Acts chapter 15 verses 1 through 15. This is God's holy, inerrant and infallible word. Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra and a disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. And he was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted this man to go with him and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts for they all knew that his father was a Greek. Now while they were passing through the cities they were delivering the decrees which had been decided upon by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem for them to observe so the churches were being strengthened in the faith and were increasing in number daily. They passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region having been Forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia and after they came to Mycenae they were trying to go into Bithynia and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them. Passing by Mycenae they came down to Troas. 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. Well, let's pray. Our Lord and our God, we ask that you would bless your word to us this morning. And we pray that you would enable us to see and behold wonderful things in your word. It is in Jesus' name we ask. Amen. Well, we're in Acts and we've had a week away and I just remind you in the context that the first missionary journey has already come and went and subsequently there were issues surrounding the questions concerning Gentile inclusion in the church. What now must Gentiles do in order to become Christians? And the question was answered in Acts chapter 15 as the council gathered of all interested of all. They were all interested of all apostles and disciples and leaders in the church elders and after much discussion, James and Peter speaking. The conclusion was that they would not require anything with regard to Old Testament ceremonial law, sacrificial law, nor with regard to circumcision, but that rather they would encourage them to abstain from meat offered to idols and from every form of fornication and sexual sin. Subsequent to that time, this has been shared from church to church. The apostles and Paul have been sharing this good news everywhere they've gone. Now, Paul's intent is to bring that news with him and to continue his missionary endeavors back to the churches that he has already visited in southwest Turkey, as we know it today. He had, you remember, in the first missionary journey, he had gone to the island of Cyprus and then gone from there to the south, southernmost shore of modern day Turkey, Antioch, Pisidia, and then continued to proceed all the way up to Iconium, Lystra, Derby, and to some of those surrounding cities and towns as well. His intent was to repeat the same, to go back to those churches, share the good news and minister to the souls there and to see how the churches were doing. Well, at this point he embarks on that second missionary journey, having separated paths with Barnabas, having a bit of a difference together over John, who is called Mark. And so he takes Silas with him. And he begins to proceed on this secondary, on the second missionary journey. Now on this second missionary journey, we will encounter four very important people. There's one relatively new disciple and three yet unconverted persons, but they're all very remarkable, complicated people coming from very complicated circumstances. We'll come to know them a bit more as the texts unfold. We'll see Timothy, whose mother is Jewish, whose father is Greek, and by implication, it seems is out of the picture. But most certainly, being Greek, he did not submit his son for circumcision. And yet, Timothy is a believer. We'll meet Lydia, a very industrial woman, a capitalist in many senses, perhaps even a member of the royal family because the royal family largely were the only family members or people within society who worked in the colors of purple. She was a strong woman who was hard to resist, whose heart was opened by God's own converting power. She's strong in the sense that she urges and she insists with the Apostle Paul that he must come and live with her. She's a woman with a hard, she's a hardworking woman. She has a family. We'll also meet a slave girl. She's demon possessed and she's under current ownership, having a very complicated past and a present debt whose present day owners are not very pleased to let go. They will in fact incite a riot over her conversion. And then lastly, we'll meet the Philippian jailer. We'll meet these last two persons in subsequent weeks, but the Philippian jailer, you remember this man, he's rough, he's tough, he's strong. He's also very near death as he's about to take his own life. And as he cries out, what must I do eventually? As Paul cries out to him, he says, what must I do to be saved? He is prepared to take his own life and yet God saves him and together with his family. So we'll hear about two of them this week. And my intention is to spend a time in the first 15 verses. Well, there are very difficult circumstances that the apostle Paul, together with Silas, Luke seems to be with them. And there are other individuals with them as well. But they will go through some very difficult circumstances. They will experience persecution yet again. They will be prohibited by the power of the Holy Spirit from going where they intend to go, where they have planned to go. They will eventually go to the central Macedonian city of Philippi, and Philippi will be the lynchpin city, as it were, that opens Europe to the gospel. God's intent is to bring them there. Paul has no idea yet when he starts this journey. Well, they were able to revisit two particular cities that they had previously committed to, Derby and Lystra. We remember what happened there the last time. There was a stoning. Paul had been stoned, and we believe to death, and after which he simply stood up, reentered the city. There had been opposition following in every city, Iconium, Lystra, and all the way to Derby. And they were Jews who had instigated the influential women and together with other influential men had come and followed the Apostle Paul city to city. This was after a lame man had been healed who had praised God. The people responded by worshiping them as God. uh, Zeus and Hermes or something like that. And, and yet Paul had to, uh, had a, a great deal of difficulty convincing them that they were men just like themselves. Well, there are multiple, uh, there will be multiple attempts to go South and West or North. Uh, none of them are, are, are permitted by God. Uh, they wanted, uh, the intention ultimately was that God would send them to new territories yet unreached. And so God is very much present in this story. Luke attempts to show us the continuing guidance and the blessing and the nurture of Jesus Christ for his church. So as we unfold the text, we see two persons and one difficult obstruction. So that's our outline this morning. Two people, two persons, and one difficult obstruction. First person we come to is Timothy. Now, we know a lot about Timothy. You have 1st and 2nd Timothy epistles written by the Apostle Paul to Timothy himself, intending to instruct him as a young pastor in Ephesus as to what he is to do there. He is to appoint elders. He is to make sure things are ordered properly. He is to make sure that widows are not neglected but also to make sure that younger widows are to stop going house to house gossiping and sharing and rather to take to themselves husbands and to seek to serve the Lord by caring for their homes. He is to instruct concerning offerings and worship and he is also to appeal to older men in certain ways and younger men as brothers and So there is much pastoral counsel that is given to Timothy from the Apostle Paul in those two epistles. But we learn a lot about Timothy in those epistles. 1 Timothy 1-2, he is called my true child in the faith. And then just before Paul is executed, most likely in 67 AD, he writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1-2, my beloved child. He will conclude that second letter to Timothy with my beloved and true child in the Lord. Timothy would be from this point in Acts together with the Apostle Paul largely throughout his entire ministry. Only when Timothy is commissioned to the work as pastor in Ephesus and the Apostle Paul is imprisoned, are the only times really that Timothy is not directly next to Paul in his service or writing his epistles and signing his name or sending greetings with him or bringing the letters in some way from the Apostle Paul to the intended destinations. Well, Timothy is the son of Eunice. Second Timothy 1.5, Paul references Eunice, who is of the faith, a believer, and his grandmother, Lois. So his mother is Eunice, his grandmother is Lois. They were possibly converted during the first missionary journey. You remember the apostle Paul has come to Lystra, to Derbe, and there he has encountered believers, he has shared the gospel, That second that first missionary journey is recounted in Acts chapter 14 verses 8 through 23 You can look at it at another time these two women had raised Eunice and Lois they had raised Timothy and Eunice being a Jewish woman steeped in the Word of God Raises Timothy to know the scriptures as a godly woman does and Lois as her mother and his grandmother continued to do the same, and they equipped him. They filled him up with a certain knowledge of the Word of God. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1-5, I'm reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelled first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well. Timothy will pastor at Ephesus and Paul will encourage him to fan into the flame the gift of God. And he will challenge him also saying, God gave us a spirit of fear, not pardon me, God gave us not a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of self-control. Yes, Timothy is a picture of the fact that God calls timid, sickly, we might even perhaps say, as Paul writes to Timothy and says, Please take wine daily for your stomach. Here is a man who felt anxiety and fear and timidity, even within the physiology of his own body. And yes, God used Timothy to his glory. The Lord can call timid, fearful Christians into his service, and they can very much glorify God in the ways that they serve the Lord. And here's an example of in Timothy. Well, there seems to be a contradiction within the text. The message Paul and others are bringing is simply this, that the Gentiles are included in the church of God, that they too have received salvation and the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, as is evidenced in Paul and in Peter's ministry and the continuing ministry of the larger church. In as much as Cornelius has come in along with his family and those who were with him gathered in his house, so too have the various believers that the Apostle Paul in his first missionary journey have seen the benefits of the conversion of the Holy Spirit and of the gifts of God's grace. In that context, the Apostle Paul is bringing together with them and Luke records for us that they are sharing the good news that nothing further would be required. In other words, with regard to salvation, that if one is to be saved, no other further steps are needed. That if one is saved by God's grace through faith, if one is justified by grace through faith, then in fact, there is nothing more to add to that, especially as it regards the law of God. the law of Moses, the laws of circumcision. Because some Jews had come out to those cities where Paul had visited, into Antioch and other places, up from Jerusalem, and they had said, you cannot be saved unless you're circumcised. And so this is good news. And the Apostle Paul is bringing it, along with those who are with him, to these mixed Gentile and Jew cities churches and towns It's precisely at that point where we hear that Timothy is a new believer is a believer Paul meets him for the first time and then takes him and and gets him circumcised It tells us within the text why he did this at least to some degree He was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium Paul wanted this man to go with him And he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. Now we can question, and we ought to, because the Apostle Paul does say in Galatians that when he was provoked to do the same with Titus, who was a young Gentile man, He had refused to circumcise. He had actually said, recording in Galatians, to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment. And so now here we see an immediate response to Timothy. Paul desires to use him for ministry, to use his gifts to the glory of God in larger service to the church. And knowing the Jews in that particular locale, Seeing Timothy's youthfulness for ministry, he goes and circumcises him. Now, we're not told that he does anything else with regard to ritualistic cleansing or any other obligations physically in the flesh to the keeping of the law, but we are told that he circumcises him. It seems that Timothy's Greek father had not permitted his circumcision, despite his mother being a Jew. Why did Paul do this? Doesn't it seem a contradiction to the fact that Paul is sharing to Gentile churches and to Gentiles in general that there is nothing with regard to his salvation that is necessary with regard to circumcision? And yet the first time he meets Timothy, he has him circumcised. We, I think, receive the answer within the text, and that is simply Paul intends to use him to make use of his gifts, especially amongst the Jews. knowing the Jews in that part. Now, Titus was a Gentile man. Timothy is half a Jew. He is at least half Jewish by virtue of his mother's ethnicity. And so Paul has a purpose in circumcising Timothy as a point for reaching fellow Jews. There are things that we do and or compromises we make that don't violate the law of God for the purpose of reaching individuals for Jesus' sake. I know Christian friends who at various times have made personal decisions to open their homes in certain ways even to people whose words may be offensive. Let's say you go and you invite a neighbor from across the street and they use lots and lots of swear words as they come over to eat in your home because you want to reach them so you invite them in for a meal and they're filled with all sorts of expletives. Do you join them in this? The answer is unequivocally no, because the word of God says that let no unwholesome word come out of your mouths. We're told that swearing ultimately is sin, or to swear in various forms, or to use that kind of the world's language is directly sin. However, what if we were to make a decision to not dress up in a suit and a tie, or as we invite these unbelievers into our homes, that we might reach and share the gospel with them, that we might abbreviate just a little bit our prayer of thanksgiving to God before we invite them to the meal. And perhaps we might even go so far as to enjoy a game of cards with them after the meal as we partake together of coffee and a dessert. We might in various ways accommodate unbelieving people to add to their comfort for the purpose of reaching them with the gospel. Over the years, Christine and I have invited various members of our community to come into our home. And we have prayed before the meal. We have sought to be explicitly Christian, to salt and to flavor our language in such a way that we perhaps even could have conversations with them about the Lord. But at the same time, we did not present ourselves as otherworldly or altogether different but sought in very many ways to walk with them in some way in the commonality of our shared human experiences. The Apostle Paul, knowing the audience that Timothy will minister to, circumcises him, not in violation in any way of the law of God, nor in submission to the laws of man, but rather as something that I might call a thing indifferent that it would not be something that would prohibit Timothy's future ministry. So this he does. The second thing that we see here is that obstruction that we've referred to. There are two persons. We'll see the other person in a moment, but there is an obstruction. And that's the second point of this sermon this morning. And that is, we take special notice of when the Holy Spirit prevents something. when the Holy Spirit prevents. Paul is making an effort together with those who are with him to enter Asia Minor and Bithynia, but they are thwarted. What did these thwarted attempts look like? What did they do? Did they go out into the road and begin clearing the way or start walking, but they find an obstruction. If you walked out of my driveway, if you walked out of my house and out towards the driveway, you'd see that the plows had just gone through. There's something blocking the road. Now you can step over it easily enough. But in that day, perhaps there was a landslide and they were prevented on the road. Perhaps they go out into the road and the sun is of such a blistering nature that they realize that this is not the right season in which to go north or to go south. We don't know what those thwarted attempts looked like. We only know that they made an effort. and that the Holy Spirit prevented them. Synonymously, the word, the name is used, the Holy Spirit and then the Spirit of Christ. They're one and the same. They are the same third person of the Trinity. Whether he represents Christ or whether he simply is recognized with the formal name of the Holy Spirit. Well, we don't know whether they purchased tickets for passage or they bought resources and loaded up their bags and prepared their tents and got their bedding together or procured horses or donkeys. We don't know whether they were prevented by a new sandstorm that blew up or some other, let's say the road was simply blocked by some movement of the earth. We don't know whether there were animal uprisings or robbers waiting behind the bushes. We have no idea. We only know that they were prevented from going. Perhaps even the Holy Spirit simply laid upon the heart of each of them involved This is our plan, but as I awoke this morning, it just seems to me that we should not go and they all agree together. We don't know, but certainly it was made plain. It seems that Luke uses the language that they came to Mycenae, they were trying which represents, it seems to me, multiple attempts. They were trying to go into Bithynia, and the spirit of Jesus did not permit them. They passed through Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. So clearly the Holy Spirit is making clear to them whether through circumstances or through the spoken word or through mutual settled conviction that they could not go to Bithynia, they could not go into Asia Minor. That's not the first time that God has ever done this. There have been others that have attempted to serve the Lord since that time and were prevented. Livingstone tried to go to China, but God opened up to him to go to Africa instead. William Carey planned to go to Polynesia in the South Seas, but God led him to India. Adoniram Judson wanted to go to India, but God drove him first to Burma. And that's oftentimes what we see God directing in the paths of his people, Missionaries are often surprised by God's revealed direction as time unfolds. Paul's motives were good and so were his plans, but only they couldn't take in the complexity of human events and the immensity of God's purposes and the fullness of God's decree concerning the salvations of all people in all parts of the earth. He had a smaller vision than what God had. Many of us could, I think, share how God has perhaps shut up our circumstances at various times to prevent us from going a certain way. I was determined in my earlier days to become a contractor and to be a wealthy executive salesman. And I was working on both of those. I had a partner for my contracting business. I was working for a large grocery distributor. I was working both jobs and caring for my and providing for a young family and God used the gentle prompting of searching questions on one quiet evening sitting on our front steps from my precious wife, Christine Lavallee, who asked me, Stephen, have you considered whether or not God is calling you into pastoral ministry? I remember that day. It was many years ago at this point, but it was she who God used in that moment to bring forth something that I was suppressing and was not really willing to take up at that point, but it humbled me. God broke my fair designs and schemes and brought me low and made use of me, emptying me of all of my resources and means. We wound up going to seminary and we had to rely on God utterly and completely from that time forward to submit our lives, our resources, our family, everything that we have to Him. There was another time in our lives when God did that as well. The Lord, we felt called to come back and to church plant, and the Lord led us to go with the counsel of others to go to Pittsfield, where we first went in pastoral ministry to plant churches. But then God was pleased to bring us here to Springfield after that. But in that short year and a half, we met dear, dear friends who God has blessed and brought back into our lives since that time. And there was a young family with an untold number of children that we had in for pizza into our home. And there was, there was a little girl, a young girl in that family, and we ate pizza with them and had a lovely time. And then we met a dear woman who remains a good friend who had three sons who were bouncing off the walls in the house. And of those two families, that young girl and that young man are now a mature man and woman who have five children and who are now a part of this church. What a blessing to see. And I can look back and say, surely the Lord was with us, even in that moment of failure, in that moment when we were prevented from going any further in the Pittsfield area. I think all of us could in various ways say that there have been times when we have made decisions that we were determined to follow through on, and yet God was pleased to bring them to an end. I think that we need to cultivate something as it regards our decisions. The decisions we make about our days and our moments, about the direction that we intend to take our lives in, We need to cultivate a joy in God's restraints. We need to be thankful for those moments when God shows us that we cannot and we must not go any further forward. We should receive equally and rejoice equally when the way is open to us and when his will is clear, and too, when his plan is less clear and nothing really seems to work and we seem, as it were, to be coming up against the very hand of God. We have to seek his favor. We have to be guided by his plan. We have to submit to his will and never press our own way when God's way is abundantly clear. Finally, a dream comes to Paul in the night and it's a Macedonian man who says, come, come and help us. And This is not the only way that God has spoken to the Apostle Paul. God has spoken to Paul with an audible voice, the prayers and counsels of his brethren, the shared counsel of his fellow missionaries. God has spoken to him through personal prayer. And even here, it says that the vision appears to him, but then 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. Paul does not make an arbitrary, self-determined plan. Rather, it seems they together, considering this vision, make a decision together to go, having concluded, in other words, they have deliberated, they have discussed this, and they have come to this conclusion. Well, Paul's plans were short-term, but they were kingdom-oriented. His long-term goal is stated, I think, in Philippians 1.23, to depart and to be with Christ. Until that time, he wanted to serve the Lord. But Paul listened to the Holy Spirit, and he followed in faith, accepting modifications to his plans and all sorts of unseen circumstances that he had no idea were coming. I think this is a good time to ask, How do we know, how do we come to know the will of God? How do we come to know the will of God with regard to our circumstances and what steps we should take next? Paul's conviction came from a dream and much prayer, hindrances that were obvious, that were keeping him from going in the directions he had chosen. And then together with his brothers and those who supported him, They made conclusions based upon that. They put two and two together. Well, how are we supposed to put two and two together in order to know the will of God? And honestly, we should be seeking to know the will of God about our own personal financial decisions, our own personal familial decisions, decisions within our families. We should be asking to know the will of God about the smallest decisions all the way up to the big ones. We should be asking the Lord. We should be seeking to know what the will of God is, not simply to go out, make our decisions to fulfill our needs and desires, and then coming back in prayer. Oh Lord, I've made this decision. Now, please provide. I think before any of that happens, we should be seeking the Lord in prayer. How do we, how are we supposed to know the will of God? How can we tell the difference between our will and his will? How can we know the difference between Satan's temptations and God's guidance? Our best attempts to know, to plot a way forward and God's restraining power. Many Christians I think are confused by this today. They often conclude the Lord's approval by the gauge of their own feelings. If I feel good about this and it seems to be working, surely it's the Lord's will. Is that always the case, though? I think there are a number of principles. Follow along with me as I try to point out these principles together with you. I think we have to first determine that we really do want to do God's will. We have to create in our own mind a desire and to rebuke ourselves perhaps if we have jumped the gun a bit and we have not really considered God. We have to determine that we really do want to know God's will and to do God's will even if he ties our hands in the things that we most want to do. But we have to begin at the very least first with the motivation that we want to do God's will, we want to know what the Lord's will is, and we don't want to do anything else. If you're a Christian, is it safe to do something that is not God's will? Is it safe to do something that contradicts God's will? At the same time, is it safe to want our will instead of the Lord's, especially when our Savior prays, and not my will, but yours? Shouldn't we be submissive to the Lord, seeking his will in all things? From who we date and who we see and who we marry to how we spend and what place of work we will continue to be employed by. The second principle here is we need to cultivate a willingness to be taught by our failures and our hindrances. Some of us have gone through changes over the last couple of years. We have been hindered. We have encountered difficulties. We have made different decisions. But have we been taught by those decisions? Have we been taught by those hindrances? Have we made those attempts and yet found that God has hindered us? Have we sat down and considered and taken a look at what God is teaching us, what God is telling us? We need to make great efforts for God and deliver our lives to His glory, but be open to the failures that lead us to discerning His true will for our lives. A third principle is we need to rebuke that internal pride that rejects counsel from wiser brethren or the shared counsel of our church leaders or other godly persons around us. Paul received counsel from those who sent him. And from those on the trip with him, and so should you, and so should I. We're not going on a trip, but we need the counsel of God's counselors, of God's leaders, of our brothers and sisters in the Lord. And we need to make sure that we suppress that internal pride that says, no one knows my circumstances like I do. No one knows what I most need like I do. Surely the Lord speaks to us through our brothers and sisters in the Lord and their shared counsel. A fourth principle might be that we need to acknowledge that our personal goals are not a substitute for looking to Jesus Christ to lead us. We need the Lord to lead us every single day, every moment of every day, we need the Lord to lead us. And our personal goals are not a substitution for our humble acknowledgement that I need the Lord Jesus Christ to lead me. Even the most goal-oriented person needs this principle, that in submission to all other things, I need the Lord Jesus Christ to lead me. A fifth principle, all personal plans ought to be subject to our highest purpose. Our highest purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Even my little two-year-old granddaughter gets this. She was asked by her mother recently in training as she leads them through the Shorter Catechism or the Children's Catechism, and little Gemma only understands the word Him. And she only says him, him. Now, if only we could do that, if only we could acknowledge in our own planning and decision-making him, he first, he must first, he must come first. Our personal goals and our, our, our, our personal plans need to be subject to our highest purpose, to glorify and to enjoy him. all hopes and dreams and plans and directions and decisions of our wills are to be set in the context of hope in the promises of God. Our problems are small in comparison to his power. It is him that we need. It is him that we serve. And sixthly, and lastly, as far as principles discerning the wisdom of God and the will of God. We need a God-shaped view of life and of our choices. There are a lot of passages in scripture that speak to this. James chapter four, verse 13, come now you who say today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that. Or Proverbs 27.1, do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring forth. Or Proverbs 16.9, the mind of a man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Personal holiness requires a dynamic trust in the Lord in all circumstances and decisions, but also a healthy self-hesitation as we acknowledge our own fallibility. The third point of our sermon is simply the second person. We've seen Timothy, we've seen the instruction that the Holy Spirit brought, and now thirdly, Lydia. How was she converted? We don't know, we're not really told. We only know that she was a God-fearing Jew who walked in the scriptures all the days of her life. But we are told in, pardon me, we are told in this passage about Lydia, I was thinking of Lois and Timothy's mother, but we are told about Lydia. She's sitting there, she's a cellar with purple. Now in that time, in Thyatira, purple came, I wonder if any of the Young people know here, or anybody knows where purple coloration came from for the dyers of clothing. Purple came from, and many of you can tell me afterwards if you already knew this ahead of time, purple came from the shells that were pulled up from the mollusks from the sea. If you've ever looked at the iridescent inside of a shell, some shells are more purple than others on the inside and have that iridescence of deep purple coloration. Well, she was a woman who collected, who at least, she didn't collect the shells, but she took the coloration of the dyes that were created from them and she would use them to dye clothing and most likely was connected in some way to the royal family. She was a seller of purple fabrics. Perhaps she's dyeing them herself or just simply selling the prefabricated product. But one way or the other, she's a worshiper of God and she was listening. Here is another God-fearing person. She's from the city of Thyatira. And she's simply listening. She's listening to the Apostle Paul because Paul has determined together with his co-missionaries that what they'll do is on the Sabbath day they'll go out to a day of prayer outside the gate to the riverside where typically women would pray. They were prevented from entering into the inner places of synagogue worship and so they would be out praying and the Apostle Paul went Went there and began to speak and they sat down began speaking to the women who had assembled and there is a woman Lydia Tells us about who she was she was listening And it says in the last phrase of verse 14 and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul How was she converted? the sovereign God the Lord the Lord of salvation and the God of hosts, opened her heart to believe. She's exhibit number one of an illustration that God alone enables and compels and moves and calls and woos and convinces and enables a sinner to believe and to come and to be saved. One writer has said, The heart is in itself closed, but it is the prerogative of God to open it. I'm sitting here with YouTube, but on Wednesday nights, we use Zoom. And with the various Zoom windows, it's like Hollywood stars. You remember, while I'm dating myself perhaps, but as a young boy, I'd sit home with my mother and sometimes we'd watch Hollywood stars. And there were these various blocks up on the screen. I think of that every time I'm on a zoom with Wednesday night Bible study. It's just like it only digitally, but in, in those various blocks is a representation of the people who have tuned into the Bible study. And when people tune in, oftentimes they do not mute their microphone when they do not mute their microphone, all of their conversations, their, their eating or drinking or whatever is going on around them. those noises come through to us all quite loud. But I, being the one who has initiated the meeting, can press a button and mute them. I can just quiet it all down. Or if I want them to say something, I can hit unmute. Well, my power to do that is nothing like God's power without moving a finger. To open the mind of an unbeliever beforehand to in the moment in the twinkling of an eye to become a believer. God is not connected to us on zoom or through any digital means. He is our creator and his hand is upon our hearts. God opens her heart to believe. I find it to be the most lovely thing. This has been encouraging me all week. It has been a source for me of great joy and it should bring great joy to us. If you've believed, it is God who opened your heart to believe. God personally working, reaching down into your soul, he opened your heart to believe. God the Holy Spirit in his secret sovereign work made you, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, willing, able to believe. Whereas before, you could not. God opened her heart. He came to this sinner and he made her willing to believe. Here's a continuing picture of Luke's purpose In recording this conversion, Jesus Christ, after being taken up, continues to work through his spirit in the life of the church by proclaiming but also opening the heart of one obscure woman, Lydia. Now we see that her heart is changed. There are three reasons why in the passage we see it. We see that this woman is truly, genuinely converted. She is redeemed by God. One, God opened her heart to believe. What did Jesus say to Nicodemus? If you are to be believed, if you are to be saved, you must be born again. And only God can bring that work to bear. We cannot cause ourselves to be born again. The Holy Spirit must do that work. She responds and believes, and she's secondly baptized. She and her household. The third evidence of her truly being a believer is she immediately says to Paul and to those who are with him, if you've judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay. There's a difference between, I'm told by a hospitality expert, there's a difference between an invitation and genuine hospitality. An invitation for someone to come to dinner is come, sit at a table, eat our food, admire our home, listen to our conversation. Genuine hospitality is come into our home and what you observe and see here, consider it your own. Come and be welcome. Come and sit, come and rest, come and eat, come and tell me how you are. Come and tell us about yourself. Come and receive this hospitality as we humbly seek to serve and care for your needs. This is what this woman is doing. She's a wealthy woman, make no mistake. And what does she say to the Apostle Paul? If you've judged me faithfully, come into my home and consider it your own. Wherever men and women are aflame for the gospel, hearts open to the message of salvation. And if that's the case, Christ is there. It's striking to me to think of the number of women that the Apostle Paul must have been speaking to. It's not just one woman. There are other women too. But one woman believes. One woman, God secretly, sovereignly touches her heart and enables her to believe. opens her heart to believe and to hear and to believe that truly that what she hears is the truth. But there is Christ. And in a world where women are on their heels and they're hesitating to define, the world is hesitating to define who and what they are and acknowledge no difference between the sexes and largely ultimately leading to the conclusion that women are worthless, There is a distinct value of women that God has placed upon you. God makes distinctions between women and men, and he shows mercy to women in the same way that he shows mercy to men. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It's God's intention to save and to pour his grace out upon men and women and children and little boys and little girls. He has created you. He knows you well. He shows mercy to all. And he opens the hearts of men and women to believe as a co-equal heir of grace in Christ. And he loves them and he loves you. And he is your father through the sacrifice and the death and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship internally of the Holy Spirit. Let's pray and give thanks. Oh, great God, we give thanks to you for