Thorburn-Sutherland's River Pastoral Charge

Gracious God, as we listen to the Scripture, increase our understanding by the power of your Spirit. Shape our lives with your wisdom and inspire our love through Christ, your living Word. Amen

New Testament Reading:

This morning, after all the joy of Easter, we’ve come to the final verses of chapter 16 of the book of Acts and what’s been an interesting journey for our missionary team as they’ve made their first steps into the continent of Europe, bringing the Gospel message to the people there for the very first time.

The missionaries were the Apostle Luke, along with companions Silas and Timothy, and their leader was the Apostle Paul. He was planning to continue to spread the gospel in Asia but one night he had had a vision of a man telling him to go to Macedonia, which is in southern Greece, to bring the message of salvation to that country. Paul obeyed and he and his fellow missionaries landed there and went to the major city of the area, Philippi.

Undoubtedly, they encountered many people while in Philippi, but Luke, who is the author of Acts, tells us about only two of them, both of them women. And these two women couldn’t have been any more different. The first of them was Lydia, she was a successful businesswoman who was a believer in God and when she met Paul, she was part of a prayer group. Paul told her about Jesus, and she came to accept him as her Lord and Saviour. So great was her newfound faith that she invited Paul and his companions to use her home as a base of operations for their missionary forays in the region.

Now the other woman Paul met was the exact opposite. She was a demon possessed slave girl, so low on the social scale at that time, that we’re not even given her name. Her only value was to her masters for her supposed ability to predict the future. When Paul and his companions met her on the street she had cried out, “…’These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.’” (Acts 16:17) While this was the truth, she kept on doing it for days on end and it was too much of a distraction and so Paul became annoyed and said to the demon, “… ‘I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’” (Acts 16:18) At that very moment the demon left her, but so did the value she had for her masters.

And that became a problem for Paul and Silas. The girl’s owners seized them and dragged them before the magistrates who had Paul and Silas beaten with rods and then thrown into prison like common criminals.

And that’s where we find them today, we’re told, “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”  We need to keep in mind that Paul and Silas didn’t know the end of this story when they began singing at midnight in the dungeon. For all they knew, they would be executed the next day, or left to die a slow death in prison. Their singing was not based on their knowledge of a happy outcome of their situation. It was based on their knowledge of a good and sovereign God and the unfolding of his plan for mankind.

And God wasn’t done with them yet, he wasn’t prepared to let them rot in prison. No, God sent a powerful earthquake which broke the chains of all the prisoners. But this wasn’t good news for the man in charge of the prison, Luke tells us, “When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped.” According to Roman law at the time if a prisoner escaped the man in charge was put to death. The jailer thought his fate was sealed. But Paul calls out to the jailer telling him all the prisoners were still there. He then sees that Paul is telling the truth and he goes to Paul and Silas, falls trembling before them, and asks them what is probably the most important question in life, “‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’”

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard this question in the New Testament. In the Gospel of Luke, a lawyer asked Jesus, “‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ (Luke 10:25) Jesus’ reply was what is the best known parable of the New Testament, the Parable of the Good Samaritan. And later on, in the same Gospel, a rich ruler asks Jesus that very same question. He came to regret asking it as Jesus tells him that he needs to sell all that he owns, give it to the poor, and accept him as his Lord and Saviour.

And Paul’s reply to that jailer sums up the entire message of the New Testament in 10 words, “‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.’” By obeying those words of Paul that man’s whole life was changed in an instant. He accepted Jesus as being the Son of God and the Saviour for mankind. He then brought Paul and Silas into his home and washed their wounds and fed them. Then he and his entire family were baptised, and they rejoiced in their newfound faith.

So, what lessons can we learn from Paul and his companion’s time which they spent in Philippi? It can be summed up in these words, “Go where you’re sent”, “stay where you’re put” and “give what you’ve got.”

Paul’s original plan was to stay in Asia and continue to spread the Gospel message there. He was familiar with the region, knew the needs of the people and already had had a lot of success, why change a good thing? But God had other plans for him. The Holy Spirit stopped him from going further east and a vision in the night sent him west, into the continent of Europe, where the message of salvation was unknown. He and his companions ended up at Philippi and began to preach the gospel there, winning men and women to Christ, and proceeding to establish a church in that city. Paul’s one great calling was to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So, when he was beaten and thrown in jail for driving that demon out of the slave girl he wasn’t discouraged. Rather, he encouraged his fellow prisoners by singing psalms and hymns. Years later, when he wrote to his fellow missionary, Timothy, these words, “endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:3), he knew exactly what he was talking about.

The second lesson we can learn from Paul is to “stay where you’re put”. Which means that you go and serve the Lord wherever you happen to be, even though it may not have been your first choice. That’s why Paul and Silas were singing at midnight. They knew that God had sent them to the jail to bear witness for their faith. As Paul and Silas sang and the prisoners listened, they had no idea of the earthquake that was about to set them free. Nor did they know that soon they would lead the Philippian jailer and his whole family to the Lord. That was all hidden to them. As far as they knew, they would stay in prison a few days or a few weeks or a few months, and then they would go on trial. After that, no one could say what might happen.

And that’s God’s call to you and me too. “Stay where you’re put” doesn’t mean just meekly accepting all the bad circumstances of life, and it certainly doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to change things if you can. But it does mean that you believe down deep in your soul that you are where you are because God wants you there, and that when he wants you somewhere else, you’ll be somewhere else.

Finally, “give what you’ve got”. Clearly Paul and Silas weren’t trying to be quiet in the jail. Evidently, they prayed and sang loud enough that a crowd of prisoners listened to them, amazed that two men in stocks, having been beaten and roughed up, no doubt a sight to behold, would seem so cheerful and full of faith. Perhaps, like that jailer and his family, some of them also came to faith in Christ through the actions of Paul and Silas. They gave what they had at that time.

When God calls, we can always find excuses to say: “Not me, Lord, go ask someone else, I’m busy and I’m happy right where I am.” For all of us, the issue is not our personal desires but our response when the call comes. In the truly tough stuff of life, we rarely get a choice in advance, which is probably a good idea because if we did, we would be sorely tempted to run in the other direction.

When tragedy strikes, when life caves in, when your plans are dashed on the jagged rocks of reality, when you find yourself in a place you never wanted to be, that’s when you discover what you really believe. As long as things are going well, you don’t really know what you believe.

Anyone can sing “Shout to the Lord” when life is good, you’ve got money in the bank, your marriage is strong, your kids are doing well, you’re happy in your job, you love your church, and all is right with the world. But, if like Paul and Silas, you can sing praises to God at midnight in jail, then what you’ve got is real.

Let us Pray:

Heavenly Father, you are so good. Your mercies endure forever. We thank you that you know what you are doing in every situation. Give us confidence to believe that the God who started a good work in us will bring it to completion. Grant us grace to say “Here I am” when you call us to bear witness at midnight.  Help us to stand fast, trusting in you now and forevermore, until the day comes when we see Jesus, face to face. Amen.