As the storm continued, some of the sailors tried to lower a lifeboat and escape.
Paul warned the centurion that they needed to remain with the ship, so the soldiers did something that must have looked insane: they cut the ropes and let the lifeboat fall away.
In the middle of a storm, they deliberately released their backup plan.
Sometimes faith means holding on.
Sometimes faith means letting go of what we’ve been holding onto instead of God.
Most of us like backup plans. We trust God, but we feel better when there’s still something hanging off the side of the ship just in case trusting Him doesn’t work out the way we expected.
The Gospel confronts that instinct because the Gospel begins with something we don’t particularly like admitting:
We cannot save ourselves.
We don’t have enough money to save ourselves. We don’t have enough talent, discipline, religious activity, or good works to erase our sin. We cannot behave well enough tomorrow to undo yesterday.
We need Jesus.
That’s why God came in flesh. That’s why there was a cross. That’s why blood was shed.
If we could repair ourselves, redeem ourselves, clean ourselves up, and become righteous enough to stand before a holy God on our own, we wouldn’t need a Savior.
But we couldn’t swim out of our own sin.
So God came into the water after us.
We don’t clean ourselves up so we can come to Jesus. We come to Jesus because we cannot clean ourselves up.
Sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is cut the rope and put our confidence completely in Him.
After fourteen days of fear and uncertainty, Paul encouraged everyone aboard the ship to eat.
The storm wasn’t over.
The water wasn’t safe.
They hadn’t reached land.
Nothing about their circumstances had changed.
Yet Paul took bread, gave thanks to God, broke it, and began to eat.
That scene points our attention toward Jesus. Before His crucifixion, Jesus also sat at a table, took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to His disciples.
In the middle of fear, while the storm was still raging and the outcome remained unseen, there was still bread available.
There was still nourishment.
There was still something that could sustain them.
We sometimes convince ourselves that we’ll rest when the storm is over. We’ll worship when the answer comes. We’ll have peace when the situation changes. We’ll breathe when we finally get everything under control.
But Paul set the table before they reached shore.
Christ isn’t merely the One we celebrate after the storm.
Christ is the One who sustains us in the storm.
When everything is a mess, we still have Jesus.
When everything is breaking apart, we still have Jesus.
When we don’t understand what God is doing, we still have Jesus.
When we don’t know what tomorrow holds, we still have Jesus.
When we’ve run out of answers and strength, we still have Jesus.
We have a cross where our debt was paid. We have blood that still cleanses. We have an empty tomb. We have a Savior who is alive. We have a Word that is still true and promises no storm has the authority to repeal.
The storm can take the cargo.
The storm can take the equipment.
The clouds can hide the stars.
The waves can even tear the ship apart underneath us.
But the storm cannot take Jesus.
Our hope was never supposed to be in everything going right.
Our hope is Christ.
After everyone had eaten, they threw the remaining grain into the sea to lighten the ship.
Jesus once compared His coming death to a grain of wheat falling into the earth and dying so that it could bear much fruit.
It’s hard not to see the Gospel reflected in what happens next.
Before the prisoners go into the water, something innocent goes in first.
Then the ship strikes a reef.
The bow becomes stuck. The stern begins breaking apart under the force of the waves. Eventually the ship is destroyed.
Yet the thing being broken becomes the very thing that carries people to safety.
Those who could swim were told to swim toward land. Those who couldn’t were told to grab planks and other pieces of the broken ship.
Pieces of something broken were carrying helpless people to shore.
That’s a beautiful picture of the Gospel.
Something was broken so we could live.
We were guilty. Jesus was innocent.
We were sinners. He was righteous.
We had the debt. He paid it.
We deserved judgment. He took it.
Jesus bore what belonged to us so we could receive what belonged to Him.
He bore our condemnation so we could receive His righteousness. He bore our shame so we could receive His name. He entered death so we could receive life. He entered the grave so we could receive the promise of resurrection.
We aren’t saved because we learned how to navigate the storm.
We aren’t saved because we finally became good enough.
We aren’t saved because we cleaned ourselves up.
We aren’t saved because we’re stronger than somebody else.
The Gospel, boiled down, is this:
We could not save ourselves, so God came to save us.
God manifested Himself in flesh and walked among us. Jesus touched the untouchable, forgave sinners, opened blinded eyes, and called dead things back to life. Then He willingly went to Calvary. His blood was shed. His body was wounded. He died and was placed in a tomb.
But death couldn’t keep Him.
The grave couldn’t hold Him.
Jesus Christ rose again, and He’s alive today.
He’s still saving. He’s still forgiving. He’s still restoring. He’s still delivering.
And one day He’s coming back for us.
That’s what we hold onto.
The final scene of Acts 27 may be the most powerful.
Some people aboard the ship could swim, and some couldn't.
Nobody stopped in the middle of the shipwreck and told the people who couldn’t swim that they should have learned sooner. Nobody handed them a training program. Nobody demanded that they suddenly develop an ability they didn’t possess.
They were told to grab something from the broken ship, get into the water, and hold on.
Maybe you’re exhausted from trying to swim.
You’ve been trying to keep your head above water. You’ve been trying to hold your family together, your mind together, your finances together, your spiritual life together.
Maybe you’ve started believing that if you were really spiritual enough, you wouldn’t be this tired.
So you try harder.
You make another promise.
You tell God you’ll do better.
You hide where you’re struggling because everybody around you looks like they’re swimming.
What if God isn’t asking for another demonstration of how strong you can be?
Maybe you just need to grab hold and stop letting go.
Hold onto Jesus.
Hold onto His Word.
Hold onto His promises.
Hold onto faith.
Hold onto the body of Christ.
Hold onto the church.
Philippians 1:6 reminds us that the One who began a good work in us will complete it.
We don’t have enough strength, talent, discipline, money, skill, or spiritual fitness to carry ourselves all the way home.
But we have Jesus.
There are days when all we can do is wrap both arms around the Gospel and say, “I’m not letting go.”
Acts 27 ends with a remarkable sentence:
“And so it happened that they all were brought safely to land.”
Not most of them.
Not only the strongest.
Not merely the sailors.
Not merely the people who could swim.
All of them.
Some arrived swimming. Some arrived coughing. Some were exhausted. Some were hanging onto wreckage. Some may have crawled onto the island with almost nothing left.
But everybody God said would make it, made it.
When you cannot swim another stroke, cling to the Gospel and trust the God who has never lost sight of you.
You may not get to shore looking the way you expected.
You may arrive tired.
You may arrive wet.
You may arrive holding onto nothing but a broken plank.
But you don’t have to save yourself.
Jesus already came into the water after you.
Hold on.
