"An Instrument Whom God Has Chosen"

Acts 16:16-34; John 17:20-26

Easter 7

John 17:20-26

²⁰ “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³ I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

²⁴ Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵ “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Acts 16:16-24

¹⁶ One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. ¹⁷ While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” ¹⁸ She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. ¹⁹ But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. ²⁰ When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews ²¹ and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” ²² The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. ²³ After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. ²⁴ Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Acts 16:25-34

²⁵ About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. ²⁶ Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. ²⁷ When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. ²⁸ But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” ²⁹ The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. ³⁰ Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ³¹ They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” ³² They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. ³³ At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. ³⁴ He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

The Sermon

The disciples had been under attack from the entrenched interests—religious and political—for whom the spreading of the Good News was a threat to their dominance.

One of those happily doing the attacking was a young man named Saul. He’d gone to the High Priest in Jerusalem to get permission so that if he found any of the disciples or their converts, he could bind them and haul them into Jerusalem where they would face who knows what—imprisonment, torture, death.

And Saul didn’t mind that a bit. He was hateful, violent, cruel, pig-headed, cold-hearted, and mean. Nowhere is he described as anything like attractive, and you wonder if he had been subjected to some taunting about that, which had made it all the sweeter for him to find himself in a position of power—the power of a thug, but still power that scared and intimidated others.

So when a disciple in Damascus named Ananias was told by God to go to where Saul was now recovering from his lightning-bolt revelation, and to lay hands on him the same way we lay hands on people here—to pray for their healing and to ordain them as elders in the Church of Jesus Christ—you can imagine Ananias was not completely out of bounds when he said words to the effect of: are you kidding?

You want me, a disciple, to go to Saul, who not only hates disciples but has the power and the authority to arrest us and do whatever he wants with us—you want me to go to him and help him get his sight back?

I kind of thought we had him right where we want him: blind as a bat and completely helpless to do any harm to anyone.

And God said: “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen.”

So Ananias went, and found Saul in the house where God had told him to look. And he walked in and went right up to Saul, the man who couldn’t wait to haul off any believers he could get his hands on.

Ananias saw the thug, the violent, unattractive heap of a young man, now blind as a bat. And he laid his hands on him, and he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

And as something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and his sight was restored, surely he must have been thinking that those scales didn’t just represent a new opportunity to have functioning retinae and pupils and rods and cones.

From now on, he could see that the disciples were not to be hated, because a disciple came to him and did not hate. They were not to be feared, because Ananias had come to him completely vulnerable. They were not to be despised, because they had had an opportunity to let him sit there and rot in his blindness, but they did not despise.

But above all, Saul could now see that he, Saul, was an instrument whom God had chosen. It was not about Saul and how wretched he had been; it wasn’t even about Ananias and how faithful he was. It was about the truth that God had revealed to him, somewhere between the booming voice and the blinding flash of light and the gentle touch of a hand offering healing, and reconciliation, and hope.

And so now, much later, Saul (now called Paul) and another disciple, Silas, have been going out on missions throughout their part of the world, reaching beyond their own boundaries and shores, and going into all kinds of lands and among all kinds of people to spread the good news.

And they have arrived in Philippi and have shared the Good News with the people there including Lydia, the seller of purple, who opened her home to them.

“One day,” wrote Luke, who was evidently along for this part of the journey, “as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, ‘These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.’

“She kept doing this for many days.”

You can imagine that at first it was kind of nice to get the support. “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation!”

Great, yes, thank you very much.

“These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation!”

All right, we’ll take it from here.

“These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation!”

Okay.

“These men are slaves—”

WILL YOU PUT A SOCK IN IT?!

The words are wonderful, but you can imagine Paul’s frustration. It’s like those lovely cell phone rings. They’re so great when you download ’em. But let the thing ring seven or eight times over a half-hour lunch break, and it doesn’t sound quite so pretty any more.

So finally one day Paul had had enough. Out they went to do their work and share the Good News, and guess who shows up right behind them as always.

They kept walking. Paul looked at Silas. Silas looked at Paul. Paul looked back at Silas with a look that said, I guess she’s not gonna do that any more. Hmm…

...

“These men are slaves of the Most High God—” And Paul turned around and said, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.”

"And the spirit came out that very hour." Not surprising—I think my Dad might have had that spiritual gift as well; I seem to remember being pretty well cured a couple of times.

Oh, but, see, here’s the problem: She “had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling.” So “when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities.”

But when they brought them before the magistrates, that’s not what they said. It never is.

Instead, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.”

I have for twenty years now been mocking a lyric I heard in a Christian rock song in my youth, and I’m not going to stop now. The line went, “With Jesus, all your troubles disappear!”

Paul and Silas were attacked by the crowd. The magistrates ordered them to be beaten with rods, which is what happened. Then they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he tossed their bruised and beaten bodies into the innermost cell, and fastened their bloodied feet in the stocks.

“With Jesus, all your troubles disappear!” No wonder churches grow by leaps and bounds when they sing songs that cut corners in what we have to teach.

I mean, I know what they mean, or what I hope they mean. But doing the right thing does not mean that your troubles will all disappear. There is a cost of discipleship.

About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to take his own life, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped.

This is your chance, boys! Run! Run for freedom, run for safety; let the bad guys stay behind and do what they’re going to do, but get out of there!

And in less than a split second—less time than it takes for a flash of lightning—Paul remembered a disciple named Ananias, whom he would have happily grabbed off the street and bound and dragged into a horrific fate, who came to him and said, “My brother, the Lord Jesus has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

And now the jailer was ready to end it all. The only meaning of his own life that he knew was to follow orders, and now under his watch, the Christians had been given a golden opportunity to escape. And having forgotten the value of life, the great gift of God, he was ready to throw it all away.

But Paul shouted: “Do not harm yourself; we’re all here.”

You’re all here? You stayed, voluntarily, just to save me from destroying myself—I who earlier this evening had you beaten to a bloody pulp and chained you to the stocks?

The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down before Paul and Silas. And he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

Integrity is unity, wholeness; each part integrated with the whole, so that if I have a moral belief, an ethical standard, the call of God, it’s the same in every part of my being, in every occasion of my life.

It means, if I am beaten and thrown into prison, I am an instrument whom God has chosen.

In your work, your family life, your church life, your social life; in the way you spend and invest your money; in the way you use your time; in the way you deal with people and in the way you think about people, in every decision you make, you are an instrument whom God has chosen.

Keith Grogg

Carolina Beach Presbyterian Church

Carolina Beach, NC

May 20, 2007