St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Epiphany 1 – January 9th and 12th, 2003
Acts 16:25-34
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and
the other prisoners were listening to them. 26Suddenly 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. 27The
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. 28But
Paul shouted, "Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!" 29The
jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30He
then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
31They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will
be saved—you and your household." 32Then they spoke the word of
the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33At that hour
of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he
and all his family were baptized. 34The 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.
Dear children of God who are saved by grace through faith,
This past New Year’s Eve a young lady who was a basketball player at a major
college, gathered at her apartment with five of her best friends for a night of
watching movies and eating pizza. During this evening something unexpected
happened. The young basketball player suddenly collapsed and her friends
thought she was playing another one of her pranks. As they looked closely they
noticed that she was turning purple and was not breathing. What would you do in
this life or death situation? Her friends most likely had these same thoughts
as they jumped to her rescue. Two of the girls started CPR while one of the
girls called 911. The friends are quoted as saying, "We didn’t really know
what we were doing. We were just doing what we remembered from TV shows."
For 2 ½ minutes they continued CPR until the paramedics came. As the story
turns out, the actions of these friends saved her life and gave her a second
chance on life.
While this was a very serious situation which dealt with the life or death
of this young lady, we must realize that there is a much more serious problem
that we must deal with every day we are on this earth. We are talking about the
eternal life or death of people living on this earth. As we look around this world
and see many people who are dying forever in their sins, we must ask ourselves
what can we do and what must we do to help bring life to the many who are dying
in their sins. If a couple of young ladies could perform CPR on a girl who only
knew what they were doing from watching TV shows, I’m sure that we who are
filled with God’s love and are living in God’s Word know what we can do and say
to unbelievers.
Today we are going to use the account from God’s Word which deals with the
Apostle Paul and the jailer from the city of Philippi. The jailer serves as a
wonderful example of what we can say and do to help those who ask the most
important question in all the world.
Theme: What Must We Do To Be Saved?
Today is the first Sunday after the
Epiphany which was January 6th. Epiphany is the day where we
celebrate the coming of the wise men from the East who saw the star and
traveled to worship the newborn king. The word Epiphany means "to
reveal" which is fitting as we realize that God was revealing his plan of
salvation to all people. This revealing is important as we think about how God
allowed his saving message to travel to the corners of the earth so that all
men might be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. The nest two months
we will be in the Epiphany season of the church year. This means that we will
have many opportunities to see how God’s Word does work in the hearts and lives
of people everywhere.
In our text for today we are led to
once again see how God used a very difficult circumstance in the lives of two
of his servants to bring his saving message to a lost soul and the lost souls
of his family. The Apostle Paul and his companion Silas had been imprisoned in
the city of Philippi. Just a little background to lead into our text for today.
Anyone remember why Paul and Silas were in prison? They were in prison because
there was a slave girl who was possessed by a spirit that allowed her to
predict the future. This slave girl was around Paul and Silas as they were
preaching and teaching in the city. Paul told the spirit to come out of the
girl, which meant that she could no longer tell the future. The owner of the
slave girl became very angry, because this meant that he couldn’t earn any more
money from this slave telling the future. He took Paul and Silas to the
marketplace to the judges so that they could deal with these men who were Jews
and were causing this uproar. The judges sentenced them to be thrown into jail
where they were kept in he innermost part of the jail so that they couldn’t
escape.
Talk about tough circumstances!
Minding your own business and helping a slave girl so that she wasn’t possessed
by a spirit anymore. You were doing the right thing, but look what you got. You
got brought before the judge. You were stripped of your clothes and you were
beaten only to be thrown into prison. Why would God allow such a thing to
happen to his servants? What kind of God is this who would allow his servants
to suffer for doing nothing wrong? People may ask these questions. If we are
honest we might have asked questions like this sometimes in our life when
things haven’t gone all that well. As we look at the whole picture of God and
his plain to have all people to be saved, we realize that God uses many
different ways to reach the hearts of the lost.
This last week there was a commuter
airplane that crashed in Charlotte, NC and a number of people were killed. As I
was listening to the interviews they found a gentlemen who was explaining that
he was supposed to be on that plane, but his luggage wasn’t transferred fast
enough from his other flight and he had to miss his connecting flight. I’m sure
that the man was frustrated and even upset when he missed his flight, because
his luggage wasn’t changed fast enough. Oh how his thought must have changed as
he heard that the plane had crashed during its takeoff. This is exactly what
happened as Paul and Silas sat in prison. Little did they know what God had in
store for them that very night. They could have been sitting there in chains
depressed or crying or even worse they could have been angry and mad at God for
letting this happen.
But this isn’t how they reacted. It
tells us, "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns
to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them." You’ve got to
be kidding! They were what? There could be no way that they were praying and
singing hymns to God, after God let them be thrown into prison. But did anyone
catch the other key phrase in that verse. "And the other prisoners were
listening to them." Instead of feeling sorry for themselves, they were
praying and singing songs of praise so that all the people around them could
hear. Why is this so important? It is important because God tells us in
Scripture that where God’s Word is spoken, the Holy Spirit is at work. At this
very moment the Holy Spirit was working in the hearts of the prisoners and the
guard of the prison who most likely could hear them. This might have been the
very beginning of God opening up the heart of the jailer and the prisoners.
At the same time God used a miracle
to draw more attention to those who were in that prison, "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. 27The 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. 28But Paul shouted, "Don’t harm
yourself! We are all here!" The jailer called for lights, rushed in and
fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30He then brought them out and
asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Imagine what must have
been running through the jailer’s mind as all these things were happening!
First he hears these prisoners who were just beaten and thrown into prison for
no real reason singing hymns and praying to their God and now he witnessed this
earthquake that had freed all the prisoners from their chains. The jailer was
overwhelmed and in fact being so overwhelmed with guilt for not guarding the
prisoners he was about to kill himself. God in his wisdom had one more tool for
working in the heart of the jailer. Paul and Silas called out to the jailer
that he didn’t have to kill himself, because all the prisoners were still in
there. The jailer must have been thinking, Why didn’t they run away? Why didn’t
they try to escape? It is at this time that he asked the question which the
Holy Spirit had led him to ask, "What must I do to be saved?"
The Holy Spirit had begun to open his heart to question his salvation and how
to be saved? The Holy Spirit was leading him to see that he needed someone’s
help to be saved.
As we live our lives we might think
that there is never going to be a time where I am going to have to tell someone
how they can get to heaven. We might think that God is never going to use me in
this way or give me this type of opportunity. But we need to remember that God accomplishes
things in ways that we could never imagine. I’m amazed and marvel at how many
people that have joined our congregation will tell me that they joined because
of some member of St. Luke’s who either by their life or by their words had
showed that there is something special at St. Luke’s and they wanted to be a
part of it. You may never know how much and how often the Holy Spirit works as
you talk over the years with your coworker, neighbor or relative, or how your
actions stand out to others around you. The Holy Spirit may use these things to
lead people to question how they might be saved and what will happen when they
die. These may be doors that the Holy Spirit may open at anytime where we can
then share the saving truth.
2. The
Holy Spirit will lead us to believe in Jesus
After the Holy Spirit had led the
jailer to ask the question, "What must I do to be saved?" God
led
Paul and Silas to speak the simple
plan that God has for all people to be saved. Listen to these words,
"They replied, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will
be saved—you and your household.'32Then they spoke the word of
the Lord to him and to all the others in his house." They didn’t tell
the jailer to go and do some good things and come back after this step is done,
and then we will talk some more. They didn’t say that you need to earn your way
into heaven by being a good person. They didn’t say anything that places
salvation into our hands. They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you
will be saved." Believe that you are a lost and condemned
creature because of the sin that corrupts us through and through. Believe that
God sent his one and only Son to live a perfect life and die a perfect for us.
Believe that Jesus rose again on the third day and that he will come again to judge
the living and the dead. It then tells us that Paul and Silas spoke the Word of
God to them. The Holy Spirit continues to pour into the jailer’s heart and the
heart of his family as Paul and Silas took the time to share the truths of
God’s Word.
As we live our lives, I pray that
we first of all believe that the words of Paul and Silas which tell us that we
are saved by faith alone and not by our works, but secondly I pray that we
speak the word of God to others. God opens so many doors for us to share his
saving message. How many of these doors or opportunities have we opened and
entered in as we tell the simple Law and Gospel to them? How many opportunities
are sitting their right in front of our faces where we can boldly and
confidently say that the one and only answer to salvation is to believe in
Jesus Christ?
Look what happened when Paul and
Silas preached the powerful saving message to hearts that had been opened by
the Holy Spirit, "At that hour of the night the jailer took them and
washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34The
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.."
They were led to be baptized and he was filled with joy because he had been led
by the Holy Spirit to believe and more importantly that his whole family had
been led to believe in Jesus as their personal Savior.
At the beginning of this sermon we
started with the story of the young lady who was saved by her friends who
performed CPR. Isn’t it wonderful to hear such uplifting and inspiring stories
like this? But isn’t it more uplifting and wonderful when we think that
people’s hearts may be changed for an eternity as we witness our faith and tell
others the truth of Jesus as the one and only way to heaven. Imagine the joy as
we one day gather with believers of all ages to sing our heavenly Father’s
praises in heaven. As we gather with the jailer and his family and all the
Apostles and the followers of Jesus and those people of St. Luke’s and those
whose lives we may have touched with our word and our actions while on this
earth. We know the answer to this very important question, "What must I
do to be saved?" May we be led by the Holy Spirit to have the courage
and desire to share this answer. Amen.