Only the Lost Get Found

Today, Pastor Michael is discussing salvation and our situation in the present age. Along those lines, Pastor Michael reminds us of three things, all hugely important:

1. Everyone needs to be saved.
2. You cannot save yourself.
3. God sent a savior in Jesus.

In today’s lesson, Michael will drill down on the first item: everyone needs to be saved. We pick up the story back in Jesus’ time, with communities springing up along the Mediterranean of followers of Jesus. There were also missionaries, and likely, the most famous of them was Paul. Paul was on his way to Damascus, and at that time, he wasn’t on the side of Jesus, but after a chance encounter with Jesus, he became a strong believer and missionary.

Paul and Silas, to continue the story, were on their way to Phillipi, a Greek territory. They found people hungry for Jesus and the message. But they encountered a lady, displayed as a sideshow. Paul and Silas prayed for this lady and an evil spirit in her departed. The two men who ran the lady’s sideshow were unhappy that their show had been effectively canceled and started a riot! Yep, weird indeed!

Paul and Silas were apparently complicit in all of this, and they were beaten and thrown into prison. Paul and Silas were in prison, praying, and the prisoners overhead them. When the story couldn’t get any crazier, along comes an earthquake. Yep, you read that correctly: an earthquake!

This earthquake effectively freed all the prisoners, forcing all the doors to open and freaking out the prison warden. It freaked him out because, in Rome, the guards would have to serve the sentence of any escaping prisoner. Paul called out to him to not worry and the warden fell down, exclaiming, “What must I do to be saved?”

To be saved, you must be saved from SOMETHING.

What must you be saved from? The consequences of our actions. In other words, the consequences of sin.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. The story of salvation is not about you or what you have done: it is about what Jesus has done!

(CSB Bible Notes) 16:29-30 The jailer fell down trembling because he realized the earthquake was supernatural. This prompted him to ask the most important question in the book of Acts: What must I do to be saved? He was spared from death in the quake, spared from suicide by the discovery that the prisoners had not fled, and now wanted to be spared from God’s future judgment.

Today’s verses can be found in Acts 16: 22-34.

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.