The Puzzle, September 21-30, 2009
Unfair Opportunities
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 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.”
Acts 27:21-26
As the book of Acts draws to a close with a hair-raising tale of Paul’s journey to Rome, once again in chains, God shows His ability to get people where He wants them. Paul, experienced enough to smell a bad situation, had tried to warn those in charge that catastrophe awaited them if they chose to leave their harbor in Crete, but no one had listened. After all, who is going to listen to a prisoner? They had been determined to try to find a better winter harbor. Playing it safe, they sailed along the coast, all conditions seeming to be in their favor. Then, as Paul had predicted, disaster struck, in the form of an overpowering storm, called a northeaster, which drove their ship away from land and out into the open Mediterranean.
The crew did all they could to save the craft, but after two weeks without sighting land, sun or stars, they were hopelessly lost and despairing of life.
Angel on Board
It was in this context that Paul made a speech—this is Paul the prisoner, the guy in chains, who is headed for trial in Rome, addressing the 276 bedraggled, frightened occupants of a ship being driven helplessly across the sea.Who gave him the right to say anything to anybody? God did. What will he say?
More to give credence to his current words than to rub it in, Paul refers back to his warning not to leave Crete in the first place. He was right before; maybe this time they should listen to him. Paul’s bold address must have seemed so utterly out of place, to some: Here is a prisoner, some religious nut, acting like he knows the future, guaranteeing that no one will be harmed, talking about God like He was real, relating a message supposedly received straight from God via an angel; the whole scene is so bizarre, plus Paul has to shout in order to be heard above the noise of the storm! But hear him they do. None of them would ever forget the message of the prisoner, relating to them hope from God, when they thought all was lost.
Commander Paul
Paul said they were to run aground on some island. They did, but not before Paul at one point became the commander of the ship by virtue of having heard from God! Soundings had shown they were nearing land, and the sailors figured it was a good time to bail out and leave the hapless passengers on their own. Paul was the only one savvy enough to figure out what they were doing, lowering the lifeboat into the sea to make their escape, while having said they were lowering sea anchors from the bow. So, the prisoner in chains tattles on the professionals who are trying to escape! He announces that, “Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.” (Ac 27:31) The soldiers cut the ropes and the lifeboat falls into the sea—under whose orders? Paul’s! Now they’re all in this, together.With everyone doing their best, including the sailors, who suddenly have a renewed interest in their job, the ship runs aground on a reef close to an island. Because the centurion wants to save Paul, the ordinary practice of killing the prisoners to prevent their escape is overruled, and everyone swims to shore or clambers aboard a piece of the broken ship and floats in. All arrive safely. They discover they are on the island of Malta, pretty much the last available island to hit before open sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Had they missed Malta and had the wind kept up, Paul might have ended up evangelizing America! Beyond this island, it was pretty much a clear shot!
As it was, Malta happened to be due south of Rome and on one of the major trade routes. They eventually grabbed a Rome-bound ship, and got there ahead of schedule!
For the time being, it was cold and raining, so the villagers built a huge fire for their unexpected guests. Paul, just trying to be helpful, was putting wood on the fire when a poisonous snake emerged and bit him on the hand! Some people have all the luck. The villagers were crediting the power of “Justice,” as they saw someone who had averted death in a shipwreck, only to now die of snakebite. When Paul didn’t plop over and die, they changed their minds and figured he must instead be a god. Paul’s reaction? He shook the thing off into the fire. God had told him he was going to Rome!
The saga continues, as a wet and weary Paul finds out the father of the island’s chief official, Publius, is ill. Paul prays for him, Publius’ father is healed, and pretty soon all the sick of the island are lined up for healing. God’s grace is there in abundance, the islanders are healed, and when it comes time to leave for Rome, the natives are generous in providing for the needs of Paul and the others.
The last leg of the trip to Rome is uneventful, as is Paul’s arrival. He is technically a prisoner, with a Roman guard constantly at his side, but Paul is able to entertain visitors and is able to speak freely about Jesus, which he does, to one and all, for a space of two years.
Ending with a Comma
That’s how the book of Acts ends, sort of with a comma. You turn the page to make sure that’s it—that there isn’t another chapter or at least another page. There isn’t. But there is. We’re it.The book of the Acts of the Holy Spirit never ends. The Spirit continues to inhabit the Church, empowering, convicting, directing, to this day. I happen to live on a continent Paul didn’t get to, because he didn’t know it even existed (and because God steered him to Malta, first, to be a blessing there). The same Holy Spirit who empowered the Early Church is here for the present-day Church, even in self-reliant, self-assured America. We would do really well to tune into Him!
Why? The difference which elevated the prisoner above the centurion and the professional sailors was that the prisoner was filled with the Holy Spirit and living for Jesus Christ. Paul had a direct line to God. (So do we). But notice his testimony in Acts 27:23: For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship,
I hear a lot these days about people who claim to be Christians and are confident they are headed for heaven, but I don’t often hear self-descriptions which match the attitude of Paul’s: the God to whom I belong. Hmm. As in, “I don’t belong to myself—I belong to God? He owns me? I don’t have ‘rights’—I just belong to God?” Yes. That attitude. I don’t hear that, much. I also don’t see much of the power I see displayed in the book of Acts, even though we have the same Holy Spirit. It’s another one of those reminders that God is not going to entrust His power to people who don’t really belong to Him—or even want to. God entrusts His power and wisdom to those with hearts fully committed to Him, the kind of people who have died out to their former ambitions, who no longer live for themselves but for Jesus. They’re trustworthy. They get all the power they need. For the rest? As long as they belong to themselves, they shouldn’t be expecting a lot of God’s power. And that’s regardless of how good their intentions might be—God’s power is not safe in the hands of a vessel not submitted to Him.
Same Holy Spirit
As long as our purpose in life is to live it our own way and possibly still make heaven, our usefulness to the Kingdom of God is going to be extremely limited. When we decide to take the plunge and serve Jesus with our whole lives, instead of spare weekends, we will begin to experience for ourselves the power of the Holy Spirit. He will energize us to do things of which we’re incapable; He will use us to bless other people beyond anything we could have thought up. Same Holy Spirit. His power hasn’t diminished through the years. What He does is the same, too: He empowers people for works of service, convicts of sin, comforts and encourages, and most of all, brings glory to Jesus Christ and points people toward Him. The emphasis of the Holy Spirit didn’t switch over to “church growth” or something else somewhere along the way—He’s still all about bringing honor and people to Jesus. If we choose to follow Christ wholeheartedly, we’ll always have all the power we need (and the resources, too). The Holy Spirit will make sure of it. The last promise Jesus gave to His disciples was that they would have power and the Holy Spirit. The two are inseparable—there’s no such thing as a “weak” Holy Spirit. As part of the Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit, there isn’t anything too hard for Him. When we do the will of God, all the power and resources of heaven are there for us because we’re carrying out God’s wishes. The problem comes when what we’re attempting is some free-lance thing we came up with on our own, which we’re now trying to get God to bless.Self-centered Christianity
Self-centered Christianity is the way to frustrated powerlessness. When we’re trying to serve God but with our own agenda, when we long for power in order to bring attention to ourselves, we’re heading for frustration. God-centered Christians, rather than piling up stuff for themselves, are continually borrowing from God in order to fulfill His purposes. They’re trustworthy with His power. They don’t misuse it or waste it, and they don’t go around trying to convince people that it’s their power. The glory and the credit go back to God, when His servants opt to be good servants. Self-centered Christians never have enough; God-centered Christians always do.The final two chapters of Acts are a glimpse of the difference which can be made simply through one person who chooses to live for God, and not for himself. In this case, it’s Paul the Apostle. Had they done personality profiles in those days, Paul’s would have been off the chart in the driven, “Type A” personality group. Here is a man who can’t sit still, who must be accomplishing something every minute of every day. The guy is a genius; I would think he would be easily frustrated and impatient; he is as intense as they come. So what happens to him? He is unfairly imprisoned on the basis of entirely false accusations; kept in jail for years because he refuses to compromise his witness through bribing his way out; forced to appeal to the emperor, which means he goes as a prisoner to Rome on a ship he already knows is going to get shipwrecked, but nobody listens to him; sure enough, gets caught in a two-week long storm at sea; swims to shore and tries to help build a fire and a poisonous snake bites him; and ultimately ends up a prisoner in Rome for two years. Hey, that’s just two chapters worth of Paul’s life!
Notice the trend? Pretty much everything which happens to the poor guy is unfair (and unpleasant, particularly for a high-strung, Type A individual). And Paul’s reaction? Rather than noticing the unfairness of each situation, Paul sees and seizes the opportunity—to witness about Jesus; to show patience, grace and courage; to be a blessing to others.
How do you do that? I think the whole thing is in choosing whether we are going to be God-centered or self-centered. Self-centered is easily frustrated (that’s me). God-centered shakes the frustration off into the fire and goes on. Self-centered is edgy and very aware of each offense and injustice perpetrated against us. God-centered forgives and gives grace without anyone even asking for it. God-centered is focused on the eternal; self-centered the temporal. Self-centered sees enemies. God-centered sees people to love in Jesus’ name. This list could go on and on, but just one more: Self-centered sees each unfair episode as yet another reason to be frustrated, angry and bitter. God-centered sees each unfair episode as another opportunity to tap into the grace, patience and forgiveness of God.
Well, I don’t know how you feel after reading through that little contrast list, but as I apply that list to myself, I think I’ve found the problem! I think the solution is also evident. If I center my life more around God and less around myself, I’m pretty sure my frustration level will decrease. At the same time, the level at which God can use me to be a blessing will increase. He might even be able to trust me with a little bit of His power. And I guarantee I would be easier to live with! So, the solution to a life with less frustration is to center it more on God, less on me. Simple but hard.
Look Where It Gets You
Yes, but look where it gets you. In Acts 27-28, Paul is hit with a barrage of unfair occurrences. In fact, there isn’t much about his life at this point which is not “unfair”! But look what he does with it. Others might just see “unfair;” Paul sees “opportunities.”Here is the quick list of the unfair opportunities just in Acts 27-28 alone which Paul exploits for God’s glory. To whom does Paul minister, as a prisoner, on his way to possible execution? Let’s see:
-the centurion, Julius
-his friends, who are either along with him or trying to minister to him
-Luke (companion of Paul and the author of Acts)
-the crew of the ship—who would have been ministered to even more, had they chosen to listen to Paul, earlier
-the passengers(all told, 276 on board, with passengers, prisoners, and crew)
-the fellow prisoners. It’s only because the centurion wanted to save Paul that they didn’t just kill the whole bunch, when the ship went aground.
-Publius’ father (Paul healed him)
-all the sick people of the island (all were healed)
-the believers at Rome
-the Jews at Rome who came to hear Paul
-the officials, all along the way, and ultimately, Caesar himself
-the guards assigned to Paul
-the church at Ephesus (Paul wrote Ephesians during imprisonment)
-the church at Philippi (Paul wrote Philippians during imprisonment)
-the church at Colosse (Paul wrote Colossians during imprisonment)
-Philemon, the slave owner (Paul wrote Philemon during imprisonment and sent his runaway slave home to him)
-Onesimus, the runaway slave, who became a Christian and whose life was spared by Paul’s letter
-billions of people who have read Acts, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon
-all the people who came to Paul in Rome and heard him preach the Gospel during the two years of his imprisonment
-God. In Paul, He had a trustworthy witness, who was a blessing everywhere he went.
Unfair Opportunities
We need to do something with the multitude of opportunities which are before every one of us. Paul ultimately ministered to billions of people, by doing nothing more than grasping the opportunities for ministry before him, while he was unfairly being persecuted and imprisoned! How did he do it? He centered his life on God, not himself. And he chose to see in each unfair circumstance, not an excuse for frustration and anger, but an opportunity to witness to the patience and kindness of God. It works! Look how incredibly effective it is when just one person lives for God and turns frustrating challenges into opportunities for blessing! That could be us, too. Right?I think God wants us to grasp the “unfair opportunities” and do something with them! Each of us has unfair things happen to us, which we could allow to drive us into disappointment or despair. Or, we could take Paul’s approach and just use those circumstances as a jumping off place for new adventures with Christ and prime chances to witness. If we choose to be a blessing, God can pull it off with any circumstances. If we don’t choose to be a blessing, it really doesn’t matter where we are; we’ll probably blow it. Not only that; we aren’t going to enjoy our self-centered life—we’ll have nowhere close to the amount of fun that God-centered people are experiencing, under the exact same circumstances!
Self-centered or God-centered?
We get to choose. We can be self-centered, like the sailors who chose to try to abandon the ship and save themselves, rather than accept their responsibility to the others—or we can be like Paul, who chose to be a blessing to people, even his enemies. It’s really up to us. A self-centered existence isn’t even all that safe. It doesn’t take long to run low on friends, if we never act like one. On the other hand, God-centered people have all the resources of heaven available to help them live for God by being a blessing to others. The lives touched result in true love and respect coming back toward the God-centered person in ways the self-centered individual could never imagine and will never experience.Best of all, when we choose to live a God-centered life, we are leaving behind the frustrations, bitterness and anxiety which are part of the self-centered existence, and we are tapping into the joy, the power, the grace of an infinitely wonderful God, who loves us, who can do anything and who invites us to be part of what He is doing in this world. In other words, all we have to do is choose to be God-centered instead of self-centered, and we join the ranks of the disciples of Jesus who continue to write the story of the Acts of the Holy Spirit. What a deal!
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