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We're finishing 40 weeks through the Book of Acts today, and we're concluding with Acts chapter 28—Paul's pinnacle moment. To use a sports analogy: just as 1996 Michael Jordan represented the greatest version of that player, Acts 28 shows us the greatest version of the Apostle Paul we ever encounter. This is Paul drawing on 30 years of discipleship, supernatural experiences, and direct encounters with Jesus.
Paul demonstrates his quintessential message in this chapter. The central truth of his life is this: his pain became his platform, his trial became his testimony, and his greatest ministry came from his deepest misery.
Acts 28 fulfills a promise Jesus made decades earlier in Acts 18. Jesus told his disciples: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth." The rest of Acts documents this expansion of the gospel.
Now in Acts 28, Paul has been converted, filled with the Spirit, and has planted house churches across multiple continents. He stands approximately 2,997 miles from where Jesus made that promise—at the literal ends of the earth.
Once safely on shore after the shipwreck, Paul and his companions discovered they were on the island of Malta. When the local inhabitants—the text calls them "barbarians"—showed them "unusual kindness," this was remarkable. Shipwrecked strangers typically faced death or enslavement, but instead these people displayed unexpected compassion.
As Paul gathered brushwood for a fire, a viper driven out by the heat fastened itself to his hand. The islanders interpreted this through their worldview of divine justice: they assumed Paul must be a murderer, and the snake bite was divine punishment catching up with him.
But Paul simply shook the snake into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The islanders expected him to swell up or fall dead, but nothing happened. Their minds changed instantly—they concluded he must be a god.
God used this miracle to confirm supernatural power on Paul's life before people who didn't yet know Jesus. The chief of the island, Publius, brought Paul to see his father, who was dying of fever and dysentery.
After prayer, Paul placed his hands on him and healed him. When this had happened, the rest of the sick on the island came and were cured.
Jesus heals people. From the very beginning of Acts, Jesus promised His disciples: "You will receive supernatural power when the Holy Spirit comes on you in order to be my witnesses throughout the rest of the world." That promise wasn't just for the apostles—it's for believers today.
God heals every Christian in one of three ways: immediately through miracle, gradually through medicine, or eventually in glory. But He still performs the first type. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If He healed people then, He still does it now.
Because of these healings, a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit occurred, and many people on Malta came to faith. Remarkably, Malta remains more than 80% Christian to this day, with churches tracing their spiritual lineage back to Paul's shipwreck. Every February 10th, the island celebrates "St. Paul's Shipwreck Day."
The verses that follow contain the final recorded acts of the Apostle Paul in Scripture:
When we got to Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself with a soldier to guard him for two whole years. Paul stayed and welcomed all who came to see him.
This chapter reveals three distinct causes for all the pain in your life. Understanding which cause applies to your situation is crucial for how you respond.
Sometimes you experience pain because of what theologians call general sin—the corruption that entered creation through Adam's rebellion. Paul writes in Romans 5:
Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people because all sinned.
Adam was the federal head of mankind—similar to how a president acts as the federal head of a nation. When the president makes a decision, that decision affects everyone under his leadership. When Adam sinned, his rebellion had ramifications imputed to all creation under his stewardship.
Here's the critical truth: You do not live in a perfect world where everything works as God wants it. You live in a fallen world where nothing works as God designed it.
God created everything good and gave life. But sin corrupted that world and brought death. When people ask, "Why would God create a world where kids get cancer, mental illness ravages people, parents die, or hurricanes happen?"—the answer is: He didn't. God created a world where everything was good and wonderful. Sin corrupted that world. The world as you experience it now is not as God created it; it's as sin has corrupted it.
Consider Paul's journey leading up to Acts 28. In the previous chapters, he survived a mob seeking to kill him, a group of assassins who made a blood oath against him, a death sentence before a homicidal ruler, a hurricane, a shipwreck, and hostile barbarians. Finally, after at least two weeks, he's warming himself by a fire for the first time. Then a viper attaches itself to his hand.
Most people would have despaired. But Paul simply shook it off and kept telling people about Jesus.
Here's the secret to Paul's resilience—he understood the difference between happiness and joy. These are not the same thing.
Happiness is based on happenings. When what you want to happen actually happens, you're happy. When what you don't want to happen occurs, you're unhappy. But here's the problem: what you want to happen usually doesn't happen. If you base your joy on happenings, it will rise and fall with the stock market, with your children's behavior, with public opinion.
Paul wrote in Philippians:
I have learned to be content in any and every situation. Whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want, I can do all this through Christ who gives me strength.
Happiness is based on happenings, but joy is based on Jesus. Happiness fluctuates with circumstances, but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. "On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand."
This is why Paul could say: "If I'm shipwrecked, I'm good. If I'm in prison, I'm good. If I'm free, I'm good." His contentment didn't depend on his circumstances—it depended on Christ.
Here's the reality: what you want to happen usually doesn't happen. If you base your joy on happenings, it will rise and fall with the stock market, with your children's behavior, with public opinion. This is a fundamental problem.
Happiness is based on happenings, but joy is based on Jesus. Happiness fluctuates with circumstances, but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So Paul could say: "If I'm shipwrecked, I'm good. If I'm in prison, I'm good. If I'm out, I'm good. If I'm worn by fire, I'm good. If there's a viper on my hand, I'm good."
As a disciple of Jesus Christ, you must fight for your heart to be rooted not in the happenings of this world, but to have a heart that's hidden with Christ on high. When you're going through difficulty and things aren't good, you have to intentionally redirect your focus. I get out in the country, take a few miles walk, and sing old hymns—not contemporary worship songs, but hymns like "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," "The Old Rugged Cross," "Amazing Grace," "Come Thou Fount." When I start singing, my problems feel real big and my God feels real small. But worship, worship, worship, worship—by the time I'm done, my God feels real big and my problems feel real small.
This matters. This is not a game. When we gather and sing songs, pray prayers, read the book—all of that roots your heart in Christ on high.
There's a second reason you'll experience pain in this life: human sin. Paul says, "I've done nothing against our people or against the customs of our ancestors," but people everywhere are talking against this sect of Christians.
Sometimes you are experiencing pain not because of general sin, but because of human sin—either somebody sinned against you or you did something dumb and sinned against yourself.
Here's what's important: sometimes you're not suffering because you did something wrong. You're suffering because you did something right. You had a backbone. You had courage. You stood for righteousness. You didn't compromise your convictions. You didn't flinch when the moment came.
When you are firm in your faith and you're reverse engineering your life from the only thing that matters, you will have moments where the world will hate you. Do not be surprised when this world hates you. There's literally a verse that says this: "Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, that the world hates you."
If you think you're going to worship a guy who got crucified by the world, but you're going to worship that guy and be applauded and commended by the world—bless your heart, as my grandma would say. That's not how it works.
But here's the other category: sometimes it's not other people's sin. Sometimes it's your own sin. You screwed yourself over. You're the problem.
I'll hear people say, "Pastor Josh, pray for me. The devil's attacking my relationships." And when I ask what's going on, they'll describe going to the club every night, dating multiple people, infidelity, and pregnancy complications—and they'll blame the devil. No. It's you. As Taylor Swift said, "It's me, I'm the problem."
What this world will disciple you into is this: "You do you. Affirm every desire you have, every inclination, every emotion. You need everyone cheering on every little feeling you have in your life." But the word says the exact opposite: "Your heart is deceitful above all things. Who can know it?"
Nobody has ever hurt you more than you. Nobody has ever lied to you more than you. Nobody has ever let you down more than you. Nobody has ever broken more promises to you than you.
This is why you must have a band of brothers or sisters around you—people who love Jesus and love you, who have beliefs and convictions you've deputized in your life. You give them permission and authority to say, "Hey, something's off. You're drinking too much. How you're talking to your wife isn't good and it will hurt your kids." When they do this, if you get defensive, in the words of Ice Cube, you better check yourself before you wreck yourself—because that's exactly what you're going to do.
There's a third reason people experience pain—a category most don't think about: demonic sin.
When Paul gathers brushwood for the fire, a viper—a poisonous snake driven out by the heat—fastens itself on his hand. Almost every Bible scholar believes this is not coincidental. Right before Paul testifies to Christ in Rome, a serpent attacks him. Paul is unharmed and shakes off the serpent into the fire. This is a preview of what Jesus will do to the serpent in Revelation: the serpent will attack, Jesus will shake it off, and it will burn in the lake of fire forever.
If you read the book of Job, here's the entire point: Satan comes to God, has to ask God for permission to attack Job. God grants permission for a greater purpose. Satan takes everything from Job's life except his wife. For 40 chapters, Job's friends—call them Larry, Mo, and Curly—sit there saying, "If you're suffering, it must be because you did something wrong. That's the only reason."
But Job's friends didn't understand the third category. They only knew general sin and human sin. They didn't understand demonic attack.
Finally, Job speaks up and says, "God, I got some questions." As soon as he does, God steps forward and says, "Who is this who darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?" In the Hebrew, it means: "Strap on your jock strap. You're fighting with your maker today."
God starts asking Job questions: "Where were you when I scooped out the Pacific Ocean? Where were you when I pulled the Himalayas out of the ground? Where were you when I twisted a double helix and created a language more complex than any computer programmer has ever worked with, and that's what's in every cell of your body?"
Essentially, God is saying: "If I'm as big as the Pacific Ocean and you're the size of a Coke can, you better expect there to be things that don't fit, brother. You can't even lick your own elbow and you think you're going to understand everything going on."
Job never gets an answer to why he was suffering, but he gets the presence of God. The presence of God was better than an answer to his question.
It really matters how you frame pain when it comes into your life. If when pain comes, you think God must be punishing me, you'll blame God and run from him. But if when pain comes, you think Satan must be attacking me, you'll trust your heavenly father and run to him.
If you're not a Christian—if you've never bent your knee to the lordship of Jesus Christ—you need to know the truth: Satan is the little god of this world. He is the prince of the powers of the air. If you're outside of Christ, you're not full of the Spirit, you haven't been adopted by the Father. Satan is indescribably more powerful than you, unimaginably more intelligent than you. He's been studying you for thousands of years. He is more full of malice and hatred than you'll ever understand.
The book of John says the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He wants you dead. He wants everything good in your life gone. He wants you, your life, and your lineage destroyed. The thought of you and your children and your children's children burning in hell for eternity is a gleeful thought to him that he rejoices in.
If you're not in Jesus, you should be terrified. You should think of nothing else day and night.
But—and that's a big but—if you've bent your knee to Jesus, if you've been redeemed by the blood of the lamb, adopted by the heavenly Father, sealed by the Holy Spirit, then yes, the one in the world is greater than you, but he is now in you. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. You got nothing to fear, man. Nothing to fear.
So what do you do with pain? Watch what Paul did. Paul reframed every pain he experienced into serving the purpose of his life.
The happiest people you'll ever meet are not people who have fewer problems than you. Everybody's got problems. The happiest people are people who have a purpose in their life that's greater than their problems—a purpose that makes all their problems worth it.
This is what Paul says:
In all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Paul transforms all his pains into purposes.
Paul's response to pain shows us a powerful principle: he reframed every pain he experienced into serving the purpose of his life. The happiest people you'll ever meet are not those with fewer problems than you—everybody has problems. The happiest people are those who have a purpose in their life that's greater than their problems, a purpose that makes all their problems worth it.
Paul captures this in Romans 8:28: "In all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." This is what it means to transform all your pains into purposes.
There's often a theological debate: Does God cause pain or allow pain? You can debate that all day. But here's what no Christian can debate: God always uses your pain. He uses it.
Consider what happened while Paul was imprisoned in Rome. For two years, soldiers guarded him from Caesar's household as he proclaimed Christ boldly and without hindrance. During those two years, Paul wrote four books of your New Testament: Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians.
Here's the remarkable detail: In Philippians 4, Paul writes to the church, "All God's people here where I'm at send greetings, especially those that belong to Caesar's household." Paul had been chained to Roman soldiers day after day, and he used every moment to tell them about Jesus. So many of those soldiers became Christians that when Paul wrote Philippians, he could report that there was a whole community of believers in Caesar's household.
Paul's pain became his platform. His trial became his testimony. His greatest ministry came from his deepest misery.
I want to tell you about one of our church members, Kelly Gudro, who exemplified this truth. About five years ago, Kelly came to me and Jana and said, "Pastor, will you pray for me? I've just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. They're telling me I only have a few months to live."
For the next five years, nearly every time we saw Kelly, he asked us to pray for him. But his prayer was always the same: "Would you pray for me that I'd have faith through it to share Christ with everybody that I can?"
A few years ago, Kelly asked himself a transformative question: "I wonder if God put me in this spot so that I could turn it into ministry?" And that's exactly what he did.
Kelly started a ministry called Hope Bags. He took his personal Bible—one he read every day and lived by—and gathered all the verses that had encouraged him during his cancer fight. There were hundreds of them. He then gathered other Lakepointe members, and together they created Bibles with those same encouraging verses highlighted, placed them in bags along with supplies that cancer patients need, and began mailing them to people fighting terminal cancer throughout DFW to share the love of Christ.
What started as one man's response to his diagnosis has grown into something remarkable. Over the last few years, Hope Bags has mailed 6,000 hope bags to people in 40 states, 8 countries, and 2 languages. Just last week, they mailed their first pediatric hope bags to children fighting cancer.
Just this week, an oncologist in Dallas told one of our members something unforgettable. A patient walked into the office and mentioned he attended Lakepointe. The oncologist said, "I don't know a lot about your church, but I know a lot about one guy from your church." Due to privacy laws, she couldn't say the name, but when the patient guessed, "Was it Kelly Gudro?" the oncologist confirmed it.
Here's what the oncologist said: "No one in history has had more effect on the patients in this department than Kelly Gudro. And no one has had a bigger impact on my nursing staff ever than Kelly Gudro because of his faith, his steadfastness, and his joy through the midst of his fight."
I don't know what you're facing right now. I don't know what battle you're in. But here's what I know: God wants to turn your pain into a platform, your trial into a testimony, and your misery into ministry. Whatever you're going through, there's an opportunity for God to work through it and touch lives you'll never fully know about.
The question is not whether God causes or allows your pain. The question is: What will you do with it? Will you let it crush you, or will you let God transform it into something that serves His kingdom and reaches others who are suffering?
