September 28, 2003 Acts 16:6-15
Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 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.
From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis. From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.
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. 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. 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.
Several months ago I was able to go to Oceans of Fun with my wife for our anniversary. After some time of going down the water slides and what not we decided to relax a little in the wave pool. We had gotten about two thirds of the way out before the waves came, when I noticed something at the bottom of the pool. It looked like the body of a small child. I looked at the man next to it to try and determine if he was teaching his child to swim or something. But when he didn’t seem to notice it or care, I suddenly realized that this was not his child, and this child was not moving. My heart was pumping about a hundred miles an hour, and for a moment, I was completely panicked. In a moment of panic, I reached down about five feet grabbed the child by the arm, and pulled it to the surface - only to find out that it was a rubber mannequin of a child. I thought to myself, either they are doing a test of the lifeguards or someone is playing a cruel trick.
If you’ve ever been in a situation like that - where someone is in desperate need of help - crying for it - it’s just natural for your body to get energized. There are records of people who have ripped doors of their hinges and lifted a seemingly impossible weight in a time of emergency. As Paul was sleeping one night on a missionary journey, he heard a call. It was a man of Macedonia, crying out to him and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” How would Paul respond? How would you respond?
Help us! A Cry For the Gospel
I. It’s God’s call
There’s a voice crying to you this morning and every day you are alive. It’s not the voice of a Macedonian, however. It’s not in the wilderness. It’s the voice of a Galilean from Bethlehem. His voicing is saying to you, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” (Mark 16:15) He’s asking, “who will go and work today? Fields are ripe and harvests waiting - who will bear the sheaves away?” No matter how hold, how young, how rich or how poor, as a Christian - you have a call from God to spread the Gospel. That is ultimately what you are here for. The problem is that somewhere along the line many of us have lost our focus on what we’re really here for. I see many Christians today getting so far in debt that all they can think about is how to pay off their stuff, or so focused on their work or school that they miss the big picture. As a result of this, deep inside most of us feel guilty - because the voice from Galilee keeps calling to us - and we know we’re not doing what we COULD or what we SHOULD to reach out. So when we hear another sermon about evangelism, we immediately become uneasy.
The ultimate question comes down to “how”? For Paul, the answer seemed to be rather simple. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So the remainder of Paul’s life was spent on three to four missionary journeys. It seemed that the Holy Spirit had a way of directing them where He wanted them to go - as can be seen in today’s text. Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. That was when Paul had the vision of the man from Macedonia. Luke writes, 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. As an Apostle, Paul somehow knew that this dream was from the Holy Spirit - and he was supposed to go and preach at Macedonia.
When we look at this story of Paul, it’s easy to get a romantic ideal that in order to do “mission work”, I need to be traveling overseas and preaching to do what we would consider “real mission work.” Or we think to ourselves, I should be knocking on doors and telling people about Christ, or bringing it up with my neighbor today. We know we’re here to share Christ, but we aren’t doing it. But when it comes down to it, what did Paul’s specific “call” consist of? Paul had all kinds of plans. He envisioned going through Asia and visiting the cities he had visited previously (15:36), but the Holy Spirit wouldn’t let him. He wanted to go to Bithynia, but the Holy Spirit said, “no.” So where else could he go? He didn’t know - until a man from Macedonia simply begged Paul to “help.” With this one call from one man asking for help, Paul ended up going farther away than he ever intended. This call to evangelism wasn’t what he expected - but it’s where the Holy Spirit led him.
Do you get a different vision of your call then? It’s not about going overseas and joining WELS Kingdom Workers - though that might be for some. It’s not necessarily about even knocking on doors of people you don’t know. The whole concept of the call, according to Paul’s life, is to just be ready and willing for the call for help - and it will come. If you look at our world today, people are in need of a lot of help. Our kids don’t know what it’s like to have a good Christian daddy in the home - they need the help of a good role model. Our co-workers don’t know what it’s like to live in a loving and committed relationship - and they’ll ask for your advice. These are the opportunities to do mission work. Instead of being so focused on what we want and our problems, it means taking time to help people in their crisis, and sharing the hope of Jesus Christ with them in the process. It means calling people when they’re sick and asking offering to help. But when we get too busy to worry about other people’s problems, or say to ourselves, “they’re a lost cause anyway,” that’s when we miss the call that God wants us to have.
If you don’t know anyone that needs help, then go look for someone. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether you know the needy or not. Paul didn’t know this Macedonian man - he was only in his dreams - but he went anyway. Whether you know them or not, every person who doesn’t know Christ needs our help, because they are on the pathway to hell. The problem is that they’re like that dead and lifeless doll at the bottom of the pool. They’re drowning but many of them don’t know it. They think that’s where they should be living. So they aren’t calling for help, and they don’t even know they need it. But we do - because God says, “how can they believe without someone preaching to them?” So when we come by them, we can either pretend they’re not down there, or we can dive down and try to help them. It’s when that opportunity to help comes up that God wants us to also introduce them to our greatest help in times of trouble - Jesus Christ.
II. It requires an urgent response
How did Paul respond to this call? You know how I would have probably responded? “God, you want me to cross this sea and go over to a country I’ve never been to, just because this one guy is calling me in my sleep? I wanted to go to visit the congregation I founded before! I wanted to go to Bithynia! This isn’t what I had planned! Why do you want me to go way over to Macedonia?” I probably would have dragged my feet and figured someone else could help those Gentiles over there! But how did Paul respond? Since there was an obvious need and a door opening, with Luke and Barnabas by his side, 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.
And what happened? Luke says, From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis. From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. The combination of those words - “sailed” and “straight” in the Greek tell us that favorable winds helped them get straight to their destination. When these men went where God was pointing them, they got there quickly. God blessed their journey, unlike the flight of Jonah.
Philippi was known as the “gateway to the East” because of its location on the Egnatian Way, a road that linked Italy with Asia Minor. It had many retired soldiers living in the city - without much a Jewish population at all. There wasn’t even a synagogue there. So Paul didn’t have his typical point of reference when he got there. But he didn’t give up so easily. Since there was no synagogue, 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. Here Paul had traveled all these miles, and all he found were a few women out by a river who happened to follow the God of the Jews - but not knowing of the fulfillment in Christ. But these people still needed help. So Paul began to speak with them.
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. 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. When Paul went into the open door, God blessed His message, as it says the LORD opened her heart. (Notice who got the credit for her conversion - it wasn’t Paul’s way of speaking or a decision of Lydia - but the power of the LORD.) Not only did God convert Lydia, but through baptism He even converted her whole family, and opened up her doors for Paul, Barnabas, and Luke to stay for some time. God blessed Paul’s response to “help” with conversions.
It’s interesting to note how often God has done this throughout history. When Edgar Hoenecke went to a hook of the Kafue river in Northern Rhodesia in 1949, he found some Africans who wanted him to establish a church there. He wasn’t expecting this - but the door was opened - and he walked in. Today, a little more than 50 years later, by God’s grace 40,000 souls now belong to the Lutheran Church of Central Africa. In Kansas City, Pastor Plitzuweit was just getting ready for another worship service, when over twenty Hmong people came in to his service. Pastor Plitzuweit had no mission planned for the Hmong, but his whole ministry was changed when those families walked through his doors. The door opened for him, and he walked through it. Now, the five men of this family are going over to Thailand on a mission trip to preach the Gospel to over 400 countrymen and show them the Lutheran faith.
My friends, I don’t know what kind of doors will be opened to us in the future. Like Paul, we can make plans for where we want to go. But we need to remember what Solomon said in Proverbs 16:9, In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. We may have an opportunity to try watching children on Friday nights to try and bring people in. We may decide to adopt a mission in the WELS, where we can pick a specific foreign or home mission to give to and encourage in the ministry. We may in the future be able to expand our building and do more ministry out of there with a pre-school or a school some day. I don’t know what kind of doors will be opened. But God does. Are you willing to go?
Jesus had one opportunity - when the time was just right - to enter into mankind and save a world of lost sinners. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t decide to stay in His comfort zone. Instead, He allowed His all encompassing majesty to be confined to the womb of a virgin. After Jesus fulfilled God’s law, the time was right to then die for the sins of the world. And when it came time to go the cross, Jesus didn’t back away. Riding in on the hatred of the Jews and the cowardice of Potiphar, Jesus took the opportunity to pay for the sins of the world. Three days later, Jesus rose. As a result of this Opportunist, we now have the free opportunity to enjoy peace, forgiveness, and eternal life in His blood and righteousness.
This is what keeps us focused on our ultimate goal to help people - to do what we can to spread the Gospel. In light of this, don’t say to yourself, “I’ll focus on God’s Word and church AFTER I get out of school and get married.” Don’t think to yourself, “I can teach my kids God’s Word AFTER I get the house cleaned.” Don’t say, “I’ll give more money to missions or the church AFTER I get my house paid off.” If you know someone that needs your help, which could open up the door for giving them the Gospel, don’t wait for a “better time.” The priority for God’s kingdom - God’s mission - has to be now! People need your help now - not later. Sometimes you only have one chance - and if you wait or you hesitate - your chance is lost. Strike while the iron is hot! Enter the door while it’s open!
Quite a few years ago, on a cold winter night in November, my wife was at her parents’ house watching a fireman movie about rescuing people. The weather outside was cold and wet, which led to there being black ice on the road. As they were watching the TV, they heard a knock on the door. The person said there had been a terrible accident on the highway right by where they lived. So they called 9-11, and went out to help in whatever way they could. Come to find out, two trucks had collided. The accident ended up leaving one man with a compound fracture and another elderly man with broken ribs. So those who were present did all they could, covering the elderly man in a blanket and holding his hand. But my sister-in-law noticed that while they were attending to these people, there was one man sitting in his truck some distance off with his feet on the dashboard - just watching what was going on, like it was some sort of TV show. She was so mad she wanted to go over and tell him off, but he took off before she ever had the chance.
When the knock comes on your door to “help” someone - how are you going to respond? Are you going to ignore their problems because your TV show is on and you don’t want to get cold? Are you going to go outside and watch what is going on, assuming that you can’t do anything anyway? Or are you going to go out and get involved, trying to do what you can to help? We aren’t helpless. We have a message that saves souls - through the forgiveness found in Christ. We have a message that can take people from hell into eternal heaven. Don’t assume you can’t do anything. You are God’s chosen representative to this world. A part of stewardship is answering the call for help - no matter who it is from and where it may lead you. Amen.
