Acts 16:25-34 Sermon. January 10, 2021. Grace- Vail and Grace-Benson.
Jesus once said to his followers, you will do greater things that I. Hard to believe, but Acts is
the record of his words coming true. Acts more than any other book of the bible gives us conversion stories, stories of people’s lives being completely turned around because of the message of Jesus spreading. We can learn how our lives can be more transformed by the same message, and learn about how conversation may work still today in other people. Luke had to be selective in writing Acts, written to Theophilus, and choosing which conversions he’d focus on out of many. When he wrote about Paul and Silas traveling to Philippi, one of the conversions he selected to write about is the jailer. This story helps us understand how conversion happens. How lives change because of who Jesus is and how he interacts with people invisibly yet really after his death and resurrection. 25 “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” Why were Paul and Silas among the prisoners? There were in jail. In Philippi they had come across a slave girl who had a spirit that enabled her to predict the future and make a lot of money for her slave owner. She followed them around saying over and over, these men are servants of the most high God. Finally Paul was so annoyed that he commanded the spirit to leave her in the name of Jesus. The spirit left. The slave girl was freed from that spiritual oppression. But her owners were furious about this. Their source of income left with the spirit. They seized Paul and Silas, and got a crowd involved. Paul and Silas were stripped and beaten with rods. Then they were flogged, whipped with jagged whips that would have torn them apart. They were handed over to the jailer and he put them in stocks. So the picture in your head of Paul and Silas should be them dripping with blood, wounds, deep cuts, and bruises all over their body. Their hands and feet locked into some kind of stocks so they could barely move. Unjustly accused and jailed, all because of an act of kindness to an oppressed slave girl. In that condition, at about midnight, they were singing hymns and praying, and the other prisoners were listening. How in the world could they do that, considering the pain, the exhaustion, the injustice of it all? They had a way of dealing with unjust suffering and pain that none of the other prisoners had ever seen before. They responded to the jailer's unnecessary cruelty in a way no one else ever had. They knew a way to deal with pain and suffering that was not just theory but was their life practice. 26 “Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. Instantly all the doors were opened, and everyone’s chains came loose.” Earthquake, open doors, chains loosed. Seemed like a perfect time for the prisoners to get out. Especially paul and Silas, they could have thought, God is setting us free. None of this happened by accident. He’s rescuing us from jail. But their mind went elsewhere. Only one person would be negatively affected by a prisoner's escape, the jailer.
Now what was this jailer like? Probably a retired roman soldier, those jobs were typically given to retired roman soldiers. Not wealthy, not poor, solidly middle class. Life not a mess, but not a crushing success either. He didn’t go to his shift looking for an encounter with God. Probably wasn’t interested in these new prisoners' spiritual beliefs when he put them in stocks. He didn’t care about their dropping blood or wounds. He was a jailer not a doctor, he was there to do his job. He based his identity on his job performance. When he saw the opened doors and chains with no prisoners, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself. You could sum up his mindset as, “get the job done, and it’s a good day, and I’m a useful person. Don’t get the job done, and I’m a failure, I’m as good as dead.” There was a law those days for a jailer - if your prisoners escaped on your watch, you took their penalty. So he figured, rather than wait for a public and humiliating execution, he’d do it himself. A sense of honor drove him to be about to run his sword through his body. The jailor shows us the danger of performance based identity. Whenever any of us base our identity on our performance at work, as a spouse or parent, as a part of a social group; we set ourselves up for the same kind of desperation as the jailor. When have you, like the jailor, despaired of life because your performance based identity crumbled? We need what the jailor received, someone in those low moments to not just tell us the gospel, but to show us. He had heard the singing and praying, now he heard them shout, “Don’t harm yourself, we are all here.” The only reason for Paul and Silas and the other prisoners not to escape was the jailer. This was the same guy who put them in stocks as a mild form of torture. They had been unjustly beaten and jailed. But Paul and Silas refused to take their freedom at the cost of the jailer’s life. Instead they stayed and made it clear that his life was more important than their freedom. How could they? Paul and Silas were already free, even in jail. They had a source of joy, despite their beatings and wounds and pain. They knew themselves to be free, and the jailer to be imprisoned by his own performance-based identity. I’m reminded of Richard Wurmbrandt, a Christian man who was imprisoned for years by the Soviets in Russia, tortured and beaten day after day. In his book, Tortured for Christ, he talks about his care and compassion for the tormentors. He knew they would spend all day beating prisoners and drinking. Then they’d go home and many of them drink and beat their wives, and come back and do it over again the next day - all without God as a part of their lives. But how could Richard Wurmbrandt, like Paul and Silas, live that way? They knew of a man who gave up them their freedom at the cost of his life. Jesus is the ultimate example of someone saying, “your life is more important than my freedom.” Jesus exchanging himself on the cross was not just an intellectual theory for Paul and Silas. Jesus had become a life resource for them in any and every situation. Paul in a letter he later wrote to these Philippians while in prison again, wrote, “ I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
Paul and Silas didn’t give the jailer a speech, they gave him faith in action. His response? 29 “The jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell down trembling in front of Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them outside and asked, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ “ He came trembling, not afraid, but amazed. He’d never experienced such sacrificial kindness, such life saving love before. This practical man who worked and received wages had been given a gift that saved his life, kept him from running his sword through his body. So he asked, what must I do to get what you have? How can I be saved? Saved from what? He probably had in his mind being saved from some kind of judgment of the God Paul and Silas had been singing about. But he also needed to be saved from a performance based identity. Saved from a life where when things didn’t go well, he thought about killing himself, leaving his family to deal with his suicide. Saved to a life where he could handle suffering like Paul and Silas. After he had asked, their gospel display led to a gospel communication. 31 “They said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.” ’ Instead of something to do, they gave him something to believe. They told him to simply receive rather than work. Trust in what Jesus has already done. Receive a Jesus-based identity. Based on what he has done, you are accepted. Jesus, because of our performances died for us. Jesus, in spite of such suffering and pain, simply rose from death. He now lives to be with you during earthquakes, beatings, imprisonments. Just rely on him, trust in him, and you will be saved. Saved from death, saved from judgment. Saved to life with Jesus and joy and friendship. Saved from the daily grind of performance and payment and wages. Saved to a life of daily adventure with Jesus. They told him this was for his household too. Instead of giving them a suicide to recover from, he could give them this powerful, life saving, life changing resource as well. 32 They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his home. 33 Without delay, he and all his family were baptized. How could they believe in this Jesus? Through the spoken Word and through baptism. They spoke the word to him, words of Jesus as God and man; died and resurrected. Words of the kingdom of God brought near because of Jesus to anyone in any situation. They baptized him and his family. Through the water and God’s Word, the past was washed away, and a new future was given. The old performance based identity was gone. The old guilt and paranoia and despair was gone. A new identity as a child of God was given. A new power to make them strong during challenges was theirs, all as a gift. Then we’re told the jailer “At the same hour of the night, he took them and washed their wounds. 34 Then he brought Paul and Silas into his house and set food before them. He rejoiced, because he and his whole household had come to believe in God.” Instead of stocks, he washed their wounds. He now cared about their health, their recovery. He gave them food in his house, not a cell and stocks. Eating with someone implies friendship, closeness, appreciation. The jailer probably treated prisoners differently from that day. He had become a free jailer, free in Christ.
His family received a joy-filled husband and father, not a suicidal husband and father. He wanted them to believe too. His life was changed, and his whole household changed. He had joy, even though he probably had some work to do at the jail after the earthquake, even though he had lots of learning to do about this new Jesus; he now did it with joy; and a desire to share the message. Same power that changed his life can change your life. The solution to you operating with a performance based identity is the same. Jesus has said to you, “Your life first, your freedom first. I’ll be killed to make you alive, I’ll be nailed to a cross, so you can be free.” Jesus gives you the same joy, the same ability to sing and pray during life’s pain, the same invitation to see life as a daily adventure with your friend Jesus. You don’t have to self destruct when earthquakes shake down your performance based identity. You have a better identity as a child of God. You can tremble in gratitude as Jesus’ sacrificial kindness to you. You can ask God to strengthen your trust, reliance, belief in him. You can learn more about him like the jailer. You can get in places where the word of the Lord is spoken to you, where your baptism gets re-introduced to you and celebrated and appreciated. You can be reminded that your baptism means you have been buried with Christ and resurrected with him. You can have the same desire to serve others, washing their wounds. Some wounds are physical, you can help people with their physical healing. Some wounds are emotional, relational, or spiritual. Rather than putting someone in the stocks when they’re hurting, you can learn from the jailer, and apply spiritual care for the hurting people around you. In your life, often God allows you to show the gospel before you tell it. You can share the word of the Lord and baptism with others, and see lives changed as Jesus uses you to do what you are uniquely positioned in this world to do. Like the jailer, you can see that this life changing power is not only for you, but for your household too. Even for people who end up in jail, or under your authority. You have no reason to look down on anyone, because Christ didn’t look down on you, but died for you to set you free. You can now be a free teacher, accountant, business person, engineer. A free husband or wife or mom or dad. The gospel of Jesus meets you right where you are. He finds you as you are, but doesn;t leave you as you are. Jesus adapts to your condition, but also challenges you. He knows just what you need where you are. Greater things than I have done, you will do. When Jesus was arrested and beaten and mistreated, he didn’t convert his tormentors that same day. But Jesus allowed Paul and Silas to play a role in this incredible conversion. He used their suffering and their response to it to help change this man’s life, and his household as well. When you rediscover how Jesus suffered and overcame; you can see how suffering can be redemptive, and not just for you, but for someone else. Jesus will continue to do great things, and use us to help change lives. Amen.