Sharing Hope In A Hopeless Situation | Acts 27:21-26 | 7-12-26 | Sunday PM

**Pastor Andrew Montoro** (0:00)
But Acts chapter 27 tonight, just praying about where to preach. The Lord brought this passage back to mind. We went through this on Wednesday nights, many, many years ago. We went actually through the Book of Acts, verse by verse. But here in Acts chapter 27, maybe one of the more famous stories in the Book of Acts. We're just going to jump right in. I will set some of the context in the preaching, and hopefully not take too long on context, and be able to get to the actual preaching part. But here is Paul. He is a prisoner. He is on his way to Rome. And he is in a ship that gets caught in the middle of a storm, a storm that would last over two weeks, the Bible says, as they're trapped on a boat in the Mediterranean Sea. And the Bible says in verse number 21 of Acts chapter 27, but after long abstinence, Paul stood forth in the midst of them and said, Sirs, ye should have hearken unto me, and have not loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you but of the ship, for there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar, and lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer, for I believe God, and it shall be even as it was told me, howbeit we must be cast upon a certain island. We're going to have a shipwreck, but God's going to save our lives. Be of good cheer. And so, our title tonight is this, Sharing Hope in a Hopeless Situation. Sharing Hope in a Hopeless Situation. Let's pray and ask the Lord's help. Dear Heavenly Father, I come before you tonight. I thank you for who you are, that we can trust you. And Lord, even in times where it does not seem like there's hope or there's a way out, if we know you, Lord, we could not only have hope, but we can share hope. Lord, I pray that you would encourage us tonight. Lord, that you would point our minds in the right direction. I pray for help in preaching, that I would only say what needs to be said, Lord, but that I would also say all that needs to be said. Help us to hear from you tonight. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
When someone shares hope in a situation, it can be helpful. But at the same time, if someone who's supposed to know what's going on, has a rotten attitude, or is all down, it kind of depresses the whole spirit of everyone around them. Okay, the illustration that came to mind was I love baseball, and I remember hearing a story about the Yankees, and a rookie was coming up to the team, and this was going to be his first time getting to Major League at bat, and he was so excited, and they're playing the Red Sox. And he's, come on, man, he's telling Steve, I'm so excited, let's go get these Red Sox. And every one of the regular players in the clubhouse, all the seasoned players, he comes in the clubhouse, and they all had the most dour, just grumpy attitudes. Be quiet, rookie. What do you know? They're like, it's the Red Sox, we're going to play. I was like, don't you know who's pitching tomorrow? It's Pedro Martinez, and all the, back, back, who was a very good pitcher. And so all the seasoned players, weren't nobody's going to get a hit tomorrow. We're all going to get struck out. This is all going to be terrible. I mean, they had this terrible attitude, and the rookie was like, Oh, okay, I guess we're all going to go terrible. I mean, his attitude went from woo to all the way down into the dumps. And he did strike out all the times, all right? But as they were the seasoned players, they were supposed to be encouraging the player. But when those who are supposed to have skill or supposed to have hope are going, there's no hope here. What is everyone else supposed to do?
Except lose hope.
Where we're going tonight, just in this, is here in the middle of the storm, just letting you know where we're going up front, Paul is standing forth to people who did not know God, who did not know what was going on, and in the middle of a storm where they had zero control, Paul is saying, be of good cheer for I believe God. Because he had hope in God, he was able to share hope and confidence with those who did not know God, in a place where there was no hope, so to speak, right? In a hopeless situation. And I want to challenge us tonight, that if we know Jesus Christ as our Savior, we are the ones that are supposed to have hope. We have the greatest hope in the world. We know that our sins are forgiven. We know that we're on our way to heaven. We have the answers that the world needs.