Acts 16:11-15
11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. 12 From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.
13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.
Listening Guide
Discussion questions
Sermon
Intro
What good could we do around here?
That’s the question we closed with last week. That was last week’s small step. I enjoyed this week seeing how just asking that small
Myself and the family - volunteering
MG – friend lost
DW visit to neighbor who lost her husband. She was just having a hard time with it and needed a visit.
This is what happens when God is straightening out our hearts. We do good. We just can’t help it.
That’s not doing good is good enough. We don’t think that doing good is good enough. We can do all the good in the world and that will never make people say “Jesus is my Savior and Lord.” We can do all the good and that will never take someone out of the control and the influence of the supernatural forces that are trying to destroy their lives.
Luther’s conversion a new way of seeing “the righteousness of God”. It was like “the gates of heaven sprang open for him”
Another example that has stuck with me is Francis Collins. Francis Collins is famous now because he was the director of the human genome project. A long time agao, during his clinical training, he cared for a woman who was dieing. One day she had a real crisis, but pulled out of it by some kind of a miracle. Afterwards she talked about her belief in God and asked him, “What do you believe, Doctor?”
Francis said, “I was stunned. I said I didn’t really know. Her question had made me realize that as an atheist, I had arrived at an answer to the most important issue that we humans ever deal with. Is there a God? And I had arrived there without ever really looking at the evidence.”
So he started looking at all the evidence. He looked at physics and biology and mathematics, the fine tuning of the universe and so much more. He came away with the conclusion, he said, "God must be an amazing physicist and mathematician," Collins thought. "But does he or she actually care about me?"
As he continued to search for answers, Collins said he met a person who "not only claimed to know those answers and to know God, but to be God". "That was Jesus Christ," he said.
Collins went through this amazing process that didn’t just let him be a person to do good, but fundamentally opened him up to a new way of looking at life. That the God of the universe actually cared about him.
Adventure
This is what God wants. He works to open people up.
That’s what we get to see today with the apostle Paul in a city called Phillippi. God uses him to have this great conversation with a woman who is on her way to becoming a Christian. He does more than just get her to do good.
Development
We’re in the book of Acts, which is the story of the early Christian church written by a man named Luke. We’re in chapter 16, which is on page ____ if you have one of these blue/white Bibles.
“On the Sabbath, we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer.... [Lydia] was a worshiper of God.” (verse 13-14)
Lots of good religious people out there. People who pray. People who worship. They might know something vaguely about God. Maybe even some of us.
Paul came to her and he opened his mouth. Undoubtedly, he preached the gospel. Don’t get too confused about that. We’ve got so much other evidence that he couldn’t have said anything but the gospel.
“The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” (verse 14)
The message of the event was unmistakable. This woman, Lydia, was a good woman and she was doing good things. God still wanted to open her heart.
We hold up this idea of having “an open mind”. That’s a cultural value that people in the 20th century and the 21st century really wanted, they pursued.
The thing of it is, in some respects, not every respect, but some, the ancient world was much more open-minded than parts of the modern world. The city of Philippi was home to at least three different people groups - people from Greece, people from Italy, and people from Turkey. They worshiped at least 10 different gods as far as we can tell.
And yet, God still wants to open up her heart. What do you imagine this is like? [“The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” (verse 14)]
CS Lewis compared it to what it feels like to see a beautiful sight. When you hear a piece of music or you see a beautiful sight, what do you do? You feel like you have to grab somebody else and praise it with them. You grab your friend, and you say, “Look at this. Isn’t this great?” Why are you praising it? Because it’s beautiful. The more you praise it, the more you enjoy it. Isn’t that right? The more you praise it, the more you enjoy it.
You say, “Look at this. Isn’t this great? Look at the lines. Look at the colors. Look at this and that.” The more you praise it, the more you’re enjoying it, the more the other person is enjoying it. Right? Why are you praising it? Does it need it? It doesn’t. It’s beautiful. It’s an end in itself.
This is the thing. Lydia had a God who was useful, but that day, she received a God who was beautiful. Before that, she was probably a good person. I imagine that she wasn’t murdering people. She wasn’t committing adultery. She was helping her neighbors. She was probably doing good.
After salvation, what happened? After the gospel came in, what happened? Did she start lying? Did she start committing adultery? No! “Well, there’s no difference.” All the difference in the world! It’s not a burden. It’s not crushing. She is not doing it because God is useful. Now she is doing it because God is beautiful. She obeys to enjoy him. She obeys to delight him. She obeys to praise him.
This is the thing. Closed and open is not about religious or irreligious.
If you’re like me, you say, I don’t feel closed. I feel like I’m pretty open. I like new experiences. I like new ideas. I try new things. How can you say I’m closed?
That’s the thing. We live in a world where the default is to be closed, so we don’t even see that its closed. We’re not looking for the beauty, the wonder, the majesty, the awe to be pouring into the world. We aren’t ever caught up in a moment of pure adoration and wonder. Let me give you just on small example.
I was reading a political biography the other day. The president was talking with a politician trying to get him to agree to a bill. The president and the chair of the committee were talking with this guy and trying to negotiate changes that would get him to say yes to the bill. Finally the president asked, is there anything I could say that could change your mind? Or to put it another way, is there any evidence I could give you that would get you to change your mind? The guy said no. He said there was absolutely closed to that kind of a possibility.
I’m not saying open and closed has to do with your politics. That’s not the point of the example. The point of the example us this.
That you and I are closed by default. We are closed to that awe and wonder and pure praise when we aren’t going to get anything. Were aren’t going to work that way.
We are wired to get something out of life. We want things to be useful. We are not at all interested in that kind of free expression of adoration and love that pours out simply because something is wonderful.
The bible uses this picture opened and closed at a few key moments to describe us.
Is. 44:18 “They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand”
Mt 13:15 “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes”
There is only one person in the world, who, in the middle of the worst experience, did not close himself up. He opened himself up.
When Jesus is on the cross, he quotes Psalm 22 a number of times. One of the verses says,
“My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted within me.” (Psalm 22:14)
What does that mean? It means that Jesus, on the cross, didn’t keep himself closed. He didn’t keep his heart shut up. Jesus went through on the cross...the heart, the center of his self-determination and he poured it out. He took his thinking, his feeling, and his wanting. He poured it out.
There was one thing in this entire world that was worth the heart of God. You and I hold our hearts back. We don’t want to be broken hearted so we keep them to ourselves. There was one thing worth God’s heart. It wasn’t a tragedy. It wasn’t a sorrow. There was nothing sad. There was just nothing else in this whole world that was worth the heart of God. That was you.
He opened himself up for you.
If you’ve ever had a friend who came to you, running and sobbing. They’d just experienced some huge tragedy in their life and they poured out their heart to you. What did you do? Did you just stand their stone cold impervious, you didn’t move, you didn’t smile, you didn’t cry, you didn’t do anything? No You wrapped your arms around them. You started to cry. Your heart opened up with them.
It doesn’t matter how much sadness you’ve endured, or how great your life is. … He has opened up his heart for you.
Open your heart to him.
Action
What we would love to see here at Peace is to do what Paul does here. To be people who bring people the gospel of Jesus. That’s our vision. That’s our heart.
That’s a huge thing. That’s a big goal. Much bigger than saying, I’m going to change the world. If you could figure out housing that is affordable, close to a city for jobs and transportation, opens up the door for upward mobility, you could really change things. That’s hard. I would say that’s nowhere near as hard as bring the kind of person in the lives of your friends and neighbors that will let them see the beauty and the wonder and the majesty of the gospel.
And every time I hear of a conversation one of you has with someone about the gospel I’m convinced that God is at work among us. He is opening your heart and through you opening the hearts of others. I’d love to see that with you.
What kind of conversations do you have with people who are on the way to becoming Christians?