January 12, 2006 Acts 16:25-34
25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose. 27 The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul shouted, "Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!"
29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
31 They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved -- you and your household." 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33 At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34 The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God -- he and his whole family. (NIV)
Approximately nine years ago I was on my way to serve a congregation in McCook, about sixty seven miles to the northwest of Norton, just like on any other Tuesday. But as I kept on going, I noticed off in the distance two men in the middle of the road talking to each other. It was a police officer talking to a news person from KSN. Several seconds before I arrived on the scene, they stopped talking, and the police officer got back in his car, and waited for me to pass. Shortly thereafter, this police officer was right behind me, flashing his lights, and pulling me over. I was doing the speed limit, and I couldn’t figure out what he wanted with me. Come to find out, I was a criminal. Unbeknownst to me, I had been driving for a year and three months with an expired registration on my license plates. The Kansas Dept. of Transportation never sent me a renewal notice, so I had no idea. 279 dollars and 81 cents later, plus a 55 dollar fine, I was not a happy camper. I was not singing songs of praise.
Usually when we have “run ins” with the long arm of the law, we aren’t happy. Especially when we feel like we are not getting our fair shake. Paul and Silas were not in prison for a legitimate reason. They were in prison for preaching the gospel. Yet, as you look at their attitudes, you see that they had a different attitude. Here they were, in prison, singing songs of praise, and having a good old time. Jesus had set them free from the problems they were facing. Jesus gave them a new attitude toward life. And Jesus can do the same for you. As we study this prison story of Paul and Silas, we also will see that Jesus can set us free. So the theme for today is,
Jesus Can Set You Free
I. When you’re locked up with fear
You may be wondering, “what can Jesus set me free from? I’m not in jail. I’m not even in a bad mood.” But you don’t have to be in jail to be locked up. The devil has made this world into a prison of different proportions. He doesn’t make his prison out of cold cinder block with thin mattresses for beds. He makes his prison out of luxurious mansions with golden Select Comfort air mattresses. He makes prisons out of nice clothing and fancy cars. Every thing in this world has an invisible chain attached to it, and Satan wants to chain you to your possessions. You will see your neighbor chained to his house. He can’t take time out for God, because the devil has got him chained to his paint brush, his hammer, or his lawn mower. He can’t go to church on Sunday mornings, because the devil had him chained to the TV the night before, and then he chained him to his bed in the morning. The unbelievers can’t escape from their obsession for their possessions.
That’s where the jailer was living. As Paul and Silas were singing their songs, he was sleeping. He had his job security. As long as he kept his prisoners locked up, he would be safe. If they would escape, then the jailer would get the punishment that these men deserved. But he wasn’t worried about that. His prisoners were locked in the inner cell, with chains on their ankles and iron bars across their cells. There was no way that Paul and Silas or the other criminals would escape. He was sleeping soundly. His job was secure, and so was his life.
And that’s the way you see people living today. They are sleep walking through life. As we preach the Gospel, they are sleeping right through it. They envision it as if we are the ones “locked up” by our “religiously conservative,” attitude. They imagine that they have been set free with the attitude of the world which says, “I’m gonna live the way I want to live.”
That’s not the way God created us to live. From day one Adam was told, “you shall not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” That tree was God’s message to Adam, even when he was perfect, “you are NOT an independent person. You are living UNDER Me. You have no right to act apart from My permission.” God wants all of us to live under His command. When He tells us to read the Bible, then we have no choice. When He tells us to give Him the first fruits of what we make, then we have no choice. Yet how often is it that we live under God, and pray for guidance before we make a big purchase? How often do we consult God’s Word to see how we should deal with our spouse, our children, or our bosses. God has never given us permission to live apart from Him, but we try to do it every day. We like to live like zombies with our eyes only focused on what WE want what we think is good for US, instead of asking, “God what do YOU want me to do?”
Something has to break this mentality. Like the police officer who pulled me over nine years ago, at some point in your life God has to wave his hand in front of your eyes and say to you, “HEY, WAKE UP!” That’s why John was sent to the river Jordan - to wake people up. That’s why Paul and Silas were sent to prison - to wake up the jailer. God had to knock out his securities - get him to realize that life consists of more than a secure job and what HE wanted. He had to get the jailer to realize that he would have to one day face an Almighty God.
So He did. He sent the jailer an earthquake. In a few split seconds all of the jailer’s chains were broke lose. Yes, I said the jailer’s chains were broke lose. The jailer found his security in the security of Paul and Silas. As long as they were locked up, he was alright. But once God sent that earthquake to loosen those bonds, the jailer’s life suddenly flashed before his eyes. Since some of those men were facing death, he too would have to face death if they escaped. Assuming that they had all escaped, he was about to fall on his sword. Life without his securities was not worth living. God had accomplished his first step in setting him free. He made him afraid of dying and meeting His maker.
Don’t you get a feeling that this is what God is doing with America? The world? The Tsunamis, the terrorism, the hurricanes - by allowing these things to happen - God is calling with His mighty voice, “wake up! Repent!” He wants to break their hypnotic trance on their possessions and themselves. God also does this on a much more personal level. Sometimes he works through a mild heart attack, a slight stroke, a small tumor, a microscopic virus or a minor accident. He wants those who have been careless about spiritual things to know that they must meet their Maker and Judge. He wants them to face their fears that there really is a God, who really will not allow you to ignore Him your whole life. There is an almighty God whom you will have to answer to on Judgment Day.
When the jailer finally realized this, notice what he did. He trembled with fear. He came sprinting into the jail cell, after almost killing himself, and crying to Paul and Silas, “what must I do to be saved?” God had finally gotten him to take his eyes off of himself, to see that he had to answer to God. It made him afraid. When you arrive at this point in your life, then God has gotten you right where he wants you. This is the essential point. If all you can think about every day is how popular you are or how much you weigh or how much money you have in the bank, you need to wake up. If you never feel any guilt about how you talk to people or how you’re treated people or how you’ve obeyed God, you need to wake up. In order to be set free, you have to look hell and death in the face and realize - that’s where I deserve to go. That’s where the jailer was at.
II. Through faith and baptism
This is where we get to the true beauty of this text. Notice what Paul said to the jailer. “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved -- you and your household." If God had said, walk around with a cross painted on your forehead, and you’ll be saved, then you would do it. If he said, “eat an ice cream cone every day, and you’ll be saved,” you’d probably do it. And you could be sure of our salvation - if that’s what He said. But even this would cause us stress. What if it we ran out of paint, and we couldn’t paint a cross on our forehead? What if we got sick, and couldn’t eat ice cream? Then we couldn’t even be saved by doing these easy things. But God made it much easier. Salvation has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with Jesus. When Jesus came to be baptized, John declared to the world, “behold, the lamb of God - who takes away the sin of the world.” God promised that Jesus would take away the sins of the world - not you - and not me. As the Spirit landed on Jesus, this was God’s fulfillment of Isaiah 42, which predicted God would put His Spirit on Him. God was saying to the world - and Paul was telling the jailer - THIS IS WHERE I WANT YOU TO FIND YOUR SALVATION - believe in Him.
If you think about it, it couldn’t have been any “easier” for the jailer. God sent Jesus to live and die for him, brought the apostles to him, and even provided the earthquake. It is God who did all of the work to bring them to faith. He continues to do the same thing today. It may have been at your baptism that the Holy Spirit cut through your chains to give you faith, or it may have been when you first heard the gospel as a child. Whether you came to faith at your baptism or through the spoken Word, it was God who did all of the work. The Holy Spirit still continues to use both the preached Word and baptism to give us faith and free us from our chains. That’s why we can thank God. He is the one who set us free from our slavery.
After the jailer’s conversion, we see a completely changed man. Instead of experiencing fear of death and the rage of God, he knew what it was to be loved and forgiven. “At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34 The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God -- he and his whole family.” Instead of being a hard nosed and ruthless jailer, he took care of the apostles. He also felt a need to have himself and his whole family baptized. He was the new spiritual head of the household, and he wanted all of his family to be saved. What better way to bring them the Holy Spirit and the gift of forgiveness than by having them baptized, as Peter promised in Acts 2:38? So no matter how old the children or slaves in his household were, he had all of them baptized. Their baptisms were effective and so was the change in the jailer as the whole family responded and they too believed. Instead of being filled with fear, “he was filled with joy.”
When you go through this experience of fear and then faith - and know that you were baptized, God wants all of the fears that you may have had of dying to be taken off of your neck. Isn’t that what happens when you grasp Christ in the hands of faith? All of your obsessions with the material possessions of this world, are now loosened. The chain of your house that the devil had put around your ankle, is now removed. The chain that your money had around your heart, is now broken. The chain of God’s law that held you captive to fear has been taken off of your wrist and put on Jesus. You don’t live for these material possessions. You don’t have to live afraid of God’s wrath on Judgment Day. You don’t need to fear Satan. All of your chains are off. You are now truly set free to live.
If you’ve ever come close to dying, you know that those kinds of experiences - no matter at what age - bring a sudden realization of the fact that you’re not going to live forever. Everything that you enjoy so dearly now, your big screen TV, your sports, your spouse, your children - will be gone when you’re dead. This is what John was trying to get across to people at the River Jordan when he told people to repent - because the kingdom of heaven was near.
Jesus was the fulfillment of John’s prophesying. He was the powerful One to come. What a relief it must have been for those who followed John to actually see Jesus. He wasn’t coming down with a hammer. He didn’t come in the skies with a sickle in His hands. He was coming out of the water with a dove landing on Him. He was the One the Father was pleased with. He was the Lamb of God - who takes away the sin of the world. To see Jesus at His baptism must have seemed like heaven itself was opened - like God’s wrath was a million miles away. A similar feeling must have swept over the jailer when he was told his terrible treatment and sins had been washed away by Jesus. What a wonderful relief. What a tremendous joy.
Do you have that joy today? I hope so. God hasn’t shown you His Christ so that you remain in fear. He didn’t declare to the world that he was pleased with Jesus so you would remain afraid of Him. God has opened to us heaven itself - and given you Christ through your baptism so you would have faith in Jesus. Find joy in that message. Be free from fear. Amen.
