Book Of Acts - What Do Storms Teach Us?

God Centered Theology

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So I imagine that when you go through the storms of life, sometimes you might be left feeling a little bit like that tree, broken, torn over, destroyed.

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And even sometimes you can feel that way, even when a storm like in this picture is still right above you.

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And the song they sang is about being in the eye of the storm. You know, typically in hurricanes, in the eye of the storm, it's calm and things have receded and gone down for a while.

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But if you know anything about hurricanes, you know the back of the storm is coming, right? Well, there's a lot of different types of storms.

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There's thunderstorms, which can cause a wide range of different types of weather, including rain, wind, thunder, lightning, hail, etc.

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There's hailstorms, which can cause a lot of damage. Hail can fall at speeds up to 120 miles per hour.

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Tornadoes, extremely dangerous, asked Dorothy Gale. Nothing?

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Come on, y 'all. Gina, note to self, don't you pull that joke out again either.

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That one didn't land. Tornadoes, high winds in excess of 300 miles per hour.

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Tropical storms, which can have wind speeds between 39 to 73 miles per hour, can cause damage with their wind, water, even debris that's thrown around.

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And, of course, hurricanes, these rapidly rotating storms, have violent winds and cover hundreds of miles.

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That's just a storm. Their reach can actually extend to up to 1 ,000 miles, I think, and maybe even farther. They have winds that can reach up to 160 miles per hour and can drop up to 2 .4

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trillion gallons of rain a day. Now, storms of life, much like weather -related storms, can cause damage to varying levels, leaving behind scars.

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There are two basic types of storms that can come to the Christian. One would be storms for our testing, and another would be storms as a result of our obedience to Christ.

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Now, notice that these did not include consequences for our sin. Too often we see

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Christians in an attempt to justify or vindicate themselves over their sin. They sort of make it out like these consequences that they've self -inflicted or brought on themselves is some type of storm in life.

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And they just need to weather this storm, get through it, and everything. No, there's a difference with that and what we bring on ourselves, and that's a sermon for another day.

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It also would not include those things that happen in the normal course of events that just simply do not go favorably for us.

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For example, if we do not get our way at something at work or in the home or at church, this doesn't mean we're going through a storm necessarily.

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It just means we didn't get our way. Sometimes the best remedy for that is sort of like the sermon

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I had with the hurdle race. And remember that from Exodus where I said sometimes the biggest hurdle in life is to get over yourself and what we think about ourselves or what we think we should have or not have, so on and so forth.

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No, these storms of life that I'm talking about today, they come for our testing and as a result of our obedience.

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They're real, they're pressure -filled times when our faith, our perseverance, and character are truly tested to see what we are truly made of.

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Now in Romans chapter 5, this is verse 3 if I'm recalling correctly, after he says,

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We have justification with God, this peace that we have is also the grace by which we stand.

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It's the same grace we hope or exalt or boast in the glory of God. And then when you get to verse 3 it says,

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And not only this, but we exalt. Same word from verse 2 if you want to go back and read it later in chapter 5 of the book of Romans.

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This word exalt means we boast. We keep our head held, I'm stumbling over all kinds of words this morning, ain't

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I? Head held high in our tribulations. In Sunday school this morning Ed was talking about Eric Liddell, is that the right way to say it?

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Little or Liddell? Little. Eric Liddell. Chariots of fire in the Olympics. How when he ended a race he'd have his head way back and his arms just flailing, his head's held high the whole time.

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That's sort of what I picture when I think about this word that's usually translated exalt, held high.

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We exalt in our tribulations. Now that seems crazy. And quite frankly the world looks at us and they think we're insane to begin with because we believe in someone we've never seen.

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But it says, the Bible says we actually exalt or boast in tribulation, in storms.

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That's crazy! But it's true. It's what a Christian does. Not because of what we are, but because of who

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God is. These storms that are sent to test us, these storms that are a result of our obedience, and the storms that are the result of our obedience and the storms that are sent for our testing, a lot of the times go hand in hand.

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God's usually trying to test us, but he's usually also trying to see if we will respond in obedience.

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It says we exalt in them. We glory in them. We boast in them.

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Why? Knowing that tribulation brings about or produces or has an effect of perseverance.

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Perseverance is steadfastness. It's a patiently waiting for. It's, to a degree, it's long suffering.

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This perseverance that we need. I was recently told that a lot of things we go in life, and I had never considered it in this capacity, but a lot of things we go through in life are to increase our capacity to be able to handle the same thing when it comes back around our way.

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Think about it. There's not but maybe, I don't know, 15, 20 maybe categories of storms you can come up with.

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There's medical. There's health. There's mental stress. There's work stress. There's different things that happen to us.

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There's death. There's famine. There ain't but so many different categories. Now, each one's unique, and it takes on a different life each time, but each time it comes around, just like the storms

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I talked about, there's thunderstorms. There's hurricanes. There's hailstorms. There's tornadoes. You know, you don't see one thunderstorm, and you never see another thunderstorm the rest of your life, right?

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And if you live around here in North Carolina, you've seen a lot of them lately. They keep coming back around.

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Every year, there's hurricane season. Midwest, there's tornado alley. It's some of the repeat things.

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So each time you go through something, it increases your capacity to be ready for it the next time, which is a process which produces perseverance.

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Think about it in this way. When I was in ninth grade, the first semester of ninth—actually, it might have been the second semester.

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I don't think I did weightlifting the first semester, but I was in basketball and track, so you had to take weightlifting, which was an easy A, so all of us said, yes, please, more of that.

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So we found a way to work out our schedule, and we had weightlifting every semester from then on out. And then they had this one guy one time that wanted to make us increase our max weight we could lift by a certain percentage, which was almost impossible to do.

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And I actually got a C one time in weightlifting. So, you know, it is what it is, right?

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But when I first started, I got made fun of by a bunch of the seniors because I literally could not bench the bar.

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The bar is only 45 pounds. And I could not bench it. I am not exaggerating.

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I am not making this up. I literally could not bench press the bar. Why? Was I some little weakling?

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Some little, you know, person that probably deserves to be stuffed in a locker somewhere? At the time, probably yes.

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But no! My muscles had never been used. Their capacity to lift had never been increased.

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So by the end of the first semester of weightlifting, when I was benching 180 pounds, and some of those same seniors were only doing that or a little less,

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I may or may not have sinfully laughed back at them. And there may have been a nananana boo boo thrown in for extra effect.

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But my muscles had never been used. They had never been exposed to that type of lifting before.

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Now, my biggest thing was the, I call it the clean. Some people call it different things. But you pick it up to here, and you had to flip it up to here.

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Now, we wouldn't go all the way over our head. You just had to get it here and come to a standstill for a count of one.

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And I could do that up to about 260 towards my senior year, which is still not, you know, a lot of weight compared to, like, these humongous football players.

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But for a little 155 -pound soak -and -wet guy, who I still wish I was 155 pounds soak -and -wet, that was a lot for me.

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But I had to train and push and work out those muscles. And over time, it increased my capacity and ability to be able to lift more weight.

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The same exact thing is true of your spiritual life.

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Every single storm is designed to increase your capacity to be able to endure, persevere, and lift, and hold up under more and increasing amounts of weight.

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And we're going to see why that's important in just a minute. Now, we're going through the book of Acts. And with a narrative book, you don't have to preach exactly chronologically, verse by verse, like you would in Colossians.

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So I have the ability to skip around a little bit. So if you have your Bibles, we can skip to Acts chapter 16 today.

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Acts chapter 16. We're going all the way from 4 to 16. Yes, everything in between that is important, and we'll get to it.

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But we're going all the way to Acts chapter 16. So this perseverance produces proven character.

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And proven character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint. How is this possible?

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Because in the storms of life, we learn far more about God than we do about ourselves.

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We learn far more about God than we do ourselves. The storms of life show us just how strong and steadfast not we are, but how strong and steadfast our anchor is.

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As a song lyric said earlier. As we have our character tested and proved and it grows, we also see how

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God sustains us and brings us through it and produces a hope and a confidence in God that would not be there otherwise.

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The best testimonies on planet earth, one of which we honored this morning, are not those

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Christians who have it easy. I've said this in many sermons before. If we had a testimony day and someone gets up there like,

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Ah, you know, got a big house, plenty of money in the bank, nothing bad ever happens to me,

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I'm not really going to be impacted that much by that. I mean, God bless them. I hope they're using it for the kingdom.

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There's nothing wrong with having a nice house. Nothing wrong with having plenty of money. Nothing wrong with having a life where things are relatively easy.

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I would just submit that the Christian life doesn't typically go that way. Colossians says we will partake in the sufferings of Christ.

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So whether God sends something for your testing or not, we should at least be seeing storms due to our obedience.

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And the thing goes, you talk about Hollywood figures, and you think, well, you know, they've got all this money, blah, blah, blah.

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My, how great their lives must be. Have you ever spent time with them? Have you gotten past the masks they put on?

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I guarantee you they've got problems. I have yet to meet a single person in my life that could actually stand up here and give the kind of testimony

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I just described and actually be true. Usually when they say that, they're only wanting to tell you the good parts.

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No, we're affected by testimonies where we have to see a full reliance upon Jesus Christ.

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Whether it's to keep using a singing gift, whether it's trusting Him for the next paycheck that you're going to have to make a bill with, whether it's trusting

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Him to put you in positions to use your gift, whether it's putting you in positions to be able to witness to that family member or friend or co -worker, or whether it's a testimony designed just to express to you how wonderful and strong and steadfast our anchor that is

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God is, even in the midst of a storm. It's because these people have been through the fire and have came out stronger in their faith and in confidence, not in themselves, but in God.

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And in those cases of a particular trial or affliction, is what takes us out of this world, then we're all the better for it because we will then be face -to -face with our

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Savior. So many Christian churches get that backwards. They want to talk about the here and now.

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They want to try to store up treasures on earth and think, I've got to do all I can now for me because, you know, that is what the

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Bible says. With the Bible, it's all about the next life in terms of inheritance, in terms of the things we'll have, in terms of the things and everything that's given to us, our crowns, our possessions, anything

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God gives us in eternity, we'll just simply bow the knee and give it right back to Him. It's all

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His anyway. But it says, because we're Christ, we're going to inherit everything, but not in this life.

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Anything we have in this life, if you hold on to it too tightly, God will find a way to grab it out of your hand.

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If it's money, houses, lands, whatever it is, if you have the mentality that it's yours and you'll do anything you can to keep it, even in your own life, sometimes

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God will do something or allow something to show you He's God and you're not. It should strike fear, a reverent fear, not fear in the sense of like a horror movie, like we're scared of God, but this reverent fear that helps us understand that He is

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God, we are not, and everything that we have at our disposal, that's why on my podcast, the

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By His Grace podcast, every single episode I start out with saying is by the grace of God that we live, we breathe, we move.

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Everything that we have, everything that we are is not by the grace of Andy, it's by the grace of God.

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We have nothing without God. We are nothing without God, and we will be nothing without God.

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So it stands to reason we should see everything that we have and everything that we are as God's, and we should be saying,

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God, how would you have me to use this? And it is in these storms of life that if we are faithful and obedient and do not misunderstand, my friends,

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I've never once said they were easy. That would be unbiblical as well.

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They're hard. But just like weight lifting is hard, and you have to practice, and you have to work at it, the results are worth it.

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So what do the storms of life teach us? Number one, storms teach us to always be ready.

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To always be ready. Acts chapter 16, verse 16.

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It says, Now just as a quick aside, you remember last week when we talked about Peter and John going to the place of prayer and they healed the lame beggar?

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Isn't it interesting that already in two different places in the book of Acts we've got people going somewhere to pray?

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I'm just going to throw this out there, prayer is probably pretty important. I pick that up if nobody else does.

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To me that means prayer must be pretty important. But this slave girl having a spirit of divination met us who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune telling.

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Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, These men are bondservants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.

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She continued doing this for many days. So this wasn't a one -time occurrence, this was over and over and over and over.

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But Paul, being greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.

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And it came out of her that very moment or at that very hour. Storms teach us to be ready.

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Why? Because storms can come at times when everything is business as usual.

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We've got Paul, we've got Silas, going about doing what for them was normal.

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Now we don't cast out demons in 2018. Sometimes when my TV isn't working correctly,

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I think I need to cast out a demon out of it. But we don't cast out demons in 2018. But what was normal experience for them, the same could be said for us today.

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There is a normal experience, there is a normal lifestyle, there is a normal obedience to what obedience looks like in 2018.

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See, the key here is that even if obedience looks different in 2018 than it did in the early church, the key component that is consistent and ties it all together is the obedience.

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Paul and Silas going about doing their normal thing. It could have been a Tuesday, or a

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Thursday, or a Friday. Who knows? And this, it said they were proclaiming salvation through the

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Most High God, through His Son, Jesus Christ. And for many days they were plagued by this woman with the spirit that was bringing her masters a lot of profit through her fortune telling.

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And finally Paul says, enough! Be out of you. Gone. Business as usual.

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Nothing out of the ordinary. Now to us, that would be extremely out of the ordinary if we saw that happen today.

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But to them, nothing out of the ordinary. Storms can come and go, but our obedience should be constant.

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Sometimes you'll see them come and sometimes you don't. They had no way of knowing what was about to happen to them.

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I mean, I'm pretty sure as Christians, the more we obey God and see things happen to us, you have a certain level of expectation of what could happen as a result of obedience.

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But there's no indication in the text here that they knew what was about to happen to them. Just business as usual.

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Just another day out there doing apostle work. But I would submit to you that Paul and Silas were always ready.

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And that's why when the next couple of verses happen and they see what happens to them, it didn't come as a surprise.

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I always say so often that the one thing as Christians we shouldn't be shocked by is when the world hates us.

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When the world wants to come and destroy us or tear us down for being obedient. So number one, storms teach us to be ready.

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Number two, storms teach us just how fast everything can change.

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Verse 19, But when her master saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized

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Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. And when they had brought them to the chief magistrates, they said,

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These men are throwing our city into confusion, being Jews and are proclaiming customs, which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe being

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Romans. The crowd rose up together. Always a mob mentality in these things.

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Crowd rose up together against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods.

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When they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely.

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And he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

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Sometimes you can see things coming, and sometimes you have zero warning with storms.

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You have to always be ready. Your obedience must be constant. And this situation here, much like many of the situations that many of you have probably been in, will show you just how fast everything can change.

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One minute they're being obedient, business as usual, getting rid of a demon, probably moving on to the next thing, or maybe just going on back to their preaching.

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And now they've been drugged in front of authorities, they've been beaten, they're locked in the inner prison, their feet are in stocks.

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Not exactly something I would sign up for. But this is where they find themselves.

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And how often do we say, oh, I see that on the horizon, I think

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I'm just going to, you know, maybe not obey this time, because if I do, that's going to happen. Well that's good if you can see it coming, but sometimes you can't.

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Our obedience should never be determined by the potential consequences. And notice too, that even if some do that, in relation to our obedience, as Paul and Silas demonstrate for us, and as we are to know, we are never allowed in Scripture to disobey, to avoid a storm that could come as a result.

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We're commanded to obey. Take an example, we're commanded to love the brethren, we're commanded to walk in the

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Spirit. Think about the other commands in Scripture. Imperatives, commands, most of the time present tense, ongoing action.

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You'll never see a Scripture that says, well, do this, well, if you feel like it.

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Or if you're really, really sure nothing bad will happen to you. Won't find it.

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It's not in here. We are commanded to obey the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and leave the consequences up to Him, as Charles Stanley has so famously said on many occasions.

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So fast, they can change. Number one, storms teach us to be ready. Number two, storms teach us just how fast everything can change.

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Number three, storms teach us that in the midst of the storm, we have great opportunity to witness for Christ.

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Verse 25, but about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God.

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Who does this? I speak from experience.

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I tend to throw the pity party, or the bitter party, or the angry party, the, why me?

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Every single human being that has ever lived, at some point in their life, has said, why me?

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Paul and Silas didn't. They didn't say, why me? They, like their contemporaries in chapter four,

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I believe it was, at the end of the chapter, went away from the persecution, praising God and thanking

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Him that they were considered worthy to suffer for His name. And we have

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Paul and Silas after having been beaten, after having been thrown in jail, they're singing and praising

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God and worshiping God right in the midst of the storm. We don't typically do it that way.

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My friends, my suggestion to you this morning is that is Christianity 101.

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It's not a 500 level course. It's not a doctorate program. That is 101.

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We fail at the 101s. I failed. God says rejoice.

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Be glad in me. And He doesn't say be glad in me when things are going pleasantly.

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It just says be glad in me. Paul and Silas got that.

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They understood that. And they applied that to their lives because in the midst of their storm they're praising

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God. Because they understand they're going to learn more about God and what He can do that has a lot more than what it has to do about us.

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But notice this, it says we have great opportunity to witness for Christ. The end of that verse says, and the prisoners were listening to them.

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They weren't in this jail cell by themselves. They were in there with other prisoners. And the prisoners were listening to them praising

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God, singing praises to God. And I don't have any scriptural backing for this, but my opinion is

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I think they all, or at least most of them, got saved. Because we're going to notice in a minute that when they had their opportunity to escape, they didn't.

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Now it could have been just stark fear. That's at least a possibility. Or it could be they said, something about these two guys, whatever it is,

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I want it. Because who goes into a prison singing and glorifying

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God? Now we may not ever experience actual imprisonment. Although I would make the argument that at some point pastors will be faced with, if you keep on speaking about Jesus, you could face legal consequences.

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I'm not going to stop. So, just in case you're wondering. I just hope that if I ever find myself in a prison, one,

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I hope they have Bojangles. And two, I hope

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I'd be singing and praising God. Storm teaches to always be ready.

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Just how fast everything can change. In the midst of them we have great opportunity to witness for Christ.

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And this is why I always say a lot of times, maybe not in every case, but in some cases when I'm talking to someone that's having a surgery, or if they're going through something,

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I say, think about this. You're encountering nurses, you're encountering doctors, you're encountering people in rehab, or whatever it is, that very likely may not know

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Christ. Just like these prisoners were doing, they were reacting and watching what

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Paul and Silas the Christians were doing. The world is watching you.

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The world is watching us. We can't afford to live like the world.

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The world would do the opposite of what they did. Christians should be doing what

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Paul and Silas did. Why? Because it's so insane to the worldly, unsaved, unregenerate mind that it provides the best opportunity to witness for Christ.

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Boy, those people are crazy. Well, hold on now. You see how they reacted to that?

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I wish I had that kind of strength. What kind of anchor are they holding on to?

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Because I feel lost. Number four, and lastly, storms teach us that God has purpose in every storm.

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Verse 26, And suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken.

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And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's chains were unfastened. When the jailer awoke and saw the prison's doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.

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Now the reason he did this, because in Roman rule, you as a jailer, if your prisoners escaped, you were going to be killed and executed.

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There was no trial. There was no, well, maybe they'll come back tomorrow. If your prisoners escaped, you were executed.

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So he was just going to go ahead and kill himself and be done with it. Verse 28,

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But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, Do not harm yourself. And notice he says,

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For we are all here. Not we, just Paul and Silas.

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We, all the prisoners, are still here. And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas.

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And after he brought them out, he said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

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They said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. Now one of the quick things here, a lot of times skeptics and those who don't truly believe the

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Bible will say, well, here's an example of how just one man believing Jesus could save a household. It does not say that.

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This language, which was typically used in that day, it was a way of saying that if you and your household all individually believe, then it could be effectively said that you and your household have been saved.

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So that is nothing there to get one way or the other about. And they spoke the word of the

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Lord to him, together with all who were in his house. And see, notice here it even says, they spoke the word of the

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Lord to everyone in his house. So you've got the exact explanation right after the verse. So I don't know why people get so crazy over that.

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And he took them that very hour of the night, and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household.

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And he brought them into his house, and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God and his whole household.

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Meaning that every single person in the jailer's family, including everyone that lived with him, believed in Jesus Christ.

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We tend to see everything in reference to how it affects us. So if it affects us in a good way, bank accounts going up, got a promotion on the job, you know, like I went through Bojangles line about four days ago, and ordered one bo -berry and got two.

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Yeah, that was a good day. It was free. See, I found the trick.

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You order a cinnamon biscuit, they typically don't have those ready. So they say, would you take a bo -berry instead? Why, yes please.

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Oh, I got two? Aw, shucks. The point that's being made in the book of Acts, it's not based on how it affects us in terms of how we see how things should go, whether it's favorable to us.

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God wasn't allowing this storm to harm Paul and Silas.

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You see? We look at these storms as, God's hurting me, God's harming me,

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God has caused this to me, He's trying to punish me or hurt me, and look, I've said all those things, that's why it's easy for me to preach it.

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It isn't what's going on here. But He does want to test them.

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And they are where they are as a direct result of their obedience. But He didn't allow this storm to harm

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Paul and Silas. No. He was using this storm in Paul and Silas' life to chase the heart of a jailer and his family.

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Purpose. Eternal kingdom building.

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Right in the middle of the storms of life. God knew before He ever created

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Paul and Silas that one day they'd be in a jail and there'd be a jailer and a family that were

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His. And He was going to use the storm coming into Paul and Silas' life as a direct result of their obedience to God Almighty to put them in the exact right position to witness to the prisoners, witness to the jailer, and then through the power of God and the miracle of bringing them to the point where they could preach

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Jesus to the jailer and to His family. God wasn't harming

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Paul and Silas, He was seeking after another lost heart. I say this very often.

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No matter what, Romans 8 28 is still in the Bible. Many of you have probably heard me say that.

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It's one of my favorite things to say. You can talk about it six ways from Sunday. You can try to figure it out.

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But my friends, there are some things in this life that will just simply remain a mystery to you and I on this side of eternity.

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We're not promised all the answers. Paul and Silas weren't promised all the answers.

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Sometimes we see the direct result. They got to see the jailer and his family come to know

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Christ. Sometimes that happens for us. But oftentimes things happen. There's no to little explanation.

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It just happens. That, my friends, is when the potential for the increase of your capacity and perseverance and faith and trust and the anchor that is

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Almighty God has the biggest potential for growth. Because you have no choice but to rely on God.

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But Romans 8 28, no matter what, is still in the Bible. And that is that all things, not some things, but all things work together for good because it is

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God working them all for good. Why?

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Because God blesses obedience, especially in storms.