You're listening to audio from Faith Church located on the North Side Of Indianapolis. If you'd like to check out more information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindy.com. Now here's the teaching. Well, good morning. It's good to be with you all again this morning.

My name's pastor Nathan. My wife and our family have been here for over seven years now, and it's been a great journey. And I'm excited about the opportunity to share God's word with you this morning. Now in Acts 27, in the passage we just heard, this is kind of the third part of this whole chapter where Luke has been retelling this account of Paul's sailing journey to Rome, that he has, been kind of telling us a lot of detail about this journey, and we've taken three weeks now to tell this story. And so I'm just gonna briefly remind us of where we've been, just in case you weren't here or for our all sake because we forget lots of things, that chapter 27 starts with Paul setting sail for Rome.

Nick Carter took us through that passage two weeks ago. And, while there's lots of details that happen, they try to get to Phoenix, this port, on the West Side Of Crete, and they want to spend the winter there, but then storms come up and, they're taken away. And so week one, we looked at how we don't have to claw for control, we don't have to have to grasp for control because we know the one who is in control. And then last week, Pastor Tom walked us through part two, which is that even though the the sailors looked around, they hadn't seen the sun or stars for weeks and there was no sign of hope anywhere. They were hopeless.

Yet, despite that, we, as the people of God, are not without hope. God is sovereign overall. So that's part one and part two, and here we come to part three. Spoiler alert, the shipwreck. Right?

We the ship comes to the shore, breaks apart, and we're gonna be unpacking this passage together. Now before we get into it, let's just take a moment to take a deep breath, quiet our hearts, and let's just take a moment to pray. Heavenly father, I pray for these moments here this morning that we have to unpack your word, that you would give me the right words to speak, that you would give us ears to hear and hearts to understand. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Now I don't know about how much you guys are into science. Science can be a pretty cool thing, but here's a question. Have you ever wondered about the most powerful forces in the natural world? No. It's not gravity.

It's not the power of a mother's love. No. The the strongest power in all the the greatest force in all of creation is a child clinging to you in cold water. I don't I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but I've experienced it many times, but I was reminded of this when we were back down last October. We were at Gulf Shores with our family.

All my the whole Kingsley clan was there. It was a great time. And there was this sandbar that was about a 150 feet off from shore that at low tide, we could swim out to. And that far out from shore, it was only about ankle or knee high. So the water was really shallow.

You could look for crabs and other things out there. It was kind of fun. And the kids liked to go out there, but to get there, you kind of had to go into the ocean, into the water, into the deep, brave the waves, and then kinda come up the other side. And, you know, I'm six foot two. It wasn't taller than me.

It was only about chest high. But for our kids, they did not like that part of having to go through the ocean to get there. Even when they have life jackets on, they know nothing can happen to them. And so even if I were to let go completely, they're stuck to me like a tree frog as we make our way to that sandbar. So maybe you can relate to that.

You can remember your own kids or just the the feeling of just clinging to something so tightly, or someone clinging so tightly to you that their fingernails are digging into your skin, or something like that. And the reason I bring this up is because that should be our posture when it comes to God's promises, that we should cling so tightly to them that they should be the foundation and our guide for our lives. And maybe you're sitting here thinking, Pastor Nathan, we just read a story about a shipwreck. I don't remember hearing anything about the promises of God. Well, hopefully, given enough time in the next few minutes or so, you can help or I can help you see that we can get there together.

So that's the idea for this morning. Cling to the promises of God. And the way that I hope, we can get there is by answering two questions. Two questions for us to answer. What do God's promises do?

And then the second question is, what exactly has God promised us? What do God's promises do, and what has he promised us? And so as we jump into this passage, keep those questions in mind. So what do God's promises do? If we kind of back up a little bit into last week, we're borrowing a little bit from the passage last week.

We're reminded that Paul received a revelation from an angel that they were going to not die. That Paul gives this encouragement to the whole crew, everyone on board to say, hey, if you stick with me on this boat, an angel told me that I will indeed make it to Rome, I will testify before Caesar and that God has also granted that everyone here will be saved. And so when we come to verse 39, you can tell that there is one thing in mind for these sailors, for everyone on on board. It's survival. It's the only thing.

They are of sole focus that they want to survive, as we all would in that situation. Verse 39. Now when it was day, 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. At the same time, loosening the ropes that tied the rudders, they then hoistening the foresail to the wind, they made for the beach.

So that's their goal. Hey. We gotta make it to land. Because as part of Paul relaying to them, he says back in verse 26, hey. We're all gonna be saved, but we will need to run aground on some island.

So they're choosing to to trust him in this moment. They're choosing to trust Paul. And all the other things that they've had up to this point, they've kind of said goodbye to. Right? And so when we think about what is it exactly that god's promises do, the first answer I would give to that is god god's promises anchor our souls.

God's promises anchor our souls. And I know it's a little cheesy with the nautical theme, but that's the only one. You gotta give me at least one. So God's promises anchor our souls. They're they're the foundation.

Right? And if you think about our lives, if you think about anyone, there are lots of things that we can anchor ourselves to, that we can make the sole kind of foundation of who we are and what we wanna do in life. We can make it our career. We can make our family our foundation or our anchor. We can make our personality or, any number of wealthy things we might have dreams for.

We can make that the thing that we anchor to. For these people on this boat, their sole focus is survival, and they're trusting that god's promise to Paul that we just read last week, god's promise to Paul will indeed come true. So they are they've already thrown over the wheat that they were carrying for Rome. The cargo that they were gonna sell, that's already gone. The lifeboat that they were potentially gonna use, they've already cut off.

Their hopes of saving this shipping vessel for any sort of future use, that's gone out the window. The anchors, they are willing to just cut and leave at the bottom of the ocean, because their only focus, their one anchor they're holding to, is the hope that God's promise to Paul will indeed come true. And the thing about anchors, they're only good if you're tethered to them. Right? God has made promises to his people, and those can those promises are the anchors for us.

They're the anchors for our soul, but they're only an anchor for us if we're tethered to them, if we cling to those promises. So the second thing that God's promises do is that they guide our lives. They don't just anchor us. They don't just hold us fast, but they also guide our lives. Let's keep reading in verse 41.

But striking a reef, they ran the vessel aground. The bow stuck 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 that those who could swim to jump overboard first and make for the land, and the rest on planks or on pieces of the ship.

So they get to this point. Right? The storm has somewhat subsided. They see daylight for maybe the first time in weeks, and they already knew that they were kind of getting close to land because they had taken measurements of how close they were. They had let down anchor, and they have already now cut the anchors and they're making their way to this bay that they see.

They've made a plan. It's going to work. Maybe we can be saved. And then they hit this sandbar or this shoal. And they get to a point where they're kind of out of options.

The front part of the boat is stuck, the back part of the boat is still in the ocean, and the waves are crashing on it, and it's just getting torn to literal pieces. And they don't have any hope left. And so, the soldiers make a plan. They make a plan because they don't want to be caught with their prisoners escaping. I don't know if you know this about, you know, ancient Roman times and how these things worked, but if you were a Roman guard and you were in charge of guarding prisoners, you should not let them escape.

And if you do, the punishment that they were going to receive, that prisoner or that criminal was going to receive, you are now susceptible to. So even if you think back to Paul in Philippi, right, the Philippian jailer, when the earthquake happens and the gates swing open and he thinks everyone has left, he's ready to kill himself because he doesn't want the shame or that punishment from Rome to come down on him. But obviously, Paul stops him and he ends up sharing the gospel with him and he becomes a Christian. And so we see something similar here with these soldiers. They are not just fearing for their own survival, but they're thinking a step ahead.

Like, if we make it to land and not all the prisoners do and and they escape, then we could be held liable. But Rome would also understand if a few prisoners died along the way. So let's secure our future and kill the prisoners so that we're not liable for them escaping. And obviously, Julius, the centurion, doesn't go for that plan. He likes Paul.

He doesn't want anything to happen to Paul, and he is, in this moment, trusting Paul, that what Paul has said about his relationship with God and the promise that this angel gave to him, that everyone will be saved, Julius is choosing to trust in that moment. Now it's interesting. In verse 42, that word for plan, the soldier's plan, it's not a super unique word, but it is unique in the fact that this is one of only two occurrences in all of scripture where it is used to refer to a human plan. Scripture talks a lot about God's plans, how God is sovereign over all the things, and yet here we see a very human plan, not obviously submitted to the will of God, and God makes a way through Julius for this plan not to come to fruition, because God is protecting Paul. He has promised he has promised that he will make it, and he's making a way for that to happen.

Similar to an anchor, right, we can anchor ourselves to all sorts of things in this world. I think if we think about our plans or what we let guide our lives, same thing. There's lots of things in this world, a lot of places we can turn to to be guided, to be led in different ways. We can listen to podcasts. We can read lots of books, self help books.

We can talk to mentors, disciplers. We can listen to church leaders and pastors, and a lot of these things are really, really good. But what when all our other best laid or worst laid plans fail, what is gonna be the thing that guides us? What is gonna be the thing that guides you, if not the promises of God? The promises of God guide our lives, they give us direction, and they anchor our souls.

And then the last thing from this passage is that God's promises secure our future. They secure our future. Last part of verse 44. And so it was that all were brought safely to land. Now, this passage, you know, kinda seems like it's all about the shipwreck.

But the way we're going, I'm I'm hoping you see that it's not just about a shipwreck, but it's about how Luke is clearly showing that God fulfills his promises. That God made a promise to Paul to save him, to carry him faithfully to Rome. And even though they're not at Rome yet, they have made it safely to land. And if you remember from a couple weeks back, something that Nick Carter brought up, the reason Luke has taken so much time to talk about this whole journey and the storm and the shipwreck is to kind of counter intuitively show people that Paul is not at odds with Poseidon or the other gods. A lot of times, if you ran into a storm, it was because the gods were angry at you.

But no. Luke is showing that Paul it's actually because of Paul's faith in God and the one true God making a promise to keep them safe that that is the reason they've actually made it through and survived. And Luke even mentions all 276 people. That 276 of them in total were saved. So kind of turning that question again, there is an opportunity where we can secure our future with God's promises.

We can rely on God's promises for our future, or we can turn to the things of this world. Where do we place our hope? Do we place our hope in money, or in our job, or in our job promotion, or in some sort of retirement fund, or the stock market, or human leaders, or the political climate? There's a lot of places we could turn to to place our hope. But where we should be clinging to, what we should cling to, is the promises of God.

So up to this point, we've kind of been talking about God's promises very vaguely. Right? God's promises anchor our souls. God's promises guide our lives. They secure our future, and we can say, oh, that's great.

What exactly are God's promises? And so that's the second question we're gonna ask. What has God promised us? Now, to answer this question, we're gonna turn beyond this passage here, and I hope you're okay with that. And truth be told, there's a lot of ways we could answer this question.

A number I came across several times, so leads me to believe it's somewhat accurate. In scripture, there are 7,487 promises of God. 7,487. We're not going to list them all here. So we're going to take a some time to talk through a few of them.

Some a few of these promises from the Lord that I think he wants us to be encouraged by. He wants to remind us to cling to. And as we think about God's promises, if you're if you're getting a little bit uncomfortable, like, maybe this is some sort of, like, prosperity gospel. Hey, just believe in God, and he, you know, he the promises of happiness and life and liberty and all these things will be yours if you just believe. That's not at all what I'm saying, nor is that at all what God's word says.

If If anything, the opposite is true, that Jesus promised his disciples that in this world, you will have trials. In this world, you will have tribulations. So what I'm not I'm not saying that, hey, if you follow Jesus, all the promises you could dream of will come true. Because if we're gonna look at God's promises, we wanna make sure that what we look at is based in his word, and that the promises we think are true for us are not based in our feelings or in our desires, but based in the truth of God's word. So what has God promised us?

A few things to encourage us. God has promised to strengthen us, Not just in times of trial or in times of trouble, but always he has promised to strengthen us. And this isn't just like some sort of burst of energy you get from a cup of coffee or an energy drink. This is an ongoing, lifelong, fulfilling strength that he strengthens us with. Isaiah 41.

Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

The God of the universe who sees you, who knows you, who loves you, knows exactly what you have on your plate today, what you have for you this week. He knows what you have next week, and in everything, he is upholding you himself. He's not sending, you know, some guardian angel to protect you. No. He is by himself upholding you with his strength, And that is a great encouragement.

I'm reminded of it many times throughout the week, but I think especially on Sundays where I have to get up here to preach, that I need God's strength. I need that reminder, as we all do. The second thing that god has promised and reminder, this is not an exhaustive list. God has promised to keep us. He's promised to strengthen us, and he's promised to keep us.

In an often overlooked book of Jude, the half brother of Jesus is writing this short epistle to this group of believers that was concerned with those who had fallen away, who had once professed faith in Jesus, but were kind of turning away from that. And they were wondering, is that going to happen to me? And so he writes to encourage them, but at the end, he he gives us this great doxology, this beautiful picture of who we are and what we have in Jesus. This is in Jude twenty four and twenty five. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our savior.

Through Jesus Christ, our lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen. Jesus is keeping us. He has kept us. We are the shepherd we are the sheep in his flock.

He is the good shepherd. We listen to his voice. And even though we're dumb sheep and we wander away, he is keeping us safe and secure. Now, what Jude is not saying is that having a relationship with Jesus will keep you from sinning. Not until that day of glory when Jesus comes again, when we have our resurrected bodies and we are fully in the presence of God will that be true, because we're still in a sinful and broken world.

But what he is saying is that he will keep you, he will hold you, he will keep you from falling away if you have truly placed your faith and trust in Jesus. And then of all the things in this passage, the thing for me personally that I find the hardest to believe is that he does so with great joy. It is for the joy that Jesus keeps you. It is for the joy that he loves you, that he sacrificed his life for you to have a relationship with the father. For you to be called a son or a daughter of God, Jesus did it for joy.

And I find that hard to believe sometimes because I don't feel like I would rejoice over someone like me all the time. And as we remind ourselves of other promises of God, we're reminded of what Jesus says to his his disciples in the great commission, and that is that he is never going to leave us. Matthew 28. Go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, son, and holy spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. That's a great commission right there.

And he is leaving his disciples with this great commission, and yet the last words he chooses to leave with them, according to Matthew's account, is this promise. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. And it's not just that Jesus is with us in the hard circumstances. It's not just that Jesus is with us in the right circumstances or when we're doing the right thing, but he is with us always. So if that's true, that should mean something.

It should mean something in our lives if we believe that God is with us always. It should mean something in how we treat one another, how we treat our spouse, how we treat our kids, how we interact with our coworkers or our neighbors. It should mean something that Jesus is always with you. And not just in a sense that Jesus is kind of this, like, angry teacher, like, looking over your shoulder to make sure you're doing everything okay, but he is with you because he loves you. And because we know that Jesus is with us, it should change how we treat others, that we should treat others with that same kind of love and kindness and compassion that Jesus has shown to us.

It should mean something that Jesus is always with you. Of course, it's a it's a comfort and an encouragement when we're going through the hard times, but this is not just a comfort and encouragement for the hard times, it's for the all times. And then, the last promise I I want to take us through is truly the one in my mind that encapsulates them all. And that is, all the promises of God, every single one, have been secured by the blood of Jesus. Every single promise finds their yes in Christ as Paul says in second Corinthians.

The promise he's given us to love us, to not forsake us, to care for us, everything has the guarantee of Jesus's blood. It's not based on our own actions or our own morality. It is based solely in the blood of Jesus. God the father has already done the hardest thing imaginable by giving up his own son. Paul in, Romans eight says this, What then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Now Paul is not saying God's gonna give you whatever you want. Right? That's not what he's saying.

But he's saying, if if God has already done the hardest thing in sacrificing his own son, he did not hold back one iota of his wrath against sin. When Jesus was on the cross, he poured out all of his wrath against all sin for all humanity for all time on Jesus on the cross, and it's because he poured out all his wrath on his son that he can love us. And that is an amazing, beautiful picture. So the thousands of ways that you need Jesus day in and day out, God has already done the hardest thing imaginable. And Paul's saying, will he not graciously help us in those thousands of moments along the way?

Because he has he did not hold back. He did not spare anything when it came to Jesus. And it's because of that that all our promises are secure. So to kind of bring it back around, we were talking about a shipwreck once upon a time. Maybe drifted away a little bit.

Pun intended. Paul, and Luke, and Aristarchus, and all these companions. Right? They they have held fast to this promise. Right?

It's what they were clinging to. They're like, alright. We're gonna do our best to get to shore, but Paul, you said, if we trust you, we're all gonna make it. We're gonna we're gonna cling to that. You know?

And they some of them end up clinging to pieces of the ship as they float to shore. But for us, we want to remind ourselves to cling to the promises of God, even though this promise to Paul is a very specific promise at a very specific time to Paul and these this group of people. But for us, we cling to God's promises because we know that they never fail. I know a lot of times we we make promises that not because we're bad people, we just we're fallible, so we don't end up keeping them. It happens all the time with my kids.

Hey, we're gonna go to the park today. And then other things happen and plans change, and, you said we were gonna go to the park today. It's like, we were, and I didn't do it to intentionally mislead you, but here we are. Right? We'll find another day to do it.

And the reason I bring that up is because we, in some ways, are like God. Right? We are created in his image. We reflect his image. We have attributes that point us to the Lord, but God is not like us.

In a way that we are fallible, we make and break promises, but God does not break his promises. Paul was clinging to that. Paul was clinging to the thousands of years of faithfulness that God has showed to his people throughout time that even before he knew who Jesus was, even while he was probably still persecuting the church, he knew God was a God of faithful promises. He knew that. And so that is why we cling, because God has promised these things, and he's never once broken a promise.

He's never once gone back on his word. And yet, once again, if you're like me, sometimes we still we still doubt. God, are you are you really gonna help me in the way I need you to help me today? Are you really gonna come through for me this time? I mean, it's 2025.

It's been a long time. No. God has always been faithful. He has always come through for his promises, and that should lead us into deeper and greater faith, even if maybe we're not always prompted in that direction. Last thing I would, leave you with is is maybe you're sitting here, you're you're listening to me talk about the promises of God, and you're wondering, like, okay, like, that sounds great, that sounds good, but I don't really feel like those things that you said describe where I'm at.

I don't feel strengthened. I don't feel that Jesus is always with me. And I'll just be honest, maybe what you're thinking is true. Maybe you still find yourself outside the family of God because these promises that we've been talking about are for the family of God. For those who have placed their faith and trust in Jesus and have made him both their savior and their Lord, these promises are true for you.

And if though if that doesn't describe you, then these promises welcomes all who seek. That if you sit here and you think, I want to be a part of that family. I want that those promises to be applied to me. I want to be in a place where I can say that my hope and future is safe and secure because of Jesus. That is an opportunity that is presented to you.

You just have to recognize that you need him, that you can't do this on your own, that your best laid plans for a future are not gonna happen. No matter how much you try, no matter how much you cling or claw, no matter how tightly you cling to the other things of this world or your own skills or abilities, nothing will get you there. It is only by casting yourself upon the grace and mercy of our heavenly father that you can get to a place where as g with Jesus as your lord and savior, say, I am in the family of God, and these promises are true for me. This is not a name it and claim it type thing. This is what is in scripture that God has promised to us if we cling to him.

Let's pray. Heavenly father, we we all come into this space together as your church from different places with different things weighing on our mind, different tasks ahead of us for the day, different people to look after. And Father, I'm thankful in this moment for your promises to each one of us, That you have promised to be with us. You have been you've promised to strengthen us for the tasks you have given us, and that for all the things we have before us, you have promised to never leave us. Father, I pray that as we go about our day and to go about our week, that we would cling to these promises and that we would share these promises, this good news of Jesus with those around us.

So we thank you for your word this morning. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.