Scripture: Acts 28:1–10
Real Love Is More Than Words
We all want to experience genuine love. It’s something we need, something we value, and something we spend much of our lives trying to understand. But because love is so valuable, it’s also something people have learned to imitate. Just as counterfeit designer bags can resemble the real thing, and imitation crab meat can look surprisingly similar to the seafood it’s replacing, imitation love can sometimes appear convincing on the surface.
The difference becomes clear when that love is tested. It’s easy to tell someone you love them, send a heart emoji, or offer a few encouraging words. Those expressions can be meaningful, but words alone don’t necessarily require sacrifice. When life becomes difficult, when finances are tight, when someone receives a troubling medical diagnosis, or when a family is struggling, we quickly discover that genuine love must involve more than what we’re willing to say. It must also involve what we’re willing to do.
Love that does nothing is nothing.
Real love costs something. It requires patience, forgiveness, consideration, understanding, sacrifice, and service. We see this most clearly in the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus didn’t simply speak about love. He demonstrated it by touching lepers, feeding the hungry, welcoming outcasts, caring for the broken, and ultimately giving His life for sinners.
Romans 5:8 reminds us that God demonstrated His love for us through Christ’s death while we were still sinners. Jesus showed us what genuine love looks like by serving us with His life. As His followers, we’re called to reflect that same love in how we treat the people around us.
In this week’s sermon, Love Serves!, we turn to Acts 28:1–10, where the Apostle Paul provides an extraordinary example of what should be ordinary Christianity. Through Paul’s experience on the island of Malta, we discover three ways genuine love serves others.
Serving When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan
Before examining Paul’s actions on Malta, it’s important to understand how he arrived there. Paul was traveling to Rome, but he wasn’t on vacation or heading to a ministry conference. He was a prisoner being transported to stand trial before Caesar. Along the way, the ship carrying him encountered a violent storm that threatened everyone aboard.
After days of dangerous conditions, the ship eventually ran aground and began breaking apart. Yet, just as God had promised, all 276 people aboard survived and made it safely to shore. They discovered they had landed on the island of Malta, where the local people welcomed them with unusual kindness.
As if surviving a storm and shipwreck weren’t enough, Paul was then bitten by a snake while gathering firewood. From a human perspective, he had every reason to feel exhausted, frustrated, and overwhelmed. He was imprisoned, far from his intended destination, uncertain about his future, and facing one difficult circumstance after another.
Most of us can relate to seasons when life seems determined to interrupt every plan we’ve made. We may not experience shipwrecks or snakebites, but we know what it’s like to face unexpected challenges, disappointments, and responsibilities that leave us wondering how much more we can handle.
Yet Paul’s response is remarkable. Rather than becoming consumed with his own circumstances, he remains attentive to the needs of others. When an opportunity to serve presents itself, Paul responds with compassion.
His example reminds us that even in difficult seasons, God can provide opportunities to demonstrate His love.
1. Love Serves Humbly and Personally
Acts 28:7–8a
In Acts 28:7, Luke introduces Publius, the leading man of the island, who welcomes Paul and his companions and provides hospitality for three days. Shortly afterward, we learn that Publius’s father is suffering from fever and dysentery, a serious illness that would have been particularly dangerous in the ancient world.
What’s interesting is that although Publius’s position and influence are mentioned, his father isn’t even identified by name. We know very little about him beyond the fact that he’s suffering. Yet Paul recognizes his need and goes to him.
Consider Paul’s circumstances. He has just survived a shipwreck, he’s still a prisoner, and his future remains uncertain. If anyone had a reasonable excuse to focus entirely on their own problems, it would have been Paul. Nevertheless, he doesn’t allow his personal difficulties to make him indifferent to someone else’s suffering.
This is an important lesson for us because one of the greatest obstacles to loving people well is our tendency to become consumed with our own lives. Between work, family responsibilities, financial pressures, personal struggles, and everyday frustrations, it can be difficult to recognize when someone else needs our attention.
Our problems are real, and Scripture doesn’t require us to pretend otherwise. However, our burdens don’t automatically disqualify us from being someone else’s blessing. Sometimes we have opportunities to encourage others while we’re still waiting for encouragement ourselves. Sometimes we can comfort someone while navigating our own grief or offer practical help while working through our own challenges.
In Philippians 2:3–4, Paul instructs believers to act with humility and consider the interests of others. This doesn’t mean ignoring our own needs or pretending that our responsibilities don’t matter. Instead, it means refusing to allow our consideration for ourselves to become the limit of our concern.
Paul’s response to Publius’s father also challenges our motivations for serving. Publius was an influential man, but the passage doesn’t suggest that Paul helped his father because of that influence. Paul responded to suffering rather than social standing.
Christian love should operate the same way. We don’t serve people because they might become church members, financial supporters, or valuable connections. We serve because every person is created in God’s image and possesses inherent dignity.
People are not projects. They are human beings worthy of compassion, consideration, and care.
Sometimes serving humbly and personally means slowing down enough to notice someone who’s hurting. It might involve listening when someone needs to talk, checking on a person who hasn’t attended church recently, or recognizing that someone who always seems cheerful may be struggling privately.
As a church, we should ask ourselves whether we’re so busy doing church activities that we’re overlooking opportunities to be the church to the people God has placed in front of us.
Meaningful ministry doesn’t always require a microphone, a stage, or an official title. Sometimes it simply requires a heart willing to see another person’s need and respond.
Jesus demonstrated this kind of love perfectly. He saw us in our brokenness, entered our suffering, and sacrificed Himself to rescue us. Having received such extraordinary love, we should desire to extend that same compassion to others.
2. Love Serves Spiritually and Practically
Acts 28:8b–9
When Paul encounters Publius’s sick father, he responds by praying, laying his hands on him, and healing him. Afterward, other sick people on the island come to Paul and receive healing as well.
Paul’s actions demonstrate both spiritual concern and personal compassion. He doesn’t treat the man’s physical suffering as irrelevant to his ministry. Instead, he recognizes that caring for someone involves acknowledging the realities of what they’re experiencing.
Sometimes Christians unintentionally separate spiritual ministry from practical ministry. We know how to tell someone we’re praying for them, share an encouraging Scripture, or invite them to church. Those things are valuable, but genuine love should also move us to consider what practical help we can provide.
Prayer is essential to the Christian life, but it should never become an excuse for inaction when God has given us the ability and opportunity to help.
James 2 challenges believers who recognize someone in need but respond with religious words without providing practical assistance when they have the means to do so. The issue isn’t that prayer or encouragement is unimportant. The problem is claiming to care while refusing to respond to a need we have the ability to meet.
Real love is visible, tangible, and interruptible.
Love is visible because compassion becomes evident through our actions. It’s tangible because our concern reaches into the practical realities of people’s lives. And it’s interruptible because genuinely loving others sometimes requires adjusting our schedules, changing our plans, or sacrificing personal comfort to respond to someone else’s needs.
We see this throughout Jesus’ ministry. When a woman who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years approached Him, Jesus didn’t dismiss her as an inconvenience. He stopped, acknowledged her, and responded to her suffering. His compassion demonstrated that people mattered more than maintaining an uninterrupted schedule.
Jesus’ ministry also points us toward the deeper purpose of His coming. He didn’t enter the world only to address physical suffering. Through His death and resurrection, He offers forgiveness, reconciliation with God, and new life to sinners.
As followers of Christ, our service should reflect both the message of the gospel and the compassion of the Savior we proclaim.
On Malta, one act of mercy became an opportunity for others to receive help. After Publius’s father was healed, additional people came seeking healing. Paul’s ministry demonstrated God’s compassion in a way that extended beyond one household.
Imagine what might happen if our churches became known throughout their communities as places where hurting people could consistently encounter genuine care. Places where struggling families receive support, lonely people find fellowship, grieving individuals experience comfort, and those facing hardship know someone is willing to walk alongside them.
Our churches should certainly be places where the gospel is faithfully proclaimed and Scripture is clearly taught. But the good news we proclaim should also influence how we treat the people who hear it.
Some people won’t welcome your witness until they witness your welcome.
This doesn’t mean serving others as a strategy to manipulate them into attending church or listening to a sermon. Genuine Christian love isn’t transactional. We care about people because God cares about people, and our concern should extend to their spiritual, emotional, and practical needs.
Not everyone can perform a miracle like the one recorded in Acts 28, but we can all look for opportunities to demonstrate mercy. Sometimes that means providing a warm meal, visiting someone in the hospital, helping a struggling parent purchase groceries, offering transportation to an appointment, or sitting with a family experiencing grief.
Other times, it means watching someone’s children so they can have a much-needed break, checking on an elderly neighbor, helping someone find employment, or simply being present when others have disappeared.
These actions may seem ordinary, but we should never underestimate what God can accomplish through genuine compassion.
You may not be able to perform a miracle, but you can show mercy.
3. Love Serves Without Demanding a Reward
Acts 28:10
As Paul’s time on Malta comes to an end, Luke records that the islanders honored Paul and his companions and provided the supplies they needed for the remainder of their journey.
It’s a beautiful conclusion to an unexpected chapter in Paul’s life. However, there’s something important to recognize about the order of events: the honor came after the service.
Paul didn’t arrive on Malta demanding recognition or negotiating compensation before helping someone in need. The passage doesn’t describe him establishing a fee for his ministry or requiring people to demonstrate gratitude before receiving help. Instead, we see him serving others, followed by the islanders responding with generosity.
Although the passage doesn’t reveal everything Paul was thinking, his actions are consistent with the conviction he expresses in 2 Corinthians 5:14: the love of Christ compels us.
That should be the motivation behind our service as well.
One of the clearest tests of genuine love is what happens when we don’t receive anything in return. Are we still willing to help when nobody thanks us? Will we continue serving when our efforts go unnoticed? Can we demonstrate compassion toward someone who has nothing to offer us?
And perhaps the more difficult question: Will we continue to love someone who doesn’t seem grateful?
When our willingness to serve depends entirely on what we receive in return, we need to examine our motivations. We may be approaching service as a transaction rather than an expression of Christlike love.
Jesus provides the ultimate example of selfless service. Philippians 2 describes His humility and willingness to take the form of a servant, becoming obedient even to death on a cross. In John 13, Jesus washes His disciples’ feet, demonstrating a kind of love that willingly takes the posture of a servant.
The One who deserves all honor chose to serve those who could never repay Him.
And He calls His followers to demonstrate that same humility.
You don’t need a title to serve. You need a towel.
Paul’s experience also reminds us that unexpected circumstances can become unexpected opportunities for ministry. Malta wasn’t his intended destination. He was headed to Rome, but a violent storm and shipwreck changed his plans.
Nevertheless, Paul didn’t treat the interruption as an excuse to disengage from serving others. He remained faithful right where he was.
We may encounter similar opportunities in our own lives. Sometimes we find ourselves in seasons we didn’t anticipate, dealing with circumstances we wouldn’t have chosen. While we shouldn’t assume that every hardship has a simple explanation, difficult circumstances don’t eliminate our responsibility to remain faithful.
We can navigate unexpected situations with mature poise, godly perspective, and a Christlike posture. Mature poise helps us resist becoming consumed by bitterness. Godly perspective reminds us of God’s sovereignty even when life feels uncertain. A Christlike posture keeps us willing to recognize and respond to the needs of others.
Paul arrived on Malta as a prisoner who had survived a storm, a shipwreck, and a snakebite. Yet he found opportunities to demonstrate God’s love. He served without demanding anything in return, and through his ministry, others experienced mercy.
His example challenges us to serve generously, trust God with our needs, and resist making personal recognition the goal of our compassion.
Jesus Is Our Ultimate Example of Love
As encouraging as Paul’s example is, Paul isn’t the ultimate example of love. Jesus is.
Jesus saw humanity in its helpless condition and entered our broken world. He met us in our deepest need and gave Himself for us when we had nothing to offer Him in return. Through His death on the cross, He demonstrated a love greater than anything we could manufacture through our own efforts.
Through His resurrection, Jesus offers new life to everyone who repents and places their faith in Him.
This is the foundation of Christian service. We don’t serve others to earn God’s love or prove ourselves worthy of salvation. We serve because, through Christ, we’ve already received a love we could never earn.
When we truly understand how deeply Jesus has loved us, that love should increasingly shape how we treat others. We become more attentive to suffering, more willing to sacrifice, and less concerned with receiving recognition for every good thing we do.
Our service becomes an expression of gratitude for the grace we’ve received.
What Is Your Malta?
As we reflect on Paul’s experience, there’s one question worth considering: What is your Malta?
Where has life taken you unexpectedly? What circumstances have interrupted your plans? Who has God placed in your path who might need to experience His love through your willingness to serve?
Perhaps someone in your family needs more patience and understanding. Maybe a neighbor is struggling financially, a friend is grieving, or someone at church needs encouragement. There may be a person you’ve overlooked because your own schedule has become so demanding.
You don’t have to travel across the world to find someone who needs compassion. Sometimes they’re sitting across the dinner table, beside you in church, or living right next door.
In 1 John 3:18, believers are encouraged to demonstrate love through actions and truth rather than words alone. That’s the invitation before us: to move beyond simply declaring the love of Christ and begin demonstrating it.
At Westside Church, our mission is to love God, serve our neighbors, and strengthen our city through the transforming power of Jesus Christ. That mission comes to life when we recognize opportunities to serve the people around us with genuine compassion.
There are people who need to be seen, burdens that need to be shared, and practical needs we have opportunities to meet. We don’t have to wait for perfect circumstances, a ministry title, or public recognition to begin.
We simply need to remember the Savior who first served us.
Love serves humbly and personally. Love serves spiritually and practically. Love serves without demanding a reward.
We’ve been loved by Jesus. Now let’s go and love like Jesus.
Westside, Malta is waiting. Let’s go and SERVE IN LOVE!
Watch the Full Sermon
Love Serves! | What Real Christian Love Looks Like | Acts 28:7–10
Watch the full message on Westside Church’s YouTube channel and consider sharing it with someone who could use encouragement to demonstrate Christlike love.
We’d love to worship with you!
Westside Church
1302 West State Street
Trenton, NJ 08618
Sunday Worship: 11:00 AM
Meet us on the Westside.
