Sermon that I delivered at church on Monday

Good evening,

Tonight I would like to talk to you about "Internal Prisons", the power of a parent’s love, the power of God’s love for us, tonight's scripture reading from Acts 16:6-40, and what it means to us as Christians.

I am sure that some of you have heard of the TV show “Hoarders”. This show is about trying to help people who have turned their homes into prisons by cluttering their homes to the point of being unlivable and in some cases dangerous to be in. The houses are physical examples of the hoarders’ internal prisons that were created as defence mechanisms after suffering through major life catastrophes such as divorce or the death of a loved one.

The hoarders have accumulated so many possessions and they end up simply going through the motions of life because, in their efforts to shield themselves from against being hurt again, they build walls to shut other people out, but ultimately they only succeed in shutting themselves in.

Sadly, these people are so wrapped up in living in the past that they are no longer living in the future and they are affecting their future.

We all know someone who suffers from their internal prison. If we honestly look at ourselves, we can realize that each one of us has some form of defence mechanism that inhibits us and limits our happiness.

Addictions are a prime example of this. Not just addictions to alcohol or narcotics, but other things: food, negative thinking, harmful relationships with others, to name a few examples.

These addictions are behaviour patterns that we have fallen into that may have turned into something far greater than we could have imagined, but may be easily observed by others.

This is the tragedy of internal prisons: the person who is inside the prison cell was also their own prosecutor and judge, the architect and builder of the prison, as well as the jailer who ensures that we live out our sentence – a sentence much harsher than others would give us – the self-imposed sentence of unhappiness and isolation from others, including God.

Negative ways of thinking, holding onto past hurts, either real or imagined, self-defeating thoughts, low self-confidence; these are a few ways that we keep ourselves from being happy, from living the best and fullest life that we can live. These are all obstacles that keep us from living how God wants us to live.

God loves us much more than we love our own children, so much that we have trouble truly understanding God’s love for us, since our own love for our children is probably the strongest emotional bond that we know in our lives.

Let us appreciate God’s strength as our father, to still love us even though we may rebuke Him, turn away from Him for a time, ignore His advice, refuse or forget to talk with Him in prayer, and sometimes believe that we can successfully live our lives on our own without His help and guidance.

Anyone who is or was a parent of a teenager can relate to what I just said. Cheryl and I have 5 children: 3 older boys aged 17 to 20, and 2 younger children aged 4 and 5.

Our younger kids, with their spirit of youth and innocence, believe what Cheryl and I tell them because they have faith that what we say is the truth. They trust us completely to take care of them and they know that we love them and only want what is best for them.

Our older children have more “grown-up” attitudes and they tend to rely on themselves first; they may listen to our advice, if they ever ask for it, and quite often they ask for it after they have exhausted their own resources yet still face their dilemma. Does this sound familiar?

We have all been there, we have all made our own way, separated ourselves, at least for a time, from our parents – those who gave us life, raised us the best they could, and who only want us to have the best lives that we can. Just like God. I suggest that we should all be more like our younger children: trust in God with all your heart and all your soul.

Our weaknesses, doubts and insecurities cause us to build internal prisons. God's strength can break down our prison walls and guide us to do great things in His name.

An example of this is the case of Rick and Dick Hoyt. Rick (the son) was born in 1962. He has cerebral palsy. Dick and Judy (the parents) fought to have Rick integrated into the public school system rather than have him institutionalized, as they were advised after he was born.

In 1977, Rick told his Dad that he wanted to participate in an eight-kilometre benefit run for a lacrosse player who had been paralyzed in an accident. Dick agreed to push his son Rick in his wheelchair. They finished the eight-kilometre run, coming in next to last. Afterwards, Rick told his Dad, "When I'm running, I don't feel handicapped."

That started a lifetime of ahievement, including over 1,000 races, 68 marathons and 6 Ironman triathlons, which consists of a 4-kilometre swim, followed by a 180-kilometre bike ride, and then a full 42-kilometre marathon run. By the way, Dick Hoyt turned 70 years old last June and he and his son Rick just ran their 29th Boston Marathon today!

This is the power of a father's unconditional love for his child.

For his own part, Rick graduated with a degree from Boston College, despite having the challenge of cerebral palsy. Rick broke free from the physical prison of his body's limitations to achieve his own goals. Not bad for someone who was supposed to have been institutionalized at birth.

Now, I would like to shift gears and talk about the Scripture reading from Acts.

Acts is an important book in the Bible because it is the link between the Gospels and the Epistles. It is the first history of the Christian church after Christ’s ascension into heaven and it focuses on the ACTS of the Apostles, how they responded to The Great Commission. Before Jesus ascended into heaven, He gave his disciples what is now known as The Great Commission: Acts 1:8, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

The passage in Acts 16:6-40 describes one of the mission trips of Paul, Silas and Timothy and Luke. Luke, the author of Acts, changes his account from “he” in verse 10 to “we” in verse 11, so what we are reading here is a first-hand account! They tried to continue their travels in Asia Minor (what is now Turkey), but the Spirit wouldn’t let them. They were told by a vision to go to Philippi in Macedonia, in the northern part of Greece.

It was here that the first Christian church in Europe was founded. The church had such an impact that Paul wrote letter to the Philippians, when he was in prison awaiting his sentence. This letter shows the mutual love between Paul and the congregation at Philippi.

The jailer in Acts 16 was saved because of the testimony of Paul and Silas’s actions. Through their actions, the jailer stopped from killing himself and instead won eternal life in Christ. The jailer realized he was lost and needed saving, which is the necessary step for all sinners to be saved. The jailer’s actions and testimony were so compelling that everyone in his household also came to Christ. The new convert is often the best evangelizer!

As Christians, we have learned that the best testimony to Christ that we can give is by living as Christians, which we can only do with the help of the Holy Spirit.

As God loves us, so does He forgive us. Once we accept God’s forgiveness for our sins, we can forgive others and most importantly ourselves, and finally release ourselves from our internal prisons. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13)

We can break free/be released from our internal prisons by simply opening the door to Jesus when he knocks. (Revelation 3:20)

From 1 Peter 5:7, "give God your burdens, don’t carry that weight all by yourself", and 1 Peter 5:10 "Hardship gives us the opportunity to grow spiritually and to get closer to God."

Great opportunities to evangelize to others can come from our hardships, like Paul and Silas bringing their jailer and Lydia to Christ in Philippi.

We are shown throughout the book of Acts the importance of the local church. This is shown in the example of the jailer’s salvation as well as how Lydia, a woman and the first Christian convert in Europe, started a spiritual revolution in the Western world. We must follow their example and live the Christian life, being as Christ to one another.

Whatever your burdens are, you do not have to face them alone. God's promise to us is that he will always be with us, we simply have to believe in Him. As believers, we are all representatives of Christ.

If something is troubling you today, take the time after the service to pray with Father John or any of us in the congregation, so that you too can know the healing power of God's forgiveness that will free you from your internal prison.