ACTS "The Power of Prayer and Praise"- Acts 16:25-26 - Part 2

Brett Meador: Paul, instead of bolting or finding comfort or dressing for his wounds, he goes and ministers to this guy who needs help. And in that, Paul gets help himself.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador with an acronym for JOY: Jesus, Others, and You.
Brett Meador: That's the answer. I think Paul and Silas were able to endure. What would make a person not feel that suffering, that pain? They had their eyes on something bigger, something more powerful. Instead of focusing on themselves, they focused on what the Lord wanted them to do.
Guest (Male): After being beaten and wrongly imprisoned, Paul and Silas responded in a somewhat unexpected way: with praises to God. Their worship became the setting for a miraculous earthquake opening not just the jail door, but creating an opening for the jailer and his household to hear the gospel and come to faith in Jesus. Pastor Brett Meador shares their example in today's word.
Brett Meador: Here in Acts chapter 16, we see Paul and Silas on Paul's second missionary journey now. Paul's got a new compadre in Silas, and so Paul and Silas head out on the second missionary journey. They land on the coast of Europe there in a place called Philippi of Macedonia. One particular woman comes on the scene, and she's got this darkness about her. She's kind of the city sorceress, but we also find out she's demon-possessed. In fact, there are men of the town who are owning this woman as their own way to make money. They use this woman's fortune-telling and her demonic possession to get money off of tourists that come in. And so what happens? Paul turned to this woman, and he cast the demon out of her. She is no longer demon-possessed, and she's perfectly whole. You think, "Oh, that's great." It is. But here's the problem: the men of Philippi are immediately angered. They're the masters of this demon-possessed girl. They cared nothing for the girl, only for their ability to exploit her demonic possession for money. So they go to the officials, the magistrates of Philippi, and say, "Hey, these two guys, these Jews"—very anti-Semitic kind of wording—"these Jews are messing up our city and stirring up trouble." Is that what they were doing? They weren't stirring up trouble; they were helping some poor woman who was demon-possessed. They were just doing good stuff. Well, the magistrates said they are, huh? So they grabbed Paul and Silas and they ripped all their clothes off of them. Then they beat them, whipped them with stripes. It was probably the same kind of whip they would have whipped Jesus with. That's what these Romans did at that time. Then they put them into the prison. What did Paul and Silas do with the time they had? Well, that's where we come to our scripture here in Acts 16:25. Right after they're put fast in the stocks, it says, "And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed." What a miraculous, amazing story. What happens? Well, the jailer of the prison, who was given the charge to keep the prison, is a Roman soldier. But basically he's in trouble now because all the prisoners are free. So the story as it goes on: he grabs his sword and he's going to stick himself through, a hara-kiri kind of thing. He's going to kill himself. Paul and Silas run and say, "Hey, hey, wait. We're all here. Don't kill yourself." The prison keeper is shaking like a leaf, and he runs and gets a torch. He runs in the nighttime in the darkness with a torch and he looks at Paul and all the prisoners. He falls down at Paul and Silas's feet and he says, "What must I do to be saved?" I love it. Paul says, "Believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and your family." The guy believed, and his family came to believe, and they all got baptized. The Bible says they got saved that night. Paul preached this amazing sermon to this guy, a short one sentence: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved." There are some things about the story I think are worth noting, and I want us to notice and pray about it. We'll start with point number one: the power of prayer and praise. Instead of feeling depressed or angry, they chose and made a decision to pray and sing praises to God. Anyone can be happy in pleasant circumstances. That's normal for us. But real joy comes only from the person of Jesus Christ, which is within us. Christ in you, your hope of glory. It is a gift that's available to Christians wherever you are and in whatever circumstances you are. You could be in the worst time of your life, but the Lord will say, "I will be your joy. The joy of the Lord is my strength." It is a gift to Christians. Instead of cursing men, you can bless God. Wouldn't it be great if some of you that like to curse our political leaders or curse the situation that we're in, instead of cursing all of that, what if we said, "Let's praise and give glory to the most high and blessed God"? I love how Paul and Silas sing praises. Would you think Paul and Silas are wimpy men? Did you know in the Bible that some of the biggest singers that are men are the toughest guys in the Bible? The problem is men often wrongly think that worship and singing songs of praise is a sissy behavior. But in the Bible, that's not the case. I dare any of you to get to heaven and walk up to David, who was a musician and a minstrel. He strummed harps, sang songs, and wrote hundreds and hundreds of songs. He was a worship leader. I dare you to walk up to his face and say, "You're a wimpy worship leader." In addition to leading worship, does anybody remember David's death toll on the battlefield? Tens of thousands. The women would literally dance in the street singing, "David has killed tens of thousands in battle." David went and slew a giant when he was a kid with a slingshot. David was like a guy who made a Navy SEAL team guy look like a wimp. I love that about him. I love that there are strong men that are worship leaders. The reason I love that is because some of you guys think that worship is for the sissies. "I'm not going to lift my hands. That's what girls do at church." Why do I say that about girls? I do think women have a much greater natural proclivity to worship the Lord and to passionately worship God, which is something we men could take a lesson from. Having a worshipful heart is something a good godly man will do. So I'm kind of challenging the brothers, because what did Paul and Silas do? They're not wimps. They've just been bloodied and beaten by a whole city, and now they're just singing praises to God. I've found it to be amazingly powerful to sing praise and worship when you're most angry or most upset. It's hard to stay angry and upset. It's so easy to pout or be bummed or depressed when things are not great. But there's power in prayer and in praise. That's what Paul and Silas employ. This is all through the Bible. This isn't just this one story. David, his whole town was wiped out by the Amalekites while David and his army were all fighting other battles. They took their women and their children and took them to be slaves. David gets back to his town and his men see that their homes are totally burned to the ground and their families are taken. They get mad at David. "David, you had us fighting other battles when we should have been home defending our own families." They thought how they were going to kill David. Does anybody know what David did at that moment? The Bible says, "And David encouraged himself in the Lord." There in the last chapter of 1 Samuel, and next to that, there's a reference to the Psalms where he actually wrote a psalm about that moment. He would say, "Why art thou cast down, my soul? Why art thou disquieted in me? Hope in God, for I shall yet look to him for help." He wrote this whole psalm about how he's encouraging himself in the Lord. Then he turns to his men and says, "Guys, strap on your belts, get your swords on, let's go. We're going to get our families back." David leads his army to the Amalekite city of Ziklag, where his women and children were taken hostage. God gave David and his mighty men this massive victory. They slew every Amalekite in the city and they retrieved all of their family. Not one of them was hurt or lost, the Bible says. Guess what? David got to live in the new city called Ziklag there, which was a wealthy, beautiful town. It was like you lived in Dundee, but you got Lake Oswego. You swapped it out a little bit. That's what happened. It's a great story in the Bible. It was really David who encouraged himself in the Lord instead of pouting, "My men want to kill me. Woe is me." He didn't do that. He encouraged himself and actually sang praise to the Lord and prayed. This is not just a new thing in the Bible. It's not something I'm just saying, "Let's make something up about how praise is where victory is won." Prayer and praise: it's where the battle really is fought. And it's all throughout the Bible. Job, who knew suffering and trouble, talked about it. Also the psalmist in Psalm 42:8, "Yet the Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life." Like David, I wonder if you have a sleepless night. You're troubled by what's going on in your life and you can't sleep. You can sit there and try to sleep, but you can't sleep. Or you could sing some songs in the night. Have you ever thought about that? What if you went and prayed, got out of bed, fixed a cup of coffee or hot cocoa or tea, and just said some prayers and maybe sang unto the Lord in the middle of the night? Give that a try. You might be shocked at the power of praise. Quickly, just two more observations. Number two on the list: Paul's prison becomes a pulpit. When you're in trouble and people that are secular, godless, uncaring people don't care about you, but they see you go through trouble—your own trials—do you realize that that can be a pulpit that is powerful? Paul and Silas had just been beaten and whipped, and they're in bondage in the chains and the fetters. But suddenly Paul's broken free, and the first thing he does is uses his trouble and witnesses to the unbeliever, the prison jailer. "What must I do to be saved?" Instead of bolting and running for his life—if I were Paul and Silas and the gate swung open and my chains fell off, I'd be like, "Let's get out of dodge," or Philippi in this case. We're running for our lives to be free. But they don't. In fact, not only do Paul and Silas stick around, but all the prisoners stick around. That's odd. Why? They're watching Paul stop the jailer from killing himself, and then the guy falls down and gets saved. I have a hunch that many of those other guys got saved too. When you're depressed, when you're going through hard times and difficulty, people see you going through cancer, the loss of a job, your girlfriend dumping you, or difficult things. Do you realize that that could be a powerful place to preach? Your prison becomes a pulpit if you're ready to be used by the Lord in your darkest hour. I love this. Some of you think, "Well, I don't know, I'm not a preacher." Do you see how easy what Paul had to do? Paul didn't have to memorize the scriptures. The guy said, "What must I do to be saved?" Now, by the way, if you're one of those people that say, "Brett, you just preach a cheap grace," I always hate when people say that. "Cheap grace" is the dumbest thing. It's an oxymoron. What they're saying is, "Brett, you just say you're saved by grace through faith and you don't have to do things to be holy, and there's more to it than that. There's more to it than just accepting Christ." Well, if you've carefully read your Bible, even Peter in chapter 15 said, "We've tried by the rules and the laws, but none of us have been saved by that. Why are we putting this burden on them? We're saved just like they are, and it's by faith in Jesus Christ through his grace that we're saved." Peter said that, and he was right. Paul would say it like this in Ephesians 2:8: "You're saved by grace through faith, not of yourselves. It's a gift from God, not of works, lest any man should boast." That same "cheap grace" person will come and say, "And you can't just say a prayer and be saved after a service and accept Jesus and be saved. There's more to it than that. You got to be baptized, or you got to do this." As soon as they say you got to do something else, you're already off course. This is a good example right here. What happens? Notice this: Paul doesn't even say, "Repent." Now, here's a trick question for you. For a person to be saved, is repentance required? For a person to get to a place where they want to accept Christ, yes. That's why the Bible says "repent and then be baptized," "repent and be saved." Repentance is something we all need to get to a place. But can I just say, repentance isn't what saves you. Repentance is what gets you to a place where you realize, "I'm a sinner in need of salvation." It is acknowledging your sin before God. It's changing your mind and your direction, saying, "I repent, and I change what I believe about my sin." And that's when you're now ready to be saved. You're not saved by your repentance, but your repentance brings you to a place where you're ready to be saved. Salvation is once you repent and then the saving work is when you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart. This is Romans 10:9-10. If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart the Lord Jesus Christ, you shall be saved. Why didn't Paul say to the Philippian jailer, "Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved"? Because he was already fallen down saying, "What must I do to be saved?" He's already there. That's the place a person needs to get to. Paul didn't say "repent" because he's already a broken man asking how to get saved. He's got him right where he wants him. So be careful on that repentance thing. Some people say, "You got to repent," and then they'll translate that to mean you got to stop drinking and stop chewing and you got to stop, stop, stop. No. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, period. Saved by grace, not by your works. Some would say Paul's preaching a cheap grace. No. Paul would later say, "Should we continue in sin and let grace abound?" Paul would say, "God forbid." But that's a different argument. When you're saved, you'll see good works in a person who's truly saved. That's the byproduct of salvation. Paul's prison becomes a pulpit. Number three and finally on our list: notice Paul putting people before his own problems. He's already been beaten, bloodied, whipped, tortured. Instead of just bolting and nursing his wounds, he says, "I'm going to stop and I'm going to help this person that's in trouble, this jailer who's doomed." He gets saved, and then we read where he and his family go and get baptized and Paul gets all bandaged up. It's almost like Paul gets the help that he needs because he's focusing on the needs of others. This is what the Bible tells us to do, to not focus on ourselves. This world says focus on yourself. It's all about yourself. Take a selfie. Bible says deny thy selfie. Well, it says deny thyself. If you want to be the most miserable person on the planet, just focus on yourself. It's so wrong. The world tries to argue self-esteem, love yourself. That's the dumbest thing. The Bible says "no man ever hated his own flesh." And the ladies are like, "Amen, no man has ever hated his own flesh." No, you got to go with mankind there. No part of mankind ever really hated his own flesh. The Bible says "but nourishes his flesh and cares for it." We're self-centered. But the Bible teaches the opposite: deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Christ. Paul is not worried about himself. In fact, Paul even said, "I don't even count my life dear to myself. I don't care about my life. I'm willing to lay down my life." Here we see this in action. Paul, instead of bolting or finding comfort or dressing for his wounds, he goes and ministers to this guy who needs help. In that, Paul gets help himself. It's amazing how when you focus on your own problems, how much your problems bring more pain and suffering. Have any of you ever hurt yourself, like cut yourself, but you didn't know you cut yourself and you see blood and you're like, "Where's this blood coming from?" Then as soon as you find your cut, you're like, "Ow!" It's like you didn't even feel it until you see it and it just starts stinging right then and there. It makes you realize how much of this is actually mental. There's a mental part of this. I'm not saying it's not real, but I remember this was a weird story. I was a senior in high school and my best friend Cam and I were in carpentry and construction during the summer to try to earn a few extra bucks. I grew up using skill saws and chain saws. My dad taught me safety from the time I was seven years old. Every day I'd hear my dad warning me how that saw wants to chop your leg off. So I was always very careful with saws. My buddy Cam wasn't raised with such a situation. He didn't know. He had a practice of cutting something and then he'd rest the saw on his leg. He was ripping some plywood and I was over doing some other stuff about 20 feet away. All of a sudden I heard the saw going and then, "Ching!" The blade came to an immediate stop and I thought, "Uh-oh." I walk over and Cam is there and he says, "Oh, Brett, I ripped my pant leg. My Levis are ruined." I thought, "Oh man, I'm glad it's just his Levis." Sure enough, after a minute all of a sudden his pants just started turning bright red. We opened up the pant leg and a whole flap of skin was laying there, like a big C-cut. Now good news, I had just had first aid in high school. So I flapped the skin back over, put direct pressure and we stopped the bleeding. I stuck him in my Volkswagen and we raced to the hospital. He didn't even know that he cut it. He thought he ripped his pant leg. My point is this: I think that's true physiologically. There's something in the human body that makes that happen. But there's also something in the spiritual part of the human that says when you focus on your pain and you're looking at your problems, you're going to feel more pain and more misery. But if you take your eyes off of your problem and instead of staring at your wound and your trouble, you put your eyes on Jesus. When you're depressed, bummed out, or hurting and suffering, there are 10 things you need to do. Number one: find someone who's hurting and miserable, unsaved, and just go and love on them and care for them and share the gospel with them. Number two: do that nine more times. That is the answer. I think Paul and Silas were able to endure because of that. I think the Christian martyrs with smiles on their faces as rocks are hitting them in the head, with joy as they're sizzling on big iron grids—what would make a person not feel that suffering and pain? They had their eyes on something bigger, something more powerful. Instead of focusing on themselves, they focused on what the Lord wanted them to do. Often times I think that is to care for others. It's not about you. The world says it's all about you, love yourself, but the Bible says deny yourself. Romans chapter 12 verse 10 says "be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another." That's just the King James way of saying put everybody else in front of you. Don't love yourself first. Love everybody else. The old acronym is true: it's Jesus, Others, and then You. It's not You, Others and Jesus; that would be YOJ. It's JOY: Jesus, Others and You. That's the way to go. That's what the Bible says. So some massive lessons that we have here in Acts chapter 16. First of all, don't forget the power of prayer and praise. I challenge you, particularly the men of the church: let's be men of worship and prayer and of praise. Let's lead the charge in that. That's where the victory is won. Number two: Paul's prison becomes a pulpit. Look at your bondage and troubles and trials and challenges as a chance to preach the good news of the gospel. And then thirdly: Paul putting people before his own problems. Those are challenging things for us to work on. But if you're not a Christian and you've yet to accept Christ, you're like the jailer. You need to come to a place of repentance where you know you're sinful and you're doomed because of your sin. But when you repent of your sin, then you're at that place where you can say, "I need to be forgiven of my sin." How do you do that? Well, you have to believe Jesus. Not just believe in Jesus; Satan believes in Jesus. But you have to believe what he said. He said, "I died on the cross for the sins of the world." When you accept Christ and believe that he died and that he rose again, that'll be the proof positive that I am the one who can save the world from sin. So repent, accept, believe, and be saved. You'll know that your sins are forgiven.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador closing our time here on Today's Word. And that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett will continue to explore the second missionary journey of Paul, which extended the gospel into Europe for the first time. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon. Brett's been the pastor of Athey Creek for 30 years. If you've missed any portion of our study, you'll find all of his messages online at todayswordradio.com. You can also watch full video messages by him by going to todayswordradio.com. I also want to mention that if you'd like to share your story of how God has changed your life through these daily studies, you can email us at [email protected]. That's [email protected]. Well, before we go now, here again is Pastor Brett Meador with a brief word of prayer.
Brett Meador: Well, Lord, we're thankful for so great a salvation. we read this story, Lord, and we're challenged. Forgive us for being wimpy. Forgive us for focusing on our little problems and not keeping our eyes on you. Give us the faith of some of these early saints, the martyrs and the saints that were suffering. Lord, we feel like we're suffering when the drive-thru is taking 30 seconds too long. We think we're suffering because somebody said something about us or we're troubled at work. But Lord, I pray that instead we just rejoice and be people of prayer. Lord, may the battle be won by you. You tell us the battle belongs to the Lord. So bless these your people as we go our way today. Fill us up with your word, bless we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Guest (Male): Amen. Pastor Brett Meador closing our time here on Today's Word. And that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett will continue to explore the second missionary journey of Paul, which extended the gospel into Europe for the first time. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.