3 Lessons from Paul & Silas - Reverend Rici Skei Bell | Elk Grove

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Well, good morning, Midtown Elk Grove. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Somebody said, Who is this woman up here? Talking to us like she knows us. Well, I do. I do. My name is Pastor Reese Bell. I currently live in Fresno, California, but I get to serve the Pacific Southwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church. One of the things that I get to do of 138 churches, I get to support and encourage and equip 23 of those churches. And guess what, Midtown? Midtown is one of those churches. So I get to pray for you all. I'm all up in y'all's business. And I know we just met, some of us just met, but I'm in your business. I get to pray for you. I get to pray with your pastor. I get to uh buy y'all lunch and take care of other things and make sure that you all have whatever it is that you need to flourish. That's my job. So I work for y'all. I work, I get to work for y'all. This morning, I understand that you all are in a series that was started perhaps last week, a couple of weeks ago. And so I'm gonna be obedient to what the Lord is saying, and I'm gonna make sure that we stay on topic. Um, but I also I told Pastor Tyrone, I said, How much time I got? And he told me, I said, okay, it makes no sense for us to talk about being empowered by the Holy Spirit and then not make room to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. So we'll see what God does in this little bit of time that I've been given. And and and you know, to just be quite honest, you know, most of most of us seem to be cool with God the Father. We're good, big God. Some of us are okay with Jesus, you know, God the Son, we're okay with Jesus. But if we're being honest, we don't really know what to do with the Holy Spirit. Some of us are clueless, we don't really know. But when we come to God through Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit. In the Greek, it's it's the term uh paraklitos, or in the Hebrew it's the term aitzer, or in the English we say paraclete. But basically, this term refers to a person who is called alongside another. It includes this idea of one who assists someone else with benevolence and with strength. And the the the the Hebrew term aetzer is actually, it actually appears in the Old Testament 21 times. And two of those times that the that the term Aether is referred in the Old Testament, it actually refers to Eve's role in the life of Adam. Hello, women. In other times, it's describing God as the helper of the fatherless in Psalm 10, 14. Other times it describes God as the helper and deliverer of King David in Psalm 70, verse 5. Other times it's described as God is described as the shield and the helper of Israel in Deuteronomy 33, 29. And other times it's described as translated as helper and advocate and counselor and comforter. All that to say the Holy Spirit is here to help you when you feel helpless. Holy Spirit is here to advocate on your behalf when you are being accused and condemned by the devil. Holy Spirit is here to counsel you when you've been lost and when you need direction. And Holy Spirit is here to comfort you when you are in distress and when you feel discomfort. One of my favorite, I know we're not supposed to have favors, but I do, one of my favorite uh examples and demonstrations of who the Holy Spirit is and what he actually does is found in Acts chapter 16, and that's where we're going to spend our time today. Acts chapter 16, starting at verse 16. Says, once when we were going to the place of prayer, see this place of prayer, it wasn't a building, it was a gathering of people near a pure place, nearby water for ritual washing of hands before prayer. So once we were once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. Some say that this was a python spirit or a powerful demon. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune telling. She 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. Verse 18. She kept this up for many days, and finally, finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her. And at that moment the spirit left her. Verse 19, when her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace. That's the center of all civil activity at the time. They dragged him into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, These men are Jews, and they are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice. Verse 22. When we received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks about midnight. Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Verse 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 everyone's chains came loose. 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. But Paul shouted, Don't harm yourself, we are all here. You see, at the time the jailer knew that he would be held accountable for escaped prisoners, and so he was going to kill himself. Verse 29, the jailer called for the lights and rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? In the Greek, that's the term sozo, and it means to save or to rescue, to deliver, to keep safe, to pr to preserve, to cure, to make well. He says, What must I do to be saved? They replied, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. You and your household. Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night, the jailer took them and washed their wounds. Then immediately he and all his household were baptized. 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 household. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. So just for context, Paul and Silas were in the Roman colony of Philippi. Paul, you all remember the Apostle Paul, the one who uh once made a career out of persecuting the Church of Jesus Christ, the one who had a dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus, the socially prominent one who was of Jewish heritage, yes, but he had dual citizenship, Tarsus and Rome. Paul, the one whose Roman citizenship granted him protection actually from being bound and from imprisonment without a trial. Paul, one of the greatest church planters and missionaries to this day. And then there's Silas. Silas was one of few Jewish Christians who possessed Roman citizenship as well. He was a leading member of the early church, and he had great prophetic gifts and greatly encouraged and strengthened the church. These two, Paul and Silas and others, are in this agricultural center, and they are being taunted and mocked by an evil spirit that has taken up residence in a slave girl. And you know the story. We just read the story, but with one command spoken in the name of Jesus, the evil spirit immediately left. But what happened? The traffickers of this slave girl were livid. They were frustrated. They were so upset because why? They no longer had a way of making money off of her. So they accused Paul and Silas of being troublemakers. And thus they were stripped and flogged and thrown into jail. Let's talk briefly about what flogging looks like. We don't experience that today. But what did it look like back then? According to miscellaneous Jewish law found in Deuteronomy 25 and 3, flogging could not extend more than 40 times, or else it was considered inhumane. But Roman rule had no such law restricting the number of times people could be flogged. So an officials, officials flogged people with rods as a means to secure evidence of what they were being accused of, to humiliate the accused, and then to discourage the lawbreakers' followers from doing what they were accused of doing. And here's the thing: if a judge at the time was too easy on the lawbreaker, the judge then became guilty of that crime as well. So the punishment that Paul and Silas took was severe. Paul and Silas, they actually, though, they should have been protected from such punishment because of their Roman citizenship, but they were punished and thrown into jail anyway. I mean, at the end of the day, all the magistrates had to do was check the census rolls. It was that simple, but they didn't. What does this inner cell or jail look like? It was extra security and torture in this town jail. And there they were in an underground chamber and they had these stocks on their legs, and these stocks had several holes, allowing their legs to be forced wide apart to ensure greater security and greater pain. This wasn't just a typical situation that Paul and Silas were thrown into. But what happens? Paul and Silas are praying and singing, and what happens? There's a violent earthquake that loosens the chains of all the prisoners, and the jailer is eventually converted. As we read and reflect on this text, I can't help but to appreciate the full dependence that Paul and Silas had on the Holy Spirit. I can't help but be struck by the full confidence that Paul and Silas have in the Holy Spirit. And so this morning I want to suggest to you three lessons. Three lessons that stand out to me. I don't know, there may be more that stand out to you, but three lessons from Paul and Silas. For those of you who need to know that we're going to Disneyland before we get to Disneyland, let me just tell you: number one, we have authority from the Holy Spirit. Number two, we have freedom in the Holy Spirit. And number three, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit. The first lesson that we learn from Paul and Silas, we have authority from the Holy Spirit. Authority. We have the right to give orders. We have the right to make decisions. We have the right to enforce obedience. We have the right to do the very thing we've been empowered to do. Verse 18 says, Finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the Spirit, In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her. And what happens? At that moment, the spirit left her. You see, this female slave was a psychic and began mocking the evangelistic mission of Paul and Silas and others for many days. And Paul, he got fed up, y'all. He got fed up. And I don't know if if you've ever faced constant harassment from someone because of your faith or because of your method of ministry. I don't know if you've ever faced persecution simply because you decided to live on purpose. I don't know if you've ever been the target of insults and Facebook posts because you resolved to be about God's business. I don't know if you've ever been dismissed or disregarded because you were determined to live by the Spirit and to be led by the Spirit. But Paul was. Paul became so annoyed that with authority from the Holy Spirit, he recognized that evil spirit and he rebuked that evil spirit in the name of Jesus. Not in his own name, not in his own strength, not in his own power, but in the name of Jesus. Paul taught us that it's not enough to just know about the Lord, but we need to know the Lord. Be led by the Holy Spirit. Get to know the Holy Spirit. Be aware of his indwelling presence. Be sensitive to his promptings. Luke chapter 10, verse 19 tells us, I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy, and nothing will harm you. So we get to walk in our authority from the Holy Spirit. There's a story of a couple who was pastoring a church at the time, and they were pastoring sort of a larger church, and it was one of those churches where the pastors really couldn't be human. And so the different issues that they were facing, they would kind of keep it to themselves, but this one issue was just too big for them. They had a daughter who was addicted to drugs, and they got tired of the enemy having the enemy's hand on their daughter's life, and they they told the church, we're gonna have a prayer meeting Friday night at 7 o'clock. If y'all can make it great, that's awesome. Um, but we're gonna pray, and we're gonna pray for our daughter because she has been addicted to drugs for so long. Friday night comes, seven o'clock hits, the people are gathered and they're praying. Eight o'clock comes and they're still praying. Nine o'clock at night and they're still praying. 10 o'clock comes, 11 o'clock comes, and they're still praying, and finally at midnight, the back doors of the church flew open, and here comes their daughter saying, I knew y'all were in here praying for me because I couldn't get high. I knew it. I knew it. I couldn't get high because the people of God were in here praying for me. They realized that they had authority from the Holy Spirit, and that's the first lesson that Paul and Silas teach us. The second lesson that we learn is that we have freedom in the Holy Spirit. Freedom, lack of restraint or hindrance, the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. Verses 25 and 26 it says, About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and at once all the prison doors flew open and everyone's chains became loose. Now I don't know the content of their prayers or or the lyrics to their songs, but I do know that where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. There is freedom. Their prayers and hymns gave birth to a miraculous shaking in the spirit, and the prison doors opened, and everyone was set free. Everyone was set free. There is no doubt that there is power in prayer and there is freedom in the spirit when we pray, when we sing songs. When we pray sometimes, I mean, I don't know about y'all. Sometimes I call it prayer when really I'm just going to God and I'm like, do it. You got that? Do it. But what if I told you? What if I told you that that the term prayer and the activity of prayer in the Greek it's the is the term prosyuke? And really what it means is turning towards God, face to face, and exchanging a wish or a vow. It's an earnest face-to-face turning towards him and exchanging that vow or that wish with God. Is there anything that you have forfeited simply because you didn't make a vow towards God or exchange a wish with God? You had a great plan, you had a great program, you had a great idea, you had a great strategy, but you didn't pray. You were walking by sight, but not by faith. Philippians chapter 4, verse 6 reminds us and encourages us to pray about every aspect of our lives. The apostle Paul says, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Let me tell you something that I know, not something that I've heard. More can be accomplished through prayer than through your own works and deeds. Now, don't get me wrong, faith without works is dead. We do need to do the work, but more can be accomplished through prayer than through your own works and deeds. Why? Because prayer is the place where if you wait long enough, we receive instructions. If you wait long enough, we receive instructions. Let me tell you a quick story. Um years ago, I was I was preaching at a women's conference, and it was a like a y'all know how the women do. I don't know why we do this, but this is what we do. It's like a Friday morning service, and then a Friday night service, and then a Saturday morning service, and a Saturday night service, and then a Sunday morning service, and then we send everybody home. So it was five sermons that I had to prepare. Okay? And I was like, oh, this is just gonna be part one, part two. No. So I at the at the time I had a prayer room in my basement, and I went down there a couple a couple of days before we were leaving for the for the retreat, and I said, Lord, you know the assignment is too big for me, and you know that I'm exhausted. So in this prayer room, I'm gonna play my music, I'm gonna open my Bible, and I'm gonna go to sleep. I kid you not. By the time I woke up from that nap, all five sermons were written. Okay? Why? Because I knew that more could be accomplished through prayer than through my own works and deeds. Now I'm not saying I didn't study. Come on now. I didn't say I didn't prepare, but at the time I was, God, I don't have anything else to give. And He did it for me. And I'm not saying that prayer is some sort of like name it and claim it type of thing, and it's not wishful thinking, but it's substantiated hope. I told God, these are your women, you know what they need to hear from you, so you do it. And we exchanged that wish in that moment. So Paul and Silas are here, they are praying, they are singing hymns to God in jail. I don't know what has been your jail, what has been your inner cell, what stocks have had have held your legs bound. Perhaps you have been plagued by panic and worry, perhaps you need strength to be renewed. You need your physical uh state to be healed. Perhaps you need your faith in God to be revived. Perhaps you want your confidence in the Lord to be restored. Perhaps you want to be set free from fear and doubt that paralyze you. Perhaps you are discouraged today. I don't know what you came into this place feeling. I don't know what you came in here carrying, but can I just encourage you in this moment? If you can sing songs of hope while you are in despair, what song will you be able to sing when you experience encouragement? If you can sing songs of God's steadfast provision while you are struggling to pay your bills, what song will you sing when your finances become liberated? If you can sing songs of God's unfailing love and abounding grace while your friendships are falling apart, what song will you be able to sing once they are restored? If you can sing songs Of God's ever-present help in the time of trouble while feeling lonely and isolated. What song will you be able to sing when connections to healthy community come your way? Yes, sing songs of praise in the midst of your prison. Sing songs of courage in the midst of your captivity. Sing songs of breakthrough in the midst of being bound. Sing songs of miracles in the midst of your mayhem. Sing songs of triumph in the midst of your tragedy. Sing songs of deliverance in the midst of dilemma. And sing songs of strength in the midst of your struggle. And as you sing these songs, you will experience freedom in the Holy Spirit. Now don't be mistaken. This is not some spiritual bypassing or toxic positivity or a denial of the current reality that you are sitting in and that you are facing. This is not an escape from the realness of the situation. But you see, Paul and Silas were not singing these hymns for victory. They were singing these hymns from victory. The victory already belonged to them. Perhaps they were singing, We exist, we exalt thee, we exalt the Lord. I don't know what their song was. I don't know what their song was, and I don't know what your song is. Perhaps your song is Great is Thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. I don't know what your song is because I don't know what jail you are in. But whatever inner jail, whatever inner cell you find yourself in, I want you to know that you have freedom in the Holy Spirit. And here's the beautiful thing about it: that when you pray your prayers and when you sing your songs, everyone else around you who is bound will listen and will be set free. That's the beautiful part. Your prayer and your songs is not even really about you, it's about the people next to you. We have freedom in the Holy Spirit. And finally, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit. Have you ever gone somewhere? And you just didn't feel right about being there. And so you leave early and only to find out later that a robbery took place as soon as you left. You may say, Oh, something told me to leave. It wasn't something. That was the Holy Spirit in you. Say, get up out of there right now. Have you ever driven down a different road than your normal routine only to find out later that there was a fatal accident on the street that you typically drive down during that time? You say, something told me to make a left here instead of keeping straight. It wasn't something, it was a Holy Spirit in you. Have you ever intentionally, I'ma tell on myself right now. Have you ever intentionally tried to sin? And something inside of you just felt uncomfortable about it this time. You said, mmm, I don't quite have the taste for that no more. That's not something, that's the Holy Spirit in you, convicting you. You know him, you are aware of his indwelling presence, and you are sensitive to his promptings. You are empowered by the Holy Spirit. Empowerment. It's power given to someone to do something. And finally, in verses 31 and 32, we read, He then uh brought them out and asked, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? They replied, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. Men, that's a whole nother conversation for another time. Then they spoke to the the they spoke the word of the Lord to him and all to all the others in his house. Paul and Silas were empowered by the Holy Spirit to have hearts of compassion toward the very one who was hired to keep them shackled. I'm gonna say that again because some of y'all are at jobs right now and you're bickering with your boss. Paul and Silas were empowered by the Holy Spirit to have hearts of compassion toward the very one who was hired to keep them shackled. They were empowered by the Holy Spirit to lead him and his household to the saving knowledge of Christ. They were empowered by the Holy Spirit to remain obedient to their evangelistic mission in spite of the name, face, or race of the person needing salvation. They were empowered by the Holy Spirit to help the jailer transition from suicidal desperation to undeniable joy. They were empowered by the Holy Spirit to remain obedient to the call of God, even in the face of suffering and persecution. Acts chapter 1, verse 8 tells us, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. But if we are being honest, some of us are excited about being empowered by the Holy Spirit, but we would rather avoid being his witnesses to the ends of the earth because we have our favorites, we have our preferences, we have our biases, and some of us are not willing to lead our jailer to experience their own freedom. Nonetheless, we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit. Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20 tells us now to him who was able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine according to his power that works in us. We've been empowered by the Holy Spirit. My mom worked at DMV for 32 years, y'all. She's here. She worked at DMV for 32 years, and when she retired, this woman had the insane idea to open up an in-home daycare. She went from one circus to the next circus. Okay. But but here's the thing about her daycare. Because I would often visit, and so these these children one day, the kids one day, cute little kiddos, they had stuff everywhere in the playroom. It was just toys and I mean just stuff everywhere, okay? And so my mom, she she put on a little DVD. Back in the day, they had DVD players. She put on DVD, and there was this big dinosaur, like purple dinosaur. And this purple dinosaur started singing this song clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere, clean up, clean up, everybody do their share. And as soon as the kids heard the purple dinosaur singing this song, they ran to the TV and they sat down and they listened and they watched. And she said, No, no, no, no, no. Uh-uh. The point of the song is not to run up to the TV, get close, sit down and listen. The point of the song is to do what the instructions were telling you to do. Clean up. But before we go judging those cute little kids, we are the same way. We hear the word of the Lord, we hear his instructions, we hear what he's telling us to do, we read what he's telling us to do, and we run up close to the TV and we sit down and we watch and we listen. The point is to get up out of our seats and do what God has called us to do. Why? Because we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to do it. Again, when we come to God through Jesus Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit. And when we receive the Holy Spirit, guess what? There's evidence, there is fruit. We love to quote the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, good. We love to quote it. But guess what? When you're really walking in step with the spirit, next thing you know, you don't even want to do some of the same things that you used to do. You don't even want to go to the same places that you used to go to. You don't even want to talk about the same topics that you used to talk about. You don't even want to be around certain people. We call them boundaries. This is called I call it Holy Spirit telling you to get away. The Holy Spirit gives you more than just warm emotions and good and fuzzy feelings, but the Holy Spirit gives you power to do right and power to live right and power to act right and power to love right and power to forgive right. It's deeper than just oh, I felt good and warm and no. Can you forgive? Are you nice? Can you just be kind? You know, Holy Spirit empowers you to do that too. Holy Spirit empowers you to put your shopping cart back in the in the space we're supposed to go after you finish uh doing your grocery shopping too. Come on, come on, Holy Spirit empowers us, and as we join God on his mission, we may be mocked like Paul and Silas, we may be falsely accused like Paul and Silas, we we may be stripped and flogged in a sense, like Paul and Silas. As we join God on his mission, we may end up in jail with stocks around our legs. As we join God on his mission, don't be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on us to test us as though something strange is happening to us. As we join God on his mission, we may be insulted because of the name of Christ. As we join God on his mission, we are also participating in the sufferings of Christ so that we may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. So we praise God that we bear his name. Like Paul and Silas, praise God that we have authority from the Holy Spirit. Like Paul and Silas, praise God that we have freedom in the Holy Spirit. And like Paul and Silas, praise God that we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit. And so, God, we just thank you. We thank you right now, we thank you in this moment, we thank you that you are good and that your mercy endures forever and your faithfulness continues throughout all generations. God, we thank you for the authority that you have given us, we thank you for the freedom that you have given us, and we thank you that you have empowered us. And I just pray right now. I pray right now for my sisters and for my brothers. Perhaps they are lost, perhaps they don't know which way to go, perhaps they are wandering, perhaps they are wandering. I pray in Jesus' name that you would draw them so close to your heart that there would be no doubt, that there would be no apprehension, that there would be no reluctance around what you are saying their next steps are. Some are in major life transitions, even in this moment. Do we relocate? Do we switch jobs? Do we pursue this relationship? God, I pray in Jesus' name that their ears will be open to hear from you in such a way that they know it's you. They know it's you. And so, God, we thank you that you are perfect in all of your ways and you do all things well. We thank you that you are good. We thank you that you have great plans for your sons and for your daughters. And we just say yes. We say yes to your will, we say yes to your way. And even when it doesn't make sense, we will continue to obey you. And again, we thank you for the authority, we thank you for the freedom, and we thank you for being empowered in Jesus' mighty name. We pray, and all of God's people say, Thank God, and amen, amen, amen. Amen, amen. Can we give it up for Pastor Reese?