“WATCH THAT SNAKE, EVIE!”
A SERMON BY
PASTOR JOHN GLASS, D.MIN.


The story is in Acts 16. I think if it happened to me I’d have been troubled. Paul and Silas come to Philippi to preach the gospel. Lydia and her household became believers. Praise the Lord! She opens her home and invites them to stay with her. They do. Then, on their way to the place of prayer (v. 16) a slave girl meets them. She is infected with an evil spirit who, like a paparazzi, follows them around shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved!” all of which is true, but the way she does it creates such a disturbance it’s hard for anyone to hear what Paul and Silas are trying to say above the din. After days of this Paul finally turns and says to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” It does! It has to. Ah, peace at last.

Not for long! When her owners recognize they aren’t going to earn any more money through her fortune-telling they fire up the authorities who arrest Paul and Silas, flog them, and throw them into prison where the jailer puts them in stocks. (If we only knew the truth, a lot of what happens in law has to do with someone wanting money.) They could have sat there groaning (they’d been flogged!) or grousing (they had been denied due process). Instead, they sat there praying and praising. I think the latter is the preferred response.

I have a problem being inconvenienced by having to wait. Teresa told me she didn’t want to pay for parking so with my flight due in Portland at 1:18 p.m. she would be by at 2 p.m. which would give me time to get my stuff off the carousel and be on the curb. I’m on the curb at 1:40 p.m. 2 p.m. comes and goes; no Teresa and grandkids. By 2:20 I’m pretty breezy, even with my coat on – and getting concerned about no show – so I go inside the terminal. A woman has been sitting there reading. She looks up and says, “Oh. When you started walking I thought, ‘Good; he’s been adopted.’” She is a nice person. I ask if she likes to read. “I love reading.” I decide I will give her one of the Steps to Jesus books I’ve brought along. “Have I got a book for you.”

As I tell her about the book I keep looking over my shoulder out the window. She asks what kind of car I’m looking for. As I tell her, my phone rings: it’s Candy telling me there has been a delay but everyone will be there soon. It suddenly strikes me that the delay is for a reason, at which point the lady looks at me and says, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence your wife is delayed. God arranged it because I needed to talk to you. What’s the pin for?” she asks, referring to my CHIP pin. I tell her all about CHIP. Then the car comes around the corner, right on time. I even had prayer with her, which she really appreciated.

Groan and grouse…or pray and praise? The next time something “bad” happens can you sing with Paul and Silas?

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“Praise the Lord! I’ve been arrested.
Praise the Lord! I’m now in jail.
Praise the Lord for all these sinners!
Praise the Lord I can’t make bail!”

About midnight a violent earthquake hits. Everyone’s shackles fall off. The jailer draws his sword to do himself in when Paul calls out, “Don’t hurt yourself! We’re all here!” The jailer yells for light and rushes in, falling trembling before Paul and Silas. He brings them out and asks, (v. 30) “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” That night he and his family are baptized. What do you think: is the salvation of a soul worth an hour delay? Is the salvation of a jailer and his family worth having your rights trampled on, being flogged, and being thrown in jail?

His question: “What must I do to be saved?” Lots of people have asked it. Hopefully many more will. How would you answer? It’s a really important question. How is a person saved? Is it by doing something? Most of us expect that it is.

How did Paul answer? “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household.” (v. 31) Sounds just like Paul.
• Romans 3.20: “No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law.” Hmm; this is saying how we’re not saved. We’re not saved by anything we do.
• Romans 3.24: “Justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” We’re saved by what He did.
• Romans 3.28: “We maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.”
This sounds exactly like Paul at the Jerusalem Council: “you don’t have to be circumcised and keep Moses’ customs to be saved.” Peter endorsed this: “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they (the Gentiles) are.” (Acts 15.11) It is by God’s grace. Grace isn’t capitalized but it really ought to be.

Members of the Judaizing party followed Paul around and as soon as he left town they’d go to work on the new believers: “You know, that Paul fella didn’t quite have it right. Yes, you’re saved if you believe in Jesus, provided you are also circumcised and keep all the customs Moses gave us.” If this sounds a bit familiar it’s because it is. “You can’t be saved by keeping the Sabbath – but you can’t be saved if you don’t.” Can you sense the tension here?

A lot of good people agree with Paul: “We’re saved by faith in Jesus, not saved by works.” Articles like this you find in Spectrum. We want to add the words of the Judaizing party, “We can’t be saved by works, but we can’t without them, so get busy!” Articles like this you find in Our Firm Foundation. Back to the jailer’s question: “What must I do to be saved?”

Paul’s books aren’t the only ones in the New Testament. James 2.20-24: “You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor
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Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.”

Now that I have your attention, whaddayathink? Which are you going to believe? There are two complete sets of Bible verses supporting these two very different ideas of how a person is saved: a) faith alone in what God’s grace gives us in Jesus, or b) faith and works. Can you feel the tension?

What about Jesus? What did he think? That nice wealthy young ruler came to him asking what he needed to do to get eternal life? (Matthew 19.16) What did Jesus tell him? V. 17: “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” I’m guessing someone here likes what Paul said better than what Jesus said. Are we being fair to both sets of texts? Are we saved by grace through faith alone, not by our works/anything we do? Paul appears to say this. Are we saved by faith in Jesus plus our works? Peter, James and John – and Jesus, appear to be saying this. St. Augustine said, “You’re in a boat with two oars: faith and works. Use both.” How do we resolve this? How is a person saved? If salvation is truly by faith in the salvation God’s grace gave us in Jesus, then what does obedience and law-keeping have to do with it, anything at all?

1 John 2.3-6. “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” Jesus said, “If you love me, you will do what I ask you to.” (John 14.15) Obedience…keeping the Law…not smoking or drinking or eating shrimp or playing Keno at Potawattomi…paying tithe…all of this is for our benefit: it’s how we know we’re saved and living out of a relationship with Jesus – our love is showing up all over the place in our obeying him.

How is a person lost? Sin, right? 1 John 3.4: “Sin is the transgression of the law.” Romans 3.23: “The wages of sin is death.” A person is lost because of sin. Yes, but…what is sin?

Who was the first sinner? Lucifer. What was his sin? Isaiah 14.12-14: “You said in your heart, ‘I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of the assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” What does it say he did? It doesn’t say he did anything: “you said in your heart…I will make myself like the Most High/God.” His sin was an internal spiritual process where he, a created being, placed himself on the level of the Creator. He became his own sovereign authority. Follow…

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“God, you are the omnipotent Creator and you created me. Thank you. You made the rules. That’s fine. I’m sure they’re good. I want you to know, however, that I’ll take a good look at them and I’ll decide what I think of them. I’ll keep the ones that make sense to me and forget the ones that don’t.” He moved himself up to the level of God: viz., “I will make myself like the Most High…” One pastor said his little girl was born hard-wired with the question “Why?” She asked it. They had a rule in their family: do it, then we’ll talk about it. To explain his reason for requiring something of his child first, was to put her on a level with her parents, where she decided whether something made sense or not; she was her own sovereign authority. Devilish.

There really is only one sin: “Seems to me, God…” It is an attitude of rebellion against the sovereignty of God, an attitude where we are our own authority, not God. This is a type of dining at Burger King: have it your way.

Eve is standing looking at that tree one day. A voice asks, “Did God say you’re not supposed to eat from this tree?” “Right. We eat from it or touch it and we die – whatever that is. Ah, who’s talking to me?” “Oh, ho, ho, ho. You won’t die, Evie. It’s me, up in the tree, the snake.” “Snakes don’t talk.” “They don’t?” “Well…how’d you do that?” “It’s the tree. If eating from it would give a lowly creature like me the ability to talk, what do you think it would do for a ravishingly gorgeous creature like you? You won’t die. Why God knows when you eat of this tree you’ll be just like him: you’ll know good and evil.” Watch it Evie! Don’t go down that street! “Hmm. The fruit looks good to eat. It’s beautiful. If I eat it I’ll become wise.” Oh, no, Evie! Can you read her thoughts…”Seems to me, God.”

Obedience. It isn’t good enough to decide to do something God asks because it makes sense to you. For example, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Keeping the Sabbath for that reason may be nothing more than the expression of evil: I’m in charge here; makes sense to me. We don’t keep the Sabbath because it makes sense to us; we keep it because God said to: HE is God. Thanks to what Jesus did for us, when we accept his death in our stead we love him, and because of all he is to us we trust him enough to believe that it is for the best even if it may not make complete sense to us at the time. He loves us enough that he gave his only Son to die for us. If he’d do that, he’s trustworthy. Obedience is how we tell him “We trust you, Father.” Obeying is how we know we’re no longer rebelling.

We are saved by faith in God’s gift of grace of Jesus – alone! As we accept him our sinful self dies. We are born again and God is now become our sovereign authority. We’re not saved because of our obeying God. We’re saved because we know and have accepted that he loves us and we love and trust him enough to do what he says without question.