Acts 16 verse 11. So setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace and the following day to Neapolis 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. 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. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshipper of God. The Lord opened their heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. 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. Amen. Lydia is one of those women that crop up in studies on women of the Bible. She's one of the most well-known. She was sort of self-employed. That stands out for one. And also that she was converted. And so we sometimes have her shown to us as examples, like a sort of a role model for women perhaps, but really what stands out and what is meant to stand out in this passage is how all these elements came into play to create this situation of what we might call a classic conversion, a typical conversion You heard that she was a seller of purple. So it means purple clothing. And why purple was so unusual is because the dye was very expensive to make. And so, therefore the product was expensive. Therefore, the only people who could afford it were the wealthy. And as we said the other night in our Bible study, What do wealthy people like to do? They like to show everyone else that they are more wealthy than everyone else. To show that they are a little bit higher in some respect to others. And so, I suppose Lydia had no trouble selling this stuff to, if you like, posh people. Now, you may have noticed that she's a woman of Thyatira. We're not in Thyatira, we're in Philippi. Why is she there? Is she on holiday? Obviously not. It would seem that she'd taken a stock of this clothing to Philippi as a merchant. And that's what she would do. She would go around different cities selling it. So she was working away from home and she'd attached herself to the local group of what we'll call believers in God or worshippers of God, if you like. She is, remember that what happened last time when God stopped Paul going here, then he stopped him going to the next place, and then Paul said, right, we're meant to go here. And then the Lord told him, no, not there either. You're going over the water to Macedonia, which is roughly where you find Greece today. And so this was not planned, this at all. It's what we would call, Paul and co had gone into what we would now call Europe. So they'd gone into a different, even then it was a different area. And so this is the first convert. Lydia is the first convert recorded. And I suspect she was the first convert full stop in that region. And so she's notable, her conversion is notable for that also. And yes, self-employment stands out. You know, she was a seller of an expensive commodity. And so, presumably herself would have had some, not short of cash, shall we say herself. And it does remind us that in what we call, in God's setup of the church, in God's what we call his economy, he will bring into his kingdom those who are not so well off and he will bring also those who do have some money and he does that because he will use those people with the more money to help the church and so again like I said the other night I would never dictate to anyone never try to tell anyone how to spend their own hard-earned money but what I can say with more confidence is that If you have more money than the average person, it seems clear that God's put an obligation on you to help the church more, if you like, because every penny you've got, friends, is given ultimately by God. He could have given it to someone else. He gave it to you. So I think it's clear that God saved Lydia for his glory, for Lydia's sake. but also she had a special role, and that role would have been maybe helping the poor financially. There was no synagogue there, and she was obviously following, roughly speaking, she was following the Jewish religion. There's no synagogue in Philippi, so they meet down by the river. Now, in those days, you'd need a quorum of males, I don't know, maybe eight or ten males, Jewish males, to form a synagogue. Otherwise, you could not have one. So if you were just inclined towards worshiping Jehovah as she was, you had nowhere to go. And they picked a nice spot. I've seen this place, not in real life, I've seen this on the internet. You know, there's the little town of Phillip Heights still there. It's got roads now, of course, and it leads down the hill to this river. would have been a nice place to meet, I suppose. And they would go and they would have their time of worship there, whatever it was. And so, yeah, so today it's just, this message is just really about not how great a role model Lydia was or anything like that, just how, what God did with her. shows us how God usually converts people. And it was quite a heartwarming story as well, what happened to her. So we look at where she began, we look at how God came in and interrupted her way of life, how her perspective changed immediately, how she believed and how that changed her. And so We'll think about how, first of all, how she worshipped God. The fact is she worshipped God. She worshipped God in the only way she knew how at this point. I would say that a belief in God makes sense, anyway. It is sensible. It is the most, if you like, intellectually acceptable position to hold that there is a God. It's far more difficult, I believe, to claim that the universe and everything in it came into existence by itself with no real prime cause. And so we would say that God, we would say that there's this entity to start with that was itself uncaused, but which was the cause of everything that we now see in existence. And so that's our starting point. And so to me, anyone with half a brain and with integrity would agree that there must be some intelligence behind this universe. The scriptures itself, the scriptures themselves tell us that it's obvious to the impartial observer simply by looking at the environment that he exists in, the world. You look at a human cell, you look out to the furthest reaches of the universe, to some huge black hole, whatever it might be. It could be the beauty of a daffodil. But wherever you look, it sings, Creator. And so there's the starting point. I believe everyone on the planet should acknowledge that there is a Creator. Lydia went further. She decided that, well, if there is this entity, then who is he? Where is he? What are we meant to do? What is our purpose? And so she searched. And she was in Philippi, surrounded by all kinds of pagan ideas, people worshipping statues that they made, whatever it might be. And she came to the conclusion that this God who had revealed himself to the Hebrew people was more like the God, if there was a God, well this would be what he would be like. He wouldn't change his mind every five minutes, it wouldn't be a God who was fickle in that way, it would be a God who was perfect in righteousness, perfect in holiness, perfect in justice, unchangeable, infinite in all his ways, all-knowing and all-powerful, sovereign. and so on. And she recognized this Yahweh or Jehovah as the one that was clearly the real God. And so she tried to worship. It is built into us to worship God. And if you don't worship God because you are prejudiced against God, you will worship something else. you will worship a Premier League footballer or a celebrity or something else but we have the need for a worship anyway and so she gets involved she's not a convert exactly to Judaism but fairly close She was happy to fellowship. She wanted to share her experience of God with other people. So she went down to the river with other people. She didn't go by herself. She understood the importance of fellowship. She understood the importance of prayer. Because after all, who deserves praise? This God does. Who have we offended? This God. Who can give us what those things that we need? It is this God. And so we talk to him. we approach him in prayer. So there was fellowship and prayer, and he was this worshipper of God, as they're called in scriptures, and it's a term used of Gentiles, like Cornelius, who we've met already. Later on, we'll see some people in Thessalonica, and also in Athens, and we'll see people who are described as worshippers of God. So these are not converts to Judaism in the proper sense. but they heard about this God Jehovah and believed that this was the real deal, this was the God to be worshipped and that's where she was. Many people wonder, these people in the Old Testament days, Jesus hadn't come, how could they be saved? I tell you how they're not saved, they're not saved through Judaism, they're not saved through keeping best to keep the commandments of God that can never save you that could never save them I should say instead the only way that someone in ancient days could be saved is by faith in Christ and you might say well he hasn't turned up yet how can they believe in him well the Christ is just a means Messiah, and the people in the Old Testament did know full well that there was a Messiah spoken of. Now, what they expected of this Messiah was not what it turned out to be. It wasn't a sort of, it wasn't a sort of, it wasn't a material military sort of takeover with the Messiah at its head, but it was something far more profound. as we know. But my point friends is that if in all those ages before Jesus Christ came to this world, if the people were able to see what the sacrifice is pointed to, an end time sacrifice, the Messiah figure, if they placed their faith on that future character of the Messiah, then they could be saved in the same way that we are. Did Lydia believe all this or not? It doesn't tell us. It doesn't tell us. She may have had faith in that saviour to come or she may not have. The main point here and why God caused this encounter between Paul and his gang and Lydia and her gang is that she was not in the New Testament church and God was about to open her eyes way more than they've ever been open before. And so the second point here is that she experienced an internal change. It was a change caused, it says here, by God. She experienced an internal work of God. Now, to enter into any proper relationship with God, we have to be changed. We cannot change ourselves in any way which will bring us into that relationship. We are incapable because everything we think, everything we do is saturated with sin. It is unacceptable. The only way it can be acceptable is if our approach to God and worship is done in Christ's name. It then becomes acceptable. No other way. So the point is that we need to be changed by ourselves We would never choose Jesus Christ as saviour. I was reading this wondering what type of person Lydia was. I can tell you how I pictured her and then tell you why I have no basis for believing that. I pictured this respectable, maybe middle-aged woman, the kids have left home. She's respectable and tight, she's honouring to God, she's humble, and she's there swanning around with her goods, selling them purple cloths. And I have this image of Lydia as well. What a great woman. I mean, she accepted Christ. She must have been such a lovely lady. But I have no grounds for believing any of that, that she was this virtuous woman who just needed a nudge in the right direction. But she was virtuous to begin with. That's not what's going on here. The reason I have that picture of Lydia is probably because, well, I pictured her as a respectable person because, well, respectable people are more likely to, you know, become Christians, aren't they? And as I've told you before, that's rubbish. That's just rubbish. That's not the case at all. It doesn't tell us anything about Lydia, what she was like. It says she was a worshipper of God. But we can't jump to conclusions any more than that. We can't go any further than what it tells us. We've got no grounds for thinking she was respectable. And so I'm inclined to say that she may not have been a nice person. She could have been a bitter middle-aged woman for all we know. We don't know. Why do I say that? Is that unfair? Well, Paul, the apostle, went way further than Lydia in his worship of God. He says that he exceeded everyone else in his observance of the law. You know, Christians are told that your righteousness has to go even further than the Pharisees. What a great, huge standard you have to you have to meet and exceed to become a Christian. So Paul the Apostle worshipped God, if you like, way more, way more intently than Lydia did, but he was effectively an outright enemy of God. He hated Christ and he hated his people. So we can't assume, I'm afraid, that our pleasant picture of Lydia, pre-conversion, was that nice? We don't know. She might have been a mean old woman. But, no matter where she was, no matter where anyone is, they need the Spirit of God to change them inwardly. They all need that. We all need that. And so does this work of the Spirit, and it happened to Lydia. And it's something that might happen and you might not notice. This initial work of the spirit whereby he revitalizes gives life. Well, this could happen while you are walking around the Aztec. We don't know. It's sometimes imperceptible. But that's where it starts. That's the moment when things start to change. Verse 14 there we read that the Lord opened a heart and so it's now that things are going to start getting a bit weird for Lydia because suddenly she finds herself attracted to Paul's message in an unusual way. This is all new stuff to her but she's fascinated. It's almost like nothing else around her matters at that point except this message. She needs to hear it. And that's an experience I've been through. So I understand what Lydia was going through. Sudden interest in this message that you've heard many times before. She was attracted to the message. I thought I should mention that we believe Luke wrote this account of Acts, this book of Acts. And Luke also wrote one of the biographies of Jesus, didn't he? Luke's Gospel. And it says in the 24th chapter there Speaking of, this is verse 45, if you're taking notes, Jesus was speaking to those followers and it says that Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures. Now why that's interesting is because it reminds us that the Holy Spirit, when he does a work in us, he engages the intellect as well as the emotions And so you get some Christians who think it is all about emotions. And the sort of, if you like, the facts of Scripture, the knowledge of Scripture's doctrines, dare I say, are not as important. I mean, I regularly speak to people from all around the world who are claiming to be Christians. And so I asked them questions to see if I can get to the bottom of this profession of faith. And most of the time, almost all of the time, these are people from Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, South America. Most of the time, I hear only emotions described. Since being a Christian, I've felt lovely and warm. I felt peaceful. I've been happy. I feel like being kind to people. We're not saying that all this vague stuff isn't part of the Christian experience. We're saying that if it's only that, it's almost certainly not a genuine Christian experience. Because the real convert is changed in their heart and their mind. There is a rational side. there is a rational side to our faith. Well, we might not understand much, but we'll understand certain things. For Lydia, she listened carefully. She had this unnatural interest in the gospel, and she needs that. And if you don't have that, if you don't have the spirit doing that in you, then when you hear a preacher on the street, you'll walk past, Why? Because it's silly, it's ancient, it's irrelevant. It's just insane. Why would anyone want to listen? Why would anyone believe that stuff? Because there's no spirit there for them to take an interest in. They need the spirit. It's incredible, isn't it, friends? We keep saying that our message is the most important message the human race can ever hear. And then the people who get the privilege of hearing it walk on by. Someone reminded me the other day, and I frequently need reminding, it might have been Hilary. We'd be in the same place. We'd be the ones walking past if it wasn't for the Holy Spirit. So we need to remind ourselves that we're not in ourselves special. We're not more interested in God by nature than everyone else. Any interest in God we have is from the spirit. I would just like to mention this as well that it is through this description of hair conversion that we see how against you targeted. Remember a few weeks ago we came across that face in in chapter 13, and it said, it said, every individual who'd been appointed to eternal life believed. And that principle carries on here, because Lydia's sitting there, and it takes a work of God to come and change it before she believed in the Messiah. And so we'll talk about that now. She believed in this Messiah. Paul witnessed to it. He told him about Christ. And it doesn't mention what he said, So we have to make an educated guess. He certainly presented Christ to her and how he did that and the contents and how much detail, which details, we don't know. But we can say from what Paul said elsewhere about Christ, some of the things about him that he's likely to have said. Whether he mentioned it or not, Lydia believed in the one who was the son of God. He was the divine and the human come together in some mysterious way that we just cannot explain. We take it at its most shallow level that it happened and accept it by faith. Because if we try to get our heads around it fully, we will fail. She believed in the one who was the son of God. She believed in the one who was, as I say, the Messiah, the Christ figure, the one who was prophesied, prophesied hundreds of times in the Old Testament, and it all came into play in the person of Christ. He was clearly the Messiah. She believed in one who was a teacher of righteousness, someone who himself taught that we need this God-like level of righteousness. So you can try, friends, all you like, to behave yourself and do good, but you cannot achieve that. And so this is why the message comes to us, that our righteousness has to exceed that of the Pharisees. Why? Because our righteousness is perfect. Our righteousness that has been imputed to us is the righteousness of God himself. It cannot be improved on. cannot be taken away from. She believed in the one who was a healer of sickness, and so she may have been told that this Jesus went around healing physical ailments, but that these things were not an end in themselves. The healing of the bodies may have made a lot of people very happy in the few days on this earth they had left. But was it just for that? Was it to make their life a bit easier on their way to hell? Was the point of Jesus healing an end in itself? No. The healing of those individuals, as good as it was, was ultimately pointing to spiritual healing. That's where it was all going. People were meant to understand it. If an individual Christ figure can do this and perform these miracles, it seems he has the power to forgive sin, which is infinitely more important. This Lydia believed in a one who was the herald of the kingdom of God. This was Christ who was preaching about the kingdom and the Jews were thinking, well, do we not already have the kingdom of God? Judaism, Jerusalem, the temple, do we not already have it? And Jesus was showing them that the true kingdom of God was way more, way bigger than Jerusalem, way bigger than the temple. Lydia believed in one who was tortured and killed. Tortured and killed. But the scriptures say, that the very act, the very sin of taking him and illegally and immorally killing him was part of God's definite plan. She believed in one who was then a sacrifice, a sacrifice who would become an atonement for sin, not just a covenant for sin anymore, but a true atonement, something that would reconcile God to us. That's what she believed in. Ultimately, she believed in Jesus as the saviour of the world and she believed that now He was her saviour. She believed He was now her saviour. And that's the same to anyone. Anyone who comes to God, that simple prayer of repentance and faith in Christ, they will be saved. The fourth thing we notice then afterwards is that she obeyed the word of God. And so we see instantly following this belief in the Messiah, belief in Christ, trust in him, we see obedience follow immediately because it says that she got baptized. She got baptized straight away. We don't know how it was done. It doesn't tell us. I can bet you that water was used. Water was involved. And we've seen how this is water is used to represent sometimes the washing away of sin, but also the refilling with the Holy Spirit. This is one of the meanings, one of the reasons we use water. So I expect Lydia knew that this baptism didn't save, just like anything else she did afterwards doesn't save, but it is required of her and new believers. You can see that she's taking these steps, she's taking these first couple of steps, five minutes after being converted and she's on the road, she's on that path now, her journey has started. Some Chinese bloke years ago, some philosopher said that your journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step and so Her Christian life was to begin with these initial steps. And she'd be trodden that path, that old path that's been trodden by God's people for thousands of years. In our Bibles, we have a treasure. This is a real treasure to me. This is a real treasure because, friends, How many generations do you think of the Lord's people from Adam onwards had this? Well, very few. This was only printed in our language and most languages of the world in the last few hundred years. You know, so the idea of having this complete Bible and a full revelation, It's a minority of God's people who've had it, and we have it. We don't just have the Old Testament Scriptures making guesses. We have this full revelation of God, and that's why this congregation reads it all the time. That's why we Protestants put this at the centre of their worship, the Word of God. The last thing I want to say is that she behaved in a new way. From that point on she behaved differently. This is inevitable when the Holy Spirit is living in you. The first thing that happens, it appears that she shared the gospel with her household. Now it doesn't say that, it says that her household was baptised, but we know from elsewhere in the New Testament that baptism follows professions of faith. We all have friends who think differently, that if I got saved, I would just go and baptize my whole family, and they'd be regarded as part of the church of God. Not that they would necessarily be saved, but there's a lively hope that they are saved. As Baptists, we don't accept that. So I suggest to you that she did share the message with her household. And by the grace of God, he gifted her with the salvation of the people in their house. That as soon as they heard it, they went, yes, that's it. That's what we've been waiting for. Immediately, not after baptism classes, learning catechisms, straight into the water, they went and they were baptized unto him. And note this other thing, to draw this to a close, she showed hospitality. You'll notice that she wouldn't let them go. They were trying to go, she wouldn't let them. No, please, no, no, you've got to stay, you've got to come to my house. So she wanted to be hospitable and that's a great thing. Once your heart's open to the Lord, then your home is open to the Lord. to the Lord's people, in other words. And so that's how it should be. And this idea of being hospitable, it's in the New Testament and it's viewed quite, it's spoken about quite highly. You might remember like in Luke's gospel again, Zacchaeus, or Zacchaeus, he wants to entertain Jesus. It's a natural expression of our love to entertain. Cornelius, he has Peter in having something to eat and a cup of tea with him. And later on, it's going a bit far past our reading really, but it says, later on it says, Paul and Silas went out of the prison. They get put in prison. That's coming next week. and they visited Lydia and when they had seen the brothers they encouraged them and departed. It's just a hint there really that Lydia may have become, Lydia's house may have become the focal point for the church's activity of Philippi. It may well be. I mean imagine if she had all these, if she had servants, if she had people around, maybe it was a big house so it made sense. So I suppose the point today to take from this is that although you may have seen her as a presence in the scriptures as an example for women, as a role model for women, well, you can have that if you want it. You know, you can say she was humble and hardworking and all those things, but really, her story is much more than that. Her story is about the right response to the gospel and the necessity of a work of the Holy Spirit to bring that about. She went from an ignorant type of worship to true worship. And so we can say to people who are outside of Christ, no matter where you are, if you're an atheist or you're some kind of worshiper of God, if you come in faith, If you place your faith in Christ, you repent of your sins, you will be brought to that position where you too will from then on worship God in spirit and in truth. Amen.