Synopsis: Simetimes life unravells and totally comes apart. The wheels fall off, the relationship breaks up, the friends dies and life dissappoints. Life unravelled is life lived for many people today. In the text Paul and Silas' ministry anf future unravelled before their eyes.

Scripture: Acts 16: 19-26 (NIV)

19 When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.
20 They brought them before the magistrates and said, "These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar
21 by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice."
22 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten.
23 After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.
24 Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose.

Points:

I. Unfair Trial

II. Shattered Future 

III. While Going Through 

IV. A breakthrough 

Concluding Prayer for Message and Worship Experience:

A Prayer for the United States Presidential Election 
by The Rev. Kenneth H. Carter, Jr. 
Reader: Creator of us all: you are the source of every blessing,the judge of every nation and the hope earth and heaven:

ALL: We pray to you on the eve of this important 
and historic election. 

Reader: We call to mind the best that is within us: 
That we live under God, 
That we are indivisible, 
That liberty and justice we extend to all.

ALL: We pray to you on the eve of this important 
and historic election. 

Reader: We acknowledge the sin that runs through our history as a nation: The displacement of native peoples, racial injustice, economic inequity, regional separation:

ALL: We pray to you on the eve of this important and historic election.

Reader: And we profess a deep and abiding gratitude for the goodness of ordinary people who have made sacrifices, who have sought opportunities, who have journeyed to this land as immigrants and strengthened its promise in successive generations, who have found freedom on these shores,
and defended this freedom at tremendous cost:

ALL: We pray to you on the eve of this important and historic election. 

Reader: Be with us in the days that are near. Remind us that your ways are not our ways, That your power and might transcend the plans of every nation, 
That you are not mocked. 
Let those who follow your Son Jesus Christ be a peaceable people in the midst of division. 

ALL: We pray to you on the eve of this important 
and historic election. 

Reader: Send your Spirit of peace, justice and freedom upon us,break down the walls of political partisanship, 
and make us one.

ALL: Give us wisdom to walk in your ways, courage to speak in your name, and humility to trust in your providence.

Amen.

Copyright 2008 by Kenneth H. Carter, Jr., Pastor of Providence United Methodist Church, Charlotte, North Carolina. Published by the General Board of Discipleship of The United Methodist Church. Congregations may reprint this resource for local church use, provided the copyright of the author is acknowledged and this website is cited. www.gbod.org

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