The Journey: Following Jesus through Acts (9)
Scott Bayles, pastor
Scripture: Acts 16:22-34
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 8/20/2017
As most of you know, we’re nine weeks into this ten-week journey through the book of Acts. While the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—tell the story of Jesus and his journeys, Acts tells the story of Jesus’ followers—the first folks ever to be called Christians.
Folks like Peter, Paul and the other apostles committed their lives to following Jesus and their journey continues in the book of Acts. As I’ve said before, Acts has it all—supernatural intervention, astounding miracles, powerful preaching, breathtaking escapes, harrowing voyages, life-and-death decisions, courtroom dramas, thrilling rescues, action, mystery, and adventure! And… it’s all true.
Last Sunday, we read about Paul and Barnabas’ first missionary journey, which brought them to the city of Lystra, where Paul healed a man crippled from birth. This miracle, however, led the pagan people of Lystra to mistake Paul and Barnabas for “gods in human form,” specifically, Zeus and Hermes. Paul pleaded with the people not to worship or bow down to them and instead put their faith in the one true God. But suddenly the fickle mod turned murderous due to the influence of some angry Jews from Iconium. They stoned Paul seemingly to death and dragged his body outside of the city. Miraculously, Paul got up, dusted himself off and went right back to work!
Meanwhile, conflict and confusion was brewing within the church. As the church continued to expand through the Greco-Roman world, racial and cultural tensions escalated between Jewish and Gentile believers. In Acts 15, Paul returned to Jerusalem, where the apostles and elders convened to consider the relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christians and between the law of Moses and the love of Christ. All agreed that salvation depended solely on simple faith in Jesus, not on keeping the law of Moses. So letters were sent and guidelines established to help create harmony and brotherhood between these two conflicting cultures.
Following the counsel, Paul returned to the mission field, this time taking a young man named Silas as his partner. While in Philippi, Paul’s team encountered a demon-possessed slave girl who continually attempted to disrupt their ministry. When an exasperated Paul cast the evil spirit out, the girl lost her fortune telling ability. This infuriated her masters who had Paul and Silas dragged before the city authorities and thrown in prison. While the circumstances that got them thrown into prison are intriguing, what happens in prison is absolutely amazing.
If you have a Bible or an app on your phone, open it up to Act 16:20-40. Like last week, this story unfolds in four parts, beginning with the singing.
• THE SINGING
Like I said, Paul and Silas were dragged before the city officials in the marketplace, where their accusers shouted, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice” (Act 16:20-21 NIV).
Highlighting their Jewish nationality was likely intended to arouse anti-Semitic prejudices and claiming that they were causing an uproar would have put the city officials on edge since their primary job was to keep the peace. So without any sort of hearing or trial, the Bible says, “the city officials ordered them stripped and beaten with wooden rods. They were severely beaten, and then they were thrown into prison. The jailer was ordered to make sure they didn’t escape. So the jailer put them into the inner dungeon and clamped their feet in the stocks” (Acts 16:22-24 NLT).
Clearly, Paul and Silas were having a bad day. They’re barely into the first stop of what promised to be an effective and exciting missionary journey and, already, they find themselves the victims of false and prejudicial charges, brutally beaten, locked up in the depths of a Roman jail, in stocks! So what do they do? Moan? Whine? Blame God? Give up? No. The Bible says, “Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening” (Acts 16:25 NLT).
Despite their dismal situation, Paul and Silas chose to praise God! Did they feel like worshipping? Probably not. They were likely aching, tired, and scared. But they knew that God was with them in the midst of their struggles and they trusted that he was in control of their situation. The same is true for you and me.
Let’s face it—bad days happen to everyone. They come more often that we think we deserve, and they sometimes last much longer than we think we can stand.
ILL. A man came home after a rough day at work. It was one of those days where it seemed like everything that can go wrong, did go wrong. As he walks through the door, he says to his wife, “I’ve had a bad day. Please! If you have any bad news tonight, just save it for another day." To which she replied, "Okay, no bad news. Now for the good news. Remember our four children? Well, three of them didn’t break an arm today."
Bad things happen and they happen with unpredictable frequency and varying levels of intensity. Some are mere inconveniences; others are life-shattering disasters. But how we choose to respond can make all the difference.
It’s easy to sing God’s praises when everything is going your way and the world is all as it should be. But even when you lose your job or the doctor gives you the worst possible news or the kids are driving you crazy or your marriage is hanging on by a thread, you can choose—in the midst of it all—to draw near to God by singing psalms or hymns, or whispering a prayer of praise. When we choose to praise God during difficult times, it can usher in a sense of liberty and peace and we can emerge from today’s struggles with our joy intact.
As if Paul and Silas praying and praising God in a Roman dungeon wasn’t astounding enough, following the singing came an even more amazing event—the shaking.
• THE SHAKING
In a 1957, Elvis Presley made prison look like a rip roarin’ good time when he sang “Jailhouse Rock.” The truth is Jesus made a jailhouse rock long before Elvis did and it was no staged production. The Bible says:
Suddenly, there was a massive earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off! The jailer woke up to see the prison doors wide open. He assumed the prisoners had escaped, so he drew his sword to kill himself. But Paul shouted to him, “Stop! Don’t kill yourself! We are all here!” (Acts 16:26-28 NLT)
While Paul and Silas rocked the jailhouse with their hymns of praise, God rocked it right off of its foundations when he sent a huge earthquake. This earthquake flung open the cell doors and shook loose the chains that bound the prisoners to the walls. Was God providing a means of escape for Paul and Silas? God did have a rescue in mind, but his target was someone other than Paul and Silas. God meant to rescue Paul’s jailer.
When the Jailer awoke because of the earthquake and saw the open cell doors he cried out in despair. Losing prisoners meant more than being fired from his job, it meant flogging, jailtime and sometimes execution. Since the jailer thought that he was as good as dead anyway, he drew his sword and prepared to end his life.
Notice the marked difference in the way Paul and the Jailer handled adversity. Paul had a song in his heart, while the Jailer was ready to plunge a sword through his! The difference was of course Jesus. Without Jesus in his life the Jailer had no one to turn to for help. His ancestor worship and family idols were of no comfort in time of crisis. The award he may have previously won for prison warden of the year wasn’t going to save him now. Still, God hadn’t forsaken the Jailer. In fact he had orchestrated that night’s events so that Paul could share the truth of Jesus with him and give him eternal hope and a reason to live.
I think God often does this for those who don’t yet know him. It may not be a literal earthquake, but God sometimes rocks our world just to get our attention. We can be so wrapped up in our own little lives or our tiny worldview that God has to shake things up just to get us to notice him. And when He does, it often brings us to our knees. That’s what happened to the Philippian Jailer.
The third part of this story is the saving.
• THE SAVING
When the jailer realized that Paul, Silas and all the other prisoners were still there, the Bible says, “The jailer called for lights and ran to the dungeon and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:29-30 NLT).
The Jailer likely knew that Paul and Silas had been arrested for preaching some foreign religion. He also heard them worshipping, as the sound of their singing echoed throughout the stone corridors of the prison. Couple that with the earthquake and the fact not one of his prisoners escaped, the jailer made a connection. He fell to his knees and asked the most profound and important question: What must I do to be saved? How do I make things right with this god of yours?
The Bible says: They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with everyone in your household.” And they shared the word of the Lord with him and with all who lived in his household…Then he and everyone in his household were immediately baptized. (Acts 16:31-32 NLT)
The Apostle’s answer was so simple: believe. I think this concept runs contrary to our instincts because it’s so simple. We expect a more complicated cure, a more sophisticated salvation. No other religion offers what Jesus promises. Judaism sees salvation as a Judgment Day decision based on morality. Buddhism grades your life according to the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. Muslims earn their way to Allah by performing the duties of the Five Pillars of Faith.
But not Christianity.
Every other religion is spelled with two letters—DO. Do this. Do that. It’s all about the things people do to try and somehow earn God’s favor or forgiveness. But Christianity is spelled with four letters—DONE. It’s not about what I do, but what Jesus has done for us. He already lived the perfect life. He sacrificed himself on cross for us. Jesus simply calls us to believe in him. To put our faith in what he has done!
It’s so simple. While we make up our own Bible verses that say, “God helps those who help themselves” (Popular Opinion 1:1), Jesus simply says, “Trust me!”
By the way, you take similar steps of faith daily, even hourly. You believe the pew will support you, so you sit in it. You believe that water will hydrate you, so you drink it. You trust the work of the light switch, so you flip it. You have faith the car will start, so you turn the key.
You regularly trust power you can’t see to do work you can’t accomplish. Jesus invites you to do the same with him. Just him. Not Moses or Muhammad. Not Confucius or science. Not even yourself. You can’t fix you. Just Jesus. Look to Jesus… and believe. That’s what the Philippian Jailer did. He and his whole family put their faith in Jesus, then they put their faith into action by being baptized. And from that moment on, everything changed.
That change is evident in the jailer’s service.
• THE SERVICE
The Bible says, “Even at that hour of the night, the jailer cared for them and washed their wounds… He brought them into his house and set a meal before them” (Acts 16:33-34 NLT).
Embracing the Good News about Jesus gave the jailer a new perspective. Instead of viewing Paul and Silas as convicts to be beaten, he welcomed them into his home as guests. Even though it was the middle of the night, he attended to their wounds and gave them food to eat.
The same shift should happen in the life of every person who sets out to follow Jesus. Jesus calls every believer into a life of service marked by a love for God, pursuit of justice, and acts of kindness and mercy. Jesus once said, “Your attitude must be like my own, for I, the Messiah, did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give my life” (Matthew 20:28, TLB).
For Christians, service is not something to be tacked onto our schedules if we can spare the time. It is the heart of the Christian life. Jesus came "to serve" and "to give"—and those two verbs should define your life on earth, too. Mother Teresa once said, "Holy living consists in doing God's work with a smile."
Serving is the opposite of our natural inclination. Most of the time we're more interested in "serve us" than service. We say, "I'm looking for a church that meets my needs and blesses me," not "I'm looking for a place to serve and be a blessing." We expect others to serve us, not vice versa.
But as we become more like Jesus, the focus of our lives should increasingly shift to living a life of service. The mature follower of Jesus stops asking, "Who's going to meet my needs?" and starts asking, "Whose needs can I meet?"
Conclusion:
The story of the Philippian Jailer spotlights some radical and relevant themes. The Singing shows us the value of praising God even on the worst of days. The Shaking reminds us just how far God will sometimes go to get our attention. The Saving of the Jailer and his family remind us that the Gospel/Salvation is for everybody who believes. The Service gives us a snapshot of what the Christian life should look like.
Luke wraps up this story, saying, “He and his family were very happy because they now believed in God” (Acts 16:34 NLT). I hope the same is true for you.
Next week, we’ll conclude our journey through the book of Acts.
Invitation:
In the meantime, I’d love to do for you what Paul did for the Philippian Jailer. If you’ve got questions about God, faith, Jesus, whatever—I’d be happy to talk with you and you don’t have wait until midnight or have me over for dinner. You can talk to me after church, call me at home, or come forward while we stand and sing.
