Tonight will be from Acts chapter 16, verses 11 to 40.
Once, when we were going to a place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future.
She earned a great deal of money from her owners by fortune telling.
This girl 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.
She kept this up for many days.
Finally, Paul became so troubled that he turned round 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.
When the owners of the slave girl realised that their hope of making money was gone,
they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.
They brought them before the magistrates and said,
These men are Jews and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.
The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas,
and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten.
After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison,
and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.
Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God,
and the other prisoners were listening to them.
Suddenly, there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken.
At once, all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose.
The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open,
he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped.
But Paul shouted,
Don't harm yourself, we're all here.
The jailer called the lights, rushed in, and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.
He then brought them out and asked,
Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
They replied,
Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.
Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.
At that hour of the night, the jailer took them and washed their wounds.
Then immediately he and all his family were baptized.
The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them.
He was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God,
he and his whole family.
When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order,
Release those men.
The jailer told Paul,
The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released.
Now you can lean.
Go in peace.
But Paul said to the officers,
They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison.
And now do they want to get rid of us quietly?
No.
Let them come themselves and escort us out.
The officers reported this to the magistrates,
and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed.
They came to appease them and escort them from the prison, requesting them to leave the city.
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.
Turn with me in your Bibles once again to Acts chapter 16.
I want to read from verse 11 to verse 15,
and then we'll think about the whole of chapter 16 from that point on.
Here is the moment where the gospel begins to break through in pagan Europe.
So Acts chapter 16 at verse 11,
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.
So we've been looking for the last few weeks at Paul's missionary journeys,
journeys that began from Antioch,
the church in Antioch, Paul's sending church.
So for this evening, I want us to imagine that we are Paul's sending church in Antioch.
So we've gathered together for worship once again,
and we are preparing to hear a letter that's come in from the mission field,
written by Dr. Luke,
to tell us about the progress of the mission.
Imagine how we would feel the sense of excitement as we read of these individuals
and the way God was working.
Imagine the praise.
Imagine how encouraging it would be to us as a young church,
surrounded by a largely hostile culture,
to be reminded of the fact that God is building his church.
Acts chapter 16 is an interesting one.
There's been lots of momentum.
Acts is a really action-packed book.
Lots of momentum in the last few chapters.
We see the gospel advancing in towns and cities.
We see opposition to the gospel.
But it's kind of like wide scale.
It's, yeah, wide screen.
But here, Dr. Luke deliberately slows down and zooms in.
Now the attention is not simply on the city of Philippi.
And now he's looking at these individuals that Paul and Silas and the others met
and whose lives were changed by their encounters with Jesus.
So Dr. Luke deliberately records for us three of the earliest converts to Christianity in Europe.
So if we were sitting here in Antioch,
this prayer letter would be telling us of the first time that people had turned to faith in Jesus in Europe.
And so I want us to have that mindset and for us to think,
what lessons are there for us in the mission that we are engaged in?
And as we pray for mission in Edinburgh and Scotland and Europe and indeed around the world.
The first lesson I think that we would probably draw instinctively is we'd be reminded that the gospel is powerful.
Here we see once again God's gospel breaking through barriers.
So at first sight, Philippi in Europe doesn't sound like a very promising place for the church to take root and grow.
Let me give you a few reasons for saying that.
So when they arrive in Philippi, Paul's usual practice, we discovered this,
his usual practice when he finds a new mission center,
he'll go to where the Jews are gathering,
where people are still anticipating the coming of their Messiah.
And he'll say from scripture, the one you're waiting for is Jesus.
But when he comes to Philippi, that can't happen.
Verse 13, on the Sabbath, we went outside the city gate to the river
where we expected to find a place of prayer.
So we know there is no synagogue in Philippi,
which means there must have been less than 10 Jewish men in the city of Philippi.
The law was if there was 10 Jewish men, they were allowed to have a synagogue.
So there'd be at least 10 families or at least 10 individuals waiting for the Messiah
who Paul could begin to engage with.
That doesn't happen here.
So he needs to go to this alternative to this place of prayer.
Another way in which we see that this is not a very promising,
this is a hard ground for the gospel, in verse 16.
Once when we were going to the place of prayer,
we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future.
She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune telling.
So this is a city where evil spirits are prominent.
This is a culture where the presence of evil can be felt,
and where even worse than that, people are actually profiting,
making money from the work of evil spirits.
Doesn't seem very promising for gospel work.
And then we can go down to verse 22 as another example.
So the owners of the slave girl, once she's changed and she's unable to predict the future,
they call or they haul Paul and Silas to the marketplace.
In verse 22, the crowd join in the attack against Paul and Silas,
and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten.
After they'd been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison.
So here is wide-scale opposition.
So the slave owners, they don't want the gospel.
It seems like a lot of people in the city gather together to oppose it,
and the magistrates are also standing against Paul and others
who would want to share the good news of Jesus,
attacking them, imprisoning them without trial,
as they'll discover despite the fact that Paul is a Roman citizen.
It doesn't seem like a very promising ground for God to do a work.
But the wonderful thing is God has his saving plan,
and Dr. Luke draws attention to the fact that out of this darkness,
God is working to call followers to Jesus
out of this moral and spiritual darkness.
Now, that's a very basic point,
but I think it's one that we can never hear often enough.
It's significant for us today in terms of how we pray
when we think about mission,
because we will know of situations and missionaries
who are active and churches who are active
where the church is small and fragile
and surrounded by hostility.
We will know of people working and situations
where evil spirits are a part of life,
where the demonic is a huge feature of the culture.
Thailand, Haiti, parts of Africa, many other places.
We know of situations where the government
and those who are in authority
want to crack down on Christianity
and would love to make sharing the gospel illegal.
We can think of so many places in the Middle East,
in North Africa, in China, in North Korea.
So in other parts of the world, we can pray
because we know that other people are having
these kind of experiences,
but the gospel is powerful,
and God is still seeking to build his church.
But for us here, I think it's important for us
to take heart for Edinburgh,
to take heart for Scotland and the UK.
Here we are discovering that Jesus' power
is greater than all the forces of opposition.
Here we are discovering the gospel can break through
a pagan culture as Europe was then,
and bearing in mind that Jesus is the same,
yesterday, today, and forever,
we are invited as God's people to be confident in him,
to trust that God is concerned for his glory,
that God is concerned to build his church,
that God is calling men and women and boys and girls
to faith in him,
and we are called to be part of that mission enterprise.
So I wonder if, as we think about that,
it's time for us to repent and believe,
perhaps to say to God,
I do believe, help my unbelief.
It can be hard to keep our faith
in the powerful gospel of God's grace in Jesus
when we meet with so much apathy,
when we see hostility,
or just people who don't seem interested.
We can lose heart.
We can be fearful.
But here is an invitation to believe
that he's still building his church
and he can still use us for his glory.
And so we see the gospel is powerful
and it breaks through barriers.
We see that God is powerful
and he opens people's hearts.
I think another thing that we would see
as we gather together to read this letter,
as we listen to Dr. Luke's words,
we'd be struck by the significant transformation
that's happening in the lives of these individuals.
And we'd be struck by the way Dr. Luke records it
because he makes plain
that it's the work of God that brings lasting change,
that it's as people believe in Jesus
that their lives are transformed.
We're reading of conversions
and we're being reminded
that someone coming to faith in the Lord Jesus,
that's God's work and not ours,
that we respond to the work that God does.
Let's see that in Lydia's case.
Lydia, who it seems like,
is the very first convert in Europe.
What do we know about Lydia?
In verse 14, we meet Lydia.
She's a dealer in purple cloth.
She seems to run some kind of fashion house.
So she is a wealthy lady.
We discover too that she was a worshiper of God.
So she is somebody who's not Jewish,
but she's become a convert to the Jewish faith.
She's not living as a Jew,
but she's reading the scriptures.
She's praying to the God of the Bible.
And so she gathers with other like-minded people
to pray on the Sabbath.
And what happens at the end of verse 14?
We're told the Lord opened her heart
to respond to Paul's message.
So in modern terms,
we would describe her as a seeker.
She's reading, she's praying,
she's putting herself in the place
where she can hear more.
But still, it's God by his spirit
that causes her to believe in Jesus as Savior.
Maybe this is the first time
she's discovered that all the promises
of God in the Old Testament
are fulfilled in the coming of Jesus, the Savior.
That he is the promised king.
That he is the true Passover lamb.
That he is the suffering servant
of Isaiah chapter 53.
And God enables her to trust,
to believe in Jesus.
And we see evidence of her conversion.
First of all, in her baptism, verse 15,
when she and the members of her household
were baptized,
she invited us to her home.
So there's baptism,
this outward sign of an inner change.
She's now a member of God's family.
And just as Jesus called the disciples
to baptize people in the name
of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
now that she's believing,
she's baptized.
And then she shows hospitality.
She invited us to her home, verse 15.
If you consider me a believer in the Lord,
come and stay at my house.
So Paul and Silas and the others,
they've now got a mission base
in Lydia's house.
But we see how that develops.
By verse 40, read verse 40 with me.
After Paul and Silas came out of the prison,
they went to Lydia's house
where they met with the brothers
and encouraged them.
So it seems like the church begins to meet
and gather at Lydia's house.
So she's opening up her home,
she's using her resources
in order to allow God's church to grow.
Here is evidence of a transformed life.
Now, with the next person we meet,
in a sense, couldn't be any more different
to Lydia.
Where Lydia was wealthy and influential
and seeking after God,
we meet this slave girl in verse 16.
A slave girl who had a spirit
by which she predicted the future.
She earned a great deal of money
for her owners by fortune telling.
This girl followed Paul
and the rest of us shouting,
these men are the servants
of the Most High God
who are telling you the way to be saved.
So she's poor,
she's exploited,
she's a slave twice over
because she's a slave to this evil spirit
as well as being a slave to her owners.
There is this sort of striking situation
where she is, in a sense,
witnessing to the truth
of Paul and Silas' message.
But it's perhaps likely
that the evil spirit
is trying to discredit their ministry.
Everybody, I think,
would know this girl.
So as she comes alongside
Paul and Silas
and as they're listening to her
and they're listening to him
and they've got the same message,
perhaps the evil spirit
is hoping to discredit
what Paul and Silas are saying.
But what we discover
is that Paul becomes troubled.
In verse 18,
he's grieved by her situation.
So he turns 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.
So we read the Gospels
and we discover
spiritual opposition to Jesus.
We discover so many
who are possessed by evil spirits
and evil spirits
who know that Jesus is the Lord
but they hate him for it.
And we see that Jesus
is able to drive them out
with a word
because he is greater.
And here again,
we see that there is no context.
As Paul drives the spirit out
in the name of Jesus,
instantly the spirit leaves.
There is no contest spiritually.
Jesus always wins.
He is greater
than the power of evil.
And then we see God's power
in the life of the prison jailer.
So verse 23.
So when the owners realize
that they can't make money anymore
and they cause this fuss
and they bring Paul and Silas
into the marketplace
and they are arrested,
end of verse 23,
the jailer was commanded
to guard them carefully.
Upon receiving such orders,
he put them in the inner cell
and fastened their feet
in the stock.
So here is a professional.
He's going about his business.
He's been told to make sure
that these prisoners
don't escape,
that they don't cause any bother.
So he puts them
in the inner cell.
But while they are in prison,
the jailer receives
some remarkable impressions.
Verse 25.
About midnight,
Paul and Silas
were praying
and singing hymns
to God.
So the prison jailer
gets to hear
this remarkable testament.
Here they've been flogged
and beaten
and put in incredibly
uncomfortable stocks,
but they're singing praise
to God.
And not only that,
this jailer,
he witnesses God's power.
He witnesses God's power,
first of all,
in an earthquake.
Suddenly there was
such a violent earthquake
that the foundations
of the prison were shaken.
And then he sees God's power
in the fact that
despite this earthquake,
none of the prisoners
escape.
Going on in verse 26,
at once all the prison doors
flew open
and everybody's chains
came loose.
So you're expecting
prison break.
Of course,
especially when there's no chains
and there's open doors.
The jailer,
knowing that this escape
is more than his life's worth,
the jailer woke up
and when he saw
the prison doors open,
he drew his sword
and was about to kill himself
because he thought
the prisoners had escaped,
but Paul shouted,
don't harm yourself,
we are here.
This is not natural,
this is the power of God.
And it seems like the jailer,
having listened to Paul
and Silas,
credits it to them
as the men of God.
So here he finds himself
at the lowest point
in his life
when he's ready
to kill himself
and now he calls
for a light
and he falls before
Paul and Silas
and he asks that question
in verse 30,
sirs,
what must I do
to be saved?
And they replied,
believe in the Lord Jesus
and you will be saved,
you and your household.
Here is a reminder
of the extent
of God's grace.
It is open to anybody.
This working class guy
who had no thought
for Paul and Silas
and their message,
this guy who'd been brought
so low
that he was about
to kill himself,
God speaks to his heart,
God convicts him
of his needs
and he hears
that Jesus is the saviour
for him.
And again,
there's evidence
of his conversion.
We see it
in his hospitality.
No longer is he keeping
Paul and Silas
in the stocks.
Verse 33,
he takes them home
and washes their wounds.
He gives them a meal
in verse 34.
And he and his family
are baptized.
So if you read this prayer letter
from Dr. Luke
from the field in Philippi,
what impression are we getting
of the mission of the church?
We're getting this impression
that God is building
his church in Europe.
And he's doing that
by his power
and he's doing that
by his grace.
And we're learning,
again,
that anyone
who believes in Jesus
can and will be saved.
And again,
there are lessons
for us to reflect on.
Here is one of them.
The gospel creates
one church
from many backgrounds.
You couldn't get
a more diverse
beginning to a church
than what we have
in Philippi.
this wealthy woman,
this slave girl,
and this working class man.
But their diversity
speaks to
the power of the gospel.
It speaks to
the believability
of the church.
When the only thing
that a group of people
have together,
the only thing
that we share in common
is the fact
that we love Jesus,
that we've been saved
from our sin
through the finished work
of Jesus on the cross,
then that creates
a believability
where we're not just together
because we're
the same sort of social type.
It's not like
every other social club.
People think
that the church
is like a social club,
but it's not like that
because we all come
from different backgrounds,
different places,
different educations,
but we're brought together
because we love Jesus.
Every year,
we get an invite
slipped through the door,
an invitation
to our local bowling club
and their summer fest.
I used to like bowling,
carpet bowling
as a teenager,
wildlife and sky.
But one year,
we decided,
yeah, we'll go to this.
We'll see our neighbours,
we'll get to know folks.
And so we took,
the boys were still
fairly little at this point,
so we decided
to walk along the road
and we'd go to
the bowling club fest.
Well, we got as far
as the gate
and we looked in
and we saw nice tables,
nice white tablecloths,
everybody very prim
and proper,
everybody the same kind
of age and stage in life.
And we decided,
perhaps,
not for us.
That invitation
didn't seem to fit.
It said we were welcome,
but it seemed like
we would kind of stick out.
But when anybody
is invited to a local church,
it should never be like that.
There should be that sense
that whoever we are,
whatever our background,
whatever our faith background,
we should be able to come
and feel welcome
and able to hear
the good news of Jesus.
So the gospel creates
one church from many backgrounds
and we see that
in their stories.
Now we see it in
how they came to faith.
For Lydia,
she was a seeker.
Her need, in a sense,
was intellectual.
She needed to know
that the good news promise
in the Old Testament
had been fulfilled
in the coming of Jesus,
the Son of God
and the Savior of the world.
For the slave girl,
her need was very different.
It seemed like she had
lost her identity
because she was possessed
by evil spirits.
So she needed to be set free
so that she could be herself.
in Christ.
And then it seems like
the jailer
has a moral need.
It's interesting that he asks,
what must I do to be saved?
Commentators suggest
here is an example
of somebody
who's got a stricken
moral conscience.
Different points of need,
different social situation.
somebody of great power
and influence,
somebody of no significance
at all to most,
somebody who's brought
to the very lowest point
where they want
to end their own lives,
and they all discover
God's grace to them
in Jesus.
I wonder,
do we see
or hear something
of our story
in them?
them.
Have we come
to appreciate
that same grace
and power
and love
that they received
is also available
for us,
for you,
this evening,
through faith
in the Lord Jesus.
The last thing
to say about
the power of God
in opening people's hearts
is that what's clear
in the way
that Dr. Luke writes it
is that God saves,
but we must respond.
The message
of the Bible
is that God
has completed
a work of salvation,
that by ourselves
we are sinful,
we choose to walk away
from God
and his love,
and we are unable
by ourselves
to ever find
a way back to God.
So if we are ever
to know and enjoy God,
God must do something
and that's what he did
in sending his son,
Jesus.
So Jesus comes
to be perfectly obedient
where we are disobedient
and he comes
to die on the cross
to take our sins
and the punishment
that that deserves
on himself
to give us forgiveness
and eternal life
and that's a completed work
that we are called on
to believe in,
to believe in Jesus
as Savior.
It's a gift of grace.
It's something
that we must receive.
It's not something
that we earn.
It's not something
we work towards.
It's a gift
that we receive
and it's also,
as we discover from this,
it's a gospel
that we must share.
But let's think about
how we see this
in Lydia's story.
In Lydia's story,
verse 14,
it says to us,
the Lord opened her heart.
So there's God's work
in salvation.
But how does he do it?
He does it
through Paul's preaching.
So God chooses
the means of preaching
in order to carry out
his work of salvation.
And it says,
the Lord opened her heart,
but she obviously then
had to still believe.
So she says in verse 15,
if you consider me
a believer in the Lord.
So there is response.
God works in salvation,
but we are called
to share the gospel
if we're Christians,
and we're called
to believe the gospel
if we're not Christians.
And so all of us
are being invited constantly
to respond to the gospel,
either to believe in Jesus,
to forgive our sin
and to be our savior,
or to have faith,
to speak and act
for his glory
so that others
might meet Jesus
for themselves.
One last thing to notice
as we think about this
missionary letter,
and that's to see
that God's providence
serves his saving plan.
Imagine again,
this is the first time
you're reading this prayer letter
from Dr. Luke.
I wonder how we would feel.
Would there be a groan
when the angry crowd
attacked the missionaries?
Would we be thinking
to ourselves,
ah, what a waste
when they are thrown
into prison?
But as the story goes on,
we see how God
is able to use that.
The God of providence
is able to work good
even out of evil,
out of injustice,
out of torture
and hatred
and hostility.
And isn't that the story
of the cross?
That the greatest injustice
that has ever been carried out
in the world
is that men and women
wanted the death
of the perfect,
sinless son of God.
But God,
in his providence,
had planned for that.
And he used
the death of Jesus
in order
that men and women
and boys and girls,
as Fergus was praying,
might be turned
from enemies of God
into friends of God.
And that's what we see
in sort of verse 25 onwards,
that the arrest
of Paul and Silas
allows them
to be ambassadors
for Christ
in chains.
They have this
incredible witness
at midnight
praying and singing
hymns to God
where we would expect
groans,
we get songs,
where we would expect
curses,
we hear blessing.
They sound just like
Jesus on the cross.
Didn't shout insults
and curses
back at the crowd
that were baying
for his blood
and mocking him.
Rather,
he prayed,
Father,
forgive them.
They know not
what they're doing.
And in God's providence,
their powerful witness
is used
to bring
the jailer
to faith.
I read this week
a story
from the
Scottish Bible Society
from a woman
taken captive
by Al-Qaeda
in Syria.
For two years,
she'd been kept
in darkness
with her daughter
for two years.
They'd been tortured
and been told
if you turn to Islam,
we'll let you go free
immediately.
Well,
she said at some point
a guard
found a Bible
and the guard
wanted to hear
the Bible.
And so she began
to share
her faith.
and she said
that she had
the joy
before her release
to hear this
from her prison guards.
We have learned
to love Jesus
because of you.
And there again
is the providence
of God.
The worst
of evil
being turned
in God's hand
into grace
and salvation
for prison guards.
And so I think
this is a reminder
to us
never to underestimate
the power
of personal testimony,
to recognize
that the way
we approach
and experience
suffering
can speak
powerfully
to others,
that our lifestyle
matters
when we have
integrity at work,
when we avoid
gossip,
when we deal
well with suffering.
that speaks
to people
who are watching.
When we share
Jesus
as our hope
in the middle
of hardship,
it's a powerful
testimony
that's really
hard to refute.
Somebody once
said that the
providence of God
is not a heavy
hammer,
it's a soft
pillow.
Humanly speaking,
sometimes our
circumstances
can seem hard
and bleak
and we may
be tempted
to turn on God
and to accuse God
and to ask
questions of God
and there's a place
for that
but there's also
a place
for recognizing
that God
is with us,
that God
has planned
these things
and God
is able to use
even our suffering
for our good
and also
for the good
of others,
that the
providence
of God
is a comfort
to us
and it's also
important for us
in that sense
of mission
that we are
called to,
whatever our
circumstances,
God can use us
to seek to
extend
his kingdom.
But if the only
thing that we
can do
is to pray
then we're doing
a wonderful
thing
for God's
kingdom.
So that's
the beginning
of the story
of gospel
breakthrough
in Europe.
And wouldn't
it be amazing
for us
to have
that same
story to
tell in
21st century
Europe,
to recognize
that God
is at work
saving lives
and planting
churches
and renewing
established
churches.
And praise God,
that's what we're
seeing in our
city and in our
country.
But there's much
more to be
done.
There are some
parts of Scotland
that are ready
to be labeled
unreached
people group
and that we're
so far removed
from the
knowledge of God,
the knowledge of
the Bible,
from the good
news of Jesus.
But God
is powerful.
The same God
who opened the
door to pagan
Europe all those
hundreds of years
ago is the same
God today.
His grace is
great and God
still has people.
He still has us
as his church
that he can use
in order to
witness,
to draw people
to Jesus.
So he calls us
to know Jesus,
to depend on
Jesus,
and then to go
in his strength
that we would
make disciples.