Hey. You're listening to Cut for Time, a podcast from Faith Church located on the North Side Of Indianapolis. My name is Claire Kingsley. And I'm Dan Breitwieser. Each week, one of us will sit down with the person who gave Sunday's sermon to discuss their message.

Cut for Time is a look behind the scenes of sermon preparation, and they'll share with us a few things that we didn't hear from the sermon on Sunday. Thanks for listening. Alright. Hey, Tom. Welcome back to Cut for Time.

Thank you, Claire. Good to see you. You too. Thank you for preaching, for us and stepping in to fill that role this past Sunday. I know it's something that you enjoy doing, during the opportunity to do, and now you'll I I really do.

It's been a couple of years since I've preached at at Faith. And on a Sunday morning, I do lots of funerals, but not much Sunday morning preaching. Yeah. And it's changing a little bit. So that's Yeah.

Yeah. It is. Yeah. Yeah. And you had mentioned when we were just kind of recapping your sermon a little bit, the last time you maybe preached through Acts, you preached through probably, acts 27 as an entire sermon, just because to break it up is really hard.

So why don't you explain to us, like, just the challenges that you had to navigate in preparing for your sermon. And as you discuss the summary of your sermon within the context of the whole chapter 27? Yeah. Sure. Yeah.

Acts 27 is one continuous narrative of Paul's trip, from Caesarea on the Israel coast, in in his day all the way to Rome. And, it takes a while to do it, but there's not a lot of what you call divine revelation. It's an accurate history, of what happened. And I actually of the three ways that it's divided up for the series, I actually got the passage that has the most in terms of a word from the Lord, where, Nick, before me and Nathan after me, haven't had as much direct stuff. And yet I've been amazed at how God led Nick, and I'm looking forward to how he's gonna lead Nathan.

So that that's been fun. But I I think I got the the easiest text maybe of the three. And so, what did you focus on in your passage that you got? Yeah. It was the second half or second, third, really, I guess you might say, of this trip to Rome.

And Nick took us through the first part, and I was really I'm really tied pretty closely to Nick's message because I think it is one message. And, he just emphasized that the experience on the ship is this another example, which is true in all circumstances, we're not in control. Yeah. And yet we don't need to be in control because we know the one who is in control. And I actually remembered a quote from years ago from Axie Dunham, who's an old man now, a 90 year old, who said we can live with the questions if we remember who God is.

And, that came out of a commentary in Exodus. But my more a little I dug a little deeper on verse 20 says when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and no small tempest lay on us, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned. So we're not in control, and we have no hope at all based on the circumstances that we have a chance of being saved from this storm. So that's where it started. We're lost at sea.

It doesn't get any better over the fourteen days of the passage I covered, except that God speaks in the midst of it. And that's what gives the hope and says that you're not in control, but God is. And here's a specific revelation of how God is going to save us. Us. So, and then I kind of got into my two main points.

Number one, God is sovereign over all things. That's obviously a huge topic. But we're just reminded of it over and over again in Joseph's experience in Egypt, which kids just did in kids camp or Job's experience of horrible misery, and yet he knew God was in control. Isaiah 40 to 46 are, you know, incredible passages. And then here's another one, right here in Acts developed explained better in Romans eight through 10, passages like that, that, yeah, god is truly sovereign.

We're still responsible. We have to make wise decisions and be obedient to god's call, but we don't control things. So based on that, we're to worship the God who's in control. He's worthy to be worshiped and to trust the God who's in control that, his purposes will be accomplished. For Paul, it was getting to Rome and, we'll finally get there this coming week, I think.

And to save a boatload of people, two seventy six people were saved from this storm and got safely, to, to shore. But that didn't happen yet. So it's a spoiler alert. Yeah. Yeah.

That didn't happen yet. And then the second emphasis that I have is that God is loving and gracious with the plan to rescue us. And so it's not only sovereign, but he's good, and he's loving, and he wants the best for us, which ultimately means, forgiveness of sin and eternal life. And so, that's that's what I've really emphasized in the last few minutes that God saved Paul and his shipmates from the storm, but he has a plan to save us and them from a much greater problem that is of our our sin and condemnation that results in salvation and no condemnation for those who are in Christ. So that's where we ended.

Yeah. I'm reminded of something. I'm reading a book right now and, something that you're saying just reminds me of what I've been reading. And it is that these two things these two parts of God's character need to go together, sovereignty and his goodness, because for us to admit that we actually have no control and that he is sovereign, without him being good, like, if we didn't believe that, then we're left with a god who could take advantage of our lack of control. You know what I mean?

Like, of us being at his very, at his mercy. Yeah. Which and but because he is good, he doesn't he's not a, like, evil or vengeful god who takes advantage of us being so weak. He instead we acknowledge that we are weak and then gives us his goodness in that space. And so I don't know.

Just keeping those together is just, I don't know, just hit me this week. So Yeah. It's it's critical. You're right on there that, we have to trust that god is god. We're not, and yet god is defined in so many different ways.

John in the New Testament narrows it to god is love. Now god is more than love. He's a lot more than love, and god is holy, and and that's kind of the other side of it. But, the sovereignty of god and the responsibility that is ours are always gonna be intention, and one cannot be used to ignore the other. They're they're both both critically important.

Mhmm. So something you said in your summary, you said god intervened with his message or a voice. How did he do that? Well, in the the middle or the middle part of my text, he says an angel came to him, and he tells the crew on the bore on board the ship. And the boat's shaking and rocking and blowing it.

So it had to be a very interesting meeting. But he calls them all together and says that god has appeared to me. He's told me that there will be no loss of life. In fact, an angel of God appeared to me, the God of whom I worship. So he's explaining his view on God in a sense compared to the polytheistic view of the Greek or Roman world.

And, he said, you're all gonna be saved, and, God has told me I'm gonna appear before Caesar. Well, I can't do that unless I'm brought safely to shore, and God has granted all of those who sail with you. So it's a, what we call temporal salvation experience from a particular event, but I hope I handle that fairly by saying that is always a picture of a much greater eternal salvation that God provides in his love for all who will trust Jesus. Mhmm. Yep.

So I just would love to hang out a little bit on just the story of the angel coming with this message, bearing this news. Paul's heard a lot of from a lot of different voices. I feel like he's been prompted or led by the the spirit. He has interacted with an angel. He has interacted with Jesus, the son of God.

And so, man, it's, a lot of us could live our whole lives in discipleship to Christ and not feel like we hear an audible voice of God. And so how do we consider or how do we continue, in our journeys without being discouraged saying that's not our experience at all? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a great question.

And, I think all of us have had a longing for, why doesn't god speak to me the way he seems to speak to other people? Well, I think some of that is the psychological makeup of each person in terms of how we interpret some of our experiences. But I became convinced as a young person that God speaks through scripture and that what he's said in the past to the Old Testament and then ultimately characters and then ultimately revealed in Jesus and further through the apostles his truth that I just have this amazing revelation of God that does become very personal to me. Mhmm. And in first Corinthians 13, he says, now we see through a glass darkly or like a, a a mirror when you get out of the shower that you can't see it at all because it's all steamed over.

When then we'll see face to face. So, we have the promise that that day is coming. We have a very vivid, real, intimate relationship. Some may feel like they have more of that now than some of us do, but I don't feel that as a loss. I see that as a marvelous hope for the future that I trust, in God's time will take place.

Mhmm. Mhmm. And you you said that you were convinced long ago that God speaks through scripture. Was there, like, a moment for you that that was made clear or that is I know I know that's not true just to you. That is just truth is that God speaks through scripture to us.

Yeah. Is there a moment that stands out to you? Well, for me, there's probably a lot of them of markers along the way. But in my case, I was blessed to be raised in a Christian home where my parents read the Bible to me every morning with me and my the five siblings and my and my parents. And, we weren't always real patient through all that, but we heard every word of scripture, more than once in growing up.

And, you know, they just told us it was true, and we trusted them that it was. Well, I didn't have an intellectual conviction about it, I suppose. I just accepted it. Dad said it. Mom said it.

It must be true. They didn't they don't lie to me. But, of course, I had to mature in that understanding. And so, as I began to read scripture on my own and since I had the privilege of going to seminary, I got into classes in apologetics and things like that where I came to a more, I think more intellectual understanding, which is is also very convincing. But, yeah, I don't know that I've ever in my life had a moment of doubt.

Is this really true? Mhmm. And sometimes I think would have been better if I had is like, you know, those of us who did not have a dramatic conversion to Christ. Well, when you think about it, we we should be glad we didn't that we didn't have to go through such horrible things in order to realize we needed God. But, yeah.

So I just it was never a a question for me. That doesn't mean it's not a legitimate question that has to be wrestled with by by everyone in terms of because we're gonna be asked the hard questions. Why do you believe in scripture? Well, then I'm gonna go to prophecy and a whole lot of evidence that, that I would say is supportive of, of a, an acceptance of scripture as God's word. Mhmm.

Okay. You said that when we first met that sorry. You don't have very much that you cut from your sermon on Sunday. But is there anything else that you'd like to share on this passage or a small nugget you'd like to leave us with? Well, one little nugget that, actually someone who spoke to me after the the sermon, it came up to me.

And just the whole question of, I mean, I didn't say anything about this one little section in there where, the sailors decided we're gonna escape. Now sailors are supposed to stay with the boat until everybody else is safe, but they decided they're gonna put the the lifeboat over the edge, and they're gonna escape and forget about everybody else. There's no hope anyway. And Paul intervened there and said, you gotta stop these guys because if they do this, we'll lose our opportunity, and everybody has to stay on the boat. Now why?

Well, because god said so. That's all. But the emphasis on the sailors were not trusting Paul that they were gonna be safe. The soldiers ultimately pulled rank over the sailors, and they cut the ropes on the boat and let it fall into the sea. And so the sailors had to stay on board.

So in a sense, the the sailors didn't believe God's message. The soldiers, in some sense, did. And so there's another example of we all have a decision to make. Will we believe what God says, or will we reject it and say, I've got a better way. I've got a a way to save myself that that that, God doesn't have anything to do with, or, no.

I'm gonna listen to the message that, this is the way, and I'm gonna follow that. Mhmm. Yeah. Alright. Thank you, Tom, for your time today.

We appreciate you. Thank you, Claire. Appreciate it. Have a good day. You too.

Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Cut for Time. If you wish to submit questions to our pastors following their sermon, you can email them to podcast@faithliveitout.org or text them into our faith church texting number, and we'll do our best to cover it in the week's episode. If this conversation blessed you in any way, we encourage you to share it with others. Thanks for listening. We'll be back again next week.