Have You Been Freed From Bondage? (AM Sermon Notes)
GIST: Because of Jesus, slaves to sin are set free and those who are without hope can receive the joy of salvation.
SCRIPTURE: Acts 16:16-18, 25-34
Welcome back to our study in the book of Acts! We’ve been off for a few months, so let me recap where we are here. After following the apostles and the first Church in Jerusalem for several chapters, Luke broke off and began following Paul on his missionary journeys. This Paul was a zealous Jew bent on killing Christians until he encountered Jesus and had his life flipped upside down! He went from trying desperately to stomp out this “false teaching” to being led to desperately spread this life-changing truth!
Chapter 16 picks up at the beginning of Paul’s second missionary journey. He has parted ways with his long-time companion and left on this journey with Silas. Along the way, they have been joined by a young man named Timothy, who Paul grows to consider a son, and the narrator of this gospel, Luke. God has already closed several doors on this journey, but has been clearly redirecting them as we’ve seen salvations everywhere they’ve gone. They’ve been lead to Macedonia and have been spending time sharing the gospel in Philippi. Since there were not enough Jewish men to have a synagogue, which was typically Paul’s first stop in a city, they first went to a group of women who had a prayer meeting down by the river. It was there that they met Lydia, a prominent and wealthy woman, who saw the truth and was saved.
Today, we’re picking up with them still in Philippi. A lot happens in these final verses that is so interconnected, and I didn’t want to skip over any of it. So, we’re going to look at it from one angle this morning, and then take it from another this evening. This morning, I want to focus in specifically on the converts. Tonight, we’ll look at the witnesses.
Since we won’t be moving through the passages consecutively this morning, I’ll start with our gist. Then, we’ll pray and work through the passages. Today, we’re going to see two very different people rescued from sin: a demon-possessed slave girl and a Roman jailor. Those these individuals might have lived lives very different from our own, in both we see our natural condition and need, so we can take away this gist: Because of Jesus, slaves to sin are set free and those who are without hope can receive the joy of salvation. Let’s pray and dive in. First, we see this beautiful truth→
I. SLAVES TO SIN ARE SET FREE (16-18)
Let’s start by looking at what is recorded immediately after the conversion of Lydia. “16 As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. 17 She followed Paul and us, crying out, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation." 18 And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." And it came out that very hour.”
Now, I know it might seem like a stretch to our modern ears to hear me say that we can draw some comparisons between our lives and the life of this young girl. It’s clear from the passage she was→
Possessed. This isn’t something we tend to think about today. Nonetheless, demonic possession is a reality. We might not see it thrown into the light as often as we see recorded in the life of Jesus and His apostles, but that is likely because we’re not shining His light as brightly as they were!
Here, this girl has been taken over by an evil spirit that has somehow given her the ability to see the future. There seems to be evidence that this was something she was actually able to do, and not just how she was advertised by her slave-owners, since they were turning a profit. That would have been hard to maintain if she weren’t able to do anything.
Now, something interesting to point out here that I had not noticed until later this week while studying the passage is that the word translated divination here is actually from the Greek name Python. Python was a giant, magical serpent who could tell the future. Eventually, this serpent was killed by the very popular false god Apollo who was the son of their head god, Zeus. After killing this monstrous serpent, who was trying to eat him and his sister, the myth tells us that Apollo took over the domain of prognostication (telling the future). That means, in the eyes of this pagan city, this gift would have come from one of their favorite gods who happened to be the son of their lead god. Hold onto that for a second.
So that’s her plight. In the truest sense, she is taken over by sin. Then, the passage tells us that she starts yelling what is technically true, and it gets to Paul. She’s crying out: "These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation." Why would that bother them? The core issue seems to be that she was a—>
Poor Witness. At the center of this had to have been that she was tainting the truth by proclaiming it. Here she was living in sin and speaking about God’s movement. She was literally taking the Lord’s name in vain...because this truth had had zero impact on her life thus far. I also feel like tone probably played some role in this, as well. We don’t know how she’s saying this, but she’s not stopped by her owners, so I feel like it is safe to at least speculate that there was a level of mockery in her voice. If people took her seriously, and given her reputation, it would have been reasonable to assume they would have had she given them cause, then she would have been telling them to listen to Paul and Silas instead of her.
The text says this annoyed Paul, so he spoke. The Greek word there seems to imply being bothered because of being burdened. Paul spoke because her testimony was detracting from the truth and because he was burdened by her miserable condition. And in that moment, she was→
Rescued By The Power Of The True God. Remember, the local people would have thought she had power from a son of god, but when the real Son of God spoke into her life, she was rescued instantly! Paul didn’t need to repeat himself. God spoke into her heart, and she was rescued completely, in that moment, from her sinful captivity and made new! Really, this mirrors→
Our Condition. You might not be under the same demonic possession she was, but our natural state is no less under the control of sin. We might not like to admit this, but just think about it for a moment. Can you stop yourself from sinning? By your will power, you might be able to adjust certain behaviors, but can you change your heart, or control your thoughts? Jesus said in John 8:34, “34 ...Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” I’m always reminded of Benjamin Franklin who narrowed morality down to thirteen virtues and decided to take a few weeks to tackle each one before arriving at near perfection. After spending I believe a year or so trying to tackle one of the virtues, he gave it up as impossible and contented himself with living as a “flawed man”. He would not have considered himself a Christian by any means, but he even admitted this:
“In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; ... for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.” (87)
Naturally, we are stuck in sin and→
Mocking His Name. Though we might not all verbally mock God, though some of us might do that as well, we do not take Him seriously. In our hearts, we consider following after Him as a foolish or, at the very least, unnecessary way to live our lives. He tells us He’s the only way to Heaven, and we try to live like He’s wrong. Nonetheless, we can all still be→
Rescued! Knowing this is where we are naturally because of the effects of sin, Jesus chose to take on Hell for you and rise again for you so that you could be freed from your bondage! That happened to this young girl, and it has happened for many of you, and it can happen for all of you who call on His name. Amen!
Though this was an amazing sign of God’s grace, not everyone was happy. Especially the people who had been making a profit off of this young woman’s plight. They’re so upset, they end up having Paul and Silas arrested for being “Jews messing up their Roman way of life”. We’ll look at what happened while they were in prison tonight (it’s incredible by the way), but for now, let’s just look at one thing that happens while they’re there. It’s here we’ll see that→
II. THOSE WITHOUT HOPE CAN RECEIVE THE JOY OF SALVATION (25-34)
Look at what happened when they were imprisoned→ “25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, 26 and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bonds were unfastened. 27 When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here." 29 And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" 31 And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.”
Here we have a picture of a man stuck in→
Inevitable Despair. He’s a Roman jailor. His responsibility is making sure prisoners don’t escape. This night is the same drudgery as every other, but two of his inmates are incessantly singing praises to a God he doesn’t believe in. Then, an earthquake shakes the prison, and by another miraculous act of God, the doors are all opened, and the bonds of every inmate are undone. That doesn’t just naturally happen with an earthquake!
And clearly, the jailor had been sleeping on the job because the text says that he woke up to see all of this and immediately went to kill himself. This might seem like an extreme reaction, but if any inmates escaped on his watch, his punishment would have been death anyway. This is the state he’s in. He doesn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. He’s completely hopeless.
Without Christ, is our position any different? We might not have drawn our swords, but we’re still stuck in our sin with no way of escaping the inevitable. Yet, just like him, we have been presented with an→
Opportunity for Grace. The prisoners could have escaped, but they didn’t. They stayed, and Paul cried out to this man not to kill himself. At that moment, he came face to face with God’s grace. He was a pagan jailor. How did he know what to ask? Well, he had been listening to Paul and Silas singing in their cell ☺️. But he also knew that he needed to be saved. Like this slave girl and all of us, he needed to be rescued from his hopeless condition. Paul gave him the answer he needed, and the same one we all need, as well. He didn’t say, “be better,” or “sin less,” or even “join a local church” — though that’s an instrumental part of spiritual growth, it doesn’t save you. He said this, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved…”! What did that result in? His salvation and→
Irrevocable Joy. Talk about transformation! From hopeless to joy beyond measure! Where did this joy come from? It says it is because he believed! Now, I don’t want to gloss over this mention of his family being saved as well, because it can be taken out of context here. His family was not saved because the jailor was saved, but the jailor being saved presented them with an opportunity to hear the truth for themselves...which led to their salvation. So, this transformation impacted more than just the jailor, and that’s amazing grace. The same amazing grace we can experience when we’re freed from bondage and receive His irrevocable, never-ending joy!
TAKEAWAYS
- Naturally, you’re in bondage. This is where we are apart from Jesus coming in and setting us free. Do you realize that today? Do you feel hopeless and stuck? →
- Come and be set free. He can set you free. Come to Him believing that Jesus is God who took your place— the place you deserved, Hell— and asking for Him to take over, to be your Lord, and you will be saved!
- Experience hope and rejoice in it! For the first time or millionth, if you’re experiencing hope in this world so full of hopelessness, rejoice. You’ve been set free! Praise Him→
- Then→ share with the world…and don’t forget your family! Though not a major point I made this morning, you guys know my heart, so I couldn’t neglect to mention this takeaway. Share the gospel with everyone, but don’t forget about your immediate flock— your family. The jailor was saved and his family experienced grace because they got to hear the same life-changing truth!
No comments:
Post a Comment