When Even a Wreck Brings a Blessing

November 20, 2005

Acts 28:1-10

Dr. Larry D. Thorson

Today is the final sermon in my first ever series at this church “Ordinary People with Extraordinary Experiences.” I have really enjoyed the series because it’s forced me to study about people in the Bible I wouldn’t normally pay much attention to. That’s usually the case with ordinary people.

Unlike extraordinarily famous people like the young actress Paris Hilton who was born famous to a well known hotel family whom I hear about all the time. Recently she was involved in an automobile accident. Her friend drove his Rolls into the back of a truck which dented the car’s hood. Yahoo News reported that the accident was photographed and videotaped as they were pulling away from an LA nightclub. I can’t figure out how that makes news.

During this sermon series Rosa Parks died in Detroit as you know. Rosa Parks unlike Paris Hilton was an ordinary unknown to most people seamstress living in Montgomery, Alabama when she had one extraordinary experience. She refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man and was arrested because that was against the law in those days. Her trial became the impetus for the launch of the civil rights movement. When she died her body was placed in state in the US. Capital building, a place reserved only for extraordinary people. She was an ordinary person with one extraordinary experience that lasted a lifetime.

In reality everybody is ordinary. We all have the same body functions and basic needs. The difference is that some people have more extraordinary experiences than others. What we saw in this series is that ordinary people like us can have extraordinary experiences through God regardless of what family we’re born to or what’s happened in our past. But what this series has taught us over and over is that no extraordinary experience happens without us first exercising some level of faith. Faith means there’s a risk. We could possibly fail. That’s the risk of faith. That doesn’t change when you retire.

I believe that God wants everyone to have extraordinary experiences with him that will get us ready for what it’s going to be like in heaven. Anyone who follows Jesus Christ will be asked at some point to do something by faith other than just believe. It will be your choice. You’ll still go to heaven if you don’t do it because heaven is a gift to us from God. But if you don’t do it you miss finding out just how extraordinary God is and you’re left to read about him secondhand in a book. I’ve known people who were happy never having an extraordinary experience with God.

Unfortunately I’ve also known churches as well that were happy never having an extraordinary experience with God. They would rather play it safe than step out in faith. My final doctoral project last year was a case study of four Presbyterian churches in Dallas which grew to be major churches in our denomination. I wanted to know why they grew so well. The one consistent factor I found was their willingness to step out in financial faith and risk losing everything. One of the three churches decided to start a new church after five years and that new church boomed just like the others until their neighbor made them an offer of two million dollars cash for their facility. With that two million dollars they had a choice of buying a new lot and building a new facility on it totally debt free. The catch was the lot was tucked away deep within a residential neighborhood, far off the beaten path. Their other choice was a six million dollar lot on the main highway. They played it safe and today a church that once numbered over a thousand members is now a fourth of what it was.

To have an extraordinary experience with God means leaving your comfort zone as God leads you and stepping out in faith risking failure. That’s what this whole series has been about. How ordinary people have extraordinary experiences with God when God calls them to step out in faith.

Today in our Bible study we find ourselves on a mission trip with the apostle Paul. He had been arrested for preaching the gospel and was being shipped to Rome where he was to have an opportunity to speak to Caesar the emperor in defense of the Christian faith. On the journey his ship ran into a storm and capsized on an island. In Acts 28:1 we read “Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta.” I went on the internet to find out something about Malta. What I discovered is that it’s still a real island just south of Sicily, Italy with a present population of just under 400,000 people, roughly the population of the city of Riverside and Moreno Valley in a geographic area twice the size of Washington, D.C. English is now prominently spoken there because from 1804 until 1964 it was a colony of England.

Malta and Hemet have something in common. The only reason you visit there is because you know someone there or you got lost although we have the Ramona Bowl. I’m a California native and used to live only an hour away in Chino Hills but until Rick Needles called asking for a sample sermon tape I had no idea where Hemet was. Until that point, when Paul accidentally landed on Malta no one on that island had probably ever heard the name Jesus Christ. As far as we know no missionary at that time had Malta on their radar to go start a church.

I don’t want you to miss this fact. Malta was an obscure, out of the way place that would have never heard the gospel except for this shipwreck. God can take a tragedy for you like a shipwreck and turn it around using you as a blessing for someone else. But that’s not even the extraordinary experience. Let’s read verses 2-4:

^{Ac 28:2} The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. ^{Ac 28:3} Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand.

^{Ac 28:4} When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, ^m they said to each other, “This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.” ⁿ

^{Ac 28:5} But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. ^o

^{Ac 28:6} The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.

Here’s the extraordinary experience. Remember that an extraordinary experience is an out of the ordinary experience which is rarely explainable apart from God. When it says Paul “shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects.” those on the island of Malta expected Paul to die as a curse for something they thought he must have done. His dying was expected. It would have been an ordinary experience for them. When Paul didn’t die that was an unexpected event. It was extraordinary.

But it’s easy to explain this one away. We could say the snake hadn’t dug his teeth into him yet. Sure, but no one said an extraordinary experience had to be a miracle. An extraordinary experience is an experience where God breaks through our expectations and surprises us after we exercise some faith.

Remember the purpose of this sermon series - ordinary people have extraordinary experiences with God when we leave our comfort zone and step out in faith risking failure. That’s what I propose the people of Malta did when they showed “unusual kindness” to the men arriving from the shipwreck. They could have killed Paul and his crew as a pre-emptive attack. By faith they welcomed them in as friendly strangers and risked being killed themselves.

In return God gave them an opportunity to experience miraculous healings of their sick and to hear the good news about a savior named Jesus the Christ. Today 98% of Malta is Roman Catholic.

A few weeks ago we began giving an invitation for people to come for prayer following the morning worship service. I know how difficult that is for Presbyterians. Remember I’m a Presbyterian as well. If we go down for prayer people will think we have problems. Of course we have problems. Every person sitting here has problems. I have never, ever met a person who didn’t have multiple problems. I have only met good liars or deniers. But it’s when we make a step of faith and declare that our problem is bigger than us that God will work. I have been pleasantly surprised that so many of you have already taken that step of faith.

Look what happened to the people of Malta. Let’s read Acts 28:7 “There was an estate nearby that belonged to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us to his home and for three days entertained us hospitably.

^{Ac 28:8} His father was sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him and, after prayer, placed his hands on him and healed him. ^{Ac 28:9} When this had happened, the rest of the sick on the island came and were cured.

Dysentery or severe diarrhea with blood is often found in impoverished areas where the food and water is contaminated. It’s especially deadly among children and the elderly because it drains them of important salts and liquids. There was a dysentery epidemic in Central America that lasted for four years where more than 500,000 people were infected and 20,000 lost their lives as a result from 1968-72. Without medication there wasn’t much hope for Publius’ father at this point. Yet Publius entertained the shipwreck crew for three days.

It says “Paul went in to see him and, after prayer, placed his hands on him…” This was a doctor writing this, Dr. Luke and notice the order of what he saw happen. First Paul went in to see the father. Then he had prayer. Third he placed his hands on him and fourth he was healed. The healing was such an extraordinary experience for this man, his son and the people of Malta that we read in verse 9 “When this had happened, the rest of the sick on the island came and were cured.”

Again, remember the purpose of this sermon series - ordinary people have extraordinary experiences with God when we leave our comfort zone and step out in faith risking failure. Paul left his comfort zone of being around healthy people and went in to see the sick father. Second he risked failure in praying for healing in case he wasn’t healed. Third he stepped out in faith and touched the sick man. Fourth he experienced an extraordinary healing.

Take a look at it yourselves. We’ve seen it over and over. It’s the same story. Step out in faith, experience God. But it’s risky. Peter Drucker, who had one of the greatest business minds in the world until he died recently in Claremont at age 92 said “People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.
This week we celebrate Thanksgiving Day and remember another ship full of people who took a huge risk, the Mayflower that carried pilgrims to the Americas from Europe. The Pilgrims themselves were followers of Christ who broke away from the Church of England because they felt that it followed church traditions more than the Bible. Most of them were poorly educated farmers without social or political standing. Ordinary people.

When they landed after 65 days on the Mayflower they landed at the wrong place. They had a contract with the London Company to settle in the northern part of that company’s jurisdiction. Unable to reach that land they anchored on November 21 at the site of Provincetown. Because they had no legal right to settle in that region, they drew up the Mayflower Compact, creating their own government. The settlers soon discovered Plymouth Harbor, on the western side of Cape Cod Bay and made their historic landing on December 21; the main body of settlers followed on December 26.* That was the beginning of the United States; ordinary people with a sincere desire to follow Christ who also sinned from time to time and sometimes made bad mistakes.

What I think God want us to be are ordinary people who love him with all of our hearts. He wants us to be a people who aren’t afraid to take risks and to fail from time to time. A people who are thankful for the music that they hear on Sunday morning even if it’s not all that they would like. A people who are thankful for the preaching that they hear even if it isn’t Joel Osteen like in Houston. A people who are thankful for the ushers who give us our bulletins and the landscaping that welcomes us and the coffee and the donuts and all the work that goes into making this service possible. Ordinary people who trust that Jesus Christ died for us so that we could live forever. Ordinary people who will step out in faith and experience an extraordinary God. First Presbyterian Church of Hemet, an ordinary church with an extraordinary God.

*From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia