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You're listening to audio from Faith Church located on the North Side Of Indianapolis.
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If you'd like to check out more information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindy.com.
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Now, here's the teaching.

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Well, good morning.
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It is good to be back.
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It is good to see you all.
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Believe it or not, I am Jeff Schultz, the interim lead pastor here at Faith.
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I say believe it or not because, my wife, Amelia, and I have been gone for about a month.

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Full head of hair and a beard.
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So this is me now, I guess.
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And we'll see what the next few months bring.
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Coming back from, our trip to serve our brothers and sisters at Keith Theological Seminary in Poland and and some vacation, I was reflecting on the fact of how, my wife, Amelia, and I have actually had quite a string of bad travel experiences in the last few years.
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In 2019, we were going to be traveling to Italy to, do a missionary care visit with, the Satolas in our mission family.

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We got to the airport and found out that Amelia was not going to Italy because her passport was going to expire in two and a half months, and that's not good enough to fly internationally anymore.
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Who knew?
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Now we know.
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After that, there were several trips to Florida that got canceled by the airlines.
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A freak snowstorm, when she was visiting her sister in Philadelphia interrupted, another flight.

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Our I think it was our trip to Vienna to go visit our daughter during a semester abroad program.
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We missed a connection there.
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And, now that I think of it, it's really Amelia who seems to have all of these travel problems.
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Cartoons where there's a little dark cloud over, you know, a localized rainstorm over one person's head.
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And, I love my wife, but I got to the point where I said, honey, I don't want to travel with you anymore.

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But in January, we went down to Florida to see Amelia's dad, and we didn't have any problems.
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And it was frankly so unusual that we started reflecting on what was different about this trip.
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Wearing these new yellow puffin socks.
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And we decided it must have been the yellow puffin socks.
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Well, we didn't know for sure, but we weren't taking any chances, so we washed the socks in Florida, so we'd have them to wear for the trip back and no problems.

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The next month, February, we were flying back down to Florida for the funeral for Amelia's mom.
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I made sure to wear the yellow puffin socks and again, smooth sailing.
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Year, we had nine flights, a train trip, three ferries, a car rental, all without incident because yellow puffin socks.
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Now, I am a Christian, okay?
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Which is good since you guys have me up here pretty.

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And I certainly believe that God is in charge of all things.
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Power, but I'm also going to wear them on my next trip with Amelia.
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First Hour ask if I would lend them out to him for an upcoming trip.
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So, let me know.
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There's something about things like this, right?

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That it got me reflecting.
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Superst It seems to come naturally to us as human beings.
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Right?
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It's it's kind of a cross between, you know, wise planning and good habits, which is fine, and, religious sensibility what we experience and we don't totally understand it or seem to be able to make sense of it.
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Enough to remember Stevie Wonder saying that superstition is believing in things you don't understand.

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I don't think that's quite right because we all believe in things we don't understand, whether it's related to superstition or not.
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Superstition, in fact, has has something true about it.
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It acknowledges that there are things happening beyond this world, beyond what we can see around us that we can't control, that we can't make sense of, that that impact us.
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And and superstition is making the mistake of offering us a a system or a promise or a hope or a technology or something that lets us believe that we can understand and control those things that are kind of invisible to us.
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That's why we, you know, have compulsive habits about some things.

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It's why we talk about fate, or luck, or chance, or jinxes.
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It's why guys turn their hats inside out as rally caps in the ninth inning of the baseball game when they're behind.
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It's it's why people read horoscopes.
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It's why you wear a lucky shirt when your team has a a big game coming up.
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It's why the bridegroom doesn't see the bride before the wedding.

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Why my godly, wonderful, loving, southern grandmother made us eat black eyed peas every January 1, so that we would have good luck in the new year.
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Superstition is about doing things that give us the illusion of understanding and control in a world that often feels out of control.
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And today's passage, and and the one that pastor Tom took us through last week in acts 28 speak to the reality of these unseen spiritual forces and powers at work that are behind the scenes.
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And I think the passage today also says something to us about how we understand those forces and how we relate to them as followers of Jesus.
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Now we are nearing the end of our journey through the book of acts.

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We've been seeing again how the Holy Spirit has been working through God's people to spread the message and the presence of Jesus kingdom.
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God has told the Apostle Paul that he will be his witness in Rome, in kind of the center of the known world.
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Wild journey.
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Right?
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I mean, just recently, another shipwreck, a rough landing.

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Last week, Paul was bitten by a a poisonous viper, and that's where we left off, kind of, in passage today.
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Lot of journeys, the adventure of getting there in many ways is what makes the better part of the story.
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So if you haven't already, go ahead and turn to Acts 28.
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We're starting in verse seven.
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If you're using one of those black Bibles in the seats, in the pocket in front of you, it's page, eleven fourteen or ACT scripture journals.

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As I said, last week we left after Paul had suffered, but recovered from the bite of this venomous snake, which is kind of a strange miracle because Paul didn't even recognize that it was a miracle.
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Right?
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Like, the the natives spoke a different language.
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They didn't speak Greek or Latin, and only the locals were aware of how deadly this viper was.
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He just shakes it off into the fire.

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And suddenly, in the local's mind, Paul goes from being a condemned criminal who's been bitten by justice to the one who's now maybe some kind of a demigod.
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And since the Greeks had an endless list of gods and demigods and heroes, the question in their minds probably has to be, well, which one is he?
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And there is no Greek god of snakes per se.
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Those snakes were associated with wisdom and healing, as we'll hear later.
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Some of you may have heard of Asclepius.

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Anyone of the Greek mythology or medical profession?
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The stories claim that Asclepius was a really impressive powerful healer.
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His symbol was two snakes intertwined around a staff, which is why you still see that today on the side of ambulances EMS badges.
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He was honored by Zeus who made him into a constellation.
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And, when the Greeks would consecrate temples in Asclepius' honor, they would fill them with non venomous snakes, which was a way to make sure my wife would never enter one of those temples.

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And I wonder though, if if these natives of Malta maybe were thinking, I wonder if this is Asclepius come down from the heavens.
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Past today, probably confirmed that suspicion in their minds.
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Look in verse seven.
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In the neighborhood of that place, who lands belonging to the chief man of the island, Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days.
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It happened that his father lay sick with fever and dysentery, and Paul visited him and prayed.

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And putting his hands on him healed him.
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And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured.
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They honored us greatly.
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And when we were about to set sail, they put on board whatever we needed.
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Okay.

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So, the locals take Paul and his friends to meet the big man of the island who was probably the the Roman governor or something.
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They get to his house.
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He happily takes them in, and his hospitality seems to be rewarded because, his father is very ill.
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But Paul prays and lays hands on him and he and he's healed and word gets out and people start bringing their sick family members to Paul.
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And that's probably leading them to think, well, this must be Asclepius or or maybe one of his prophets or priests or something.

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Before we hang that thought.
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Okay?
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But before we before we look at that further, let's go back and look at this healing of Publius' dad because there's there's several things going on here.
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Most of us probably have not thought about dysentery since the last time we played Oregon Trail.
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It it and that for good reason.

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It's a nasty disease.
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Right?
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It's horrible, usually accompanied by dehydration, and it can get severe enough to lead to anemia through blood loss.
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And on top of that, this guy is suffering from a fever, which indicates he is in in really bad shape.
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Right?

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And and there's no chance, by the way, that, you know, this is a misunderstanding or a misdiagnosis because Luke, the physician, is the one recording all this for us, which brings up another interesting point.
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Luke, the doctor, is there.
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Right?
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But who is it that heals Publius' father?
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It's not the It's the snake bite guy, right?

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He prays, he touches him.
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He walks into a room that is full of sickness and disease and darkness, and he lays his hands on the wasted body of this man's father.
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And all of a sudden, there's healing and wholeness and cleanliness, like Jesus, right?
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Just his touch makes the unclean clean and the sick healthy.
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The the cure is not in any medicine.

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It's in some power.
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It seems to be residing in Paul and working through him.
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Now that healing is amazing in its own right, but it would have messed with the categories that these people that would have had in mind.
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And this is where the similarities to Asclepius start to fall apart as we look at this.
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For the Greeks, as I said, snakes were kind of sacred symbols of wisdom and healing, even, even resurrection.

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And that's again why doctors picked that up as a symbol that's used even to this day.
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Healing.
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It was a symbol of judgment, justice, and and the God's kind of wrath.
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And yet, Paul comes in.
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He kills the viper of judgment healing snakes or, or any kind of incantation or anything like that, but with the touch of the same hand that the viper bit.

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Him.
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Death cannot touch him any more than judgment can.
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It's like this power just flows through this servant of God.
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Who is this guy?
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We have no category for someone like this.

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We we've never seen anyone like this before.
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Now Paul, of course, would have certainly made it clear that that he's no Greek hero.
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He's no God.
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He's no mythological person.
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He would have certainly made it clear that he is there representing Jesus of Nazareth.

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The Jesus who lived and died and rose again by his own power.
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The one person that death could not hold in the grave because he is the one who is greater than life and death and the grave.
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That's whose power resides in Paul.
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That's how he could touch the sick and heal them, and how he could make the unclean whole, and how he could even be bitten by vipers and walk away unscathed.
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Notice what, Luke says in verse 10.

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Seven, this man, Publius, even before Luke or Paul had done anything positive for now, healing and life flow out from Paul to the people around him.
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There's a blessing and a fullness and a hospitality and an honor that flows out from Paul to the people around him who had nothing to do with this healing themselves.
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These people are connected to Paul, who's connected to Jesus, and and they share in honor and goodness simply by being connected to Jesus.
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His faithfulness, his goodness become blessings to the people around.
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And and it's clear that whatever power Paul has in him to to heal, to protect, to bless is not just about him, but about flowing through him to other people.

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So hang on to that.
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And and I want us to look at this next section of verses before we start trying to think through what this means for us.
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We we kinda go back into travelogue mode in verse 11.
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They set we set sail on a ship, from Alexandria with the twin gods.
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They we went to Syracuse, which is on Sicily.

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We made a circuit, got to Regium, which is kind of in Calabria, the boot of Italy nowadays.
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And a south wind springs up.
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We came to Puteoli, which is kind of modern day Naples.
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Rest with them for seven days, and and then we came to Rome.
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I mean, that's that's kind of amazing.

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Right?
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Like, that's been the whole point of, like, the last three or four chapters.
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And we came to Rome.
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I mean, it seems almost a little anticlimactic, right?
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Back up a couple of verses.

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They're traveling up on their way.
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Here?
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Between what Paul and his friends have been experiencing?
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Storm toss, we haven't eaten for two weeks, we've given up all hope of life, we're throwing the tackle overboard, shipwreck, We barely survived getting to this island.
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And now all of a sudden it's like, oh, yeah.

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We had this nice little cruise and a south wind came up and there we are.
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And along the way, they end up finding some brothers in verse 14 from this town near Naples who invited them to stay with them for seven days.
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That is at least, if not all 276 guys, certainly Paul and the soldiers guarding him and the other prisoners who were going to Rome.
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I mean, it's it's an amazing expression of hospitality that just keeps coming out again and again and again through this passage.
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Do you do you see that?

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Hospitality is a hallmark of the followers of Jesus.
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It's not, you know, that we have to do like a kids camp or steak night or a one worship, you know, big event every week or something.
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But but it's good that we do them.
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It's good that we have these expressions, these outpourings of hospitality and and welcome and and and goodness.
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Of the things that came up over and over again in in this week that, Amelia and I and the other members of the team that that were there in Poland to serve our our friends from Kyiv Theological Seminary was they're just them, halfway around the globe, would give so generously of their money and their time and their effort and their vacation to travel across an ocean simply to bless them, to encourage them, to support them, to help them.

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That's what experiencing Jesus' kindness and goodness and grace does as as that lives in us and flows out through us to other people, that hospitality, that generosity defines God's people, That that our homes, our churches, our places of welcome, and peace, and blessing, and and taking people in.
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I mean, don't you think that this centurion, and the soldiers, and the other prisoners who are with Paul would just be kind of like blown away by this generosity.
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The brothers who don't probably even know Paul and certainly have no connection to his traveling companions are like, oh, come on in and stay with us for a oh, come on in and stay with us for a If you're with Paul, if you're with a Jesus follower, we love you.
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We want you to we want to share Jesus' love and goodness with you.
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It's not that these people have done anything for them, but they have known the love and the grace and the kindness of Jesus.

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So so they treat not just Paul, not just Paul's friends, but even the soldiers imprisoning him as honored guests.
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Where does that come from?
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So we come to Rome at verse 14.
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And the brothers there, when they heard about us, came from as far as the Forum Of Appius and three taverns to meet us.
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So they finally get there.

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And once again, Paul and his friends get a grand welcome.
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People come from around the region to care for them, even as far as three taverns, which has to be one of the best place names in all of scripture, right?
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Like the defining characteristic of our community is multiple places to get a drink.
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Right?
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It's like ancient day Wisconsin, right?

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Like a tavern on every corner.
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In any event, we're told on seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage.
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Now Paul's been eager to get to Rome.
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He he knows that God's calling him to go to Rome, but it doesn't mean he's not nervous about it.
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It doesn't mean he has doesn't have questions about what's next and how is this all gonna turn out.

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The church community shows up to support him, to to bear his burdens, to encourage him, to strengthen his heart, to do for one another.
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Right?
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Apostles need encouragement.
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Pastors need encouragement.
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Ministry leaders, volunteers, elders, deacons.

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We all, all of us need encouragement.
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We need to give that and receive it from one another.
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Okay.
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So so what is God saying to us through this passage?
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Well, there's another reminder here of the supreme power of God over all things.

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That should really cause us again to take a step back and ask things like, do I believe that the power of the of the spirit of God who is at work in Paul's life to protect, to heal, to restore, that that spirit is still at work and alive today?
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Do I really believe that and and trust in that and hope in that and have confidence?
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This is not just about what God was doing two thousand years ago, but what he does.
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Do do I believe that the problems that I'm facing, that that we're facing, are not bigger or stronger than the power of Jesus?
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Like the problems in my life, the problems in this nation, the problems in the world are not bigger than Jesus?

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And do I really see that being with Jesus is what brings wholeness and blessing and life and honor and meaning?
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That that's it.
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To have Jesus is to have everything, faithfulness of Jesus.
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Right?
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Like I almost wonder if that's why this mention in verse 14 is almost just like an afterthought.

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Yeah.
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So we came to Rome.
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Like, it's no big deal.
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Like, what?
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It's no big deal because it's what Jesus promised all along.

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Paul, you will be my witness in Rome.
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Yeah.
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So we came to Rome because Jesus said we would.
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Because he's at work and and I can trust him.
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Because here's Paul at the end of this trip, all of this mess and chaos and loss and uncertainty and and he's there just like Jesus said he would be.

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He's not even at a prison.
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He's like in a private home with like a a guard sort of standing in the corner.
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He's under house arrest.
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But there's one other detail here that I think draws all this together for us.
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Back up in verse 11.

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After three months, we set sail on a ship of Alexandria with the twin gods as a figurehead.
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Decoration, of any of the other ships that they've been on.
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Meaning, when he says that the twin gods are are the figureheads, they're they're like carved into the prowl.
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The twin gods are Castor and Pollux, the twin brothers in Greek mythology, considered the patron gods of sailors.
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It was believed that they appeared in in the form of what we today call Saint Elmo's fire, which is not just the most nineteen eighties movie ever.

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It is, a strange electrical phenomenon that that creates kind of a a plasma that can appear on the ships and the prows, and the masts, of ships, sorry, like a a purplish greenish glow under certain weather conditions.
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The the Greeks took it as a sign that Castor and Pollux were favoring this trip and you were under their protection.
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They were looking out for you.
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So why does Paul point these guys out with this detail?
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He's not just filling space.

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Remember, parchment is expensive.
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And we believe that every word of scripture is inspired, inspired, that God has it here for a reason.
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So why mention the twin gods, the the patron gods of sailors?
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It could be that, he's making the point that, you know, it's easy to follow the gods of this world when the smoothing is when the sailing is know, it's easy to follow the gods of this world when the smoothing when the sailing is smooth and and it's easy going.
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Right?

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You know, if Castro and Pollux here seem to be providing gentle passage, there's a contrast to our God who seems to be roiling up the sea and causing shipwrecks and and bringing all kinds of chaos and difficulty to cause his people to trust in him.
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When the seas aren't smooth and easy, God reigns over the chaos and the storms of our lives.
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Making sense of what he's doing is not as easy as just saying like, well, it's smooth sailing, so I must be doing something right, or it's rough sailing, so I must have done something wrong.
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This section begins with this this miracle of Paul and this viper, remember?
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And and we picked up this week right after the Maltese people are probably, you know, have said he must be some kind of a god.

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Now we know that's ridiculous and we know that Paul would never leave them in that kind of confused belief.
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And I'm sure that Paul took time over the three months that he's there to clear up this confusion and introduce them to Jesus.
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And I I think what Luke is doing here is that he wants us to see this whole section as kind of a face off between gods, between lower g gods.
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There's Paul, who's not really a god, and Castor and Pollux, who are also not really gods.
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And who comes out on top?

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Well, who's writing whom to roam?
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Castor and Pollux are serving God's purposes and delivering his apostle through smooth seas to exactly where God intends him to go.
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It's almost like a picture of like Paul is standing on the prow of a ship.
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He's like a charioteer, like driving these gods to where the one true God intends him to get.
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In a symbolic sense, these small gods have become Paul's servants.

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I think that's the way we make sense of of God mentioning them here.
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It's not the first time, remember, in acts that Paul has been mistaken for for some kind of a pagan deity, but this passage suggests that he is in fact above them.
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That that he is over them because in Christ, Paul outranks these small g gods, these spiritual forces in the world.
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So they're made to serve him because he is serving Christ.
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And so Paul can even take advantage of these false gods on the prowl of a ship to serve God's ultimate purposes.

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Paul walks among the the the gods, the powers of this world with a confidence, with with almost kind of a a swagger.
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Not because Paul himself is a god in in any sense, just like Castro and Pollux are not a god in any sense.
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The point is that they don't boss Paul.
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They don't intimidate him.
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They don't threaten him.

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They don't control him.
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They don't even matter to him in that sense.
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They're they're nothings.
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There's this great scene in the first Avengers movie where Captain America first sees Thor and Loki, these Asgardians, in their armor and flowing capes and helmets and everything.
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And, there he's getting ready to, like, jump out of the back of the plane and follow after them.

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And another character says, Hey, careful.
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These guys come from legend.
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They're like gods.
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And Captain America says, There's only one god, ma'am.
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And I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that.

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Paul is so confident in the power of Jesus, in his faith in Christ, that these pagan symbols don't worry him.
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He's not afraid of a viper.
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He's not scared by sickness.
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He's not intimidated by twin gods on the prow of the ship.
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He doesn't have any concern about it.

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He can burn them.
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He can ignore them.
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He can use them as he sees fit.
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Because whatever power they have, they don't have it over him.
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Knowing the power of Jesus is what gives confidence.

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I think that's what Paul is saying to us, what Luke is saying to us in this passage.
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The power of Jesus is what gives us Because Jesus has power over every spiritual force.
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He has power nature.
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He has power we won't suffer loss or that things will work out the way that we hope.
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But Jesus power means none of those things control us.

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None of those things cause us to fear and none of those things can ultimately destroy us or undo his purposes.
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Jesus has power over sickness and and life and death.
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It doesn't mean that he's gonna show up miraculously and deliver us from illness and disease and pain.
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But trusting in Jesus' power means that we know that suffering is not God's judgment and lack of suffering is not the assurance that we've done everything right somehow.
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And suffering is not the end of the story.

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Then Jesus will make even death serve his purposes by delivering his people into his presence.
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That is power that gives confidence.
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Jesus power means nothing can separate us from his love and goodness and purposes.
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And Jesus invites you today to know and trust in his power.
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Paul doesn't freak out when he sees these twin gods.

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He doesn't become offended.
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He doesn't run away.
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He acts like Castro and Pollux are only there to serve him because they are.
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These small g gods that seem so important to the people around him are are just tools.
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They're nothings to him.

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The Greeks had a god, a goddess, a hero for everything imaginable.
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The sun, the moon, the stars, the sea, the animals, the elements, emotions.
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And Paul does not deny that in some sense, these spiritual forces exist.
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He he he calls them in his letters the powers of this dark world.
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But but if this story is any indication the follower of Jesus has more power have to be afraid of them.

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We don't we don't have to try and buy their their work in our lives.
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We don't have to try and placate them.
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We don't have to worry about them.
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We don't fear them because in Christ, we outrank them.
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They have no power over us.

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That's That's what victory over superstition looks like.
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That's what confidence looks like.
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Because in Christ that same power dwells in you and dwells in me.
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And then, the next time Amelia and I travel, I'm going to wear my yellow puffin socks.
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Not because I think they're going to help us get where we need to get, because it's, you know, and now it's just become like an inside joke.

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It's like a family tradition kind of thing.
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The socks I, you know, I didn't put them on the right way, or I forgot them, or, you know, it won't be because I forgot to wear the socks, or they've lost their power.
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I need to be find some other totem.
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Will be because God ordained it.
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Because he's in charge.

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And I might I can be confident that in whatever he brings, he is at work.
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And and I don't have to fear it.
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I don't have to be overwhelmed by it.
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It means that whatever is happening to me or to you or in this world is not out of control or chaotic.
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It means I can see all those realities as opportunities to entrust myself to the one who has all power, and that's what entrust myself to the one who has all power, and that's what gives us confidence.

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And when I face setbacks and sorrows and losses and pain and difficulty, I I have power in Christ not to be come by them because if I'm in Christ, I have already overcome them.
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Rest confidently in Jesus power over every so called God and spiritual force.
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Let's pray.
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Our gracious God and Father, we thank you for your word.
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We thank you for the hope and the promise and the insight that it gives us that even mentions like this of the twin gods of mythology on a ship or or there intentionally.

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And Lord, it can seem like we live in a very different world from from this one, but we are surrounded by idols of our own age.
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And maybe we don't make statues and worship them and burn incense, but but Lord, there are idols and forces all around us that this world serves.
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And and there really are powers at work.
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Lord, we thank you that because your son has all power and because we are in him by faith, we outrank all those powers so that we can live with faith and confidence in all that you are doing as we walk with you.
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We pray all these things in Jesus' name.

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Amen.