Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Does God ever prevent the gospel from being preached to lost sinners?

When the gospel is preached, why do some sinners respond with repentance and faith, and others respond with indifference or even hostility?

And what are some practical ways that you and I can be active evangelists… all day, every day?

Chapter 15 is a dividing line in the book of Acts in at least a couple of ways.

Most of Acts 15 describes the watershed moment when the early Church[1]definitively dealt with the question of Gentile converts: “Do they have to follow the law of Moses in order to be true followers of Jesus?” “No,” they answered.

Salvation is “through the grace of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 15:11) and available to all who simply-and-truly “believe” the gospel (Acts 15:9).

But the last 6 verses of Acts 15 describe the parting of ways between Paul and Barnabas, the addition of Silas to Paul’s missionary team, and the beginning of Paul’s second tour of missionary duty… which included “returning [to] visit the brothers in every city where [he had already] proclaimed the word of the Lord, [to] see how they are” (Acts 15:36).

And, as I mentioned last Sunday, Luke now turns his attention to the Apostle Paul for the rest of the book of Acts.

Luke’s overarching focus is on the spread of the gospel and Christ’s kingdom in the world, first “in Jerusalem and in all Judea,” then in “Samaria,” and ultimately “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

And every Spirit-empowered Christian was part of this missionary effort from the beginning – teaching people the gospel, making disciples, forming local churches… and that remains true today.

We all have inherited a great history and heritage from those Christians who’ve gone before us, and we must take our place in the long line of Christian witnesses in this fallen world.

But the Apostles played a key and unique role in laying the foundation of the Church – the organic-yet-organized, the regularly-gathering-yet-repeatedly-scattered New Covenant people or kingdom or household or temple of God (Eph.

2:17-22).

And Paul was singled out by Jesus Christ as the particular Apostle who would “carry [Christ’s] name” as a missionary extraordinaire to all kinds of people and also “suffer” greatly as he did it (Acts 9:15-16).

The rest of Acts, then, is the remaining story of how that divine commission played out.

In our passage today, however, we are to learn that it is actually the “Holy Spirit” / the “Spirit of Jesus” (not Paul or any other Apostle or Christian) who extends Christ’s kingdom in the world.

And He – the Holy Spirit – directs and hinders and opens hearts as He pleases.

Let’s stand together and read Acts 16:6-15.

Scripture Reading

Acts 16:6–15 (ESV)

6 And they [at least Paul, Silas, and Timothy… maybe others] went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.

7 And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.

8 So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.

9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

11 So, setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace, and the following day to Neapolis, 12 and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony.

We remained in this city some days.

13 And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.

14 One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God.

The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

15 And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.”

And she prevailed upon us.

Main Idea:

The gospel message itself is a gift of God’s grace, and we who know it ought to share it promiscuously, trusting God with the results.

Sermon

1. Spiritual Prohibition (v6-8)

God the Holy Spirit is the main character of our passage today.

The Holy Spirit was the primary sender of Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey from the church in Antioch (Acts 13:2, 4), so it’s not surprising that He plays a major role here too – at the beginning of Paul’s second missionary journey.

There are supporting actors to be sure – Paul, his traveling party, and Luke himself seems to join the group in v10.

Luke consistently said “they” and “them” before Acts 16:10, but there he begins to say “we” and “us.”

We also meet an interesting lady named “Lydia,” (v14) and we see a handful of unidentified “women” (v13) as well as Lydia’s “household” (v15) in the background.

And yet, the Holy Spirit is most certainly the main character.

This second trip is really an extension of the first, and, as I said, the Holy Spirit initiated the whole thing (Acts 13:2, 4).

During this second journey, the Holy Spirit “forbade” (ESV, KJV) or “prevented” (NET) or “kept” (NIV) Paul and his companions from “speaking the word in Asia” (v6).

The Holy Spirit also “did not allow [or “permit” (NASB) or “suffer” (KJV)] them” to “go into Bithynia” (v7).

Instead, the Holy Spirit revealed to Paul in a vision that the Macedonians were the people to whom He wanted Paul and his friends “to preach the gospel” (v10).

And when they did speak to some Macedonians in the city of Philippi, the Holy Spirit “opened [the] heart” of at least one of the hearers, such that she believed the gospel (v14).

Lord willing, we will consider all of these actions of the Holy Spirit today, but under this first point, I’d like us to focus on the Spirit’s prohibitions.

Two times, in this brief passage, the Holy Spirit prohibited or stopped or prevented the missionary party from preaching the gospel in one place in order to direct their efforts elsewhere.

And there is so much we might delve into as we consider these prohibitions.

I’m going to keep the focus narrow, particularly on (1) the continued reign and work of Jesus Christ in the world through the Holy Spirit and (2) on the Holy Spirit’s prerogative or right to send the gospel there and not here.

First, the “Holy Spirit” (v6) is the “Spirit of God” (Rom.

8:9-10) and is the “Spirit of Jesus” (v7).

The Scripture presents us with several assertions about God that we must collect and keep in mind if we are to understand rightly who and what God is.

I think people can get all twisted into knots when they try to press the doctrine of the Trinity too deeply into a philosophical container, but at least a couple of philosophical categories are helpful.

God is one what and three whos; God is one being or thing or essence, and God is three persons or subsistences.[2]

There is one God who has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, and He possesses all the same attributes as the Father and the Son.

He is specifically called “the Spirit,” but all three persons of the Trinity are “spirit” in the sense that the triune God does not have a body like we do; He (Father, Son, and Spirit) is essentially non-corporeal.

Of course, God the Son did gain a body like ours when He “took on… human form” (Phil.

2:7-8), when God the Son became Jesus of Nazareth in the womb of a virgin (Lk.

1:26-35), but the essence of the triune God didn’t change in the least.

As I said, philosophers may tie themselves in knots over the Trinity, but we don’t have to.

We simply need to keep in mind that God is one what and three whos.

These three are distinct (the Father is not the Son or the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father or the Son), and yet these three are never separate (we cannot speak of one without relationship to the others).

We don’t have to understand the mechanics; we just need to trust the word or testimony of the God who knows Himself better than we ever will.

That said, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the triune God.

He is the Spirit of both the Father and the Son.

In fact, the Bible interchangeably refers to the Holy Spirit as the “Spirit of God” and the “Spirit of Jesus” or the “Spirit of Christ” (Rom.

8:9-17; cf.

Acts 6:6-7).

So, the “Holy Spirit” in v6 is the same as the “Spirit of Jesus” in v7, and when Luke used this designation (the “Spirit of Jesus”) he was intending to make the reader know that Jesus Christ Himself was the one who was working and directing and building up His Church – just as He said He would (Matt.

16:15-19, 28:18-20) – by the power and presence of His Spirit!

Second, the Holy Spirit – because He is God’s Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus – has the right or the prerogative to send the gospel to one place and not to another.

Now, it is clear that Christ intended His disciples (i.e., His followers) to bear witness to the gospel as far out into the world as possible (Acts 1:8; cf.

Matt.

28:18-20).

However, that does not mean that every nation or state or town or person would immediately or always have a gospel witness.

As a matter of fact, many nations in history have come and gone with no gospel witness at all, and many people even today live their whole lives without ever hearing the gospel.

Did you know that nearly half of the world’s population today is categorized as Unreached?[3]

This means that the number of professing Christians among their people group is less than 5%.

And just over a quarter of the world’s population falls into a far worse category, which the Joshua Project calls Frontier Peoples.[4]

These are people groups with less than 0.1% calling themselves Christian.

And these statistics are what they are after 200+ years of the modern evangelical missionary movement.

During the Age of Exploration (1400s to 1600s), developed nations brought their religions along with them as they explored and conquered the unknown world.

But around the turn of the 19th century, western Christians (both in Europe and America) began to organize their efforts, not as nation-builders, but as genuine Christian missionaries.

William Carey went to India, Adoniram Judson to Burma, and (later) David Livingston went to Africa.

These are only a few of the more famous names, but thousands of Christian men and women were pioneers of the modern evangelical missionary movement.

And missionary money and personnel have both grown exponentially over the last 200 years… and yet, there remains today, in our world, a great number of sinners who have no gospel witness.

Brothers and sisters, this reality may well be a wake-up call for some of us here today.

What are you doing for the sake of the Great Commission?

Are you making disciples among the people you know?

Are you praying for the conversion of sinners in Diana, or in Longview, or in Ore City, or in Gilmer?

Are you contributing, out of the surplus of your finances, to the preservation and extension of the teaching ministry of this local church?

Are you giving to support our missions partnerships?

Or maybe God would have one or two of us consider leaving everything behind and engaging in cross-cultural gospel ministry somewhere else in the world.

If you’d like to consider it, then come talk with me.

I’d be happy to help you think through your qualifications and options.

But, friends, there’s another side to this coin.

Yes, Jesus Christ has commissioned every Christian to be a disciple-making disciple, and some Christians will cross geographic and even language barriers to make disciples… But God the Holy Spirit has the right to make the gospel witness more or less accessible at any given place or time.

It is a fact that the gospel has been both visible and veiled at various places and times in history, and God is sovereign over such ebbs and flows.

Right here in our passage is evidence of that reality.