What now what's next? How do we move forward? These are the questions that we ask ourselves as our society faces. The global pandemic known as the Coronavirus. Schools are closed. Businesses have scaled back, travel has been canceled. The question of how we move forward has become a real tension that we battle and wrestle with every day. And so what I wanna do over the next couple of min minutes is lean into this tension and try to address the question of what now what can we do in this moment and recognize that Christ is in the middle of this chaos. I wanna first challenge you with this thought, do not put a period or an exclamation point where God has only placed a comma in sentence structure. When you see a comma, there's a pause, sometimes a change of direction, but it's never the end of the sentence in the same way. This moment is not the end. Yes, we're gonna lo look back and tell the story of how our families responded to the Coronavirus and what it meant for our economy and our society and the community as we know it. But there is a way forward. There is a way to move and to find Christ and to be connected with family and to refocus our priorities. I don't want this season to define our reality. But rather my prayer and hope is that this will refine your perspective on reality and that we can zoom in and really focus our priorities and attention on what matters most. And so if you're at home watching this online, I wanna encourage you to write this phrase down is that God can use what you didn't choose. God can use what you didn't choose. None of us chose the situation. It was only a week ago that really this situation expanded globally. I know it's been building up for months, but I know for myself, I didn't feel the effects until just about seven days ago. And so here we are sitting in a situation that we didn't choose for ourselves. And I wanna encourage you with the fact that God can use this very situation. It reminds me of a story about a teenage boy who grew up way back in the 14th century and this teenage boy was captured by pirates. He was then sold into slavery and then forced to work in the fields as a servant. And for six years, he worked hard labor as a servant in the fields under captivity. But when the moment came to escape, he took it and he went back to his homeland. Now, one might think being captured by pirates, sold into slavery, pushed into servanthood into the fields, might define your life. But in this case, it drove Saint Patrick into faith. And as he got spiritual training and biblical training, he went back to the country of Ireland, the same place where he was sold into slavery. And he preached the gospel using things like a shamrock or a three leaf clover to teach about the Trinity God, the Father Jesus, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And the entire country heard the good news of the gospel. And to this day, we celebrate Saint Patrick. Now, last Tuesday on March 17th, we celebrated that, but we did so through social distancing. But that's OK because here we are 1000 years later and we are celebrating this man who didn't let a moment in his youth define him, but rather it shaped his future and he went back and shared the gospel with the same people that put him into captivity. You might be thinking to yourself, how do we get here? And while our future is unknown, I know who holds the future and our faith is secure. I want to tell you a story found in scripture. The book of Acts to be specific about an unlikely character who found himself in an unlikely situation. Paul was an unlikely character to be a promoter of Christianity because not only did he deny Christ, he actually persecuted Christians and it was on his way to persecute Christians to Damascus. It was on that road that he encountered Jesus and Jesus changed his life. And Paul went from the most prolific persecutor of Christians to the most prolific pastor. He went and preached the gospel. He planted churches, he developed leaders and ironically, it was through preaching freedom. Found in Christ. Paul found himself in jail. They didn't like his message, they didn't like his Jesus and they didn't like the freedom preached to all people. And so in prison standing on trial, he shared his testimony. But then he threw out his Roman citizenship card. And the important thing about being a Roman citizen in that time was that when you were in a lower court and you played that citizenship card, you had the right to stand trial before Caesar in Rome. And so he was going to be on his way from a smaller section there in the island of Crete in Greece. And he was going to make his way to the mecca of the world. You've heard the saying all roads lead to Rome. And so Rome was the power in that day that Roman Empire. And so Paul was going to plead his case before Caesar, but when he was getting on the boat to be moved, he got word from God that storm were gonna come in. And so he gave recommendation to those soldiers on the boat not to leave. Ironically, they were trying to go to a place called Phoenix, not Phoenix, Arizona, but the harbor of Phoenix. And so they were trying to leave and they were trying to go and Paul said we shouldn't go, we're going to encounter storms, but they didn't listen to him. And so now he's on a boat and they encounter crazy storms. And when I say crazy, I mean, for two weeks, the storms pulled the boat all the way to an island called Malta. To give you an idea. Malta is 477 miles away from where they were. And so Paul finds himself on this island. Now, thankfully, they survived. God protected the 276 people on that boat and protected Paul. And when they got on the island, they were gonna actually kill all the prisoners because soldiers in that day, if your prisoner escaped, you were responsible with your life. But becau because Paul protected the people, then the soldiers then protected Paul. So his life was spared. So just think for a moment, Paul was preaching the gospel yet he found himself in prison and then he found himself on a boat and then he found himself in a storm and now he's found himself on an island called Malta. I think we've all been to Malta. No, I don't mean personally, I mean, metaphorically. Have you ever found yourself in a place that you didn't expect to be? It wasn't because of your choosing. But here you are, maybe it's a relationship that you're not sure how it got to where you are. Maybe it was a job, maybe it was your faith. Maybe you found yourself battling an addiction. Maybe it was your choice. But you find yourself 477 miles away from where you wanted to be and you're not sure what to do. And you find yourself asking the question, what? Now this is where Paul finds himself. And we're gonna pick up the story in Acts chapter 28. Let's see what it says in verse one, after we were brought safely through, we see the word we, because Luke wrote the book of Acts and Luke, a doctor who's very specific and detail oriented is sharing. We meaning that Luke was on the boat with Paul. And so he says after we were brought safely through, we learned that the island was called Malta. Now Malta means refuge. So maybe this was God's relief. They came through the storm, they survive. But now they find people on the island, the native people showed us unusual kindness. Now, it was unusual because in other translations, the word barbarian is used doesn't necessarily mean that barbarian is bad. It just means that they did not speak their language. And when someone crash lands onto your land and doesn't speak your language, it's unusual that they would just show kindness. And so for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all because it had begun to rain and was cold. Now, here's Paul, his life was changed. He's doing what God told him to do, but he's put in prison and then on a boat and then in a storm and now on Malta, and he gets off the boat and it's cold and it's rainy. And we get to verse three and it says when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper, do you see that? A viper came out and because of the heat and fashioned onto his hand? Now you gotta be thinking seriously, seriously, God, Paul, who was obeying, you found himself in prison, then he found himself on a boat. Then it was in a storm. Now he's on Malta with people that doesn't speak his language. It's rainy, it's cold. He could have sat back. But no, he decides to help by gathering firewood and a snake bites his hand. What now, what next, what do the people do? Let's find out verse four. When the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another. No doubt this man was a murderer though he has escaped from sea. Justice has not allowed him to live. And so you see people talking and they love to give reasons even if they have no idea. You know, you might hear that on the news and you might hear that, that oh, someone saying this is because America has been wicked. This is because this, I, I don't know. Please do me a favor. Do not be that person offering an exact reason for why we are facing the situations that we're in. Don't be that guy because the truth is we don't know the reason. And if you came to find out why the Coronavirus and this pandemic is facing our global economy and society, I don't know. And I'm sorry that I don't know that answer. But if you hang with me, I think I can give you something that's even more valuable than the reason why this is happening. And that is how can we move through? Thankfully, Paul did not have the same response as the people. He actually channeled his inner Taylor swift and it says in here that he however shook it off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. And so while people were trying to judge and make sense, Paul didn't minimize the situation, he didn't take pity on himself, but rather he shook it off. How incredible is that that Paul after being in prison then on a boat, then in a storm now on an island where people don't speak his language, it's rainy, it's cold and he's been bitten by a snake. He simply shakes it off. Sometimes we can take advantage of the situation when we don't pity ourselves, but we shake it off and we move forward. I almost called this Message Snakes on a paw off the movie snakes on a plane. But I knew that was a horrible movie that no one's seen. So I said, nope, not gonna do that. I also thought about calling this Message Snake Shake and Bake because when he shook it off the snake into the fire, it cooked. But now it's a little cheesy, but here we find ourselves and so Paul is why in the world would this happen? I'm, I'm in prison. I'm on a boat. I'm in a storm. I'm on an island that I've never been to with people that don't speak my language. And now I've been bitten by a snake. Let's continue reading verse six, they were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a God. The same people that tried to demonize. Paul was all of a sudden idolizing Paul. How is it that this man has been saved? Why is it that Paul crash landed on this island at this time, bitten by that snake, but yet not impacted by the venom. Well, we're gonna find out here in just a moment verse seven. And now in the neighborhood of that place where the lands belonging to the chief man of the island named Publius who received us and entertained us hospitably for the next three days. So this happened in the land in the area of the island where the chief of the island p lived. And so word spread quickly. And so they brought him in and they were hospitable for three days. Now, I can't prove this, but maybe Publix is the foundation of the grocery store chain Publix. And by hospitality, he was serving them Publix subs for those of you in the South know exactly what I'm talking about and he would enjoy those subs but either way, whatever food he served now, maybe pausing. OK. Finally, I can take a break. Be it. Notice what the next verse says. It happened. Notice another coincidence. That wasn't a coincidence. It happened that the father of pubs lay sick with fever and dysentery. Now this is where it gets crazy. This is where my mind was just went because I want you to focus in not just on what Paul did but how he did it. Paul visited him and prayed, putting his hands on him and healed him. Think about this for a second, the same hand that was bit blessing. The same hand that was hurt, brought healing. The snake did not bite Paul's hand so to hurt him, but rather placed him in position to bless the entire island. How crazy is that? See, sometimes our hands get bit and we think to ourselves, how could this happen? Why? And we focus in on the bite. When the reality is, the problem is not a problem. It is in fact a platform and because people zone in and focus on what has happened to us, we have the platform not to be bitter but to be a blessing to those around us. And this is exactly what Paul did. He went and just days after he had been hurt and bit by the snake, he blessed and he healed a man with those same hands in his prayers to God. Let's continue on. And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured. They also honored us greatly. And when we were about to sail, they put on board whatever we needed. You see, Paul didn't need Malta. Malta needed Jesus and he used a storm to bring Paul in position to declare the gospel and the good news. So the question is not, why did this happen? But how can we move forward? And how can we show our faith and how can we live that out? So, Paul took a difficult sit situation. He was in prison, he was on a boat, he was in a storm. He was on an island where he didn't speak the language where it was rainy and cold and then bitten by a snake. And yet he used that as an opportunity to share the gospel and the entire island was healed and heard the good news of Jesus. We see this story continue on because he goes on to Rome and while he's awaiting trial, he's in prison on house arrest and he has guards chained to him. Now, if I'm a pastor and I'm in prison and I am locked up, it's easy to think. Well, my ministry is done. God, I obeyed you. I preach the gospel. I was planting churches. I was developing leaders and now I find myself in house arrest chained to this guard. But Paul didn't have that perspective. Do you know what perspective Paul had? It wasn't that he was chained to the guards. It was that the guards were chained to him. You see, imperial guards went on six hour rotations. And so over the course of those next few years that he was there, the entire guard system, imperial guards heard the good news of the gospel, but not only did Paul do that, he proclaimed the gospel in the only way he knew how and that was through writing letters. And it was because of that, we have letters like Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. And so now 2000 years later, we are hearing about the tales of Paul because not because he was captive and in prison. But really God was setting him up to write the letters that you know, you and I can read in the same way, in the same way. Yes, our church gatherings have changed temporarily. But my prayer and hope is not that the gospel will be held captive, but rather, maybe some of you are tuning in for the very first time. I believe that is the plan of God. And so I was, I was rustling through what to do with church gatherings, what to do in terms of applying this message, how can God use what we didn't choose? And so one of the things I like to do on a regular basis is to go for a walk and, and prayer walks, which is really just prayer thinking. And so I would walk my neighborhood, but I also live right next to a desert. And so I'm praying through this passage and I'm thinking God, how do you want me to apply this story? And I'm walking through the desert and I look up and there is a snake right there in the pathway and I'm like, oh my goodness, I just read about a snake biting Paul and I'm in the desert praying about what am I supposed to do? And I see a snake right in front of me. I'm my God. Are you gonna protect me or heal me? And I didn't know what to do, but I was feeling emboldened. And so I slowly reach out my hand and I see this snake and all of a sudden, OK, that didn't happen. I'm just playing, there was no snake and there was no moment like that, but I was praying in the desert and as crazy as it would have been to encounter a snake in that moment. I think it's a lot crazier that we are recording church online as our entire country in a sense is shut down because of a virus. We didn't really talk about only a month ago. And so how is it that we find ourselves in chaos? And how do we find Christ in chaos? And so because God can use what we didn't choose, what is our responsibility? What is our next steps? Well, as I mentioned earlier, we're not gonna be able to learn the reason why yet, but just because we don't know the reason, it doesn't mean that we're off the hook to respond or act in any way, shape or form. And so I want to encourage you to do two things even when we don't know the reason for why something is happening. I want us to remember to do these two things. Number one, I want us to have reassurance that God is here even in the middle of our pain. Notice how many people just go online and say, I'm praying for you. I'm praying for our country. If you don't have faith. Who exactly are you speaking to? You? See, it's not just the problem, that's the issue, it's the lack of presence and presence is valuable. Sometimes I go hiking with my kids and one time I was hiking with my brother and my son Jackson, and we had just moved here to Arizona and Jackson was about four or five and we were hiking the Pinnacle Peak trail. If you've hiked that, it's a fun trail. It goes straight up and goes out. But it was my first time hiking the trail and Jackson was an adventurer and so he was going out. But what I didn't realize that the trail was basically a straight line. Like you go up a mountain and you go down, you go up one and you go over and then it ends. Well, we go all the way and we get to the end. And my son Jackson, who's only four or five at a time is tired and he looks up to me and he says, daddy will you carry me at which point in time I explained to him, Jackson, this is why you are tired. You are here at this point in the mountain. This is this far we need to go and this is why you are tired because you, no uh those explanations of explaining why my son was tired mattered. Not in that moment. The only thing that mattered was that his dad was there and could carry him and that I could pick him up and hold him in times when he is weak and he is tired. Now as Children grow, it gets a little more difficult for parents to carry them like you would a newborn baby baby. But I want you to know that the same God who created the universe is big enough to carry all of us. He's big enough to carry you. He's big enough to carry me. And so even greater than the reason why it is answering the question of who cares. And when we hurt God hurts, there's a story in John 11 that when Lazarus's friend dies, Jesus is gonna go on and raise Lazarus from the dead. But before he does that, the first thing he does is he weeps. He cares when we're scared, he cares when we're hurting. And then He has the ability and the strength to lift us up. And when you find yourself at a place where you got nothing left to give God, remember that God created the universe out of nothingness and that the resurrection happened because Jesus died and then rose again. And so if nothingness can't stop God, if death can't stop God, I promise you this, this Coronavirus or whatever battle you find yourself facing right now cannot and will not stop God for it says in Romans 831 that if God is for us, who can be a against us, and we need to know and be reassured that God is here. Even when we find ourselves on Malta, in a place that we didn't expect with people that we don't understand in a situation where we might be bitten by a snake but God really was setting us up to be a blessing to those around us. So when we don't have a reason, we have to remember that we have reassurance. But secondly, I want you to know that we also have responsibility to do what we can. Paul could have sat back. He couldn't have spoken to the other people on the boat, but he did once they were safe on the island, he could have sat back, but he went to help build a fire. Once his hand was bit by the snake, he could have said that's it. I'm done. But instead he goes to public house and then heals his father and then goes on and preaches and heals the island. And then he goes in and when he's in prison, he preaches to the guards and writes the letters of much of what we have now in the New Testament. So when we don't have a reason, let us remember that we have reassurance that God is here and then we have the responsibility to do what we can. God can use what we didn't choose. It reminds me of a story of when I was on a mission trip down in Mexico and we were meant to go out and preach the gospel at this homeless community, but it started raining. And so when we pulled up to the community, there was nobody there. And so our audience went from a few dozen to zero And so I thought great. They all scattered because of the rain. And so now we don't have an audience. God. We flew down here, we trained, we have a team and we had students. I was a youth pastor at the time. And so now we have no audience, God. And really, we got this nudge. And so the local pastor said, ok, let's drive. And so we just started driving around the community and it's pouring down rain. And I'm like, what's gonna happen? God? And we show up to this location that has a shelter and right in the shelter, what happened was the rain didn't scatter those that were homeless. It actually huddled them all under a shelter and in one spot in the road. And so they were all there and then the rain stopped and I was like, God, this is it. This is our moment. And so the students said, get out, we're going to preach the gospel. And so they put on their uh skit clothes and we're gonna do this gospel drama skit and we have this little speaker that's like this big. And so we're gonna go, we're getting ready to perform the drama when all of a sudden a train runs by. So right behind us, a train's going by now a completely eliminating the ability to hear anything that we're saying through this little speaker. I'm like, seriously, God first you send rain, then you send a train and now nobody can hear us. But as I'm like shaking my fist and my head at God, I start watching cars pile up because while this train is going for about five minutes, no cars can move. And so now cars are watching our students do this drama and other leaders who are not in the drama are literally like chick fil a workers and in and out workers and are going are Dutch bros and going window to window sharing the gospel hamming gospel tracks and bracelets out to everybody in their cars. And so the train moves on, the cars move on here in the gospel and now they're performing this like, wow, God, this is crazy. And so before they even say a word, this guy named Angel, all of a sudden just stands up and just puts his hands in the air and it was a little distracting and I was like, hold on Angel. We're just getting started. I just met him and I was like, hold on a second. Like we, we haven't even spoken yet. Like I haven't preached a sermon like he just had some skits going on but and there was rain and there was a train and there's cars like this is really confusing. But what happened was in that moment, the Holy Spirit worked in angel's heart and someone years ago had told him about the gospel that when he sat there in, in the rain in a random setting that we were not planned to be without words, saw the gospel performed by students and the spirit working in his life. So that before we even preached, the local pastor went over and led angel to know Christ as his Lord and Savior. Here, I was, I was mad at the rain. I was mad at the train and yet all this happened to position people exactly where they needed to be so that they could hear the gospel and respond. And so that's my prayer and hope for you. God can use what you didn't choose. I don't know what the future holds with this virus. I don't know when our next public gathering is gonna be, but here's what I know that Jesus is Lord and Savior and our faith is secure and our faith is alive. And so we're gonna use this as an opportunity to preach the gospel any way possible. So for Mission Grove Church, this is what this means. Number one, we're gonna continue meeting online on the weekends. That means we will post messages for both adults and for kids that you can connect with on our website on youtube or on Facebook. Number two, we are gonna start a daily devotional tomorrow morning, starting on Monday where we're gonna post a video and then also have a corresponding devotional so that we can walk through scripture together as a church community. And then number three, we are forming a response team because we believe everybody deserves somebody checking in on them. And so we've been working hard as a team and through a database so that every person in our church community is being checked on every single week. If you would like to be a part of this ministry response team and to help meet the needs in our community as they come up, I wanna encourage you to email me directly at J Cragle at Mission Grove church.com or leave a comment below wherever you're watching this and let us know that you wanna join the ministry response team. And if you have a need, I want you to reach out because church is not a place to go to, but a family to belong to and we wanna help you meet that need. And so if you would join me in prayer right now, that right there in your living room or wherever you're watching on your tablet smart device, whatever it is that you're watching this. I want you to pray with me right now for yourself and for our country. Dear God. We did not ask for this situation. We did not choose it, but God, we know that you can use this to bring glory to your name. God, maybe there is somebody hearing this message for the first time. I pray that they respond to you. God, I pray that we can be reassured that you are here just as Paul was and God, I pray that then we can take responsibility and do what we can just as the same hand that was bitten gave blessing. God. May we use this as an opportunity to bless our neighbors and to love them as the church should be on a daily basis. We love you, God. We lift up our nation. We ask for a way forward and we trust you as Lord and Savior, we love you. It's in your son's name. We pray. Amen. God bless. Thank you for tuning in.