. I don't know. Probably not. Some of them self-medicate different kinds of chemicals that aren't prescribed, and that's how they deal with it. And I'm probably missing 13,000 other different ways that people cope with the storms that are brought uh basically broadcasted in our face 24-7. First, and this is a different sermon for a different time, we ought to do a better job of having that stuff broadcasted in our face 24-7. Right, we can solve some of that problem by just saying, hey, I know things are going wrong. I don't have to see it every single second of the day. The second most important uh and more importantly, that for our scripture today is if we believe God is in control and he has our best interests in heart, then that should probably shape how we face the storms. One of the more frustrating things that any Christian can do, and even I do it myself, is to know the truth, to have the truth, but not let the truth impact how it outputs in my life. I hate the thought to know that I know how to get in shape or I know how to how to eat healthy, but I don't do it. We have God's word. All of us in this room, because I know a little bit about your stories now, all of us in this room have been in church for a long time now, we have plenty. Well, theoretically, we have more than enough information to go on to make the perfect choice every single time. But we don't. We're flawed, we're human. But if if we can just get this belief in God's sovereignty, it belief in his faithfulness inside of us, then then that can impact how we face the storms. We're not gonna fixate, we're not gonna walk around ignoring everything. We're certainly not gonna self-medicate. We are simply gonna take steps while the storm is going on in a confidence in in a God who loves us, who cares for us, who gave us a mission for the world that matters more than the storm itself. When God's faithfulness is inside of you, the storms don't go away sometimes, but you just walk through them. It's just another day. You just got you got a you got a job to do on the other side of the storm or even in the midst of the storm. And haven't we seen this repeatedly in the book of Acts? Over and over again, there are storms, there are problems for Peter, for for for for John, for the early church in Jerusalem, and then there are problems for for Paul, for Barnabas, for Silas, for these groups of people who are going around. There's problems, problems, storms, storms, and yet they keep going and they keep moving. Over and over again, they show up. This scripture itself, the storm, by the way. If you if you I listen, I know I read it. I know I'm not some sort of great um great orator, right? And it's not necessarily, I gotta, I gotta focus. We got a bunch of cats who just walked into the door, basically, in my mind. So this is what this is like. It's like Carrie, it's like Carrie opened up the door and a flood of cats just ran in, like, what's going on? What's going on? This is good stuff. We're good, we're okay. We're okay. Adults in the room and children, if the Holy Spirit wants to let you pay attention for a second, I'm almost done. Almost done. When we get faith, a faith and belief in God into our life, it changes how we do things. And we saw it, we've seen it in the book of Acts over and over again. And even in the scattering that comes out of this broken ship, right? There's a storm, the ship breaks up, and the people scatter, and God is faithful. That's the book of Acts. That's our life right now. Out of the storms of our life, God still can produce good things. Good things. In a world full of storms and of people negatively impacted by them. Be people who serve God in spite of the storms. Don't just be people who call yourself a Christian, but you act like everybody else who isn't a Christian. Be people who call themselves a Christian, and the gospel is ingrained into our very uh way of doing life. That's Christianity in not just word, but in everyday action. Don't just be church attenders. Don't just be name tag Christians, but be people who have this faith in God ingrained in them and let it impact how you do everything you do. Here's why that matters on multiple levels. Multiple levels, this matters. Christians in the U.S., Christian identification has decreased from 78% in 2007 to 62% in 2023 to 24. Maybe you think that's surprising that that number is a little too high. To me, that's disappointing. That's a big chunk of people to not identify with Christianity anymore. 29% of U.S. adults now identify as religiously unaffiliated. Yet, and here's the good news to this, that might not seem like good news, 85 to 92 percent of adults still report a belief in God, a higher power, or a spiritual reality outside of the material. It might seem like things are shrinking, it might seem like things are are becoming more problemsome. It might seem like the non-religious are growing and growing and growing, but still the vast majority of people are looking for something. They're open to something, they're hoping for something. They've experienced the material world, and something inside of them, the Holy Spirit, is whispering, there's more, there's more, this isn't it, this isn't it. And while this is deeply troubling, it is hopeful because they're looking for signs. They're looking for signs. And some churches, some churches, they get into the trap of trying to have the best worship experience as a sign of who God can be. Some they want to have the best programs, the best mission programs, the best kids programs. They want to have the most entertaining services, they want to have the best preachers, the best graphics, the best messages, the best presentation, they want the best building. They want all of these things. Sometimes they just want the best coffee. And all of these things are good. These are not bad things. Having good coffee in church is not a bad, evil thing. Having a great, robust kids program and family program that supports families and helps children be who they're made to be and helps the parents be the best pastor to their children they can be. That's a great thing. But having a good uh missions program, which we're gonna give to a missionary next week, by the way, having a good missions program is a great thing. Having a good building is a great thing. They're great things, but those are not the signs that people are looking for. People can go find a good building, people can go get good coffee, people can go find socialization in all kinds of different places and organizations around the world in this country. And so while those things are good in a church, and I think in a church you find the best fulfillment of those things, that's not really what people are looking for. What people are looking for are an authentic expression of who Christ is in our lives. And that means we can't just say that God is faithful, we've got to live God is faithful. We can't just say that God is loving, we gotta live God is loving. We can't just say God created order, we've got to live out that order every single day. That authenticity is a proof, it's a truth for others to see. And then in the storms of your life, in the problems and the stresses, when everything is broken down. Trust me, I have lived through some mess. I have lived through some problems. My my I did not grow up rich. I grew up very poor. There were days when we wouldn't have had food if somebody randomly didn't drop off a box of food at my front door. Okay? I I had months like that in my household. I've had other things. You guys have your own stuff, your own pains, your own problems. What stands out to the 92% of people who are still open to spirituality is a people faithful to God in every circumstance. It will make them pay attention. They can't ignore it. When you're walking along and you're dealing with an illness and you're walking next to someone who's dealing with an illness and they don't have Jesus, and you do have Jesus, how you respond becomes a light to them so that they will pay attention to what you've got something different. There's a reason why people get saved at funerals. There's a reason why people get saved right in in hospice care. People are open to it. They want it, they're desperate for it, they see it. We've got to be it. That's the job. That's the job description. Don't waste another second. Don't waste another moment. Don't think that. I just hope I'm getting this ingrained into your head. If God is faithful, let it matter in your life. If God is sovereign, let it matter in your life. If God cares for you, let it matter in your life. If God loves you, let it matter in your life. Not just as a label, not just as some sort of ethereal theological knowledge that you keep in there, but let it actually impact you. When my I say this all the time, I've talked to my wife about this. I was safe very early on and I believed in God. I was not perfect. I love God. I try to serve God. But when the rubber met the road, when my brother passed away, when my brother passed away, that was a moment where I recognized that all of that theological knowledge, all of those sermons and messages, all those things that I did believe, but had never been challenged, that's when it mattered. That's when, when the storm showed up, that's when it when it mattered. Let it matter. Let it matter. Please let it matter. I promise you, if you let it matter, you won't have to preach a single word, and people will notice and they will be curious about who you are. Amen. Let's pray. Let's pray and get all these wild cats fed. Heaven Father, we love you so much. You are faithful. Lord, you are faithful. Lord, you are faithful. You're faithful, Lord. When we don't know the next step forward, you're faithful. When we're sick, you're faithful. When we fail, you are still faithful. When the bank account doesn't look great, you're faithful. When the fridge is empty, oh Lord, you are faithful. You're faithful. And Holy Spirit, I simply pray and believe right now that you would help us to believe. Help us to believe it. And to live like it. Let us not be discouraged by the storms. Let us not be discouraged whenever it seems like our prayers are not answered. But yet we're still surviving, we're still standing, and so we still have a purpose. Let your faithfulness be ingrained into who we are. Let us parent with faithfulness. Let us be spouses with faithfulness. Let us be church members with faithfulness. Let us be workers with faithfulness. In every season and situation that we walk through, I pray that your faithfulness would stand out. And for your glory and for your honor, you would present us with opportunities to give people hope, to let them know there's a way out, that it's going to be okay. And to the people in this country who clearly still feel something beyond the material. That they need. In Jesus' mighty name I pray, and we all said together. Amen.