3. How to Turn a Prison into a House of Prayer - House of Prayer Pt. 2 - Joey McLaughlin | Stonecreek Church

Do you feel stuck? Like you’re bound to your anxiety, depression, and insecurity, chained to your less than ideal circumstances?

This past Sunday, we heard from Pastor Joey McLaughlin as he closed out our sermon series, House of Prayer Pt. 2. He unpacked Paul’s prayer to the Philippian church. Paul had to remember his imprisonment in order to move forward: what if redeeming your past meant living your best life in the future?

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Philippians 1:3-11

Acts 16:13

…on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer…Acts 16:16 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling.

Acts 16:23

…they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. 24 Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Acts 16:25-28

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, 26 and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bonds were unfastened. 27 When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”