Acts 16 shows that wherever the gospel goes, God directs it, converts people, faces opposition and expands his church, and it still does this today.
Speakers
Matt Felton
1. Direction
This sermon begins a new series on Paul's letter to the Philippians, which Paul wrote from a prison cell in Rome around AD 62.
In Galatia, the churches rave about a young man named Timothy. "Paul did what all great leaders do: he poached him."
The Holy Spirit forbids them to speak the word in Asia (v. 6), and the Spirit of Jesus blocks Bithynia (v. 7).
How God stopped them could have been intuition, sickness, weather, politics or prophecy. We don't know how, only that it was clear to them.
A vision of a man of Macedonia (v. 9) leads to the first church on European soil. Luke joins them, so the story shifts to "we."
Behind every movement in Acts is a master director. Paul doesn't know the plan, yet he follows it day after day.
Knowing God's will: don't sit around waiting, and hold your plans very loosely. William Carey (England to India) and Adoniram Judson (New England to Burma) both first planned to go elsewhere.
Planting this church came with "no voice in the clouds." Matt spent the first couple of years wondering if he even liked it here. Eight years later, he sees what God is doing.
2. Conversion
Philip, Alexander the Great's father, captured the city and named it after himself. After Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, Rome's civil war was settled at Philippi in 42 BC.
Philippi looked like a miniature Rome. It had no synagogue, only women praying by the river.
Lydia was from Thyatira and sold expensive purple goods. As "a worshipper of God," she was a Gentile who believed in Israel's God.
Theism will not save you. Only Jesus can.
Picture three women hearing Paul: one rejects, one shrugs, one believes. The difference isn't her intellect or goodness. "The Lord opened her heart" (v. 14).
The heart is your control center. Its eyes are shut to the things of God, and only God can open them.
Hearing God's Word is spiritual warfare. The devil distracts you with lunch, fantasy football and kids' sports, and makes gospel talk at home feel awkward.
Pray and fight to hear God's Word, as David prays (Psalm 19) and Paul prays for the Ephesians (Ephesians 1).
Lydia was Europe's first recorded convert. She was baptized, and her home became the mission's base.
3. Opposition
The slave girl had "a spirit of python." This echoes the Pythia at Delphi, the priestess believed to inhale the power of the serpent Apollo slew.
Luke doesn't explain away her power. It was a demon.
Demons speaking truth is a way to hide it behind an untrustworthy witness. Imagine hiring a known occultist to shout outside this church from 9 to 10:30 a.m.
In Jesus' name the spirit leaves, and the girl is set free. Her story sits between two conversion stories, which suggests she was converted too.
She was owned twice, by a demon and by masters. They drag Paul and Silas to the magistrates (v. 19), and the two are beaten with rods, one of three such beatings (2 Corinthians 11).
What are you willing to suffer for? That shows what you love.
Wherever the gospel goes, opposition arises, but the light is always stronger. The message is death to some and life to others (2 Corinthians 2).
4. Expansion
Around midnight, the jailer (probably former military) hears singing. Then an earthquake flings the doors open.
He draws his sword to kill himself, but Paul cries out, "We are all here."
He asks, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" He may have heard the hymns or the slave girl's cries, or seen that the prisoners stayed.
"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (v. 31). He washes their wounds, is baptized with his family and rejoices.
Believe in the Lord Jesus this very moment and you too will be saved.
Imagine the first Sunday at Lydia's house at 10 a.m. The jailer arrives on time with his wife, son and daughter. The slave girl arrives late, alone and nervous.
It was a wealthy businesswoman, a blue-collar soldier and a poor, abused girl, and they were now a local church.
Like Forrest Gump returning to his bench, the story jumps to the present. Ten years later, Paul writes "to all the saints… at Philippi," who now have overseers and deacons.
Key Takeaways
God directs our lives for the gospel, and we often see it only over time.
Only God opens hearts, so pray and fight to hear his Word.
Opposition always comes, but the light is stronger than the darkness.
The gospel brings unlikely people together into one church.