In the Storm

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Of all the religions of the world, I don't know if you realize this, there is no religion that believes that or professes that God comes to us as one of us to be with us like Christianity does. It's fascinating. Okay? We're going to explore that a little more. And then our theme verse as well is from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 1, where the angel Gabriel came to Mary and said to her this verse of prophecy from the book of Isaiah, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. And can you say that last half of that verse with me? And they shall call his name Immanuel, which is God with us. Okay. Let's pray. You are with us right now in the midst of everything that's going on in our lives. And some people, Lord, are right now in the middle of that valley. And others, oh Lord, are in the middle of the storm. And others may be on the mountaintop here this morning, and others may be in that lonely desert. But we are never alone, Lord. You are with us. Teach us the depth of that in this season, Lord, called Advent, as we prepare for Christmas. Teach us how wonderful and amazing your grace is and your presence in our lives is, Lord. We pray, especially for those who are struggling at this season of the year, where they feel disconnected or alienated or lost or lonely or blue or grieving, that you would do an amazing job in there, that you would work in them in such a way that they would gather around your word, around your truth, and be filled by your spirit with your presence, Lord, this Christmas season. And use us here at Thrive, as well as all the gospel ministries across Southwest Florida, to do the same for those in our community. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So our key thought today about the storm is this. Never allow the presence of the storm to cause you to doubt the presence of God. Okay? I don't care how long that storm lasts, okay? Some storms last a long time, and in fact, this is what's fascinating about the storm that occurs here in the book of Acts. At the end of the book of Acts, if you've read the book of Acts, it starts out like with a bang, the day of Pentecost, and all these things are happening. By the end of the book of Acts, it's on the story of Paul. And a huge chunk of the end of the book of Acts is this journey Paul has in a ship, in the midst of a storm. In fact, it is so long, it's 59 verses of the book of Acts. It's just this one seafaring journey. That 6% of the entire book is the story where he's stuck in a storm. For two weeks they're in the storm, and the ship is possibly falling apart, and all sorts of issues. And yet, it's just amazing what's going on in here. And the point is, never doubt the presence of God in the midst of the presence of a storm. So we're going to just read a part of that, because 59 verses is a long reading. This is from Acts 27, verses 20 to 26. So this has been going on for a while, and notice how this starts. When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned. They basically all give it up. The soldiers on the boat, the sailors on the boat, the prisoners on the boat. All but one. Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul stood up among them and said, men, you should have listened to me. I'm sure that went over really well. But he had warned them ahead of time, this is the winter, this is when the storms happen, don't go on the sea, let's wait. But they didn't. Okay. You should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and loss. Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For this very night, there stood before me an angel of the 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. Now a commentator and biblical scholar, Luke Timothy Johnson, states about this text that Luke, who wrote the Book of Acts and the Gospel of Luke, is showing right now his Hellenistic roots, okay? Luke was a physician, from what we can gather in the Bible, and he was Greek or Hellenistic. And the reason why I say that, why Timothy Johnson says this, Luke Timothy Johnson, is because this seafaring story is one of the few in the Bible. I don't know if you realize that. You know, the Israelites were not seafaring people. They were stuck on land. There's only one story in all of the Old Testament that really deals with the sea. And you know that one, Jonah and the great fish, right? That's it. But in Greek literature, in the Greco-Roman rule, the G...