What do you do when God says, “NO”? When you pray all the right prayers with all the right motives, as best you can tell? When you are certain you’re following the right direction, only to find the way blocked? When you feel certain that what you want is what God would want, only to find out differently? What do you do when God says, “NO”? Such is the case in today’s text; God said “no”, not once but twice, to the man some have called the greatest Christian who ever lived, the apostle Paul. Let’s consider the text this morning (read/pray).
I. Closed Doors - :6-8
Here’s where Paul’s journey takes a turn. His original purpose statement for this trip was that he planned to visit the established churches, care for the Christians there, help them in their growth in Christ, etc. Little did he know what was in store. His original idea was to go to the Roman province of Asia (not to be confused with what we think of today when we think of Asia, a large continent).
But God said “no” to speaking the Word in Asia. Then, God said “no” to preaching the Word in Bithynia as well. How did God speak? We’re not told; Silas the prophet? Audibly? The Trinitarian references in these verses is clear: “the Holy Spirit”; “the Spirit of Jesus”; “God”. It might be that the means by which the two prohibitions were communicated was different: the resurrected Christ might have made an appearance in the second case, or communicated in some way similar to Paul’s Damascus Road experience. Nonetheless, however it was clearly communicated, twice God says, “no”.
“How odd of God”, we might be tempted to think. And how frustrating was this for Paul and his buds? How perplexing it must have been. The 18th-century Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, in his poem, To a Mouse, “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ’men Gang aft agley”, or taking it out of the Scots language, “the best-laid schemes of mice and men often go astray.” The “best-laid plans” of these missionaries didn’t come to fruition—what, were these guys not close to God, seeking His will? And yet God does what He does not only without our permission, but also without any real sense of obligation to make us understand His ways. This idea that becoming a follower of Jesus gives us some sort of carte blanche, some sort of blank check with the Almighty, is not something we find through a careful study of Scripture.
So, what do we do when God says, “NO!”? I mean, I can identify with doubters. Doubters look at what seems like the randomness of the universe to them, at what seems like signs that “nobody’s home”, and conclude that to be the case. I can identify with doubters, because I know that if I were running the show, I’d do some things differently than God does. Good thing I’m not running the show. But does a “no” from God mean He doesn’t care, or worse, that He’s not in control, or even not there at all?
No, because after God’s “no” comes a big yes, we find in :9-10:
II. An Open Door - :9-10
Before we get to the main point, notice a subtle change in the pronoun used: it is in this passage that we read the term “we”, indicating that Luke joined the journey, likely at Troas. It’s possible that Luke, a physician by trade, ministered to Paul physically. But at any rate, the shift from third person “they” to first person “we” takes place at Troas.
God had a different plan in mind than the missionaries had envisioned. Paul receives a vision of a man who beseeches him, “come over into Macedonia and help us.” “Help us,” using the Greek word Boêthêô, has the idea of someone running to help after hearing the cry of another person who is in danger. There is an urgency to the Macedonian call; it stems from the reality that apart from Christ, people are lost in their sins, bound for an eternity separated from God. This is why Gary and Esther Smith followed the call of God to leave Marietta, GA and make their homes in Papua, New Guinea, to bring glory to God by reaching out with the gospel to the Dinangat people.
“Concluding” – v. 10 – In the Greek, the word means “to bring together”, “to coalesce”, and what is suggested here is that Luke and Paul and Silas and Timothy considered the vision in the context of everything that had gone before, and it seemed clear: God was pointing them to take the gospel to Europe, instead of continuing in the regions that they’d expected.
And so this vision changed Paul’s direction; it’s likely that his original plan was to evangelize the cities of the eastern shore of the Aegean Sea, but instead, he ended up crossing into Europe and planting not only the church at Philippi, but also those at Corinth and Thessalonica. Macedonians were a hardy nationalistic people, people with a real sense of identity and pride as Macedonians, hard to be won to faith, but once won, very loyal and committed. Perhaps this accounts for the fact that Paul seemed to particularly favor the churches at Philippi and Thessalonica, Macedonian churches with strong commitment to the Lord.
Here’s a graphic way to look at it, using a clock to guide our geographical thinking: their southwesterly route was blocked by God; their northerly route was blocked as well. They were planning to go at 8:00; they then thought they’d go at 12:00; they ended up going off in a 10:00 direction. Here’s what the missionary journey looked like on the map. (Click a second time)
A.T. Pierson speaks of God’s “double guidance” of the missionaries, of on the one hand his “prohibition and restraint”, while on the other his “permission and constraint”. Pierson cites the same from missionary history of recent centuries: Livingstone tried to go to China, but God sent him to Africa; prior to this, William Carey planned to go to Polynesia, but instead was greatly used of God in India. Adoniram Judson went to India first, but then was driven to Burma. Pierson concludes that “we need to trust Him for guidance and rejoice equally in his restraints and constraints”; in other words, rejoice in God’s “no’s” as well as in His “yes’s”. God had closed the doors that Paul and the missionaries had thought were open, but He had opened an entirely different one, and getting there involved a journey to find
III. An Open Heart - :11-14
Samothrace, modern-day Samothraki, is an island that is part of Greece, a stopover point in the North Aegean Sea favored by captains whose preference was to spend the night there rather than face the hazards of the sea at night. It’s an island of rugged beauty, but Paul and his party weren’t there to sightsee. Their goal was Philippi. The missionaries traveled hundreds of miles before they really got down to business. I wonder what their state of mind was. So much travel; so little seeming fruit for their labors. Gary and Esther Smith traveled further and longer than did Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke—but last Sunday, they began to teach the Bible chronologically to the Dinangat people.
Philippi was a lesson in cross-cultural ministry for Paul; it had to be, because it was a city that had been settled significantly, in the years leading up to Paul’s time there, by Roman soldiers, the first of whom had been encouraged to settle there after the second Roman civil war had taken place there, the armies of Octavian and Mark Antony defeating those of Brutus and Cassius. These pictures represent what ancient Philippi looks like today; realize that these were much as Paul and his contemporaries might have seen. Philippi was a Roman colony that answered directly to the emperor. And Paul was, as Kent Hughes puts it, unfurl the flag of Christianity there in the Roman empire for the first time, and Christ was about to win many to Himself. The empire of Rome seemed so strong, but it wasn’t long before it was to be a memory; the Kingdom of our Savior, has spread over the entire earth.
And Luke writes, “We remained in this city some days. And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer.” In Jewish law, it took ten men to form a synagogue. If there were not ten Jewish men living in a particular city, who would be committed to regular attendance at the synagogue, then the meeting place would be under the open sky, preferably by a river or sea, in order for certain rituals to be undertaken should the need arise. Philippi didn’t have enough men, and so on the Sabbath, pious Jews would gather at the river. Paul and his companions went in search of just such a group, and there they found these women gathered to recite the Shema (Deuteronomy 6), to read from the Law and Prophets, to discuss the meaning of the text, and to hear from a traveling Jewish preacher, if there happened to be one. Paul and his group performed just such a task on this day.
There he met “Lydia”, which was likely a nickname, meaning “the Lydian lady”, “Lydia” being an ancient kingdom in which Thyatira, her hometown, now lay. Thyatira was a city famous for making purple dyes, and she would dye clothes in beautiful purple, my favorite color in case anyone is interested! She’d moved from Thyatira to Philippi in order to ply her trade, bringing her faith, honed in a synagogue in Thyatira, with her. Interesting: for the pious Jewish man, a common prayer was, “God, I thank you that I am not a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.” And yet Paul, in seeking to expand the reach of the gospel, is not hesitant to share with her. Paul undoubtedly had prayed a similar prayer as I mentioned: how remarkable it is, then, that later in life he would pen the words of Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
This was a divine appointment, make no mistake about it. God opened her heart; she believed; she was baptized. Paul preached; God opened Lydia’s heart. That’s the way it worked then; that’s the way it works today. Paul, in I Corinthians, writing to a church that had managed to divide itself based upon allegiances to individuals, reminded that church that human workers were used as God’s instruments, but that ultimately, it was God Who was working to accomplish spiritual results.
I mentioned earlier the Burns’ poem about how the best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray. But the truth of the Christian gospel is that the best-laid plans of God never go astray, that God sovereignly accomplishes all that He purposes (remember last week when we discussed the difference between the sovereign will of God, and the moral will of God?). His sovereign will can never be challenged or changed. What happened here was groundbreaking. This was the beginning of the church at Philippi, and of course, one book of the New Testament bears the name of this town: Philippians. It was undoubtedly one of Paul’s most-beloved churches. And it was the first church in Europe. And it was from Europe that the gospel came eventually to our shores, and spread to the rest of the world.
Finally, notice that Lydia’s response was to become an immediate asset to the ministry of Paul and Silas.
IV. An Open Home - :15
She “prevailed” upon them to come and be her houseguests, suggesting a bit of reluctance, possibly, on their parts, perhaps because she was a single woman, but ultimately her offer won the day, and her home became their headquarters. Lydia was to play a prominent role in the church established at Philippi, and it started with her willingness to do something seemingly small to be of assistance to God’s men. God can use the simple gifts that we offer to bring glory to His name, and to assist in the spreading of His gospel.
Lydia’s home not only served to house Paul and his traveling companions while he was there, but also served eventually at the center for Christian worship and outreach, the first meeting place for the church at Philippi, and some speculate that Paul’s cryptic words in Philippians 4:3, where he speaks of his “true companion”, were meant to refer to Lydia, asking this “true companion” to intervene in what had become a significant interpersonal problem between two other women. Paul very possibly refers to a woman as his “true companion” in ministry, something indeed revolutionary for the times.
Points to Ponder
What are some keys to dealing with God not acting in the ways we thought He would or should, to responding when God says “no”?
• Trust in His sovereignty, despite appearances. Paul was able, in writing the book of Philippians, to look back at certain “negative” circumstances in his life and say, “Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel” (Philippians 1:12). The promise that is made to all who are following Christ is that “all things are working together for the good of those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). Many saints have spoken of “dark nights of the soul”, when the hand of God wasn’t moving in obvious ways, when His voice was seemingly silent. An adjacent question is, “am I satisfied with God, and His plans, even if His way doesn’t end up being mine?” Proverbs 16:9 says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”
• Submit yourself to the will of God. James 4:13-15 teaches us that our attitude at all times must be, “if the Lord wills”. A submissive spirit in relation to the sovereign will of the Father is critical. Paul was a visionary who dreamed dreams and planned strategies for taking the gospel to the known world. Romans 15, for instance, speaks of his longing to visit Rome, but he always lived submitted to the will of God (15:31-32). He submitted his plans to God.
• Open your heart to His working, even in a different direction than you’d planned. God may want to take you in a different direction, something you’d have never conceived of, something you’d not have planned in a million years.
A couple weeks ago, I was privileged to meet Paige Garwood, a friend of Bruce and Renee McLean’s. Paige is an accomplished musician, one who has led worship in different venues, and who’s been a follower of Christ for many years. And Paige told us his testimony of how God had managed to close the door to a dream of his, saying “no” to some things Paige had been sure were His will for Paige’s life, how God had confirmed that leading through others. He told us how he’d been, well, “clueless” for lack of a better term; “why, God?” And yet God has now begun to use Paige in what he describes as the most fulfilling work of his life, something he’d not have ever planned or dreamed up, and yet a sovereign God had so ordered his steps that he was finding fulfillment and joy in ministering to others that he never would have had he not followed God’s leading.
Sometimes, God says “no” to us; it’s what we do, when God says “no”, that will make all the difference.
Table Talk
• Have you had an experience of God saying “no” to you? How did you react?
• Do you find it hard to trust that God is in control? Why?
