Whose I am – Acts: 27:21-25

I hope that you all remember the children’s Bible story about the Prophet Jonah.

The thing about the Prophet Jonah is that he is not just the leading character in a children’s story.

Four, five and six-year-olds may love the story of Jonah, because of some of its interesting details, but it’s actually for adults.

And although it contains almost unbelievable events, it is not fiction, but history.

As I have often said, the veracity of the Lord Jesus Christ is linked to the truthfulness of that history.

Jesus referred to Jonah and his three-day journey in that whale.

And if Christ is the Son of God as He claimed, He could not authenticate a lie or a misconception.

He said, “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Not only was Jesus buried for 72 hours, but Jonah was actually 72 hours in the belly of that whale.

As you know, Jonah was fleeing from the commission of God.

He had been commanded to preach repentance to the wicked city of Nineveh, Assyria.

But Jonah so hated those people that he refused and went AWOL.

At the city of Joppa, he boarded a ship bound for Tarshish.

“But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.”

God ordained a storm, just like the one in which Paul was caught here in Acts 27 – Euroclydon.

And just as the Roman sailors tried to save their ship, so did those mariners of Joppa.

But when their puny strength finally collapsed before the omnipotence of Jehovah, they surrendered.

They firmly believed that theirs was a miraculous storm, so they polled the passengers to see who had precipitated this wrath of God.

“Then said they unto Jonah, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?

And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.”

Although he didn’t use the exact words, Jonah essentially said the same thing that Paul said:

“There stood by me this night the angel of God, WHOSE I AM, AND WHOM I SERVE.”

Clearly, Paul didn’t claim to belong to the angel who had stood by him that night.

They both were servants of the God of Heaven and Earth; the God of storms and calm.

This morning let’s spend a few minutes thinking about Paul’s claim: “I am God’s man.”

First, HOW WAS IT that he was God’s man?

Jonah is somewhat of an enigma to me.

There he was running in the opposite direction to the revealed will of God.

He knew that the storm was meant specifically for him, and in the process he was endangering the lives of a number of other men.

Yet when he was confronted about it, he admitted that he was trying to flee from the presence of the Lord.

He was a servant of God, but as far as this command was concerned he didn’t want to be.

Was there pride in his voice when said that he was an Hebrew and a worshipper of Jehovah?

I have a hard time understanding the heart of the prophet Jonah

Paul, on the other hand, was on board that ship because he was a Christian, not because he was a rebel.

He had been arrested because he was a child of God;

He was on his way to Rome because he was a child of God.

Perhaps not everyone, but many people on board that ship were aware of Paul and who he was before verse 23.

But very clearly, Paul was not ashamed, embarrassed, confounded or chagrined about publically declaring that he belonged to God.

As we have said several times, Paul had no regrets or complaints about how the Lord had employed him.

Sure he didn’t like being in jail for two years, and he probably didn’t enjoy the beatings or stonings,

But those were just minor details to him, not much more significant than catching the flu or a cold.

“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”

As far as general tenor of his life was concerned, he would rather have been a serving, suffering Christian than to have been the Emperor of Rome.

So you might say that Paul belonged to the Lord BECAUSE HE WANTED TO BELONG.

He rejoiced in being one of the sheep of the Lord’s fold; one of the horses in God’s stable.

Paul was a servant of God, willing to go to Nineveh, New York or the New Hebrides at His command.

If he was offered a choice he would choose the Lord in a New York minute, whatever that is.

But the truth of the matter is that God chose Paul, long before Paul chose the Lord.

Paul belonged to the Lord because GOD CHOSE HIM EVEN BEFORE THE CREATION OF THE WORLD.

The words of Paul in Ephesians are not popular among self-centered people; they are twisted and denied.

But with the simplicity of a child listen once again to what they say:

“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:

Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will;

To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”

Paul said that the Christians in Ephesus had been chosen by God before the foundation of the world.

And it doesn’t say a word about being chosen because God saw that they would repent and believe.

That would mean that God’s choice wasn’t really His choice at all; He was coerced.

In fact as we listen to II Timothy 2:10, Paul tells us that election is UNTO salvation.

It was not the other way around.

“I endure all things for the elect’s sakes,

that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.”

Not just Paul, but many of the Gospel writers liked to call Christians “the elect” – people chosen by the Lord.

“Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect‘s sake those days shall be shortened.

“And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

“Shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?”

“Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.”

“Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering.”

Paul had been chosen by God before the foundation of the world to become one of His servants and saints.

And as we have studied on several occasions, Paul was not wanting to believe on Christ when the Lord first accosted him.

Paul thought that he was in fine spiritual shape, and he had no desire to repent of his sin, when the Lord first revealed Himself.

God CHOSE to save Paul; God DID save Paul;

And as a result of that choice, Paul believed that Jesus was the Saviour, Christ the Son of God;

And Paul repented before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

If you would like to know whether or not you are one of God’s elect, simply repent of your sin, trust Christ to save you, and begin serving him.

“There stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve.”

Third, Paul was property of the Lord, because HE HAD BEEN PURCHASED BY CHRIST.

In I Corinthians Paul had been chiding the people about their sinful behaviour.

He was saying that sin was completely inappropriate for Christians.

At one point he added, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

The Bible teaches that a Christian is a person who had been a slave to sin and Satan.

Every Christian, prior to his conversion, was bound over to the executioner as a sinner under God’s law.

But there is a very prominent and delightful Biblical word which answers that problem: “redemption.”

To redeem something is to buy it back.

To redeem a coupon is to take it to the store and to use it to reduce the price on some product.

To redeem something which has been pawned, is to give a loan-shark the money that he gave you along with his demanded 50% interest and to take your pawned merchandise home.

And Biblical redemption is one of the things which the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ accomplished.

Again, as Peter was writing to Christians about abstaining from sin he said:

“Bt as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”

In another place Paul wrote: “But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”

And one day, when all the saints of God are gathered around the Lord’s throne one of the songs that we will sing, “Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.”

John was given a glimpse of the future and he said of the saints of God.

“And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.”

Like all other saints of God, Paul belonged to the Lord through his election and his redemption.

And when Paul made that statement, his obvious intention was to show a LINE OF DEMARCATION.

Paul was the property of, and servant of, Jehovah, not of any other so-called god.

Those mariners may have been praying to Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea.

They may have been beseeching any of a few hundred idols,

But Paul said, I’m not a part of any of that.

He might have said with Jonah, “I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD (Jehovah), the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.”

Paul was not the property of any heathen religion or idol.

And although it wouldn’t have made any sense to his fellow passengers, Paul wasn’t the property of Satan.

The Lord Jesus once told the Jews, people exactly as Paul had been, that they were children of Satan.

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

The Apostle John heard Christ say that and In his first letter John reiterated,

“He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God.”

Prior to Acts 9 Paul had been a child of his spiritual father, the Devil, and he possessed the same lusts as the Devil.

That is why he hated Christ Jesus with such a passion;

That is why he arrested and executed the servants of God.

But the Lord graciously rescued him, redeemed him, and adopted him into His own righteous family.

Paul was no longer a devilish man and a servant of sin.

This is why he could speak with such passion: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”

Paul was not the servant or property of Satan or of any other false God.

He was not even his own.

“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

In Romans he said, “For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.”

And in II Corinthians: “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.”

And to Titus: “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”

“There stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve.”

And what does this relationship with God MEAN?

It means that Paul like every other Christian, has an HEAVENLY FATHER.

We are not slaves or property of some dictatorial god; we are children of His family.

Christians have been born again, and legally adopted into the most regal of all regal families.

The omnipotent and all-possessing God is our loving father.

And God has commended “his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

When Paul said of God “whose I am,” he was saying that the Lord has a SPECIAL INTEREST IN HIM.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

The Lord sends his blessing upon both the just and the unjust.

Like Joseph in Egypt, he may feed all twelve of Jacob’s sons, but Joseph’s full brother received a double portion.

God may spare a city like Sodom, or a nation like the United States of America,

because of the handful of righteous souls inside,

but he has a particular love for his people, which only spills over upon the wicked.

And to belong to the Lord means that we ALL THE DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES of that Heavenly Family.

Christians are heirs of God and joint-heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Although the Mormon doctrine that Christians actually become gods themselves is flagrant heresy, there is a sense in which we will inherit a share of the family business.

We shall rule and reign at the side of Christ; we will serve as priest-assistants under our Melchizedek.

“Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”

Won’t it be a wonderful thing when all of the blessings of this relationship come to be fully possessed?

Isn’t the fragrance of that supper enjoyable even in the midst of the storm?

Are you a child of God by faith in Christ Jesus? Have you been born again and adopted into God’s family?

You aren’t sure?

Then kneel before the uplifted Saviour.

Repent of your sin and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.