Not Done Yet | Part 6

session for not done yet is that we've been talking about how we're not done yet because God's not done yet. But today, the big idea I just wanna unpackage for a few moments is simply this. God is not done turning breakdowns into breakthroughs. God is not done turning breakdowns into breakthroughs.

Meaning, we have those moments, when I'm about to break down, when life is breaking me down, when life seems to be breaking apart and it's breaking me down, and and I don't know if I can go any further and we're wondering what is going on, God wants to turn that into a breakthrough moment for you and for me.

So how are we gonna look at this? I I wanna look at a passage in Acts chapter 16, and the story of Acts is the story of the acts of the Holy Spirit. It's the beginning of the church. And we're in chapter 16. We're gonna look at what happened in the life of a guy named Paul. We looked at him a few weeks ago, and,

Paul now is this missionary God's called him to be. He's going all over the the Roman world, the the Greek world, the the outside of of Israel, and he is starting churches. He's going everywhere and just leading people to Jesus and starting churches. And in '16, he has a partner named Silas,

and they've gone into an area called Philippi, and it starts off great. They're serving God. They're doing what they're supposed to be doing. They're starting this church. They meet a woman named Lydia.

They lead her to Jesus. She invites them to her home, and she goes, you can set up shop here and start this church. And it says her whole household comes to know the Lord. And and that's a good beginning to a church because you think, oh, it's just one woman. But the fact she had a house and invited them and it was big enough,

meant she she had some means. She this this woman was was apparently probably wealthy. And so they have some funding. They have a a a place to meet. They don't have to wear masks. It's awesome. And and when it says the whole household, it wasn't just Lydia and maybe her crazy sister and aunt or whatever.

If she had any wealth in this culture, a household included all the people that worked, the servants, the you know, everybody, some extended family, it could be up to 70 people easily in a household.

So they start this church. It starts to go well, and now they're going into the city. They're preaching. They're they're telling people about Jesus every day. Seems to be going well. But as they're walking in, there's a a a girl that's she's actually a slave

that has actually demon possessed, and this demon allows her to call out and say something that's futurist, like predict the future.

And so the her masters are making money off of her. And Paul walks by, and he finally she starts hollering out stuff, and and he gets kinda a little bit frustrated, but he says, you know what? I gotta do something about this. So he turns and he casts out the demon.

Well, along with the demon goes her gift, and along with that goes the money making for the masters. They can no longer take advantage and oppress this girl and get rich off of it.

Well, they don't like that. So they rally everyone in the town. They get everybody worked up, and that's where I wanna pick up the story because it started so well. And remember, Paul and Silas are absolutely serving God 100%.

And yet life breaks down on them in this moment. And I wanna see what they do because I think we're gonna see by how they respond. This is how this is how, you can see God turn a breakdown into a breakthrough. So we're gonna start in verse 22. We're gonna pick up the story. So the the everyone gets mad,

and so verse 22 says, a mob quickly formed against Paul and Silas. That's funny. This is a mob now. That's not good. And the city officials ordered them stripped and beaten with wooden rods. That sounds terrible. They were severely beaten. So not not just a normal beating. They severely beat them.

And then they were thrown into prison. So this mob attacks them. They beat them with rods severely, and then they throw them in prison. But it says the jailer was ordered to make sure they didn't escape. So they're like, you better not let them get out of here. So the jailer put them in the inner dungeon

and clamped their feet in stocks.

The inner dungeon. You gotta understand, prisons back then, this is most likely, as we'll see later in the story, it it's usually a family run business. The prisons are a privately run kind of a thing, and it's usually on the backside of where their home is. So it's near where they live, but it would be this atrocious

building of thing that's you know, the first level dungeon is usually a hole in the ground. The inner dungeon is a deeper hole in the ground, And they are not they are filthy. There's no running water. There's no ventilation. They're disgusting in the normal part of the prison.

The inner part is even lower. Well, if you don't have ventilation, you don't have toilet facilities, you don't have stuff like that, guess what flows downhill. So they are down in a deep hole. And not only that, they are immobilized. They're put in shackles where they can't even move. So they were serving God.

They did something good, and then life turned on them, and they ended up in lockdown, basically. They ended up in a horrible, terrible, terrible place. But what do they do?

What do they do? Because I think as we look at this, I think we're gonna see three things that they do that we can do that that that allows God to turn our breakdowns into breakthroughs. So here we go. Verse 25.

It says around midnight.

So halfway through the night. So now it's in the middle of the night, the darkest part of the night. They're sitting down in this hole for doing the right thing. They've been beaten. They've been deprived. They can't even move. But you know what they can move? They can still move their minds and their mouths.

And so look what it says in verse 25. It says around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. So around midnight, what were they doing? In the middle of this disgusting sewer pit of a hole in the ground, in their beaten bodies, broken down, chained up in the dark, they're praying and they're praising.

So that's kind of the the the first two things there is is if I wanna see God turn a breakdown into breakthrough, I need to pray and I need to praise. The the first thing. Pray. That's the first thing they did. They prayed.

You see, this is gonna sound so basic and so simple, but it's just like when when when I would play a sport and and you would learn how to hit a baseball. A lot of practice is so boring because it's just simple fundamentals. Simple fundamentals.

And and you have to remember the fundamentals. And the fundamental of the faith is the first thing we should do when life starts to break down, when life starts to make sense not make sense, when when it gets tough, when the world goes crazy, when my life is kinda shaken up, when I'm like, hey, thought I was going this direction. I thought I was going the right direction. I thought I was serving God. And all of a sudden, this horrible thing happens to me. The first response

should always be prayer. The first response. But that's our struggle, isn't it? I don't about you, but oftentimes I struggle. I I don't pray first. Prayer isn't my first response. It becomes my last resort. And it's supposed to be a first response,

not a last resort. So you know what we tend to do instead of prayer? Or at least me. I won't I won't throw you in with me, but maybe you're like me. Instead of pray, we panic. Instead of pray, we panic.

When I sat there and the tank broke, the first thing I wanted to do was not say, Lord, father, thank you that you are God of the universe and you knew this would happen. You need to strengthen me. You need to help me. I don't know what's going on, but give me the strength. No. The first thing I did was panic and ran around and go, you know what? This is gonna cost me money. Who am I gonna ask to do this? Everyone's busy. Am I gonna call calling a plumber? How many days is it gonna take to do that? What's gonna I mean, I started panicking in my head. I was just I just panicked.

With everything going on in your life right now, are you praying? Or are you just panicking? Because the problem with panic is panic just brings worry and doubt, and then that turns into frustration. And and and that is so emotionally draining that it basically takes you to a deeper prison. It takes you to an inner inner

dungeon in your own heart, in your own mind. So whatever you're going through, whatever you're facing, could you just stop and start talking to God? Just pray. But along with prayer, they were not only praying, it says they were singing songs, hymns to God.

They were praising God. These go hand in hand. They prayed, they were talking to God, Then they were singing about God. They were singing to God. They were praising. So so so typically, we wanna panic instead of pray. But also, I think what we tend to do when we don't pray, when we panic,

the second thing we tend to do is praddle. And instead of praising, we praddle. Now I know you're thinking, I

just make up a word. Praddle is a real word, and its definition is simply to talk at length in a foolish or inconsequential way. So whenever you start panicking, do you ever notice how you just start prattling on about what do we do? What do we do? What do we do? And and it's foolish. You're not really trusting the wisdom of god and it's usually inconsequential.

All the prattling and the plans and trying to do things your way and running around in the panic doesn't really accomplish anything. And half the time, you know what the prattle turns into? It turns into what I call a prattling pity party. At least for me, if I if I don't pray and I lean into panic,

I will then start prattling and my prattling turns into a pity party. Like, I can't believe this tank broke. This is not that old of a toilet. God, why would you let this happen? I am doing what you've asked me to do. We we built this beautiful new building, the church. You you built it through us, and and we can't even use it. And I'm I'm I gotta record a message on on video again. And and and it's harder, and there's all this sickness, and there's so many things going on in the world. It and, you know, and I don't even have sports happening right now. And you wanna prattle. You wanna go. And then my kids my daughter's going into her senior year, and I don't even know what that's gonna look like. And I feel bad that if it gets called messed up and ruined, there's pressure. There's all these things. And what I wanna do instead of pray is instead of pray, then I don't praise. I end up prattling.

I panic and I prattle. And the prattle usually turns into a pity party. I'm willing to guess I'm not alone in wanting to take that natural road.

Where are you at right now? Are you in the middle of a pity party?

See, you can either raise a praise or you can prattle in your pity party. And what I'm saying here is you can worship or you can worry. But you know what's interesting? You rarely can do both at the same time. Worship all through scripture, worshiping God goes to war against worry. It does. It does.

Matter fact, there's there's a great song we sing. And you know, I it just might show up at the end of this sermon. We might sing it. Don't know. But it's called raise a hallelujah. Raise a hallelujah.

And I love some of the words because it actually is is saying exactly what what it's happening here, what they're doing. When they start to praise God, the worry kinda goes away, and and they're able to handle it. They're able to not just have a a a breakdown. They're able to have a breakthrough.

And and I love I just wanna read some of words. It's called raise a hallelujah in the presence of my enemies.

In the presence of my enemies. So it's saying the time you need to praise God is when you are facing the thing that wants to destroy you. When you are right there. You are right there. It actually goes down in another line. Another one line says, I'm gonna sing in the middle of the storm. Just like they're singing in the middle of the night. The middle of the storm. Usually, if we're trying to be a good Christian, when the storm starts, somebody's like, You know what? We're gonna fight this fight. We're gonna sing. But about the middle, when it's like you're only halfway and you

don't even know what the middle is, But by the time you get in the middle of this storm, that's when you want to just be done. But he says, I will do this, sing in the middle of the storm.

He says, I will raise a hallelujah in the presence of my enemies. I will raise a hallelujah louder than the unbelief. What's the unbelief? Is it the unbelief of the enemy? No, it's my unbelief. It's my unbelief that when the enemy's there, when the problem is there, I need the praise that out sings my unbelief,

my struggle, my wanting to break down and give up. The praise empowers me. I raise a hallelujah. I love it. My weapon is a melody.

My weapon is a you know what? That sounds crazy, but it's actually true. I mean, think about it. There is a worldly way that we copy this. The way we're wired to love music have you ever just gotten mad, upset, frustrated? My daughter does this a lot. When she's really kinda struggling, she goes in and turns on her power ballad musics,

the songs she really loves that just and she'll just jam to the music. But you know, with and that's a cool thing. But in a worldly way, that only takes you so far. When you do that, a melody of praise to our Lord,

that praise then empowers me. That's what this song says. I love how it says, up from the ashes, hope will arise. Death is defeated. The king is alive. I love down a few more lines. It says, I raise a hallelujah. I will watch the darkness flee. I raise a hallelujah in the middle of the mystery.

The mystery means I don't understand why this is happening. I don't understand why God is allowing this to happen. I don't understand in God's plan why it would go this way. Like, just like Paul and Sis, they were doing the right thing. A church got started. It's going the right way. They're being honoring. They're being faithful. They cast out a demon,

and now they're in a dungeon. I can relate. I feel like that lot trying to lead a church. But I love these words. The darkness will flee, and I will raise Ollie in the middle of ministry. When I don't understand because when I do that, the next line says, fear, you lost your hold on me.

And then it goes on to say, sing a little louder. Sing a little louder. Sing a little louder. Raise a hallelujah in the presence of your enemies. And I think sometimes our enemy is not so much the problem in front of us.

It's what's going on inside of me.

I often am my own worst enemy. How about you? Do you need to raise a hallelujah in the presence of your own attitude, in the presence of your own unbelief, in the presence of your own fears, in the presence of your own frustrations, in in the presence of your own exhaustion? We need to not just pray, we need to praise him.

And you know what's true about this is is here's what's crazy. Praising him when things are going bad is the most important time to praise him because that's true worship. That's declaring, I know that my circumstances make me not wanna believe you, God, but I'm gonna show faith and praise you in the middle of all this.

Because the truth is this, if I can't praise God in my pain, I will rarely be able to please God in my pleasure. If I can't praise him when in my pain, then when life is pleasurable, when things are going good, I probably won't choose to please him. I'll forget about him. That's kind of a truth. So so what we need to do is

pray, not panic. We need to praise, not prattle in pity.

And the last thing we need to do is point, not pin. What do mean by pin? Pin the blame. See, the natural sequence when life starts to break us down is we panic, we prattle with pity parties,

and then we start to look for something to pin the blame onto. God, why did you do that? Why did you allow that? Maybe it's me. We even pin the blame on ourselves. I guess I'm a failure. I guess I can't do this. I can't And sometimes it has nothing to do with any of that. This could be a God allowed moment. He could be actually putting you in a moment and giving you an opportunity,

not an oppression. But we look around and we try to pin the blame on someone. Matter of fact, we should point, not pin. But often when we look to pin the blame, we actually do point. We point fingers at people. And particularly

one finger is the finger we like to point at people when we get really frustrated. We just get angry and we start fighting with everybody. And the sad thing is we tend to fight the most with the people that are closest to us or anyone on Facebook. That's pretty much the the the order of things. But we need to point,

but not fingers. We don't point our fingers at people. We need to point people to Jesus. Remember a few weeks when we looked at Paul and he learned that he needed to put mission over myself? This is this moment. He starts doing that. Because as they sit there let me let me show you what happens.

Show me what happens here. So it says around midnight, our head said that they were singing hymns to God, and listen to this. Catch this. Just remember this. It's weird why it even says this. And the other prisoners were listening in verse 25. So they're singing prayer, and all the other prisoners are listening to them.

Suddenly, verse 26, there was a massive earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew open, and the chairs of every chains of every prisoner fell off. So think about it. All of a sudden, this earthquake hits. They're listening to them pray and praise, and then the doors flew open and their chains even fell off. I mean, think about it. There is nothing holding you back from leaving.

It's like, you know what? You you you can have a breakout, and and there's the moment they could go break out of prison. A matter of fact, the jailer woke up in verse 27 to see the prison doors wide open. He assumed the prisoners had escaped. That's probably a pretty good assumption.

It says, so he drew his sword to kill himself. Why would he draw his sword to kill himself? I told you earlier, prisons were usually a private, a private business. But in this culture, that type of business, you could make some money, but you basically, fail failure was fatal.

It's like being a soldier often. If you failed, if you let all your prisoners get out, you're gonna be held responsible. And and the truth is you could be put to death and your whole family. So if he kills himself,

what he's probably trying to do is I'm gonna do this honorable kill myself, and then they might leave my family alone. So this guy knows if they all leave, I'm dead. My family might be dead. So think about it. This is the guy that decided you can't get away. I'm not just gonna put you in the dungeon.

I'm gonna put you in the inner, deeper dungeon, and then I'm gonna chain you up in this dungeon. So their only experience with this guy is probably not very pleasant. But look what happens. He's about to kill himself. But verse 28, Paul shouted to him, Stop. Stop. Don't kill yourself. And this is the craziest part. We are all

here. We're all here. It wasn't just Paul and Silas. None of the prisoners left. They all stayed.

They had a chance for their freedom. They could have taken off, but every one of them stayed behind. I can now you can you'll see in a moment, I understand why Paul and Silas would choose to stay, because they knew they were on mission. They they knew that they they they were gonna about to have a breakthrough.

They didn't have to run for the breakout. But why did everyone else stay? Well, the only thing in this text that seems to indicate why they would do it was the part where it says when they were praying and praising, the other prisoners were listening. That's the only indicator. Something happened to them while Paul and Silas

were praying to God and worshiping God. And so when they chose not to leave, nobody left, and it ended up saving the jailer's life and potentially his family's life. Verse 29, the jailer called for the lights to be ran, for the lights and ran into the dungeon and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And here you go.

When he brought them out, he asked them, sirs, what must I do to be saved? What must I do to be saved? You know what's interesting? The demon that irritated Paul in the beginning of this story

was crying out to the people, don't listen. They're gonna tell you how you can be saved by God, which is a weird thing for a demon to say. But the demon was

probably knowing they would cast out and then they get arrested. It was probably the demon's attempt to stop them from presenting the gospel, but what's so ironic is God used what the demon was saying to actually be prophetic about what he was gonna do and how it was gonna happen. People were gonna get saved because

they got cast into prison. Think about that for a little while.

Breakthrough.

They replied, believe in the Lord, verse 31. Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved along with everyone in your household.

And they shared the word of the Lord with him and with all who lived in his household. Even at that hour of night, the jailer care for them and washed their wounds. He and everyone in his household were immediately baptized.

He brought them into his house and set a meal before them, and then he as an entire household rejoiced because they all believed in God. There it is. There it is. You pray, you praise, and you point people to Jesus. You stay on mission. It says all over in scripture that the bad things, our pain,

can ultimately God can turn it to something good if we trust Jesus. If we love God or called according to his purpose. His purpose is we're supposed to share Jesus with the world. We're supposed to point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus would. Well, what do you think Paul and Silas did here? And by extension, they got all the other prisoners to stay, was was this idea that this guy was mean to them. This guy had imprisoned them, but yet they were willing to stay imprisoned

for him. They pointed him to Jesus because they loved him the way Jesus loved. Their pain turned into an opportunity, not an oppression,

a moment for God to do a breakthrough, not only in their life, they got to be a part of seeing God doing something amazing, but they got to see the church actually grow. This jailer, his whole family now is in is is a part of this church.

Think about that. You put point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus, by putting people ahead of yourself.

When life is breaking down and breaking you down

and you say, hey, I've tried this. I just keep praying. I keep worshiping. I'm here watching this, aren't I? But do you finish the third part? Do you use that and continue to point people to Jesus?

Do you continue to reach people to share the gospel?

Or when you're in that inner dungeon, are you praying God to God and praising God and waiting for the earthquake to open the door so you can get out? See, oftentimes, I think we wanna pray, praise, and then we want to have a breakout, not a breakthrough. See, a breakout is I'm praising God and praying to God,

but what I'm really praying and praising him for is I'm hoping he'll just get me out of this situation as quickly as possible. You see, God is the one who sends an earthquake and opens the door. But you realize, sometimes when God opens a door, it's not for us to run out,

It's for us to run-in. It's an opportunity to run into someone's life. It's an opportunity to get involved. It's an opportunity to show love and and and to have them be, wow. I can't believe like this jailer, he's probably like, I can't believe you didn't leave.

Why would you care for me like that?

How about you?

Do you really wanna break through,

or are you just wanting a breakout? God, get me out of this scenario. Get me past coronavirus. Get me past all the political craziness going on in the world right now. Get me past the pain of of of the job issue and and or the marriage issue or whatever it is. Is your prayer and praise tied into a breakout

instead of looking for the breakthrough? And that breakthrough is to point others to Jesus through what's going on in your life.

I mean, knew that when I sat there with that broken toilet. One of the things that helped me is I finally calmed myself. I prayed. I said, thank you, God, because I've been wrestling over my sermon, and and how am I gonna even lead into this? And as I sat there, I laughed. I go, you just helped me prepare my sermon,

which is funny because the next day was my sermon study day, and I had to spend the whole morning replacing a toilet tank, which got worse. I ended up having to buy a whole tubed toilet. So I got an extra part of a toilet, but I was ahead of the game. God took that moment

and allowed it to take the mission he had for me to move forward.

And you know what's crazy about this is this church in Philippi, if you look through the history of how it got started, it it pretty much got started with a wealthy woman, a slave girl, and a prison guard. That almost sounds like the beginning of a joke, doesn't it? A rich woman,

a slave girl, and a prison guard walk into a bar. It's it it it really begins like and it's it's not a joke. And this church be you know, the book of Philippians is to this church. It's a powerful church, and it started with the oddest combination of people ever. And that's how God works.

But you know what? Most of those people didn't come to the Lord till after everything started to break down. So how about you? Do you realize that God's not done turning your breakdowns into breakthroughs if you'll just agree with them, if you will just choose to pray, praise, and point, not panic, prattle, and pin,

where are you at on that? You know the bottom line of what it's really saying we should do here is back in the '70s when I was a kid, apparently clothes in the '50s and '60s, by the '70s they were already changing it, But they had a problem that clothing right now you don't realize clothing nowadays, kids,

is is has special stuff in it to make it, like, flame retardant.

It doesn't catch fire as easy. But apparently, back in the day, the way they used to make clothes, they would catch fire really easy. So they had this real problem that if you're a kid and you're in a family, if you get stuck and your house is on fire or you're near fire, there's a really good chance your clothes are gonna go up in flames.

And so they started a campaign. And some of you on your couch, you already know what it is. It's three words. Say it with me right now. Yell it at the TV screen. Confuse your kids. Make your dog get worried. And it's this. It's stop, drop, and roll.

Remember that? Stop, drop, and roll. And it was basically, if you find yourself on fire, you just need to remember stop, drop, roll. And that's kind of cool because it's true because they say stop. Because you know what the first most likely thing to do? And I understand,

if I catch myself on fire and I'm starting to flame out and just burn, my gut reaction is gonna wanna run around, right? I'm on fire. The problem is when you run around, you're generating that wind, you are literally feeding the flame and making yourself burn even more. So you need to stop. Don't run.

Then you need to drop to the ground, and then you need to roll back and forth. Because now you're not feeding the flame, you're putting it out. Stop, drop, roll. That's really what this passage is saying. Pray, praise, and point, is really you need to stop.

Stop. Don't panic when life seems like it's on fire. Drop to your knees in prayer and praise of God, And then roll into your life

going after the mission he has for you, for me. Be faithful, not fearful. Because when I stop, drop, and roll, when I do that, all the bad stuff that's happening to me stops being a breakdown, and God will turn it into a breakthrough. Are you ready for a breakthrough today? Stop, drop, roll.

How is your breakdown? Maybe an opportunity right now for a breakthrough. Because if you look at this for this jailer, Paul and Silas' worst day became his best day.

How can maybe your worst days be used by God to be best days for someone that needs Jesus. It's that simple. And God's not done wanting to do that through us. Are you ready? Are you ready for a breakthrough? Your worst days can end up being someone's best day. And you know what we how we should model that is is that's what Jesus

did. That's what Jesus did. He stopped when when when we fell into sin and we were broken and separated from him. Guess what he did? He he stopped. He didn't panic. He dropped. He came to this world

and he let his life be rolled out onto a cross. He let himself be broken. He let his life be broken down so we could have a breakthrough.

When we do the same, it's when we're the most like Jesus. And the goal that Jesus has for us in this world is to become like him.

Can you stop, drop, roll? I wanna pray, and then we're gonna praise him. Would you pray with me? Father God, I thank you. Sounds weird, but I thank you for the tough moments. In them, they're terrible.

And Lord, I pray that that I could get through them for everyone, that we would get through them as quickly as we possibly can, but not without accomplishing what you want through this moment. So, Lord, I'm not thanking you for the pain, but I'm thanking you for what you can produce through it.

So, Lord, I pray that you would help me and anyone listening to pray, praise, and point. And, Lord, I just wanna pray for anyone there that maybe they they they can't point others to Jesus because they've never met Jesus. There might be some people listening right now that are the jailer.

They're Lydia. They're the slave girl right now. They're oppressed. They don't even know you. And I pray that maybe right now they could put their faith in you.

If that's you and you're watching wherever you're at, you can actually do the same thing that this jailer did when he says, what do I do to be saved? Saved just means what do do to have with God. That's an eternal life, but gives me power for the present and a hope for the future.

It's simply you put your faith in Jesus, as Paul said. You put your faith not in yourself, not in your works, not in your panicking, not in your own plans, not in your own pleasures, but you just simply turn to Jesus and say, Jesus, I have ran far from you.

But now I believe that you died on the cross for me. You let your life be broke down so I can have a breakthrough of life.

So if you're there and you want to be saved, just pray something like this with me. Just pray, dear Lord Jesus, thank you. Thank you that you let your life be broke down so I can have life.

Thank you that you died for me, but you came back to life, defeating death. And right now, in the best way I know how, I wanna turn from my sin and my brokenness, and I wanna put my faith in what you did for me and ask you to forgive me. Thank you.

Now help me step out of this moment and get involved in a church just like this slave girl, this wealthy woman, and this jailer and their whole households did.

Help me to be a person that learns to to pray, to praise, and to point others to you. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Alright. We've prayed. And now it's time to praise. Are you ready in the middle of your storm to sing a hallelujah? Let's do that right now.