Purpose prevails 2- When God controls the Storm

The speaker discusses their personal connection to Proverbs 19:21, which states that while humans may have plans, it is ultimately the purpose of the Lord that prevails. They highlight the challenges and unexpected outcomes that can arise when following God's will. The speaker then introduces the story of Paul's journey to Rome, where he faced resistance and adverse conditions. Despite the difficulties, the speaker emphasizes that God can still work through our broken moments for His glory. They focus on the concept of a "controlled crash," using the example of the Apollo mission to the moon, where sacrifices were made along the way to fulfill the ultimate purpose. The speaker encourages listeners to take heart in their own crashes and trust in God's purpose. Proverbs 19.21 has become a life verse for me. I didn't set out for it. It wasn't one of those life verses that I saw on the coffee mug and was like, oh yeah, I like that one. It was one of those life verses that I lived out for a while and I realized, okay, I have no control over this. I have no, I've made my decisions, I've set and charted my course, but you'll understand when I read it to you. Proverbs 19.21 says, Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. Many are the plans. Has anyone ever had a plan go bad? Anybody living where you didn't expect to be living? Dealing with stuff you didn't expect to be dealing with? It didn't go according to plan. Somebody, something messed up the plan. And so, the Bible says, Many are the plans in the heart of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that prevails. And scripture teaches us that even through the messy patchwork of broken dreams and plans, that God still finds a way to redeem our broken and bad moments and use them for His glory and for our good. And that's the kind of God that we have. It's the darkest night, He can light it up. He can work in places that we don't think that He can work. And so, last week we jumped into the series and we decided, you know, we sang the song, All Things Are Working For My Good, All Things, right? And I'm going to give a quote again. Now that's a coffee mug verse. Now you probably, raise your hand if you had that coffee. All things are working for my good. And so, what we're doing in this series is we're looking at the life of the man who wrote the words. And we're looking at Paul's journey. Paul was called to preach in Rome. And we picked up last week when they started sailing to Rome. The Lord, in multiple places, in multiple spaces, told him and confirmed to him that you will preach to Caesar. And so God called him to go to Rome. But we find out last week that when they set out on their journey, the wind was against them. And when you're doing the will of God and living out your purpose, you're going to experience resistance. There are going to be periods and chapters. You think that you'll get a nice south wind to blow you where you're supposed to go. But Paul sets out and they have to figure out how to keep moving forward, even against the resistance. And so when the wind is against you, the purpose of God still prevails, right? And so this week we're going to jump into the rest of the story in Acts 27. And I'm going to preach from this topic, when God controls the crash. Because we find in the narrative of Acts 27 that first they sail and the wind is blowing against them. They're sailing at the wrong time of year. And they're documenting Luke is on board the ship, writing as they're going. You'll notice in the book of Acts, he writes a lot about Paul. And then when it comes to this journey, he starts saying, we. So Luke was there on the scene, reporting live, K-N-O-E, from the deck of the ship, live out here in the middle of this point. And the scripture says that they head towards this crash. I want to pick up in verse 13. It says this, so when the south wind blew gently, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, they weighed anchor and sailed along the creek close to the shore. I love this verse. I can preach a whole, I'm going to come back and preach a whole another verse. Supposing they had obtained their purpose. They're like, man, the wind finally is right. Conditions are finally perfect for us to sail and get to our destination. And so they set out, but it says this, but soon a tempestuous wind called the Northeaster struck down from the land. And when the ship was caught and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and were driven along. Anybody ever been in that place where not only was there resistance in your life, but there was nothing you could do about it? Problems, there was nothing. Some of y'all like to control things. And then situations come along and your sails don't work anymore. Your strategies don't work anymore. And so that's what happens. They could not face the wind and they are driven along by the wind. And so it says, running under the lead of a small island called Tata, we managed with difficulty to secure the ship's boat. And after hoisting it up, they used supports to undergird the ship. They're just trying to hold it together. And then fearing they would run aground on surface, they lowered the gear and thus they were driven along. So they're drifting at sea literally. No control over where they're going. No sailing strategy to get them where they need to be. And check out what happens. It says that since they were violently storm-tossed, they began the next day to jettison the cargo. They're throwing stuff off the ship. And the third day they threw the ship's tackle overboard. They gave up all hope of control with their own hands. And so when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and no small tempest lay on us, they said this. All of our hope of being saved was at last abandoned. They're like, there's no rescuing the situation. There's no saving the situation. And since they've been without food for a long time, Paul stood up among them. And I love this. They're starving. They're drinking. It's dark. And Paul stands up. Y'all know where I'm going with this. And he says, man, y'all should have listened to me. I told you that this journey was going to be with great heart. You should have listened to me. There's always that person that will pop up into your life. You may not have seen them for 10 years. I told you it was going to be that way. Luckily, they respect Paul. You should have listened to me and not set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and this loss. Yet now, he said, I urge you to take heart. Everybody say take heart. 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 God to whom I belong and whom I worship. And he said, do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand before Caesar. That's purpose. He said, Paul, I've got a purpose for you. You must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those that sail with you. So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. But, just got to throw this in, we must run aground on some island. Paul says, God's purpose is going to prevail but we're going to crash. God's purpose is going to survive but we're going to lose the ship in the process. And so today I want to talk to you from the subject of when God controls the crash. Because we all have crashes, right? We all have those moments and situations in life where we didn't want it, we didn't expect it, we didn't plan for it. We're just trying to do the will of God, trying to be the right person, trying to go the right place, trying to fulfill God's calling and purpose over our lives, but the crash still comes. It still comes. And so, in my studies I ran across some interesting information. I found out that when you're trying to go somewhere, anybody here have a plan not to go according to the way you planned it? That's happened to me several times. I could preach about the time when Jireh and I were bringing a brand new car back from Arizona and it crashed. One week after. But I'm not going to mention that today. It's not always easy to get where you're going. In fact, I started looking and when the Apollo mission set out to go to the moon, it was not, shockingly, not easy to go to the moon. It's not easy. It was only seven years after President John F. Kennedy announced the U.S. would send humans to the moon within a decade that the mighty Saturn V, the largest machine ever to fly, rose majestically off the ground, November 9, 1967, on an unmanned test flight. And it was two years later that Kennedy's dream was fulfilled with one small step on the lunar surface in the greatest technical achievement in human history. They finally got to their destination, but there was some stuff that was lost along the way. It was exceedingly difficult. It took 400,000 scientists and engineers to fabricate the Saturn V rocket and all the systems that propelled the astronauts aboard Apollo 11 to take that giant leap for mankind and finally step foot on the moon. It took 400,000 of the smartest, brightest people and a ton of government funding and a ton of testing and a ton of time and going through iterations and calculations in order to get them to the place that they were trying to go because they were given a vision and a purpose to fulfill. You know, the Saturn V rockets are actually astounding. They're really interesting. If this is your jam, you're going to be so excited when I'm talking about this today. But they stand 36 stories tall. They are twice as high as Niagara Falls. That is a big ship. They weigh 2.8 million kilograms or 6.2 million pounds if you're a good old-fashioned American. They produce 34.5 million newtons of thrust or 7.5 million pounds from its first stage engine, and they are set up in a three-stage rocket system. So all of that size and the enormity of the rocket is for a purpose. The incredible thing is that they work in these stages. They are literally designed with the idea that preserving the purpose of the mission is more important than saving the structure of the ship because two-thirds of the ship will fall away before they ever make it out of Earth's orbit. And these stages are necessary in order to get beyond Earth's atmosphere. As the propellant is burned and expended, the structural dead weight of the empty fuel tank or fuselage of the rocket is then discarded, and it literally falls away, making the entire rocket more efficient. And the process of discarding the used-up amounts of useless structural mass is known as staging. In other words, there are some things that are required to get it to one place that are not required to get it to the next place that it has to go. Like, man, I could just preach about NASA today. I'm feeling it. I love this because in order to fulfill its purpose, there are parts of the ship that must fall away in order to make the trip possible. There are pieces that must fall away so that the astronauts can keep moving toward their destination. And I've come to tell you today that living a life of purpose is more like going to the moon than we would like to admit because it takes a team of people. Nobody fulfills their purpose alone. It takes a clear vision. It takes way more time and money than you think it will. And it happens in seasons and in stages. The life of Joseph is the perfect example. Follow with me for a moment. I won't preach his whole life, I promise. But we often look at his life the wrong way. We see the seasons of struggle. We see his betrayal by his brothers. We see his life of slavery. We see false accusations in the prison sentence. And to the casual observer, the distance between Joseph and his dream seems to be a whole lot of heartache and questioning and struggle and trial and wondering where it all went wrong. Anybody ever thought that way? Well, that's what it must take. But the reality is that in order to get to where God was taking him, it had to happen in stages. His seasons were not simply sacrificial, but they were stages that were propelling him closer to the dream that God had put in his heart from the beginning. And so when you focus on everything that he lost, it can look like the price of a dream is pain. But what we see from the other side is that it was necessary for Joseph to be betrayed by his brothers. It was necessary for parts of his life and his family to shed away. It was necessary for the false accusations to come because it propels him to a prison. And it was necessary for him to be in that prison because it was in that prison that he built the relationships that were necessary to get him to the next season and stage. And so they were stages that were propelling him closer to the dream that God gave him from the beginning. And so when God gives you a dream, He already knows the stages and the seasons that are required to propel you to your purpose. And so in the beginning of this message, I just hope that I can bump somebody's vision that the things that have happened to you, the things that you have gone through, the things that you have experienced, negative as they may be, as hot as that fire may have burned, and as heavy as that load was that you were carrying, it was necessary in order to bring you to the place that God has called you to go. Isaiah 46, 9 and 10 says, I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose. He's saying there's some stuff that will burn off, some stuff that will fall away, some stuff that you'll lose in the process, some crashes that need to happen, but I will accomplish all my purpose. And when God calls Paul to preach in Rome, he already knew that he'd be arrested in Jerusalem, held for two years in Caesarea, and carried by ship to Rome. God knew from the end, from the beginning, and he knew everything that would take to get Paul to his purpose. He knew every inch of the trip, every mile that he would traverse. He knew it before it ever started. He's the God who declares the end from the beginning. In other words, before you ever get there, he knew you were coming. And so as bad as it sounds in Scripture, God was in control of the crash. Paul was in the middle of the ocean, being driven on a ship out to sea, no control over the situation. In fact, he was there with the stupid people around him. There's Jefferson. He wasn't around. It wasn't Paul's fault, but he was there. And as bad as it sounds in Scripture, I just want to tell you that I think that the experience was worse than we could really imagine. At 2725, for many days, we could not see the sun nor stars, and the wind kept blowing very hard, and we finally gave up all hope of being saved. Have you ever been in a situation where you just, like, you finally lift your hands, and you're like, okay, there's nothing to be afraid of. I've tried everything I know. You know, we try methods and methodologies with God. I'm going to pray more. I'm going to fast. I'm going to give to a stranger. I'm going to reconcile. I'm going to overcome the gap. I'm going to do it. I'm going to fix the situation. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. But there comes a point where they give up all hope of their own ability to be saved. There's nobody coming for them. There's nobody on the horizon. They can't see. They're drifting. They're hungry. Look, some of y'all get mad when I preach to them in too long because I'm delaying their lunch. I'm mad. How hangry was the ship of sailors? They were upset. And look, they're in the middle of a mistake and a miracle at the same time. And sometimes, we like to separate those two, but it was a mistake and it was a miracle. It was a mistake of people around them, but God was doing a miracle. And even though we cannot see it, sometimes the two are the same thing. Because we can see our circumstances and we can see that it's dark and that we've lost control and that we're in a hopeless situation, but sometimes the mistake and the miracle are intertwined. And sometimes we're there because someone else messed up. Someone else made a bad decision. Paul said, I told y'all. Y'all shouldn't have listened to me. I knew this was going to happen. And sometimes we're not there because of what we did. Sometimes our timing is just bad. Why were they in this storm? Because they sailed at the wrong time of year. There was not enough sailing time left in the year. And they're like, you know what, we're going to sail over these rough seas and we're going to try to slide on in before it's too late and we have to winter somewhere. And so they're sailing at the wrong time of year. They're sailing out of season. And sometimes mistakes happen, but they don't cancel the purpose of the mission. They did many things wrong on the way to doing the right thing. And the amazing thing about grace is that God does miracles even when we make mistakes. I think that sometimes we need to thread the needle. I know a lot of y'all in church, y'all heard it. It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven and like, man, it's hard. You got to thread the needle. But that's not the story that Paul's journey shows us. Paul's journey shows us that even when you mess up, even when you fail, even when you make mistakes, even when people around you mess it up, God's purpose still prevails. God doesn't give up on the mission because people make mistakes. And the amazing thing about grace is that God still does miracles in the middle of mistakes. I love this. Sometimes we end up in a storm because we messed up. Sometimes because someone else messed up. But I want to tell you, there's something you can do, and there's something they can do to stop God's purpose. Don't let that shit leave you for a second. They're that heavy. There is nothing you or anyone else, God said, I knew the end from the beginning and I am the Lord, I will accomplish all my purpose. There's nothing that He has not accounted for. There's no part of the story that He didn't see coming, that He didn't know, that He didn't have a plan for. There's no mess up, no mistake. Look, somebody may have abandoned you. Somebody may have hurt you. Somebody may have done you wrong. Somebody may have driven you away. Look, if you're trying to keep your kids from me, you can carry them to a desert island in the middle of nowhere. But if it's God's purpose to reach them, He'll send somebody by a ship. I will accomplish all my purpose. And you're going to see how much sense that statement makes here in a moment. Because Paul is in the middle of it and he doesn't understand. And it takes the Lord revealing to him that I am with you and I haven't cancelled the mission. Acts 27-21 says, Since they have been without food for a long time, Paul stood up and said, Maybe you should have listened to me and not set sail from Creon. But he said this, Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. The situation was more like a trial. It's the kind of trial that doesn't lighten up. It keeps raging where you don't see any hope inside. You can literally only see death. All is lost. They have no hope. And listen, I want to tell you that I live in a season where I have prayed, God, I do not see how. How are you going to fix this? I don't see how. Anybody ever look at this? I pray, God, I don't know what to do anymore. I've tried everything I know. And here I am, I'm just drifting. I'm just a victim of circumstance. It doesn't matter what I do. It doesn't matter how hard I pray. How big the crocodiles here are. It doesn't matter how hard I live. It's like the circumstances I'm living through are unchanged. Is it okay to be real and say that? A little church is not a fortress you come to. If you take these three steps in your life, it's always going to be perfect. That ain't the way it works. But sometimes you can't control it. Sometimes you can't control it. Sometimes you can't control it. And what I want you to see here is there are seasons where you don't know how you're going to make it. Where you're drifting and life is beyond control. And you can't see because you're surrounded by cloudy gardens. But God sends an angel into the storm to reassure Paul that everyone is going to make it. Now, maybe I'm a little too irreverent and sarcastic. I see Paul standing up there saying, God told me, in his best camp meeting, you're going to make it. In the backyard. Somebody busts out of the pew and runs a lap. You're going to make it, huh? We can preach on that all day. I don't think they felt that way. They're like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? He says, you're going to make it. You're going to make it. There will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. You're going to make it. The angel tells Paul, you will stand before Caesar. You will lose some things. You will go through some hard moments. But he says this, you will stand before Caesar. Your purpose will prevail. Paul, you're going to lose the ship. You're going to lose the sails. You're going to lose the tackle. You're going to have to throw some stuff overboard. Some of the stuff that you're living with right now, and that you're greened on, that kept you during this time, isn't going to survive the trip with you. It was just designed to bring you here, but it can't take you there. And God sends an angel, and he says, your purpose is going to survive the storm. You must run aground. But this night, the angel that stood before me, the angel of the Lord to whom I belong, and whom I worship, and he said, do not be afraid. You must stand before Caesar. And God has granted all those who sail with you. So take heart, for I have faith in God that it will happen as I have been told. Somebody say, it will happen. It won't happen like you think it's going to happen. But it will happen. You won't get there in the suit that you came in, but it will happen. So stuff won't survive this storm you're going through, but it will happen. So stuff's not going to make the trip, but it will happen. And God reaffirms to Paul, he says, Paul, you're going to make it, but it's your ship that's going to crash. We must run aground on some island. And so, I got just a couple small points that I want to share with you before I go. I promise you, I didn't do them out today. But on your journey to purpose, on your journey with Jesus, there are stages that we must go through. That's the first thing I want to tell you today. There are stages that you must go through. In verse 22, he says, I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. That ship had an end. Let's say, ship has an end. God put you in some things that preserved you for a while, but they weren't meant to take you to your destination. God put you in some things that had a purpose for the season. The Greek Ephesus says there is a time and a purpose for everything. For everything. And there is a purpose for the ship. It has a season. I think, in the scripture of the law, the law was good. It was given by God. Paul writes a whole diatribe on it, explaining to the New Testament church that the law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. But if you believe in Christ to you who are in Christ, Christ is the end of the law. That'll mess with your theology. It says Christ is the end of the law. Because the law was a stage. It was a schoolmaster to bring you to relationship with Christ. And so the longer you interact with God through the auspices of fulfilling and obeying the static law that was settled and written. But now you do it through the Spirit. Because the law of the Spirit is the law of life. And we do it through relationship and direct understanding of a relationship with Christ through His resurrection. And so it was just a vehicle to get me to where I am now. Now, I'll say this. Let me clarify. If you're not in Christ, the law applies. But it says to those who are in Christ, Christ is the end of the law. So if you're outside Christ, the law applies. But if you're in Christ, it doesn't apply. Because you're set free from the law of liberty. I'm not going to get off into theology. But I just want to touch that real quick. Because we need to understand that it was a vehicle to bring us to grace. Sacrifice was a necessary stage to propel us to the cross. In the Old Testament, the blood of bulls and goats and rams. It was necessary for a while so that when Christ came, we would understand. Because Leviticus 17 11 says the life of the flesh is in the blood, right? And so when Christ lays down His life, He lays it down for the remission of our sins. And we would not understand that if we first didn't see sacrifice outlined in the Old Testament. Amen? If I'm too deep for you, say amen. This is my wife, of course. But here's what I'm saying. Everything. There is a time. There is a season. There is a purpose. Even things that God creates. Even things that God does. There is a season and a purpose for it. Even good things that God puts in your life. See, the ship saved Him. In fact, there's a moment in the story where the sailors are trying to get off the ship into the escape hatch, into the boat, and He says, hey, if you don't stay with the ship, we're all going to die. There's a time to stay with the ship, but there's also a time to leave the ship and let the ship crash. And understand this. What's the difference? It's timing. It's season. It's what stage are you in? I think what we messed up with is we think that if something was good one time, it must be good all the time. But there are stages. There are things that brought us to where we're at that were necessary. It had to happen. Joseph, when he finally comes face-to-face with his brother after all those years, he says, you made it to me for evil, but God intended it for my good. God used it for my good. God co-opted the plans of my enemies and made them propel me to my purpose. I love that because Judas kissed Jesus. Do you know what Jesus called him? Friend. Judas kissed Jesus, selling him out, and Jesus, knowing what he was doing, said, friend. Why? Not because of his intentions, but because of the outcome of his actions. He thought he was selling Jesus out, but what he was really doing was sending him to his purpose. Wow. That's good. And listen, when it feels like everything we put our hope in is falling apart, people are betraying you. You feel rejected. It looks like your dream is delayed and denied. People are walking out. Remind yourself that it's just a stage. And in order to get where I'm going, there are stages that have to propel me there. There are some parts of the ship that were meant to get me to this place, to this understanding, to this place of prayer in my life, to this revelation in my life, but it was only here for a season, and it was meant to propel me to where I'm going. And so, sometimes, the only way to survive the storm is to wreck the ship. If they had stayed in the ship, they would have drifted until they starved. And so, in this case, the ship wreck saved them. Because God saves through pain, through danger, through collapse, through crash, and it can feel like the world is falling apart, but when God's hand is in it, it's sending you to what He called you to. And so, there's a danger that we can fall so in love with the stage that we're in that we sacrifice the purpose of the stage He's created for us. Like, when revivals happen, and we're real bad about this, you know, coming from a Pentecostal background, like, something happens, like, we try to replicate it, and hang on to it every time. This is actually, there's studies on how revivals happen, and how that they will, you know, like the Asher Revival, and it's spreading, but like, there's a danger when God uses something and God does something, that we try to replicate it in our own strength, and we keep trying to replicate it, and suddenly it loses its fervor, and it becomes more about the message, that it becomes about the message, and we end up in this place where we're doing empty routines and rituals, trying to get to a place that that stage has already passed. Right. And so, I think of Israel, they, you know, God sent Moses to Revelation to build this golden snake, because they had failed God, and the snake had been dying, and He lifts up the golden snake, and when they looked upon the snake, it healed them. The problem was, Israel kept the snake, and every time someone, you know, needed a healing, they raped the snake. Like, first of all, yuck. But, but, for like hundreds of years later, God sent a prophet to break the snake, and he breaks it over his knee, and he calls it Nahushan, which means in Hebrew, it's just a piece of brass. In other words, it had a season, it had a purpose. God designed it for a moment, but it's not something that you're supposed to spend your life with, and spend your life on, because some of us, we fall so in love with the ship that we were clinging to during a dark time, and it was saving us during a dark time. But now, it's not for us anymore. Now, it's time to shed the old and step into the new, but we're still clinging to the ship because we're afraid of the sea. And the only way to get to purpose is for God to control the crash. You see, the crash is our deliverance, not our destruction. And what brought you here won't get you where you're going. And so, on our journey with Jesus, there are seasons and stages. Listen, there are tides that we need to cut. There are tides that we need to cut. The Bible says that it just happens multiple times in the passage. First, they start pulling the tackles. They start getting rid of everything that's not helping save them. They start pulling everything overboard. You know, that one guy that tacked too much on seven new pairs of shoes, like, in the ocean. We don't need that. And God will put you in situations to show you what you really need and what you don't need. So you thought you needed those people. You thought you needed approval. You thought you needed a lot of things. But God will put you in situations where you don't have it anymore to show you that you never needed it anyway. The thing that you thought would save you can't save you. The thing that you pivoted to in every time of trouble. When it's not there anymore, it's not there for a reason. It's because underneath the ship, you know, the Bible says they joisted up the ship. The ship wasn't what was holding them in the water. It was God. And so, there are some things you need to cut ties with. And the scripture says that they got afraid of the sea, and out of fear, they let down four anchors, and they're praying day and night. And they're just praying that they can drop these anchors and save the ship and somehow ride out the storm. But we'll see that in order for them to survive, they have to cut ties with the ship. Earlier in the passage, they cut away the sailor's boat, the rowboat. I don't know what it's called. They cut it away. The dinghy. The dinghy is gone. The dinghy is out the window. Sometimes you have to cut ties with your exit plan. There are no golden parachutes in calling. Maybe I'll just slip out of this life that God called me to know. Cut ties with the exit plan. And the secret to surviving the crash is this. They have to light the load and cut the right ties. Because if you're overloaded and imbalanced, you won't survive or stay upright in stormy conditions. And so God will reveal to you the things that you need to get rid of. And listen, we really do, we struggle with hanging on to the thing that kept us afloat. We struggle hanging on to the thing that we thought would save us. The thing that we thought would deliver us. But what saved you then can keep you stuck now. And they have these anchors down in the ocean. And Paul realized that in order for us to really make it out of this, we're going to have to cut the anchors and let this ship crash. We're going to have to cut ties with the thing that we put all of our hope and our faith in. We're going to have to cut ties with what brought us here so that God can take us where we're going. It's a fear versus faith issue because it can be hard to cut ties with what brought you there. I think of Paul. He was a Pharisee. His religious upbringing and understanding brought him to the place where he met God and arose as a master. Listen to what Paul says. When Paul falls down and sees the light, he says, Who art thou, Lord? And that word in the Greek is kurios. So that doesn't mean savior. Lord means master of all. And Paul had to come to the place where he cut ties with his past because he says, Who are you, Lord? Whoever you are, I'm going to live by your purpose and follow your plan. And so Paul was willing to cut ties with everything that had brought him to where he was so that he could go to where God called him. You see, we have to learn to live in a way that we hold loosely to the things of the world. And we understand that things come in stages and seasons and we have to have an open hand with God. When we moved to Flagstaff, I told God, I wanted it to be the same. So I was like, God, this is the thing. And this is where we'll be the rest of our lives. Anybody ever done that? This is my destiny. And God's like, yeah, that's what it is. Hold loosely to the things of this world. Hold loosely. Live with an open hand to say, God, I'm here for this season. And as long as you've called me to this season, I'm staying in this season. Because there's a time to stay in the boat and there's a time to let the boat crash. And God says, you know what, it was never the boat, it was me. Your trust should never have been in the boat, it's me. And boats can crash. Relationships can crash. Careers can crash. Things that you trust and believe in and hope in can come to a grinding halt and be battered by the sea and broken into pieces and shattered never to be put back together again. But I'm coming to tell you that's okay. It's okay because there are seasons and stages that we go through. There are tides that we meet on. Because there are places, new places for us to discover. I'm coming to a close here, but I want to close and I'm just going to dip my toes into the next chapter. Because the scripture says that when they land, land is a loose word, more like crashed into the reef, they have to dive out of the boat and the soldiers are ready to kill the prisoners. They're ready to put them to death and Paul speaks up and says no, and the centurion speaks up no, don't kill them. And so they all jump out of the boat and what they start doing is they start cleaning the planks and pieces. They start grabbing on the boards. Anybody ever been in a pool with somebody who can't swim and gets knocked off the floor? Do a violent thing in your summer. They'll call you. Just take a look, right? They'll do whatever it takes. And that's what they're doing. They're cleaning to whatever they can grab. Cleaning and making it to the shore. And the scripture says they land on the island of Malta and it's a place that they had never heard of. They didn't know it was Malta. They crashed on the shore. They don't know it's Malta. They don't know any of that. And God brings them to a place they never planned on being so that they can minister to people that they never imagined meeting. And as they are scooped on the shore and they're crawling on the shore, the babies come running. And they're like, what is this? 276 people come up out of the ocean on planks and pieces. Not one soul is lost just as God has said. Nobody is lost. And they come and they say, man, God must be with you guys. And the scripture says that they bring Paul to a campfire and he's gathering wood and he shakes it off in the fire and he says, God, this man must be a God. And he says, no, I'm not a God, but let me tell you about it. The God who just brought us through this storm. Let me tell you about the God who's taken me on my journey. Let me tell you about the God that even when the ship crashes, he's in control. Let me tell you about that kind of God. You see, they ran on a place that they never thought there would be. Anybody living in a place you never thought that you would be? Never thought I would be doing what I'm doing. Never thought that it would turn out this way. Never thought. Can I just be honest? I'm living there. I never thought I'd be in a room like this. I have a Christmas stand. Never thought that we would be starting a church again. In fact, I believe that I made the mistake of telling God never again. We planned a church before in Flagstaff and I was like, I was like, God, that ain't for me. That's not for me. That's not what we plan to do. Never thought I'd live through some situations that I lived through. I want to tell you in the closing of this service that all things really do work together for your journey. And there'll be times where your ship is going to crash. There'll be times where the thing that you trusted in and hoped in, the thing that helped you, will no longer be necessary to you. And here's what Paul says to me over and over, because he knows that it's a difficult thing to go through the crash. He says this, don't lose heart. Take heart. He says it over and over again. Take heart. Take heart. Because you can lose the ship, but you can't afford to lose the heart. You can lose the ship, but you can't afford to lose your trust in God who called you his own. You can lose a lot of things, but don't lose that. And Paul is telling them, even if you've got to come in on a plane and sit on a beach, God is going to bring you through. Even if you show up with just a fragment of what you started out with, God is going to bring you through. And he says you will get there. You will make it. And sometimes your crash is about someone else's salvation. Sometimes you're living through these things because there's someone you'll meet on the other side who needs to know what you know. We can't fathom this God who will take away things that we think is good, things that we think we need. But I want to tell you that even when the ship crashes, when God controls the crash, his purpose will prevail. And so I want to tell someone that you will get there. You may not get there like you thought you would, but you'll get there. You may not get there as soon as you thought you would, but you'll get there. You may not show up like you thought you would, you thought it was going to be light and fame and fortune. That's not the story of Paul. Paul shows up shipwrecked on the shore so that God can reach the island of Malta. And these people come to know God in a way they would never have known him if Paul hadn't been in the crash. I want us to stand together. I want us to pray. There are deep and personal stories in each and every one of the past. But my hope is that somebody will see that there's some stuff that has fallen apart in your life that God didn't. Maybe you didn't cause it. Maybe you didn't choose it. Maybe you didn't want it. Maybe you're still struggling to try to cling to it. But I've come to tell you that God's purpose prevails. He works all things. And He can take your worst day, your darkest night, and use it for your good and for His glory. And so what I want us to do is I just want us to lift our hands and respond in faith that, Lord, if I lost heart, God, if I lost trust, if I lost faith, if I lost hope, God, would you bring me back to the place where, God, I'm not looking to any ship, where, God, I'm not trusting in any strategy, where, God, it's not about the sails or the winds. It's not about those things. But, Lord, I put my faith, my hope, my trust in you alone. Come on. All things work together. In the name of Jesus, God, I pray for people's hearts right now, God. I pray for people that are discouraged, God. I pray for people that are down, God, for people that need help, for people that need hope. I pray in the name of Jesus, God, that the Spirit would minister through your word that even when it falls apart, even when it crashes, God, it's working for my good. Even when I'm struggling, God, even when I can't see where I'm going, even when I have no control over my situation, even when people walk out on me, even when I'm rejected and abandoned, even when my soul feels crushed and destroyed, Lord, you are working here for my good and for your purpose. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. Come on, would you just give the Lord a hand, clap, and praise. Can you thank the Lord? Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. We're going to wrap up here, but I just want to know, how many of you have been through the crash? Amen. I just want to tell you, if you live with an open hand and just keep trusting through the crash, God will bring you through. I close with this verse, Acts 28.1. After we were safely brought through, we learned that God was calling us. After we were brought through, then we learned where we were supposed to be. And the reason some of you have been through the things that you've been through is because you just hadn't got the relationship you were supposed to get to yet. I want to tell you, God is working. God is in your story, working over time, to bring you to the thing that he calls you, the purpose that he created you for. I've just declared it over somebody. I'm not a prophet, but I've just declared it in faith that somebody needs to start living in that purpose. Start understanding that even in the broken ruins of a shipwreck, God can use my story right here. Amen. God bless you. I want to pray with you before we go. Lord, I thank you. Thank you for your word, and I thank you for your presence in this room today. Thank you for the anointing that's here. You're anointing, destroying, and breaking. God, I pray, Lord, over every soul in this room, God, that you would send us to our purpose, Lord, and give us the ability to trust you and take heart. God, even when we struggle, even when we don't see God, we thank you Jesus.