Wherever He Leads
Parnters • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Open Your Bibles with me to Acts Chapter 16
We are going to dive right into the text this morning, as we spend what time we have together. We are going to be in Acts 16, and this morning, we are starting with verse 9
As we read together, would you stand with me in honor of the reading of God’s Word:
A vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
So putting out to sea from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and on the day following to Neapolis;
and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony; and we were staying in this city for some days.
And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to a riverside, where we were supposing that there would be a place of prayer; and we sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled.
A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.
And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.
Let’s pray together: “Father as we open Your Word together, give us eyes to see and ears to hear...”
How do you know the way you are supposed to go?
I guess the first question that you need to answer is “what do I need to do.” And you’re right. You have to know what you need to do before you know where you need to go.
After that, most of us would probably say, “I don’t know where I’m going, google tells me where to go”
My running shoes have tabs on the back that say “don’t follow me, I’m lost too!”
How do you know the way you are supposed to go?
In going from place to place in our daily lives, how do you know where you are supposed to go?
Lots of voices try to speak into this.
Your work or business has an opinion
Your spouse, rightly, has an opinion and a say
Kids’ schedules-school, sports, clubs, work all have input
Vacation, hobbies, and interests influence your direction
How much food is in the house even influence your decisions about where you go
As followers of Jesus, though, there is a different voice we should be listening to
As followers of Jesus, the Holy Spirit should be the primary driver of where we are going and what we are doing.
Paul was acutely aware of this
Paul knew that following Jesus boils down to just two things: knowing Jesus and making Him known
Paul was trying to do exactly that
Just prior to our text this morning, Paul was trying to make His way to Asia to share the Gospel . We don’t know what happened specifically, but what we do know is that the Holy Spirit stopped him, and he couldn’t go. In fact, he tried to go a couple of different places and was blocked at every turn.
Has this ever happened to you?
You were trying to do what God called you to do
You tried to step out and go, and the doors seemed to be closed to you?
What do you do in that situation?
In Idaho, there have been times when I felt this way
A Bible study that I started fizzled and died, and those that were attending stopped talking to me with no explanation
We have served the people we are trying to reach in every imaginable way, with little to no response to the Gospel
Volunteer teams have helped us to connect with people that seem excited at first, but who don’t follow through to relationship
One of our volunteer teams brought someone that had a negative encounter with a member of the Basque community. It left them with a bad taste in their mouths, and so they looked us up online and ran a smear campaign against us.
It was brutal, to say the least. And while our friends went to bat for us, we were left reeling as though, after almost a year and a half, we were starting over
Why aren’t people receptive?
Why aren’t any of these strategies bearing fruit?
It is normal for us to feel this way when you are trying to do good and share good news and you seemingly fail again and again
You start to think that you are the problem, that maybe you are unusable
You feel discouraged and maybe even like quitting
And, if you are like me, You question everything you’ve done and criticize the results as though you could change them.
But the answer isn’t in our strategies. It isn’t in the things that we think we can or should accomplish. The answer is in the movement and direction of Holy Spirit.
But how do we hear His direction? In Paul’s journey, we have a roadmap for hearing and following the Spirit. Let’s Look at it together, starting in verse 9:
A vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
The first thing we must do to hear the Spirit is to stop, look, and listen
Do you remember these instructions from childhood?
As children, we learn to do these three things before we cross a street
As followers of Jesus, we must learn to do them if we want to hear His direction
You cannot hear the Spirit speak if you are not paying attention
Not all of us are going to have a dream, though some of us will
Often times for me, it happens when the same thing comes up over and over again in every area of life.
During our first Spring in Idaho, my church planting coach with NAMB referred me to an opportunity in our area
A Christian non-profit group that does chaplaincy for businesses needed a couple to help in Boise.
A few weeks later, in a church planting podcast I listen to, chaplaincy was mentioned as a great way to serve people and have Gospel sharing opportunities.
Then, in the summer, we went to the Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention and in the exhibit hall, we came across a booth for the chaplain group looking for help in Boise
At this point, I said “Yes, Lord. I’m listening!” Late that fall, I started doing chaplaincy in a few area businesses.
It takes me about a half a day a week to do chaplaincy, and it has put me before a group of people that I never could have met otherwise
The Holy Spirit is talking to you all the time! You just have to learn to listen
When you are out and about and you have the desire to share with a stranger, to speak a prayer of healing, to share in someone’s grief, THAT ISN’T YOU!
Normally, the things I want to do are selfish, so when the things I’m thinking are selfless, out of the ordinary, and require God’s power to accomplish, I know it isn’t me.
Paul stopped what he was doing, to listen for Spirit direction. You and I need to do the same. Let’s continue with verse 10:
When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
So putting out to sea from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and on the day following to Neapolis;
and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony; and we were staying in this city for some days.
The Second thing that we must do to hear and follow the Spirit is to step in obedience
Paul didn’t hesitate. He immediately sets out to obey the Spirit, even when the reason meant waiting
If I’m honest, I didn’t understand the whole chaplaincy thing.
Sure, I knew it was a good thing. I just didn’t know how it was going to connect to planting a church for the Basque.
That wasn’t the only thing like that.
One of the earliest things NAMB teaches church planters is to engage the city with the Gospel by looking for big needs in the community and looking for ways to meet that need
As we began to learn our community, a big need that became very clear was the foster care system
There is a massive shortage of foster care homes
More than half of the kids in care in Idaho are from our city, but the shortage means a large number of kids are sleeping in Air BnB’s and hotels with no access to school, church, or any form of healthy social interactions
I tried to ignore the problem, but it kept coming up everywhere
As we prayed, God led us to the decision to get involved
We applied to be foster parents
We called One More Child and made them aware of the crisis.
We reached out to the state and simply asked the question “how can we help?”
All these things were good. All of them were God conversations, but AGAIN, I was unsure how these things would get us closer to a church plant for the Basque
We don’t have to understand God’s end game to obey His commands
Paul’s instructions were broad. Go to Macedonia and preach the Gospel
Macedonia was a big place. Boise is a BIG PLACE!
IT IS RARE FOR GOD TO GIVE US THE WHOLE PICTURE, which means most of the time our obedience comes with limited understanding of “WHY”
Delayed obedience is Disobedience
We often can’t receive the next instruction until we’ve completed the first one!
To hear and follow Spirit Direction, we must learn to stop, look, and listen. We also must step in obedience, even when we don’t understand the why. Let’s look at the last few verses, starting in verse 13:
And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to a riverside, where we were supposing that there would be a place of prayer; and we sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled.
A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.
And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.
Finally, to hear and follow the Spirit, we must watch for and walk through the open door
Paul’s success wasn’t immediate!
We don’t know how long they had been in Philippi. We know it had been long enough for them to learn some rhythms of the city
They had heard people went down to the river to pray
They went down to where they heard Spiritual people were gathering
Paul’s success was different than what he expected
In Paul’s world he was headed to Asia, instead the Spirit takes Him to Macedonia
In Paul’s dream, a man had come to him from Macedonia, asking him to come help them
When he gets to Macedonia, the person who responds to the Gospel first is a woman!
Paul walked through the door that was open
Imagine if Paul had merely been looking for the man he saw in his dream!
The church in Philippi was planted in Lydia’s house!
Let me tell you about some of the doors we have walked through and the fruit God has given us in following the Spirit
Through chaplaincy, I mentioned I’ve met people I would otherwise have no access to. One of those people is my friend, Rob
When I first met Rob, he never wanted to talk to me about anything, much less Spiritual things
As I shared life with him, prayed for him, and was just available God softened his heart.
Rob and his wife are now attending Bible study with us on Thursday nights!
A young man we’ll call “D” began to open up about the brokenness in his life
This young Basque man now asks me to pray for him and is considering Bible Study
“Z” came from an LDS background and was really burned by his experience.
Last week, he went home to ask his fiance to do pre-marital counseling with me and to think about joining us for Bible study.
A muslim manager, we will call “B” had never heard of chaplains, but he needed advice, so he came to me
This led to a long series of conversations where he would come with a problem and I would tell him a Bible story
B has been astounded by the wisdom of God’s Word and has begun to send other employees to me, telling them that they will get sound wisdom and advice for their issues.
Bethany met a woman in one of her businesses that said she didn’t have faith.
Over time, as Bethany shared with her, she told Bethany that she wanted faith like Bethany’s.
Now, she is reading her Bible and dedicated her son to the Lord at a church she has been attending. She is thinking about coming to our Bible study.
I didn’t understand, but I stepped through in obedience in Chaplaincy and God is using it to help us move people closer to the Gospel. The same is true through Foster Care
Since becoming foster parents, we have had two placements.
our first placement, “C,” was an 8 year old boy from a very hard place who had been in so many foster homes, the social worker couldn’t give us a number. He was angry, untrusting, and unkind. We loved him unconditionally, and while we were not his forever family, we were able to lead him to Christ and his life is changed forever. He is winning awards in his new school and is with a Christian couple that plans to adopt him. For the first time in his life, he now has hope.
Our second placement, “G,” is a 14 year old boy who had suffered tremendous abuse. He had been in lots of trouble with school, with the cops, and in the things he was doing to distract himself from his trouble at home. He didn’t trust us and needed lots of grace as he struggled against the rules and structure our tough love was bringing him. He has now been with us for nine months. He has started to follow Jesus and recently used his own money to buy himself a better Bible. His grades in school have come up, and he is choosing to spend time with family over those who were leading him to trouble. We are prayerfully considering adoption as it appears that he will not be reunited with his family of origin.
As we talked with the state about how we could help, God introduced us to a believer who is in a very high position in the state system
She shared her hopes and dreams, and together we developed a plan
Through this conversation, we have begun to connect the existing Southern Baptist work in our state with the need of Foster Care and are moving towards a shared work.
Bethany was asked to help write policy and develop a long-term facility that is replacing the Air Bnb’s. Not only are there educational and social needs going to be met, but Bethany ensured that the kids have the provision and the right to go to church. She has also had the opportunity to share her faith with many who see the love of Christ being lived out by her. The state was so impressed with her work, they have offered her a part-time role in writing policy for more long-term care facilities.
As we talked with One More Child, they became immensely interested in ministry in Idaho
We were able to connect them with our contact from the state. We have been praying together, and they recently decided that they want to work together.
Walking through these doors took faith. We couldn’t see the reasons, but His hands were clearly guiding us!
Now, God is slowly grouping people around us. While not all of them in our Bible study yet, they are right on the cusp and we are praying that they soon will be.
Recently, as I was reading through Acts, it struck me that Paul took the Gospel to the Jews first every place that he went, and it was often through reaching the Gentiles that some of the Jews believed. It was in this moment that God gave me a glimpse of how in all these things He has been correcting my strategy.
We will plant a culturally Basque church in Boise. But doing so is going to take time. More time than we can sustainably work as NAMB church planters. The average time it takes to plant a church in our state is already 7-9 years, and that is without focusing on a specific people group. God, in His great wisdom, has been setting us up for the long haul.
When we came to Boise, our strategy was to reach the Basque and whoever else God gave us. Now, our focus is shifting to reach whoever God gives us, prayerfully trusting that some of them will be Basque. The vision of a Basque church is not lost; but we will first plant a church that will plant a Basque church.
It is a God-sized vision that reaches more people and has a larger Kingdom impact than anything I could have come up with on my own.
Chaplaincy and Foster care are only pieces of the puzzle that God has already revealed
There is a lot more to come that we can’t see yet
There are more Lydias down by the river
There are more doors to walk through with limited understanding
That is true in Boise, and it is true here.
The Spirit will lead His people to the work He has for us. This morning, are you ready to listen?