Review / Introduction:
3 People You Have to Deal With:
- The Critic: Don't get Distracted by Him. (Acts 28:1-6)
- Consider the source
- Don't take it personally
- Ask, "Is it true?"
- Say, "Thank you for the feedback."
- The Hurting: Don't be too Busy for Him. (Acts 28:7-10)
- The Brother: Don't rob Him of a Blessing. (Acts 28:11-16)
How to Handle Criticism:
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:48-00:57
Acts 28. Acts 28. Can you believe we have two sermons left in the book of Acts?
00:57-01:01
How long has it been? How long has it been that we've been in Acts?
01:02-01:08
Three years. Three years. And we have two sermons left.
01:09-01:12
Acts 28. Just to get us all caught up where we are.
01:12-01:15
We've been following the Apostle Paul. He's a prisoner at this point.
01:15-01:18
And I remember he was falsely accused.
01:18-01:26
He was accused by some Jewish troublemakers of bringing Gentiles into the restricted part of the temple.
01:26-01:30
And there were riots and mob attacks and everything else.
01:30-01:33
And Paul ended up incarcerated.
01:35-01:37
Realized he wasn't gonna get a fair trial.
01:37-01:40
So he appealed to Caesar, as was his right as a Roman citizen.
01:41-01:49
Said Paul was taken to Rome by ship with sailors and soldiers and prisoners, about 270-odd people.
01:49-01:51
Luke and Aristarchus were with them.
01:53-01:58
And they encountered a horrible storm, shipwrecked, made it to the shore of an island.
01:58-02:00
That was all Acts 27, the last two weeks.
02:01-02:04
And everybody made it to shore, just as God promised.
02:04-02:10
And that's sort of where we left off last time, was if you can swim, swim for the shore.
02:10-02:14
If you can't swim, grab a chunk of the boat and doggy paddle with it or whatever.
02:15-02:16
And that's where we left off.
02:16-02:18
Everybody made it to shore.
02:19-02:20
That was really the last two messages.
02:21-02:25
I will not fear even when everything is out of my control.
02:26-02:29
I will trust God to keep his promises.
02:31-02:37
So as we look at Acts 28 today, do you know what the best part of ministry is?
02:38-02:40
You know what the best part of ministry is?
02:42-02:43
It's the people.
02:44-02:45
It is the people.
02:45-02:46
I love people.
02:47-02:50
And I love meeting new people.
02:50-02:53
I love going to small group with people that I've known for a while.
02:53-02:56
People are by far the best part of ministry.
02:56-02:58
I mean, aside from Jesus and all.
02:58-02:59
Yeah, I get that.
02:59-03:03
I just mean, people are the best part of ministry.
03:05-03:07
But do you know what the worst part of ministry is?
03:10-03:11
Have I given this sermon before?
03:13-03:15
Just had one of those deja vu things.
03:21-03:27
Yeah, sometimes the worst part of ministry is it's people.
03:28-03:32
It's people and I'm not saying, I don't love people.
03:32-03:37
I'm just saying that sometimes people make ministry harder than it probably should be.
03:38-03:40
And you're like, can you give me an example of that?
03:40-03:41
And actually I can.
03:42-03:51
Many, many years ago, we had this lady, it was at my former church up in Butler, but we had this lady that lived right down the street from the church, never went to the church a day in her life.
03:52-03:54
But for some reason she called incessantly.
03:54-03:57
She's like, I'm moving, I need help moving.
03:57-03:59
Can somebody there help move?
03:59-04:05
And I'm like, we don't exactly have a moving crew here sitting around waiting for somebody with their empty truck.
04:05-04:06
And we're moving.
04:07-04:08
So I'm like, you know what?
04:09-04:15
Maybe this is one of divine appointments and evangelism opportunity.
04:15-04:17
And I'm like, you know what?
04:18-04:23
Maybe this is just something that the Lord is putting on my lap that this is an evangelism opportunity.
04:23-04:24
She doesn't go to our church.
04:24-04:26
I don't know what her spiritual background is at all.
04:28-04:32
So I had said to our admin, you know, clear my schedule.
04:33-04:35
I'm going to go help this woman move.
04:35-04:42
just me and my Jeep Cherokee, I'll fold the seats down and I'm going to help this woman move.
04:43-04:51
So I go down and her apartment was two floors up, some very long, steep stairs.
04:51-04:52
And I thought, you know what?
04:54-04:58
I was so busy with so many different things at that church at that time.
04:58-05:01
I thought, let's just clear my schedule.
05:01-05:05
And yeah, I have a degenerated disc in my back, as a lot of you know.
05:07-05:20
So moving is not the easiest thing in the world for me, but I'm like, you know, despite all that, let's just spend a couple hours and see if this is a divine appointment the Lord has for me, despite my busyness and achy, breaky back and all of those things.
05:21-05:31
So I get to her place and I walk in, you know, I walk into her apartment and you know, she's there and her husband's sitting there and I'm like, hey, who's this guy not helping?
05:31-05:34
And he had some health issues and couldn't help, so fair enough.
05:34-05:42
But something that was very weird to me was she had just like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of boxes.
05:42-05:43
That's not the weird part.
05:43-05:50
The weird part was in Black Sharpie written on about 85% of the boxes, it said underwear.
05:52-05:54
Now I don't, I'm not even kidding.
05:55-06:02
Now, look, I didn't want my mind to go there, but I'm thinking how many pairs of underpants do these people have?
06:04-06:06
I'm like, good attitude, we're gonna keep a good attitude.
06:06-06:07
We're gonna keep a good attitude.
06:07-06:09
We're going to keep a good attitude.
06:09-06:21
So I single-handedly carrying down these flights of stairs, loading into my Jeep, boxes and boxes and boxes of underwear and driving him over to her new place.
06:22-06:26
Here's the good news at her new place, it was up three flights of steps.
06:27-06:32
So here I go up the stairs with my boxes of underwear and putting him in the end.
06:33-06:34
So this went on for hours.
06:35-06:41
And finally by the umpteenth trip, I remember distinctly, I can take you to the exact spot.
06:41-06:49
I'm halfway up the second flight of stairs and I'm like, you know what, it's evangelism opportunity time.
06:50-07:07
And I said, "So do you have a church home?" And she said, "Oh yeah, I'm a member of a church in Worthington." I'm like, "Oh." Like, don't be snarky, don't be sarcastic, don't be a jerk, just look, you're doing this unto the Lord, right?
07:09-07:16
So I said, respectfully as I could, I said, why don't you have anybody from your church helping you move?
07:17-07:25
And I kid you not, she goes, "I could never ask my pastor to help, he's way too busy.
07:25-07:28
And besides, he's got a bad back.
07:31-07:33
Do you know how far I can kick a box of underwear?
07:34-07:34
(congregation laughing)
07:36-07:37
We found out that day.
07:39-07:40
People are the best and the worst part.
07:41-07:43
Look, look, following Jesus is great.
07:45-07:51
It's just that sometimes, it's just sometimes some people, do you know what I mean?
07:52-07:52
Do you know what I mean?
07:54-07:57
You don't think I'm a jerk because I'm being honest with you.
07:57-08:07
It's just that sometimes I get to a point one time many years ago, many years ago, I said, "Can I serve Jesus without serving people?
08:07-08:39
I think ministry would be awesome if I didn't have to deal with people." But I'm reminded of John 21, Jesus and Peter on the beach, remember after the resurrection, Jesus said to Peter, "Do you love me?" And Peter says, "You know I love you." And what did Jesus say? "Feed my sheep." Three times. "Feed my sheep." So Jesus was saying, "The way that you show you love Him, is by taking care of His people." You can't serve Jesus in a way that doesn't involve people.
08:41-08:48
In Acts 28, Paul is bearing down on achieving a goal that he had for years.
08:49-08:50
He wanted to go to Rome.
08:52-08:53
Rome was the most important city in the world.
08:53-08:57
It was like the capital of the world at that time.
08:58-09:01
And we saw it in Acts 19.21.
09:02-09:03
Paul's like, I gotta get to Rome.
09:03-09:06
He wrote it to the Romans, Romans 15.23.
09:06-09:09
He said, I've wanted to come to you for years.
09:09-09:10
For years, this has been my goal.
09:11-09:13
I wanna get to Rome, wanna get to Rome, wanna get to Rome.
09:13-09:14
Paul, what's on your bucket list?
09:14-09:17
Number one, gotta get to Rome, gotta get to Rome.
09:17-09:26
Finally, after two years in prison and two weeks at sea, there is the light at the end of the tunnel.
09:26-09:27
We are heading to Rome!
09:29-09:39
And what I want you to see in this passage is this, church, even on the home stretch, to seeing his dream fulfilled, Paul made people the priority.
09:40-09:42
I want you to see that in this passage.
09:44-09:45
Paul made people a priority.
09:47-09:57
So just very simply in this passage, on the way to Rome, we're going to see three interactions with people that Paul had that should hit close to home for us.
09:58-09:59
So jot this down, if you're taking us.
09:59-10:01
Three people you have to deal with in ministry.
10:02-10:03
As Paul did, as we do.
10:04-10:05
Three people you have to deal with in ministry.
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Number one.
10:08-10:09
Number one is the critic.
10:11-10:12
The critic.
10:14-10:16
My encouragement for you is don't get distracted by him.
10:18-10:20
I mean, the critic. Don't get distracted by him.
10:21-10:22
Let's look at verses 1-3.
10:25-10:33
"After we were brought safely through, we then learned that the island was called Malta." Okay, remember, there's shipwrecks.
10:34-10:47
They're like, "Okay, we're on this beach. Where are we?" He said, "The island was called Malta." "The native people showed us unusual kindness." Boy, I bet that was refreshing for Paul, wasn't it?
10:48-10:51
with the treatment that he received from his own people.
10:52-10:55
Here he comes to a bunch of strangers, and they showed them unusual kindness.
10:56-10:57
That had to be refreshing.
10:58-11:16
"For they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and was cold." When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand.
11:16-11:28
Everybody's saying, "Yeah, that's what I would have said." Now, as I was studying this week, so many critics of the Bible were talking about critics.
11:29-11:58
So many critics of the Bible were like, "Well, we don't really know about this, because if you go to Malta today, there's really no poisonous snakes on Malta today." And I'm like, "Do you think things might have changed, I don't know, in the last 2,000 years, really, from this unpopulated, undeveloped island as it was in Paul's day, to all the population and total ecology change.
11:58-12:03
Yeah, things probably would have changed over the last 2,000 years.
12:03-12:17
And there were some people that were like, okay, granted, granted the ecology changes, whatever, but, and maybe what happened here was this was a non-poisonous snake.
12:18-12:20
Well, there's a huge problem with that argument.
12:22-12:23
And I read that so many times.
12:23-12:25
There's probably a non-poisonous snake, that's why Paul didn't die.
12:26-12:27
There's a huge problem with that argument.
12:28-12:33
Because we're going to see here in a second that all of the people of the island were expecting Paul to die.
12:34-12:35
Now they lived there.
12:35-12:37
They knew the animals that were there.
12:38-12:41
And would they have known if that was a non-poisonous snake?
12:42-12:43
Of course they would have.
12:43-12:45
And they wouldn't be sitting there going, "Is he gonna die?
12:45-12:46
"Is he gonna swallow up?
12:46-12:48
"Is he gonna die?" Like, that's exactly what happened.
12:49-12:50
They knew this was a poisonous snake.
12:51-13:00
It's just, some of the critics of the Bible just drive me insane with like, just casting doubt on such faithful witnesses.
13:02-13:03
But anyways, yeah.
13:04-13:06
Viper attaches to Paul's hand.
13:06-13:07
Let's get back in that scene.
13:07-13:19
Verse four, it says, when the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, "No doubt this man is a murderer.
13:20-13:34
Though he's escaped from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live." Justice, they were probably talking about Dike, which was the goddess of justice.
13:34-13:36
Like Dike did not allow him to live.
13:38-13:47
They're like, "He must be a bad person." Because even though they probably saw the guards and realized, okay, they ascertained that Paul's a prisoner.
13:48-13:50
Like, oh, he escaped from the shipwreck.
13:52-13:53
What do we call it?
13:53-13:56
We don't call it dyke, we call it karma, right?
13:56-13:56
Karma.
13:58-13:59
He got bit by karma.
13:59-14:02
Well, he got bit by a snake, but he got bit by karma, right?
14:02-14:04
Karma didn't let him live.
14:06-14:12
Verse 5, "He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm.
14:14-14:21
They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead." Do you think they thought it was poisonous? Yeah.
14:22-14:35
"But when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god." Paul dealt with that before, by the way.
14:35-14:39
"You're a God!" Acts 14, verses 11 and 12.
14:39-14:46
And I looked at this passage this week, and I'm like, "Oh, that was quite a swing, wasn't it?" That was quite a swing.
14:47-14:54
Paul went from, "He's a murderer!" to, "He's a God!" Like, a second apart.
14:56-14:58
He didn't seem to take either opinion to heart.
15:00-15:02
And that's a lesson that we would all do well to learn.
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How we evaluate critics' opinions of us.
15:09-15:10
You know, I was thinking about that this week.
15:11-15:15
Paul went from he's a murderer to he's a God.
15:17-15:20
Quite a swing, yes, but my experience has always been the opposite.
15:22-15:27
Very few times have I gone from he's a murderer to he's a God, usually I go the opposite.
15:27-15:35
Usually people are like, "You're awesome!" And then they're like, "You're trash!" That's usually how it swings for me.
15:35-15:38
And I got thinking, maybe I just don't get bit by enough snakes.
15:40-15:41
I don't know.
15:42-15:47
But we get so wrapped up in other people's opinions, don't we?
15:49-15:51
And I think now more than ever, because everyone has a platform.
15:51-15:53
That's the wonderful thing about social media.
15:54-15:55
Everyone has a platform.
15:55-16:03
"Oh, let me get on Twitter and tell everybody my opinion about this." And I used to do it, I don't do it anymore.
16:04-16:13
But I used to get on Facebook to look at the news reports, just to look at the comments, because it didn't matter what the report was on.
16:16-16:16
Violent comments!
16:19-16:20
Everyone has a platform.
16:22-16:25
Everyone has an opinion that has to be aired.
16:28-16:41
And if we're completely honest, if this incident with Paul happened in our day, if that happened in 2018, you know for sure there would be an advocacy group for the snakes.
16:44-16:44
True or false?
16:46-17:03
He shook it off in the fire, and there'd be people like, "Snake lives matter!" And there's still be some people like, "He's a murderer! He's a murderer of snakes!" But here's the point I want to make from this passage.
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Don't get too wrapped up in people's opinions.
17:08-17:13
Paul knew. Paul knew that he wasn't a murderer.
17:15-17:18
Formerly he was, I guess, but he knew that's not who he was anymore.
17:19-17:21
and he also knew that he wasn't a god.
17:24-17:31
And when I consider myself and my own assessment of my ministry, you want to hear my self-assessment? Here's my self-assessment.
17:33-17:36
I am not as awesome as my grandma thinks I am. I know that.
17:37-17:39
Nobody could be as awesome as my grandma thinks I am.
17:40-17:41
And I'm certainly not.
17:41-17:51
But I'm also not the supervillain that some of the critics have painted me to be.
17:52-17:54
I fall somewhere in that big, meaty middle.
17:57-17:59
Oh, criticism. People are so free to give it.
17:59-18:03
In this case, it doesn't matter if they know you or not.
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These people didn't know Paul.
18:05-18:07
Just shipwrecks. He shows up and they're gathered.
18:07-18:09
They have no idea who this guy was.
18:10-18:11
So free to give the criticism.
18:13-18:21
And this was, this is, a hard lesson for me to learn.
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I'll be honest with you, I want everybody to think that I'm doing a good job.
18:29-18:34
And I tend to take it very hard when one or both of those aren't true.
18:35-18:39
Either somebody doesn't like me, or somebody doesn't think I'm doing a good job.
18:40-18:44
That's been a hard thing for me to work through, honestly.
18:46-18:49
So I want you to jot some things down. How do I handle criticism?
18:51-19:04
How do I handle criticism, whether it's from friends, or from family, or at the church, or at your workplace, when you are criticized.
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How do you handle that? I want you to jot these four things down.
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Number one is consider the source.
19:13-19:16
Consider the source. That's something our dad always used to say.
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You always have to consider the source.
19:20-19:25
That's why I don't think Paul got too bent about this, that all these people didn't know him. He knew that.
19:25-19:33
He's a murderer, he's a god." He's like, "You don't know me at all." But you have to consider the source of criticism.
19:35-19:57
As best as you can, can you discern, "Is this person trying to hurt me or is this person trying to help me?" For example, I've received criticism from our elders, I would call it constructive criticism, that didn't hurt me, that didn't offend me, because I know the hearts of these men at our church.
19:58-20:09
That the criticism was meant to, "Jeff, hey, this is just something that we think you need to think about and change some things." And that didn't bother me at all because I know they love me.
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Some criticism isn't meant to help, it's just meant to hurt.
20:14-20:16
It's meant to insult you. It's meant to ruin your day.
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So consider the source.
20:19-20:22
Number two, don't take it personally.
20:23-20:24
Don't take it personally.
20:26-20:26
Don't get defensive.
20:28-20:29
And don't retaliate.
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That's the worst.
20:32-20:37
Somebody's like, "Hey, I think you'd do a better job if you did this." And you're like, "Oh, yeah, I don't think...
20:37-20:40
I don't like the way you comb your hair." Like, what?
20:42-20:42
What?
20:43-20:44
Don't retaliate.
20:45-20:48
Number three, this is so important.
20:49-20:58
Ask, "Is it true?" Ask, "Is it true?" This is something the Lord's really worked on me in a major way.
20:58-21:02
When I receive criticism, that's the first question I have to ask.
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"Is it true?" "I don't think you should do this." "I don't like the way you do this." "Or you were wrong to do this." Or whatever, whatever.
21:09-21:14
I've learned the first thing to ask is, "Is it true?" I need to be objective. I need to take a giant step back.
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Don't make it about me, my personality.
21:16-21:19
Don't make it about that person and his personality.
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The question I have to ask myself is, "Can I learn something from this?" To ask, "Is it true?" And finally, number four, say, "Thank you for the feedback." Don't say it in a jerky or snarky way.
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Just say as best you can, as respectfully as you can.
21:37-21:43
Say, "Thank you for the feedback." Because whatever the motive, that's surely going to settle.
21:45-21:54
But if you can't handle criticism, If you're sitting here today and you're like, "Pastor Jeff, I can't handle criticism." I'm going to tell you how you can always avoid criticism.
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You ready for this?
21:56-22:00
Here is a surefire way that you can always avoid criticism every single time.
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You can go the rest of your life and never be criticized for anything.
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You want to know how to do it?
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Don't do anything.
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Just don't do anything.
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Because you'll find that the more that you try to do, Especially the more that you try to do for the Lord, the more you're opening yourself up for criticism.
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Every time.
22:24-22:30
Think of the greatest person in the Old Testament, which is Moses, right? Without a doubt.
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Without a doubt, Moses, greatest guy in the Old Testament.
22:32-22:33
Was he criticized?
22:35-22:48
"Have you read the Pentateuch?" "Yeah, constantly. Constantly. No matter what he did." "Here comes the rabble, we don't like this, "We don't like the woman that you married." And he was constantly, constantly, constantly criticized.
22:48-22:51
Why? Because he was doing great things for God.
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We followed Paul's story in Acts.
22:54-22:56
Has he been criticized repeatedly?
22:57-23:02
What about the ultimate example, Jesus Christ, who always did and said everything perfectly?
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Was Jesus criticized?
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Constantly criticized.
23:09-23:11
The more you seek to do, the more you're going to face criticism.
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You cannot let criticism get you sideways.
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You have really two choices.
23:19-23:23
You can grow from it or you can shake it off.
23:24-23:25
What's that song, Livvy?
23:25-23:28
You know, "Haters Gonna Hate, Shake It Off," right?
23:28-23:29
Who sings that?
23:30-23:31
Taylor Swift, okay.
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That's almost biblical, shake it off.
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When you get criticized, grow from it or shake it off.
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All right?
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Number two, the herding, don't be too busy for him.
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The herding, don't be too busy for him.
23:48-23:51
Look at verse seven, our next encounter.
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Now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the chief man of the island named Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days.
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It happened that the father of Publius lay sick with fever and dysentery.
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And Paul visited him and prayed, and putting his hands on him healed him.
24:15-24:22
And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured.
24:23-24:38
As Publius was the Roman governor of Malta, and his father was sick, actually, as best as we can discern from putting the clues together in Scripture here, it was a very common sickness that was called Malta fever.
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It was so common in Malta that they named it after the place, Malta Fever.
24:42-24:46
It actually came from a microbe in goat's milk.
24:48-24:55
And it appears that God was blessing Publius because Publius was blessing Paul.
24:56-25:04
But something I want you to notice here, verse 8 says that Paul put his hands on Publius' dad and healed him.
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But then look at the end of verse 9, it says, "The rest of the people in the island had diseases, came and were cured." Those are two different words.
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Healed and cured.
25:17-25:18
Like, what's the difference?
25:19-25:21
Well, the word "healed" is supernatural.
25:23-25:25
That's God's touch. Boom! Healed.
25:26-25:30
"Cured" is, we would say, gradual.
25:31-25:35
It was medical and divine at the same time.
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You're like, "Well, what's the point here?" The point is this, a phrase that I would encourage you to take to heart, learn this, pray this, "All healing is God's healing." Over my two decades plus of ministry, have I seen God touch people and heal them instantaneously?
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I have. Over and over.
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And I've seen that so many times.
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People miraculously, supernaturally touched, healed.
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Wow!
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Do you know what I've seen more than that, though?
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I've seen God heal people over time, just like he's talking about here.
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God healing through the doctors and through the nurses and through the medication and through the physical therapy.
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So which one glorifies God?
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The answer is they both. Right?
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That's very clear in this passage.
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God was involved in both of these, even though they were two different types of physical recovery.
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Imagine Luke being a doctor, had a huge hand in this curing thing, in verse 9.
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Look at verse 10, it says, "They also honored us greatly, and when we were about to sail, they put on board whatever we needed." It implies that there was a positive response.
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I imagine Paul was preaching as he was healing and ministering, and it seems that the people were very receptive to the gospel in Malta.
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You know, at this point, Hublias came to Paul and said, "Hey, my dad's really sick.
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You know, was this prompted by the whole snake thing?
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I don't know." But you know, Paul could have been like, you know, "I don't, look, look, buddy, no offense, but I don't really know you.
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And I'm really busy and I'm on this mission and the finish line is right there.
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Do you know how long I've been trying to get to Rome?
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And the finish line is right there.
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I have bigger fish to fry right now than by taking care of your dad.
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Look, no offense, I'm just a little too busy right now.
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I'm serving the Lord, man. I've got ministry going on, man.
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And don't get in the way of the ministry that God's...
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But here's the thing.
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Ministry is what happens when you're on your way to do ministry.
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And when you have the compassion of Jesus, you can't help but help people.
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You can't help it.
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I'm sure Paul felt some ants in his pants about getting to Rome.
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But he couldn't turn this down.
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An opportunity to show the love of Christ to someone.
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And so it is for you, church, whether it's your neighbor, whether it's someone at the store, whether it's the young girl with a flat tire that you just happened to pass along the way.
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Don't be too busy that you miss opportunities to love people.
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And then finally, we have the critic, don't be distracted by him.
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We have the hurting, don't be too busy for him or her.
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And finally, the brother, don't rob him of a blessing.
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Verse 11 says, "After three months we set sail on a ship that wintered in the island, a ship of Alexandria with the twin gods as a figurehead." They spent three months and Luke identifies the ship they got on.
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What's this?
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Twin gods as a figurehead.
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Actually the twin gods were known as Castor and Pollux.
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According to mythology they were the sons of Zeus.
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They were gods believed to protect sailors.
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Verse 12, "Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed there for three days, and from there we made a circuit and arrived at Regium.
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After one day, a south wind sprang up.
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And then the second day we came to Puteoli.
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Is that how you say that?
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Puteoli.
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All right, Syracuse was 90 miles from Malta.
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The Puteoli was a port that was 150 miles from Rome.
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You see the point, getting closer, getting closer, getting closer, getting closer.
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Verse 14, there, Puteoli, we found brothers and were invited to stay with them for seven days.
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And so we came to Rome." So they stayed with some Christians for seven days.
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Again, a lot of freedom here, but underline that where it says, and so we came to Rome.
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That's such an understatement.
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In light of everything that's transpired to this place and Luke, he just sort of underscores.
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He's like, "Yeah, and so we came to Rome.
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We sort of, yeah, we got there.
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Hit the finish line.
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Verse 15, it says, "And the brothers there, when they heard about us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and three taverns to meet us." Okay, so these were like Christians from the suburbs, right?
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And the suburbs of Rome.
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Like, "Hey, Paul's coming. Paul's here.
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Let's go see him." "On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage." When we came to Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier that guarded him.
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We'll stop there.
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Verse 16 is really just a reminder for us from Luke that Paul's still a prisoner.
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In this whole account, Julius and the soldiers are barely mentioned.
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Are they mentioned at all in this passage?
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It's just showing us the extent of Paul's freedom.
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And when you get to verse 16, when they were in Rome, Paul was probably chained to a guard, actually guards who were taking shifts.
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So over and over and over in Acts, we've seen Paul ministering to people, Paul ministering to people.
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We just saw it, Paul ministering to people.
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These last two chapters, we've seen people ministering to Paul.
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I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this because we covered this two weeks ago.
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Acts 27, verses one through eight.
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But here we see it again, verse 14, verse 15.
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Paul found courage, comfort, and confidence from being with God's people.
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I do want to pause here for a second, because I know this church.
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I know this church, and I know the people in this church.
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And I would say, 98% of the people in this church, I would say this is a true statement of 98% of you.
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You are more comfortable giving than you are receiving.
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True or false?
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You're more apt to go minister to somebody, but you're a lot less comfortable to have somebody come and minister to you, true or false?
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It's true, I see some heads, yeah, that's true.
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That's true.
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I wondered if Paul was like that by nature.
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I wonder if Paul was like, I'm much more comfortable giving than receiving.
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I thought about that, you know, I wonder, what would it have been like if Paul was like that?
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So he finds out these people are going to come and minister to him and he calls them off.
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Could you imagine?
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Like these people from the, you know, the, what are those places called?
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The Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns are coming.
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What if Paul would have been like, "You know what?
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"Tell them to stay home.
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"Look, I'm fine, I'm fine.
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"I don't need anything.
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"Tell them I said it was nice that they thought about me." And what if Paul would have called them off?
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I'll tell you what would have happened.
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He would have robbed them of the blessing of encouraging Paul in this critical time.
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How do you think those people felt that they were going to be used by God to minister to the Apostle Paul?
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They probably felt such a divine urgency to carry that out.
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And Paul totally would have stole that from them if he would have called them off.
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And as we close, you know, church, you need filled up too.
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And when people want to help you, when people want to minister to you, don't rob them of the blessing.
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Just as you feel fulfilled ministering to other people, you need to let others be fulfilled in ministering to you.
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So Acts 28, we see Paul, he's had this for years, Paul had a mission.
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And though it was a mission from God, with the highest level of urgency, He never let the mission take Him away from people.
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So today, church, let's hear Jesus say to us, as He did to Peter, "Feed my sheep. Do you love me? Take care of my people." Because you see, the mission isn't the mission.
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The mission is the people.
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The mission is the people.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we thank you for the example of Paul in this passage.
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And Father, we're all guilty of this.
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I know I certainly have been.
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We're so busy thinking that we're serving You by doing whatever, that we excuse ourselves from ministering to people.
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We're too busy to take care of this person, we've got too much going on to help that person.
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And we've all been there, Father.
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I pray that we don't get so distracted by these other things, that we miss the glorious truth that the mission is about the people.
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It's about meeting needs.
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It's about encouraging and being encouraged.
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And all the critics will come.
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"Father, give us the wisdom and the grace to either learn from them or to shake them off.
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But Father, give us the heart of compassion that our Lord had for people, that He manifested through Paul that we saw in this passage here today in Acts 20.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 28:1-16
Honestly - How do people's opinion of you affect you? How do you typically handle criticism (Acts:1-6)?
How are you encouraging others right now? How are you letting others encourage you? (Acts 21:15)
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another. Who do you know that needs encouragement this week? How are you going to reach out to him/her/them?
