A Strategic God with Guest Host John Samson

Welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is Pastor John Sampson of King's Church in Phoenix. Actually, we're now meeting in a newer facility in Peoria, but it's still here in the Valley of the Sun where it is well over 90 degrees already and the sun is not done yet in warming us up and it's a delight to fill in for Dr. James White who is traveling in Florida and ministering over there and keep up with all of his activities by means of the blog at aomin .org and it's a delight to be with you.

Anything you want to jump in and say, Rich, or you're good to go? Rich informed me as I came into the offices here that I had offended certain people with my story, at least a little part of the story that I started out with last time regarding the scariest moment of my life when I referred to England as an island.

Now, I'm not sure I'd get too many objections from the people in England, but those outside in the British Isles, particularly Scotland and Wales and the northern part of.

Ireland.

Well, I did hear of this Scottish person who was trying to alert me to the fact that there is something called the British Isles and it consists of more than England and let me just say something in the way of kindness towards Scotland.

It's common grace that you live your lives in Scotland so close to England. It is God's blessing. I know my mother and father lived 17 years in Dumfries. You will know of that town, those in Scotland and the amazing thing is I was almost born in Dumfries, but my mum and dad moved several months before I was born to a place called Chester in England.

And so I could be Scottish. I could be, but God had mercy on me and I was born in Chester, which is about three miles inside the English border near Wales. Not to be confused with Wales because it's inside the border.

There's actually a funny story about Chester because some years ago the Chester soccer team, known as football over there, wanted to have a new stadium and they had all of the plans in place and they were trying to get approval from the council to start the building of this soccer football stadium and the problem was the plans were leaked to the press and the press printed something of the division of what was going to transpire and it became apparent that part of the soccer pitch, part of the field, was going to be over the border in Wales.

It was...

Three quarters of the field was in England, but the actual geographic boundary line meant that a third of the field would be in Wales. And so there was this great outcry. We're not going to go support the team that's in Wales.

We're not going to do it and they had to scrap the plans. They actually scrapped the plans because part of the field would have been in Wales, so they built it somewhere else and that was the only reason.

So there we go. How many have I offended now? If for anyone still listening, I'd encourage you and watching, let's go in our Bibles to Acts chapter 16. I've been thinking about what to bring to the program today, what would best serve the viewing audience and oftentimes, as you've been seeing me fill in for James, again, it's a huge privilege, huge responsibility as well, but something I take very, very seriously.

And in the times I've had, I've sought to do some topical studies. I have taught some expositional verse-by-verse teaching through Acts 10, if I remember correctly, also John chapter 3. And that is the normal diet of what I would say is healthy in the local church setting, where a pastor is not just speaking on topics.

There's no problem with teaching and preaching on topics as long as the verses that are being quoted are in context and that's sometimes hard to do because you don't always have the time. But to make the context clear.

But ordinarily, I believe the healthy diet of the church is that a pastor, a teacher, is taking the congregation verse-by-verse through certain books of the Bible. And that is one way to remedy the concept of a pastor just having a hobby horse, things he wants to teach about.

And when you go through books, there are passages that emerge that you have to deal with because it's there in the text and you know 18 months before you get there or six months before you get there that you will get there and have to deal with that particular topic.

And that's healthy for the people of God. All of God's Word,.

All.

Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. And so knowing that, I think a verse-by-verse exposition is the normal healthy diet of the church. In recent weeks, since about January at King's Church, I've done a number of topical studies, but I always try to quickly go back to the healthy diet of verse-by-verse exposition.

And the reason I'm thinking of doing this today from Acts chapter 16 is that I just preached on this this last weekend and I've received a number of just positive comments, feedback, saying it was really helpful.

And I just want to hope and pray that it would be helpful to all of us in our walk with God, no matter where we are in our growth. And let's go in fact then to Acts chapter 16. Let me take a little bit of English tea for the English.

This is PG tips, the real stuff. Yep, it's the real stuff right right there. Like my little mug. Five-point Calvinist. Anything less is a confused Arminian. Again, that can offend a number of people, but there we go.

Acts chapter 16. We're on a roll. Acts chapter 16 and we'll begin in verse 1 and what I wish to do is read to verse 15. And as I say when I pick up the scripture and begin to read it, I say this with all sincerity.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Word of God.

Paul.

Came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium.

Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.

So the churches were strengthened in the faith and they increased in numbers daily and they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.

And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas and a vision appeared to Paul in the night.

A man of Macedonia was standing there urging him and saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

So setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace and the following day to Neapolis and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony.

We remained in this city some days and on the Sabbath day, we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul and after she was baptized and her household as well, she urged us saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.

And she prevailed upon us. The hearing of God's word is always edifying for the people of God and I'm impressed by the fact in history that most Christians throughout history never had access to the Bible like we have it in our hands and to whom much is given, much is required.

We have such a blessing in having the scriptures available to us. Many times in the villages and towns of Europe, there might be one copy of the entire scriptures in the entire village and that's why it was chained oftentimes to the pulpit of churches and the only time people were exposed to the word of God was when they heard the word of God spoken from the pulpit.

Paul told Timothy, give yourself to the public reading of scripture. What a privilege it is. As we look at chapter 16, we need to talk about the context and that context is the monumental event of chapter 15, which was the council at Jerusalem where it was decided because of the grace of God given to the Gentiles, God the Holy Spirit moving upon the Gentiles, saving them, justifying them by the grace of God alone through faith in Christ alone without the need for any Gentile to become Jews.

No need of circumcision. The council mandate was we're going to lay no other heavy charge on these people, these Gentiles, other than these small things that we say would be good to avoid, but we're not going to insist on circumcision for the Gentiles.

It's not necessary. In fact, to insist on it would be to bring another gospel and that is in fact what was happening in Galatia where Paul was writing to the church there who had received the gospel, the free gift of God's grace, and yet Judaizers were coming in saying you need Jesus, you need faith, but you also need something else and anything that is added to Christ and that gospel is a false gospel.

It's not close to it. You might see someone singing the same songs, believing in the same Messiah, having an orthodox view of God, perhaps even believing in the Trinity. None of those things were mentioned by Paul when they mentioned one thing and insisted on one thing other than simply faith alone.

Paul said no, no, no, false gospel and anyone who proclaims that is a false brother. So it's very, very clear. That's where Paul was on this. He was clear. He couldn't be clearer. The book of Romans is so clear on this.

The book of Galatians is especially clear on this because it's dealing with that direct issue. So what on earth are we reading about in chapter 16? Where we read about Paul coming to Derbe and Lystra and were introduced for the first time in the New Testament to a gentleman named Timothy.

Disciple was there named Timothy. Now notice this, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. Timothy was a half-breed in terms of the way Jews would look at this man and Paul knew that in this missionary journey, if he took Timothy and his desire was to do exactly that, he wanted to have Timothy not be seen as a fraudulent member of the team.

He wanted Jews as well as Gentiles to be able to receive Timothy as a minister and it would be very hard in that culture in that first century to for Jewish people to embrace someone who was half a Jew had yet to be circumcised.

He hadn't been circumcised and they knew it and therefore Jews would have a big problem receiving Timothy. In Paul's first missionary journey, he went to Lystra and then Derbe. Now the order is seemingly reversed because he's coming from the opposite direction.

At Lystra, we're introduced to this young man, Timothy. I always think of my own experience when I hear the name Timothy because the gentleman I started out in ministry with back in 1987 after finishing seminary Bible College over in England was a gentleman by the name of Harry Greenwood and he referred to me as his young Timothy and he used that phrase so often that some people thought that was my name, but no, my name is John.

I understand the nurturing process involved of a father in the faith with someone who's young in the faith or in the ministry and Timothy was exactly that and Paul as we know wrote two letters of the New Testament to Timothy, 1st Timothy and 2nd Timothy and Timothy therefore has a prominent place in the New Testament, but here's the first time we're introduced to him and immediately we're told that Paul, hear this, wanted him circumcised and actually, he made sure he was.

He wasn't just gonna say that's a nice suggestion, pray about it, take a couple of years. No, in a hurry, Paul had Timothy circumcised. It's strange to our ears and our eyes when we see this because what was the whole point of chapter 15?

We've just read it of a council that says circumcision is not necessary and Paul is now insisting before we set foot on our missionary journey, Timothy, you get circumcised. Look at what it says. It says in verse 3, Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews.

Now notice that's the reason why. Because of the Jews who were in those places. Why? What's the reason? For they all knew that his father was a Greek. They had a problem with non fully Jewish people. They knew that's what Timothy was and Paul says, you know what, you need to get circumcised.

Does that just strike you on first glance as a contradiction? Some people look at this and other things like this and say, there you go, you can never understand the Bible. There's not even a gap of even a coffee break between the end of chapter 15 and chapter 16 and circumcision is not necessary.

Now it is. I can never understand the Bible. The Bible is full of contradictions. And I always respond to that to them, those kind of challenges by saying, well, if it's full of contradictions, give me at least 20 and they don't often come up with one.

I say, why 20? I said, well, if it's full, you can go to any page, right? You can go to any book and find contradictions. Come on, let a genuine, meaty, juicy contradiction. Give it to me for the Bible's full of it.

And I'm still waiting to hear from these kind of people who have these contradictions that they so-called that cause them to not believe the Bible. But there we go. The Bible stood the test of time and here it is still the bestseller of all time.

People know what it is. The Word of God. Paul wanted Timothy circumcised. What? Isn't that scandalous? We're not reading about this in another book. We're not reading about this 19 chapters on from Acts chapter 15 in the next breath.

Paul.

Insisted on Timothy's circumcision. Now, wasn't Paul going to the churches of Asia Minor to deliver the same very decree of chapter 15? Yes. Haven't we just been told that the decree was that from the church that circumcision wasn't necessary?

Yes. And yet this same Paul makes Timothy get circumcised. Actually, actually, it actually gets more confusing because later on we encounter Titus. Remember him? There's a book written to Titus and Paul, hear this, adamantly refuses to circumcise him.

If you're following along, I'd like you to go to just one little verse, Galatians chapter 2, where we read in verse 3 of that chapter, Galatians 2 verse 3, but even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised though he was a Greek.

What on earth is going on? Isn't there a double standard going on? Timothy, you need to get circumcised. Titus, no, no, no, we're not going to force you to be circumcised even though he was a Greek. How can we explain this?

Paul circumcised Timothy. Paul, the same Paul, refused to circumcise Titus. What do we do with that? Well, here's how we work this through. When someone attempted to require a Gentile to undergo circumcision, Paul would never allow it.

He would not, he would not go there. He would stand resolute in the truth of the gospel. That's what we read in chapter 2 of Galatians, over and over that phrase, so that the truth of the gospel might prevail.

I did not submit or subject myself to these guys for any length of time at all. I would not do it. 1 Corinthians 9 says to the Jew I became as a Jew, to the Gentile as a Gentile. He had something we would call strategy.

Here in Timothy's case, Paul thought it would be good missionary strategy to have him circumcised. That's how we explain it. That's why there is no contradiction. When people would say to be saved, to be justified in the sight of God, anyone with Gentile origins has to be circumcised, Paul would say, nope, nope, no, never, no.

But missionary strategy, if I'm gonna take Timothy to an area where there are bound to be some Jews, even though it's predominantly Gentile, I want Timothy to have an audience when he gets there, amongst the Jews.

So let's remove any scandal about him being a half-breed or whatever he is. Let's remove the scandal and as a strategy, let's have Timothy circumcised. They were well aware of his background. We read of that in the end of chapter 16 verse 3.

They all knew his father was a Greek. Who did? The Jews. They knew it, as well as the fact that we know from the New Testament that Timothy's mother, Eunice, was a very godly woman, as well as Timothy's grandmother, Lois, and yet Timothy's mother was married to a Greek.

And again, because we're not living in the first century, we don't realize what a rarity that was and how that would be perceived by Jewish people. You want to reach Jewish people, you've got to get into the thinking of Jewish people and avoid certain natural offenses, if at all possible.

Whenever I've gone to a foreign nation and preached the gospel, I remember going to Mongolia, of all places, and people that were there who were either English or American, who had been there for 10 -12 years, they sat myself down and the rest of the team that I was leading into the one of the cities or the towns of Mongolia.

I said, these are things you need to avoid. And I said, what kind of things? And they said, never put your Bible on the floor. I thought, really? Never put your Bible? No. To do that in this culture is seen as demeaning the Bible.

Don't do that. And that was easy not to do. Just it was great that they told us because it could happen without any thought. I put the Bible on the floor as I'm prepared, as I sit on the seat, I put the Bible on the floor and then I'll pick it up when I go to preach.

No, don't do that. Just good things to know about. Strategy. Paul knew the situation and Eunice, a Jew, had married a pagan, a Greek. And because Timothy's father was a pagan, Timothy had grown up never being circumcised.

The mother didn't have the authority in the family to insist on circumcision, even though she was Jewish. The pagan father said he doesn't need to be circumcised, and that's what had happened in Timothy's life.

The issue was this. Would the Jews hear Timothy? Would they accept him? Was he worthy of being heard? And Paul removed the issue, removed the problem, removed the scandal of an uncircumcised Jew speaking to Jews.

Now, does it make sense? I believe it does. He got Timothy circumcised, not for the purpose of salvation, but for the purpose of missionary strategy. Let me quote James Montgomery Boyce at this point.

When the essence of the gospel was at stake, Paul refused any compromise, whatever. However, when the gospel was not at stake, as was the case here, Paul was willing to compromise many things in order to win others to Jesus Christ.

I would say a hearty amen to that. We learn about Timothy from other books of the Bible. For instance, the most clear passage about him is found in Philippians chapter two. If I just turn there for a moment, we can read what it says in verse 19.

Philippians chapter two, verse 19 through 24, where Paul talks about Timothy, says, I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon so that I, too, may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him.

He's unique in that sense. There's there's no one quite like Timothy. Who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. They all seek their own interests, but not those of Jesus Christ. But, you know, Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel.

I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me. And I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also. And so it goes on. He speaks of Epaphroditus. But again, insight about Timothy, he's like minded.

Paul and Timothy, I'm sure, had different personalities and different giftings, but they were like minded in the things of God. Timothy cared for people. He had genuine affection for people. He cared for them and he put their interests above his.

And he was Christ centred in the sense of he wanted Jesus Christ glorified in his life and in his ministry and his preaching. And he worked well with others. Now, if we look at verse four of Acts 16, it says, as they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.

Again, a reference back to the previous chapter. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and they increased in numbers daily. I wonder what word stands out to you in that particular verse. Verse five, churches strengthening in the faith, increase numbers.

That little word daily that intrigues me. How on earth did the early church increase in numbers daily? It's as I was reading one time through the book of Acts. I came across a concept that I then saw others refer to and their insight helped my insight as if I'd seen a little crack in the door and then they began to show me more things on this.

And what was apparent to me that I think has been lost in the church at large was the fact that the early church met publicly. They had the Sunday gathering, all of the indications both from scripture and from outside the New Testament, particularly things like the didache from basically late first century document of the early church, which is not inspired, but it's very good for us to understand historically what was going on in the churches.

The churches met on a Sunday and yet they also met from house to house. And when you begin to see this, you can think that's how the churches were increasing in numbers daily. It's wonderful to have the home group.

It's wonderful to have the public assembly. And that is what is being referred to in Hebrews, where it says, do not forsake the gathering together of yourselves. It's not referring to you and maybe three or four other Christians.

It's talking about the gathered assembly of the saints, which was the Lord's Day meeting. That's very clear. Yet there was this double component publicly. They meet together house to house. There's fellowship.

There's Bible teaching. And it's often there that people were impacted with the gospel for the first time. In Acts chapter five, if we look back there, we see a verse in verse 42 that tells us of the activity of the early church, and it says an every day.

And again, my ears prick up because we've just read the word daily. And here we read every day. I think those phrases are synonymous every day and daily. If you do something daily, you're doing it every day, every day in the temple, which was the public gathering.

And from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ, Jesus as the Messiah. It was a dual ministry of a public gathering place, the gospel preached there, obviously, but also the gospel was being preached house to house.

I remember having pastored. I was a co-pastor in England for three years and then pastored a church here in Phoenix for some time. And we grew to maybe two hundred and fifty three hundred people. And we had about 18 home groups.

And one of the things I wanted to insist on was that every month we would be outreach oriented, have one time at least a month where that house group reached out to the neighborhood or reached out to the office where certain one was working, but come up with a strategy.

And the sky was the limit. As long as it could be classed as an outreach, this was how we're going to proceed as a church. I believe that if we do not have outreach and evangelism as part of the day to day mechanism of the church, we can lead to something like the Dead Sea, which is water coming in, but nothing going out.

And it's just not a healthy thing. If we look within ourselves and at ourselves, we begin to see the issues. Oh, Brother George is here again. Oh, hi, George. And, you know, there's Philippa over there.

Yeah, she's here. And we see problems. We see issues. And I remember hearing of one man who described unity the way we normally understand it is we're all in a circle looking in on ourselves, gathered together, unity in Christ.

But as we do, we're only looking at ourselves. And he said, change the model. We're still locked with one another, but now we're the outside of the circle in unity, looking outwards. And I thought that is the biblical picture of of reaching out.

And a gentleman came to me about two years after we'd launched these home groups and hadn't seen him in a while, basically because I canceled his home group. He said, well, at one Thursday night we were meeting and we decided that we need to just get to know each other.

We just need to be real as Christians and we just need to study the Bible. We don't know what we need to know, and we don't even know how much we don't know. And let's just study. And on the night when others might be doing outreach, we just want to do more study.

We're not ready to reach out. And I said, well, I'm not ready to receive you as one of our church's home groups. And they insisted they weren't going to do it. And I said, well, I've made it clear when we set this up, this is the one thing I want us to do.

I'm going to have to insist on this. And I actually closed the thing down. And this man came to me and said, I've hated you for a year. And I said, well, I'm sorry to hear that. He said, I resented you shutting us down.

I said, well, I try to make it clear. I tried to say we wanted this to be outreach oriented and don't do a group if you're against outreach. And he said, well, I still don't think we were ready. I said, well, I do.

I disagree. And that was how it worked out. I believe that every church should have a strategy of reaching out. And that was our strategy. May not be the best one, but I do think it's a biblical one. And my warrant for that is chapter five, verse 42 of Acts.

But another one is Acts chapter 20 and verse 20. I like to remember this by thinking of having 20, 20 vision. Here it is, Acts chapter 20, verse 20, where the apostle Paul is saying farewell to the elders at Ephesus.

And he says how we're just kind of jumping into the passage here, how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from house to house. There we have that again, saying that concept of the public meeting and the house to house meeting.

And Paul was key in that. It's something that he did in his own ministry. So how did the church grow daily? A daily increase, I believe, because they were meeting daily. Maybe one group was meeting on a Monday, another on a Tuesday.

But as the church grew, maybe eight groups were meeting on a Monday and seven on a Tuesday. So it might go on. But the church were meeting daily as well as having the public gathering. Then we read back in Acts chapter 16, verse six.

And it gets very, very interesting here when we hear what the apostle Paul wanted to do with his team, where he wanted to go. And what we read in Scripture is very interesting statement. Look with me in verse six of Acts chapter 16.

And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. Now, right here is divine election, isn't it? Because if they go to one place, they're not going to another place.

Not everybody even gets to hear the gospel. And if an apostolic teams goes north, they're not going south. And though they it looks like they wanted to go into the region of Asia, which is Asia minor here, not the Asia we know of today.

The Holy Spirit in some way forbade them. He, it says, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit. Now, I would love to ask Luke, in what way? How did this pan out? In what way did the Holy Spirit forbid?

Well, we need to recognize it could be one of two things. One would be the gifts of the Holy Spirit flowing. And by means of a prophetic utterance, perhaps the missionary team were informed either amongst themselves or by someone else.

But they certainly remember this or took this or received this as a word from the Holy Spirit not to go into Asia. They were forbidden. The Holy Spirit said no. That could have been the case or it could have been simply a matter of providence.

They tried to get there, but either they didn't have the resources or the ship they were trying to get to go wasn't going there. All the ships in the particular port were not going that direction. I don't know.

We're not told. And it's foolish to speculate. But what we do know is the Holy Spirit in some way made it clear. I don't want you going there. I'm forbidding you to go there. I want to say this to some people that maybe have faced many closed doors in your life.

Closed doors are guidance. We need to rather than be thinking God has abandoned me because the door's been closed. I've wanted to do this for eight years. I've trained for it. I've readied myself for it.

I've shocked myself so that when this opportunity emerged, I'm ready to take it. And then I try to do it and the door is closed. God, have you got no purpose for my life? Well, yes, he does. It's just that that was not the door he wanted you to go through.

And by means of providence, that is how it emerges that, OK, I thought for everything I'm worth that God wanted me to do this. But obviously, that door has been closed. Some doors God may want you to keep knocking on because the door will eventually open.

But some have come to the place where they've tried to be a pilot and they keep getting their eyes tested. And every time they have their eyes tested, their eyes are not good enough for that which is required to be a pilot.

And all of their knowledge and training they think has been wasted. And yet God says, no, I don't want to be a pilot, not of commercial airlines or not in.

The military.

But you can you can do this off here where whereas a pilot, you can still serve me on missionary enterprises and but maybe not be the flyer, the pilot of a jumbo jet. But you can do this with the eyesight you have.

And that's where I wanted you all along. Hindsight is always 20, 20, as we say. But closed doors are guidance. Don't think God has abandoned you. He's just making sure that you don't go in something into something he does not wish for you.

He's got another door ready for you. And God would want you to be ready when that door opens. And I started off in ministry in church as an 18 year old at the church where I was as the church cleaner.

And it's it's kind of funny to me because I'm not much of a church cleaner. I don't know as I cleaned as best as I could as a young man, a man, first of all, a man, then a young man cleaning a church.

I don't know how clean I got. I did the best I could. I honestly did it as genuinely and sincerely as I could. I'm sure that between Thursday when I'd finished the cleaning and Sunday when the meeting started, some ladies came and helped me behind the scenes and went under flower pots and John missed here and, you know, made it look good.

But that's where I started. And I remember cleaning the pulpit one time and the pastor of the church, a man by the eleven, small guy, but mighty in the Lord. He came up to me and saw me late at night cleaning the pulpit.

And he said, son, and he had the right to call me son. He said, son, do a good job with that pulpit. Maybe one day God will have you stand behind it. I never forget that. I never forgot those words. Very encouraging.

Here we read of God opening a door later on in the passage. But before we get to the door being open, we get more doors that are closed. Look what it says in verse seven. And when they'd come up to Misia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the spirit of Jesus did not allow them.

Interesting phrase, the spirit of Jesus. Again, a reference to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's mandate is to lift Jesus up. You see someone full of the Holy Spirit. They'll not be talking so much about the Holy Spirit, but of Jesus.

He's the spirit who makes Jesus a reality to people. So door number two closed. Verse eight, so passing by Misia. Why did they pass by Misia? Because the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Jesus did not allow them.

So passing by Misia, they came down to Troas and a vision appeared to Paul. A man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him, saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

Now, with divine guidance for the third time, this is where we make the mistake. We think that God was giving guidance to Paul only from verse nine onwards. No, he was giving guidance from verse six onwards.

Door number one closed. That's guidance. Door number two closed. That's guidance. Door number three opened. That's also guidance, concluding that Macedonia was the place they were going to go to in their missionary journey.

And therefore, God, being a God of strategies, knows what's going to happen when they obey the call. And what happened is what we see unveiled from verse 11 onwards. Do you remember that phrase? It's in Revelation three, verse eight, where it talks about, behold, I've set before you an open door which no one is able to shut.

That's the Jesus who's mandating the missionary activity of the church. This place, Macedonia, was across the Aegean Sea from Troas. And so setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace and the following day to Neapolis and from there to Philippi.

Why would they go on this missionary journey anyway? Because Jesus commanded them. The Great Commission, if you remember. Christ's love compels us, Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians five. And the world desperately needs to hear the gospel.

So over the sea to Macedonia, they went. What is significant about this particular passage is it's the first time we see of the early church or especially the gospel here going to what is modern day Europe.