Resurrection Ripples - 6 - Freedom

Scripture: Acts 16:16-34

Acts 16:16–34 NIV

16 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. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17 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.” 18 She kept this up for many days. 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!” At that moment the spirit left her. 19 When her owners 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 with rods. 23 After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24 When he received these 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 everyone’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 household 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 household.

6/1/2025

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Communion

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 1: Communion

Opening Prayer:

God of boundless grace,

you call us to drink freely of the well of life

and to share the love of your holy being.

May the glory of your love,

made known in the victory of Jesus Christ, our Savior,

transform our lives and the world he lived and died to save.

We ask this in his name and for his sake. Amen.

Freedom

Crowds

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day holiday this week and found a way to honor those who served to help ensure the freedoms we enjoy. I see a lot of celebrating freedom in our culture throughout the summer. We have another holiday in about a month when our culture will get fired up about our political freedoms, bringing out that spirit of patriotism. For many, school is out this summer. The weather is nicer, and sometimes our work routines change. Many people will find themselves on vacation. We enjoy our freedoms in our country and in our community. And we're not alone in that. Many of my international friends also thoroughly enjoy their freedom.

We can look back to Jesus as the founder and perfecter of our faith, maybe the founder and perfecter of our freedom as well, for all that he sacrificed so that we would not have to live as slaves of sin. We thank him for that every week. Yet sometimes I wonder if we have taken an easier way in our faith, choosing to pass the responsibility onto others even as we focus on our gratitude.

The saying that freedom isn't free is a cliché because it's true. I often wonder how often we pass the bill down the line until some unfortunate person is stuck paying for everyone. There's a kind of gratitude that comes forth in our words, songs, and celebrations. However, there is another, deeper kind of gratitude that emerges in our service and sacrifice.

As the saving and redeeming waves of Jesus wash over us, we find ourselves transformed, empowered, and filled with new purpose. And it often feels really good. It's wonderful to know that you have something to offer the world that it needs, to feel like you have a place and a purpose. In many ways, we don't feel free unless we have some of those constraints around us. We know we could jump out of an airplane without a parachute and experience complete freedom, unconnected and unbound by anything, at least for several seconds. However, that thought is rather terrifying to most of us.

And it can be that way with our faith as well. We look out our window or walk down the street and see a handful, dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people, knowing that everyone needs Jesus and that we have a witness to share. We have scripture to share with them. We can pray with them. We can listen and be present with them. We can utilize the spiritual gifts that God has given us to invite others into a relationship with Jesus and nurture their growth as they mature into the brothers and sisters that Jesus wants them to be.

True freedom comes from following Jesus faithfully, no matter your circumstances. But when faced with the crowds and all that need, opportunity, and freedom, sometimes it's really hard to start.

While We Wait

Paul may have felt like that when he arrived in Philippi, surrounded by a crowd, seeing the need and the opportunity. He found Lydia and her prayer group down by the river, but didn't stop with them. Perhaps he remembered his vision of a man asking for help and thought that he hadn't yet fulfilled that vision. I think it's more likely that Paul was just one of those people who did not stop. Perhaps he was waiting for the next vision, and while he was waiting for it, he was going to keep doing the next best thing he could think of doing—walking around town, preaching and teaching about Jesus to whoever would listen.

In this town, he had help from an unexpected place. There was a young slave girl whose scripture tells us had a spirit that would predict the future. Her master charged people to have their fortunes told by this young slave, and he made good money. She was accurate because she began sharing with others about Paul and Jesus in a manner that almost seemed like advertising for Jesus. The book doesn't specify what kind of spirit she had, and without knowing any more context, we might conclude that she had a gift of prophecy from the Holy Spirit. But I don't think that was the case, and neither did Paul.

Luke tells us that Paul became incredibly annoyed by this girl following him and telling people about Jesus. He didn't think that spirit was from God at all. And so with a few short words, he cast that spirit out of her, to be gone for good, and to leave the poor, tormented girl alone. There in the crowds, surrounded by strangers, trying to get a foothold for the kingdom, for Jesus, he could have used her as good advertising, or as a way to funnel more people to him and the church he was trying to start. What she was saying was the truth, and she did have a reputation in town for leading and guiding people, perhaps even some of the more influential and wealthy people.

Paul recognized an evil spirit when he saw it and heard it. And even if he didn't recognize the source of that spirit, he saw a young girl held in bondage physically, economically, and spiritually, so that her words and her actions and her life were not her own. And there's just something absolutely wrong about hearing the gospel of Jesus shared as a witness, or a sermon, or a lesson from someone who is completely enslaved themselves.

Jesus taught that clean water doesn't come out of a dirty fountain. So, rather than take advantage of this young girl, the way the rest of the world had already done, and the way she was inviting him to, Paul said, "Enough is enough, this is done." And he set her free in a way she did not and perhaps could not even ask for.

Crisis

Paul had struck down the goose that laid the golden eggs, which got him into trouble.

If he had just left the girl alone, ignored her, let her do her thing until she moved on, Paul probably could have preached throughout Philippi, relatively unharassed. Maybe the merchant who owned her had encouraged her to help him out in the hopes that they might form some partnership, where people would come to Paul and this fortune-telling girl for guidance. If that were the case, Paul's actions would have added insult to injury there. There were many other ways the situation could have unfolded, but Paul's act of separating this girl from the spirit of fortune-telling had drastic consequences for everyone.

The merchant lost his business. The slave girl lost her purpose and sense of security, even if it was in bondage. And Paul lost his freedom because the merchant went to the governing authorities and told them that the gospel that Paul was preaching and teaching about Jesus was no innocent philosophy or new curious faith for people to experiment with. It was disruptive to the way things were supposed to be. It cut down the authority of Rome, and it hit people in their pocketbooks, which never makes anybody happy. The merchant passed on his anxiety to the rulers and officials of that city, and they decided to remove Paul from the equation and put him in jail.

They called for the local jailer. And in those days, jails were often referred to as roundhouses. Prisoners would be chained to walls without windows, and there might only be one door into and out of the jail. It was a 24/7 job, and so the jailer and his family would often live in quarters up above where the prisoners were kept. Paul would be held there until he was able to either pay a fine or the governing authorities passed another judgment upon him, granting him mercy and release or a worse punishment. Paul lost his freedom because he tried to give it to a young girl, and she didn't even ask for it. He didn't offer money, he didn't offer a new job, he didn't offer to buy her and purchase her freedom from the merchant who owned her. He probably didn't have the means to do any of those things, but he could set her free spiritually, and he doesn't hesitate to offer that.

Paul may not be the perfect embodiment of compassion, but consider the stories of Jesus in the Gospels. How many of those poor, sick, spiritually tormented people did Jesus adopt, take home, and offer to take care of? He had no money himself. He didn't take any of them, and the people he called to follow him, he asked them to give up everything. I think Paul was following his Lord and Savior in giving that girl the spiritual freedom that she didn't even know how to ask for and may not have even wanted, but he gave her the chance and the freedom to choose what she would do next with her life, and it cost him his freedom.

Sacrifice

There are at least 23 references to being rescued in the Psalms, many of which are prayers written by David. Many other stories of rescue come to mind, such as Noah being rescued from the flood, Daniel being rescued from the lion's den and his friends from the fiery furnace, and many others. Paul, having met Jesus and come to believe and be an instrument of that resurrection power himself, may have been aware of those stories as well. He may have known that the prison walls could not hold the Spirit of God inside him.

It didn't seem like they had been there very long at all when the whole world started shaking, and the prison began falling apart, much as it did when the Jewish leaders tried to imprison some of the other disciples in Jerusalem. The jailer, whose home was being torn apart and whose livelihood was at risk, panicked. He was ready to take his own life because he knew the punishment for allowing all the prisoners to escape would probably be something along the lines of taking all of their punishments himself. He may have been the one holding the keys to the cell, but in this community, he was just as much a prisoner as Paul. In that brief moment when it looked like God had closed all the doors, put Paul in a jail cell, and thrown away the keys, God not only opened a window but also the doors, the holes in the walls, and everything. Paul had every opportunity to flee the place, to leave town and go on about his life.

But once again, Paul gets a gold star for actually seeing the people around him. He saw the need and the desperation in the man who locked him in that jail cell. And maybe in this man, he finally saw the person who matched the vision he had been given weeks before – the man from Macedonia who needed help. So rather than take his God-given opportunity for freedom to get back to doing what he knew best – preaching, teaching, and sharing Jesus with people – going from town to town and starting churches, Paul chose to stay in the prison cell. He let the jailer know he had not escaped, nor was he going to escape, and that the jailer need not fear.

When we think about truly being a witness for Jesus, it is something different than just being a nice person. Any nice person, especially if they were locked up unjustly, would have walked out that door, and no one would have blamed them. We all have that desire to be free. And when we find ourselves in positions where that freedom is threatened, we often tell ourselves that we have a right to be free. But Paul became a true witness for Jesus in that moment when he set aside his desires and his right to be free and stayed in the jail, not because it was what he deserved, but because he wanted to show Jesus to the jailer.

When we read Paul's letter to the Philippian church, he writes to them and reminds them about the witness of Jesus who humbled himself, who chose to take on human flesh, to go from being the king of kings, ruler of heaven and earth, and to come in the form of a slave, to be obedient unto death. And I think it's significant that the church that received that letter and shared that letter, and I believe tried to embody that teaching themselves, started with a prayer group down by the river. And in the heart of a man who lived in and ran the local jail, God's plan was for Paul to become a prisoner to bring the gospel to the people of Philippi and to preach the word to them through his words and especially through his actions.

As God leads you to be a witness, transforms your life, empowers you, and sends you out further than you dreamed of going on your own, you too will encounter persecution and trouble for doing what is right. Rather than being afraid that you have done wrong, when you know better, or being angry toward those letting it happen, you need to stop again and look at what Jesus is doing in your situation.

Can you see those around you the way Jesus sees them?

Is Jesus leading you on the easier path, or does it just look more comfortable than where you are today?

Is your ultimate goal freedom or faithfulness?

Closing Prayer

Jesus, you call us into a covenant relationship. That means when we say "yes" to you, we say "no" to everyone and everything else. We can talk about how grateful we are for the freedom we have in You all day long, but we prove that gratitude in our witness when we are willing to lay our freedom down to follow You faithfully.

As we listen to the words of our communion liturgy today. We know you are not leading us to show up and do something. You are calling us to allow you to work in and through our lives together, in all our circumstances, as your resurrection ripples wash over us, shaping us to be like you. To see people as you do. To love people as you do. And in our sacrifice with you, to finally know true freedom.

In Your Holy name, Amen.