Today Pastor Jordan starts part 2 of "What is a Church?"

Baptized Christ-Followers
Acts 16:16-34
By Pastor Jordan Hines

For this morning's scripture reading. We're going to be in acts 16:25 through 34. If you could all stand as I read.

But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. And the prisoners were listening to them. 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 chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul called out with a loud voice, saying, do yourself no harm, for we are all here.

Then he called for a light, ran in and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? So they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.

And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. Now, when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them.

And he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, allowed us to come here to your house to worship you and to learn from your word.

I just pray that you would allow our lives to be so filled with you that those around us can't help but ask us about our hope and joy, and that we'd be able to share the word with them, as Paul and Silas were able to do even in prison. I just pray that you'd allow us to just be focused on you this morning and just to listen carefully to what Pastor Jordan has prepared. Just help us to continue to think of you as we continue in worship and to just live our lives in obedience to you.

In Jesus name. Amen. If you have your copy of God's word, you can turn to acts, chapter 16.

If you remember correctly, we are in a series on the church called what is a church? And I have this working definition of the church as the church is a covenanted group of baptized Christ. To think about it not just as an abstract idea, but as something we ought to be doing. And I'm so thankful for this church and for what we are doing here.

I pray that we would be this covenanted group so that we would be united. We would be working together around this covenant for the gospel. And today, as we look at, as we review, we think of last week, we talked about the covenant and bride of Christ.

It was really a message about marriage and the church from Ephesians 522 33. And then this week we're going to see from acts chapter 16 that Jesus adds to his church through gospel conversion, resulting in obedient baptized church members. And we're looking at a template.

We're looking at a picture of what, what it looks like for Christ to grow his church. Not necessarily every single detail is going to be like our church because this is obviously the book of acts. It's very early church, but Jesus is using circumstances to bring the gospel to people.

He's using people who are willing to be servants of God in a difficult circumstance. It's sort of a how it's made. Perhaps this is how Jesus adds to his church.

He uses even difficult circumstances, like Paul and Silas being put in jail. And the prayer for us today is that we would be preaching the gospel, sharing the gospel, no matter what, just like Paul and Silas did in this early church. Let's pray and ask the Lord that he would help us to do that.

God, I pray that we would look at the picture of this church in Philippi and that we would see how effective you were in building your church. I hope. I pray that we would see ourselves in Paul and Silas, that we would see ourselves as evangelists.

And no matter what circumstance we are in, I pray that you would genuinely work in our hearts to bring us to that place where we want to serve and praise you no matter what. I pray that as a church, we would see that kind of growth in ourselves so that we can see growth in numbers as well. But God, first and foremost, I pray that you would help us today to worship you, to be right with you, to walk with you faithfully.

In your son's name, we pray. Amen. Acts, chapter 16 is a unique place in the church.

It's obviously early church. Last time we were in the book of acts, we were talking about Pentecost. And this is obviously post the post Pentecost.

And Paul is now Paul. He was Saul, now he's going to the Gentiles, and the gospel is going out to people, and now the gospel is going to Philippi, because there's no longer this peace that we talked about in Jerusalem where there was less conflict with the church. Now the word has gotten out, and the conflict with the roman society and the culture of Philippi is against the church.

And we come to a place where the setting is crucial. Here, the understanding of our context, our setting is crucial so that we can see where Paul and Silas are. Join me in this setting.

Verses 16 to 18 says, now, it happened as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her master's much profit by fortune telling. This girl followed Paul and us, that's Luke, and cried out, saying, these men are servants of the most high God, who proclaimed to us the way of salvation. And this she did for many days.

So we're here in a town of Philippi, and it happened here as they went to prayer. Now they're praying in the house of Lydia. If you read the first chunk of chapter 16, you find that Lydia is converted, and she is one of the first members of the churches, of the believers that would become the church at Philippi.

And this church is built on a difficult situation, on persecution. And we come across the problem in the passage. The problem here is that there is a ministry detractor.

There is someone who is getting in the way of the ministry of Paul and Silas. And it's a slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination. So she's telling people's fortunes.

She's. She is being used by an evil spirit, by a demon, if you will, to be of a hindrance to the gospel. And she's making money.

She's being profitable for her masters, and she is not working for the gospel. It says in verse 16 that she met up with Paul and Silas. There was a confrontation.

She followed them. This girl was following Paul and Silas in the group, and she shouted this message. Now, when you first read this message, you might think this message is the truth.

Why is this something that's hindering the gospel? The message is in verse 17, the end of verse 17, in the first part of verse 18. And she cried out, saying, these men are servants of the most high God, which you would agree with, who proclaimed to us the way of salvation. We'd also agree with that.

And this she did for many days. The idea here is that she is drawing a crowd. People are seeing Paul and Silas and Luke and Timothy as well, and they're seeing them, but they're being over.

The message of the gospel is overshadowed by this woman just shouting and screaming. This message, and what's deeply ironic is that her message here is true. It aligns with scripture, and we find it elsewhere.

If you want to do this homework this week, you can look at this most high God and how the demons in scripture, often they tell the truth. They understand who Jesus is. They understand the name of Jesus.

Luke, chapter eight, verse 26, 39 talks about this. So does Matthew, chapter eight, verses 28 to 34, and mark five, one to 20. And although, and there's several more occurrences where Jesus is confronting a demon, and you'll be familiar with the idea of Jesus confronting a demon.

And legion is the name of the demon I'm thinking of where the legion is cast into these pigs and they're run off the side of the seashore and they perish. These demons know who Jesus is. They understand.

And yet this message is true. So just because this woman is, this young lady is shouting this message does not mean she believes it is true, because clearly she's taken away from the gospel. She's detracting from it.

She's becoming a distraction. This slave girl needs an exorcism. That's in verse 18.

And it's very interesting. It's probably one of the most relatable pieces of scripture here. But Paul, greatly annoyed.

It's pretty clear Paul is just bothered by this. He is annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out that very hour.

You see, this annoyance that Paul is addressing here is a demon, a spirit of divination that is hindering the gospel's ministry, is hindering what Paul is called to do. So Paul takes action. He turns to the slave girl and to the spirit of divination, especially here in the context.

And he commands this demon to come out of her in his own name. No, in the name of Jesus Christ, because that is the name that has power. That is the name that Paul is able to use and actually get something done.

Because all of Paul's ministry is not about himself. It is about the gospel. It is about Jesus working through him.

Paul's actions here in ridding this poor slave girl of this demon could have led to gospel opportunity with this young lady. We don't know for sure, but we know for sure that it led to some personal trouble. In verses 19 to 21, verses 19 starts with, but when her master saw that their hope for profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities.

And they brought them to the magistrates and said, these men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city, and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or to observe. What Paul had done here was ruin any hope for financial gain that these men had. They were taking advantage of this young lady, and now they want to take action against Paul because he has hindered their economy, hindered their wealth.

So they seize Paul and Silas and they drag him into the marketplace to the authorities, the magistrates, and they claim that they're causing trouble, they're causing a ruckus, they're bringing about problems in the community. They're teaching customs that are contrary to roman law and that they shouldn't even be witnessing or seeing or hearing about. It just shows that the gospel is counter-cultural, cultural.

It's something that the culture does not appreciate because it points out sin. It points out the faults in people's lives. And that's the whole point.

Because of our sin, because of our need for Christ, we run to him. The gospel is very confrontational, and any non confrontational gospel is not the gospel, because the gospel points out sin. Paul and Silas's personal trouble soon leads to actual legal trouble, as you can see in verse 22 through 24.

Then the multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them in into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

So Paul and Silas are feeling the consequences of their actions here. They're feeling the consequences of the gospel in their life. And this is just one of many difficulties that Paul and Silas would go through in their ministry.

And yet they do this willingly because they have done nothing wrong. They have shared the gospel and they take this punishment. But the crowd rose up against them.

In verse 22, the magistrates tore off their clothes and they beat them. They put stripes on them, and they were put in the innermost, darkest part of the prison with stalks on their feet. If you want to talk about lowest of lows, this might be down there, one of those situations where you can't imagine what it would be like.

But we understand as believers that we have the same hope that they had. We have the same understanding of the gospel, that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and he is our hope, he is our confidence, and we should be able to go through persecution confidently trusting in God. Paul and Silas did not know, they didn't know if they were going to survive this.

They didn't know what God would do in their ministry going forward. What they did was stay faithful. What they did was consistently preach the gospel, even through the tough circumstances.

So Paul and Silas have found themselves in tough circumstances and now they get a choice as to how they will respond. And this is sort of the main text for this idea that we're talking about today, that we are the church, that we are the baptized, the Christ followers. This is when the conversion begins.

This is the end of the context, if you will. How do they respond? Verse 25. But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

What a response that at this dark prison cell, perhaps it was cold because it was night and their feet are bound in stocks. Their response is to pray, to sing hymns to God. I'm sure that you have seen people go through difficult circumstances.

Maybe they've lost a loved one. Maybe they've gone through cancer. Maybe they've gone through a financial loss, even just recently.

You can think of the people who have lost their homes, lost loved ones in the tornadoes of this last week and a half or so. These people are being tested, are being challenged with how they're going to respond. And I'm sure there are people who have responded with great mourning, in great fear, and some who have gone to prayer in praise.

How we respond in trials matters because, as we'll see a little bit later, the Philippian jailer, the prison guard here, sees how Paul and Silas responds to this trial, and that is the reason why he feels confident, asking why he or how he can be saved. He sees their testimony. They sought the Lord, and he answered them in an amazing way in divine intervention.

In verse 26, suddenly there was a great earthquake, that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were open, and everyone's chains were loosed. And God unleashes a sequence of miracles here. The first miracle is this great earthquake, this earthquake that shakes the prison, that shakes the foundations of the prison in all these doors.

The second miracle, the doors are opened. Okay, so far, the prisoners are still in their chains. They're still locked, but the doors are now opened, which is some people could explain away as, oh, this is just.

Maybe the walls aren't quite the same as they were anymore. And some doors open. All the doors were opened, and then everyone's chains were loosed.

This last miracle, God is doing something. God is delivering them. But notice they don't run away.

The text could read that they ran away, and they fled, and they left Philippi in a hurry because they didn't want to get caught. No, they stayed, which is just baffling. And God used an earthquake here to free Paul and Silas from their bondage, and yet they stay, and they're causing this prison guard, this Philippian jailer, to panic in verse 27, as is very understandable.

And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open. Supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword, and was about to kill himself. The understanding here is that if you were to, as a prison guard, if you were to lose any prisoner, you would take on the punishment, the crime, for the crime that that person committed.

So if there was a murderer that you let go, you would then have to face the consequences. If there was someone who stole, you take the consequences of someone who stole. This man will was guilty, and he was asleep when this earthquake happened.

That's not a part of the job. But he was awoken in a panic. He saw the prisons, the prison doors open, and he thought, my life is as good as gone.

I might as well kill myself instead of being killed by the roman government. He was as good as dead. But then Paul gave him some good news.

His response in verse 28 says, but Paul called with a loud voice, saying, do yourself no harm, for we are all here. This is good news. This is physical deliverance.

All the prisoners were present and accounted for, which is another miracle in and of itself that these people around Paul listened to Paul, or they followed Paul's example at the very least, and they were still in their cells. They had not run away. This is an example of practical physical deliverance before we see spiritual change, conversion.

God used this circumstance to rattle this jailer's attention and to bring him to a place where he was ready to hear the gospel. In verse 29, he is very rattled. It says in verse 29.

Then he called for a light, ran in and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. He's so overcome with the emotions of the moment that he comes to Paul and Silas. And he just.

He can't help but tremble. His emotions are high, and he calls for this light so he can see everyone around him and see what's going on. He runs into the inner part of the prison, and he fell down.

This man is at his wit's end, and he's ready. He was ready to kill himself, and now he wants to verify what's going on. He was confronted by a near death experience, and now he asks a very, very important question.

Verse 30. And he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? Now, at first reading, it may sound a bit unprompted. Why would he ask this question? Why would he ask the question about salvation when he's just trying to do his job? Remember, Paul and Silas were singing and praising and shouting praise to God as well as praying.

They're singing the gospel. They're praying to God. They can't help but exclaim the gospel.

So as this prison guard seeks Paul and Silas, he knows that they're different. He knows that this isn't normal. So he asked them, what must I do to be saved? He had been saved from physical death, and now he asks about spiritual salvation.

And Paul responds in verse 31 and 32. So they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household. Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and all who were in his house.

The answer to the guard's question was, belief in Jesus Christ. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. It's a very simple message.

It's a message that we give out as Christians. It's a message that we understand to be true and live as true because of what God has done in us. And this goes to the guard, but also to his household.

This guard is the leader of his home. This guard is the one who sets the pattern for life in his home. And fathers here have a profound effect on their families.

Fathers here have an impact that goes way beyond this current generation. It echoes and echoes beyond into eternity. And his household is affected by the gospel.

Now, notably, this household would be thankful that their father, their husband, is still alive, but also that they would be able to see a difference in this guy's life. When this guy comes home, he's not the same man as when he left. He's different.

Have you ever seen someone before they get saved, and then after they get saved, you can see a difference in how they talk and how they have conversations with you and what they care about, and even just their facial expressions, there's joy. These people who are changed and transformed, who put their faith in Jesus Christ, are impacted in every part of their life. It changes everything.

The prison guards gratitude moved him to seek spiritual care from Paul and Silas. And this conversion here doesn't say, especially that he was saved because he prayed this prayer. He was saved because at this very moment, it just says the message was given.

The message was given to his household. And then he responds. You see, the result of this message changing his life.

The prison guards care for Paul and Silas is really impactful in verse 33 and 34. I think this is evidence of his salvation here, just how changed of a man he is. And he took them to the same hour of the night and washed their stripes, and immediately he and all his family were baptized.

Now, when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them and rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household, his whole family was changed. It was converted. They believed in God and were baptized.

This baptism is naturally tied to a person who is saved, the person who is saved and transformed and wants to declare to the world that they are a disciple of Jesus Christ, that they trust in this God, this message of hope. They were baptized. And this message challenged his heart and made him grateful to Paul and Silas.

Now, Paul and Silas did save his life, first physically by not running away. But also Paul gave them a message that saved his soul, which was much more of a great salvation than just saving his physical life. It was changing his life for all of eternity.

The jailer's ministry to Paul and Silas is shown evidence that his heart was changed. He washed their stripes, he gave them a good meal. But more importantly here, he had spiritual fellowship with Paul and Silas because they believed in God.

They were all baptized. They rejoiced together in the gospel. These people who formerly their relationship was prison guard to prisoner, now was brother to brother.

You can even think back to one of the series they did before on Philemon, how this prisoner, Onesimus, is now a brother in Christ. And that was the most important relationship in the restoration. It was not because the prisoner was deserving of reformation or deserving of reconciliation, but it was because they were a brother in Christ that their life was changed, that they were different.

And this church in Philippi grew one member, and we're looking in the book of acts. So it's important for us to note that the churches in the book of acts look different than they do today. So it's likely possible that this man could have started a.

A church in his home or even joined the church that Lydia, from verses one to 15 of chapter 16, was a part of. But these little house churches were places where they fellowshipped, were places where they worshiped, places where they sang songs and they prayed. And these people were doing the same activities that we are doing today in a different culture.

And these people were being added to the church through gospel conversion. They spoke a different language, they looked different than we do. They went different places, they worked different places.

But these people were being added to the church and they shared in the gospel. It's amazing that we can relate to people 2000 years ago who lived in a very different culture and time, and we can know that we will see these people someday. We can trust that God is still building his church through this genuine gospel conversion that results in obedient baptized church members.

A baptized part is important. We've spoken somewhat at length on baptism in the last few, several weeks, so we're not going to hammer that home today. But baptism is important because it symbolizes, it shows to the world.

It declares to the world, I am a follower of Jesus Christ. If I'm not willing to tell the world who I am and stand up as a believer and say, this is who I am, I'm not changing, then what does that say about my testimony? If I'm not willing to back up what I'm saying and say no matter what, I'm going to be held by this standard. That's why the people who were baptized were standing in front of you.

As the church, it is your job to look at their life. And if they are not living up to that of a disciple, the testimony of a disciple of Jesus Christ, you are to say what's going on, because I know that you claim to be a believer, that you claim to be a Christian. Why aren't we living this way? And this is what God's word says about the sin that we see in your life now.

It's done in love and understanding, but it's also done out of concern so that they might walk in Christ together. Baptism is important not to save the person, but a natural response to being saved. And as Jesus adds to his church, there was the understood result, in fact, in the great commission, which we'll see next week, is that you're commanded to baptize people.

And as a church, we're responsible to baptize those who are saved, to baptize those who want to follow in obedience. We're responsible to preach and teach a simple gospel like it was preached. In this passage, we are called to never back down from sharing the gospel or praising God, even in the face of difficulties, especially in difficulties, because Paul and Silas testimony was bolstered by the fact that they were in prison.

So it wasn't just that they were able to proclaim and share the gospel when it was easy. It was that they were able to proclaim the gospel when it was hard. We were called to trust God in all of our trials.

We're called to share in christian fellowship with new brothers and sisters in Christ. Think about Paul and Silas perspective here. They were in prison being guarded by this man.

It would be easy to hold a grudge against this person even after sharing the gospel with them. There might be this kind of weird relationship where, oh, you were making sure I didn't run away, and you were maybe the one who put the stocks on my feet. And you could have been the one who caused this physical harm to me.

And yet the gospel united them. The gospel made them one in Christ. So as we ask the question, what is a church? Over the next few weeks we need to ask ourselves, are we being the church that we find in these passages? Am I being the church member? I need to be that we find in these passages.

Am I like Paul and Silas? I think there are times in our lives when we are and times that we are not like Paul and Silas. We can get scared, we can get fearful, we can run away from opportunities that we ask for to share the gospel. And we need to look at these examples and grow and understanding of who God is and know that we can be confident no matter what happens.

I pray that our testimonies would not just be a status on our Facebook page, but it would be something that we live by. Any of you who are trying to live this life faithfully, don't give up. Paul and Silas did a long, hard ministry.

If you look at the ministry of Paul, you can see that he was resilient. He did what he had to do to get the gospel out. He was faithful.

It's not always going to be easy, but we need to trust God. We need to walk with him. And that includes today.

Let's pray. God, I ask that you would impact our hearts with the truth of your word. That as we look at the testimony of a man named Paul and his partner Silas, I pray that you would help us to see that you're still working, that you still are saving people, and that even through difficult circumstances, you want us to proclaim and share the gospel because that's how you're building your church.

God help us today to worship you in song and help us to have fellowship and learn much from Sunday school. In your son's name, we pray this. Amen.