God’s Providence and Our Assignment Part 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on God’s Providence and Our Assignment Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 28: 1-16.

In your trouble, Church, the height of your healing is that through your trial that you serve others. And then you use that trial to minister to others in whatever capacity that you can, because God wants you to be a blessing. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders, and we are from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

We’re broadcasting all the way from Pennsylvania to your home or to your car, wherever you are. And we’re excited that you’ve joined us today, and we want to continue to study the Bible together. So we’re back in Acts chapter 28, and we’re continuing our study on God’s providence and our assignment.

So God works, he orchestrates, he’s always working within and through us, but yet we have this job and this assignment, and so let’s learn more about it. You can minister to people by being an example to them. People want the prestige.

They want the glory of ministering the gospel, but I’m telling you, there is no, there is no connection with your community, with people around you at work, unless you are kind and you are willing to serve them. Be that example, church, be that person. Now the Bible tells us, as we’re going through this, that the apostle, that as he is gathering this wood or these sticks and he’s laying them in the fire, that he gets bitten by a snake.

How about that? He came out, the Bible says the viper came out because of the heat and fastened onto his hand. That’s a nice way to say that he got bit by a snake. This snake fastens onto the apostle.

I want you to learn important principle today. We can’t even get through verse 3, but listen to me, church. The apostle was bitten by the snake when he was doing good.

He was doing good, and doing good does not exempt you from affliction and trials and problems in your life. Are you with me? You see, some people do good because they get the pat on the back. Some people do good because they get the certificate.

Some people do good because they get a plaque on the wall. Some people do good because people will talk about their goodness and the things that they have accomplished. Let me say that if there’s any goodness in you, if there is any kindness in any of us, it is because of the wonderful work of God’s common grace that he has blessed us with, and that all goodness emanates from God, and all kindness emanates from God, and so we must keep that in mind.

But even as you and I are doing good, we have to ask ourselves, why do I do this good? For if I’m doing this good so that I can make sure that I would never face a trial in my life, that I would never have an affliction in my life, that I’d never, well, let’s just be practical, have a snake bite me. Well, friends, you’re in for a rude awakening, a rude awakening. The psalmist said, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.

It is that God does not prevent affliction in our life, but he promises that he will deliver us out of those afflictions. He will get us to the other side, just as Jesus promised the disciples that they would make it to the other side, but in the midst from going from one place to the other through the sea, there was a great storm, but Jesus met them on the other side. And Jesus will get you through your affliction.

He will get you out of your affliction, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have an affliction. This false narrative that permeates so many in the Christian life that think that if I just do certain things that I’ll never have a problem in my life is not found in the Bible. Jesus had problems.

The apostle Paul had problems. Do you think that they were less spiritual than you? Do you think that they somehow were less connected to God than you? No, my friends, we must understand that even when we do good, there will be trials. They just will be.

You think the devil’s going to sit on the sidelines and that he’s going to just say, hey, I’m going to just let the gospel go freely? You think the devil’s happy that the apostle has showed up, that he has providentially showed up on this island, and these people are getting ready to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you think that the devil likes that? The Bible tells us in John chapter 10 that the devil is a thief and a liar. My friends, he has come to kill and destroy. He wants to destroy your family.

He wants to destroy every person. He wants every person on this planet to go to hell. Do you know that? And now here in God’s providence, the apostle has a shipwreck.

He shows up on this island. You think the devil’s just going to say, hey, let’s sit back and see how this unfolds? He’s like, no, let’s start the fight. And when you start doing good and you start making a difference for God and you start making an impact and influencing others for the gospel of Jesus Christ, the devil wants to discourage you.

He wants to defeat you. He’s going to find every possible way to stop you from telling others about Jesus Christ. But yet God uses, and here’s the third thing I want you to see, this platform of the gospel.

I already told you kindness. Those of you that are taking notes. And I already told you servant leadership, being a servant.

But I want you to see the third way that God providentially gives Paul a platform for the gospel is through afflictions. Because the Bible says in verse 4 that when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, no doubt this man is a murderer. They quickly judged the apostle and said the reason this happened to him is because he must have been a murderer.

And now, even though he has not escaped the sea, yet justice. Circle that word justice. You’re thinking of in terms of justice and right and wrong.

But this is a Greek goddess called Justice. And what they believed on this island is that the Greek goddess was punishing the apostle because he was a murderer. They believed that even though he had escaped the sea, that the Greek goddess Justice was not going to allow the apostle to live.

But what does the apostle do, like most of us would, when a snake bites you? He just shakes it off. Friends, if a snake bites me, I’m out of here. I’m going to be screaming and hollering and panicking and falling apart.

And all the venom and the poison is going to run to my heart and my brain and I’ll be dead in minutes. Just want to pre-warn you. Me and snakes don’t get along.

Amen. The only good snake is a dead snake, minus a head, right? But what does this great courageous man of God do? He shakes off the creature, the snake, into the fire and he suffers no harm. The people are like, well, once the poison gets to him, he’s a goner.

Just a little bit, he’ll be swelling and he’ll be dead. But you know what? That doesn’t happen. In verse 6, we see that it doesn’t happen.

And notice at the end of verse 6 that they changed their minds and they said, he was a God. Man, he was a God. What the islanders saw was a visible display of the power of God.

Power greater than all the false idols, all the false goddesses that they were already worshiping by the apostle experiencing immunity from the poison of a snake. And by the way, don’t think, you know, that you can just go out there and randomly be immune. I don’t want you to be crazy.

But I want you to know that God uses this affliction to give him a platform to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Your afflictions are not purposeless. We first and foremost know that every affliction we go through should always be that we would glorify God even in the hurt and the pain and the struggle.

But second of all, it should be our intention that as people are watching our life and we’re giving praise to God through the tears that they can be reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And third of all, the apostle said in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 6 that he had hoped that his afflictions would bring encouragement and comfort to the people of God. That as others see you deal with suffering and you suffer so well and you suffer so godly and you suffer in such a way that brings praise and glory to God Almighty that he would encourage the brothers and sisters in Christ to stay at it and be faithful to Jesus Christ.

That even as they will one day suffer, that they will learn an example from you on how to handle the problems of our health, the problems of our trials, the problems of our difficult relationships. Now, this little story here in verse 6 proposes a question that I thought would be interesting for you to consider this morning, and that is should we be handling snakes in church? Should we be handling snakes in church? Well, Jesus said in Mark 16 verse 18, he said, they will pick up serpents, talking about his apostles, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not harm them, and they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. Now there was a gentleman, I guess he’s a gentleman, his name is George Hensley, and George Hensley read Mark chapter 16 verse 18, and in 1910 he introduced to his congregation snake handling techniques.

And from that moment on it spread, if you will, no pun intended, like wildfire, and all of a sudden there was a group of Appalachian churches in that area that began to handle snakes. Friends, if you show up at church, and they’re handling snakes, my recommendation, get out before they get to you. Now, I want you to know, I don’t want you to be fearful, Pastor Mike is not being misled to handle snakes, amen, thank you.

But I want you to understand something, you know, this is out there, and some people think this, but Jesus did say this, and he said they could pick up serpents, and no deadly poison would cause them harm. Now people are quick to pick up a snake, but are they quick to drink the poison? Here’s the point, I want you to remember this church, that everything in the book of Acts is not designed for you to go out and repeat. And that is where some of our brothers and sisters in Christ have been misled by the book of Acts.

They think every event in the book of Acts has to be repeated every Sunday, or it has to be repeated at every special revival service, and so they are out to do the repetition of what they have read in the book of Acts, but that’s not what the book of Acts is all about. I want you to know that the miraculous signs, and the miraculous events that we see taking place in the book of Acts are simply unique credentials for the apostles and their gospel message. If you understood this, you would not be all excited about handling snakes.

You would not plan on bringing your snake to church next Sunday, and cast it before the altar, and say, now pastor, handle this snake. You would say, no, I understand that this was a unique event that took place, that Jesus even prophesied would happen in Mark chapter 16, and that as the Old Testament was concluding, and the New Testament, or the New Covenant was emerging, and the gospel was going forward, and Jesus was the fulfillment of all that was taught in the Old Testament, and now as Jesus was planting his new church, and sending out his gospel message, his good news, that he wanted to validate that message, and he wanted to verify his messengers, and he granted them great sign gifts in which they could perform miraculous things, and this would only help them to see that the message was true, and so was the messenger. Now how do you know this, Pastor Mike? Well let’s look at verse 7. Remember, we’ve already seen, we’ve already seen the people are referring to the apostle as a God.

So the second thing I want you to learn this morning is that God’s providence supplies ministry opportunities, not just a platform for the gospel, but opportunities for you to minister, and notice in verse 7 that in that region there was an estate of the leading citizen of the island, most likely the governor, or some kind of a mayor, or some kind of a leader of the people on this island, whose name was Publius, who received us, and he entertained us courteously for how many days? Three days. Now you and I, from chapter 1 all the way to chapter 27, and now in chapter 28, we’ve kind of got to know the apostle Paul. What do you think he’s telling them for those three days? What do you think he’s doing? You think the apostle’s just sitting back enjoying everything? No, I think he’s telling this leader, he’s telling this political leader about Jesus Christ.

He is ministering to them. This is something you’ll see in the life of the apostle in the book of Acts. It’s a pattern that the apostles are always establishing relationships with the leaders of the community, with the political figures.

We see this in chapter 13, 16, 17, 18, and 19, and now in chapter 28, because when the apostle finally gets to Rome, he will stand before Caesar, and he will stand before Roman guards, and he will tell them about Jesus Christ, and how is it that God turned this world upside down with the gospel through these men of God, these apostles that stood strong and preached the gospel. It is because all of Rome, which was anti-God and anti-Christianity, was flipped on its head and became a Christian empire because God, through the apostles, reached the political leaders with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that’s not just Pastor Mike up here randomly letting you know that.

It is really clear in history, and it’s written in the history books. So the apostle Paul was able to not only proclaim the gospel throughout the island, but he was able to minister to others. Look at this.

I want you to see this as we continue on in verse 8. And it happened that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and dysentery. Paul went into him and prayed, and he laid his hands on him, and he healed him. It’s not just that the apostle ministered this physical healing.

It’s even deeper, church, that these people are hearing about the God Jehovah Rapha, who is the healer, who is the one that strengthens the apostle to be able to do this wonderful task of ministering. We see this in Acts 3.12. Remember the Bible says, so when Peter saw it, he responded to the people. They were calling Peter a god because he had touched a man, grabbed a man’s hand, and it made him walk.

A man was lame. And what is Peter’s response? Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us as though by our own power or godliness we made this man walk? He goes on to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. He goes on to point the people to the power of God.

If God does any healing on this earth, if God does any work on this earth, if God manifests his great strength and power in any particular way, we should give all credit and glory to Jesus Christ. Can God’s people say amen? Amen. And we give thanks to God for those who work and serve in the health industry, and they are the extending hands, the healing hands of God on this earth, and doing what they can to accomplish this great work.

Any wisdom, any knowledge, any ability, any procedure is the direct result of a God who is supplying ministry opportunities for you in your life. That’s what the apostle is doing. He is serving God, and he is worshiping God.

And so even though he is a prisoner, remember that he is a prisoner, even though he still has this burden upon him, and he is a prisoner unjustly, he has been accused falsely, and all he is guilty of is telling people how to get saved. Even though this is true in his life, what does he do? The apostle still ministers, and he is a blessing. In your trial, in your trouble, church, the height of your healing is not to close the blinds and lock the doors and isolate yourself from others.

The height of your healing is that through your trial that you serve others, and you use that affliction and you use that trial to minister to others in whatever capacity that you can, because God wants you to be a blessing. And you know, you think about this. These people were so enamored by what the apostle had done.

Look at this in verse 9. So when this was done, the rest of those on the island who had diseases also came, and they were healed. That’s the difference between a charlatan and a true power of God. It wasn’t just a one-time incident, but the people came and the apostle ministered to them.

And what did they do in verse 10? They also honored us in many ways, and when we departed, they provided such things as were necessary. They blessed. The apostle came.

He could have been bitter. He could have been angry. He could have just shut down, but he said, I’m going to bless you.

I’m going to minister to others. And what do they do? They bless him. They honor him.

They thank him for what he has done. And when people bless you and when people minister to you and when people encourage you, do you take the time to thank them? Do you take the time to say, thank you? Your words meant a lot or your ministry touched my life. Just listening and praying with me really helped me.

Third and final thing, church. Don’t worry. There’s only three points you can rejoice, but God’s providence supplies a safe route and housing at the destination for the apostle.

I want you to see his providence in this in verse 11. Now, I want you to start out there. It says in verse 11, after three months, we sailed in an Alexandrian ship.

See, church, you can’t rush through the Bible. I know some of you’re on the track. You’re going to read the Bible in a year, and I’m all for you.

And I’ve done it many, many, many times. But don’t be in such a rush to finish the Bible that you miss out on some of the great deep truths of the Bible. And the more you understand what the Bible is saying, the more God is going to speak to you, the more you understand the circumstances.

Now, I just read a verse to you and some of you saying, what’s he talking about? Well, look, hang in there after three months. How long were they on the island? For three months. For three months, they were on that island because the apostle was kind, because he was a servant, because in his affliction, he was not selfish, but he started ministering to others.

God used him for three months to tell others about Jesus. That’s what I want you to see. That’s why Luke put it in there.

He wants you to be blown away by that. That after three months, we sailed in an Alexandria ship whose figure’s head was the twin brothers, which is a two gods that protect sailors, they claim. But anyways, it says, which had wintered at the island and landing at Syracuse.

We stayed three days, not Syracuse, New York, by the way. From there, we circled round and we reach Regium. And after one day, the south wind blew.

And the next day, we came to Petuli, where we found brethren and we invited to stay with them seven days. And so we went towards Rome. And from there, when the brethren heard about us, they came to meet us far, as far as Apia, Forum, and three inns.

When Paul saw them, he thanked God. And what does the Bible say? Took courage. Now, when we came to Rome, the centurions delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard.

But Paul was permitted to dwelt by himself with the soldier who guarded him. Now, God provided safe travels for the apostle, provided all the means that was necessary for them. When they finally get to their place, you say, man, how did you read all those words? I’m like you.

I make it up. I don’t know how to pronounce those words. Okay.

And you go from one translation to another and they’re all different. Okay. But I just make it good because, you know, sometimes you got to fake it till you make it.

Don’t worry about it. Don’t get caught up in the pronunciation of those words. Here’s what I want you to get caught up in.

I want you to get caught up in how God providentially provided for the apostle. And what was he in need of? Courage. Even the strongest among us need encouragement.

Even the strongest among us need the fellowship and the friendship of God’s people. What does God providentially do? They show up and there’s Christians waiting for the apostle. Then others travel a far way to come and encourage the apostle.

Listen to me, my friends, this is a two-sided coin and I could preach all day, but don’t worry, I won’t. It’s a two-sided coin. It is first of all, for you to understand the value of being with God’s people.

Or fellowship is not only sweet, but it is empowering. It is encouraging. And I’m telling you that when you’re not with your Sunday school class or your Bible study group, when you’re not in the fellowship of the church, when you’re not where there are Christian friends and you are authentic with one another and you are encouraging one another and you’re supporting one another and you’re praying for one another, you are being drained by this world and you are being set by the demands of ministry and you need encouragement.

And I don’t care how long you’ve lived for Jesus Christ. And I don’t care how strong you are in your faith. And I don’t care how many times you’ve read the Bible through.

We all need encouragement. Can God’s people say amen? But I want you to understand something. It’s the other side.

It’s a two-sided coin. Who are you encouraging? These people traveled a far way. They came great distance.

There are times you just need to go see your brother and sister in Christ and you need to encourage them. There’s times you need to pick up the phone. You need to send a letter.

You need to show your presence and you need to be there so that you can encourage your brothers and sisters in Christ, whether they’re in our community, in our local fellowship of believers, or they are great distance away. Church, go out there and wake up every day and say, Lord, use me to bless others. And to encourage others.

What can I say to you? I can say through this story, church, that you can trust in the providence of God. You can trust in the providence of God and that you can be assured that God is working all things out for our good and to his glory. It doesn’t mean only good things are happening to you, but God is working in your life, in your circumstances, and he wants to give you a platform to reach others, to bring glory to his name.

What can I say to you? Rejoice in the saving grace of God. Church, do you see through the book of Acts how hard it was to get the gospel to people? Do you see what all God’s servants went through to get the gospel? Do you realize that you are among those that the gospel has reached? And I wonder what was sacrificed by many of our forefathers and those before us so that we could hear about Jesus Christ. Some of you were born into Christian homes.

You are so blessed. I cannot understand it, honestly, that moms and dads and grandparents worked so hard to get the gospel to you. And yet, sometimes, that second and third and fourth generation of Christians are the least thankful for it.

But I think they ought to be the most because they ought to look back and see what their parents endured so that the gospel would come to them, to their children, so that their children would know about Jesus Christ and hear. The kids ought to be the most on fire for God. They ought to be the ones that are really tearing it up for God and the most sold out for Jesus Christ because Jesus said, to whom much is given, much is required.

You were born into a Christian home. Your parents gave up so much so you could hear about Jesus. You may not even know all the blood, sweat, and tears that were done so that you could hear about Jesus.

They brought you to Sunday school, Iwana, with splitting headaches, not feeling well, but they didn’t want you to miss one youth program because they wanted you to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Church, rejoice. What can I say? Align yourself with the mission of God.

Man, we’re on assignment. We got a job to do, church. We got to go across the street and tell others about Jesus.

We got to get it around the world. God is providentially putting things together. You’re scared.

I’m excited about the world. You’re worried. And I’m full of great confidence that God is shaking up this world in the last few years so that more people would turn to Him and receive Him as Jesus Christ.

Hey, church, God is in control. Church, God is providential. All that has unfolded in these last few years, let’s not be shaken.

Let’s go in with a mission. Let’s go within an assignment from heaven, and let’s align our assignment with His providence and say, let’s tell more people about Jesus Christ. Amen? Amen.

Yes, thank you. In the Christian life, there will be problems, and our problem really is not our problem, but it’s how we respond to our problems. And God’s providence helps us, knowing that He is at work, gives us the strength.

We’re reminded what the psalmist said, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers Him out of them all. And so every challenge you have, every problem, God’s going to deliver. You just got to keep your focus on Him and remember that He is at work, even if you can’t see it.

Well, we encourage you to check out our social media, Facebook page. And on that Facebook page, you can keep up with things that are happening daily. Make sure that you like our page, and you’ll also be able to have the opportunity to stream live from Facebook.

And you can as well connect and share and respond and be able to interact a little bit with the Hope Worth Having ministry team. So take advantage of that. This is Pastor Mike Sanders, reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.