Locked Up

Acts 16:25-34 (NIV). Preached Sunday, November 1, 2026. Victory Month, V for Village.

One of the worst things is premature judgment. You can have all of the facts and still come to a faulty conclusion. You can have all of the information and people still get you wrong.

Have you ever had somebody have you messed up? They look at you for where you are and think you are a bad person. They try to define you by the lowest point they know about you. But I am not defined by the situation that I am in. Because you found me where I am, do not judge me because of where I am.

Paul and Silas are in a bad spot. They cast a demon out of a girl, it messed with some people's money, and the city beat them and threw them in prison. The inner cell. No lights, very little air, chained hand and feet. For doing the work of God, their reward was a beating and chains. And when the chains got on and the beating stopped, they were still singing and praying.

Some of us want to start singing and praying in prison. But if you ain't got singing and praying in your spirit, you ain't going to find it in prison. If you don't build your trust in God when you are free, you surely going to be mad at Him when you're locked up.

THE SWORD

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing, and the other prisoners were listening. The Bible only talks about two people singing. Everybody else is listening. But the doors for everybody opened up. Sometimes God will let you get in prison situations so somebody can hear your story. Sometimes your praising and singing will free the people that stay silent long enough to hear you tell it.

And the person with the key to the cell is asleep. God don't ever need anybody that's willing to sleep on you to open up the door for you. By the time God wakes them up, your door is already open. The jailer woke up, saw the doors open and reached for his sword, because he thought the prisoners were gone.

THE SHOUT

Don't harm yourself. We are all here.

Some of us want the jailer to go down because he is the one that was watching while we were locked up. You are so busy saying, Lord, make my enemies my footstool, that you labeled people as enemies that God was trying to make you a witness for. God's delivery of you should never lead anybody else to harming themself.

And how do you know they ain't your enemy? Because they weren't powerful enough to keep you in the situation you were in. They said you was broke. I was, but I ain't no more. There is a season in your life where God will let you keep living long enough that the people who told the story about you have to change it. So start shouting: I'm still here.

THE STRIPES

I have preached this text so many times, and this is the first time I ever saw this. Verse 33 says that at that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds. God shows up, drops the chains and opens the doors, but does not touch their wounds. You can experience God in a real way and still leave wounded.

The same hand that latched the chains washed the wounds. It takes a level of submission to allow that.

When you really understand it, this story was never about prisoners being locked up. It was about a jailer walking free but in a real prison. In verse 25 they are locked up and he is asleep. By verse 34 the same ones he had locked up are at his table telling him about a man named Jesus. And not just he got saved. His whole house got saved. They might be your enemy, but they are still somebody else's loved one.

This is Victory Month, and V is for Village. I need some people that will sing and pray with me until my whole cell block gets saved. You might see my hands bound, but I'm free. I'm the freest person in here, because I brought God with me.

Watch the full sermon in the Sermon Library at everythingvictory.org.