Sunday, Aug 18, 2024 AM

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. We do give you praise today,

Heavenly Father, for the great love with which you have loved us. That you would call us your children, adopted by your

Spirit in your Son, according to the full measure of the grace of Jesus Christ, that we may together rejoice in you.

We give you the praise today for your grace that you have shown to us, grace upon grace, blessing upon blessing.

Of these, not one did we deserve, but according to the merits of your

Son and the glory of your name, you have blessed us. We come today in the posture of humble joy and give you praise.

We ask now that as we read your word together that we would submit to its truth, rejoice in its truth, and be changed by its truth, that you would do your work in us.

We ask for this mercy, we ask for this grace, in the name of your

Son, Jesus Christ, with whom you are well pleased. Amen. I invite you to open your

Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 16. Acts 16, and we'll be reading verses 11 through 15 this morning.

We continue our outline entitled,

Wait on the Lord. Some of you have been waiting for me to finish this passage, but patience is a good thing to cultivate.

We need to wait on the Lord. He's the one who is in charge.

He's the one who knows what is going on. He's the one with the plan. He's the one who knows best, loves best, and does best.

When Peter confessed that Jesus indeed was the Christ, the

Son of the living God, Jesus responded that upon that rock, upon that cornerstone, upon that foundation,

He would build His church, and that the gates of Hades would not prevail against it.

The church would grow. Death would lose. And Christ has been and is making good on that promise.

He is building His church. He has not ceased. He has not failed. He has not become distracted.

He is building His church, and He builds His church by the preaching of the truth.

By the preaching of the Word of God. By the power of God. The grace of God.

Christ is building His church. We've been seeing that in the book of Acts.

We started with 120 in an upper room, and they stopped counting at a certain point.

It was not feasible to continue counting how many the Lord was adding to their number through the preaching of the gospel.

This whole series of passages from Acts reminds us that it is

Christ who builds His church. This is why we should think of the book of Acts, not the

Acts of the Apostles, as much as we should think of the Acts of the risen Lord Jesus Christ through His apostles.

Yes, Peter and Philip and Paul and Barnabas, they're in the field.

They are laboring. They are working. They are building, but it's really Christ.

He's the one who gets the credit. He's the one who should be receiving the glory. In Acts 2 .47,

we hear that the converts were praising God and having favor with all the people, and the

Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. Acts 3 .16,

Peter says of the man who was lame but then was healed, he says that it's

Jesus' name. It's through his faith in His name that has made this man strong, whom you see and know.

Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given Him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.

The faith was the gift from Christ. Acts 5 .31, they're preaching and they say that Christ, God has exalted to His right hand to be the

Prince and Savior to give repentance to Israel and the forgiveness of sins.

Who gives the repentance? Who gives the forgiveness? It is Christ. He's the one who's building His church.

In Acts 9 .15, we have the Lord speaking to Ananias concerning Saul of Tarsus, and the

Lord says to Ananias, Go, for he, Saul, is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.

So he is saving the servants who go forth to preach the gospel in the name of Christ, and Christ is granting the faith for the sinners to believe.

And so, when Peter goes and preaches to Cornelius' household and comes home to Jerusalem, and the folks there hear, they became silent and they glorified

God, saying, then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life. Acts 11 .18.

Acts 13 .48, when Paul is out in the field with Barnabas, and when the Gentiles heard the gospel, they were glad and glorified the word of the

Lord, and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. Acts is the most evangelistic book in the

Bible, and we're reminded time and time again the reason why there are so many people being saved is that God is in charge of it.

If men were in charge of it, how few would be saved. If God's in charge of it, look how many are saved from all over, and people you would never expect could ever be saved, and that's what happens when

God's in charge and His grace is at work. So, we have a similar situation going on now, as Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke have come to Philippi, and they find a very small gathering of women out by the river, praying on the

Sabbath day, and Paul begins to preach. And let's look what Jesus does. Please stand with me if you're able as we read

God's holy word. Acts chapter 16, beginning in verse 11.

And we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. Now, a certain woman named

Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira who worshiped

God. And the Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul, and when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the

Lord, come to my house and stay. So she persuaded us. This is the word of the

Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. We are to wait on the

Lord. He builds His church. Do we pray like that?

Do we proceed based on that? When you think of your spouse, when you think of your children, when you think of your grandchildren, when you think of your estranged relatives, your co -workers, that neighbor, when you think of your enemy, do you pray according to this confidence?

Do you wait on the Lord in your prayers? Do you proceed accordingly? Do we have confidence in God's power to save and His work through His truth?

Waiting on the Lord removes the leg irons of fear and shame that hinder us from walking in hope -filled obedience.

When we make it about the Lord and not ourselves, all kinds of wonderful, joyous, simple and powerful things begin to happen.

Our good Lord has determined that we should wait on Him. He wants us to live a life not by sight.

We will walk not by sight, but by faith. We walk by faith. He wants us to wait on Him and live according to His power and His truth.

We are to boldly wait on the Lord as we preach for, pray for, labor for the transformation of people, the sanctification of the saints, and the conversion of sinners.

We are not to allow fear and shame to displace our confidence in God.

The Scriptures tell us that the Word became flesh and triumphed.

So the Gospel also advances. Now we've been encouraged to wait on the

Lord's way in verses 6 -12. These place names where Paul and Silas were trying to go this way, then that way, and they were guided by the

Lord, and we were reminded that Jesus has a plan. So sometimes He says no. Sometimes He says go.

And then sometimes He has His way around. But He has a plan. Because He's building His church,

He's building the new covenant temple from the quarry of the nations. And so we have to wait on His way, be directed by Him, and we are to wait on the

Lord's work. The Lord, by His Holy Spirit, sovereignly directed

Paul and company to go to Troas and then to go to Philippi. And there we are reminded of how

God sovereignly works in all things to accomplish His will. He works through our troubles. He works through traditions.

He works through our trades. He works through them all. But especially as we're going to look and be reminded of this morning,

He works through His truth. He works through His truth. We need to be reminded of the grace and the power and the certainty we are to have in the truth of God's Word.

We are tempted in this day and age to be afraid and to be ashamed.

We often are afraid of man's response if we are fully confident, warmly, joyfully confident in God's Word.

We are afraid of how man might respond. And in fact, we have been discipled to be ashamed of certain things in the

Bible. We don't want to bring up things in Genesis and things in Romans.

We don't want to bring up things in 2 Kings and things in Revelation.

There are themes and assertions and promises, there are truths in the

Bible that we have been discipled by our culture to be ashamed of, to be apologetic for, to try to explain away.

The tendency is to try to find whatever those who are against Christ, whatever they're uncomfortable with in the

Bible, and say, I know how you feel. I'm on your side on it. Yeah, we have problems with that too.

We can settle for equivocation and equanimity. We settle for e pluribus unum when we should be about evangelism and expansion.

But not according to our own abilities, our own power, our own winsomeness, our own cleverness, or however the feeling of the conversation is when we're done.

Because we are to sow seed. We are to say truth.

We are to, our trust and our confidence is in the power of the Word of God, not our ability to end the conversation with a win.

Look what's going on in this passage. In verse 13, where Paul and company come to the river, the women have gathered there for prayer on the

Sabbath day. They sit down with them. They begin just to speak to the women who met there.

It's an ongoing thing. They are speaking to them, speaking with them. They were speaking with them.

And Lydia was among those there, and she was hearing them. And the focus is on the things that were spoken by Paul.

These are the things he's been speaking all over the place. What he preached in Derbe and Lystra and Iconium and Antioch, he's preaching here as well.

What he wanted to preach in Asia, what he wanted to preach in Bithynia, he's preaching here.

He's preaching the person and work of Jesus Christ, the good news of Jesus Christ, that Jesus of Nazareth is the

Christ, the Son of the living God, that He lived this perfect life and died upon the cross for our sins, was raised the third day, and was ascended to the right hand of the

Father, where He's King of kings and Lord of lords. Good news! He's saying these things.

He's sharing with them as He is accustomed to do, taking up the Old Testament Scriptures, seeing how they're fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus.

That's the whole point. This engagement right here where they're sitting down by the river with however many women were there, probably not a lot.

They're just kind of sitting down and talking about Jesus. This is the entire point. This is the place he wanted to get to as we're reading verses 6 through 12.

Can I go here? No. Can I go there? No. Keep on traveling. Keep on trekking until we get to Troas. There God has

Luke ready to meet us. Now we're going to sail across the Aegean Sea and make it over to Necropolis, and then we're going to go to Philippi.

All of this travel, all of this decision making, all of this prayer and waiting, finally, finally we get to the point.

The point is to talk about Jesus. What a lot of investment.

What a lot of prayer. What a lot of labor simply to get to the point where you can sit down with someone and talk to them about Jesus Christ.

This is the point. All of this, all the trouble they went through, all the tradition that they employed, the work of the trades and everything was about this, the truth of God would be shared.

Paul was speaking. Lydia was hearing. This was the help that was requested.

The man from Macedonia and the vision that God gave to Paul, the man was saying, come over and help us.

What kind of help is it? The help that they needed. Forgiveness of sins. Hope for the future.

They needed a savior because they were a bunch of sinners. They needed help. They needed the gospel proclaimed to them.

Paul wasn't there to help Lydia be a better seller of purple, to improve her trade craft.

He wasn't there to affirm them in their traditions and learn from them and be silent and absorb all of their wonderful wisdom.

He wasn't there to commiserate with them in all of their trouble. He was there to preach the gospel.

That was the help. And Lydia heeded the gospel.

She heeded the gospel. She said, oh, this is about me. This is directly applicable to me.

You're talking about me. I need to be saved. This is the savior. She wanted to be found faithful to the word of Christ.

We see that God is working through his truth and Lydia's life is transformed and we're seeing it happen.

How did it happen? It happened because God through all these means put

Paul there to preach the gospel to her as the old creation was made and ordered and beautified by the word of God.

So also the new creation. Every day, day after day, and God said and God said and God said and there it was and there it was and there it was and it was good.

It was good. It was very good. So also the new creation. So also the new creation.

How else can it happen? Creation is by the word.

Light comes by the word. Life comes by the word. Grace comes by the word.

How else can the great commission be accomplished except by the word of God being spoken? How else can

Christ's church be built and sanctified and washed except by the water of His word?

How can sinners be converted unless they hear the gospel of Jesus Christ preached to them?

How vital is the word? Jeremiah cries out to his superstitious people who were going around saying the temple of the

Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. They thought they were fine and dandy because they had the temple and he comes and he says, oh earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the

Lord. That's what's essential. That's what's necessary. For those made in the image of God, there is nothing more necessary than the word of God.

We have to have the word of God. It is living and powerful.

It is sharper than any two -edged sword. It pierces even to the division of soul and spirit of joints and marrow.

It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature that is hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to deal.

We need the Scriptures to show us who we really are, who

God really is, and how we may really have peace with Him and be forgiven in His name.

And that's why Paul says, as much as is in me, he says in Romans 1, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you who are in Rome also.

Hey, they already knew the Gospel. He's going to come preach it again. He's like,

I know you know the Gospel. I know you're saved. I know you're born again. But I want to come and I'm going to preach to you too.

This is how essential it is, how vital it is. He says, why? For I'm not ashamed.

I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the

Jew first and also for the Greek. How vital. How hopeful that we are transformed by the power of God's Word.

So often we're ready to give up on so -and -so and ready to give up on the self because we don't see that there could be a possible progress, possible healing, possible deliverance, possible forgiveness, possible transformation.

How is this going to work? How is this ever going to get better? How is this relationship going to be healed? How can forgiveness ever be accomplished here?

Do we trust? Do we wait on the Lord to do His work through His Word? We should.

It's how He made the universe. He created and ordered and beautified everything by His Word.

It's how He does it in the new creation as well. We are tempted to be ashamed.

We are tempted to be afraid of the response because the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Jews request a sign,

Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. To the Jews, a stumbling block. To the Greeks, foolishness.

But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

The foolishness of God is wiser than men. The weakness of God is stronger than men. Many people mock it.

Many people don't want to hear it. They lose their minds and grow incredibly angry and very disdainful when you begin to say very positive, warm, trusting things about the

Bible. Why do they go nuts? They can say all manner of self -assertive, believing things about zany theories and crazy books and made -up

TV shows and they can say it with such authority and nobody gets mad. But as soon as you exhibit a warm, loving trust in what the

Scriptures plainly say, oh, they can't stand it. What goes on there?

We are tempted in these moments to just quiet that down, find something more appealing, something more winsome, something that doesn't get people so upset.

But do you know that those things don't redeem and those things aren't eternal seed? The reason why some people get so upset when you warmly share the

Scriptures with them as the authority of the King of kings and Lord of lords who reigns over all of us, our

Maker, our Redeemer, our Judge, is because it's effective. You're dealing with Nerf bullets.

You're dealing with live ammo. It's living. It's powerful. It's sharp.

Trust the Lord. Wait on Him to do His work. Use the Word of God in your life, in their life.

Wait on the Lord. I would have us remember that Jesus, in Mark 1 .38,

was tracked down by His disciples because everybody wanted to come back and cast out demons and heal.

He said, I'm moving on. There are other villages, other sounds. I've come to preach the gospel of the kingdom.

What did Jesus make His priority? Preaching of the Word. The preaching of the

Word. Let us make it our priority. Let us read it. Let us read it to ourselves. Let us read it aloud. Let us read it aloud to each other.

Let us meditate on it and think about the connections of the different Scriptures and how it connects to our lives.

And let us memorize the Word. If we read it over and over again and meditate on it, let us memorize it.

Let us hide it in our heart. And let's study it. And let's consider the truth of it. And let's ingrain it into our lives so that we're ready to share it with others, so we may see them grow in Christ.

Let us wait on the Lord and do the slow work in the Word as He can do His powerful work in us through the truth that He has given to us.

Where is our confidence? We are to wait on the Lord's way and to wait on the

Lord's work. And these are connected through a basic presupposition because His will is decisive.

His will is decisive. We are tempted to limit our obedience to our external estimates.

Man looks on the outward appearance. God looks upon the heart. And we sometimes do a cost -benefit analysis that only takes in the outward appearance of things.

But we are to walk by faith, not by sight. We are to wait on the

Lord's will and to have confidence in this as we continue to speak

God's truth, speak the Word of God, share the Word of God, and hear the

Word of God, and listen to the Word of God, as this is the ongoing thing. Our dependence, our trust, is not on the one speaking, or our ability to hear well.

It's not about the merits and abilities of men. But our hope and our confidence is in the one who spoke the

Word in the first place. That's where our confidence has to be. And so we have to wait on the Lord's will and trust

Him and have a hope -filled, joy -filled, humble dependence upon Him.

Look what happens in the text. Paul was speaking at the very end of verse 13 and the very end of verse 14.

They were speaking. In the original language, in the

Greek word, it's an ongoing past tense. He was speaking. Paul was talking and talking, and we can tell in the book of Acts that Paul was great at talking.

One of his spiritual gifts was talking. He was going on and on, probably adding a lot of parenthetical information as he was going along, and he was speaking, and he was speaking, and he was speaking.

And you see Lydia? What was she doing? She was hearing. She was hearing.

Verse 14 says, Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. Well, in the original, it's just an ongoing past tense.

She was hearing. Paul was speaking. She was hearing. That went on and on. Paul was speaking.

She was hearing. But then, something else happens. Not something ongoing, but something in an instant, in a moment.

An all at once action. Paul was speaking. Lydia was hearing.

And then, the Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.

How does she go from simply hearing to heeding? How does she go from hearing about Jesus of Nazareth, hearing the gospel, and then go from hearing to heeding?

Where she says, Oh, that's me. Oh, I'm the sinner. I'm the one who

Christ died for. I'm the one who needs forgiveness of sins. I need to trust in Jesus Christ.

How did that happen? How did she go from simply hearing to heeding? Someone did something.

It was decisive. Something changed. The Lord did something. He opened her heart. You see that?

He opened her heart. Notice the result or the purpose of him opening her heart.

It was in order to heed, so that she would heed the things that were being spoken by Paul.

What is this wonderful thing that the Lord does? Another act of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. What is this wonderful thing that the

Lord does for Lydia? He opens her heart. This is a singular action by a singular actor.

He opens her heart. What does it mean to open her heart? This is the word that is used in Luke 24 -45 when he opened the minds of the disciples.

They had no hope of understanding what he was talking about, so he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. Paul talks about it later in 2

Corinthians 3. He lifted the veil so they could see Christ in all the Scriptures. It's a gift of the

Lord. The same expression is used in Mark 7, 34 -35.

He opened the ears of the deaf man. Luke 24 -31, he opened the eyes of the disciples on the road to Emmaus to see who he really was.

It's about opening the understanding. It's about opening the eyes and the ears.

And it's also used elsewhere. Very technically, it is used to describe the opening of the womb for the firstborn.

A new birth. What did Jesus do? He gave her the new birth.

What he told Nicodemus, you must be born again. You're not going to believe what I tell you about these spiritual things.

You don't even believe the earthly things I say to you. You're not even going to understand the spiritual things I say to you unless you're born again.

He opened her heart. She's born anew. Her ears are open. Her eyes are open.

Her mind is open. So, the risen Lord Jesus Christ acts in this moment in the midst of the

Gospel speaking and the Gospel hearing, the Gospel speaking of Paul, the Gospel hearing of Lydia, Christ decisively acts to open her heart, which explains why she went from merely hearing to heeding.

And the purpose of the opening was that she would heed. The result of the opening was so that she would heed.

Those two are connected. It wasn't an opening up to see what would happen, but it was an opening up with a particular purpose.

The result would be that she would indeed heed. She received and applied the

Gospel message to herself. How does suddenly she's hearing what

Paul is saying, hearing what he's saying, hearing what he's saying, and all of a sudden a thunderclap hits. Oh, oh,

I'm the one who's been making excuses. I'm the one who's been relying on this pile of good deeds to outweigh my pile of bad deeds, but I have to flee from them both for Christ and Christ alone.

Oh, I'm the sinner. I'm the one who deserves the wrath of God. I'm the covenant breaker.

I'm the one who has no standing before the face of God. It's me. I'm the one in need of a Savior. How does she end up there?

Christ opened her heart to heed the things that Paul was speaking. The super freighter of the

Gospel's significance enters into the newly opened dock of Lydia's heart and it begins to unload all of its truth container by container into her life.

And she sees, oh, oh, and that's two! And it just continues to flood her life.

Paul was speaking of Christ. Lydia was hearing of Christ. But then Christ opened Lydia's heart and Lydia actually heeded.

That is why salvation is to the glory of God. Jesus told

Nicodemus, look, buddy, you ain't going to see the kingdom of God unless you're born again. And Nicodemus said, what button do

I push? I'm good at this. He's the teacher of Israel. He's the most well -respected teacher.

He's a Pharisee but still on the Sanhedrin. That's a hard job to get. He's so well received.

He can do all that. He can do the temple thing. He can do the feast thing. He can do the ceremonial thing. I know you're using a metaphor,

Jesus. I can't go into my mother's womb a second time. Just tell me what you mean. What do I do? What button do I push? And Jesus said, no, no, no.

You don't push the button. Holy Spirit pushes the button. Because salvation is of the grace of God, not of the will of man.

Not of him who wills or him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. Now, why is that important?

It's important, first of all, for our joy and our confidence. Glory to God. Amazing love.

How can it be? Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night.

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I awoke. The dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off.

My heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed Thee. That was from a

Wesley. Jesus told the sick they were healed.

And so they were. Jesus rebuked the demons. And they left.

Jesus commanded the wind and waves to be still. And they went calm as glass.

Jesus said, your sins are forgiven you. And so it was. Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth.

And he did. Jesus said he would raise himself up in three days. And he did.

And when the good shepherd says to his sheep, come, they do. Now, what hopeless, defeatist, sad thing was

I saying about my spouse? What sad, discouraged thing was

I saying about one of my children? What was it that I was saying about that sinner that I thought there was just no hope for at all?

What sad situation was I thinking about where all these evil people are involved and it's just going to get worse and worse and there's just no turnaround ever?

What was I saying about that? No. Men were in charge of the advance of the gospel.

Oh, how few there'd be. But we're not in charge. Jesus Christ is in charge.

And He gloriously, mercifully, graciously, eternally saves.

I want you to hear just a couple of encouraging things real quick before we leave. 1

Peter 3 .1 Let your wives likewise be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives.

Hey, it's not your word. It's His word, God's word, Christ's word. Does your husband need some sanctification?

Does your husband need salvation? Where's your confidence? Not in your ability to change him, but in God's ability to save him.

1 Corinthians 7 .16 continues that How do you know, O wife, how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband?

How do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? Point is, you don't know. You don't know.

And you're likely to be fairly discouraged about it. But God knows. And He saves sinners.

Acts 2 .39 The promise, the promise of Jesus Christ as our Savior. The promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off, as many as the

Lord our God will call. By the way, that number in Revelation 7 is too high for us to count, so we have no business complaining.

The promise is to you and your children. Don't give up. Don't be discouraged. Who saves?

Not you. God saves. 1 Timothy 1 .15

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of who

I am chief. Believe it. Paul was the worst. The worst has done been saved.

So don't write off anybody around you. God saved Saul of Tarsus.

He can save that awful person that you perhaps are ready to give up on.

Now, now hope abounds. You see, when we wait upon the Lord, when we make our confidence about who

He is and what He can do, do you see that the shackles of fear and shame, the shackles of, well,

I'm just not going to be able to do it, I'm not going to be able to convince them, I'm not going to be able to help them, what can

I do? And the whole fear and shame about the self, I mean, there's just no hope for me. All of that goes away when we put the confidence upon the

Lord. We wait on Him, and He's going to do His work through His Word according to His will, and His will is gracious without measure.

Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank You for the time You've given us in Your Word, for the reminder of how

You work. We thank You for the blessing of what happened in Lydia's life. Thank You, Lord, for opening her heart so that she would heed the things being spoken to her by Paul.

Things of Christ. Thank You for the grace that You give and the glory

You show in the saving of sinners. Help us to wait on You and trust on You and rejoice in You as You do