This morning’s message is entitled “caring and sharing.” Often when we teach on the purpose and life of the church we speak about koinonia, which is a New Testament Greek word meaning “fellowship.” However, one pastor tells us “that koinonia means caring for the poor” and that “Christian fellowship is Christian caring, and Christian caring is Christian sharing.”(1)
One of the purposes of the church is to care for others and then to share with them, whether it is in the form of material goods, such as we see in the example of the New Testament church (Acts 2:45), or whether it be to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. This morning I am going to talk about caring for the spiritual state of the people around us, and of how we should seek to share with them the gospel message of salvation in Jesus Christ. Let’s start with point number one, found in verse 25.
Point # 1: We All Go Through Life (v. 25)
25 But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.
The first point that I wish to emphasize is that “we all go through life.”
Right here we find Paul and Silas praying and singing praises to God while they were in jail. If we look back in verses 16-24 we find out the reason why they were in jail.
What had happened is that a slave girl who was possessed with a demon came and harassed them, so they cast out this demon. Her masters then became very upset, because through the power of this demon she was able to tell fortunes, and her masters made a profit from this ability. When Paul and Silas destroyed their method for making money, they turned the city against them and had them beaten with rods, and then thrown in jail.
They were going through a really difficult time of trials, and it appears that Paul and Silas had a good reason to be down. They had just been beaten, and in verse 23 we read of how they had stripes upon them, meaning that they were bleeding and in a great amount of physical pain. They were unjustly thrown in jail, and they were probably lying on a cold, hard floor in a damp stone prison cell. They were probably only fed once a day, and the place was likely filled with rats and pestilence. Talk about experiencing the hardships of life!
What I wish to point out from these verses is that things happen to each of us in life. We all encounter trials and difficulties and we all have things that try really hard to distract us from witnessing, or sharing our faith with people. When we go through these times it is hard enough to praise God like Paul and Silas did, let alone share our faith.
All of us go through life, and life can distract us from sharing our faith with others. Whenever we are experiencing a time of trials we can sometimes become so focused on our own hardships and feeling as though we are trapped in them, that we forget to look around and see that there are others who are hurting as well, like the prisoners who were all around Paul and Silas. Paul and Silas were not alone in that jail.
We all go through life, and life can distract us from witnessing and blind us to the needs of other people. It is not just trials that distract us, but it is the everyday hustle and bustle of life and the demands on our time. After work is over we have to take care of the bills and business, run errands, get groceries, drive the kids to extracurricular activities, and care for sick spouses or children, and the list can go on and on. It is hard to look out and see others when we are so inward focused and consumed by our own world.
Even though we have our own set of troubles and our own demands on time, we need to keep our eyes open to the people around us. If we can just open our eyes we will see that others are going through things too.
Paul and Silas put their own needs and problems aside and they began to sing. They sang from the joy of the Lord that was in their hearts, but they also sang for another reason. In verse 25 we read that prisoners were listening to them sing. So, we see that Paul and Silas also sang for the benefit of the other prisoners in order to lift their spirits and to become a witness of their own faith in God’s deliverance and sovereignty in their situation. They began demonstrating caring and sharing here, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Point # 2: We Can Choose to Care (vv. 26-29)
26 Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed. 27 And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. 28 But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.” 29 Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.
The second point that I wish to emphasize is that “we can choose to care.”
Do you notice what happened here? God made a way of escape for Paul and Silas, but when the jailer came were they gone? No, they hadn’t moved, and neither had the other prisoners! They were all still there! If we were stuck in jail and the doors suddenly opened, wouldn’t we try to escape? I think we all would, so why did Paul and Silas stay?
They stayed because they cared. They made a major decision here. They had a choice to gain physical freedom for themselves or to help others find spiritual freedom. We have to make a conscious decision to care. Caring is a choice, and right here we see that Paul and Silas made the choice to help people find their spiritual freedom.
Those who don’t know Jesus as Lord and Savior are bound in a spiritual prison, and it is up to us to help set them free. We help set people free when we care enough to share and they accept the message that we share. Jesus provided us with an example to follow when He declared in Luke 4:18, “He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor . . . to proclaim liberty to the captives . . . [and] to set at liberty those who are oppressed.”
The jailer here was not a prisoner in the jail. However, he was a spiritual prisoner. He was a spiritual captive to the laws of sin and death. He had never been forgiven his sins by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord Savior, and because he had never been forgiven, he was destined to suffer the consequences of his sins. According to Romans 6:23 the wages of our sins is spiritual death, which is equivalent to eternity in hell.
Paul and Silas cared enough about the others around them, or they cared enough about a lone jailer, that they stayed put in the place of their hardship. If they had tried to escape, it would have actually led to hardship for the jailer.
If the prisoners had escaped, the jailer probably would have been tortured or executed, and that’s why he was attempting to take his own life. If he had died, or had the chance to commit suicide, then that would have led to hardship for his family. If he had succeeded, then he would have also left this world without knowing Jesus as his Savior, and that would have led to the worse hardship possible in the flames of hell for all eternity.
Because Paul and Silas stayed, and because Paul called out for the jailer to stop and not harm himself, he called out for a light and ran and fell down before Paul and Silas. I see this act of calling out for a light as being symbolic of calling out for the light of Christ. And I see the jailer falling before Paul and Silas as coming to a place of humility and submission before the Lord Jesus.
Point # 3: We Can Choose to Share (vv. 30-32)
30 And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.
The third point that I wish to emphasize is that “we can choose to share.”
If we will open our eyes and take a look around us we will see that there are people who are hungering for the truth. Caring will open the door for us to meet people’s spiritual hunger, for they will actually see that our faith is genuine and they will ask questions. You’ve heard the old saying, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
The jailer began to ask questions. In fact, he asked a very straight forward question of “What must I do to be saved?” How did Paul and Silas respond? Did they quickly change the subject because they were afraid to answer or because they felt inadequate to share the gospel? No! They made a choice to answer his question, and in reply they gave him a very straight forward and truthful answer. They made a choice to share, which is what we must do as well.
What they shared was the gospel, and the answer they gave was, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” How can we be saved? Romans 10:9-10 says, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
If we want to be “saved from our sins,” then we need to believe in Jesus Christ with all of our heart, believe that Jesus rose from the grave in order to conquer sin and death, and also confess Jesus Christ as Lord before all men.
Anyone who is willing to seek the light as the jailer did, and humble themselves before the Lord, and ask for Jesus to come into their hearts will receive eternal life. We see here that even the people in the jailers’ household would be saved if they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Point # 4: Sharing Will Meet Needs (vv. 33-34)
33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34 Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.
The fourth point that I wish to emphasize is that “sharing will meet needs.”
All around us there are people with real needs. The biggest need is that of salvation and spiritual freedom. Do you see what happened when Paul and Silas denied themselves and they denied their own freedom to care for those around them? People got saved, and they were set free from their spiritual prison houses! Who all was saved here? We read that “he,” or the jailer, “all his family” and “all his household” were saved as a result of sharing the gospel message.
Sharing meets other people’s needs, physical and spiritual, but it also meets ours as well. Whenever we look out beyond ourselves and reach out to care and share, God delivers us from our own problems. Look what happened to Paul and Silas after they cared for the needs of others. It would have been easy for them to flee the jail, thinking this was what they needed the most. The logical choice for their well-being was to get out of jail. However, when they decided to place others first their needs were still met. The jailer brought them out and he washed their wounds and he dressed them, and he brought them to his house and gave them a meal.
Now, did the Lord take care of Paul and Silas afterward? Why yes He did! When we move on ahead to verses 35-36 we find that the magistrates decided to release them by their own choice, or so they thought. Paul and Silas did not have to make a jail break. Everything was done according to the law. Not only did Paul and Silas win out in the end, but others were helped to escape their prisons as well. As for the other prisoners around Paul, they too probably had the opportunity to receive Christ and be set free spiritually.
Time of Reflection
I wish to encourage you this morning to look beyond yourself to see what is going on in the lives of the people around you, such as friends, family, and co-workers. Take some time to lend a listening ear and a helping hand, and you will eventually be given an opportunity to share the most important and life changing message they will ever hear – the Good News that they can have a personal and intimate relationship with the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ!
Now, if you are here this morning and you have never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior then you are held captive in the prison of your sins. You are like the jailer in our passage of Scripture. If you wish to be freed from the consequences of your sins, which is spiritual death, then you must humble yourself before the Lord, confess your sins, and ask the Lord for His forgiveness, and “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 31) as your Savior.
NOTES
(1) Adrian Dieleman, “A Caring Church,” a sermon preached June 28, 1998; taken from the Internet in June of 2006 at http://www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/ac2v42b2.html.
