Tell Out My Soul

Acts 16:16-34

Today I’d like to talk about the story of Paul and Silas in prison. It’s an amazing story on several levels, but I think the main take home from this story is that Jesus is the only person who can truly set us free. Looking at these events through the eyes of the Philippian jailer gives us a lot to think about. We can look at the jail as a metaphor for all the things in our life that trap us and take away our freedom. Not only were the inmates trapped in jail, even the jailer was trapped. He might have been free to come and go, but he wasn’t in charge of his own life. In a real sense, especially in a spiritual sense, he wasn’t free at all.

As the story goes, Paul and Silas have been beaten up shackled, and then locked up. It’s midnight but instead of feeling sorry for themselves, or being afraid, they’re singing songs of praise to God. I don’t know whether or not the other prisoners were thrilled about this, they were probably just trying to get some sleep. But the jailer, even with all that singing going on, managed to fall asleep. Next thing he knows he’s being rocked out of bed by an earthquake, the shackles have dropped from Paul and Silas and the prison doors are open. It’s dark, there’s chaos, so the jailer assumes that the prisoners have all escaped; he suddenly realises that he’s in deep trouble.

The jailer was actually on the brink of killing himself, because even though the prison break was not his fault, he couldn’t face the shame and consequences of having failed at his job. Suicide in the world of ancient Rome wasn’t uncommon because they saw it as a way of redeeming one’s honour after disgrace or defeat. That was their thinking.
But Paul out of loving compassion, right away stopped the jailer from taking his own life. He shouted out to the jailer not to worry and that they were all still there. But this experience affected the jailer very deeply, he was physically shaking. He fell down at Paul’s feet in desperation. To me it sounds like the jailer was having a panic attack. The earthquake and the chaos were the trigger. Everything was out of control and the stress and the fear made him crumble, just like the walls of the jail. He had just been staring death in the face. The pressure of his life, the feeling that he was trapped, all the hopelessness, uncertainty, and doubt. It all just came crashing down on him.

Who in society is free from the possibility of imminent disaster or humiliation? No one. At a stroke, everything can be taken away, our whole world can be turned upside down, a person’s reputation can be left in tatters. There’s an old Spanish proverb that says, “I don’t want the cheese, I just want to get out of the trap.” This is what the jailer was going through. At that point in his life, the jailer realised in an instant that there was more to life, a lot more. God was reaching out to him and God used Paul and Silas to bring salvation to the jailer and his family.

When things go wrong or we mess up, the consequences can be overwhelming. Humiliation is a bitter pill to swallow. Fear of failure is real and can sometimes be crippling. How much anxiety do we feel when there are all these expectations placed upon us? We have to do well, we have to succeed, to not make mistakes. We want to do the right thing, we want to be well regarded and for others to find favour in us and what we do. But looking to an outside source to validate one’s worth can put enormous pressure on people and some people will always feel that they are just not “good enough.” And sometimes when things go really wrong, even though it’s not our fault, the sense of responsibility can be devastating. It can make us want to crawl away and hide. And this is the situation the jailer found himself in. But there was nowhere to hide.

Pau’ls intervention not only saved the jailer’s life but opened the door to his spiritual awakening. The jailer’s dramatic shift from despair to desire for salvation really shows us the transformative power of God’s grace. When the jailer asked Paul what he had to do to be saved, he was thinking about the big picture, his whole life and his family too.
And what an amazing example Paul and Silas were during the whole time. They were thoroughly beaten, they even had their feet placed in stocks; it was all degradation and pain. But they responded with courage and confidence, they were singing and praising God. I don’t know about you, but the last time I was looking at disaster, I didn’t really feel like singing. Paul and Silas were different. When things went terribly wrong for them, they relied on God’s saving power, remaining positive and trusting throughout. The jailer couldn’t help but see that these two men were really special and that they had the solution to all his problems. Paul and Silas were free in the truest sense of the word.

“What must I do to be saved?” Paul’s answer is breathtakingly simple… believe! Put your trust and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and everything’s going to be okay. Our worth and honour comes from God, Jesus loves and cares for us unconditionally, we don’t have to live up to some unreachable standard. If things go wrong, Jesus will not reject you, Jesus sets you free from all these emotional shackles. God has everything in hand. It was God’s power that made the prison gates open and the shackles fall down, and it’s this same power that helps us get through difficult times.

When I was homeschooling my kids and they were worried that they should have been doing better, we had a little saying. We’d say, “Just do your best because that’s the best you can do.” And that applies to all of us. We can only do our best and the rest is in God’s hands. When we put our work, our decisions, our lives in his hands, when we believe in the Lord Jesus, just as Paul told the jailer, we are set free from doubts, fears and anxieties, and all those feelings that are like a cage around our hearts. When things go wrong, Jesus is there to pick up the pieces.

Believe in the Lord Jesus, that is the essential kernel of Paul’s message, just believe. All the rest is easy, you will be free! And we hear this so strongly in today’s Gospel from John too. Jesus prayed, “As you, Father are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

But is it enough to just believe? Belief in its truest sense is not just about acknowledgement that God exists. In James 2:19 it says, “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!”
And Jesus said in Matthew that many people will say to him on the day of judgement, “Lord, Lord,” but he will tell them that he never knew them.

When we believe, we are changed people; we repent of our sins and we commit to follow Jesus and keep his commandments. Believing means that we bear fruit, and we believe with our hearts and souls, not just with words. It means surrender, and most of all it means that we let Jesus take over in good times as well as the bad. It’s knowing that Jesus walks beside us and that we’re never alone, no matter what happens to us, and that we have the Holy Spirit living in us, giving us strength and comfort. Nothing is as bad as it seems when we possess the power of faith in Jesus. The words of the apostle Paul come to mind:

But in all these troubles we have complete victory through God, who has shown his love for us. I am sure that nothing can separate us from God’s love—not death, life, angels, or demons. I am sure that nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us or nothing below us—nothing in the whole created world—will ever be able to separate us from the love God has shown us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let us pray that through his infinite grace we can always be ready to allow Jesus to transform us, sanctify us and make us one with him as he is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, so that resting in faith, we can be truly set free.

Amen