August 2, 2026

"God Meant it for Good" (Acts 16:25-40)

Series: Acts: God's Vision For His Church Scripture: Acts 16:25–40

Hear now the word of the lord from Acts 16, verses 25 through 40. About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. And the prisoners were listening to them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's bonds were unfastened.

When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, do not harm yourself, for we are all here. When the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.

And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds. And he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced, along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

But when it was day, the magistrate sent the police saying, let those men go. And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, the magistrates have sent to let you go. Therefore come out now and go in peace. But Paul said to them, they have beaten us publicly, uncondemned men who were Roman citizens and have thrown us into prison. And do they now throw us out secretly?

No, let them come themselves and take us out. The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. So they came and apologized to them, and they took them out and asked them to leave the city. So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia. And when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed.

This is the word of the Lord. Please be seated.

And as you're taking your seats, let's join our hearts together in prayer as we seek to listen to this word from the Lord. Heavenly Father, we pray as we come to your word that you would again fill us with your spirit, that we would have hearts to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear all that is contained in the good news of the gospel of your son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. And, Father, as we come to this text, we pray that you would give a special insight into the great promises of the Gospel. Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. You and all your household.

What a promise that we could scarcely begin to scratch the surface of. And we pray that we would take it seriously today, especially in view of the eternal ramifications of this gospel. Give us your spirit and help us as we study this text that you together. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

At the end of last week's passage, when we saw how the disciples were abused and thrown into jail, we were confronted with a question that kind of was left hanging, particularly a question about the goodness of God in relation to the suffering that his people experience, especially, especially when they are serving him. We read about missionaries throughout the world, Christians who are faithfully seeking to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And in so doing, they are treated much the way that Paul and Silas were treated when they were preaching the Gospel of Jesus, when in the course of that, they cast out the oppressive demonic spirit from this slave girl who then started that chain reaction of opposition within the city. And we remember that the missionaries who are suffering today and the missionaries who are suffering 2,000 years since the beginning of the church, and the missionaries who served in the early church, these are not the first people who have suffered in this way. They are not the first people who, for faithfulness, for the name the Lord Jesus Christ, have been beaten, have been stripped of their clothes as the apostles were.

Back in chapter 16, verse 22, we read also about how they were not only stripped of their clothes, but they were falsely accused and how they were arrested. Indeed, this happens to Jesus. He was falsely accused, he was beaten, he was arrested, but even before Jesus. This is a very old story that we read all the way at the beginning of the Bible. This same thing happened to Joseph, who, being a faithful prophet of God, who prophesied a message that his brothers, the tribal heads of Israel, did not want to hear because they heard this message from Joseph.

They hated Joseph, and so for that, they seized him, they stripped him of his clothes, they cast him into a pit, they sold him into slavery. In Egypt, he was falsely accused, he was arrested, and he languished in prison until the ruler, Pharaoh, at that time summoned him out of prison. Here again we see a story of the rulers, the magistrates, summoning these apostles out of prison. This story sounds a lot like the story of Joseph being falsely accused and cast into prison and raised up out of it. And as Joseph, at the end of his life, reflected on all the evil that he had seen, all the suffering that he endured for being a faithful witness to Christ in the way that he was in the foreshadowing of Christ in that early time of the history.

But we see that what happened to him, he realizes eventually was for good. Because, see, as Joseph went through that, and eventually he was raised up in Egypt, he was set at the right hand of Pharaoh, and he was then in a position to prepare Egypt to deal with seven years of famine. And he saved Egypt and he saved Canaan, over whom that famine all rested. And as he reflected at the end of his life about what his brothers had done to him and the way that God had used it, In Genesis, chapter 50, verse 20, he tells his brothers that what you meant for evil, God meant for good. Well, this is what we are seeing in this passage here, that what so many others meant for evil.

Just in the same way that Joseph had to be raised up out of prison by the hand of the Lord, so also these missionaries, faithfully witnessing to Christ must be raised up out of prison by a word of the Lord. And in this process, the jailer who had persecuted these missionaries will become one of the early converts in the Philippian Church. Our theme this morning is what the wicked mean for evil, God means for good. What the wicked mean for evil, God means for good. And we'll look at this text in three parts.

First, the power of God. The power of God to overturn evil. Second, the goodness of God, that is, the goodness of God to work even evil for good. And then third, the refuge of God. The refuge of God to protect his people even when they are facing and suffering evil at the hands of others.

1. The Power of God (Acts 16:25-28)

So let's start with the power of God in verses 25 to 28. Now, again, when we find Paul and Silas in this jail cell, we must remember they suffered really abuse from everyone that they could suffer abuse at the hands of. They suffered abuse from the crowds, they suffered abuse from the magistrates. The magistrates then commanded others to strip them and to beat them. And then they even suffered abuse at the hands of this jailer, who soon will become their brother in the lord.

In verse 24, the jailer put them in maximum security area of the inner prison, and then also put them in a torture device called the stocks. And yet we see that in the midst of this situation that seems so dire, total opposition on foreign soil, a fledgling church. The question is, who will defend them at this stage, we nevertheless read that here they are praying, singing hymns to God in their jail cell. The way this is written is, as one commentator writes, their singing was praying. That is, they were pouring out their hearts to God using the words of the songs that they were singing.

And in so doing they were expressing a defiance in the face of the oppression and the torture that they were expressing, experiencing being confident in God's power, in spite of the seeming invincibility of their enemies to do with them whatever they saw fit. During this time, their witness is spreading through this jail. We read the other or the prisoners were listening to them, so they're bearing witness in the midst of their suffering. But then we also wonder whether the jailer himself might have been listening. And that's going to come up a little bit later.

But in the midst of all of this, we read about midnight, verse 25 and verse 26, that suddenly there was a great earthquake. So that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's bonds were unfastened. Now, in the Joseph story there was another great sign from God. It was in the interpretation that Joseph was able to give to the baker and the cupbearer in prison, and then ultimately that he was able to give to Pharaoh himself. That great work of God initially saw some of the prisoners escape.

One of the prisoners escaped, the other prisoner was put to death, and the one prisoner, the cup bearer at the right hand of Pharaoh, is then able to help Joseph to escape the prison. But here we read that in this great act of God, all of the prisoners had their bonds unfastened and they are able to go free prison, and these chains could no longer hold them. But in verse 27 we read and discover and following that in verse 28, that they do not escape. However, that's what the jailer believes. In verse 27, when the jailer woke and saw the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself.

Supposing that the prisoner prisoners had escaped. This jailer remember, if you remember in the previous passage in verse 23, that the magistrates had ordered the jailer to keep them safely. And that wasn't something about seeking the well being of the prisoners. This idea of keeping them safely means your safety depends on your ability to keep them in custody. If they escape, this will mean harm to your safety.

And what the jailer does, his first instinct is to recognize that whatever would happen to him would be so terrible that he doesn't even want to go through with it. Without any attempt to find the prisoners who were still right there. Presumably back in the darkness, he simply takes his sword and wants to kill himself. Because he was so in despair of what might happen to him if he were found out to have lost the prisoners. But in verse 28, we read Paul cried with a loud voice.

And the language here is that he cried out with a great voice. There's something of an echo here in the strength of his voice to echo the very power of God that had shaken the foundations of this prison. And he cried out with a loud voice, do not harm yourself, for we are all here. Here Paul stops the jailer from harming himself. God's power was powerful enough to shake the prison foundations, to release the chains, and even to preserve this man's life, who thus far had been a wicked enemy of the missionaries.

Remember, he didn't just sort of begrudgingly accept them and then sort of do whatever he could for them. This was not a kind man. This was a man that when he was entrusted with the king of these prisoners, continue their torture by putting their feet into stocks. And yet here we see the power of God, where the power of God is displayed in the earthquake, echoed in Paul's voice. But then it's also reflected in the mercy that is shown to this jailer who very easily could have taken his own life.

At this point, now I want to step back from this and to think about our own lives. How often do we feel anxiety or even despair when we see our problems as seemingly insurmountable, as so big that it is impossible to see a way for God to get us out of those instances? What this passage reminds us is that no matter how big our problems seem, in fact our problems are trivial. In the face of God's power, we worry, we fret, we are anxious, and for what? So much of our worries and our fretting and our anxieties, these are simply faithlessness speaking in our souls and us just being carried along with that faithlessness, or maybe that faithlessness leads us to scheme and plot and to take matters into our own hands.

One of my mentors, I can still hear him saying this, that faith means living without scheming. Because when we see these missionaries living by faith, they didn't see what God was going to do, but instead they confess their faith as they prayed by singing these great hymns to God, confessing God's power and God's mercy and God's authority over the world. And as they sang these things, God showed that their faith was not in vain by shaking the foundations of the jail cell. Probably the. The word here for hymning, they were singing hymns.

This is language that you find in the headers of the psalms themselves. Probably they were singing psalms. And if you sing the Psalms, and this is why it's so good to sing psalms, is because they are inspired reflections on the greatness and grandeur of God's power. So often the psalms remind us to think about God's power as the creator of the world. God's power in creation that is literally unrepeatable.

It is inimitable. There is nothing that can inimit imitate what God did in creation. All that we do to build and produce things are just pale echoes of God's work in creation. I read a theologian saying that all of the efforts of the world's powers could not create a fly, but God effortlessly created the heavens and the earth and everything in them. And Jesus told us also to look at creation in Matthew 6.

He said, look at the birds of the air. Look at the lilies of the field. God has never failed to provide for them food. He has never failed to clothe the lilies. And if God cares for them, will he not also care for you?

In the difficulties that you face in your lives? Do you fret without thinking about the power of God? But maybe you say, Jacob, I actually get the power of God. I read about the power of God all the time. My problem is really, if I think about it down in the depths of my soul, even though I might not ever say it out loud, my problem is I actually doubt the goodness of God.

I know he has power. What I wonder is, will he be good to use that power for my good? And that brings us to the next section. The goodness of God. Will God be good to his people?

2. The Goodness of God (Acts 16:29-34)

Now the first thing we see, and especially we are going to see the goodness of God extended to this jailer again, a wicked enemy of God's people, of God's appointed missionaries in this place. They suffer more because of this man. And yet we see prospect produced in this man, the fear of the Lord. Look at verse 29. And the jailer called for lights and rushed in and trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas.

Now, the fear of the Lord is not the kind of terror from raw, uncontrolled displays of power when, when you read the kind of fear that Islam tries to cast over the world, that's a different kind of a fear of the Lord than what we read held out in the Scriptures. Because the God of Islam is not the God of the Bible. The God of Islam is a God of raw power and terror. And if you read the Quran, it talks about his mercy. But there's no clear path to the mercy of Allah.

There is, however, A clear path to the mercy of God held out in the Scriptures through his Son, Jesus Christ. In the Scriptures we see ever commanded the fear of the Lord, and what produces the fear of the Lord, it is the power of God set alongside his mercy. Psalm 134 gives expression to this. The psalmist, as he's asking for forgiveness from the Lord, says, but with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. The fear doesn't come entirely in the recognition that we are guilty, in the recognition that we deserve the condemnation and the wrath of God, though we do.

The fear comes in the restraint of that raw, uncontrollable power that God possesses in order to show mercy to undeserving, guilty, vile, condemnable sinners like you and like me. And with God there is forgiveness that he may be feared. And this is the first step of showing this mercy and goodness of God to this sinner, this jailer who sees the power of God sees already that God has shown him mercy and restraining him from taking his life. And he comes to the missionaries, and in verse 30, he brings them out to some degree. The geography of the movement of this passage is a little unclear.

It's unclear what it means when he brought them out, are they already in his household? Well, it says later he's going to bring them to his household. So it's a little unclear. But somehow he brought them out and he asked them this question, says, sir, what must I do to be saved? Now, where does a question like this come from?

Well, certainly it comes from his recognition of the great power of God to shake the foundations of this jail, to release the shackles of these prisoners, and to even preserve his own life when he was about to take it. But it's possible also that the jailer had been close enough to hear the singing of Paul and Silas, as in the face of the great abuse that they had taken, they were still confessing their faith by their prayers and by their singing as they waited upon God to be good to them. It's possible also that somehow in Philippi, he had been one of the people to hear the slave girl declare the these men are servants of the most high God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation. Because that word for salvation comes from the same root word that he's using here when he asks, sirs, what must I do to be saved? In other words, he is saying, sirs, what is that way of salvation that I understand that you know about?

We don't know exactly what comes into this statement, but he recognizes that he needs to be saved. And he recognizes that Paul and Silas know the way of salvation and can tell him about it. Whatever intentions the demons had had in mocking the gospel, confusing people about the gospel, distracting people from the gospel as the slave girl followed them around, declaring this and whatever intentions the jailer had, and fastening their feet in the stocks when they were brought into his care. Whatever the wicked had meant for evil, we see that this entire time God had been in control. God had meant every last one of these things for good.

And the goodness we see is especially declared in the Gospel of Jesus. And we find no clearer, more concise statement of the Gospel of Jesus than we do in verse 31. And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. What a promise. Here it's so simple.

It doesn't require works to do. It didn't require circumcision then or now. It didn't require that you do a certain number of good works in order to earn your way into heaven. To any stretch of the imagination, works play no part in this. When they were asked point blank, what must I do to be saved?

Believe in the Lord Jesus. It's faith in Jesus, who is the Son of God, who is the Christ. We'll talk about that passage tonight. Jesus is the Son of God and the Christ, according to the confession of Peter recorded for us in Matthew 16, come back tonight. But it's the statement, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.

And as a pastor, I must ask you. I sat with an elderly saint this week who is not far from entering into glory. And I said, I have to ask him. A pastor, when you get there, when you stand before the gates of heaven and God asks, why should I let you into heaven? What will you say?

And I've done a lot of evangelism activities lately, and I've asked a lot of people the same question. And people often answer good works. I think I'm a good person. I think if God sees my heart, he knows that I am more or less basically good. And this older saint had none of that.

She says, only because of what Jesus has done for me, only because he died in my place and he gives me his perfect righteousness by faith, my job here is done. What a great hope that we have in the gospel, that even as we approach death, whether close or far, Jesus himself will be our Savior if we believe in him and trust him to be our Savior. But note also we can't overlook this. The promise is not just for this jailer the promise is for his household. Peter had said something very similar.

On the day of Pentecost, he said, repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, whoever the Lord our God calls to himself. But there is a special emphasis in the Book of Acts on the fact that the promises in the Gospel belong not only to the original recipients, but also to their children, also to their household, in a way that these promises do not apply in the same way to those who are far off. They do if and when the Lord calls them to himself. But if the Lord does not call them to himself, these promises are not for them.

We preach to them, not knowing which the Lord will call. But we do know, and we have this promise in the Scripture repeated at several point in the Book of Acts, that the promise is for you and your children. The promise is for you and your household. And so what the missionaries it says is you. And this is a singular individual statement.

You must believe on the Lord Jesus. But then he says, and you will be saved. You alone, but also you and your household. Now, this does not mean we're never taught that households are saved by the faith of others, by the faith of the heads of households. But it does mean that the promises are particularly for the household in a way that they are not for households outside of the covenant, households outside of the promises.

And to understand the promise is for the household, even if that means that maybe not everyone in the household will embrace that promise by faith. They're nevertheless for them. That's helpful in understanding the purpose of the baptism that we see here. Because when we baptize people, when we bring people to this font, especially the children of believers, we are not making a declarative statement. We are not saying we know for a fact that this individual, this child, or even an adult, when an adult comes.

We are not saying this person Absolutely 100%. We know it for a fact, has received the salvation that God promises through faith in Christ. Even our Baptist brothers and sisters baptized people who later fall away from the faith. And. And they say, well, it was a baptism, but I guess it just wasn't someone who had actually been regenerated by faith when we baptized.

We're saying exactly that. This is not about the person's individual faith. And you'll see how that's made clear in this passage. It is about the promises themselves. It's not about a declaration of whether the person has embraced the promises.

It is about God and his faithfulness to these promises. So let's look at the way this passage works this out. In this passage, first of all, in verse 31, we have this great statement. You will be saved, you and your household. That's the promise.

And in verse 32, we again see, it's not like this household leader can hear this word and keep his family from it. No, the household leader wants his household to know the word of God. Those parents who bring their children for baptism. One of the things that I am commanded to instruct you every time is that you must continue to bring your children, to teach them in the doctrines of our holy religion and in the Scripture so they know what Jesus has done for them. And we read in verse 32, and they spoke the word of the Lord to him and all who were in his house.

And then notice who's baptized. We read, he was. At the end of verse 33, he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Now, who is in here? The question is, again, not really.

I mentioned this a few weeks ago when we saw the household baptism of Lydia. When I did not believe in infant baptism in the past, I used to think, well, I just wish we would know whether or not there was an inf. Infant there. And that would settle the question. And perhaps it would.

But when we frame it like that, we are excluding the Old Testament from what we are reading here in this passage. And the Old Testament is very clear. Household, by definition, included infants. When you circumcise households, that meant the command was to circumcise the infants. Now that we see an entire household baptized, we know that this includes infants, whether or not there was an infant in this household or not.

Now many would argue, well, we know that the word of God was spoken to all there. Maybe they were all baptized because all of them believed. But that brings us to verse 34, the ESV. Sometimes I'm critical of different things that we'll come across in the text that we have. I want to say the ESV has this term translated exactly right from the Greek.

And it's really important to see. We read at the end of verse 34, and he rejoiced along with his household. So both are rejoicing. Why? Why did they all rejoice?

He rejoiced along with his household that he had believed in God. We are told about the faith of the jailer. We are not actually told about the faith of anyone else. They are all baptized based on the promises. And now we read about the faith.

The promises tell us that righteousness comes by faith. But we don't read about the faith first, and we don't read about the faith of all the household and then read that all the household was baptized. We read about the promises, which are for the whole household, or we read that the whole household is baptized, and then we read that he believed. This is not to exclude the faith of others. But if we look at the way that Luke writes this, he's organizing this in a way that we might not realize.

Brian Chappell, in his little booklet, why Do We Baptize Infants? And there are copies out there. If you have questions about this, he writes, the assumption in this passage that everyone in those households must have made a faith commitment does not take notice of the careful distinction that Luke makes between those who actually believed and those who were baptized. This is a really important point to make. As we think about why we baptize infants and what we are doing.

We are not declaring, this child is absolutely saved. We are making a statement not about the child, but about the promises that are for them. And we teach that child, as that child grows up, if you believe in the Lord Jesus, you will be saved. But look at this jailer. This jailer clearly believed there's immediate fruit in his life.

In verse 33, the one who had harmed these missionaries now seeks to wash their wounds. The one who had put them in jail. In those days, jails did not come with three square meals. And I don't say that the food in jails are good. I've seen plates served to prisoners, and they're not good, but they have them here.

We read that this jailer brought. And here, verse 34 is when we read that they brought them up into his house and he set food before them. As one commentator notices, Polhill writes, they were no longer prisoners in his eyes. They were now brothers in Christ, and he was showing hospitality to them.

3. The Refuge of God (Acts 16:35-40)

Well, I want to look at the third section, the refuge of God, very briefly. I want to look at this section and connect this idea in the third section, verses 35 through 40, as a way of thinking a little bit further about the goodness of God, that here we see the refuge of God for the missionaries. In verses 35 through 40, the magistrates say to let them go in Genesis with Joseph. Pharaoh had commanded that Joseph be lifted up out of prison. But now it's the magistrates, those in power, and they sent the police saying, let those men go.

And the jailer comes who has now been won over to Paul and Silas. And if you actually look at Genesis, it's very clear that the jailer for Joseph was also won over to Joseph. It says that he set Joseph over all the house of the prison. He was the prison administrator even while he was still serving as a prisoner. But here, the jailer who has been won over to Paul unto his Christ, he says, the magistrates have sent to let you go, therefore come out now and go in peace.

But Paul, now he hasn't earlier, but now he makes an objection. Earlier, he was just expressing his faith in the Lord. He did not avoid the political process here, but that wasn't his first recourse. He was looking and singing to the Lord. And that was his process, his appeal, his advocacy for his own good and for his circumstances.

But now he says, they have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, thrown us into prison, and do they now throw us secretly? And notice what he says? These are men. We are men who are Roman citizens. The issue here is that this was entirely an illegal process, and not just illegally, that the Roman authorities would have winked enough and nudge, nudge, no big deal, because he.

Not everyone was a Roman citizen, and they assumed that these men were not Roman citizen. But Philippi was a Roman colony that had special privileges. And this was such a serious offense that if word got out to the emperor, Philippi could be stripped of her status and the privileges she had as a Roman colony. And so it's no surprise that in verse 30, they were afraid and now they're doing damage control. In verse 39, they're apologizing to them.

And again, Polhill, I like a lot of the comments he makes in this passage. He's a commentator and he says there's a great irony here that those who were believed to be guilty are now seen to be innocent, but the judges themselves are the guilty ones. This dire situation has been turned completely upside down. And this could only happen by God, who is powerful and good, but also a refuge for his people. Now I want to bring this to application.

The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. This is not only the goodness of God, this is the best conceivable news possible. And it seemed to be, in that it seemed to be to be good and even the best news possible. When we recognize where we actually start and what we actually deserve, we deserve God's wrath. If you, O Lord, would count iniquities, O Lord, who could stand before you, but with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared again.

We Talked about the fact that the fear of the Lord is not this cowering kind of the fear of slaves, a servile fear who shrinks from the Lord. The fear of the Lord is emboldening because it is a recognition of God's power and the way that God restrains His own power in the mercy and goodness that he shows to us, especially through his son, Jesus Christ. The jailer was brought face to face with his power. The jail foundations shook, the shackles were unfast. He came to the point of preferring to take his own life rather than entrust himself to whatever was going to happen to him that would be worse.

All his power as a petty tyrant to imprison them in the inner prison and to put them in stocks, were undone in a moment. And God had barely gotten started. He rolled up his sleeve and he didn't even barely scratch the surface. And putting on the Ritz, this awesome God still reigns today. This power can overturn even the greatest evils in this world in a moment.

And the question you have to ask is not whether I am on the wrong side of this world, not whether I am in the wrong side of my situation, but am I on the wrong side of the chasm that separated me from God. Am I on the wrong side of God, separated still from him by my sin? Am I committed still to a life of autonomy and individual authority over myself? Or have have I come to recognize the power of God, the righteousness of God, the holiness of God and the goodness of God, as all of those things were brought together at the cross of God's only Son, where God himself shed his blood in the incarnate person of Jesus Christ, and he did this for you. Is this your hope?

Is this your joy? Are you looking to him for the righteousness that can come only by what he has done for us, by faith?

And if not, you're still on the wrong side of this chasm. If not, you still are hellbound. Whatever the Philippian thought he was doing in taking his own life, if he had been able to end it there, whatever the wrath would have been from the magistrates, he had no idea what he was plunging himself into in the torments of hell forever. And if you are on the wrong side of the gospel, then this is what you are facing as well. Our only hope then is what we're told in verse 31.

Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. There are promises that Jesus will save every believer, and those same promises are then brought into the household to change not only individuals, but to have the Gospel permeate whole households, it doesn't necessarily guarantee that every member in those households will believe will lay hold of the promises, even though they have a special claim to those promises. But again, baptism and indeed the promises of God, to which baptism point those promises are always true, even though every man were a liar. By baptism we receive those promises. Those promises are sealed and confirmed to us.

All those who are baptized possess those promises, and they point all of us toward the faith that is required for salvation Christ. But and this is where we turn our attention from one sacrament to the other sacrament that we will receive today. While we may have many examples in the Bible of household circumcisions, and we have many examples in the New Testament of household baptisms, we never have a single example example of household Lord's Suppers. In fact, in First Corinthians 11, Paul says, even if you're there, it doesn't mean you should be taking this Lord's Supper. You're doing it, but it is not for your good, it is not for your benefit, it is for your condemnation.

So what separates the right taking of the Lord's Supper from the wrong taking of the Lord's Supper? Well, it's the same thing, the same promises to which baptism point Believe in the Lord Jesus, period, full stop, and you will be saved. And the question is, are you believing in the Lord Jesus or are you believing in something else? Is he truly your power, your goodness, your refuge? Are you warring, going to war against the lusts of the flesh rather than tolerating sin in your life, even though you will stumble and falter, even though none of us are going to be perfect, this sight of glory is Christ your trust.

Blessed is the man in whom the Lord is his trust. Is that you? If yes, then come to the table. Receive what God offers us. We have nothing more than Jesus Christ crucified, held out to guilty sinners here.

But in Jesus Christ crucified, held out to guilty sinners, we have the power of God unto salvation. Come, look to Jesus again. Remember the power that he has restrained by his mercy that has made a way for your sins to be forgiven through Christ Jesus and you to be qualified to enter, enter into glory through the righteousness that Christ credits to your account. All of that is held forth to us in the broken body and shed blood of our Lord Jesus.

But if that's not you, what's holding you back? What sin is so important?

What area of doubt or faithlessness keeps you from embracing the power and goodness of Jesus. O sinner, even if you don't come to the table today, oh, sinner, would you look and meditate on what is held out to us in this table? Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. You and your household. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we pray that you would lead us to believe in Christ by faith. And we pray by your mercy that you would give us Christ Jesus, crucified now, as we approach your table, to feed on our Savior, not on his external body or his corporal blood, but on the benefits of the salvation that he offers through his life, death and resurrection, in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

other sermons in this series

Aug 9

2026

"Eagerly Examining the Scriptures" (Acts 17:1-15)

Preacher: Rev. Jacob Gerber Scripture: Acts 17:1–15 Series: Acts: God's Vision For His Church

Jul 26

2026

"Our Prowling and Roaring Adversary" (Acts 16:16-24)

Preacher: Rev. Jacob Gerber Scripture: Acts 16:16–24 Series: Acts: God's Vision For His Church

Jul 19

2026

"The Spirit of Jesus" (Acts 16:6-15)

Preacher: Rev. Jacob Gerber Scripture: Acts 16:6–15 Series: Acts: God's Vision For His Church