Sermon – "How Can I Be Saved?" – Acts 16:16-34

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Sermon – "How Can I Be Saved?" – Acts 16:16-34
Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Churches
March 16, 2010

Listen to this sermon.

Good morning and welcome to Beaver Dam church on this wonderful Lord’s Day, the seventh Sunday of Easter and, traditionally, the Sunday when we think about the ascension of Jesus to heaven. Since Easter Sunday we have been looking at the Book of Acts and we have been amazed at the transformation we see in the disciples of Jesus Christ. This showed that something amazing had happened, namely the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. Last week we saw how all of this motivated the Apostle Paul to begin evangelizing gentiles, with Lydia being the first convert to Christianity in Europe. Today we will watch as Paul continues to evangelize gentiles in Philippi. This will give us clues about how to evangelize the unchurched of Pocomoke. But first, let’s pray.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

Acts 16:16-34 16 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17 This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved." 18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" At that moment the spirit left her.

19 When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. 20 They brought them before the magistrates and said, "These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar 21 by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice." 22 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. 23 After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24 Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose. 27 The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul shouted, "Don't harm yourself! We are all here!" 29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.

30 He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

31 They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—
you and your household."

32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and
to all the others in his house.

33 At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds;
then immediately he and all his family were baptized.

34 The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them;
he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God-- he and his whole family.

In today’s scripture we see Paul interacting with gentiles in Philippi. With Lydia they brought a believer to faith. But now Paul was meeting non-believers outside of the synagogue. These people were not familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures found in our Old Testament. They did not believe in the Lord, God of Israel. And they had never heard of Jesus Christ. So let’s look at what happened when Paul began meeting them.

The first person Paul ran into was a slave girl telling fortunes. We are told that she had a spirit, literally the spirit of a python. This was a reference to the Oracle of Delphi, who in ancient times would predict the future from the Temple of Apollo. She would sit over a fissure in the earth, breathing ethylene gas and in a drug haze tell people what they wanted hear. Most of the Oracle’s predictions were vague and ambiguous. This is what we see in Philippi near the synagogue. This slave girl keeps telling Paul and his companions that they were “servants of the Most High God”. This could be a reference to the God of Israel, or it could refer to Zeus – ambiguous. This fortune telling eventually annoyed Paul and so he helped the girl. Scripture says he casted out the spirit. Maybe he helped her to get away from the drugs that kept her enslaved.

When people are enslaved by drugs or alcohol they often only recover with the aid of God. This is an important principle of twelve step programs like Alcoholic Anonymous. When people realize that God is the only answer to their enslavement they are usually ready to talk about faith. This gives us an opportunity to reach out to recovering addicts and invite then into the community of the church. Sadly, we have no record that this slave girl in Philippi ever came to faith. Even though there is no guarantee of success when we reach out to addicts we must still share our faith with those who have finally realized that substance abuse is actually worship of a false god and invite them to find the true God in Jesus Christ.

The next people that Paul ran into were the owners of the slave girl and the magistrates in the market place. The slave girl’s owners were upset because she was no longer fortune telling and that their revenue had fallen. And the magistrate was upset because Paul was preaching the lordship of Jesus Christ and not the lordship of Caesar, and threw Paul and Silas into prison. Although neither the owners nor the magistrate would consider themselves slaves, but they really were. They were slaves to money and power. Paul made no attempt to bring the owners or the magistrates to faith because they were so tied to the worship of money and power they just would not be receptive to a message of faith in Jesus Christ. So sadly they never came to faith, and we never hear from them again.

Finally Paul ran into a prison guard. The prison guard slept through a divine earthquake which freed Paul from his chains. When he did wake up he saw the cell door open and realized that he had failed in his most important duty to guard these prisoners. This meant certain punishment and possibly death. Driven to despair, the prison guard was ready to fall on his own sword and die, but was stopped just in time by Paul. And this prompted the guard to ask the most important question in all of scripture, "What must I do to be saved?"

What must a non-believer do to be forgiven by God and receive the gift of eternal life? Here in church we all know the answer to this question. All of us could say, “Believe in Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” But how does a nonbeliever come to this belief? The process by which a nonbeliever comes to belief is called conversion. And let’s look at how the prison guard was converted to faith in Christ.

The first step in the conversion of the prison guard was to listen, with his family, as Paul proclaimed the word of God. Preaching and teaching of the Bible are essential ingredients in conversion. Preaching and Bible study open our hearts to the work of the Holy Spirit who delivers to us the gift of faith. This is why it is so important to invite nonbelievers to attend church and Christian education classes. In church a nonbeliever hears the word of God and then experiences the work of the Holy Spirit in his life. Knowledge of the gospel and experience of the Holy Spirit is the soil in which belief grows. So we here in the church must provide opportunities for worship and Bible study so the nonbelievers in our community can come to faith and be saved.

Notice especially that the prison guard does not come to faith as an individual. He receives the gift of faith as part of a family. This is why it is so important to have programs in place for people of all ages. Even children and youth need to be taught Bible stories so that they too will come to faith and be saved.

The second step in the conversion of the prison guard was his participation in Christian service. He washed the wounds of Paul and his companions. It is through service to others that our faith, which is first established in the hearing of the proclamation of the Word of God, is then strengthened. In service to others our faith grows into maturity. This is why it is so important to encourage new people in the church to participate in activities for the community. New people need to be invited to bring food for our coffee hours, or teach children in Sunday school, or help out at Samaritan’s Shelter. These activities turn intellectual faith into living faith. And remember that service opportunities must involve the whole family. That way children and youth learn how to serve others and this will strengthen their faith too. We are told in scripture that after the prison guard and his whole family heard the word of God proclaimed and participated in Christian service that they were then ready to profess their belief in Jesus Christ and be baptized into membership of the church.

Finally, the jailor invited everyone over to his home for dinner. This is the third and final step in conversion, being an active participant in Christian community. So new people coming to the church must be warmly welcomed into our groups for women and men. They must be invited to our coffee hours. New people have to be able to find new friends when they come to this church. So we must be a friendly and welcoming church that truly desires to build community with others here in Pocomoke.

So, what must someone do to be saved? The simple answer is to believe in Jesus Christ. The harder question is how can we help people to believe? The answer for this one is that we must provide opportunities for preaching and teaching, Christian service, and community building. If we provide these opportunities for people of all ages and begin inviting people to our church more and more people will come to belief and more and more people will be saved.

Lord Jesus, as your followers we ask for your help. Give our church the gift of evangelism so that we can better go into our community to proclaim the good news. Give us the gift of preaching and teaching so that as new people come to our church they will come to belief and be saved. Give us more opportunities to serve the poor and the needy in our community. Help us to reach out to our neighbors to create a Christian community at this church. We pray all this in your powerful name confident of your help as we strive to grow this church. Amen.

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