Hello all. Hope that everyone is keeping well, physically and spiritually.
• Let’s honour the Lord together, faithfully, as we gather each week to worship Him, to read His Word and hear from Him.
• So let’s commit this time to God in prayer.
We are blessed, Lord to be able to come before You again. We are happy to and we want to. Glad to have your written Word with us, which is the source of wisdom and understanding, hope and strength for us.
We come with open ears and receptive hearts, Lord. Enlighten us to see your will and understand your ways, so that we will be not perturbed by all that is happening around us today, always remembering that You are seated enthroned as the Sovereign God of all creation and the Lord of our lives. We submit to you and trust you.
Bless all who are tuning in today. This we pray, in Jesus’ Name, AMEN.
Covid-19 has disrupted many plans and is still disrupting our plans today.
• Just this week, the Singapore-Hong Kong air travel bubble was postponed because of a spike in Covid cases in Hong Kong.
• Interruptions, disruptions, cancellations, closures are now the common words that we hear. Unexpected events do happen and can happen at any time.
• Yet with all these unpredictability and changes, we know that God is sovereign and He knows it all.
• Not only is He in control, He is still working out His purposes despite the changes.
We trust in the PROVIDENCE of God. That’s the theme I want to highlight from today’s text – Acts 16:6-15. Let’s read the Word of God.
6 Paul and his companions travelled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. 7 When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. 8 So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. 9 During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis. 12 From there we travelled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.
13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. "If you consider me a believer in the Lord," she said, "come and stay at my house." And she persuaded us.
Chapter 16 records for us a couple of wonderful salvations, at the place called Philippi.
• Which incidentally wasn’t a place that Paul and Silas had in mind when they set off for the second mission trip.
• It was not their initial plan. God made it possible. We see the Spirit of God directing them to this place.
• And the result was the salvation of Lydia and her household, the deliverance of a slave girl tormented by an unclean spirit (in the section following) and the conversion of the jailor and all his family (which we will cover next Sunday).
All these took place by God’s providence! Let’s look at the circumstances leading to Lydia’s salvation.
• Lydia was a seller of purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, famous for its manufacture and use of purple dye.
• As a dealer, she travels between Thyatira and Philippi and sells her goods here.
• She was a worshipper of God, in order words, a Gentile God-fearer who worships the Jewish God, like Cornelius, but not knowing Jesus.
• Here in Philippi, there wasn’t any synagogue, because there were too few Jewish men to justify having one, so they gathered outdoors.
On the Sabbath, this group of women would gather outside the city gate and meet by the river bank.
• Being Sabbath, Paul and his team came looking for this “place of prayer” and found them.
• Paul shared the Gospel with them and “the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” (16:14)
• “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ.” (Rom 10:17)
• Again Luke (author) emphasizes the sovereignty of God in the salvation of man – “the Lord opened her heart”.
Lydia became Paul’s first convert in Europe. She and the members of her household believed Christ and were baptised.
• Her first practical expression of conversation was to invite these missionaries to stay at her house. It was at her house that the church at Philippi was born.
• 16:40 “After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia's house, where they met with the brothers and encouraged them. Then they left.”
This was how Lydia and her household got to know Christ and were saved.
• But we want to take a step back and look at how we get to this point.
• Let’s retrace our steps and see the providence of God!
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Paul and his team would not be here at Philippi if not for the intervention of God.
• If Paul had his way, he would be in the province of ASIA or the region of BITHYNIA.
• After visiting the churches he established on his first mission trip, in the region of Galatia, Paul planned to move to the province of Asia Minor.
• 16:6 says they were “kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of ASIA.” That’s Southwards toward the city of Ephesus
Paul, Silas and Timothy then decided to move in the opposite direction, to the North.
• 16:7 “When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter BITHYNIA, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.”
• In both cases, we were not told exactly how the Spirit says NO. It could be through the circumstances or a word of prophecy.
• Whatever the form it takes, they understood it as a direction from the Spirit of God.
• They were responsive and willing to lay down their plans in obedience to God.
Noticed this, they were kept from doing something that we normally think of as good – preaching the Gospel.
• How can you stop me from preaching the Word in these places?
• Yet the Spirit of God directed them elsewhere, and they were submissive. If God closes the door, we trust Him.
• There was certainly nothing wrong with the desire to preach the Word in Asia or Bithynia but to an all-knowing God, this wasn’t the best time.
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We know that the Gospel did eventually reached both regions.
• Paul moved onto ASIA later and spent a long time at Ephesus.
• He wrote to the Corinthians, 1 Cor 16:8-9 “8But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, 9because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.” [Even with the open door, Paul expected problems.]
• In due course, we know there were at least seven churches in Asia, mentioned to us in the Book of Revelation.
And for BITHYNIA Peter wrote to them in 1 Peter 1:1
“To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and BITHYNIA, 2who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.”
God opens the door to His work according to His way and time.
• Are we willing to lay down our plan for His, and trust God’s timing and priorities?
• Or do we insist on our way and bulldoze through closed doors?
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If you are prevented from going SOUTH and NORTH, what’s left?
• Going EAST would be backtracking; you would have to move WEST. But are you sure?
• At Troas, Paul received a vision, at a place and time when he needed to know.
• 16:9-10 9During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." 10After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
God assured him. God gave him a vision. Only God could have done it.
• The team concurred. The team “got ready to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the Gospel to them.”
• For the first time, we have the pronoun WE in the text. Luke, a doctor and the author of Acts and the Gospel of Luke, joined the team at Troas.
• In directing Paul to Troas, God blessed him with another companion in ministry. Now Paul has Silas, Timothy and Luke with him.
The Spirit of God directed them from the continent of ASIA to the continent of EUROPE, by closing two doors and opening another.
• We know now that their arrival at Philippi, and hence their encounter with Lydia, was not by chance but by the Spirit.
• There is no such thing as by chance for the people of God; Rom 8:14 “…those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
• As the people of God, we are led by the Spirit of God. We seek Him and He will direct us.
God has His sight on Macedonia, particularly Philippi, the leading city, and on the group of Gentile ‘worshippers of God’ praying by the river bank!
• Luke said 16:13 “On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer.”
• They were looking for them, but in the bigger picture, God was looking for them!
Looking at the trip from Galatia to Philippi, everything seemed random, but in God’s providence, everything works towards the salvation of His elect.
• The missionaries could not have planned for this. Salvation is the sovereign work of God. The Philippians became the first converts in Europe.
In what seems to be ordinary events, we see the providence of God.
• The truth is, God rules and overrules all things to bring about the fulfilment of His purpose. The sovereign God shuts doors and opens others, in His way and time.
• He sent His missionaries to Philippi because He was pleased to reveal Himself to Lydia and her household, to the slave girl, the jailor and his family.
If this is the sovereign God that we worship today, then we can trust Him and be rest assured that in His time, He will make everything beautiful.
• Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430): “Trust the past to God's mercy, the present to God's love, and the future to God's providence.”
If you are facing a closed-door of some kind – your trip is cancelled, your wedding plan disrupted, your course is postponed, or your application rejected – don’t fret.
• We wait on God and trust Him to show us His way in His time.
• We do not need to be preoccupied only by our plan; we trust He has a better one.
• With our limited sight and insights, we trust the God who has foresight and foreknowledge.
• Even in noble tasks, we submit to Him timing. The all-knowing God sees the end from the beginning.
Ravi Zacharias, an evangelist and apologist, was visiting a place known for making the best wedding saris in the world:
‘With such intricacy of detail, I expected to see some elaborate system of machines that would boggle the mind in production. But this image could not have been further from the real scene. Each sari was made individually by a father and son team. The father sat above the son on a platform, surrounded by several spools of thread that he would gather into his fingers. The son had only one task. At a nod from his father, he would move the shuttle from one side to the other and back again. This would then be repeated for hundreds of hours, until a magnificent pattern began to emerge.
‘The son certainly had the easier task. He was only to move at the father’s nod. But making use of these efforts, the father was working to an intricate end. All along, he had the design in his mind and was bringing the right threads together.’
God has this beautiful picture of what He wants to achieve in and through our lives.
• From this side of heaven, with our limited sight and insights, we can only see knots and loose ends. It looks random and messy.
• But our God has already gotten a grand design in mind and He is weaving this beautiful tapestry in our lives according to His purpose.
Charles Spurgeon shares this encounter. His friend Mrs Hannah More went to a place where they manufacture carpets.
• She wasn’t impressed. “There is no beauty here,” pointing to one of them.
• The man said, “This is one of the most beautiful carpets you’ll see.”
• “Why, here is a piece hanging out, and it is all in disorder.”
• “Do you know why, ma’am? You are looking at the wrong side of the carpet!”
Are we staring at the wrong side of the carpet? Are we disturbed by what we se this side of heaven?
• Then it’s time to lift up our eyes and see the sovereign God who is enthroned and still working out His will and purposes in our world today.
• Whatever the circumstances, we can trust in His divine providence. He is working out His will in and through us today, if we allow Him.
Let us close with David’s prayer in Psalm 25:4-5, 8-12
4 Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths;
5 guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Saviour,
and my hope is in you all day long.
8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.
9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.
10 All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.
11 For the sake of your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, though it is great.
12 Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him.
AMEN.
Thank you, Lord for being our constant Guide, and for your faithfulness in bringing the lost back to yourself. Thank you for being involved in our lives, to direct us, provide for us, and nurture us in our walk with you.
May we be faithful witnesses for you, wherever we are. May we be submissive to your leading in our lives. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
As we depart, may the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of our heavenly Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all, now and forevermore, AMEN.
