Welcome to Unveiled Faces, a Redeemer Presbyterian Church podcast. Please enjoy our feature presentation. I was blessed to be able to pastor for 35 years, and thank God for that. So if you ever want to call me, cry on my shoulder, I'll cry with you too, so I know. Pray for your pastor, that's so important to do. All the leadership of the church. Satan does not want to see the church of Jesus Christ prosper. He is an adversary. It's like a roaring lion, the image is, seeking to devour. The pastor is to be a good shepherd to feed the flock, to watch over them for your care. And so if he ever has to come to you and talk to you about something, Even to tell you, brother, are you sinning? Sister, are you sinning? You know, give heed, even if he's wrong in his perception, that he cares for you. That's a little pastor sermon for you, brother. I empathize, you see. Well, this morning we have this very important passage in the New Testament record of God opening up to the Gentile world, the gospel of Jesus Christ. That good news, that there is salvation for Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, bond or free, male or female, there's no class system to God. All men are made in His image. All women are made in His image. We share that image together. And this morning we turn our attention to a woman who walked worthy of the Lord, the scripture says. What a testimony. That's my prayer for my own children and my children's children, that they would walk worthy of the Lord. And this woman's name was Lydia. And we note that there are some firsts in this passage that we'll look at. Lydia is the first soul to be saved that is converted in Macedonia that we know of, which resulted from the first gospel preaching of Paul after he had sailed from Troas. And after Lydia was saved, her home became the first place where the Christians of Philippi met regularly. So this is the first Christian church planted in Europe. Paul was a church planter and an example to all of us. Now we see here that there are at least three parts in this passage and each of them contain valuable lessons for us to learn. The first we learn is that there was this Sabbath day prayer meeting of the women in Philippi. So refreshing to see you beginning with prayer here. Remember on a mission trip to South Korea, the congregation was at the church building two hours before the service, praying for God's blessing on the ministry of the word. It was amazing. Now, according to verse 13, Paul and his group found a gathering of women who met regularly at the riverside to pray. A woman named Lydia was one of them. But who were these women, we might ask, and why were they meeting at the river outside of the city? I think the key to answering this question is first, in verse 13, it says that it was on the Sabbath day. This tells us the women met together because it was the Sabbath day. And we can easily take that for granted, but they were heeding the call of God. The law of God tells us we need a Sabbath. Jesus tells us the Sabbath was made for man. We desperately need a Sabbath rest. Of course, in Hebrews, Paul lifts it up to that glorious understanding that Jesus Christ is the one who gives us that Sabbath rest. They may not have known all this, but they would come to know it. It tells us these women met, and so they were either Jews, or more likely a mix of Jews and Gentiles, who desired to worship the true and living God. That was what was in their hearts. And you could ask, why weren't they meeting at a local synagogue? Because that was the common practice of the early church. Jesus went to the synagogue, Paul went to the synagogue, got tossed out of a few of them, but he went. The answer is that the city of Philippi at that time had no synagogue because very few Jews lived there. You had to have at least 10 families for a synagogue to be built and placed in a city. Now, this regulation was observed very strictly. Jews were strict on the fact that it had to be 10 men, you know, heads of family, if you will, that was their thinking. It's not a bad idea for church planting, you know, and you can, I've always been a church planter when I was a pastor, and we started with five, we started with six. It was like a revival when we got to 10, so. But this was an open-air meeting. They wanted to worship here, and even if they were all Jews, which I doubt, they didn't have enough for a synagogue. At a Sabbath day meeting in a place near a river provided a place for these devout people to have clean water for their ritual washings, the mikveh, as the Jews call it, of their hands, their face, their feet. Before praying, they would do that. And I'm sure some of us probably think, you know, how nice it is to worship God like that out there in the wide open spaces with cool waters flowing by. However, this might sound nice. It would be tiring for these poor women and children of Philippi. They had to walk about a mile and a half outside of the city. To get to this, which was the Gengades River, and meet at a place, they had no furniture or shelter even from the elements. It was to say it was going to be raining that day, or a blistering sun. No, these women were there because they wanted to be there. And verse 14 tells us more that Lydia had come from the city of Thyatira originally, That city had a proper synagogue, which Lydia had probably worshipped in there every day. And yet, because she went to Philippi and there was no synagogue, didn't mean she was going to stop worshipping the Lord. Sometimes people are like that, you know, we're looking for nice facilities, nice activities and other things to be provided for us. rather than the thrust for the Christian, is come and meet God, your creator. Meet God, your redeemer. And nothing will restrain you from that. Not inclement weather, not the lack of great facilities. Come with me to Nepal and worship where I worship. Climb a mountain cliff. I think they were trying to kill me this last trip, but climb a mountain cliff 1,000 feet when it's 99 degrees. Yeah, yeah. But they were there, and God's people were there, and it makes it all worthwhile to see these most humble people living in huts made of clay and wood and maybe some tin, if they have a fancy one, pouring out their hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ. So these ladies were there because they wanted to worship the Lord. The discomfort did not bother them. Yes, it was a discomfort. But they attended this Riverside prayer meeting every Sabbath. So we need to be careful about that mentality about, you know, the outward circumstances. And I'd say, those of us who have gone on mission trips know what it's like to join a worship service, where everyone sits on the mats on the ground under the sweltering heat, and dogs and cats and ants and chickens and even cows are walking around. There are times when the preacher is speaking at the top of his voice. You can hardly be heard above all the surrounding noise. But the amazing thing is that despite that, such conditions the worshipers are found in, they still come because they love the Lord. And it is the time, it is the Sabbath, to rest in the Lord. Why? Because their heart has been opened. And if one's heart is opened by God the Holy Spirit, they must worship Him in spirit and in truth. and they worshiped the true God and his son, Jesus Christ. That was certainly true of Lydia. Her heart had been opened, and so she was set on worshiping God. A mile and a half walk wasn't going to stop her or quench her spirit. Observe in verse 14 where she's described as a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira who worshiped God. Now that expression, who worshiped God, can be translated, a God-fearing woman. Note also the significant detail in verse 14 that shows what a God-fearing woman Lydia was by her occupation, being a seller of purple. Thyatira was about 300 miles east of Philippi in Asia Minor. And what made Thyatira so famous at that time was its expensive cloth. It produced, which was dyed with a certain kind of juice from a shellfish, which gave it a very rich reddish purple color. And this purple cloth was claimed to be worth its weight in silver because it was worn only by kings and emperors and high ranking nobles, if you will, or officials. It was in great demand in Philippi because Philippi was a Roman colony and the Roman governors and so forth, they loved to show their robes of great purple cloth and value. It's how they lived. Philippi was also a trading center on a major highway known as the Via Ignatia, which spanned across the whole center on a major highway, as I said, from east to west in Macedonia. And this meant Lydia had great prospects to a very profitable business at Philippi. So she had come to a strategic city and she traveled 300 miles. Now in those days to travel 300 miles, not like for you and me, we're worried about whether our Tesla is charged enough to make it, something like that. But that's not what they were doing, it was mostly by foot to get there. I've seen that though. In one of our first conferences in Nepal in 2016, there was this brother, he walked an entire day out of the mountains of the Himalayas And then he caught motorcycles and buses and whatever transportation you can, you just hire private people as they drive by. You wave your hand at them. Two days to get there to the conference. Not a complaint. And I have a picture of him that just, it's written more on my heart. His beatific, I call it, or beatific, something like that. He was glowing, if you will. With a smile that was just joy. To be there to study the word of God. Little did I know that that, he would be struck by lightning and called home into the presence of Christ. It was a privilege to meet him. Here was a woman willing to forgo all her profits, though, on the Sabbath day that she could make, because that was a busy day of the week. Romans didn't care about Sunday. That was the first day. That was a busy day for them. but she forgo that to worship the Lord. And even the Jews, many of them would work on that day, although they shouldn't have. There's no weekly day of rest in pagan Roman culture, only a few public holidays to worship the gods of man's own creation, often festivals that were quite decadent. So this meant that the day when Lydia worshiped God was a regular working day, a day which could easily have worked and she could have prospered selling her purple cloth, but she did not. What is our attitude regarding the Lord's Day? How important is it to us this day of week? When we look at Lydia, we need to consider ourselves. and look at her example and say, how do I need to have my own attitude corrected and changed before the Lord? My way of thinking, that's repentance. A way of thinking that's changed that leads to a way of living. Most people are not in the Lord's house because they don't want to be there. If you really want to be here, you'll be here most times. We don't let things get in the way. Family comes over, visiting from far away. Even I say, you know, on the Lord's Day, we go to the Lord's house. You're welcome to come with us. But if you don't, you got to stay here by yourself because we're going. Or when you're on vacation, do you go out of your way to make sure there's a church you can be attending, a good church when you're visiting? I always loved doing that and meeting the Lord's people in different places. And you're surprised, especially in the Presbyterian Reformed world, how many of us know each other. We need to look at our attitudes. It's really our attitude about the Lord, of wanting to be in the presence of Christ, who promises that where two or more are gathered in his name, there he is in the midst of them. It's to be with our Lord Jesus Christ, who is even now here, present with his people. If you're a student, do you try to complete your preparation for Monday exams by Saturday night or do you wait to do it on Sunday? Students get busy and they go off to college and suddenly they stop attending church. Not good. Not good. Parents, do you teach your children to put God first before their exams? Let's gauge church attendance My commerce, sports events, family affairs, Super Bowl Sunday. Oh, nobody can stay too late. They've got to run off. I even know of a church that puts up a big Megatron for the people to watch it at the church that day. And I go, what has happened? What has happened? Do our Sunday school and worship services reveal drops in attendance during those times? What does this demonstrate? We need to be like Lydia, men and women both. Remember some of you, I'm sure, that filmed Chariots of Fire? There was a great film that featured the story of Scottish Olympian Eric Little. who refused to participate in the Olympic competition because it was held on Sunday, on the Sabbath. And the film portrays Little in his victory in the Paris Olympics of 1924 when he won the gold medal, not in the race that he had trained for, because that was held on the Sabbath, and he absolutely refused to run on that day, even when the Prince of Wales came and asked him to do so. He was supposed to run in the 100-meter race. He was the best. No one could beat him, but he would not. And he forgo that, and someone talked him into saying, well, Eric, run the 400-meter. Try that. He said, I've never run that. It's all right. You're good. Run it. And he did, and he won. He was given the gold. To much displeasure, his countrymen saw him, you know, step away from the 100 meter race and he got many nasty comments and letters about it. And no one expected him to win the 400 meter. But just as he went to the starting blocks, someone slipped him a piece of paper into his hand with a A quotation from 1 Samuel 2.30, them that honor me, I will honor him. And Little went on to outrun all the others in a time of 47.6 seconds, which at the time was the world record. That's how well he ran. Well, without falling into some sort of legalism, we still need more today who are like Littles and Lydia's, if you will. We need men and women who choose to honor God and worship Him, even if it means foregoing the greatest gains and pleasures this world can offer. Of course, if it were not for the grace of God opening her heart, Lydia could never have responded readily when she heard the gospel. At that Riverside prayer meeting, We see what we consider as our second point here, the saving power of God's word. Lydia wasn't the only woman we read who heard Christ's gospel that day preached by the Apostle Paul. It said, he sat down and spoke to the women, to all of them who met there. But it was a certain woman named Lydia, the Lord singles her out, who heard them and gave heed to the things spoken by Paul. The word was effectual to her heart. I remember when I was first converted, I thought the pastor every Sunday was writing the sermon for me. Every Sunday, I was ready. What do I need to hear this Sunday, Lord? Of course, we see the result here further, and it was the same for me. Lydia was saved and gave evidence of her faith in that she and her household were baptized. I didn't have a household, but I was 23 years old. The answer is clear of how this happened. The Lord opened her heart. What a reason for you and I to never be discouraged about an unsaved loved one or friend who is, I know at times how we think, they're never gonna be saved. They can't be saved almost, we would dare say. Oh, how we make God so small. People probably said that about me. I tell people, I told them when I was pastoring so they didn't think I was coming as a better than now. There was a day when my picture was on the front page of the largest weekly in the state of Michigan. War hero goes to jail. Yeah. My picture in a jail uniform on the front page. How humiliating and heartbreaking to my parents, I'm sure. But my dad, the pastor said, never ceased to pray for me, that God would open my heart. And a year and a half before my dad passed from this life, I came home like the prodigal son. So don't give up. God is able to, if he converted this heart, I know he can convert any heart. What's impossible for man is possible for God. And again, pastorally and as a parent, the most important thing you do for your children, it's not a mechanical thing of teaching them the Bible, taking them to church and praying for them. It's also mindful that God must work in their hearts. There must be a work of grace that only He can do. Now we should do those things. Teach them the scriptures, pray for them. Bring them to worship. But God must work in their hearts. We read from Jeremiah 31, that was the promise of the new covenant in the old. The old covenant, solely by the law, works. Man cannot be saved. Not by our doing, that is, of it. Jesus kept it for us. That's a work of grace and great mercy. And God says, I treated you like a husband. And yet they turned away and broke his covenant. That's what the natural man does. Our hearts are at enmity with God. naturally. This is why Lydia had to have her heart open because she was a sinner who need to be redeemed by grace. In fact, all men are sinners and need to be redeemed by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Though that's not the message of our world. That's not what we're going up against today. There's a great warfare against this truth and many hate this fact. Don't you call me a sinner. That's foolishness. And to know one has a sickness is a good thing. That's why we go to doctors. Something's wrong. I'm not feeling right. You can be guaranteed man doesn't feel right spiritually either. He's doing everything he can to try to tend to it, but the wrong way. Following his own lust, whether it's to heap stuff on himself. Oh, if I just get more of this world. The heart of man is never satisfied. You can have all the things in this world. You can be like a Howard Hughes. At the end of your life, you're most miserable without Christ. Or they try to obliterate it with drugs and sex and what have you. You name it. The only thing that will obliterate your sin is the blood of Jesus Christ. It is the blood of Jesus Christ, we are told, that cleanses us from all our sins, all our iniquity. Lydia needed to be saved, and she prays God. And of course, this teaches us of God's sovereignty in salvation, and demonstrates why all the glory of our salvation rightly belongs to Him, to God alone. Solidae gloria. There's only one spiritual cardiologist, if you will, in the New Testament. Only one in the whole of Scripture. And so without God's opening our hearts, we would never turn to Christ for salvation. Never. The natural man, the carnal man, he's at enmity, he's at war with God. They come forth from the womb, speaking lies. Scripture tells us. In order to be saved, our hearts need to be open, which means nothing less than to be regenerated, new life. They need to be open, or we could even say replaced. In the Old Testament, this was not, this is not something new. The Old Testament prophets preached this. They used metaphors, yes, you know, word illustrations, something to illustrate something, a picture, if you will. They say, circumcise the foreskin of your heart. Well, the heart doesn't have a foreskin, but it does have a, you know, a pericardium, I guess you could say. It's just using words to explain your heart's not right with God. It needs to be changed. That's what circumcision symbolized. You're not good the way you are born naturally. You need to have something happen. You need to be born again. You need to be regenerated. You need a work of the Holy Spirit. Ezekiel 36, 26. God promises through his prophet, I will give you a new heart. and put a new spirit within you, I will take away the heart of stone." Listen to that metaphor. You wonder why you talk to people and they want nothing to do with Christ? You got a heart of stone. That heart needs to be changed. Keep talking to them. God blesses his word. It doesn't return to him void. The only way we can ever be saved, he takes out that heart of stone out of your flesh, and he gives you a heart of flesh that's living, beating. You wouldn't want to replace your heart with a stone, would you? No, it doesn't work. The only way it can ever be saved is to have a spiritual heart transplant. With this new heart, we now have the power to love God. The power by his grace to more and more be conformed to the image of Christ his son. That's what we call sanctification. More and more conformed to his image. Only then are we able to live a life that is pleasing to God, worthy of God. Not worthy in and of ourselves, but because we're clothed with the righteousness of Christ. Romans chapter 4 tells us Abraham had no righteousness of his own. It says that he believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness. That's the transaction that took place. And so it is for every one of us. We believe God that he sent his son into the world to die for our sins. And through faith in Jesus Christ, his righteousness is imputed to us, covers us. And often, no matter how many thieves there are in this world, they never can steal Christ's righteousness from you. That's the promise. No thief can break into that house. Now, in the case of Lydia, having this new heart enabled her to understand the gospel and to become a believer and disciple of Jesus Christ. Now, even though she had been worshiping the Lord faithfully, she was a religious, God-fearing woman, that was not enough and alone to save her. And there are people like that. There are many religious people out there. Well, you look, there are many other religions. There's how many hundreds of millions of Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and, you know, Janus and all of these different religions. Very religious people, very devout, sometimes put us to shame with their devotion. The sad thing is it's devotion to a God that doesn't exist. The God who is of their own imagination. So we need to tell them of the God who is. That's what Paul did. She needed to have a personal saving faith in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. That's what it meant when he preached the gospel. The apostles, after Christ left, they preached the gospel. What is it? Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's the message. Our sins are answered at the cross by Jesus' death. Nowhere else. You look anywhere else and it's failure. You're going to be greatly disappointed. And that's what the world is doing today. And are they any more improved? suicide among young people is at the highest level it's ever been in the history of our nation because we're attempting to train them up without God and the knowledge of God and they're just wandering souls disparaging going into schools and other places and killing. They're living in the world of mayhem in some kind of electronic device and don't have no reality in the living God. No construct of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus gave us. It's hopelessness. But in Jesus Christ we have all the hope. He in fact is even called the blessed hope. And we look for His return as a blessed hope. Now, we must be keen to learn from the Word of God. That was what happened to Lydia immediately. Because the Word of God is the very means God uses to open hearts. Romans 10, 17, you should know it well, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. The Word of God is that sharp sword which the Lord uses to open our hearts. In Hebrews we read, it's living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow. It is a discerner of thoughts and the intents of the heart. That's what happened to Lydia. Behold, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, a new creature. Beloved, we know that the Word of God is the means to open the hearts and to bring salvation. Let us make every opportunity and use of that opportunity to bring ourselves and to bring others to sit under the preaching of the Word. Every Sunday is a great providential blessing from God if we can join here to worship. Let's do our part in bringing others here to worship the living God. In the case of Lydia, God used the Apostle Paul to bring the gospel to her at the riverside in humble settings. Remember that Lydia was not from Philippi. She was from Thyatira, which is located in the province of Asia on the western part of what we call Turkey today. Or now they've changed the name to a third syllable, so Turkey-a or something. If Lydia had remained in Thyatira, she may never have heard the gospel. Because according to verse 6, Paul and his co-labors were forbidden, so we read the context, they were forbidden to preach the gospel there, where Thyatira was located. But Lydia went to Philippi for economic reasons, she thought, but they were for God's reasons. He was going to save that woman and her family. And that's where she heard the gospel. Never despise little things. The small things that God uses. To turn people's lives around. Just to speak a word of comfort on an airplane to someone you'll sit with for just a short period of time. And you don't know what God will do with that. I always think of that. I fly so much, and who's going to sit by me today, you know, Lord, and, you know, help me to talk to them. Sometimes people sit down, you know they don't want to talk to anybody. They're like frozen up there, you know. And one time I was thinking, I was like, okay, get your Bible out and start reading. All right, get my Bible out and start reading. Before I got off the plane, the man sitting next to me was weeping. Weeping. His life was a wreck. He was about ready to divorce. He was successful. He was a pilot. He was going for training in Dallas, where I was flying to. But his life, and in God's providence, I had just preached in a church right practically across the street from his home. So I knew of a good church to send him to. You never know, but we have to take time to bring the word to him, just simple, Share your faith, what it is. You don't need to be worried about being so articulate and a great speaker and this and that. Share your faith, who Jesus is to you. That's what it's all about. God used the Apostle Paul to bring the gospel to her. So what made Paul go? We look in verse 9, God gave Paul a vision in which he saw a man of Macedonia saying to him, come over to Macedonia and help us. Taking this to be God's directive, Paul and his co-laborers immediately went to the port of Troas, found a ship and ready to sail to Macedonia. And verse 11 tells us they made a straight course to Samothrace. This meant there was favorable wind in that day that blew the ship right to their destination, rather than blowing them all over the Mediterranean. And when they reached Philippi, Paul always looked for a synagogue, since his method in any new place was to first preach to the Jews before going to the Gentiles. But here for the very first time in all his missionary journeys that we read recorded, he was told there's no synagogue in that city. Where then could he find Jews to preach the gospel to? So one of the citizens probably said, oh yeah, there's some people out by the river. I was out there one time and they're out there carrying on their religious whatever. You know, you go out there. And so he went. And he went out of the city and he looked for those Jews that were worshiping and he reached the place. What he found was not the man of Macedonia who had appeared to him in a vision, but a group of women praying. You have to remember in that day, the division of men and women was far greater than what we can imagine today. Unless you travel with me to Pakistan. It's not quite as bad in Nepal. And Paul went to them. Paul believed the message he preached, in other words, that there's no Jew or Gentile, there's no male or female in the kingdom. That is, we don't separate them that way. We're one in Christ. The veil was rent asunder when Jesus gave that sacrifice on the cross. We all now have access through him. It doesn't care about your ethnicity, nationality, pedigree. Money, any of those things. Poor man comes into your assembly, give him your best robe, and clothe it with him, and give him the best seat. That's the dynamic of Christianity and what's taught in the New Testament church. Paul went because he was called. And it was only after he had preached to them that Paul found out that the only woman who responded to his preaching was not from Philippi, but from Thyatira in Asia, the very place that he could not enter earlier. And so later on, Lydia may have brought the gospel back, though, to her home city through that, because you read in Revelation of the churches that were there, and Thyatira has a church. God's ways are higher than our ways. I've had people call me after many years of ministry and say, you know, thank God that you talked to me that time, that day. You know, and you kind of forget about it. And sometimes you say, you know, it's like the rich young ruler. They go away sad. They don't want to hear what you have to say. I remember one of the fellows, a couple that I counseled, and they were living together. And I said, well, don't you know that's sin? Yeah, but you know, what am I going to do? She gives me a ride to work. She's my ride to work. I said, I tell you what, you come and live in my house and I'll take you to work. Told them that. You didn't come. They wanted me to marry them. I said, I'm not going to do it at this point the way you are. I said, you need to be right with God. Why would you come to me otherwise? Go to the justice of peace. I'm a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so they went away. And years later, they called me up and they said, you know, Pastor Rowe, you were right. We were wrong. And I had heard that they got married by some pastor nearby. And like a month later, he's teaching Sunday school. No wonder the church is such a mess. But he did call me years after that and say, you were right. And about three months ago, he was ordained an elder in a reformed church there that God planted many years ago. God's ways are higher than our ways. Plant those seeds, be faithful. Say what you know is right. And it's not always easy. You know, the devil would have us shut our mouths and not share what we know is right scripturally. with people, but we need to. It's the words of life. Without it, it's death. Jesus said, the bread I give unto you, if you eat of this bread, you will never hunger. He's talking about the gospel. He's talking about his own life and death and burial and resurrection and his atonement for our sins. And if you drink of this water that I give you, you will never thirst. Do you believe that, beloved? Then give that bread, give that water every opportunity you have. You don't know that person the next day will be dead. I've had that happen. You don't want that on your conscience. George Whitefield, a great evangelist for the awakening in the United States, once said that if I bear with a man but a half hour, I must speak to him of Christ. I kind of made that one of my slogans in my head through the years. Spoke to me, I came to Christ. Paul preached the gospel. In Revelation 2, verses 18 through 25 is where Thyatira is listed. One of the seven churches of Asia, truly God does work in marvelous ways, not only mysterious. You don't know that word and what you say, it's his word. Let it go forth and do what God would have it to do. Plant those seeds. You may be a planter, you may be a waterer. One man plants another waters, the Lord gives the increase. But if you don't plant that seed, how do you know what will happen to that person? You may be the only opportunity they ever have to hear the gospel. Did you ever think of it from that perspective? God sovereignly brings every person we know into our lives. They're not there by accident, not your neighbor, Try to be nice to him, even though you hate his barking dogs. He still needs to know Christ. More important than the dogs is his soul. Even Paul's imprisonment in Rome was ordained by God. When Paul went to Rome every morning, a new soldier of the Praetorian Guard, the top guard, was chained to him. Did you know that? Every day, a different soldier was chained to Paul. Until, eventually, the Praetorian Guardsmen had Paul under their custody, and every one of them became his audience. People might have said, what a pity. A powerful preacher like Paul should have an audience of only one man a day, and a different one every day after that. What would Paul say? Paul would say, God has enabled me to preach to the Praetorian Guard. Can you imagine that? I'm right in Caesar's house, because they guarded Caesar in all the big ways, you know. Who knows how many pagans in Rome were converted through Paul's faithful witness by being chained as soldiers of the Praetorian Guard. God works in marvelous ways to bring people in contact with his word. And when they hear it, he's the one who opens their hearts to receive it. If God has done this for you, pray that he will also use you as a means to bring others to Christ. to bring him in contact with his word that they might receive new hearts. And we can ask ourselves too, sometimes we need to make a list. Who do I know that needs Christ, needs to hear his word that I haven't spoken to and I really should? Yeah, we really need to do it and start praying for them too. For many it may be those who live within our own homes. Certainly turned out to be the case with Lydia. Verse 15 tells us that she was baptized together with her household. True saving faith will always be a productive faith. For every Christian is God's workmanship created for good works, Ephesians 2.10. So this takes us to the third and last part. Am I going too long, Pastor? I'm okay? All right. And that is the sincere fruits of Lydia's worship. In verse 15. In verse 15 we see, And when she and her household were baptized, she begged the same, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And so she persuaded us. Now we might see the first fruit was Lydia's own baptism. She wanted to confess Christ. Baptism, of course, doesn't merit a person's salvation, but every true believer should want to follow the Lord's command to be baptized as given in the Great Commission. Or he or she will not be ashamed to confess Christ publicly. That's the great joy of every new believer's heart. And true believers who have experienced the Lord's great mercy and grace and salvation will naturally want to see their loved ones saved. And so in verse 15, we see Lydia's entire household being baptized with her. It's probably at least included her husband, if she had one, if she wasn't a single mother, a widow, common, a lot of men died in war. Her children and even her servants. What a wonderful occasion it must have been. I'm delighted in that. Once on a mission trip into Mexico, I baptized 29 souls. I baptized one mother, like a Lydia, holding a newborn in one arm, a toddler in the other, who was holding another baby. And I baptized them all. But I catechized them first. I wanted to see if they knew and understood who Jesus was before I would do that. And they did. And they were faithfully waiting for a pastor to come and baptize them. In verse 33 of the same chapter, we see another household baptism, the family of the Philippian jailer. I'm sure there are many of us who have an earnest desire and hope to see our loved ones saved. The question is, what are we doing about it? Are we praying often for their salvation? Do we look out for opportunities to share the gospel with them? There are plenty of evangelistic resources available Whether it's gospel tracts and books, even though people are reading less and less. There are DVDs, podcasts, that's a great source. Let's make good use of them. Find good ones to give them. Now, also, you see, besides her baptism, another fruit was her hospitality to Paul and his team. This is what she said, if you have judged me faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. In order to do this, Lydia had to have enough rooms in her house to accommodate four men. There was Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke. It wouldn't have been easy for anyone to do, but yet it appears the Lord had given Lydia the gift of hospitality. Don't be like one pastor I once knew. His people didn't even know where his house was. Didn't know where he lived. Another one of those. Hospitality, all of you though, not just the pastor and elders and deacons, but all of you. There's something about having someone sit at your table, have a common meal with you that shares an intimacy that's real. You know, hand them a track, get saved, see you later, or drop the track. We used to drop them off in the phone booths. We don't have phone booths anymore. Man, I'm getting old. Well, that's what we want to do. Look for ways to serve the Lord. We've got to be like young Samuel. Eli was so warped, he didn't even perceive the voice of God. But when you see the call of young Samuel when he's a boy, he hears the voice of the Lord. And what does he say? The Greek phrase, Hebrew phrase, hineni, here I am. That's the simple response every Christian ought to get. When you're asked for help in the body of Christ, here I am. Now notice, she didn't simply say to them, if you ever need a place to stay in Philippi, let me know, I'll see what I can do for you. No, Paul said she persuaded us. Lydia persuaded them to stay in her house, even though they may have politely declined her offer. I know one of the great joys of being in a small denomination, Reformed Church of the United States only has 48 congregations. When we have meetings, though, often we stay in people's homes. I get to meet them and know them, and it's wonderful. and to see the Christian life lived out by others, and even to encourage them, too. You see, though, this reveals a deep sincerity in her wanting to serve God. She didn't know these men. But she had the gift of hospitality and she enjoyed having fellowship. She knew they were God's servants by the word preached. And this demonstrates she was beginning to develop Christian virtues of brotherly love, generosity, humility, the willingness to help bear the burdens of others. Open your life up to others. I remember the first trips into Mexico when I was in this very remote village. among the Massawa Indian, they were a tribe. And they hadn't had a missionary or a pastor there in like, it'd been 10 years since the missionary left. And hidden away in these mountaintops in Central Mexico and Michoacan, you know, are these little rancheros or like ranches up on the mountaintop, but that's their village. And here's this Presbyterian church. How does Presbyterian church get up at this mountaintop? And it turned out that there had been an engineer working there. There had been gold in the mountains. And like many groups, he had come with them and they were exploiting the Indians, having them to work for them. Well, they take the gold. The Indians, the gold's pretty, but of the value. And he went back and he was actually from Scotland. And God convicted his heart that he had taken advantage of those people. He said, what can I do? And he was an engineer, and he was bettering them than most. He went back and lived in the village. Wasn't an ordained minister, just engineer. But he helped them with the church building. And he helped them to learn the gospel. And he catechized them. And then he got missionaries to come. One person, his burden for a people. And it was amazing. Interesting village. You know how the men got their wives? They kidnapped the young girl and raped her. We went back to the village after 10 years. Nobody's been there. And one of the men got up and gave a testimony how thankful he was that God had given him a good wife. And the missionary with me, whose parents had been there, started weeping. He was so thrilled. He said, you don't realize what a breakthrough that is, to stop that. That doesn't create good relationships in a village. Somebody kidnapped your daughter and took her as a wife. And here was the impact of the gospel. Well, since that time of your coming to Christ, have you seen similar changes in your own life? That's what we have to ask ourselves. We don't apply this word to ourselves. We're just looking at our image in the mirror and we go away and forget what we've seen. Am I serious about wanting to serve the Lord and his people with our spiritual gifts? And do you find joy in sharing fellowship with other people, even unbelievers, as you want to? They need to be loved. They need to be shown an honest love. Yeah, they can be very morally repugnant. I remember when I was going to seminary in Philadelphia, riding back and forth late at night, on the train and seeing some of the people that came out late, you know, and I was like, ah, I was aghast, and then I just thought, who in the world are you? You know, I lifted you out of the miry pit and set your feet upon a solid rock, and that rock is Christ. I wouldn't be here today if he had not delivered me. Then who am I? Because somebody spoke to me. Yes, the homeless look quite bad. Outwardly even, you know, many don't bathe, don't care to, drugs, all kinds of reprehensible things in their lives. But they need Christ. And God can save them. He can open their heart. And we need to think of how we can have ministry of compassion to them. As God has shown mercy to you, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. You know what mercy is? We talk a lot about grace. Grace is unmerited favor, right? I know you know that with your pastor. You don't earn salvation. It's a gift. But what is mercy? It's the other side, so to say, of that coin, if you will. It means God withholds from us what we do deserve, which is what? His wrath. Mercy. And yet the scripture tells us, and we have a psalm dedicated to tell us over and over, that mercy of the Lord endures forever. Can God be merciful to a homeless person? To a drug addict? To a prostitute? Those are the kind of people Jesus hung out with and got in trouble for. Yes, he can. If he's merciful to you and you know that mercy in your heart, beloved, share it with others. And if you don't know the mercy of God, if you don't have that compassion and love flowing out of your own heart, you need to question yourself. Am I right with God? Is my spirit right with God? Don't grieve the spirit of God. Seek him with your whole heart. He is the great cardiologist who can change anyone's heart. He opened Lydia's heart. He opened my heart. He produced results in her life. Rather than me continuing on as a drug addict, the reason I was in jail, God lifted me out of that miry pit. It's his doing. I was set on a course of destruction. And who knows what may result by your encounter with the word of God, even here in this place? May the Lord open your heart through his word. I want to end with this illustration. In the New Hebrides, there was a chieftain who sat peacefully reading his Bible. He was interrupted by a French trader. He said, bah! Why are you reading the Bible? I suppose missionaries have got a hold of you, you poor fool. Throw it away. The Bible never did anybody any good. The chieftain very calmly looked at him and said, if it wasn't for this Bible, you'd be in my kettle there today. This has been a presentation of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. For more resources and information, please stop by our website at visitredeemer.org. All material herewithin, unless otherwise noted. Copyright Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Elk Grove, California. Music furnished by Nathan Clark George. Available at nathanclarkgeorge.com.