Amen. Thanks, Nick. Good morning, Eastridge. My name's Justin, and I'm the senior pastor here at Eastridge Community Church. And we just want to say thank you. Thank you very much. Honestly, uh, and and I do need to start with that that level of gratitude because I honestly had just been so overwhelmed with support and gratitude this throughout this whole week for being installed in this position and this role and this calling. Um, you know, I I have I'm not going to give an accepted speech because we only have 26 minutes. But uh, but we but but also I just want to say thank you to um uh to all of you for your your diligence and your servitude to the kingdom, uh for to the the board for their their leadership and and the staff. It's been amazing, um, and just to my family as well, that that their support has been uh felt throughout this whole process. And yeah, I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you. It's been a I've had a lot of gratitude this week um as as we've gone into this uh whole new lifestyle, this new world. So just yeah, thank you. It's a it's amazing, it's a privilege. Um it's something that I I uh I don't uh take like for granted at all. This is all something that I know God is calling me to do here at Eastford. So thank you. Um and then I also want to say thank you to our leaders yesterday who were here for this. Uh there was a uh a women's leadership kind of conference that was happening here yesterday, and it was uh an amazing time for uh these women to be poured into so that they can serve you as well. So thank you for attending, thank you for being a part of it. Um it was uh it was kind of a a a close-knit group of people, and we wanted to pour into them so that they could uh lead well here at Eastford. So thank you for them. Thank you for leading that, and it was it was amazing. So um last week we talked about how uh the with our story continues message series, how the gospel is not only for the Jews. And and there was an assumption that for a time that the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ was only for the Jews who were there, that they could, they were the only ones who could receive it and and respond to it. And then uh we met Cornelius and Peter preached to Cornelius and gave him the gospel, and he Peter had a vision about how the gospel is actually for everyone. And so we are continuing that idea today uh as we as we understand more about what it means to go out into the world and endure the gospel, to endure our hardships and our struggles and everything else for the sake of the gospel and the good news. But you know, something I need to say first, though, is that I as I as I'm exploring this idea and this concept, I'm I've noticed something about myself is that I can be very, very spiritual until something mildly inconvenient happens. You know, the the Wi-Fi slows down a little bit. You say, oh gosh, you know, or uh or the drive-thru takes a little bit longer than you expected. Or, you know, I can I have timed it out where I can drive from my house to Lincoln Park Middle School to drop Jude off for his swimming, and I know it's gonna take about maybe 10 to 12 minutes if I hit every single green. But if I hit a red, man, it that's that's like that's 25 minutes and a huge inconvenience in my life, even though that I have you know spent the time in prayer uh with God in the morning, and it's just like, okay, revival's over. I guess this is it. I'm done. You know, but really the you you know, we're we're patient for about four minutes, and then that five-minute mark hits, and we're like, okay, it's done. But you know, what comes out in those moments is very revealing because pressure exposes our foundations. Hardship reveals what we're truly standing on in our lives. And Acts 16 gives us uh one of the most incredible pictures in the Bible of what enduring faith actually looks like. You know, not theoretical faith, not church-building faith either, uh, not season, uh, not a season of faith. This is prison faith. This is pain faith. Midnight prayer on your knees kind of faith. Most people like myself can worship God when life is going really well, when we have that rhythm where we can worship and when prayers are answered, when the money is stable, when relationships feel healthy, and when the diagnoses are really good. When life is comfortable, worshiping is really easy. But what happens when the prayer doesn't get answered immediately? What happens when the pressure in your life increases? What happens when the suffering stays or when the frustration keeps on going? Because hardship has a way of revealing us as who we are in our core. Some people become bitter, some people shut down, some complain constantly, some drift away, albeit slowly, but drift away from God. And if we're honest, most of us naturally move toward complaint before we move toward worship, toward anxiety before we go to prayer, toward frustration before surrender. But Act 16 is what we're talking about today, is uh shows us another way of how to respond to that frustration, to those circumstances, because your response in hardship reveals your foundation. But before we even get into Acts 16, we have to go on a little bit of a side quest first because you know we're gonna be talking about this man named Paul. And just a few weeks ago, we were talking about someone named Saul, right? And so now we have to understand, okay, what happened to this guy? What where is he at? So a lot of people assume that Saul had this dramatic name change. You know, after his conversion, Jesus knocked him down, and and the Damascus wrote and said, From now on, you shall be called Paul. And that's not actually what it says, even though that'd be really convenient to say this is what happens. Uh there wasn't a lightning flash, there wasn't a heavenly name tag that was applied. Nothing like, congratulations, you've unlocked apostle mode. Now you're Paul. Okay? It's much more uh what actually happens is Saul, who was a Hebrew man, he was Jewish by faith, Jewish in heritage. His name was Saul, but he was also a Roman citizen from Tarsus. So he has a name, a Greco-Roman name of Paul. So he is he has both names. Uh it's likely that he had both of these names for most of his life. So Saul did not become Paul in the sense that he stopped being one person and suddenly became another. It's more like he had a name that fit his Jewish background and also a name that fit his Gentile mission field, what he has been called now to do. Because in Acts 13, as the gospel starts moving outward into the Gentile world, Luke writes, then Saul, who was also called Paul, says that. From that point forward, Luke mostly uses the word and the name Paul. Because the mission is shifting. It's going from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. It is not being localized only to Jerusalem and only to the Jews. We talked about that last week. So the name Paul now fits the mission. The man who once hunted Christians is now carrying Christ to the nations. The man who once tried to stop the movement now becomes one of its greatest missionaries. And by the time we reach Acts 16, Paul, who was Saul, is in Philippi. He's not just preaching in synagogues anymore. He is talking to a woman named Lydia by a river. He's confronting spiritual oppression. He's been beaten, jailed, and singing worship at midnight. So the name reminds us of the story. Saul was not renamed because he became impressive. He was sent because grace had transformed him. And maybe, you know, that's that's kind of the deeper point. God does not just save your soul. Although he does do that, and it's a miraculous thing that he does. He doesn't just save your soul, he transforms your life. Saul had a Jewish name and a Roman name, and God used both. And that's good for us because God can use your past without letting it define you. He can use your story without leaving you stuck in that story. He can take what used to be part of your old life and redeem it for his mission. That's why Paul can sit in a prison cell in Acts 16 and worship. Something he probably couldn't have done before. He knows his life is no longer his own. He has been rescued. He has been sent. And whether people call him Saul or Paul, the message is still the same. Jesus changes everything. Amen? Right? Jesus changes everything. So now we're reading in the book of Acts, in chapter 16, starting in verse 16. As we were going, now remember it says as we were going, because Luke is writing this, and Luke is with Paul. Luke is with Silas. As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling. So she was into some weird stuff. This slave girl was into some weird otherworldly things that we don't want to mess with. We don't want to mess that with that now today, even as a church. We don't want to be a part of this divination, this storytelling, this fortune telling, anything like that. This is not good stuff then. It's not good stuff now. Okay? So we have we have uh she was uh making her owners rich as a slave. She followed Paul and us, crying out, These men are servants of the most high God who proclaimed to you the way of salvation. And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the Spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. And they had brought them to the magistrates. They said, These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us, and asked Romans to accept or practice. The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in stocks. Now let's walk through this a little bit. Because what's happening here is Paul and Silas are in the city of Philippi. They're preaching the gospel, they're making the gospel known to these Gentile people. They're helping people, they're following God's leading. And they encounter this girl who is possessed by a spirit. And Paul miraculously casts that spirit out of her. And it leaves her immediately. Which sounds like the kind of thing that should end with a big celebration. You know, okay, this is great. She is no longer oppressed. She is free now. Now we can celebrate. But it it goes the opposite way. It creates opposition. Her owners are angry that they are no longer able to profit from her divination, for her being possessed by the Spirit. And now their income disappears. So they drag Paul and Silas before the authorities, and false accusations start flying around. The crowd joins in, and suddenly these men who are faithfully serving Jesus are publicly beaten. Severely, not lightly. The goal of them being beat was not so that they could have these wounds be shown. It was so they could physically be stopped. That they would be in so much pain that they would not be able to talk. So these men are beaten. Their backs are torn open, they're thrown into prison and not a comfortable prison, but the inner cell, which means that there is a lot of security. That they're thrown in the inside part of the prison so that they would have to go through many levels of security to even escape. Their feet are fastened in stocks, they're cold, they're bleeding, they're humiliated. And here's the part that should stop us as we keep on going. About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. I'm going to stop right there because this is not normal. This isn't what you do in prison. This isn't what you do when you are suffering from something. I mean, it's something that is supernatural. That they're doing this, that they're stopping and they are praying. And yes, praying happens in prisons, amen. It does happen. But singing typically doesn't. Singing is not the first thing that you hear when you go into a prison. But that's what's happening here. About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of God, and the prisoners were listening to them. The prisoners were listening to them because their foundation was deeper than their circumstances is why they were able to even worship at all. Their joy was not rooted in being comfortable. They weren't sitting in nice little chairs that allowed them to worship really well. When your foundation is in Jesus, suffering can shake you without destroying you. And notice this too. People always listen to suffering. You ever experienced that before where you're telling a story of something that you've gone through? Or why, you know, like medical stories are so uh in like intense when you want to really listen to them because something dramatic has happened. Like you won't believe this happen this happened to this person. But you kind of tell those stories too, and people are listening intently because there's suffering that's going on. There's something has happened. People are enthralled by it. And especially people listen when Christians are suffering. Because it means that the gospel is being moved. Anyone can praise God after a promotion. But what about after pain? Anyone can worship after a breakthrough, but what about in the middle of that heartbreak? Can you worship then? Are you worshiping in the middle of it? Let me keep on going. It says this. And 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 bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, Do not harm yourself, for we are all here. And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, 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 the house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them into the house and set food before them, and he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. So the earthquake happens. The prison doors fly open and chains become loose. The jailer wakes up and assumes everyone escapes. And he's about to kill himself. Because under Roman law, losing prisoners could cost him his life. It's the same reason why we don't see any Roman guards at the empty tomb for Jesus. Because they fled. They said, Oh gosh, I'm going to get in trouble for this. I'm going to be put to death. This is not good. I'm going to suffer because of my mistake. So he wants to kill himself, but Paul shouts, Don't harm yourself. We are all here.

What?

Why? Why are they still there? They stay. Because the mission of the gospel mattered more than comfort. The jailer falls trembling and asks, What must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. The prison has now become a sanctuary. The jailer who was imprisoning them, making sure that they stayed uncomfortable, has now become a brother. He is a part of their family. Hardship becomes ministry. Their suffering becomes ministry. This whole story points us right back to Jesus, right back to the cross, because no one endured suffering quite like Christ. Jesus was falsely accused. He was beaten. He was mocked, rejected, crucified, and died. And before he died, he hung on that cross and he said, Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing. Even in suffering, Jesus responded in love. And because of the cross and resurrection, pain is no longer pointless. Your pain, your suffering, your trials that you are enduring right now are not pointless. There is a reason for them. I can't tell you the reason for them. Only God can reveal that to you. But I promise you that it is not pointless. Suffering is no longer final. Hardship is no longer wasted. The resurrection means darkness never gets the final word. So what does this mean for us? Because most of us are probably not getting thrown into prison this week. Praise God. Okay? But hardship will still come to you. I promise you. The Bible even promises it that you will have troubles. Frustration will still happen. Patience will be tested if you have children. Disappointment will still happen. And your response matters. So it's not going to be on the screen behind me as far as application because there are two very, very simple things. When you experience that frustration this week, when something frustrating happens to you, when you are disappointed, pause. Take a deep breath. Before that angry text, before the sarcastic comment, before the complaint, before the emotional reaction, before the even the personal, pause and pray. Even briefly. Just pray, Lord, help me respond like Jesus. Because spiritual maturity is often revealed in the gap between frustration and reaction. A spirit-filled life reacts differently when we are under pressure. So that's the first thing. Pause and pray. And number two, replace complaint with worship. With worship. Choose one difficult moment this week and intentionally respond with worship music. With prayer. With gratitude. Instead of complaint. You're not denying what you're going through. You're not denying that you are suffering through something. Instead, you're being a disciple. You're pausing, you're staying in the prison. Even though you're loosed from it, you are staying there to bring the mission forward. Paul and Silas were not pretending prison was pleasant because it wasn't. They were declaring that God is still worthy. And some of us need to relearn how to worship in hardship. Not after breakthrough, not after the finally I can worship. Moments, we need to remember that we can worship in the midnight. This idea of worshiping, even through our hardship, runs throughout the entire Old Testament. Think about Job. Job loses everything. And what does he say? Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And then in Daniel, Daniel's friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, stand before the furnace, stand before death, because they were not worshiping other gods. And they say, But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. That is enduring faith. Faith that says, God is still worthy. Even if the outcome is not what I wanted. So imagine what would be look at like if we, our church, became known for this kind of endurance. Not fake positivity, not a shake of the hand and saying, I'm doing great, I'm doing good. When really I'm suffering. I'm in pain. I hurt. Not pretending that pain isn't real, but deep-rooted worship. Imagine that marriages enduring hardship with grace, parents responding with patience, students standing firm in their faith, believers suffering faithfully, people worshiping through their grief. That kind of faith becomes a witness. Because remember, the jailer was listening before he responded, before he believed. Your endurance may become someone else's doorway to Jesus. Maybe today you feel like you're in the midnight hour. You're exhausted. You're disappointed. You're confused. I want you to hear this: that God is still present in prisons. God is still present in disappointment, in exhaustion, in confusion. And Jesus is still mighty to save, not only from sin, which is an amazing thing that we are still saved from it, but he is saved. And he is saving through suffering. So we need to come to him, we need to trust him. Anchor yourself in Jesus Christ. Because storms reveal our foundations. And Christ is the only foundation that holds. Paul and Silas did not worship because the prison was comfortable. They worshiped because God was faithful. They worshiped because God is still faithful. They worshiped before the doors opened. They worshiped before the chains fell. They worship before the outcome had changed. And that is enduring faith. Faith that says, even here, God is good. Even in the midnight, even in the prison, even when I don't understand, even when I'm hurting, even when I'm waiting, God is still good. Because the goodness of God is not proven only when life gets easier. His goodness is proven most clearly in Jesus. At the cross, God's goodness ran after us. At the resurrection, God's goodness conquered death. By the Spirit, God's goodness still flows through us, follows us, holds us, and carries us through our hardships. So today, before the breakthrough, we worship. Before the answer, we trust. Before the chains fall, we sing. Because all of our lives he has been faithful. And even now, his goodness is still running after us. When hardship shakes your life, your foundation in Christ will determine your response. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you that your goodness is not fragile. Your goodness does not disappear in hardship. Your goodness does not fade in suffering. It does not fail in the midnight. We thank you that Paul and Silas could sing in prison because you were still worthy there. Lord, teach us that kind of faith. That when frustration comes, help us pause and pray before reacting. When hardship comes, help us respond with worship instead of complaint. When life presses on us, reveal what our hearts are standing on. Jesus, thank you that your goodness pursued us all the way to the cross. You came after us when we were lost. You gave yourself when we were sinners. You rose again so we could be free. So today we surrender our fear. We surrender our complaint. We surrender our need to control every outcome. Let our lives become a testimony of your faithfulness in every season. Teach us to say that you have been faithful. You have been good. And we will trust you still. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.