Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

When you are going through some difficult time of grief or discomfort or hardship, how do you typically respond?

Do you feel sorry for yourself?

Do you get mad?

Do you question God’s goodness?

Do you think only about stopping the pain?

Or do you at least try to think about how God might be using this season of your life to mature you as a Christian disciple, to free you just a bit more from the love of this world, and/or to give you more opportunities to be a witness?

When someone asks you about what it means to be “saved,” what do you say?

Do you know the gospel message, and do you tell others about what it means that Jesus is both Lord and Savior?

And what do you tell someone to do in response to the gospel?

Should they pray?

Do better?

Go to church?

And what about your rights as an American citizen?

If you feel your rights have been violated, or if you feel as though you are losing some of the rights you once had, are you more prone to think in terms of “getting what’s mine”?

Or do you think about how your American citizenship might be used to serve the cause of Christ and the encouragement or support of other Christians?

We left off last Sunday with Paul and Silas in “prison” with “their feet in the stocks” and their backs bruised from being “beat… with rods.”

(Acts 16:22-24).

All of this was persecution, because Paul and Silas had been preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, which was perceived by the people of Philippi as “advocating [or “teaching”] customs [or “behaviors”] that are not lawful for us as Romans” (Acts 16:21).

Of course, Paul had cast out the demon that afflicted one particular “slave girl,” and this had caused “her owners” to lose their “hope of gain,” but this was just the occasion (the obvious manifestation) of the clashing kingdoms – Christ’s kingdom and the kingdom of this world (Acts 16:16, 18-19).

Our passage picks up this story, and we will see supernatural displays of God’s power in at least three ways.

Let’s consider the Scriptures together this morning, and let’s think about ways we can follow a good example, ways we can live as faithful witnesses for Christ in our own day, and ways we can wisely and lovingly encourage one another while we live in a world that remains hostile to the gospel and to all those who would preach it and live by it.

Acts 16:25–40 (ESV)

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.

35 But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let those men go.” 36 And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, “The magistrates have sent to let you go.

Therefore come out now and go in peace.”

37 But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly?

No! Let them come themselves and take us out.”

38 The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens.

39 So they came and apologized to them.

And they took them out and asked them to leave the city.

40 So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia.

And when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed.

Main Idea:

In this fallen world, genuine Christian living will provide opportunities for supernatural engagement with those around us.

Sermon

1. Supernatural Witness (v25)

A. An Unnatural Response

1.

After being stripped bare, “beaten with rods,” “thrown into prison,” and having “their feet [fastened] in the stocks” (Acts 16:22-24), Luke says that Paul and Silas “were praying and singing hymns to God” (v25)!

a.

Who does that!?

No one with a natural mind… set on this world!

b.

The inhabitants of this world, those who think this life is the only opportunity they have for pursuing happiness and enjoying luxury, they don’t pray and sing in prison at midnight.

B. A Supernatural Response

a.

This is a distinctly Christian response… a Spirit-filled, born-again, regenerate Christian response.

i.

The Bible teaches us that “suffering” is a Christian calling.

Christ Himself has left us an example, “so that [we] might follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).

The Apostle Peter said that Jesus “entrusted himself to him who judges justly,” and all Christian disciples ought to do the same (1 Peter 2:23).

C. Witnessing in Weakness

1. Paul and Silas weren’t suffering in private silence, they were suffering well, and Luke says, “the prisoners were listening to them” (v25).

a.

So often, I’ve heard Christians talk and act like their best chance at witnessing to others is from a place of strength…

b.

But those Christians who’ve made the biggest impact on me have been the ones I’ve seen faithfully trust Jesus through the hard stuff.

i.

I watched Leslie Day hold her baby girl, a twin, who was diagnosed with a rare cancer.

Sitting in a hospital room, holding her little girl, not knowing what would happen, she said something like: “I don’t know why God has brought this upon us, but we trust Him, and we pray that we will be able to show others what it looks like for Christians to suffer well.”

ii.

That was 10 years ago in May.

Isabella has had more surgeries than I can count, she’s still fighting her cancer, and God has certainly answered Leslie’s prayer.

She and her husband, Tim, have indeed showed others what suffering well looks like.

c.

Brothers and sisters, let others see you in weakness, and let them marvel at Christ’s strength, as you show them what it looks like to love and trust a supernatural and otherworldly Savior.

D. What do miserable Christians pray and sing?[i]

1. Carl Truman wrote an article by this title about 20 years ago.[ii]

a.

He said, “Many of us despise the health, wealth, and happiness teachings of the American televangelists and their pernicious British counterparts, as scandalous blasphemy.

The idea that Christianity, at whose centre [sic] stands the Suffering Servant, the man who had nowhere to lay his head, and the one who was obedient to death—even death on the cross—should be used to justify the idolatrous greed of affluent Westerners simply begs belief.

Nevertheless, there is a real danger that these heretical teachings have seeped into evangelical life in an imperceptible yet devastating way, affecting not so much our theology as our horizons of expectation.

We live, after all, in a society whose values are precisely those of health, wealth and happiness.”

b.

What solution did he offer?

i.

First, he said, “let us all learn once again to lament.”

· We should sing old songs that teach us (catechize us) to trust in the Lord, like “It is Well” by Horatio Spafford.

* “When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul.’”

· We should sing songs that confess our weakness and remind us of Christ’s strength, like “He Will Hold Me Fast” by Ada Habershon and Matt Merker

* “When I fear my faith will fail, Christ will hold me fast.

When the tempter would prevail, He will hold me fast.

I could never keep my hold through life’s fearful path, for my love is often cold.

He must hold me fast.”

· We should sing songs that set our eyes on future glory, even as we live in present sorrow and pain… songs like “Is He Worthy?” by Andrew Peterson and Ben Shive

* “Do you feel the world is broken?

…We do.