Worship In Prison (Acts 16)

Taylor and Zane discuss Paul and Silas being freed from prison.

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SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey Taylor.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hello. Good afternoon.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

What's up, everybody? Me and the great Mr. Taylor Coakley are hanging out here at my house. Hope you're all having a fantastic day. Today we're going to be uh reading from Acts 16. And Paul and Silas are together and they've been preaching the gospel. And we're going to find them here in jail. The way they get in jail is a little bit absurd because there's this lady who is a servant, and she also has a demon. And this demon goes around impressing people that it can supposedly tell the future. She follows them around shouting about how they're servants of the Most High God. And Paul, I love actually what it says is that he gets really annoyed. And so I would probably get annoyed too. And so he gets so annoyed that he just cast the demon out of her. He's really just annoyed, so he's just gets rid of the demon. And so her owners are really upset that Paul has cast this demon out because they realize that she's no longer going to be able to make them money. She's just a normal person who doesn't seem to be able to predict the future anymore at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

They'll have to find a new demon-possessed woman.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah, and I hear those are hard to come by.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

They're very rare in those days.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yes. So these people throw a fit to the city officials and they get Paul and Silas imprisoned for causing a ruckus in the city. And so here we find them all chained up in prison. And I'm going to start reading here at verse 23. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he had 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. 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. The jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then 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. Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. And 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. But when it was daylight, the magistrate sent the officers to the jailer with the order, release those men. The jailer told Paul, The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can leave. Go in peace. But Paul said to the officers, They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No. Let them come themselves and escort us out. The officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed. They came to appease them and escorted them from the prison, requesting them to leave the city. After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia's house, where they met with the brothers and sisters and encouraged them. And then they left. Taylor? Take it away. I told him I was gonna do that once we started this podcast. So now, Taylor, you can just talk for the rest of the time.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

And I told you I wouldn't have a three keys to success sermon, so I have a ten keys to success scripture reading.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Oh, perfect.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

This is gonna be a long podcast, so everybody buckle up and get ready. No. Um honestly, just the way the whole the whole verse starts out in 23, like after they were severely flogged, kind of I feel like it is a was just a great way to kind of set up, at least for me, the way I interpreted it, kind of kind of coming in of like things that are going on in my life, not that bad. Yeah, they could be worse. Sure. And so I obviously, as you know, a couple of weeks ago I lost my job, which is like Yeah, it's hard. Which is and pro it is probably the hardest thing I've I'm have I've had to deal with in my adult life, at least.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

And so um just a lot of just not just the logistical stuff of like losing a job, but just like the stuff in your mind and your heart, and just you know, how you deal with something like that and and and how you pursue God even more through that. And so yeah, when I read something like this, I mean, I've obviously, you know, the natural thing that I think most people think about when they read this this story is about joy and suffering. And so, but I think for me, it was a little bit less of that and a little bit more of the reminder of how God is working in situations, and God works in ripple effects. Like it's like like He loves to give us the desires of our hearts. We pray for things, we want things, and He provides those things to us. He's He is our provision. But it's there's always these like crazy ripple effects that are happening that we don't see because usually when we're praying, we're praying for the whatever it is now that we want. So, like for me right now, it's like God, I want a job. Sure. I need a new job. That's what that's what I want. But the ripple effects of what that looks like are more so unbeknownst to me. And so how he works in those is, I think, the more powerful part of what my story's gonna be. It's always hindsight. Like, for instance, like I'm sure whenever Paul and Silas are have been flogged and they're chained up in prison, they're not thinking about, oh, all what are all the things that God's gonna do after this? They're probably more thinking about, well, I don't want to be in prison right now.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

But they are praying and worshiping.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

But they're praying and worshiping because their faith doesn't dwindle.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Is it fair for me to assume that if any of us came to your house any day on midnight, any day at midnight, that you would probably be praying and worshiping?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

No, I'm probably laying down with my children, begging them to go to sleep at midnight, is what I'm actually doing at midnight. So no.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

It's like Brittany, why did God give us strength skin?

SPEAKER_01 7:01

That it can almost feel like I'm in prison, though, because I am chained to their beds at that point in time. But um, there's there's no there is no worshiping. But I will say, honestly, before I lost my job, I was struggling with not spending time with the Lord the way I was supposed to. And since uh and since losing my job, I've got a lot more time on my hands. And so I have been spending a an enormous amount of time with the Lord on a daily basis. That's actually been really, really cool and very refreshing for me. And it's actually helped kind of it not kind of, it's really helped build up more of my faith and even my trust in the Lord as I am as I'm going through this difficult time in my life and my family's life, of like how the Lord works. And even though I can't see exactly how it's gonna happen or what's happening, I know the Lord is working. And when I read stories like this about Paul and Silas and seeing kind of all the things that happened from, you know, obviously them being freed from prison, but also the other, the other prisoners also hearing it, them being freed from prison. So now their act of faithfulness, prayer, and worship has now saved others' lives, both physically, but also it sounds like spiritually.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Yeah, it seems like you were talking about ripple effects. It seems like God's uh God's way of dealing with evil is so often like using a Trojan horse, if you will. You know, of course, it's Easter week and we have the cross where the scripture tells us if if the enemy had known what they were doing, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory, right? But even if we just look back to all the different scriptures that we've been reading even throughout the book of Acts, like last week I was thinking about when I was reading the story of Saul's conversion. You know, God God pretty forcefully converted Saul, right? He's writing, he gets this blinding light, literally goes blind until he acknowledges Jesus as his Lord. And God could have interrupted him at any moment in time, but you know, he waited for Paul to torment believers, for him to try and imprison believers, and the result of that was that the believers were scared and fled all over the place, were scattered all over the region and beyond, which is exactly how the gospel was spread. It's exactly how the early church was spread, is that Christians were having to flee from being persecuted. And so God allows Paul to play this role so that he can spread Christians all over the place. And then he uses it whenever Saul turns to Paul and starts telling everyone Jesus is the Son of God, then he uses this horrible moment to because then everyone's like, oh, surely he's faking. This guy's the one who's been killing Christians. But no, he's going around telling everyone Jesus is the son of God. So using that huge transformation in someone's life to prove that this movement is legit, you know? And it seems like that God does a very similar thing here that you probably wouldn't lay out what's a good strategy for spreading the gospel. Well, get the leaders imprisoned, get them beat very hard, you know. But the outcome of it is that the gospel spreads more.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Yeah. And it's also proof again, too, that the enemy is not as good as I think we sometimes think or say that it is. Like God is so vastly better at everything at all levels and uh and how he's able to orchestrate things. I mean, it's almost as like when even when you're saying I was thinking about like it's almost like as if God's playing a shell game with the enemy and the enemy guesses wrong every time, and God is just constantly utilizing what the enemy is, you know, thinks that is going to hurt somebody, and in a lot of cases, will hurt somebody if that person doesn't have the faith, their their faith in God and they don't have that trust in God to allow to be able to understand how God is going to come in. That's why I think about like in my situation, I could not imagine being in the situation I'm in right now and not having a relationship with God. Like what that would feel like similar to like, yeah, like if like Paul and Silas, if they didn't have a relationship with God and they were put in prison like that and flawed, how much worse it would have been for them than the fact that they have the faith in God. And so because of that, they were able to worship and they were able to pray and and so forth the ripple effect to be able to happen.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah, this scripture was convicting to me in that regard. Because to be honest, it's been a really kind of a rough, slow year of business for us so far this year getting started. And I've had a really good attitude about it all year and been like, I'm not gonna be anxious, I'm not gonna worry, I'm gonna trust God. And for some reason, the last two weeks, I just turned into a real baby. Like I've just been kind of pouting to myself and just kind of letting it emotionally get a hold on me. And a couple days ago, I had to really come and repent to the Lord and say, God, I'm sorry, I'm gonna worship through this. And so, and I have for the last couple days, and God's really helped me, you know, change my heart and get out of that anxiety. And I'm sure everyone listening to this has their own thing that they can get anxious about that they can relate to that. But in these last couple days, God's really helped me with that, and as I read this story, it was just kind of confirmation that these guys are in a horrible situation, and it you know, it doesn't exactly tell us their mood. I'm sure they're not happy that they're chained up, but they definitely don't seem to have lost hope at all. No, they just seem to fully be there, trusting God, worshiping, even if I think that they're okay even if they were stuck there, that they would still be okay with trust the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

I mean, that is part of we ask the Lord for things and we trust in Him. The other part of that is believing in God and that He is good, whether the outcome that we want happens or not.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Because our outcome is not all it's obviously it's not always God's outcome. And whatever we want, God, what God wants is vastly better. And sometimes it's it aligns exactly with what we want, and that's great. And sometimes it's something different that we don't realize is was so much better until we kind of get to that point, and that's part of trust trusting God.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yes, very true. I love I do love the outcome of this story, especially with the jailer. Because the jailer comes back and finds them, it says he's gonna kill himself. I'm sure that you know, if you let prisoners go, that the outcome for you was very bad.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Well, all the prisoners. All of them, yes. That's not good. That'd be like you being a banker and you go into the bank and all the money is gone. Like there's no, there's no real good way out of that.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

They're like, Rufus, you lost a prisoner. He's like, um actually all of them.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

All of them. What?

SPEAKER_00 14:19

So this is gonna be bad for him. And so he's about to to kill himself by the sword is not probably the best method for that, but apparently it's what he was gonna do. And they tell him, hey, we're all still here, you're all right. And because of it, his whole household gets saved that night. And I love the story because it seems to be the middle of the night, and they all go get baptized in the middle of the night. I've been trying to teach lately because I think it's important just that baptism is very tied to salvation. I'm not saying that baptism is salvation, I'm just saying that when I read the scripture, it's always that people get saved and baptized and then prayer to be filled with the spirit, and it's all kind of one thing. But I love that they don't wait here. They're so eager to respond. Like they see God at work, they see that God is actually on the move and that they have missed it up to this point, and they're like, oh my goodness, what can we do right now to respond to this? And I think a lot of times we see God move and we think we get a little convicted and we're like, oh, I should, I should really change something about my life. And but these people, they don't wait for a plan. They're like, let's go get baptized right now. And it's his whole family, middle of the night.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Yeah, I think I think it also it reminds me a little bit too of how the Spirit of the Lord works in people and through their hearts too, because like I'm not saying it was easy, but like it seems like the conversions in this story were pretty darn easy. There wasn't a lot of like contemplating and talking about why you believe this or that. It was very much like all the prisoners heard Paul and Silas singing, and then they were all the earthquake happened, they were freed, and then oh, we believe. Like this is, you know, we're witnesses, we believe, you know, and then the jailer is about to kill himself, and then he goes in and finds that they didn't even leave, that they're all still there, and he's like, I mean, the first thing he says is, What must I do to be saved? Like immediately, like I want to be saved. And then he goes and gets baptized, and then they save, and then they baptize the whole family, and the whole family, his whole family's saved. So it's like it shows how how also like how God goes before us and prepares the hearts of those around us as well, as well as preparing our hearts to be able to go and spread the gospel and to be able to share his love, you know, and that it doesn't fall so much on us. Because I know, I mean, I I'm speaking to myself. Sometimes when I'm talking to somebody about the Lord that doesn't believe in the Lord, I will tend to go too much. Like I'm trying to like convince them that, like, hey, this is much, this is a much better way. For a good reason, but it's like I feel like I have to do a lot more. Whereas this is a just another reminder to me of like, you don't really have to do much, just be faithful, and God literally will do everything else, and it's pretty darn easy.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yeah, it's good to put yourself in a position where you're dependent on the workings, the miracles, the the working of God's spirit rather than trying to. I think that's what we get into is we start trying to do it ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

And we become we stop being dependent on the power of God, which is the thing that has to change people.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

That's exactly that's and and I've been reading uh liturgies every day, and one of the liturgies I read today was like was like a midday liturgy, or I'm sorry, it was this morning, it was uh like a morning liturgy. And one of the one of the one of the parts of it talks about it talks about like me giving up, leaning on my own strength and allowing God and leaning on God that the things that I'm doing are only going to take me down a path that is far less good for me or could even hurt. And so um I think about this as well, where it's like, yeah, you just need to depend on God, even the place that I'm in today. Like, how can I depend more on God and stop trying to make things happen for myself and just let God do it? I'll be faithful to him, he'll be faithful for me.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Absolutely. Well, I did read the very end of this scripture, and I'll just close us with this thought. I love that Paul doesn't let this thing go away as a quiet thing. He doesn't let them quietly say, Okay, you're free now. You know, he's like, No, you're gonna publicly march us out of here and set us free in front of everyone. And I think that's funny because once again, uh just has I'm just thinking a lot this week about Easter. And you know, Jesus, he dies on the cross on Friday, and on Saturday, he seems to go proclaim victory over Satan, over darkness, over death. And I love that Paul makes him show God's victory in this moment publicly, and God will have his public victory. That's I guess that's all I have to say. So whatever is going on in you guys' life, everybody listening to us, whether you're in a hard time, whether you're in a good time, just know that God will produce something good out of your suffering and that he will proclaim his victory in your life if you just submit to him. So, Lord, I just we give you our trust and we give you ourselves once again, just a fresh commitment of our hearts to you today. And we say that we trust you with our lives. And in whatever moment we find ourselves in, no matter how difficult, God let our hearts be full of worship and let us be intentional to worship you and to trust you and to show your victory. In Jesus' name. Amen. See you later, everybody. Goodbye, farewell. Adiosane. That was my name. Avita Zain. Goodbye.