Acts chapter 16, we've considered in the last couple of weeks, we've looked at Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke as they've made their way through Asia, that area there, then over to Macedonia from the call. We saw the conversion of Lydia last week, and this morning we want to look at this situation with him, the two of them, and this young slave girl. and all the events that unfolded out from it. Reading from verse 16 of Acts chapter 16, the Bible says, as we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling. She followed Paul and us, crying out, these men are the servants of the most high God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation. And this they kept, sorry, this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the Spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out this very hour, that very hour. But when her owners saw that the hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, these men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice. The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. And when they had afflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. In verse 25, about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. And we'll leave our reading there. I recognized right away we stopped mid-sentence, but I needed to include that last verse mid-sentence because it just, it fits the message and it fits what we want to consider. How do we respond when we are unfairly and unjustly treated? Do we respond with retaliation with a get-even attitude? Do we respond like Chuck Norris or John Wayne from a different generation? or do we respond as Christ did? What struck me so much as I worked through the week and all the things that were going on and studying and preparing for this and writing Bible study questions was the utterly unnatural way that these two men, Paul and Silas, handled all that happened to them. How could they respond to such unfair, unjust, violent treatment with such Christ-like responses? And the answer is they were being transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit into the image and likeness of Christ in whom they trusted. Don't misunderstand. God's work in them was far from complete. Don't forget the Paul and Barnabas split that happened just a short chapter ago. God was still working on them just as surely as God is still working on you and I today. And there is, there was for them and there is for us, still much work left to be done. And so brothers and sisters, as we work our way through the text, my prayer for myself and for all of you is that we may all be challenged as to what conformity to Christ look like. It's one thing to be, to display a Christ likeness when we're all at church together and we're all singing the hymns and we're all enjoying a comfortable surrounding and everything is going our way. But what about when everything goes against us? What about when the wheels come off the wagon and the world around us, the friends around us, those unbelievers who would love to just tear down our testimony, see what's happening, and the attacks begin to come and the blows begin to land? That's a whole different story, isn't it? So my prayer is that we would be challenged but also encouraged and strengthened to grow in our conformity to Christ that we might respond like these men did. We may never face on God the opposition as they did, but in our dealings with each other and our dealings with unbelievers in the course of this life, we must respond in the same Christ-like way as they did to what was happening to them. Notice the impetus for all that happened. In Acts 16 verses 16 and 17, we see there how they met a young girl, a young spirit-possessed or demon-possessed slave girl. She was indeed young. The average age of female slaves in first century Rome was about 17 to 18 years of age. She was considered to have no personal rights or freedoms. In their eyes, she did not even have her own personality. She was used and abused by her owners such that her torturous existence, possessed by the spirit, was simply the source of their money-making. She was at the bottom of the social spectrum of Greco-Roman culture. She was, in a way, the exact opposite of what Lydia was. As a first century Roman slave, she lived in continual fear for life and limb and safety, like Derek was sharing earlier about Onesimus and his risk of losing his life for running away. She lived that way all her life. She was enslaved by those who owned her. She was enslaved by the spirit that possessed her. And as Romans 6 tells us, as surely as Lydia before and the jailer afterwards and all of us, she needed to be saved. She needed the gospel of God's grace at work in her life. Now, although there's no specific statement in our text saying that she trusted Christ as Savior, scholars suggest that given the context of Lydia and the jailer, she was saved and included in the infant Philippian church. Not only that, consider this, that whatever the Spirit's intentions were in shrieking those words through her mouth, Surely her experience of being freed from the spirit by the power of Jesus name would have drawn her to consider the gospel that she was hearing from Paul and Silas. And so, assuming she was saved, she was included. She was a part of the Philippian church, now equally a sister in Christ. Sorry, sister in Christ to Lydia and her household and the jailer and his household. But I'm getting a little bit ahead of the story. We'll look at that more next week. It was no accident that she met them there and that she followed them around, shrieking and shouting the demons words. One very important point to hold in our minds here in considering how we must respond to ungodly, unfair treatment is to recognize the sovereignty of God at work. Always at work. just as God sovereignly prevented their travel into other places earlier in the chapter, and just as he brought them to Macedonia to preach the gospel, and just as God sovereignly opened Lydia's heart, so now God sovereignly brought this demon-possessed slave girl along. God is always sovereignly at work in the affairs of our lives, not only other people's lives, but also our own. God is working sovereignly in our lives to use the situations he brings us into to transform us more and more into Christ's image. And yet God is so amazing in his grace. For not only does he place us in the circumstances beyond our control and the limits of our endurance, God also supplies enabling grace to respond like Christ. Amen. It's true. How were these two men treated? Let's consider. They were misrepresented to the Philippians by the demons' words. Notice in verse 17, the Spirit's words through the slave girl. These men are douloi, slaves of the Most High God. They're proclaiming to you a way of salvation. Now, to our Judeo-Christian perspective, those words sound very much like the truth or very close to it. But two things to take note of here. First, to 1st century Greco-Roman perspective, without a clarification, the phrase most high God could refer to Zeus or to the one true God of the Bible. She's not defining, sorry, the demon's not defining what she means. It's unclear. Secondly, in the Greek, it's not at all clear that she refers to the biblical gospel of salvation. There's no definite article, so I just read that verse as, they are proclaiming to you a way of salvation. NASB 77, the old one that Mr. Taylor loves to use, it actually has a marginal note, it says, or a way of salvation. Greco-Roman pagan theology had many saviors and included, not the least of was the emperor himself, who was a savior to be worshiped. So in her words, at the very best, she's referring to God, the gospel, and salvation. At the very worst, it's a misrepresentation and likely a misleading statement. Don't forget, the demon isn't speaking to the two men, he's speaking to everybody else listening. And I'm convinced that his goal there is not to convince the Philippians to listen, but his goal is to discredit the missionaries. And the most dangerous thing the enemy can ever do is present something that sounds so close to the truth, but it's still wrong. You may have heard before, why did Jesus argue with the Pharisees? Theologically, they were the closest of any two groups in the New Testament, the Sadducees, the Herodians, or the priests, or the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the closest to Jesus, and yet Jesus was constantly banging heads with them. Why? Because they were so close to truth, there was a danger you could be misled into thinking the Pharisees got it right, just like Jesus. But they didn't. So how did they respond? Before you quickly say, oh, Paul got grumpy, Well, notice something here. She was crying out for many days. Imagine for a moment that you were walking around Noble Park and 10 feet behind you there was this young 18-year-old and she was shrieking and screaming and saying things that were so close to the truth. What would you do? I don't know what I'd do. I won't go there. For many days, And the answer is their first response was with patient endurance. Everywhere they went preaching the gospel, there she was, shrieking and crying out those words. They, first of all, responded with Christ-like patience. It's a patience that God supplies. If you want, on those little note sheets there, take a pen and write in at the end of every point line that God supplies, that God supplies, that God supplies. Because in every case, it's not patience that you and I dredge up ourselves, buy ourselves from our own store of patience, because we run out awful quick. It's a patience that God supplies. The sort of patience comes only by time spent with Christ. This sort of patience comes only by a work of God's Holy Spirit within. The sort of patience, as we'll consider tonight, that comes as we hope and trust in Christ. It comes by the power of the Holy Spirit. How are we going to respond when we're misrepresented, when we're slandered and mistreated unjustly, as Jesus said, for his sake and the gospel's sake? It's by work of the Holy Spirit within. It's by pleading for God's grace to respond in a Christ-like patience. It's by resolving in the power of the Holy Spirit to respond that way. They were followed by the screaming girl for many days, allowing her to shout and shriek as they proclaimed the gospel. Note the charge the slave owners laid was that they were advocating or preaching customs or way of life not lawful to Romans, so they all must have heard the missionary's gospel message. And in verse 18, Paul became greatly annoyed. Some of your Bibles will use the word grieved. He's at the demon, the spirit, not the girl, but the spirit. The Greek word has the idea of disturbed or angry or irritated. And my second point is this, they responded with a Christ-like anger. You say, wait a minute, hold on a second now, anger is not Christ-like. Well, let's maybe think about what the scripture says, because in fact, Christ got angry. It says so a couple of times. In fact, Paul, commands us in Ephesians 4 verses 26 to 27, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity for the devil. He responded, they responded in a Christ-like anger. We have to be careful we don't misunderstand Paul and charge him with a petty outburst of anger. Reading the account and considering how they responded and what he actually did, I'm sure it was with a righteous anger at how the girl was being tormented by the spirit and was being used and abused by her owners. Notice it's to the spirit that Paul speaks. He speaks, Paul, as a slave under the power and the authority of his Lord Jesus Christ. He commands in the name of Jesus. His words would have brought a validity and a vindication to the gospel because the power of Christ's name drove the spirit out of her. So brothers and sisters in Christ, How can we respond in similar Christ-like ways that we become angry and yet don't sin? The Bible, I'll read it again, Ephesians 4, 26 and 27, be angry and do not sin. Jesus himself in Mark 3, 1 to 5, with anger, grieved in heart. You may remember the situation. He's in the synagogue. And all the Pharisees and the priests are all there, and they've got it all worked out. There's a man with a withered hand in the group. And Jesus comes in, and they all kind of lean back in to see, what's he going to do? And Jesus, of course, he knows their hearts. He knows what's going on. He knows he's being set up. The man comes out in the middle, and he's standing there. If you can imagine a synagogue, like a long, narrow building, and there's a bit of light in the middle, but on both sides, there's tiers of seats up in the back sides of it. And Jesus stands in the very middle, and this man with the withered hands there, and Jesus is talking to them, and he looks around, and the Bible says he looks around with anger. In that moment, you have the combination of righteous anger and absolute control. And of course he tells the man with the withered hand to stretch out his hand and it's made whole. Jesus became angry and certainly did not sin. Jesus became angry and in love he healed this man without sinning. Again in Mark 11, Jesus himself was angry at the chief priests and the scribes shameful use of his father's house to buy and sell and make a profit. And so he made a whip of cords and he drove them out. Those great scenes when you're a young guy reading the Bible. You love to read that. There's Jesus flipping over the tables and driving people out. He was angry. It was a righteous indignation at seeing this terrible situation and this young girl in her circumstances. Brothers and sisters, the only way we can respond as Paul did and as Jesus did is to strive to love God. to love his word, to love his people, to desire their greater good at our own expense. And Paul displayed to all those who were watching God's power and God's love, the spirit and her owners were happy to use and abuse her to earn a fortune and mislead the people. Paul and the Lord his God were interested even in one who at that time in history was a social nobody. A young slave girl. And Paul to spray Christian love, the slave girl, setting her free from the controlling spirit. So brothers and sisters, here's the question for us. Do we love God? Not perfectly, of course, we know that. That simply won't happen in this time and place. But are we striving to love what God loves and to hate what God hates, to fill our lives with Him, to understand and know Him, and know what He loves and hates, so that when we see something like that, there is a righteous anger within? Do we love our brother and sister? not merely to say and do the nice, polite things, but occasionally take our lives in our hands and say the difficult things. Now, brothers and sisters, spend time with Christ. spend time in His Word, spend time in prayer, not merely to tick off a box in a to-do list, but with the intention to grow, to be like Christ, to love as He loved, to be angry with a Christ-like anger, yet without sin, just as Paul commanded us, just as the Spirit of God commanded us through Paul's pen. And so they responded to ungodly treatment with Christ-like patience, with a Christ-like anger, with a Christ-like love. And notice in verses 19 and 20, they were seized and dragged into the marketplace. In verse 20, they were brought to the magistrates and they were slandered. The words that the slave owners use are only half true. Notice what they say. They bring three charges, three statements against them in verses 20 and 21. First they say, these men are Jews. Well, that's true. Paul and Silas certainly were Jews, but they were preaching Christ, not Judaism. They were calling for all men to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, Jew or Gentile, mostly Gentile in that context, to repent of their sin against God and to trust in Christ for salvation, to trust Christ, whom God had raised from the dead and who is returning soon to judge the world. There was, in their context, a general dislike of Jews throughout the Roman culture, so the slave owners used that against them, and that begins to incite the crowd and the magistrates against them. You notice what the slave owners don't talk about? How much money they're losing every hour that the slave girl doesn't have the spirit. They very carefully keep that little piece of information out of sight. And how do they respond? There's not a word said. They respond with a Christ-like silence that in that moment God supplied. They didn't answer a word. They just stood there. Now, I'm sure you could say, oh, but there was such a big commotion that they couldn't answer. Look later on in Paul's life. There are similar occurrences, and he certainly does speak. He will speak at the end. He will speak for himself at the right time. But in this moment here, Under God's leading, he responds in silence. Notice the second statement. These men are disturbing our city. Well, that's not really true, is it? Not at all. The slave girl from whom Paul commanded the spirit to leave had been the one shrieking and screaming and crying out. Their slave owners had been so happy to let them do that because it was building up her reputation. The possibility of profit-making was going up. She was causing a ruckus, not them. Notice thirdly. By the way, who's causing the disturbance now? It's not Paul and Silas. It's not the slave girl anymore. It's these two guys, right? They're the ones grabbing them, dragging them into the magistrates and the courts, and they're the ones shouting and raising up a big hoopla, and they're saying, these guys are disturbing the city. You're the ones who are making the fuss. Notice thirdly, these men are advocating customs unlawful for us as Romans to accept or practice. If you go back to the words in there, literally what they were saying is, these men are preaching ways of life. They were preaching Christ and faith in God. It was true. The Roman culture forbade the practice of non-Roman faiths and religions, but they generally turned a blind eye so long as it did not impact their own culture or faith. but by stressing the Jewishness of Paul and Silas, and charging them with breaking what's called the Pax Romana, or the Peace of Rome, and by breaking Roman law, the slave owners have wound the crowd up, they've fueled them with an anti-Semitic fervor, and the mob takes over, and the two men are attacked. But what struck me, and it struck me over and over again throughout the week, especially as I considered similar events later in Paul's life, is their silence. They respond with a silent faith, trusting God to deliver them. Just like Christ, their and our Savior and Lord, who, when he was falsely charged and accused by the Jews of one thing or another, he remained as a lamb to the slaughter led, silent before his accusers. I can't speak for you. But I know myself well enough to know the moment someone brings an unfair, unjust, inaccurate charge against me, mate, I am in there arguing back. I've got two witnesses, three lawyers, four scientists, and a medical report that says I couldn't possibly be guilty of what you're charging me with. We're so quick to defend ourselves, aren't we? Always gonna get the last word in. Absolutely. No matter what. Whatever it takes me, I'll get it. One way or the other. They make no defense of their words or actions. And what arises from their silence here and their prayers later in prison is a deafening shout, we trust in God to deliver us. And brothers and sisters, how can we respond similarly to such unjust, unfair treatment? And I'm absolutely convinced as I look at it, I look at the whole circumstances, the flow of the chapter, it flows out of an overwhelming faith in the sovereignty of God. It's a faith that says, even if I'm slandered and beaten, which they were, God has sovereignly brought me to this circumstance. I will trust in God that he knows what he's doing, even if I cannot see how it will all end. And we know the ending of the story. They can't see it from where they are, but God is lining everything up to see the jailer and his family reached with the gospel, saved by God's grace, baptized in water, and a church planted. But they, at that moment, could not see that. But they could, by faith, see God. And so they respond in silence. Verses 22 and 23, they're attacked by a whipped-up crowd. They're disrobed and beaten. And as I understand it, they took thin, small bundles of thin rods, like a birch switch idea, and they laid them out on the ground and they beat them on the back with it. It would have caused horrific bruising, possibly even broken some bones. It was like a scourging with rods. They responded with Christ-like silent faith, trusting God to deliver them. And I read that, All through the week, I wrestled with how do you preach that message? But even more, forget the preaching. In case you didn't know this, I'm a sheep right alongside of you. We're all believers together here. And I look at that kind of faith and that kind of response, and oh beloved, how much I would like to have that faith. to be able, as the writer to Hebrews describes it in Hebrews 10, 34, to joyfully accept the plundering of our property, our homes, or even our bodies, knowing we have a better possession and an abiding one. I don't know about you, but I can say for certain, I would like that sort of faith, that sort of absolute trust, absolute surrender to God's will, knowing that everything he allows is for my good and his glory, because it is. Faith that when even, when all is stripped away, I can stay silent, trusting in God to deliver me. Trusting like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they weren't silent, but you know what they said? Even if God does not deliver us, he has a sovereign plan for his glory and for our good, and so into the furnace we go. That's not the exact words, but that was the thought behind them. It's trusting God like Christ trusted him. The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 2, 20 and 23, the Bible says, he left us an example to follow. Who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return, he stayed silent. Who, when he suffered, did not threaten, but continued to entrust himself to one who judges justly, and God vindicated his faith. not by sparing the scourge, not by sparing the cross, and not by sparing the grave, but by raising him from the dead. Christ left us an example to follow, not just a text to be studied and memorized, but an example to follow. Do you know what scares me? It's not that this is such a countercultural message to those outside the church, which it certainly is, but it's become such a countercultural message to those inside the church as well. I said a few weeks ago, and I'll say it again, knowing I might raise some anger from a few of you, We in our wealthy Western democratic Christian churches have so fallen in love with our freedoms and our rights that when we look at texts like this one and the one in 1 Peter, it just doesn't compute. Why should we trust God to that level or that degree? Why shouldn't we stand up and fight for our rights, right? I know, someone comes against me, man, I'm ready to fight, let's go. But the Lord left us an example to follow. When he was reviled, he did not revile again. I think about, I mean, it just absolutely staggers my mind to stop and think about what that word means. The omniscient God stood there. and they raised false accusation after false accusation. They raised all these things against him. He could have responded with a wealth of testimony to clear himself and find them guilty. He was, after all, perfect, sinless God in human flesh, and yet he did not respond. Why should we trust God to that degree and level? Why shouldn't we stand up and fight? They could have stood up and fought for their rights. If he could have gotten a word in edgewise, Paul could have declared their citizenship and the whole affair would have stopped immediately, before the beating even began. They would not have been beaten. They would not have been imprisoned. They can't do that to a Roman citizen. They would not have been fastened to painful stocks. They would not have had the late night prayer and praise service. They would not have met the jailer, shared the gospel, seen him and his household saved, and baptized them all into the tiny church of Philippi. Why should we trust God to that level and degree? Because our God is in sovereign control of all things. It's easy to believe in the sovereignty of God as a great notion, a great idea, something to put on a plaque and put on the wall or cross stitch into a pillow. But it's a whole lot different. And brothers and sisters, I'm not preaching at you. I'm preaching at myself. It's a whole lot different when they're standing there shaking out the rods, getting ready to beat them. It's a whole lot different when they're dragging them into the prison, bruised and battered and bleeding, to fasten their feet into stalks, to be trusting in the sovereignty of God. And when we do trust Him to that degree, He gets the glory as the only one able to provide and sustain such faith in such circumstances, and He did. And we notice in verse 24, they were imprisoned. They were fastened by the jailer in the inner cells into stalks. Their feet were fastened down in such a way as to enforce a very unnatural sitting position. It would have made sleep impossible and inflicted even greater pain on their already bruised and battered bodies. By the way, I missed this a few times I read it. You know what it says? The other prisoners were listening. And all of a sudden, you kind of wonder, oh, there's God's plan. The other prisoners were listening in. It's not mentioned, but I can't help wondering if some of those other prisoners did not also come to faith in Christ. Remember the next story? I'll jump into next week's message a little bit early. They stayed right beside Paul and Silas. When all the bonds were broken, the doors were open, they could have run for their lives and gotten away. They didn't have electronic tracking devices like we have today. They probably could have gotten away and gotten far away, and they stayed there. That's a massive change of character, don't you think? Something happened there. We're not told, but that's what my conjecture is. No doubt by now they've all heard what's happened. These two traveling Jewish troublemakers have commanded a powerful python spirit out of a slave girl who tells the future. The crowd has beaten them and thrown them into prison. The magistrates are perhaps a little afraid that Paul and Silas, having that kind of power at their disposal, will do something in retaliation. So they make absolutely sure they're safely secure in the inner stocks, right? Because that's gonna stop them. Not in your life. It's not Paul and Silas, it's the God they believe in. It's the God they follow. But let's not romanticize it too far. The slander, the unjust, the unkind words, they hurt. And having been a victim to a few of those moments, I can tell you, it hurts. The beating with the rods, it hurt. Make no doubt about it. Brothers and sisters, the circumstances like those faced by Paul and Barnabas hurt them, and the circumstances we sometimes find ourselves in, in this Christian life, unjustly and unfairly treated by believers outside, but what's even more cutting is believers inside the church that do that, and it happens. I was sitting with a pastor friend and recounting churches and pastors. Well, he doesn't talk to him because they had this thing, and that guy doesn't talk to him because they had that little blue, and this guy over here doesn't talk to him, and the list went on and on and on. I was like, you've got to be kidding. Don't make the mistake of thinking pastors have got it all figured out. We don't. We're striving in the power of the Holy Spirit to figure it out, but we also get into tiffs and blues with each other, and things go wrong, and words are spoken, and they hurt. But God is able in those moments to supply the grace we need to get through, to get beyond, to deal with it. And finally, they begin to speak to God. We notice, fifthly, they responded in Christ-like prayer. Their faith in God is expressed in prayer. Listen, faith's purest expression comes through prayer. Faith expressed without a hand lifted, a foot raised, or a step taken. Faith that's just the heart lifted up and raised to God to cry out in the simplest, purest dependence on God in prayer. I'm absolutely convinced. They were bleeding. They were shivering with shock from the beating they'd just gotten. No doubt they wept in pain. And their voices and their hearts begin to rise. It reminded me, as I was writing this last night, Spurgeon, C.H. Spurgeon, endured immensely intense pain of gout throughout 90% of his body. At times, he would be found screaming in pain and crying like a child because of the pain. And one day, in a room by himself, he was overheard by some of his secretaries outside the door. And the words he were praying were words like this, not the exact words, but like this. Father, your little boy is hurting. Won't you please help me? That's not immaturity. That's great faith. Like a little child looking up to his father saying, it hurts, I need your help. Remember, As I was writing that, Jesus' words on the cross, and those words found a whole new meaning last night. When Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That was a prayer. It was a cry. was in faith, he in the hour of suffering beyond our comprehension prayed in great faith. And I have no doubt whatsoever in my mind that these two men groaned and wept and shivered, and they cried to God in prayer. And by God's enabling grace, they knew enough easing of the pain that they began to sing. I've read that story hundreds of times. But every time I do, I hit that spot, I just stop. I began to sing. The last point I want to make is this. They responded with a Christ-like joy, sorrowful yet also rejoicing. The reality is, beloved, as the power of the Spirit of God transforms us and we grasp and realize the sovereignty of God that has brought us into these sorts of painful circumstances, we are able, as Paul himself says in 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 10, to be sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Listen. Real, genuine joy does not follow the absence of pain and sorrow. Real, genuine joy cannot be hindered by pain and sorrow. Real, genuine joy will never be found in our circumstances. If you're waiting for your circumstances to change so you can rejoice in God, give up. It's rejoicing in God in the midst of those circumstances. You say, I can't do that. I get it. I'm right there beside you. But the reality is, beloved, it's God in magnificent grace that supplies what we need in those moments to rejoice in the Lord. Real, genuine joy can only be truly found in God and God alone. It's the joy of forgiveness. Joy of reconciliation to God. It's a joy of hope in God beyond this painful life. It's a joy of knowing that God has brought us to these moments and God will sustain us through them. They sang hymns of praise to God from a pain-soaked joy in God. That's what staggered my heart, my mind. So I thought about and meditated and tried to get my head and heart into their experience to discover and discern how they could respond to such unjust, unfair, painful circumstances. Listen, these two ordinary human men, an apostle and a disciple of Christ, both missionaries, they are no different to you and I. Don't make the mistake of seeing that. Yes, Paul had a very special God-given role, a role that was for 12 men and then stopped, and that's it. But he was an ordinary man just like you and me. He had flesh and blood and bones. He wept, he hurt, he cried, he wrote, he got angry at times, all the rest of it. They could and did respond in Christ-like ways because they, like us, were in the process of being transformed by the power of the Spirit of God into conformity to Christ. The power of the Holy Spirit to transform lives is the omnipotent power of God. God can't change me, God can't fix me. God created the world with a word. He can change you. He can transform you, he can make you like Christ. He promised he would and God always, always, always keeps his promises. These two ordinary men filled with the spirit of God are being transformed by this Holy Spirit such that they respond to the shrieking slave girl's words with an unnatural patient endurance, a patience that God supplied. They respond to the spirits using and abusing of the slave girl with anger and love for her, a love that God supplied. They respond to the slander and the violent beating with Christ-like faith in God to deliver them. And they respond to the unjust, painful imprisonment with a faith-filled prayer and joy-filled praise to God. Beloved, make no mistake. Such responses and behavior is only possible by the work of the Holy Spirit within transforming us. So what do we do? I mean, it isn't just, don't believe this let go and let God stuff. It's not biblical. God promised to change us and he commanded us to do things, so the promise to change and the command to do go side by side, they go together. And just as surely as God promised to finish the work He began us, He gave us commands to be obeyed. Beloved, we become like those we spend time with, right? I hang out with certain people. My wife goes, I get home from work, she goes, oh, you were with Chris today. I said, how you know that? And she goes, I can tell the cadence and the way you're talking, you're mimicking his voice. I spent all day with my French-Canadian friend. I didn't use all his language, I promise you that, but the way he spoke, I became like him. Listen, beloved, we become like Christ, learning to trust Him as we spend time with Him in prayer and intentional Bible reading and study and meditation. Don't spend time in prayer to tick a box that you've done your duty for the day. Spend time in prayer with an intentionality because you want to become like Christ. Spend time in the word of God, pleading with God to open your mind and your heart to understand the scriptures so the scriptures brought in will transform you from the inside out to be like Christ so that when these circumstances happen, what's been ingested will flow out as a work of the Holy Spirit to change us. Yes, he's going to change you. He promised he would. But part of that promise working itself out is our responsibility to obey and submit to what scripture teaches us. It's the disciplines of the Christian life. We become like those we spend time with. Secondly, we plead with God for grace to enable us to respond like Christ. I have been called to meetings. You, it's always fun. We wanna talk to you. Okay, what about, we'll tell you when you get here. Oh, good, this is gonna be fun. And again, my car, in this one particular case, I'm thinking I'm on the back of my motorbike and drive over there. And all the way there, I'm pleading, Lord, one angel hold my tongue and two angels hold my hands. Because if I'm not careful, I'm going to say something that I might or might not regret. Putting the humor of it aside for a second, we plead with God for grace. I've gone into other meetings a lot more recently, and all the way there, Lord, please help me not to say something that will bring shame to your name and that I will regret. I've gotten into those meetings, and I can say without hesitation, without a word of exaggeration or lie, there is a peace that came over and a quietness enabling me to listen and not just retaliate and react. That's God's grace. And you know what, brother? We determined with a holy resolution, H-O-L-Y, not W-H, holy resolution that we will not respond like the world, like the ungodly unbeliever. Christ-like responses are not magically handed to us We resolve not to respond in an ungodly manner, pleading with God for grace at the very same time that he would stop us from responding in an ungodly manner. It's both. And lastly, we act on that resolution. We will respond as Christ responded. We will, by God's grace and the Spirit's work within us, respond with patience. We will, by God's grace and the Holy Spirit's working within us, respond with godly anger and love. We'll respond with silence, we'll respond with prayer, and we'll respond in joy. You say, now, so you got that all figured out? You do that all the time? No, I'm sorry. Am I getting better at it? Yeah. Why? Because God is still working in me. God is still changing me and growing me. And beloved, he's using you to do it, just as surely as he's using you in each other's lives and me in your life. That's how God works. Let's pray. Would you stand with me and we'll pray together? Our gracious God and heavenly father, we stand here this morning as sheep in submission to the great shepherd. And loving father, we give thanks for the shepherd of our souls who laid down his life that we might be saved. But he took it up again, raised from the dead in power with an almighty shout that reverberated throughout all of history that He is the Son of God with power. Father, we give thanks for the example He set. An example, oh God, that still causes us to stop and just gasp. Absolutely sinless and perfect. When reviled, he could have said so much, and yet he stayed silent. Father, again, it just takes me back, pushes me back off of my self-sufficiency and my complacency. And Father, once again, confronted with Scripture and confronted with the living Lord Jesus and all that he endured, find in my own life so much that's lacking. Father, I plead with you. I ask, oh God, for a great work of your Holy Spirit in all of our lives. That we who believe and hold with a grip of iron the doctrine of the sovereignty of God would live as if it's a reality, not just a nice idea. Father, I plead with you to do a great work in all of our lives. Father, we would have the faith that these men had. We would have the patience that these men had. Father, we would have the love for you and for your people that these men had. Father, we would. We plead with you, O God, for help to walk and follow the Lord Jesus Christ. all the way to the end. Father, I'm reminded of those words in Hebrews 12, where the writer to Hebrews says, you've not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. And Father, we recognize in our lives that that's where we stand. We have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. And when we see this example, O God, in the scriptures before us, we recognize, O God, that coming our way, is resistance that will lead to bloodshed and possibly death. Father, we cry out to you even now. Cry out, O God, now for when those moments do come, that your grace will supply and we will stand firm. We will know what it means to believe in the sovereignty of God and live that truth out. Father, we cry out to you for help. Lord, there are some in this church that are really struggling with some of the things I've said. I plead with you, O God, that by the power of the Spirit, you would minister to their hearts, take them back to the scriptures. Father, bring them in prayer to understand it better. Father, for those who are discouraged, and struggling, depressed and downcast. Lord, we pray for them that you would give them a fresh vision of Christ this day. Father, we plead with you that you give them a hope, an assurance. Lord, we give thanks again for our time in worship together as a family of God, and we ask you, Lord, for your blessing as we would depart, and we do so in Jesus' name. Amen.