Missions Paul

Stirring a city

Acts 16:20

“They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar”

Well they were not exactly throwing the city into an uproar. I feel this was an exaggeration. They were throwing the accusers into an uproar because they had lost their income from the slave girl.

It’s a good thought though isn’t it?

How about we read it like this: “These people are Christians and are throwing our city into an uproar.” Even if it wasn’t strictly true, it would be a great accusation to have!

Wouldn’t that be amazing?!

When Jesus entered into the city of Jerusalem the whole city was stirred and they asked ‘who is this?’ That’s what we will celebrate this Sunday in our churches.

But wouldn’t it be amazing if our churches stirred the cities of the nations again?!

How?

Maybe, by entering them with the purposes of God, with a declaration of victory and an atmosphere of praise to the living God, just like Jesus did.

Or maybe like Paul and his team, by delivering those held by the enemy of our lives, or by healings and transformations, or by business people bringing their own household to salvation as well as receiving themselves, or by holding baptisms down by the river or maybe by going to the place of prayer.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we stirred every city?

Let’s start in our neighbourhood today.

When you cannot see or hear or make sense of it all: GOD

Acts 16:19

“When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. “

Those who owned the slave girl now saw she was freed from the evil spirit. The python had left her. She would no longer tell fortunes and the result was they would no longer make money.

Satan gets angry when he loses someone from darkness to light.

The enemy of your soul only launches at you because he sees God using you for the good of others.

The enemy of your soul will at times seize you. It means to lay hold of with hands, to attach oneself to the person and to obtain by grasping. One day Simon from Cyrene was on his journey and he was seized and forced to carry the cross of Jesus. When the enemy has locked on to your life you know he is taking you some place. He has a purpose for seizing you. You may ask ‘what did I do wrong for the enemy to seize me?’ But the question is ‘what did I do right?’ You were noticed, you affected the darkness and the darkness seized you.

The enemy of your soul will at times drag you. It means to forcibly take you where you do not want to go. Within this word there is the meaning of inward power. He can drag you into despair and loneliness. You may fight against it, you may try all kinds of ways but because he has seized you he is dragging you to a certain place.

The enemy of your soul will at times put you in the place of facing accusation before the authorities. For Paul and Silas they were facing the ruling elders of the Jews. One of the groups of people who brought accusation against Jesus was the rulers and authorities of the Jews. The enemy of your soul is concerned that you realise that you are not ruling the situation, you are not in control, you do not have authority over your life and that there is an enemy who can accuse you of every sin and wrongdoing that you have ever done.

This verse today doesn’t bring any comfort to us as the enemy seizes, drags us and accuses us.

But let me ask you some questions. I don’t need to give you the answers, you know them.

Whose cross are you carrying?

Who owns the path you are going down?

Who is in control?

 

 

What will it take to say finally?

Acts 16:18

“She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.”

For many days this fortune-teller kept up the shouting as she followed the team wherever they went. She was announcing who they were and what their message was. But she was hardly a John the Baptist heralding the teams coming. She was undermining their work and the gospel of Christ.

Then we have this wonderful word that many look forward to hearing every Sunday from the preacher.

Finally.

Paul had been patient. He had kept his mouth shut for several days. But his annoyance grew until he couldn’t cope anymore. He had to turn around and change this situation once and for all and to also release this girl from her suffering of the evil spirit. He didn’t do any ritual ceremony which many in the crowd would have seen. He just dealt with the spirit firmly but totally. This is it. You are finished here. It is over. The girl was free.

Friends you may have put up with something for too long. You have shown grace upon grace. But the situation is becoming untenable. It is now affecting the work that God has given you to do. It has gone too far. The work of the enemy will not stop. You have to stop the work of the enemy in your life. You need to be annoyed enough to stop it. That is it. No more. Finally I turn around to deal with this enemy that is pursuing me. “Get out!”

I hope you can be annoyed enough to do it.

Not all evangelists can be trusted!

Acts 16:17

“She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.”

The slave girl follows Paul and his team. Under normal circumstances this would be a noble and good thing to do perhaps, but not if you are carrying a spirit of fortune-telling.

The slave girl announces that the team are servants not of Apollos or Python but of the Most High God, the Almighty God and everyone knew this was the God the Jews proclaimed. Again this is absolutely true and the crowds needed to know this Almighty God but not presented by a demonic girl.

The girl is shouting that the team’s message is about salvation. Salvation was here, this is what everyone needed and desired, it would save them from the burdens of this world. It still is but we don’t need the enemy to tell everyone our message.

Why did she do it?

Luke doesn’t say.

But the possible responses from the Jews and Gentiles may help us to understand. The Jews saw the demonic with all of its magic and dark activity as abhorrence to God and them.  To see this fortune-telling slave girl with an evil spirit aligning her to the gospel workers would undermine the gospel in their eyes. The Gentiles however would see their python spirit mixed in with this new gospel message and believe the whole of religion is any way is a good way and that no one needs to change or repent which is of course what the gospel message demands.

If the enemy of your life cannot stop you he will join you to frustrate you. He will try to render your voice powerless. He will undermine your authority. He will cause people to accuse you wrongly. He will water down your efforts so that you lose your sharp edge and you become mundane. He will try to remove your influence. And how does he do this? Is it through some seismic event in your life? Not necessarily. It could simply be the annoyance of a slave girl shouting the truth of what you are doing.  But the persistence and the pursuit of this slave girl was for the intention of slowing the team down and ultimately shutting them up.

On first reading and in isolation this verse looks okay. The enemy of your life likes to look inconspicuous. He doesn’t want you to notice anything is wrong but he is in hot pursuit of you and is persistently wearing you down.

You are going to have to deal with him if you are going to succeed in this life.

Who owns you?

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.”

 

The second person the team are recorded as encountering is a woman.

She obviously had a name but her behaviour so overwhelmed her life and that of others that she was simply referred to as a female slave.

Literally Luke wrote she had a ‘pythia spirit’ which we know as ‘python’. This was steeped in their mythology and centred on a priestess serving and becoming the mouthpiece of Apollo who was the guardian of the underworld. This python spirit was known for fortune telling with an ecstatic guttural sound and perhaps that is the picture we have of this girl.

She was owned by this demonic spirit. Luke, the doctor, whose learned mind had studied medicine and was qualified to treat people who were ill, now describes something outside of physical illness, that of the spiritual. In the western culture the Church has been rocked to sleep with the fact of demonic spirits owning people. But the African Church especially know this as a daily occurrence and they also know that for a person to truly come to Christ there has to be a battle with the evil spirits. The western Church needs to wake up. The demonic want to and do own people. People do become slaves like this girl.

She was owned by other people. They were becoming rich because she was very good at what she did. People’s lives were being impacted by the accuracy of her fortune-telling. Just because it is accurate doesn’t mean it is right. Again in my culture I know of many Christians who have battled in understanding those who predict and specialise in the supernatural when it can be proven they are accurate. Of course a lot of it is clever deception and manipulation but there are many who follow the evil spirits to gain comfort in some way.

Sadly the girl was owned by the evil spirit and by people.

“Don’t let anyone own you” is not my message this morning.

You see today we are owned by Christ. Jesus has taken up residence in our lives. Paul would write in Galatians 2:20 that Christ lives in me! I own my house and I rearrange the furniture and I paint my house how I want it. Christ is in you and is rearranging and reordering your life. He does this because He owns you.

You are His slave. Amen.

 

My house

Acts 16:15

“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.”

 

Lydia has been baptised in the river in the open place where the team had prayed and worshipped God. We may think today that the test of someone’s decision to journey with Christ is baptism. However, here it is not baptism. It is whether the team will come into her home. Peter had stayed at the Gentile home of Cornelius, the Roman Centurion and now Paul and his team are faced with the question of staying in the home of Gentile Lydia. That is the test. And apparently she had to persuade them. So perhaps a member of the team was uncertain. Was it Silas? He was from the Jerusalem Church who had battled over the Gentiles coming to faith. Anyway, they went into her home, Jews and Gentiles united in God under one roof.

This week I was hearing from a leader of a Romanian fellowship in the Church I previously Pastored how in the many Romanian homes in the town God is moving powerfully and people are being saved, healed and added to the Church.

God is in homes.

The Elim Church in Cologne, Germany is now around 400-500 people on a Sunday attendance. It started 2 years ago with the Church planter and his wife who had been sent out from Derby Elim. They began with house parties and kept moving location to bigger homes as these parties grew.

God is in homes.

Jesus spent a lot of time in the homes of people. Peter’s mother-in-law with a fever, dinner at Matthew the tax-collectors house, the Synagogue leaders home, Simon the Pharisees house and of course (“I must” ) his stay at Zacchaeus home.

What happened in these homes? We read of healings, anointings, messages of peace and encouragement, salvation and prayer.

Shepherds need to spend time in the sheep pen.

Pastors cannot pastor from behind the pulpit or in the office.

God is in homes.

May our homes be filled with dancing
May our streets be filled with joy.
May injustice bow to Jesus
As the people turn to pray.

As we cross over the thresholds of people’s homes by doing so let us announce acceptance, belonging and peace to all who live there. They are not a number, they matter to God, to His Church and to us.

“Lord open my heart as you did for Lydia”

Acts 16:14

“One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.”

 

Lydia was at the place of prayer, down at the river.

Lydia was a worshipper: this Gentile lady had noticed in Judaism something that was missing in her life, and she began to worship God.

The heart of this worshipper in the place of prayer was opened by God.

God reached into the centre of Lydia’s heart, as He still does mine. My heart, which is my thoughts and attitudes of life (Hebrews 4:12) and where my passion for life comes from (Proverbs 4:23) becomes sick when I lose sight of destiny and purpose (Proverbs 13:12). My heart can be wounded (Psalm 109:22), anxious (Ecclesiastes 11:10) and it can become stubborn (2 Chronicles 36:13). My heart can be closed by any or all of those things.

I sit here in the quietness of this morning and I feel some of those things weighing heavy within my heart. I cannot remove them nor can I fix them. I can cry and complain but they won’t change. So what do I do?

I do what Lydia did.

I go to the place of prayer and I worship God and I wait until He comes and He will…

The river

Acts 16:13

“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.”

The team head to the river …

I have been to Varanasi twice now, the centre for Hinduism. It is an interesting place known for the fact that it sits on the river Ganges where the Hindus worship it as ‘Mother Ganges’. The walk down to the river from a clean hotel is a walk of dodging the filthy streets and the cows that roam randomly! The river runs from the Himalayas which probably commences with clean pure water as it flows from an ice cave but certainly by the time it arrives at Varanasi it is anything but clean. Yet millions come to be spiritually cleansed, to cremate their loved ones on the river.

Some things we can learn about the river (and I don’t mean the Ganges!).

1. In order to get to the river you have to leave first. What you leave may be your security and all that you know. Your ‘city’ may stand for authority, status and people. But you have to leave it in order to get to the river.
2. In order to get to the river you have to move towards it. There is a journey that has to be made by a pilgrim.
3. The river creates an expectation and anticipation that there will be an opportunity for a divine exchange between earth and heaven. People talk about this and the message is spread that the river becomes famous for prayer.
4. The river functions not just for prayer but we will see in a few verses it is the place for baptism. It is here where the spiritual ritual of cleansing and purity takes place. People expect to come from the river changed as a person.
5. There are always crowds at the river but there is always a place for you. At the river the people gathered are at different stages of their spiritual life, but there is always a place for you!

I am talking about a different river. The River.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.

Go to the river today. He is waiting for you!

Let us stay awhile

Acts 16:12

“From there we travelled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district^[ of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.”

 

What will cause you to stay? The team stayed ‘there several days’. Why? Let me offer some speculative reasons that may help us in our own mission in life.

1. People – in the next several days we will read 3 stories of their time in this city. These people were Lydia, a demon possessed slave girl and a prison guard. They are amazing stories and they kept the team in the city because of what they encountered.
2. Place of Influence – Of course the capital in this region was Thessalonica. However, Luke writes of Philippi as the ‘leading city’. That could mean he was simply capturing the view of the people; or maybe it was because of its amazingly famous history of when Caesar Augustus killed Julius Caesar in this city; or perhaps because of its wealth with the gold mines and the springs it had; or was it even because of its diversity containing Greeks, Romans and foreigners who all carried with them their own gods to be worshipped. Of course no one knows whether it was opinion, history, wealth, diversity or a mixture of all four that made the city what it was. But Luke says it was ‘leading’.
3. Purpose – They were in Macedonia because of verse 9. Paul had a vision of the call to Macedonia. This was a new chapter for them. They were purposed by God to be there. They had to stay to discover why He wanted them there and then to carry out His will for their lives.

So as I reflect on what I have just written I am spurred on in my own life to organise my mission in this life around those very same 3 speculative reasons: People, the place of influence and the purpose of God.

I want my life to be about the people I encounter and their stories of transformation and to somehow play a part no matter how small to their development.

I want my life to be about being in a place of influence. I want to be able to influence the influencers and to lead the leaders. I truly believe everyone reading this blog if they looked around them would recognise that they themselves are in a place of being able to influence. It is the most exciting opportunity to influence our own children, or a friend perhaps, even our own parents and spouses. But of course the list goes on.

I want my life to be about purpose. To be right on track, focused, determined, heading in the right direction and having a sense of being here for such a time as this.

These are my 3 desires this morning. Are they yours? If so, let us stay awhile and see what God will do!

Keep sailing.

Acts 16:11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis.

 

Two years ago I had arrived at an Elim conference in a difficult country because of its terrorist activities against Christians. I hadn’t really wanted to attend but agreed because the national leader said ‘he would look after me’.

When I arrived into the town it was clear I was the only white man and wanting to keep a low profile I was a little anxious to see myself on billboards advertising the meetings.

At the commencement of the conference the national leader announced that not all the Elim churches were there in attendance. Some had given their apologies because they were afraid of the terrorists along the journey. He then went on to announce, “But this white man has risked his life to be here.” Everyone applauded but I think people may have heard my intake of breath! When he sat down next to me I said “You told me I would be safe.” His reply was shocking but made me smile, “No, I said we would look after you.” Presumably they would look after me alive or dead!

Paul and his missions team set sail from Troas across the sea. Fairly safe you might think but not back then, it was a risky way of travelling. But they did it because people needed to hear of Jesus.

Missionaries live their lives under constant threat from disease and threats. They continue because of the same passion that Paul and his team had. It is not easy. But they do it because of the love of God.

Maybe today you are facing a difficult journey. Maybe you feel alone. Maybe you are threatened by upcoming news. There is no other way if you are going to serve God but to go through this time. This is your sea.

When reading verse 11 we may focus more on the 2 places they went to, Samothrace and Neapolis. We may wonder where those places were, who lived there and what would God do. Our focus may cause us to overlook the sea travel. But maybe that is the whole point. How are we going to get through this difficult time, our ‘sea’? We do it by focusing ahead, looking to serving God and to reach others with His love.

Keep sailing today with others in mind.