Faith
Acts 16: 25 – 32
The apostle Paul was thrown into jail for preaching about Christ in the city of Philippi. He and his companion Silas were beaten and then chained to an inner dungeon.
The Bible records that Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God, and the prisoners heard them. The prisoners and the guards had to be dumbfounded. They'd heard cursing and complaining coming from the inner dungeon but never praising.
Acts 16: 25 – 29 says, “At midnight an earthquake shook the city and the prison fell apart. The doors shook open, the chains broke off their feet and hands, and the prisoners were free.”. The jailer realized that he was in deep trouble. In that day, if a prisoner escaped, the jailer could be forced to serve the remaining time of the escaped prisoner’s sentence. Or even worse the jailer could be executed.
Either way, this jailer was doomed. Some of these inmates were probably on death row. When he saw the doors open, he assumed the prisoners had escaped. He drew his sword and was going to kill himself so he could die with honor.
But Paul intervened. He said, “Wait, don't kill yourself. We're all here. No one has escaped.”. The jailer grabbed a lantern and rushed from cell to cell, and he discovered the prisoners were still there.”.
He was so impressed that he realized that he was in the presence of a miracle.
And Acts 16: 29 & 30 reads, “He fell trembling before Paul and Silas, and asked, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’.”.
Early in my ministry, there was a guy in the church where I was serving at the time who was converted to Christ.
Steve and his wife Lynn lived about an hour from the church, but one night, around 2:00 a.m., Lynn woke up and heard two burglars in their kitchen.
She decided not to wake up Steve for fear he would get hurt.
She lay there just trembling for a while and then the burglars came into the bedroom and started rifling through their dresser drawers.
One of them turned and flashed the flashlight at her and she saw that he had a gun and Lynn screamed instinctively at that. When she screamed, Steve immediately woke up and sat straight up in bed only to realize that he was staring down the barrel of a gun barrel.
The burglar fired 3 times and then both men took off running.
Steve and Lynn regained their composure, called the police, and concluded that the burglars must have been firing blanks.
There was no way they could miss at that short range. When they threw the covers back, they saw that there was a bullet in the mattress. It had gone through Steve’s legs.
They discovered that another bullet was in the pillow, and another one was in the headboard.
They said, “We're not staying another night in this house.”. They packed their bags and came out to Steve’s aunt who lived there in Roper, the town where the church was located. Steve’s aunt was a member of our church.
She called me the next day and said I have a nephew who is not a Christian, but I think he'd be ready to listen to the gospel.
I went to talk to Steve, and he was, without a doubt, the most pliable prospect I've ever talked to.
The following Sunday he came and gave his life to Christ and was baptized into him, and they have been faithful in their service ever since.
This jailer had been through a violent earthquake that scared the daylights out of him. It was so violent that it almost destroyed the prison. He assumed the prisoners had escaped. He was about to commit suicide and now everything was OK. No wonder he fell at Paul's feet and said, “What must I do to be saved? I want whatever it is that you have.”.
I think the most important question of our lives is that question…
WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?
How can I be confident that when I die, my sins are forgiven, and I have the promise of living eternally with Christ?
I was reading an article the other day that talked about what Americans fear the most in today’s culture. 60% are afraid of governmental corruption. 41% are afraid of terrorist attacks (foreign and/or domestic. 38.5% are afraid of being a victim of a mass shooting. 38.5% are afraid of government restrictions on the 1st and 2nd amendments. 35.5% are afraid of another 4 years of radical socialism. The second-ranked fear that people have is the fear of death and not knowing if their souls will be saved.
WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?
If you asked the average person on the street that question, they would probably say, “Well, live a good life.”, or “Don't worry about it. You were born in America which makes you a Christian.”.
If you ask the average person in the church, you'd get different answers. “Well just join the church.”, or “Say the sinner’s prayer.”, or “Don't worry about it. Your parents had you baptized when you were little.”.
And we're not quite sure how to be saved or what makes a person a Christian.
When I was a little boy, I was taught a five-finger exercise that has stayed with me to this day. Now I think we have to be careful not to put God in the box and demand that everybody go through the same experience that we had, but it's really hard to beat this form.
#1: A person hears the gospel.
#2: Believes in Jesus Christ.
#3: Repents of sin.
#4: Confesses Christ publicly and is
#5: Baptized into Christ.
Now those last four steps are going to be the basis of this sermon series that I’m starting today, and I encourage you to be present for each message so that you have a grasp on what it is to become a Christian, but also so that you have such a good handle on it, you'll be able to easily communicate that to others. We begin with Paul's answer to the Philippian jailer’s question, “What must I do to be saved?”.
Paul answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”.
Now, what does a Christian believe about Christ? Verse 32 says, “Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all that were in his house.”.
What did Paul teach this jailer to believe about Christ?
Well, a Christian believes that Jesus is GOD IN THE FLESH.
Jesus wasn’t just a good man, a great teacher that God adopted to represent Him. Jesus was God Incarnate; the creator of the universe and came to Earth in the form of a man.
There's a legend about 2 angels looking over the universe and one of them says, “I just don't understand what all the fuss is about that one planet.”, pointing to the earth. “With millions of heavenly bodies, why so much attention on that one place?”.
And the other Angel says, “Oh, haven't you heard? That's the one that He visited.”.
The scripture makes it very clear that God came to visit this earth. Jesus, Himself claimed to be God. In John 14:9 Jesus said, “If you've seen me, you've seen the Father, I and the Father are one.”.
The apostle John began his gospel with these powerful words. He wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”.
The Apostle Paul taught the Philippian jailer to believe the very same things about Jesus that he wrote later in his letters.
In Colossians 2:9 Paul wrote that “in Christ, all the deity lives in bodily form.”.
In Romans 9:5 Paul wrote that “Christ is God.”.
In Acts 20:28 he explained that “God purchased the church with His own blood.”.
In Philippians 2 he says that “Your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ, who being in very nature is God.”.
So, Christians believe that Jesus is God and that He died an ATONING DEATH for our sins.
The religious leaders of the 1st century couldn’t stand Jesus. They were jealous of His popularity, so they denied His claim to be God despite His profound teaching and His undeniable miracles.
They conspired against Him, arrested Him, bribed false witnesses, intimidated the judge, gained a guilty verdict, and crucified Him.
But what they did not understand was that Jesus’ death had been predetermined from the beginning. Jesus said, “Nobody takes my life from me. I give it up of my own accord.”.
Jesus’ death was not a human tragedy. It was a divine strategy. God came to the earth to die as a payment for the sins of mankind. His was not a martyr's death. It was a vicarious death.
Isaiah 53 reads, “He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. And the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds, we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. We have each turned to our own way, but God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”.
In the movie “In The Line Of Fire”, the previews said that Clint Eastwood plays a Secret Service agent who is willing to place his body in the line of fire.
He puts his body in front of the president and is willing to take a bullet himself to protect the commander in chief.
Now that's noble. But I'll tell you something far nobler than that. It's when Jesus Christ, the Commander in Chief put His body in front of ours on the cross and He absorbed in Himself all the fiery darts of the wicked one.
And He gave life to His servants.
Paul said, “He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”.
Now when Jesus died on the cross since He was God, He could look into the future. He could look down to 2022 and say, “I see you, Chris Cuthbertson. I see the day you're born. I see all the sins you commit, and I see the day you become a Christian. And I see all the sins you commit as a Christian, and I see the day you die. And I go to the cross to die for you.”.
And on that dark day, He gathered up all my greed and lust and profanity and selfishness and complaining. And those sins were heaped on the shoulders of Jesus Christ, and He paid the price for my sin.
I love the song “It Is Well With My Soul”. The 3rd verse goes like this…
My sin O the bliss of this glorious thought.
My sin, not the part but the whole.
Is nailed to the cross.
And I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord O, my soul.
So, a Christian believes that Jesus is God in the flesh, that He died an atoning death for us on the cross, and that He rose from the grave.
Jesus had predicted repeatedly that He would come back from the grave.
He said to His enemies, “You destroy this temple and I'll rebuild it in three days.”.
He said to His friends, “I'm going up to Jerusalem where I will be handed over to wicked men and be crucified. But on the third day I will rise again.”.
His enemies remembered that claim, so when they buried Him, they stationed guards at the tomb, in case the disciples stole His body and claimed victory.
But early in the morning on the 1st day of the week, Jesus Christ triumphantly stepped out of that tomb to live forever.
He appeared to His disciples, who were dumbfounded. They fell at His feet and called out my Lord and my God.
Let's imagine for a minute that you and a friend are trapped in a flooding cave. You're in a little cavern on a ledge, and the water is getting higher and higher and it's around your waist.
And your friend says, “There's gotta be a way out of here.”, and he dives underwater and comes back up in a few seconds and says, “I’ve found a tunnel. I'm gonna follow it to see if it'll get us out of here. It's our only hope.”, and he disappears again. And he's gone for two minutes…5 minutes…10 minutes. And you assume that he’s drowned, and the water is now around your chest.
But suddenly he bursts up through the water and says, “That tunnel leads to another cavern that's larger, and I can see light at the end of that cavern. We can be saved. Follow me.”.
Now the very fact that he appears out of the water verifies his claim and you would follow him as the only hope.
Now Jesus Christ died, and He was buried, and He was gone for three days, but He came back from the tomb saying, “There is life beyond the grave. There is hope for you. I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”. And His very appearance out of the grave verifies His claim to be God in the flesh.
Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.”, and Christians believe that that same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead will raise us up after we die so that we will live forever.
Now there are 2 unique factors about Christianity to differentiate it from all other world religions.
The 1st is the claim that Jesus Conquered The Grave.
You can go to the tomb of Confucius or Mohammed or Buddha or Lennon and there will be the following words, “Here he lies”.
But you go to the tomb of Jesus Christ, and it is empty. And the words of the Angel ring out in your ears, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here. He has risen as He said that He would.”.
So, a Christian believes that Jesus came bodily out of that tomb and no other religious leader makes that claim.
The 2nd unique factor is that we are saved by Putting Our Faith In Christ, Not Our Good Deeds.
You see, the religions of the world offer you a code of conduct saying, “If you will live by the rules God may be pleased with you and you may be saved.”, but Christianity is not a system of morals. It’s the worship of a person.
Jesus didn't say, “If you live according to the way I teach I will save you.”, He said, “I know you disobey the rules. I know that you are sinful. You have broken my law, but I am going to save you by my grace.”.
Ephesians 2: 8 & 9 reads, “For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.”.
All He asks is that we believe in Him, and we trust Him and not ourselves.
Kay Arthur tells about a would-be assassin of Queen Elizabeth the 1st who hid in her closet for hours in her bedroom. He thought he had a flawless plan. He would wait until the maid told the Queen Goodnight.
And the candle was blown out and he would wait until he could hear the Queen's breathing change. And he knew that she was asleep.
Then he would tiptoe out of the closet in his stocking feet, and with his dagger, he would assassinate her. She wouldn’t even have time to scream. And then he would escape through the window.
He thought his plan was flawless, but what he did not know was that the Queen's closet was searched thoroughly every night? And suddenly a huge hand with fingers opened wide touched him, and that groping hand seized him by the shirt and yanked him out into the room. And the would-be murderer was brought before the queen.
And he fell to his face and begged Queen Elizabeth, that she might extend to him her grace.
“Sir?”, the Queen asked, “If I extend to you my grace, what do you have to offer me in the future?”. And with the keenness of the theologian, the would-be assassin said, “Your Majesty. A Grace that bargains, and a grace that propositions would not be grace.”.
She recognized the wisdom of that answer. And she said, “Sir? Freely by my grace, I forgive you.”.
And Kay Arthur says, “Grace freely given won a convert and from that point on, that man became the most devoted servant the queen ever had.”.
The Christian believes that we are saved by grace. We are caught dead in our rebellion in sin.
We have no excuse. We don't strike a bargain with God. We don't proposition Him. We don’t say, “Lord, I'm gonna live a good life so that you'll be pleased with me and save me. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”.
We simply plead for grace.
And Jesus says, “Freely, by my grace, I forgive you.”, and once we understand that, and once we believe in that, we become his devoted servant out of appreciation.
Now the 2nd question I want us to think about is,
“HOW DOES A PERSON BELIEVE IN CHRIST?”
A famous preacher by the name of Jay Wallace Hamilton had a sermon.
If a man does not believe, is he to blame? You might say, “Well, I would like to believe but I just can't. It seems intellectually dishonest. How can I believe in God when there's so much injustice and suffering in the world? How can I believe in Jesus Christ when Christians are so phony and so shallow?”.
Do you remember when the White Queen told Alice in Wonderland that she was 100 years old? And Alice said, “I don't believe that.” And the White Queen said, “Can't you? Try again. Just take a deep breath, close your eyes, and try.”
Is that what we're asking people to do? Shut their eyes to the fact and just wish that this story about Jesus were true? No. We're asking people to open their eyes.
Faith is a matter of examining the evidence and making a choice.
Now, if your faith is shaky; if your faith needs to be strengthened, I want to suggest to you today some things that you can do to enhance your belief in Christ.
The first thing you can do is to
#1: Admit Your Inadequacy:
I’m convinced that the biggest barrier to faith is not a lack of credible evidence, but human pride.
We're proud of our intelligence. We like to put forth this image of self-sufficiency.
And to believe in Jesus Christ requires humility. It’s kind of like a little child saying, “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.”. And that's humbling. That takes the swallowing of pride and the more successful you are, the more it becomes a problem. It’s hard to be a servant. It’s hard to humble yourself and admit I'm not in charge of my life…my wife is.
It's hard to humble yourself.
That's one of the reasons people don't want to believe in Jesus Christ. People say, “Look, I'm a brilliant woman. I graduated at the top of my class, and for me to say I believe in the Bible, and I believe in Jesus Christ. I'd be the laughingstock of my professors and my peers.”.
Or “I'm a successful businessman. I'm a doctor. People respect me. For me to go forward in church and admit I need Jesus Christ would be very tough for me to do.”.
Or “I'm an athlete in our school and the kids respect me. For me to get into the baptistry and be drenched in front of those people would be very humbling.”.
Proverbs 21:29 says, “A wicked man puts up a bold front, but an upright man gives thought to his ways.”.
I would encourage you to give thought to who you really are and to admit your own inadequacy.
You don't have all the answers. You can't erase the sin of your past. You can't conquer death on your own. You have needs and problems just like everybody else.
And while you're not endorsing the shallow “emotion only” belief of some Christian people; you are acknowledging that Jesus Christ is far superior to you. He is the Lord of all, and you are His servant.
The Philippian jailer thought that he was in charge. He beat the prisoners and put them in jail, but then an earthquake came, and he humbled himself and fell at their feet. And let me say to you, if you don't humbly acknowledge your need for the Lord now, God will find some way to humble you.
It may be a business failure. Wayward children, broken health, a broken marriage, but there will come a day when every knee will bow.
So first, if you're going to believe, acknowledge, and continue to acknowledge your inadequacy.
Another way we can grow in our faith is by…
#2: Objectively examining the evidence:
By deliberately going to where the light is shining. The jailer invited Paul and Silas into his house and listened as he talked about who Jesus was. He allowed himself to learn. Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ.”.
One of the reasons people don't believe is that they never objectively examine the evidence. All they might have seen is a movie about who Jesus is and years ago they went to Sunday school or, if they’re intellectual, they might read a book that has a comment or two about who Jesus is.
But there is a spiritual experience that takes place when you just sit down with the Bible and regularly read it.
Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than in a double-edged sword. It penetrates the dividing of soul and spirit, joints, and marrow. It judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart.”.
C.S. Lewis was a brilliant Oxford scholar. He was an agnostic, he laughed at Christians. He particularly ridiculed hymns. He thought Christian hymns were second-rate poetry to 5th rate music.
But C.S. Lewis was a man of integrity. And one day he sat down and started reading the Bible and he was convicted that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
He said he came kicking and screaming into the Kingdom of God. His was a conversion, not of emotion but of reason.
But C.S. Lewis became the most brilliant apologist for the Christian since the apostle Paul.
His book Mere Christianity has influenced millions for Christ.
And if you want to believe then you have to expose yourself with some regularity to the Word of God. Just sit down and begin to read the Gospel of John and read through the New Testament, asking the Lord to guide you.
Thirdly, if we want to believe we have to…
#3: Repent Of The Sins That Are A Barrier To Belief:
Most doubt is NOT intellectual…it’s moral.
In the Book of Ephesians, in the 4th chapter, verse 17, Paul talked about the Gentiles whose thinking was futile and whose understanding was darkened due to the hardness of their heart.
You see, the problem isn't first with the head, it's with the heart.
We all face the same facts, and there are some people who are much smarter than I am who believe, and there are some people much smarter than I am who don't believe.
The difference isn’t in the reliability of the evidence but in the response of the individual.
Some choose not to believe because they don't want to change their lifestyle, they have to quit partying. They'd have to change a relationship, and so they don't want to believe.
That's why in Mark 1:15 when Jesus came preaching, His first message was, “the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel.”. Sometimes repentance is a prerequisite to belief.
The Philippian jailer beat the prisoners, and then he turned around and washed their wounds. A reversal of behavior made it easier for him to believe.
A fourth thing that we can do is we can…
#4: Develop Faith By Acting On The Faith We Already Have:
Jesus talked about degrees of faith, He said, “Oh you of little faith. I'm not seeing such great faith. No, not in all of Israel. If you have faith that’s as small as a mustard seed, you'll be able to remove mountains.”.
You see, it's not usually a matter of total faith or complete rejection. It's usually a mixture of the two. I’ve got a little bit of faith and I’ve got a little bit of doubt.
We’re like the man who said, “Lord I believe help my unbelief.”, like the disciples who prayed, “Lord increase our faith.”. 2nd Corinthians 10:15 Paul said, “Our hope is that your faith will continue to grow.”.
Now, if our faith is going to increase, it cannot be passive…it must be active. We have to act on the faith that we have.
Maybe your faith is like a grain of mustard seed, but I want to encourage you to act on that faith.
Do you have a little bit of faith in Jesus Christ? Then obey him. Do you have a little bit of confidence in the Bible? Then read it more. Do you have a tiny amount of faith in the church? Then do some acts of service to build it up.
The Philippian jailer acted on the faith that he had.
He invited Paul into his house. He listened to the word priest, and you know what he did in the middle of the night? He and his family were baptized.
Now he didn't understand all about the sovereignty of God or predestination. But he acted on the faith that he had.
And then the last thing we need to do to increase our faith is to…
#5: Make An Irrevocable Choice To Believe:
You choose to believe or not believe.
Lee Iacocca said, “A good leader can make a decision when 95% of the evidence is in. If you wait until you're 100% sure”, he said, “it will be too late.”.
Some of you perhaps have delayed making a decision, and you may go to your grave never having decided because you're waiting until you're 100% sure.
You're waiting until you're positive that it's all true. You're waiting to your 100% sure that the church isn't exploiting people, or the preacher is legitimate, or that you can live up to it afterward.
The song says, “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.”.
If you were 100% positive it wouldn't be faith. Because faith “is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”, Hebrews 11:1 says.
Somebody said, “Faith is going to the edge of all the light you have and then taking one more step.”.
Joshua said, “Choose you this day, whom you will serve, if Jehovah God, follow Him. If Bales God follows him but don't vacillate between two opinions. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”.
And if you want to grow in your faith, make a choice and never look back.
A few weeks ago, I was reading the testimony of Kay Arthur.
Now few people in our nation have had more of an impact on the church than Kay Arthur in recent years.
Her Precept Bible study classes were used in a couple of churches where I ministered. They're in-depth Bible study classes and they're offered in thousands of churches across the land.
People have studied the Bible and watched her on video. Lots of folks have read her books.
But years ago in her 20s, Kay Arthur had been to church, but she had never committed her life to Jesus Christ.
Her husband was manic depressive, and she couldn't take it anymore so she left him and divorced him.
She went down the path of immorality, and she had an affair with a married man.
Her husband became so depressed he threatened suicide and she was so insensitive that she said to her husband, “You go ahead and commit suicide. I could use the money.”, and he hung himself.
She said she felt like such a failure as a wife and as a mother. She got into her car with her two children and as she was driving away, she shook her fist at God and said, “The hell with you God!”.
She said, “but what I didn't know is that that's exactly what God did for me? He took all of hell for me when He died on the cross.
And He so much as said, ‘Alright Kay. To heaven with you.’”.
And when she came to understand what Jesus had done, she gave her life to Him. And remarkably, now years later, her teaching, her tapes, and her influence have motivated thousands and millions of Christians into a deeper walk with the Lord.
But the title of the book, in which that testimony is given is “Lord, I Need Your Grace To Make It”.
There is no sin, no pit you've fallen into that the grace of Jesus Christ can’t forgive you from and pull you out of and transform your life.
There is no amount of brilliance or talent that you have that can enable you to save yourself.
Like Kay Arthur, you need His grace to make it.
The Philippian jailer recognized that he and all his family were baptized, and the Bible says they went on their way, rejoicing because they knew that they had salvation in Christ.
If you have never committed your life to the grace of God in Jesus Christ, we offer a hymn of invitation this morning for you to do that.
Or if you're already a Christian and you're attending here and you don't have a church home if you feel God leading you to make Seaford Christian your church home, we invite you to do that now as we stand and sing.
