Chains Broken, Lives Freed

For the first three years of the seventies, Chuck Colson was Special Counsel to the President of the United States, Richard Nixon. He was also Nixon’s “fixer” and was known for being ruthless in getting things done. When the Watergate Investigation began to focus on him, Colson resigned as Special Counsel and made plans to go back to private practice.[i] When it became obvious that he would be arrested soon, Colson visited a former client, Tom Philipps. Tom had been transformed when he became a Christian and Chuck, filled with despair because his world was collapsing under the weight of the Watergate Investigation, wanted to know what had happened in Tom’s life to change him. Tom read a chapter from Mere Christianity to Chuck, the one that deals with the great sin of pride and then offered to pray with Chuck. Chuck declined and left Tom’s hose without revealing the trouble he was in. As he sat in his car in Tom’s driveway, tears began streaming down the face of this former White House tough guy and Chuck called out to God. In his book Born Again, Chuck writes, “I didn’t know what to say; I just knew I needed Jesus, and he came into my life.”[ii]

Chuck Colson did not become a Christian while he was in jail. He was already a Christian when he went to prison in June 1974. While there, he observed the flaws in the prison system and the many injustices suffered by prisoners. After his release, Colson founded Prison Fellowship which has become the largest Christian outreach ministry to prisoners in the world.[iii]

How Do We Live in Freedom?

Freedom is something we humans highly value. And we usually define freedom in physical terms: the ability to go and do what we want when we want to do it. But is that definition true? In Chuck Colson’s life, when was he the freest? When he was in the White House advising the most powerful person in the Free World? Or when he was in jail with his Bible telling other prisoners about Jesus?

Here is why I am asking you to think about this question: If the essence of freedom is being able to do what you want when you want, then most of us do not have freedom for most of our life. When we are young, our parents won’t let us do what we want when we want. In the middle of life, responsibilities like family and work won’t let us do what we want when we want. When we get old, physical ailments and infirmities will prevent us from doing what we want when we want. If physical freedom is what we need to be free, most of us will experience a life of frustration.

But what if God wants to give us another kind of freedom, a freedom that brings joy even when we are in prison? How can we live with that kind of freedom? To help us as we think about that question, we are going to continue our series Setting the Prisoners Free. Eventually we will get to Acts 16:16-34, but before we do that, here is some important background.

Paul & Silas Travel to Philippi

Last week, we saw how God worked in miraculous ways to make it clear to Peter and other leaders of the early Christian Church that he was now extending salvation to Gentiles, or non-Jewish people, through faith in Jesus Christ. This led immense growth in the Church as Jesus followers were witnesses for him in Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. The new Christians needed to be taught about the faith that they had been given, so Barnabas went to Tarsus to find Saul and brought him to Antioch. With his rabbinical training and theological background, Saul was great at reaching out to non-believers and teaching new believers about Jesus. So he stayed at Antioch and did that for a year.

Because others also needed to hear the Good News of Jesus, the Holy Spirit led the church in Antioch to send Saul, with Barnabas, to Asia Minor on his first missionary journey. It is during this journey that Christianity’s greatest missionary switched from using his Hebrew name, Saul, to using his Latin name, Paul. Upon their return, the two missionaries shared with the church in Antioch all that God had done on their trip. Paul and Barnabas then attended the Jerusalem Council where Paul, along with Peter, spoke against requiring Gentiles to be circumcised. The Council agreed.  

As preparations were being made for another mission trip, Paul and Barnabas sharply disagreed over taking Mark with them. So Barnabas left with Mark and Silas accompanied Paul on his second missionary journey. After passing through Asia Minor, and encouraging new Christians along the way, Paul had a vision of a man asking him to come to Macedonia. So Paul and Silas, plus Luke and Timothy who had joined them by this time, crossed the boundary between Asia and Europe, and stopped at Philippi, a Roman colony and the main city in Macedonia.

Though there was no synagogue in Philippi, there was a place of prayer by the river where believers gathered on the Sabbath to worship and pray. The little band of missionaries went to that place of prayer and there they met a woman named Lydia who received the Good News message about Jesus, believed it, and invited the four men to stay at her house.

The Conversion of the Philippian Jailer

One day, as Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke were walking toward the place of prayer, a slave girl began following them and shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” (Acts 16:17) This young woman was possessed by an evil spirit who foretold the future and she was used by her owners to make a lot of money for them. Though what she said about Paul and the others was true, she was interfering in their efforts to connect with the local people and share that way of salvation. Frustrated, Paul turned to the woman and spoke directly to the evil spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” (Acts 16:18) and the spirit left her.

The slave girl’s owners were very upset because their lucrative source of income was gone. They dragged Paul and Silas into the marketplace, brought them before the city rulers and accused them of spreading an illegal religion. Judaism was protected under the laws of the Roman Empire, but Christianity was not.  The crowd joined in attacking Paul and Silas. Without any due process, the magistrates had Paul and Silas beaten and thrown in jail, and the jailer was ordered to make sure they didn’t escape. The jailer took them to a cell in the innermost part of the jail where he fastened their feet in stocks. Paul and Silas had been faithful in carrying out Jesus’ mission of releasing people from bondage to sin and evil and yet they had been falsely accused, unjustly beaten and jailed. From a human perspective, it would have been understandable if they lamented their situation and cried out to God for vindication. But they didn’t. There in the darkness, chained, wounded and bruised, they unabashedly prayed and sang hymns of praise to God, and all the other prisoners heard them.

Around midnight, an earthquake struck, and it caused the chains of the prisoners to fall off and the doors of the prison to open. The jailer woke up and when he saw the open doors of the prison, he drew his sword to kill himself because if any prisoner escaped he would be killed anyway. From the darkness deep within the jail, Paul saved the jailer’s life by shouting, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” (Acts 16:28)  The jailer got some lights, rushed into the jail and fell at the feet of Paul and Silas in fear. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ³¹ And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:30-31) Paul and Silas shared the Good News with the jailer and all his household, they believed in Jesus. The jailer washed their wounds and Paul and Silas washed the jailer and his family in the waters of Holy Baptism. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. (Acts 16:34)

What Does This Mean for Us?

I think we humans—at least, I do—tend to live from the outside in. We rely on the circumstances of our environment to indicate if we’re free. And when we do that, we put ourselves into bondage over things we cannot control.

But Paul is showing us how to live from the inside out. How could he and Silas praise God in the darkness of that jail? They clearly understood the reality of their situation, but they also knew that Jesus is God the Son, who came to set all the captives free.

You see, through His death and resurrection, Jesus has given us new life as beloved, forgiven children of God. But here’s the thing: the new life we have as God’s children is hidden from the world. And in a way, it’s hidden from us. We cannot see it with our physical eyes; we can only see it with the eyes of faith.

The world sees us as flawed, broken beings living in a world filled with pain, suffering, and division. But that’s not the real you, and that’s not the full story. The full story is that a day is coming when Jesus will return to this world in a visible way, and all of creation will be healed and restored by Him. Jesus will raise us from the dead to live with Him forever in the new heaven and earth to come.

And as we read in Revelation 21:4, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Our challenge, dear friends, is to live the new life Jesus has given us within a broken body that exists in a broken world. And that is not an easy thing to do. In fact, it is impossible for us to do without Jesus.

So we not only need Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, for our salvation, and for the resurrection life to come—we also need Jesus to live our new life in Him right now. That’s why it’s important for us to live by faith in Jesus. The challenges of this world can actually help us realize how much we need Him, and teach us to rely on Him moment by moment for everything.

For as Jesus told us, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)

Transformed by Jesus

This past week, I was in Alberta for the funeral of my uncle. We were only 13 months apart, and we spent a lot of time together when we were younger. It was the saddest funeral and graveside service I’ve ever been part of—but something amazing happened.

Before the funeral, there were tears and grief, but after the funeral and the graveside service, there were smiles, hugs, and conversations. A psychologist might say, “Oh, well, that’s because everybody got closure.” That might be part of it. But I think there’s something bigger that happened that day.

Because the local Lutheran pastor, in his message, shared how there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord—not even death, not even mental illness, not even addiction. Nothing. (cf. Romans 8:38-39)

And so I think what happened is that Jesus transformed those hundreds of people who were there that day.

Yes, the grief and the pain are still there, but something else is there as well: we were reminded that we are free people of hope. We can sing praises to God in the darkness of our grief and pain because Jesus has overcome death, and He is the light of the world, and nothing can separate us from Him and His great love for us.

And so the challenge I want to leave with you today is this: feed your soul with the promises of Jesus so that you can live from the inside out, and make Jesus—not your circumstances—the foundation of your freedom.

And as we link together with God’s other free people in the world, people of hope, we will shine the light of Jesus Christ into the darkness around us.

For as John writes: “In [Jesus] was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5)

Amen.

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[i] “Charles Colson,” Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia (Internet; available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Colson#cite_note-nixon_archives-9; accessed September 4, 2025).

[ii] “Breakpoint: Chuck Colson’s Conversion,” Breakpoint (Internet; available at: https://breakpoint.org/breakpoint-chuck-colsons-conversion/; accessed on September 4, 2025).

[iii] “Charles Colson,” Wikipedia.