Charting the path of God's sovereign
hand upon the lives of his people is a remarkable thing to witness,
isn't it? There was this Philippian jailer about to kill himself.
He had no interest in God whatsoever, no interest in the things of
God. There he was in jail, woken by an earthquake, thought that
these prisoners had escaped, and he was about to die. He was
about to die under the hands of the Romans, he thought. He
had a death sentence upon him. And yet, and yet, within minutes,
within minutes, he's rejoicing. He heard the word of the Lord
and he rejoiced. And one of the remarkable things
is to think about, isn't it, there they were in this jail,
Paul and Silas had been, all they'd done was preach the gospel
in that city and all they'd done is set a young damsel free from
being demon possessed. And yet that mob in that city
gathered them and took them to the magistrates and they beat
them and then put them in stocks and then put them in the inner
prison. And yet, and yet, all of this was in the sovereign
purpose of our God. As I said earlier, he directs
the footsteps of his people. In our minds, says Proverbs 16,
we plan our path in this world. And God determines, brothers
and sisters in Christ, God determines where your feet land. God is
absolutely sovereign. But what a sight would have greeted
these sergeants as they went down to the prison. They went
down to the prison expecting it to be a gloomy place with
all people locked up and the jailer sitting comfortably in
his place and what does he meet at the prison? There's a party
going on in the prison, isn't there? There's a party going
on in the prison. Paul and Silas and the jailer
and his household are rejoicing and they get to the prison and
the prisoners are free. One of the wonderful things about
the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is that God's people are
set free before they know they're set free. We were set free. We were set free from our sins
by the personal work of the Lord Jesus Christ when he died on
that cross, bearing our own sins in his body. The reason he can
come can come into the lives of these people and say, let
these go free, free from sin, free from condemnation, free
from the judgment of God, is because long before the jailer
ever knew about it, the Lord Jesus Christ had died for him. Long before that jailer knew
that there was a God in Israel and knew that there was a Christ
of the God of Israel who was coming into this world to save
his people from their sins, long before he knew all those things,
he was saved. The sergeants go down to the
prison to set them free, but they've already been set free
before. They've already been set free. God's children were
set free in eternity. When the Lord Jesus Christ and
His Father and the blessed Holy Spirit entered into what is called
in the scriptures the covenant of grace and the covenant of
love and the covenant of peace, God the Father said, I'll give
you a people to His Son. And God the Son says, I'll have
them. And God the Father said, it'll cost you your life's blood. It'll cost you the scorn and
ignominy of the men of this world. And he says, I love them. They're
your gift to me. He said, they'll come into this
world and they'll dishonor you from the moment they are born. And he says, I've loved them. I'll die for them. I'll rise
and I'll bring them with myself back into heaven's glory. That's what the son agreed. And
from that moment on, God the Father only ever looks to his
son for everything that he requires of you. The law just demands simple things,
doesn't it? It demands perfect obedience. When you summarise the requirements
as the Pharisees knew in Jesus' day, it was simple, wasn't it?
You have two things to do. You love the Lord your God with
all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength,
and you love your neighbour as yourself. Anyone even started to think
that they might have done that one little tiny time. Never. But in the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Philippian jailer and Saul the persecutor and the murderer
are all saved by a sovereign hand. And because of that agreement
in eternity, the blessed Holy Spirit, God the Holy Spirit,
comes into this world at the time of love and he opens the
hearts of people. He opened the heart of Lydia
and showed her Lydia's God and saviour. He opened the heart
of the jailer by the preaching of the gospel. And the jailer
went from death He went from death and hell to heaven and
glory in a heartbeat. That's what our God does. That's
the glory of preaching the gospel, isn't it? Is that God, God brings
his people to hear the gospel. God brings his people to a place
where he reveals that like Paul, they're set free. You see, wherever God's servants
are, there the Lord Jesus Christ is himself. So when we read of
the Acts of the Apostles, when we read of these events, we must
never ever think of anything other than the fact that the
Lord Jesus Christ was there, personally there, sovereignly
there, ruling all things. He's there, and everything that
occurs is His doing. And these magistrates, these
magistrates had laid out before them all of the evidence that
you could ever wish for someone to have to believe. See, the jailer was set free. Paul
was set free. Silas was set free. The whole
household of the jailer who believed were all set free. So the Lord
says that sin makes you a prisoner. Anyone who sins is a slave to
sin. The Word of God says that you're
a slave to this world. The Word of God says that you
are a slave to Satan. So the freedom of the gospel
is a glorious freedom. See, when people are enslaved
and when people are prisoners, they live in fear. And one of the things that's
remarkable is that in these stories throughout Acts and throughout
the Scriptures, we have this division between humanity. When
the Lord Jesus comes, it's like this enormous ocean liner, and
he parts the waves. is always taking his people out
of this world. And the people of this world,
in whose hearts is natural hatred towards God, are either turned
by the Philippian jailer from death to life, from darkness
to light, or they are left. So these magistrates have done
exactly what the Jews in Jerusalem did. There is no difference between
a religious, pious, righteous Jew, or the most religiously,
moral, upright person you can think of in this world, and the
activities of these magistrates in Philippi. There's no difference
according to God. There's no difference between
pagan idolaters of Rome and devout, pious Jews. What's their first
response? They want to silence the Word
of God. Paul had done no harm in Philippi,
they want to silence the Word of God. And then, and then they want
to mistreat God's children. They beat these men. In these
polite days, they don't put us in jail and flog us with sticks. What they do is that they destroy
the character of a man. A man's character is murdered
before the eyes of people. And they say that God's people
are hard, and they're unloving, and they're dogmatic, and they
find names. They can find names for us, like
hypercalvinist and antinomian. I've never heard anyone that's
ever used those terms ever be able to describe them properly.
And what they want to do, they want to silence the Word of God,
they want to abuse the servants of God, they want to hide them
away so that no one will hear them. Do you remember these events
happening in Jerusalem with the Jews just 15 years or so before
this? And then, like these magistrates,
they go about to establish their own righteousness when they are
exposed. When they are exposed. So these
magistrates are exposed now, aren't they? They're exposed
before the law of Rome. They're exposed before the law
of God. But according to the law of Rome, they're in very,
very serious trouble. To beat a Roman citizen was a
capital offence. Not only were they in trouble
before the Romans, they were in as much trouble as the Philippian
jailer was in when the prisoners escaped. In fact, all of the
city of Rhodes, you might remember Rhodes that had that famous colossus,
all of the city of Rhodes lost its Roman freedom because it
put to death a Roman citizen. So all of Philippi was in trouble. All of the magistrates were in
very, very serious trouble. And what they want to do, what
they want to do, is go about to establish their own righteousness. And they want to have these men
removed from their coasts, and they want to be able to continue
undisturbed. You see, in that jail that night,
who was the free man? Who were the free men in that
jail? Who were the free men in that
city? There were two free men in that city, plus Lydia and
her household, weren't they? Paul and Silas were the free
men, weren't they? In all of that town, they were
the only free men. They were set free by God. And therefore, in the midst of
abuse and persecution, the children of God are rejoicing and praising
God. The only free people, the only
free people you'll ever meet are the genuine children of God. The only free people you'll ever
meet. Everyone else lives in captivity. The only people who
walk in liberty are the children of God. They've heard the gospel
trumpet sound. that God has accepted them in
his Son, and they are free. They are free to live in this
world as his servants, with him directing their paths, and they
can rejoice. They are free to enter into the
presence of God now in prayer and in praise, and they are perfectly
fit and free to enter into heaven's glory. They are perfectly fit
and free to stand before a holy God and have him smile and hear
him rejoice over them. So that's freedom. If Christ Jesus makes you free,
you are free indeed. So these magistrates, like the
jailer, represent all of humanity, don't they, in so many ways. They act against their own best
interests. They want to expel Paul and Silas
from their coast, and they want to do it in such a way that they
can maintain their own righteousness. Brothers and sisters, I pray
that the Lord would give you a concern about your eternal
soul. What matters to your eternal
soul is what matters most in this world. And I can't make
it matter to you, but it matters to God's people. These magistrates
are only interested in their fleshly success, their fleshly
comforts. But they act against their own
best interests, the interests of their souls. And they act
as hypocrites because they act against all of the rules of decency
and legalism which they would have lived by in all other areas
of their lives. These men had to be moral men,
they had to be upright men, upstanding men. They wouldn't have got that
position to start with. They had to be law-abiding men.
And here they are, openly breaking the law of Rome. Openly breaking
the law of Rome. And they want to hide from it. And when they are found to be
hypocrites and deceitful, what do they do? They sent the sergeants
down there and just sneaked them out of the city in the early
morning light so that no one will know. They want to hide. They want to hide what they really
are. I keep saying to you brothers
and sisters, please don't play games with God. He knows your
life better than you know it. Lay it out before Him. Take it
to Him as it is, because He knows exactly how it is. Don't pretend
like these men did. Pretend that they have some righteousness,
that they have to defend God's children have the very
righteousness of God. And we have no creature righteousness,
so we can own what we are and we can rejoice in what we're
made to be by the grace of God. You see, the Philippian jailer
and these magistrates show us once again that God discriminates.
There is a discriminating grace, there is distinguishing grace,
there is electing grace. The Philippian jailer was an
object of God's eternal love. And the magistrates are allowed
to go their own way. The worst thing that can ever
happen to a child of Adam in this world is to be allowed to
go his own or her own way. See, great freedom. The freedom of
the gospel is the freedom of just believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's all that the Philippian
jailer was asked to do. You believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. You believe in him as he is. But to believe on him is to put
all of the hopes of all of your life here into his hands. There is a difference between
believing in. People can acknowledge that God
is absolutely sovereign. They can acknowledge that he
elects people. They can acknowledge the total depravity of man. They
can acknowledge that the Lord Jesus died for a particular people
and that he reigns and he rules. They can acknowledge all of what
people see as sound doctrine. But God's people Love the God
of those things. See, it's not knowing the truth,
it's loving the truth that matters. There is a believing in and there
is a believing on. Todd has a great story about
the difference between believing in and believing on. He says,
imagine a two-story house with a little boy caught in the upper
floor and the house is burning and he knows that there's this
great big strong man down underneath the window who has the power
and the ability to catch him. He knows about him. But to believe on Him is to jump
out that window, trusting everything of your life. See, to believe
is to have faith in, it's to adhere to, it's to cleave to,
it's to rely upon. One day we'll leave this world
and only one thing will matter. Only one thing matters, and that's
the Lord Jesus Christ. And in this world, one thing
matters, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel. I pray the Lord would give us
faith. Everyone that hears us would give us faith to rely on
him, to know who he is, but to have all of our eggs in
one basket, nothing else, nothing else but him. So in this jail
there's a party. In this jail the sergeants are
sent down there. In this jail at the party is
Paul, washed of his wounds by the jailer, feasting with the
jailer and his family, but they're feasting more in the glory of
what the Lord Jesus Christ has begun. If you had known the feasting
that morning in the souls of Paul and Silas, you'd be envious
of it. If you'd known what the feasting
was in the jailers' household, as they believed, when he went
from death to life just because the Lord Jesus Christ was there.
Now Paul's response in Acts 16, 36 and 37, he says, they have
beaten us. openly. This is a public beating
and they beat us openly in public and we weren't even condemned,
we weren't even given the benefit of a trial. And not only that,
they've beaten us and they've cast us in the prison and now
they want to thrust us out privately. He says, we're Roman citizens,
we're Roman citizens. All the pains of the Roman Empire
had worked, all of the triumphs of the Roman Empire had worked
to cause Roman citizens to be highly, highly esteemed. And so to mistreat a Roman citizen
the way these men were mistreated was to mistreat Rome itself and
was to bring the wrath of Rome down upon you. But why did Paul
react this way. You see, he sought no retribution
and he sought no vengeance against these people. Brothers and sisters
in Christ, the reality is you cannot live in this world and
you cannot walk through this world and you cannot be a sinner
meeting with other sinners without suffering enormous pain. Paul's response here is a great
lesson for us. as we struggle through the trials
of life. You are a sinner, and when you
rub up against other sinners, It's not going to be pleasant
a lot of the time. But see, Paul's actions here
are not motivated. He's not motivated to seek revenge
upon these people. He has one motivation, and that's
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has one motivation,
and that's the glory of God. He's prepared to suffer, and
he's prepared to suffer injustice for the glory of God. that he
wanted to make sure in his leaving Philippi that nothing was going
to impede his confession of the Lord Jesus Christ and nothing
was going to be done publicly which brings the Gospel into
disrepute. So that's what these magistrates
wanted to do. They wanted Paul to sort of, as it were, sneak
out of Philippi quietly so that the magistrates could be justified
and magistrates could be seen to be righteous But the problem
is that Paul would have been seen to have been condemned there. In matters, in public matters,
In the Church of God, there needs to be transparency all the time. In matters of what we believe,
in doctrine, in the way we worship God, and in our associations
with the other children of God around this world, everything
needs to be as open as possible. People can come and examine the
things that we believe and the things that we do here. We want
them on as much public display as possible. So nothing is hidden
from God's eyes, and so the Church of God has nothing to hide for
those whose sins have been dealt with by the Lord Jesus Christ.
and whose righteousness is his righteousness alone, we have
nothing to hide. We have no need to be ashamed
of the Gospel in any way at all. And in reality, in all situations
that are to be open, there needs to be as much light shed as possible. That's the condemnation, that's
the judgment that John speaks of in John 3, isn't it? That
light has come into the world. This is the condemnation, that
light has come into the world and the men loved darkness rather
than light. These magistrates loved darkness
rather than light because their deeds were evil. Everyone that
doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh into the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved." That's exactly what the magistrates
were doing. They say, we won't go down there, we won't want
to be exposed, we'll send these servants of ours down there and
they'll sneak them out of the city and we'll be fine. We'll be able to sit back in
here in our houses and our righteousness will be maintained before the
people. But if that was the case, If
that was the case, then the Gospel would have been brought into
disrepute and Paul and Silas would have been seen to be wrong. The magistrates' concern for
their lives was just a fleshly concern about their own well-being
in this world. When the Philippian jailer stood
before Paul with that sword at his heart, he was concerned about
God. That's why the question came
out of his mouth, wasn't it? What must I do to be saved, was
the Philippian jailer's concern. These magistrates, their fear,
their concern, just came from fleshly convictions. What true
words our Saviour said is that flesh gives birth to flesh. That's all it ever does. Flesh gives birth to flesh. These
men sought to hide their sin. The Philippian jailer sought
to expose what he really is. So the jailer came trembling
and fell down before Paul and Silas. These men wanted to do
this in the most sneaky way possible. And what's the difference? What's
the difference between the jailer and these magistrates? It's the
difference that God makes when he comes and reveals himself
to his people. It's only God's revelation of
himself as a holy and just and sovereign God will bring a conviction
that's a conviction about our souls. These men were concerned
about their bodies. Their flesh was stirred up, and
all it did was produce a fleshly response. But Paul said to them, verse
37, Paul said unto them, they have beaten us openly, and now
they thrust us out privately. No, let them come. Verily, let
them come themselves and fetch us out. Isn't it remarkable? Isn't it remarkable that in every
situation the Lord's people are in, they are kings and priests
unto God. Who's in charge now in this situation? Paul has the life of the magistrates
in his hands. And he just wants the gospel
to be proclaimed. He believes what he says in Romans,
where he says, vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay. These men feared, verse 38, the
sergeants told these words unto the magistrates and they feared.
They didn't fear God, they just feared men. And when they heard
that they were Romans, They came and they besought them. In fact,
they came and they kept on begging them. They begged them and brought
them out. Paul said to them, you come down
here and you walk out of this jail with us, side by side with
us. You walk out of this jail and
you publicly testify that we have done the right thing and
you publicly testify that we are here unjustly. and they brought them out. Our
God reigns. the wrath of man, the wrath of
man shall praise him, and the remainder he restrains." So there's
wrath of man against the gospel, there's wrath of man against
God, and he's either doing one of two things, he's either causing
it to be for the praise of his glory, or he's restraining it. Brothers and sisters, we need
to be extraordinarily thankful that a sovereign God restrains
the wrath of man against him. We need to be so thankful that
we're able to stand and walk and live and breathe on this
planet because the sovereign God is restraining man and he's
restraining it for his glory and for their good. And he's
doing everything that he's promised to do. Isaiah 41 verse 11 says,
Behold, they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed
and confounded. They shall be as nothing. They
that strive with thee shall perish. But what a shocking thing it
is when natural man stirred up about his guilt, stirred up about
The sin that he is finds himself saying what these men say. They said, just depart from our
city. What a shocking thing it is,
brothers and sisters, that when men say to God, leave, God does
leave. And he does, and he can. You can read about it in Mark's
Gospel in chapter 5. What happened when the Lord Jesus
went on a journey? He went on a journey across the
sea like Paul and Silas went on a journey across the sea.
He went on a journey across the sea because there was a man there.
There was a man in those tombs, and he was naked, and he was
demon-possessed, and he was cutting himself, and he was unrestrained
by anything. Couldn't be bound in any way
at all. And he went across that sea,
and he healed that Gadarene demoniac, Matthew 8, 34. And the whole
city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, They besought
him that he would depart out of their coasts. So they were
more concerned about their pigs and the loss of their pigs than
they were about the miracle of this man, who they had tried
to tame, and they had lived in fear of for all those years.
They were more concerned about their pigs than they were about
him. just like the men in Philippi
were more concerned about the money they got from that young
demon-possessed girl than they were about her at all. It's a
terrible thing, isn't it? That Gadarene community got together
and said, leave. When the Lord Jesus preached
that remarkable sermon in Luke chapter 4, he just quoted Isaiah
61, and he says, this is who God is, and I am God, and this
is how God saves people. By a sovereign hand of his grace,
he saves them, not because of what they are in themselves.
He saves a Syrian called Naaman, an enemy of Israel, and he saves
him by sovereign grace. And what did they do? They were,
in one moment, they marveled at the gracious words. They wondered
at the gracious words that came out of his lips. And the next
thing they do, when God is revealed to them, they take him outside
that town and want to throw him off a cliff to kill him. That's what they did to Paul,
didn't they? In Acts chapter 13. They put him to death. Those
people in Antioch, says the Holy Spirit, they judged themselves. You've put the word of God from
you. To get rid of God's servants out of your life is to get rid
of the word of God, is to get rid of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You put it from you, and you judge yourselves unworthy of
eternal life. As I said earlier, What a shocking,
what a shocking exhibition of man in his true state against
God. That when God shows up and reveals
himself in grace and mercy and glory, the people of this world
say, no, no, depart, depart. And the wonder of the Gospel
is that when the Gospel comes to sinners and they are revealed,
something happened on the Sea of Galilee that day when Peter
saw the Lord and saw that enormous catch of fish. Something was
opened in Peter's understanding that this man standing on the
shore there was no ordinary man at all. This was God Almighty
that was speaking to him. And Peter made that simple declaration
before Him. He says, Depart from me, Lord,
for I am a sinful man. That's a great description of
a sinner, isn't it? Sinful man. In the presence of holiness,
Peter wanted the Lord to depart from him. And what's the Lord's
answer to His people who acknowledge themselves sinful? Hebrews, you
know the verses, don't you? I will never, never, never, never
leave you nor forsake you. He never will. The response of men, whether
they are religious Romans, self-righteous Romans, or self-righteous Jews,
is to cast the Lord from them. When they stoned Stephen, they
acknowledged that he had the face of an angel, the face of
an angel. And they stopped their ears,
and they cast him out of the city, and they stoned him to
death. Who was there, who was there
doing that? That cast him out of the city,
cast the word of God out of the city? Paul. That same man that
was in this prison, It's just a sign, isn't it? It's another
picture, brothers and sisters, that when God saves, He saves
His way, and He saves for His glory, and He saves at His time.
And it doesn't matter whether you're a zealous religious woman,
an upright wealthy woman like Lydia, or you are a jailer, or
you are a murderer like Saul. When God saves, He saves them
all exactly the same way. He says them all exactly the
same way. Paul says he's a pattern. He's
a pattern to those who would then believe afterwards. But
it's a shocking thing, isn't it, when people turn the Word
of God away from themselves. When the Lord departs and shuts
the door, What he opens, no man can close,
and what he shuts, no man can open. There is some verses in Proverbs
1 which are shocking verses. And I'm sure the religious world
that wants to go around saying God loves everyone and he wants
to save everyone and Jesus died for everyone and let's all sit
around and sing Kumbaya together because God is pleased with us
all. May God have mercy upon us. And may he cause us to find
his character delightful, but may he cause us to find his character
humbling for us. He says in Proverbs 1, verse
20, just let's read these verses and hear what God says. Wisdom
cries out, she utters her voice in the streets. Wisdom is the
gospel, of course. Wisdom is the Lord Jesus Christ.
She cries in the chief place of the concourse, in the openings
of the gates, and in the city. She utters her word saying, how
long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity, and scorners
delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge. Turn you
at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my Spirit
unto you. I will make known my words unto
you. Because I have called... See, when the Gospel is preached,
God is calling. Because I have called and you
refused, I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded. But you have set at naught all
my counsel. It's exactly what these magistrates
did and it's exactly what the Jews in Jerusalem did. You have
set at naught all my counsel and would have none of my reproof. Listen to what God says in verse
26. I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation,
and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and
anguish come upon you, then they shall call upon me, but I will
not answer. They shall seek me early, but
they shall not find me. God, our God, is a God of absolute
and strict justice. As I said, salvation is entirely
the work of God and He does it at the time of His choosing and
He does it in His way and He does it for the glory of His
name. And people who reject the gospel are 100% responsible for their
rejection. Because that's what he says here
in verse 29. They shall not find me for, because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would none of
my counsel, they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they
eat of the fruit of their own way and be filled with their
own devices." Our God comes and He makes a
division amongst people and He exposes humanity. He exposes
all humanity. The Philippian jailer and Lydia
and the magistrates are exposed before him. And he separates
the people, and he separates his people to himself. Let's
just close by contemplating what wonderful things went on in Lydia's
house that morning. So they were told to depart,
and Paul did. Paul and Silas departed out of
that city. And when they went out of the prison and entered
into the house of Lydia, and when they had seen the brethren,
they comforted them and departed. As I said earlier on, this is
the beginning of the Philippian church. What a remarkable story
Paul had to tell Lydia and the brethren when he turned up at
her house that morning. We've just come from a party.
Lydia had last seen them beaten, wrongfully beaten, wrongfully
exposed as condemned men before the people of that city. That's
the last Lydia had seen of them. And they turn up, and I can well
imagine that when Paul and Silas departed out of that prison,
some of that household of faith and maybe even the jailer himself
went down there with them. And Paul went there and said,
they meant it for evil, and God meant it for good, that he was
gonna save many people out of that city. The church began, these two groups
of people met together in Lydia's house and met down beside that
river and God, God began a church where God gets all the glory,
where God's word is proclaimed. They went down to there and they
went down there to comfort the brethren. What a scene of rejoicing. Paul went from a party in jail
to another place of comfort. It's lovely what that word comfort
means, isn't it? It means to come alongside. It's one of the
words that's synonymous with the description of the Holy Spirit,
that God the Holy Spirit comes alongside and walks with his
people through this world. That word comfort is also used
to mean to cleave to the Lord. You cling to the Lord is what
he was saying to Lydia and the jailer and their brethren. You
continue in the faith is another way it's described. You continue.
You've heard about the Lord Jesus Christ. Cling to him and continue. It's also the words of the Macedonian
man that Paul saw in a vision when he's prayed, come over and
help us. Comfort us is what he's saying.
Come and comfort us. There's no fellowship, brothers
and sisters, there's no fellowship like gospel fellowship. There's
no fellowship like the fellowship that the Lord Jesus Christ creates
amongst his people. The New Testament church has
begun. We've seen it. It didn't need
a denomination. It didn't need rulers and Bible
colleges and all the machinery of men. The church of the Lord
Jesus Christ begins with Him coming to His people, revealing
Himself to His people as a glorious God who has saved His people
from their sins. The Church of the Lord Jesus
Christ begins when God gathers His people together. He saves
them and joins them and knits them together. and they get to rejoice together. No doubt Lydia's house, where
these men had left, was the scene of much rejoicing from there
on in. That's why if you read the book of Philippians, and
I trust you might go away and read it and look at it with fresh
eyes, you'll see again and again that Paul is talking about rejoicing. He went there, commissioned by
God, because God had his people in that place. He didn't know
where they were. He didn't know what they looked
like. Neither do we. People think that you have to
get some sort of religious look about you before the Lord will
do something for you. That Philippian jailer couldn't
have cared less and he couldn't have looked worse in his state. And God saved him. That's how
God saves people. He saves them sovereignly. That's why we call our church
a sovereign grace church. He saves them not because of
anything in them, He saves them because of everything that's
in His Son. And when He saves them, He saves them eternally.
He saves them securely. He saves them and keeps them
because they were saved from eternity. He had their names
written on His heart when He died on that cross. And he has
his name, their name is written on the palms of his hand as he
stands in heaven right now. And he orders and directs everything
in this world for the glory of his church. Someone asked me,
someone who used to mock us a lot and still does, no doubt, asked
me how the church is doing. There's only one answer to how
the church is doing, brothers and sisters. The Church of the
Lord Jesus Christ is doing perfectly, thank you very much. He didn't
have a clue what I meant, and it was a shame he didn't ask.
We're not perfect in ourselves, but we're perfect in him. Let's
pray. Our Heavenly Father, we pray that you would be merciful
to the people that you bring to listen to your Gospel, Heavenly
Father, that we might find ourselves rejoicing in who the Lord Jesus
Christ is. Heavenly Father, we are commanded
of Him to remember Him by taking bread, which represents His broken
body, and taking blood, the wine, which represents that blood that
He shed. It's precious blood, and it's
a precious body. Heavenly Father, we pray that
we would do so in remembrance of Him. Cause us to remember
Him, our Father. Cause us to do so, acknowledging
who He is. And Father, like the Philippian
jailer and Lydia, may you cause us to confess Him publicly, as
Paul did in Philippi. That we could confess Him openly
before men, in baptism, and in union with his people as he gathers
them together. Bless your word, Heavenly Father,
to the hearts of your people. For Christ's sake. Amen.