Finding freedom through Christ

Good evening, everyone! Please take a seat. We’re continuing our series in the book of Acts, so please look up Acts 16, which we’re looking at together this evening. The story so far is that the apostle Paul and his team have been directed by God to bring the gospel about Jesus to those who have not yet heard it. They find themselves in Europe for the first time and the part of Acts we are looking at is all about church growth in a culture that knowns almost nothing about Jesus and the Christian faith. And so it’s about an encounter between the good news of Jesus and a world that is not very unlike our own.

They have arrived in the Greek city of Philippi and through their preaching the Holy Spirit is going to establish a new church there. And Luke, who wrote the book of Acts and who was with them in Philippi, highlights three individuals whose lives will transformed; the first was Lydia who we met last week, the third we will meet next week, tonight, is the turn of a slave girl. And what we will see (and this is a repeated theme in Acts) is that the good news of Jesus brings incredible freedom and life and transformation. But it also clashes with a world that sees no place for God. They always go together and are really two sides of the same coin. So let me pray for us.

[Prayer]

In Jesus’ first sermon, according to Luke, he reads from Isaiah announcing that he has been sent in part to “set the captives free”. Here is Luke 4.16-21:

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,because he has anointed meto proclaim good news to the poor.He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captivesAnd recovering of sight to the blind,to set at liberty those who are oppressed,to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.”And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Our reading begins and ends with captives – in Acts 16.16 an enslaved young girl and in in Acts 16.24 Paul and Silas in prison with their feet in stocks. I have two headings tonight: 1.The gospel that sets captives free and creates a community (Acts 16.16-18) 2.The gospel that sets captives free and divides a community (in Acts 16.19-24). But first:

1. The gospel that sets captives free and creates a community (Acts 16.16-18)

Last week we heard about perhaps the least shocking convert – a well-to-do, businesswoman called Lydia. She was the least shocking convert because she was (as Luke tells us) a worshipper of God and they met her in a Jewish place of prayer. She seemed in a good place – but she still needed to hear the good news about Jesus. She was a captive who needed to be set free. And, so, after she heard the gospel, the Lord opened her heart, she was baptised and gave her life and her home in service of the Lord. She was what some might consider strategic – she had the means to help finance the new church and provided her house for staff accommodation and meeting space for the new church. Top marks for recruiting her!

Tonight, we meet the next individual whose life is changed at Philippi. Someone with a very different background to Lydia. Perhaps (in your or my eyes) not so strategic, but Jesus loves everyone – not just the important and the strategic. She is next to be added to his church. She is the next captive who needed to be set free. We’re introduced to her in Acts 16.16:

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.

This unnamed woman is a slave. She was involved in the supernatural and her gifts in these areas were marketable. So, she was owned and exploited by those who made their living from her. Doubly bound, a slave to a cartel of human masters, and a slave to the evil spirit that possesses her. She is a woman of no power, status, or freedom. Not sure what you make of that. From a Christian point of view – slavery is never a good thing. That’s rather an understatement. It is evil. Every human is made in the image of God and so has inherent value and worth. They are not an ‘asset’. They are to be treated with dignity and respect. Slavery is de-humanising. It is abusive. Put simply it is wrong. And the gospel of Jesus and life lived as God wants it to be lived will simply clash with some parts of every culture and want to see those harmful ways changed. But not only is she described as a slave of her human owners, she is visibly under the influence of the supernatural and claimed to be able to have the power to tell the future. Not sure what you make of that. From a Christian point of view, the Bible describes a universe were there are powers seen and unseen. And we are all citizens of two possible kingdoms. Either the kingdom of light or of darkness. Jesus taught that the kingdom of darkness is where we all start off – captive and oppressed. That was true of Lydia – with all her sophistication and wealth. And it was true of this precious slave girl.

The Bible speaks of Satan, or the Devil, as a real personal spiritual being. He is the enemy of God and humanity as a whole. And the Bible warns of the dangers of meddling with the spirit world. True - some of what claims to be powers are tricks and fake, but there are such things as evil spirits and they have damaging impact on those who get involved. But while God is creator and Lord of history, sovereign over all creation – Satan is no more than a rebellious creature. When Jesus died on the cross, he dealt Satan a fatal blow. And so the good news is that Jesus, who is Lord of all creation, came to set us free from the powers of darkness and to offers us citizenship in his Kingdom of light. That is the good news of the gospel that was being proclaimed in Philippi for the first time. And so, as Paul and his team headed to the place of prayer, probably on the sabbath, where they had met Lydia, they bumped into this slave girl. Let’s read on, Acts 16.17-18:

She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” And this she kept doing for many days…

So this slave girl starts followed them around for days, giving them free publicity – even if she is shouting! Interestingly, what she says is spot on. In Acts 14 in a place called Lystra, Paul and Barnabas had been mistaken for Gods. She doesn’t make that mistake – she sees that they are just servants who came to speak about the Most High God. The God they proclaim is not a foreign god from a different religion – but the Highest God. In fact, the only true and living God. The God who created all things and so is the God of everyone – not just of east or west, north or south. She also got that they came to proclaim in Jesus the way of salvation – liberty to the captives and those who are oppressed. So why was she saying this? The gospels tell us that when Jesus encountered people controlled by evil spirits that they recognised who he was even if they didn’t worship him. It looks like something similar is happening here. What is intriguing is how Paul responds. Acts 16.18:

…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.

What was Paul annoyed about here? Perhaps she was being so loud she was making it difficult for him to speak to others. It’s also very likely she was visibly under the influence of the unseen spiritual world. So while what was said was true, there was a real danger that those who turned to the occult or spirit world for guidance and truth would think those things were good. So Paul did not want the message of Jesus to be connected with this evil spirit and the source of her inspiration, and her role as a profitable fortune teller corroded the full message Paul hoped to proclaim. But (and this is important) the text doesn’t say Paul was annoyed at her. It says he was annoyed – but not in the sense of ‘lost his temper’, more in the sense of troubled, upset, grieved, angered– but not with her. I think what got on top of him was seeing someone who was captivated and oppressed by her human owners and by the evil spirits. That broke his heart and provoked him to action. The same way it broke Jesus’ heart when he met, recorded in Luke 8.28, a man with a demon who cried out:

What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

So, Paul did what Jesus did for that man - he commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the slave girl. He could not bear the oppression she was under. He had the good news that Jesus was the one who could set her free. How could he not help her? I also wonder if we are to detect in her cry a recognition that Jesus came to set people free, but a doubt that he had come for the likes of her? These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation (Acts 16.17). Not to me (an unnamed, slave girl) but to you. What have you to do with me, Jesus? Everything. He died on the cross for her – a demonstration of victory of love over hate, and of God’s way over that of Satan. Jesus sets free captives from the kingdom of darkness and invites everyone into his kingdom of light. And so Paul simply prays (Acts 16.18):

I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.

And I take it that as she is freed by the name of Jesus Christ and she too joins the church of Philippi. The gospel sets captives free and creates a community. One that is racially and socially diverse. One with a concern and love for the poor – this former slave would have found herself unemployed. She was not have been left to fend for herself. She had a new identify, a new family and best of all a new master who loved her.

So, what are we to learn from this incident? There is so much! Here are some pointers – though more could be said.

a) What we have here is a picture of what we are all like before we come to Jesus. We are slaves who need to be set free. We are on the side of the one who opposes God – and our lives are a mess because of that.

b) But Jesus came to set captives free – from their rebellion against him and from the effects of living like that. We cannot free ourselves – only he can do that. So turn to Jesus! If that’s something you’d like to explore further, please speak with us. Or join Christianity Explored. Or maybe a first step would be to simply take one of these booklets and have a read.

c) Turning to Jesus doesn’t mean all our troubles disappear. One day they will. Until then he brings us into the community of the church and continues to change us– and so if you’re struggling with binding and enslaving addictions or more generally hurts, habits and hangups – why not consider coming along to our Celebrate Recovery group on Monday nights which is designed to help you find freedom in Christ.

d) Jesus sets people free. The gospel is a message of peace, hope and freedom. We are to see again how incredible that message is so that we have confidence in the power of the gospel. And to see again why everyone needs to hear about Jesus.

e) We also need to be aware that we are engaged in a battle with the evil one who will do everything in his power to oppose the gospel. But Jesus is infinitely more powerful. The female slave was freed just at the mention of his name - no need for holy water, or elaborate rituals. That is the power of Jesus. He has overcome evil and we need not fear the evil one.

f) Some of you may think this talk of unseen powers is crazy. But others will be aware of this unseen side of life – and perhaps aware they need help but may not know how to talk about it, or who to turn to for help. Again – please talk with your small group leader or someone on staff so we can talk and pray with you about this.

The gospel that sets captives free and creates a community and second:

2. The gospel that sets captives free and divides a community (Acts 16.19-24)

The good news of Jesus brings incredible freedom and life and transformation. But it also clashes with a world that sees no place for God. They always go together and are really two sides of the same coin. And that’s what we see next (Acts 16.19-24):

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 when 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 as 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 the stocks.

We might expect the people who witness this setting free of the slave girl to react with awe, wonder, and even faith. Instead, there is opposition fuelled in this situation by greed. The slave girl that Paul and Silas freed from the demon was being used by her owners for profit, and they were angered when they realized that they had lost their source of income. They dragged Paul and Silas before the authorities, falsely accusing them of causing trouble in the city. There’s a racial element to this as well: these men are Jews. Of the four men, only two (Paul and Silas) were seized. Timothy and Luke seem to have been left alone because they were not Jews. And note the official reason given to the magistrate for their arrest –causing a riot and unlawful customs (aka ‘telling people how to live’). The real reason for opposition is hidden by the presenting reasons for opposition. That is often true today as well (in the UK and across the globe) when we tell people the good news of Jesus, we may be accused of committing some political or social crimes. Perhaps we’re sharing the gospel with those from another faith and so are accused of racism. Or we are charged with being bigoted or of hating people because they are different to us. Or we are accused of breaking the law. But it is untrue, unjust and a cover for the real reason for the opposition.

And notice the crowds joined in. This is the 1st century equivalent of the mobs on social media who hound, harangue and seek to cancel those who go against what is politically correct and acceptable. They stereotype Paul and Silas and don’t take the time to listen or establish the facts – otherwise they’d have found out that these Jewish-looking men were also Roman citizens! Why is this happening? Setting captives free is a spiritual battle. It may happen in different ways, but what is going on is opposition by the spiritual forces of evil to the setting free of captives. We will face this too. The aim is always to hinder God’s work and defeat God’s people. They freed the slave girl from the powers of evil and they suffered as a result. And so, Paul and Silas are stripped, beaten, severely flogged, tied up and placed in the inner (or high security wing of the prison. That was illegal – for they were roman citizens who had not been on trial – as well as unjust. But one of the key lessons of this passage is that we should expect opposition when we preach the gospel. The gospel that sets captives free divides a community because it clashes with a world that sees no place for God.

But could they not have avoided all this? The gospel is good news after all – should they not have focused on affirming what is good and positive not called out what was wrong. Would that have not made the gospel more palatable and meant more people joining the church? This is simply not possible. A gospel that calls people out of a kingdom of darkness into a kingdom of light will inevitably need to challenge aspects of every culture that go against what God’s kingdom is all about. Yes, our manner is to be full of grace and love. There is no room for self-righteousness or pride. Our conflict is not against people, but against the spiritual forces of evil. Ours is a message of peace, hope and freedom. But ours is also a message that divides. So brothers and sisters, we should expect opposition. When it comes, trust him. Don’t stop speaking.

One of the striking aspects of this account is the way that Paul and Silas
Suffer here like Jesus did. He had done nothing wrong – but he was punished. Jesus too was silent in the face of his accusers. His mission seemed to have failed. Is this the end of the church planting in Philippi? Would this attempt to shut them up stop them teaching? Why has God allowed this to happen to them? Well, more on that next week…but remember that Jesus’ apparent defeat on the cross was what God used to bring about his victory and success. Ultimately, the evil one will not succeed. Jesus will set captives free and build his church. Let me lead us in a time of prayer:

Thank you that you sent your Son to free us, and for the refuge we have found in him. We know that only he can save us and bring us into your kingdom of light. Please deepen our confidence in the gospel and help us to proclaim with joy the good news of your saving power. Give us courage and faith when, like Paul and Silas, we are called to suffer for the sake of the gospel. We remember too brothers and sisters across the globe currently suffering for their faith in you. Help us to be willing to speak of Jesus, even when it is difficult or unpopular. Use us to free those who are held captive by sin and oppression. Help us to take comfort in knowing that you with us, working out your purposes. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen