Just the Way It Was Told to Me
Not Afraid to Die
January twenty-fifth, 1736. A ship in the middle of the Atlantic. On board is a Church of England minister named John Wesley, headed to Georgia as a missionary.
Also on board were German Christians called Moravians, who said their loving Saviour had done more for them. In the middle of their Sunday psalm the sea broke over, split the mainsail in pieces, and poured in between the decks. “A terrible screaming began among the English. The Germans calmly sang on.” Wesley asked one of them afterward, “Were you not afraid?” “I thank God, no.” “But were not your women and children afraid?” “No. Our women and children are not afraid to die.”
The missionary was the one screaming. The children were the ones singing. The difference was not nerve. It was what they believed Christ had done for them.
Seventeen hundred years earlier, a prisoner on a sinking ship said the sentence Wesley could not say yet… I believe God.
Faith sees the storm… and believes the risen Jesus anyway… it will be just the way he told you. Not a calm sea… Christ.
Fair Havens
Paul is a prisoner on a ship bound for Italy. He appealed to Caesar (Acts 25:11), so Rome has to deliver him to Rome. The ship crawls along the coast of Crete to a harbor called Fair Havens (Acts 27:8), and it is October.
Paul can see disaster ahead (Acts 27:10). “But the centurion paid attention to the captain and the owner of the ship rather than to what Paul said” (Acts 27:11). The harbor was no place to winter, and the majority votes to sail for Phoenix (Acts 27:12).
Then a gentle south wind (Acts 27:13). The wind agreed with the experts… for a few hours. A gentle wind is not God’s approval.
You live surrounded by forecasts. The doctor. The banker. The six o’clock news. Most of them are right most of the time. But a forecast is not a promise. When the forecast is the voice you sail by, you are telling the risen Jesus the weatherman has a better record.
So this week, when the forecast comes in, hear it out. Then say out loud what the risen Jesus has already told you… he died for your sins and rose, he is not going to lose you, and you are his either way. That is the word you sail by.
Neither Sun nor Stars
A wind comes rushing down off the island. The sailors had a name for it… the northeaster (Acts 27:14). The next day they start throwing the cargo over the side, the whole reason for the trip (Acts 27:18). The third day, the ship’s gear, with their own hands (Acts 27:19). They did everything sailors can do, and it was not enough.
Acts 27:20, For many days neither sun nor stars appeared, and the severe storm kept raging. Finally all hope was fading that we would be saved.
The sun and the stars were how they steered. The instruments are gone. And listen to the end of verse 20… “that we would be saved.” We. Luke is on this ship, the man writing the book, and he could not see how they would live. You can believe the resurrection and still not see Tuesday.
That is where every one of us was before Jesus found us… “without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). Some of you are on that deck right now, the hope going out a little at a time.
Just the Way It Was Told to Me
Paul stands up among them and says, I told you so (Acts 27:21).
Acts 27:22-26, Now I urge you to take courage, because there will be no loss of any of your lives, but only of the ship. For last night an angel of the God I belong to and serve stood by me and said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul. It is necessary for you to appear before Caesar. And indeed, God has graciously given you all those who are sailing with you.’ So take courage, men, because I believe God that it will be just the way it was told to me. But we have to run aground on some island.”
In verse ten Paul was describing the danger he could see. Now he is reporting a promise he was given. The God I belong to… the God who raised Jesus from the dead.
I know. Paul got an angel. Nobody stood by my bed last night. Me neither. The angel stood by Paul. Everybody else got it secondhand. Not one of them was promised the ship. They were promised they would live through losing it.
Nobody promised you the ship either. But the night before he died, Jesus said, “Because I live, you will live too” (John 14:19). You will live through whatever overtakes you… a storm, a diagnosis, even a quiet leaving of this earth… because he lives. That life is not waiting for you at the end, and nothing on this sea can take it.
Two hundred seventy-six people on that ship (Acts 27:37), and not one of them was kept because he sailed well. They were kept by grace, by a word spoken to somebody else.
That is where you were. And somebody told you what God said, about a Jesus who went under for your sins and came up. You do not need an angel to repeat what Jesus already promised you.
Faith is not a feeling of calm, and it is not a forecast. It is taking God at his word when there is nothing else to go on. That is what the Moravians had, and what Wesley did not have yet.
“But we have to run aground on some island” (Acts 27:26). Have to… the same word as “it is necessary for you to appear before Caesar” (Acts 27:24). The word that promised Rome promised the wreck. And it is the word Jesus used on the road to Emmaus: “Wasn’t it necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:26). Jesus did not promise you the ship. That is how God saved you. Not around suffering. Through his Son’s… a cross first, then an empty grave. We have been promised him, and a grave that opens.
So this week, when someone near you says it is over, stand up and tell them what the risen Jesus told you… he went under for our sins and came up, and he keeps us by grace alone, not because we sailed well.
I Believe God
Here is Paul on Abraham believing God.
Romans 4:23-25, Now “it was credited to him” was not written for Abraham alone, but also for us. It will be credited to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
Not written for Abraham alone, and not for Paul’s ship alone. It was written for you. Delivered up for our trespasses… he went under into death for your sins. Raised for our justification… on the third day he came up.
The centurion paid attention to the captain and the owner rather than to what Paul said. The voice you trust over Jesus will always sound more sensible, right up until you lose the ship.
Faith sees the storm… and believes the risen Jesus anyway… it will be just the way he told you. Not the ship… him.
If you can say it… Lord Jesus, you died for my sins and walked out of the grave. I have nothing to bring you but my sins. It will be just the way you told me… say it to him now. If you cannot say it yet, he is the one to say it to.
Source: Acts 27:1-26, sermon of November 1, 2026, Red River Baptist Church