← ArchiveActsSunday, July 7, 2019DateJuly 7, 2019Speaker—TextActs 16Passages in this sermonActs 166:48TranscriptMachine transcribed. Click any line to jump there.0:00How are you guys doing? How are you guys doing this morning?0:29My name's Josh, Lead Pastor here. If you've noticed, and we didn't explain this well, so I'm going to turn my back from the camera just for a second. If you notice, the projector on our right is not working. It's in the shop. I think it's going to be fixed in a couple weeks. And so you guys, I'm sorry if you sit in this corner. You have a strain in your neck. So maybe next week if you sit on this side. And then hopefully in two weeks we'll actually have both projectors working again. I want to personally welcome all of our new guests here.0:59Some of you are new. Some of you are almost new. So thank you. It's good to see you guys back. And we have many people watching online. So you're traveling or sick. We have one of our friends got the flu this week. And so if you're sick and not able to come, I hope to see you next week. And just know you're an incredible part of what God's doing here. Today we continue a series in the book of Acts. The Acts of the Apostles. It's in the New Testament. So if you have your Bibles, go ahead and begin turning there with me.1:27If you don't have your Bibles, we should have someone, some in the pew for you. So it's in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts. And it's about halfway through the book of Acts. And I've found that the Bible is life-giving and life-changing. So we simply don't just turn to a book and read and then expound upon that.1:53If the only thing you hear today is the Word of God, you have heard well, my friends. We pray that you would cherish the Word because you cherish Jesus Christ. And what we're going to read today is part of this larger divine cycle that occurs over and over again in the Bible. And what the Lord does throughout generations and generations and generations is that God delivers His people to build your faith and to display His glory.2:21So what we read today in Acts, I want you to think about those two things. How is God saving His people to build their faith and then display His glory to the world? Because if we're honest, often we want God to deliver us and we could care less about faith.2:46We could care less about the glory of God. God, you just save me right now from whatever it might be. And God, we'll worry about the faith thing later. God, give me perseverance, but don't make me wait. God, deliver me from the prison, but don't build my faith. Or if you do, that's icing on the cake.3:13As they would say in Louisiana, that's lanyap, a little something extra. But is that not the way God's always worked? Think about through this gigantic narrative that we have in Scripture of God's faithfulness. You have the 10 plagues in Egypt. God's people are in Egypt for 400 years. They're crying out and God sends a man named Moses and He delivers them. And they go through different plagues, right?3:42So you get to the 10th and final plague, the plague of the death of the firstborn. And at what point does that plague take place in the day? At midnight. You say, well, God, why would you wait? God, why couldn't you just snap your divine fingers and make everything happen? And then you have the Israelites marching to the promised land and they get to the Red Sea. But God doesn't just part the Red Sea.4:10Boom, let's walk across. What happens? The people are there waiting and they look back and far in the hills they see this plume of smoke. And who's coming? The chariots of Egypt. God's enemies have now descended upon His people. And it's not until the people look back and cry out, God save us. We're doomed that God says, okay, I thought you'd never ask. Let me deliver you in your difficulty.4:39Think about King Darius in the book of Daniel. And he runs to Daniel and he says, Daniel, please tell me that your God has delivered you. Now that's a great question, is it not? But where was Darius running? He wasn't running to the flower shop or to Disney World. Where was Daniel? He was in the lion's den.5:07He was in the midst of his personal darkness. Now Darius did not know in that moment that God had shut the mouths of the lions. Now don't think for a second that the lions were full. That's why they didn't eat. Because those that had perpetrated this divine plot, they were thrown in the lion's den and immediately the lions ate. As they say in the south, they were hungry. But he was in need and God delivered him.5:36So as we read this scripture, think about those divine patterns. Because you're going to see again that at midnight, God shows up. And maybe you're there. Maybe you walked in today and you feel like I am a dark place in my soul. And so my prayer for us this morning is going to be two things. God, build our faith and display your glory. And if that means that we go through chains,6:05God, build our faith and display your glory. God, if that means that my children would one day go and they would go and live in a foreign nation that is hostile to the gospel. Lord, if that's what you want for them. Lord, build my faith and display your glory. God, if that means that I have to be uncomfortable and God means I have to do something that I don't want to do and I don't like.6:32God, build my faith and display your glory. Let's read the text. Acts 16 beginning in verse 23. We're going to back up. And then jump into this passage of scripture. The sermon entitled A Midnight Deliverance. Acts 16 beginning in verse 23.7:00And they severely flogged them. We ask who is them, Paul and Silas. They threw them in jail and ordering the jailer to guard them carefully. Receiving such an order, he put them in the inner prison and secured their feet in the stocks. About midnight. Isn't it beautiful how God does things at midnight in our lives?7:31About places of our soul. Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening. Suddenly there was a violent earthquake and the foundations of the jail were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains came loose. When the jailer woke up and saw the doors of the prison standing open, he drew his sword and was going to kill himself. Since he thought the prisoners had escaped.7:59But Paul called out in a loud voice. Don't harm yourself. Because we are all here. The jailer called for the lights. He rushed in. He fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. He escorted them out and said, Sirs. What must I do? To be saved. They said.8:31They said. Go to church and pay your tithe and join the church and then you will do right. No, no, that's not what they said. Look at the simplicity of the gospel. They said believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. There is not a more beautiful scripture in the whole world than that. Let's pray.9:00Let's pray. Father, we simply ask right now that you would build our faith and display your glory.9:28Lord, if it takes a prison, build our faith and display your glory. Lord, if it takes us remaining in a difficult spot so that others might know you, Lord, build our faith and display your glory. Father, your will be done in this place, in this moment, as it is in heaven. We pray these things in Jesus' name.9:58Amen and amen. So let's back up to where we began reading already today. We see the witness of God through the people of God. We've already found in the book of Acts and throughout the entire scriptures that no matter where you are, no matter what time of day you find yourself, that God is there. He's given you a glimmer of light. He's given you hope. And you might look around right now in your life and you say, well, I don't see Jesus.10:27God has given you a glimmer of his witness, a light to everlasting life. What a profound joy that we see in the scripture that even in the darkest of place, God is with us. And this was a very dark place that Paul and Silas found themselves in. Where are they? Well, they've been beaten. They've been flogged already, which was enough to kill some men.10:56And the jailer puts him in stocks. Now, don't think of this as these little handcuffs that you buy for your kids that you can get out of them with or without the key. No, these stocks would have been made of wood or metal and they had several holes in them. So at the jailer's discretion, he could keep you comfortable or more than likely he could make you as uncomfortable as he wanted you to be.11:22And so this was a place of tremendous discomfort and agony. Some have even suggested that for some prisoners they would bound their feet and tie them upside down with your back laying on the ground and your feet up in the air. I sort of know how they feel. I had knee surgery years ago now. And I remember the next day after knee surgery, my knee would look like a balloon and I go to physical therapy and they unbandage it and I look like Frankenstein.11:52And this is what the guy told me. He said, you're going to sit down on this table. You're going to put your legs in the air and we're going to tie a rubber band around your ankle and you're going to pull. So what kind of torture is this? And how difficult. I wanted to scream. He looked at me. He said, why is your face red? I said, you tell me why my face is red. This hurts.12:21This hurts. Can you imagine having your feet there and living in that inner cell? And not only was it the inner cell, it was a place of darkness. So it would have been the lowest point in the jail. So it was the darkest place. And it was also the place because it was the lowest point without modern facilities that any sewer and any refuge would actually flow down and end up in that inner jail cell. And you thought your day was bad.12:50Dark place of the night. Dark place of the soul. And no matter how you say it, these were miserable conditions. Maybe you can relate. Maybe you to a place right now, you say, I'm not in a jail cell, but I'm in a miserable place. My relationships are broken. This addiction has ravaged my body. This illness is attacking. I feel like everything in my world is crashing down.13:19If that's you, know that Yahweh has given you a glimmer of his joy and his glory through Jesus Christ. He's given you that. Open your eyes and say, God, let me see. Build my faith. God, I don't want to have faith right now because I'm angry and I'm in a dark place and I'm in a place that stinks and I'm in pain. But God, build my faith and display your glory.13:46And in all of this, I have found that the darker my cell, the more beautiful is the light of Jesus Christ. The darker my heart, the more powerful I see the majesty of Jesus in me. So how? How do they react to this?14:16You might think, well, how does Paul and Silas get through this? How can they manage this place of difficulty? Verse 25 we see. At midnight, in a dark cell, in sewage and in stocks, Paul and Silas were praying. And I would have been so angry if I were their cellmates. I'm just trying to sleep.14:45It's midnight. Why are you singing? But I found this, the presence of the Messiah in them produced a song from them. Why are you singing, Paul? How could I not? Would be his answer. Because the presence of Christ in his life produced a song from his life. That's the witnessing of Jesus through us. And that's what's going on here in this passage. Tertullian, a Northern African church father said this.15:13The legs feel nothing in the stocks when the heart is in heaven. The legs feel nothing of the stocks when your heart is in heaven. Wow. And I'm wondering here as they're singing, can you imagine about 11:59? Paul looks over to Silas and says, "Hey, buddy, are you asleep?" You know, Paul? How could I?15:42It's not comfortable. Paul says, "I got an idea. A really good idea." Silas says, "What do you got, buddy?" And you see Paul. "La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la." Can you imagine Silas singing, "This is not going to get us out of here." And then Paul starts singing. And I'm just in my notes, you know, I'm thinking this week, what are they singing? I want to know. What radio station, were they listening to talk radio?16:09Was it, was this a Christian radio station? I can just only imagine Paul singing this. Some of you don't know this song. It's an old hymn. But it goes something like this. "Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save." Anyone ever heard that song before? Some of you have. As a little child, I thought, why, because I love transformers.16:36And I said, "Why are we singing about machines in church?" And so my parents sat me down and said, "No, rescue the perishing, not transformers." And I can just imagine like, "Lord, we want to be rescued. God, we want to sing." And I can imagine Silas saying, "No, I got one better. This song is going to deliver us, Paul." All right, here we go. "My chains are gone. I've been set free."17:05And I can just imagine them go back and forth, singing songs of their heart. And can you imagine the guys who are listening in verse 26 and 25? They're probably thinking, "Stop! Stop with the singing. Stop with the madness." Why did they sing? Because in their singing, they acknowledge God's character and their trust in Him. This is the power of Christ, witnessing through His people.17:32That we can have a song at midnight. Now, you want to live differently? People expect you to sing when you're in the choir, don't they? They don't expect you to sing when you're in the jail cell. Sing for the glory and the majesty of God. Even when things are falling apart, we can say, "But God, you have radically transformed my heart." And maybe some of you right now have walked in here and you need to sing to the goodness of God.18:02Not because everything is roses around you, but because your heart has been transformed by the spirit and the power of the one true God. And I just encourage you today, sing for the Lord. You see, I can't carry a tune. Sing for the Lord. My legs are bound to chains. Sing for the Lord. My faith is in shackles.18:31Sing for the Lord. And I found in my life that when I begin to sing, you know what happens to my ears? They hear that song. And the ears are reminded of what's already in my heart. Oh, that we would be witnesses for the glory of God. Let God work through you today. Let Him work. So what happens? They're singing. You don't see this in the movies, right?19:01They're not singing and then jail cells open up. Suddenly, there was a violent earthquake. Now, this is what happens in the ancient world and in the New Testament, especially. If you want an angel or an earthquake to show up, throw a Christian in jail. That's what's going to happen, right? Throw a... God is going to show up. And so we should not worry if we're thrown in jail one day for our faith. Because you're going to experience an angel or an earthquake.19:31That's the power of Christ. And earthquakes in the Hellenistic world, in ancient Greece, they were seen as objects of divine judgment. So when this earthquake happens, the prisoners say, "God is doing something." The earthquake is so violent, it breaks their chains and it opens the jail cell. Now, what do the prisoners do? At that point, I'm singing a new song.20:00I'm singing a song about running as fast as I can. But they stay. And the jailer comes into this and what does he do? He wakes up, he sees the doors in verse 27 of the prison standing wide open. He draws his sword and he is going to kill himself. Now, let me tell you something about this jailer. He would have been a blue collar man of conviction.20:28He would rather die by his own sword than to accept the shame of losing his prisoner. Now, typically in the Roman world, those that had prestige and those that were really good soldiers were given jail cells to operate from Caesar himself as a retirement gift. Can you imagine? Happy retirement, here's your prison. But it was actually a very cushy job and it paid well and it gave you authority.20:56And he could not take the shame of seeing his prisoners escape. And with all of this going on, Paul cries out what? "Don't do it!" Scholars debate whether Paul could physically see him or spiritually see him. But no matter the case, the Spirit of God is working through Paul to save this man and his family.21:21And what happens when he tells them to stop, to halt? He says, "Don't harm yourself." Because what? We are all here. Now, here's a fantastic thought in all of this. Who's in jail? Paul and Silas. Who's not in jail?21:50The jailer. Who's free? Paul and Silas. Who's in his own prison? The jailer. You know, often you can't tell who's free or not by their circumstance. Paul and Silas had true freedom because they had given their life to Jesus Christ. They had freedom when the chains were on. They had freedom when the chains were off. They had freedom when the jail was closed. And they had freedom when the jail was open.22:20And this prison guard, he was living as a free man. But in his heart, he was in turmoil because he did not have living hope. And I don't know where you are today. But maybe you look like the jailer and you look free, but inside you are ravished. I want you to know that Jesus loves you. Don't harm yourself.22:48Don't do it. Jesus will save you. He will redeem you. And maybe you're on the other end. Maybe you look like the world has just crushed you this week. You know what? Seeing for the glory of God. Seeing for joy in that. This is the witness of God working through us. And the jailer sees the power of the Holy Spirit. And what does he do in verse 29? He calls for the lights.23:17He rushes in and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. He escorted them out and says what? Sirs, what must I do to be saved? How can I have this? I want what you have. And then Paul delivers the message. Paul delivers the message, but the message was not his. God was the agent.23:47God was the power. God was the one that was changing his heart. This is the work of God in us. He was asking Paul, Silas, how can I have what you have? If this is God, I want it. If this is the power of the Spirit, that he can cause you to sing songs.24:12When you should be cursing, I want it. When you could have run free, but you would rather the presence of God. How can I have that? This is the power of God working in us. And this is what Paul says very clearly. He gives him a simple expression of the gospel, but it expresses the core of a salvation response.24:40He doesn't overcomplicate it. Church people hear what Paul does. He doesn't say, well, sit down and let's go through the Ten Commandments and let's run through this tract and make sure you follow these rules and make sure you join this church and you have to read this Bible and over and over and over again. What does he say?25:10Believe. Because what does Paul know about the beauty and the majesty of Christ? That if you believe, everything will change. Everything will change. And one of the greatest privileges I have as a pastor of seeing people's lives change like this. God working. I was here on Friday, this Friday night and praying and leading others and serving along with people from our church.25:37And this lady comes up and she says, I don't know if I died tonight, whether I would go to heaven or to hell. And my response was simple. I said, you can know because God wants you to know and he wants you to be in a relationship with him and he's already made the way. And so before she left, by reading the Bible on her own, she confessed the Lord Jesus Christ as her personal savior.26:00That's the power of God working in us. And I don't say it to say, look at us. I say, look at God. And so I asked her before she left, she closed the Bible and I said, if you died right now, where would you go? She said, I would go to heaven. I would be with God. I said, why? She said, I don't deserve it. But Jesus took my place.26:29And I said, praise God for that truth. That's the power of God working in us. So I want to quickly look. The jailer is not the only one that's saved here. So let's quickly walk through Acts 16 because we find in verse 11 another lady named Lydia. Lydia is wealthy. Lydia is wealthy. She's driven. She's an intellectual, a God-fearer who has opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying.26:55And so she asked him again. The Lord opened her heart and she was baptized and she urged us, if you consider me a believer, come to my house and come to stay. Lydia was a dealer of fine, fine purple fabric. Now, having a wife as an LSU graduate, she loves this story.27:22She's not here today, but I'll tell her, God doesn't say we all have to wear purple. Just Lydia, right? But some scholars have even suggested that the fabric was so fine that the fabric from Lydia's community was the official toga sponsorship of the Roman Empire. So she was wealthy. She was someone that we all probably would want to be independent, wise, wealthy.27:50She had a house in Logan Martin, she had a house in Miami and she had a house in New York because that's where she did business. And this is someone that we would say, wow, they're moral and they're a God-fearer. But here's what Lydia found out. She was trying all these religious ideas. And when Paul comes, she realizes that religion is an outside-in fix, but it can't fix anything. And Paul shares the message of the gospel and the message of the gospel is what?28:18It's an inside-out transformation. And Lydia says, I want that. So Lydia, who was moral and wise and wealthy and independent, she lived the American dream before the American dream was even dreamt. She realizes it's not an outside-in experience. That Jesus changes your heart and everything else changes.28:47Lydia comes to faith in Jesus Christ. And maybe some of you today can relate to Lydia. That you're trying these outside influences and you just feel lonely and you feel empty because you can't do it on your own. Give your life to Jesus. Well, not only do we have Lydia, but we have another young lady. And she was the opposite of Lydia. Look at, again, in chapter 16. We see it right here in verses 16 and following.29:17We find a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. If you can do that with accuracy, you're going to be a millionaire. And so she was put into bondage and captivity. And her owners, those who enslaved her and were abusing her and mistreating her, they were wealthy.29:39Now this young lady was demonic, but even the demons know that Jesus is Lord. And so she's following Paul around. She's not only an outcast in society, but she's obnoxious. And what is she doing here? But she's saying in verse 17, she's going around following them and crying out.30:06These men who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation are the servants of the most high God. And she did this for many days. And here's one of the most honest verses in all the Bible. Paul was greatly annoyed. Now, looking back, he's probably thinking, Lord, I wish I could have. You could have just written Paul spent weeks fasting for her and cast out the demon.30:32No, Paul turns around and basically says, stop it. Sorry. Sorry, mom. Stop it. And he rebukes the demon and this young lady who was an outcast, who was abused, who had just a horrible life and in bondage.30:53God delivered her by the glory and the power of Jesus Christ. A wealthy business owner, an abused outcast. And then we see this third person, this jailer. He's a secular man. He didn't want sentiment. He wanted honor, right?31:22He's going to kill himself. I would rather kill myself than take the shame of losing any prisoners. But he was indifferent spiritually. You know what you do with men like this? You don't tell them the gospel. You show them the gospel. They need to see the power of God working out. Let me tell you about a first century prayer for a Jewish man who would have been Paul. You can go back in the Talmud, the Babylonian Talmud, and there are prayers that go like this for the first century Jew.31:48Listen to this carefully. Not my prayer. God, thank you for not making me a Gentile, a slave and a woman. Not my prayer. Don't send emails to me. And in the moment of Paul sharing God and God working through him and working in people, who comes to salvation?32:13A Gentile, a slave and a woman. Christianity has done more to break the bondage of our stereotypes, to give freedom to those who have no freedom than any other mechanism that the world could ever dream of.32:29It's around the table and the fellowship of Jesus Christ that enemies come together. That a man who used to pray, God, thank you for not making me a Gentile or a slave or a woman, is now in this same city, in the same church with a Gentile and a slave and a woman declaring that God is good.32:55Because he built their faith and he displayed their glory. I don't know who you are or where you are, but if God can save a Gentile and a slave and a woman of wealth and a Pharisee, he can save you. This is God working in you.33:24When was the last time you knew that the Messiah worked in your life? We should long forget the days where we tell our testimony. Well, I was saved when I was 10 and nothing's happened since then. We should be able to say, God radically changed my life years ago, but let me tell you what happened today. Let me tell you what happened to yesterday. And if you want to go back to a long, long time ago, it'll take us a long time. But let me tell you about God working in me now.33:54This is the power of Christ. And if he is not working in you today, you need to ask yourself very clearly and poignantly, God, do I know you? Am I saved by you? Because God, you want to work in me. Let's look at verse 33. God, his spirit witnessing through you, God wanting to work in you. And now let's look at God working upon you. See how this order works? It didn't say he cleaned up his life and came to Jesus.34:23It said he was saved. And now look at verse 33. He took them the same hour of the night. So how long did it take this man to obey? He believes in Jesus Christ and he obeys when? Immediately. Wake up, church. If we are waiting to obey God, delayed obedience is disobedience. And what a beautiful reminder. If you are waiting today to obey God, just pray the jailer's prayer.34:52Let me believe and let me obey. I'll let you figure out the rest. He took them the same hour of the night. He washed their wounds. And right away, he and all his family were baptized. And he brought them into his house. He set a meal before them. And he rejoiced because he had come to believe in God with his entire households. What would the jailer say? Again, an early church father says this about the jailer.35:21John Chrysostom. He says that the jailer, he washed and was washed. He washed them from their stripes. And he was himself washed from his sins. See, the gospel doesn't say clean yourself up and then come to Jesus Christ. Jesus says if you are at your darkest place and if you're in a midnight of your soul, come to Jesus.35:49Find hope. Find restoration. And then everything else will change in your life. This is the power of God working upon you. Did Paul lecture the Roman guard and ask him to change his life? No. Did he tell him that he needs to go rectify all of his wrongs?36:15No. He tells him believe. Change your heart. Give your life to Christ. When God works in you, then he will work upon you. And I would say this. If God is not working upon your life, has he worked in your life? We should be brutally honest with people when we do not see the power of the Spirit of the living God in them.36:41We should say, well, I don't see it. Do you know Jesus? Because if you know Jesus, then he will change your life. He will work upon you. Jesus causes jailers to take prisoners into their homes. Does that make sense? That the prisoner would go into the prison guard's home the same hour. The man who brutally chained them up.37:11How do you explain that, church? You don't. Other than say it's Jesus. He built his faith. And he displayed his glory. I was talking with a young man last month in our community. And I'm not going to give a lot of details. But this young man just began to weep with me.37:40And he said, Pastor Josh, I made a decision for Christ when I was a young man. But he said, I don't know if there's been a change. And here was my, hopefully, hopeful response. I said, I can't figure that out for you. But if you seek the Lord, he will reveal to you through the Holy Spirit what you need to do.38:07I see this young man a couple weeks ago. He says, Pastor Josh, I want you to know that I've given my life to Jesus Christ. I said, praise God for the Spirit working. What does this young man, a man who is younger than most of us in this room, what did he understand fundamentally?38:33He said, if I don't see the power of God working upon me, I can't be sure that God is working in me. And he said, I want that. I want this Jesus. I want to be different. I want to be like this jailer who would go to the prisoners and say, come to my house. Can you imagine his wife? When he called her and said, hey, honey, I'm bringing some guests home tonight.39:02Who are they? The jail cell. I don't know about your wife, but that wouldn't have gone well for me. And she's going to say, well, why would you do that? Because they saved me from killing myself. And they told me about this Jesus who died on the cross for my sins. And honey, you'll never believe this, but they were in jail singing because they had more freedom than I did.39:31I was outside the jail. And I wanted that. And listen to this, honey. If you would confess your sins to Jesus, he will forgive you of your sins and you have new life. And I can imagine she looked at him. She said, we got to tell the kids that these criminals are in our home. And they sat their kids down.40:01They said, hey, the criminals are here because there was a man who was crucified as a criminal. But he didn't do anything wrong. And his name is Jesus. And if you believe in Jesus, he'll change your life. This is the power of God working upon you and in you and through you. Do you know this Messiah? God loves you. God loves you and he is calling you to himself.40:27That verse 34. He brought them into his house. He set a meal before them and he what? He rejoiced. He rejoiced. He rejoiced because he had come to believe in God, he and his entire household. Do you believe? Do you believe? Do you believe that God sent his only son to pay the price of your sin?40:55That if you would confess your sins to him, that he would offer you abundant, free life. That is grace. You say, well, I don't deserve it. You're absolutely right. That's why it's grace. And it is freely offered to all who will believe and accept it. Maybe you're here right now and you feel like you're in stocks.41:21Would you sing today? So you don't understand how much discomfort I'm in. Would you sing? You don't understand how angry I am at how the world is. You don't understand those who have abused me. I feel like I was a slave girl. Would you sing for Christ? Not for the world, but for Christ. Sing in the stocks.41:51Because when Christ has worked in us, we will sing and he will sing through us. So maybe your response to God today is, God, I don't feel like it, but I am going to sing. And when I sing, I want my ears to hear it. And I want my heart to, again, to rejoice for you, my God, and my salvation. Maybe you're here right now and you need to be like Paul.42:18And you've been praying, God, if you would just open those doors and let me free of this struggle, I will do anything for you. And God says, okay, I'm going to open them, but you stay right where you are. Because it's not about you, but it's about that man. He needs Jesus. It's about that jailer. And he's going to kill himself. But don't leave the jail cell because if you left, he would kill himself.42:46And I want you to be discomforted in this moment that you would call him to faith. Are you willing to surrender your preferences and your likes and your wants so that others might know Jesus? The church is worth it. Oh, that we would sing the glory of Christ. Even in the darkest prison, the light of Christ can shine.43:16Let's pray if you would bow your heads with me. And as I pray, if you would just honestly say this morning, I feel like I'm in the prison, but I want to sing. If you would just raise your hand, I want to pray over you right now. If you would just say, Pastor, I want to sing. I don't feel like singing. I can't carry a tune, but I want to sing for Christ in my life.43:45If you just raise your hand up and raise it and put it back down, I want to pray over you this morning. I see your hands. God bless you guys. I see your hands. God bless you. Maybe you're here today and you are struggling with your faith. And you don't know, like this young man I talked about, you don't know if you're saved. You can get your life right with Jesus right now. He's already made a way for you.44:15If you would pray, if you would humble yourselves and ask forgiveness of your sin, you can pray a prayer like this. God, I know I've messed up, but I know that Jesus has made a way for me. And today I want to believe. Help me believe.← Previous in ActsSunday, June 30, 2019Next in Acts →Sunday, July 14, 2019More sermons on Acts →
