the main passage for the sermon, covering Paul and Silas in Philippi including Lydia, the slave girl, and the Philippian jailer
1 He came to Derbe and Lystra: and behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewess who believed; but his father was a Greek.
2 The brothers who were at Lystra and Iconium gave a good testimony about him.
3 Paul wanted to have him go out with him, and he took and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts; for they all knew that his father was a Greek.
4 As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered the decrees to them to keep which had been ordained by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem.
5 So the assemblies were strengthened in the faith, and increased in number daily.
6 When they had gone through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.
7 When they had come opposite Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit didn’t allow them.
8 Passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.
9 A vision appeared to Paul in the night. There was a man of Macedonia standing, begging him, and saying, “Come over into Macedonia and help us.”
10 When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go out to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the Good News to them.
11 Setting sail therefore from Troas, we made a straight course to Samothrace, and the day following to Neapolis;
12 and from there to Philippi, which is a city of Macedonia, the foremost of the district, a Roman colony. We were staying some days in this city.
13 On the Sabbath day we went outside of the city by a riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down, and spoke to the women who had come together.
14 A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one who worshiped God, heard us; whose heart the Lord opened to listen to the things which were spoken by Paul.
15 When she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and stay.” So she persuaded us.
16 As we were going to prayer, a certain girl having a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much gain by fortune telling.
17 Following Paul and us, she cried out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us a way of salvation!”
18 She was doing this for many days. But Paul, becoming greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!” It came out that very hour.
19 But when her masters saw that the hope of their gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas, and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers.
20 When they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men, being Jews, are agitating our city,
21 and advocate customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.”
22 The multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates tore their clothes from them, and commanded them to be beaten with rods.
23 When they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely,
24 who, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison, and secured their feet in the stocks.
25 But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.
26 Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were loosened.
27 The jailer, being roused out of sleep and seeing the prison doors open, drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.
28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, “Don’t harm yourself, for we are all here!”
29 He called for lights, sprang in, fell down trembling before Paul and Silas,
30 brought them out, and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
32 They spoke the word of the Lord to him, and to all who were in his house.
33 He took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was immediately baptized, he and all his household.
34 He brought them up into his house, and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, with all his household, having believed in God.
35 But when it was day, the magistrates sent the sergeants, saying, “Let those men go.”
36 The jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, “The magistrates have sent to let you go; now therefore come out, and go in peace.”
37 But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us publicly, without a trial, men who are Romans, and have cast us into prison! Do they now release us secretly? No, most certainly, but let them come themselves and bring us out!”
38 The sergeants reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans,
39 and they came and begged them. When they had brought them out, they asked them to depart from the city.
40 They went out of the prison, and entered into Lydia’s house. When they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them, and departed.
Paul lists being beaten with rods among his sufferings
1 I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness, but indeed you do bear with me.
2 For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. For I married you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
3 But I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive, or a different “good news”, which you did not accept, you put up with that well enough.
5 For I reckon that I am not at all behind the very best apostles.
6 But though I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not unskilled in knowledge. No, in every way we have been revealed to you in all things.
7 Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached to you God’s Good News free of charge?
8 I robbed other assemblies, taking wages from them that I might serve you.
9 When I was present with you and was in need, I wasn’t a burden on anyone, for the brothers, when they came from Macedonia, supplied the measure of my need. In everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and I will continue to do so.
10 As the truth of Christ is in me, no one will stop me from this boasting in the regions of Achaia.
11 Why? Because I don’t love you? God knows.
12 But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them that desire an occasion, that in which they boast, they may be found even as we.
13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as Christ’s apostles.
14 And no wonder, for even Satan masquerades as an angel of light.
15 It is no great thing therefore if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
16 I say again, let no one think me foolish. But if so, yet receive me as foolish, that I also may boast a little.
17 That which I speak, I don’t speak according to the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting.
18 Seeing that many boast after the flesh, I will also boast.
19 For you bear with the foolish gladly, being wise.
20 For you bear with a man, if he brings you into bondage, if he devours you, if he takes you captive, if he exalts himself, if he strikes you on the face.
21 I speak by way of disparagement, as though we had been weak. Yet in whatever way anyone is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also.
22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the offspring of Abraham? So am I.
23 Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I am more so; in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths often.
24 Five times from the Jews I received forty stripes minus one.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep.
26 I have been in travels often, perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my countrymen, perils from the Gentiles, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brothers;
27 in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness.
28 Besides those things that are outside, there is that which presses on me daily: anxiety for all the assemblies.
29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is caused to stumble, and I don’t burn with indignation?
30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that concern my weakness.
31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, he who is blessed forever more, knows that I don’t lie.
32 In Damascus the governor under King Aretas guarded the Damascenes’ city, desiring to arrest me.
33 Through a window I was let down in a basket by the wall, and escaped his hands.
benediction: the Lord is not slow about his promise but patient, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance
9 The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but is patient with us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
On Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer in Jackson Hole, Pastor Tanya walked First Baptist Jackson through Acts 16 and three brief personal stories embedded in Paul's second missionary journey. The through line was a simple claim: God is in the business of saving and changing lives, and He carries that business out through people who are sensitive, humble, and obedient to His Spirit.
What was said
Paul and Silas set out from Lystra expecting to preach in Asia, then turned north toward Bithynia, and were blocked both times by the Holy Spirit. Rather than forcing their way, they kept moving until they reached Troas on the Aegean coast. There Paul saw a vision of a man from Macedonia pleading for help, and the group concluded God was redirecting them west, across the sea into what is now Greece. That word "concluding" was worth pausing on: they did not have certainty, only faith, sensitivity to the Spirit, and the humility to trust that God could use them somewhere they had not originally planned.
Landing at Philippi, a prosperous Roman colony with no synagogue and apparently fewer than ten Jewish men in town, they went looking for a place of prayer on the Sabbath and found a group of women by the river. One of them was Lydia, a seller of purple cloth from Thyatira, already a worshiper of God. The text says the Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul said. She believed, her whole household was baptized, and she immediately pressed her generosity on the traveling group, insisting they stay in her home. The speed of the sequence, hearing, believing, baptism, generosity, was the first of three pictures of what salvation looks like when it takes hold.
The second vignette involved a slave girl with what the Greek calls a python spirit, a demonic gift for foretelling the future that her owners were monetizing. For several days she trailed Paul's group calling out that they were servants of the Most High God proclaiming a way of salvation. Paul eventually commanded the spirit to leave in the name of Jesus Christ, and it left immediately. Her masters, seeing their income gone, dragged Paul and Silas before the magistrates, framed the exorcism as a threat to Roman customs, and had them beaten publicly and thrown into the inner prison with their feet in stocks. The slave girl herself is unnamed and her salvation is not stated outright, but she was freed from the spirit and her life was permanently changed.
Around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns in the stocks while the other prisoners listened. An earthquake shook the foundations, every door swung open, and every chain came loose. The jailer, knowing that a Roman guard who lost prisoners paid with his life, drew his sword to kill himself. Paul stopped him with a shout: everyone was still there. The jailer came in trembling, fell before them, and asked the question the slave girl had been announcing in noun form for days, now turned into a verb: what must I do to be saved?
The answer Paul and Silas gave was direct: believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. They made clear that was not a promise of coattail salvation. The word had to be spoken to everyone in the house, and everyone had to respond individually by faith. The jailer's household heard it, believed, and were baptized before morning. The jailer then washed the wounds from the very beating he may have administered himself, and set food before them. The pattern from Lydia's story repeated: faith, baptism, immediate generosity.
In the morning the magistrates sent word to release them quietly. Paul refused. He and Silas were Roman citizens who had been beaten in public without a trial, and he insisted the magistrates come in person and lead them out. The point was not personal vindication. A small church was forming in Philippi, in the households of Lydia, the jailer, and possibly others. Paul wanted it on record before Roman law that there was nothing criminal about any of it. The magistrates, now frightened, complied. Paul and Silas went back to Lydia's house, encouraged the new believers, and departed. The blocks into Asia and Bithynia that seemed like obstacles made sense in retrospect: God had a specific place and specific people in mind, and the three vignettes together made the case that He was working across every line, a wealthy merchant woman, a nameless enslaved girl, and a career soldier turned jailer.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
Pastor Tanya and he nearly went to Spain and Morocco before ending up here in Jackson. Have you ever been blocked from a plan you felt sure about, and how did that redirection turn out?
The text says Paul and his companions were 'sensitive, humble, and obedient' to the Holy Spirit's leading rather than forcing their way into Asia or Bithynia. What does that kind of sensitivity look like in a practical, day-to-day way for someone living in Jackson Hole right now?
Alright. Good morning, everyone. Man, it's good to see you. Such a gorgeous day too. Would you stand with us?
I'd love to worship in song together. And, here's a good word from Psalm 147 to lead us in a worship. It is how good to sing praises to our God. How delightful and how fitting. Let's just acknowledge right now that it is good, it is delightful, it is fitting that we are here to worship God together.
Maybe an amen there? Amen. It is. It really is. Would you join us in singing this one, All Creatures of Our God and King.
Alright. All creatures,
this morning. We'll see what they are together. Vacation Bible school is happening. That's the twenty third through the twenty sixth, nine to twelve in the morning. If you'd like to volunteer or if you wanna sign somebody up, you can do that on the church website.
I think that QR code would help you do that, but I'm gonna skip past it real quick quick. Church cleanup is happening. Saturday, May 31. Tim, if you stand to Mark Carl's microphone right there, you can talk into a microphone. Or maybe not.
Just yell. It'll be fun. You can do this. There you go. You can
do this.
Here you go.
It's like David and Glad.
Pandemonium. Welcome to summer in Jackson Hole.
Yeah. Good morning. Isn't it beautiful outside? It looks like next weekend might be a great day to get out that new boat and go up to the lake. But do please do it in the afternoon.
Next weekend is we're going to have an all church cleanup day, and, it's gonna be from nine to one, as it says, pizza afterward. And, I'm gonna have a sign up down at the fellowship hall during our fellowship time. So you can come down and sign yourself up or signed a friend up to do some difficult task. So, anyway, we're going to be here. Wear work clothes.
Bring some work gloves because I have a hard time covering everybody on work gloves. And so 9AM. And if you're and if you sign up, if you're gonna show up unannounced, maybe give me a call. My my phone number's, in the directory just so I can make sure I have something for you to do. Alright.
Thank you very much.
Tim does this professionally. He lines people out to get stuff done. So if you've ever shown up for a church workday and you felt like you were standing around doing nothing, it won't be that.
And you know what? Okay. He makes it fun.
Makes it fun. It's good time. Is there anything else? My Sister's Closet and the luncheon is happening the same day. That should be May 31.
Shop at Tyndall noon, and you notice it's the same day. So there's gonna be a lot of activity around the church that day. KC can tell you more about that. She's waving her hand in the aisle there. And our missions moment is for Dave and Kim Hatfield, serving in Kenya and Nakuru, Tanya and pass Tanya and I, not Tanya and Pascal and I.
Tanya and I got to see them in March and they are doing great. God is doing amazing things in that little dumpsite in Nakuru next to the Maisha Mafia Learning Center which is growing like crazy. They've been gifted some land and more buildings and more more territory, I guess you would say, to minister in. And so we wandered around, walked the walls, prayed with them, and it's been a pretty amazing time. So please be praying for Dave and Kim Hatfield.
They were here just last September and a lot of y'all know them already, but just thank you all for praying for them with us. Anything else will be on the church website, and I think that that's all the announcements. I have one more. Cowboy church is happening on the square in between this service and the next service, and so they asked me if I'd play the bass. Let's race down there.
Alright? No. I'm gonna try to get there in between, but I just wanted to let you know, Rodeo Phil Wilson is gonna be leading a service on the square at 10:00. So hope the pastor doesn't go long. Would you stand with us?
Invitation to come on
And God, thank you for that very, very, very real invitation to us and that we don't come in here as people who have it all figured out. We don't come here thinking we are self righteous. God, our righteousness is in you, and it's you alone. And it's because of your righteousness that we can even become righteous. And thank you, God, for that.
Thank you for that very, very real invitation to us. What a gift, Lord, that through belief in you, we have eternal life. Through belief in you, it's how you start to clean us up, so to speak. It's not that we come in here having, again, having everything figured out. It's we come as we are, and then we are slowly sanctified and made more like you.
God, teach us, would you, this morning? As we sing these songs, may we sing with gratitude and a heart that's open and and and ready to you to do your will. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
I he fail now? He won't. He won't
And from Matthew seven, this is this is straight from Jesus' mouth. He says, therefore, anyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice, that's like the wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew, they beat against that house, yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. Lord, maybe may we be a church that continues to build our foundation on you. You are rock solid, and you will not fail.
Yes. Rain comes and storms come, but, Lord, you bring us through those storms. And, again, we wanna express our gratitude to you in Jesus' name. Amen. I think I I think we're a little bit early, aren't we, on on that one maybe?
But but you know what?
We're we're gonna do the worship. You're here? You're here right now. Go right ahead. And so we're May
I may I ask you
to pray? I think you just did. Lord bless it. Amen. Amen.
Sorry for the confusion. I think we're just gonna call that a set, Carl. Can we do that? Okay. Yeah.
Alright. Maybe we'll get to that cowboy church on time after all. So this begins the summer season around here, and I I saw something in one of the songs back here. It said yeah. It's time for children's church.
Sorry. Protocols. I'm just not good with that. It said something along the lines of, I've still got joy and chaos. I've got peace that makes no sense for the business owners among us.
Will not be going under. Yeah. There are lots of lines here that just reminded me of summer in Jackson Hole. There's a lot of craziness and I wanted to remind all of us who live here year round, we've got an opportunity like nobody else. This is a unique place where people just show up.
They just show up, and whether they know it or not, their restless souls are looking for God. And if your soul is a place where God resides, you can share that with them in a way that it's just amazing to me. People just keep showing up, they keep showing up, and we can be kind, and we can be loving, and we can be patient when people go straight through that intersection instead of turning right. We can be patient and we can be loving and we can be helpful. This is the scripture that we're going to cover today, and I love the three vignettes in this.
The acts is always a bit of a travelogue where, okay, well they went to this place and they did this thing, but the three personal vignettes are all over the map. Before I go on, one of those vignettes is of a soldier. It's probably a retired soldier who made it to the end of his military service and he ended up being jailer. The Philippian jailer you hear a lot about. But he was a Roman soldier, he understood what it meant to be a soldier and today is also not just the unofficial start of summer, but it is Memorial Day.
So for all of my lack of protocol, for all of the ramshackle way that I sometimes do things, I'm very very conscious of the blood that has been spilled in the service of this country that most of us call home and some of us have been naturalized as citizens into and I wanna just pray for. Lord, for the families who have lost loved ones, for those all of us are affected by those losses, Lord, but for the families that have lost loved ones in the service of the country, I pray, Lord, a special blessing that you would flood their memories with good memories, and that if there is any lingering resentment, may it may it be covered up with honor and with the due attention that the service deserves. For those we have lost in battle, Lord God Almighty, I think of the beaches at Normandy and all of the other places where people have served and lost their lives even for our own Riley McCollum servant in the military. In Jesus name, Lord, I ask that you'd bless the families, that you'd draw them closer through the difficulty that those deaths have brought on them.
And Lord, I pray that we would be a grateful people and look to you in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. The clicky clicker is no longer with me. Okay.
So here we are at Acts 16. If those of you are visiting, we have been going through a study of Acts from the beginning to the end, of an expository thing. Hey, church work day, Saturday, May 31. See Tim Dalton today during the connect hour, that's so I wouldn't forget. So here is how far we have gotten so far on the second missionary journey.
Second missionary journey started in Antioch, it went in Syria up north to Cilicia and down probably into Tarsus and across to Derbe and Lystra, and that's where we left off. That's where they picked up Timothy, so Paul and Silas, not Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey, it was Paul and Barnabas, but Paul and Silas now are traveling. Barnabas is with John Mark on Cyprus. From Lystra, that's where we begin today. Oh, by the way, for all you Texans in the room, this is how big Asia Minor is, if you're wondering.
So from here, the right side of the screen all the way across to Troas is about that size. It's like coming in at Orange or Vita or Beaumont and going all the way across to about Clovis, New Mexico. Okay? That's a long way. That's a long way.
So here we are, Lystra. They passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region after being forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. What do you think that looked like? That's all it says. We don't know.
Forbidden to speak the word in Asia. Now, if you go back to the map, see that Ephesus is in Asia. So they get back to it. They actually come in from the West instead of coming in from the East. Why God deterred them from going at that time?
We don't know. But it does say that they were sensitive to the spirit of God. They were sensitive, humble, and obedient. They didn't force their way into Asia. They had thought they would go into Asia, it says so.
But they were blocked by the Holy Spirit. And after they came to Mysia, Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the spirit of Jesus did not allow them. You all know that Tanya and I signed everything but signing on the dotted line to go to Spain and Morocco in April 2012 before I started here as pastor in June 2012. We really thought we were going to Spain and Morocco. And then we got a call and said, hey, we think you might be the next pastor.
Okay. Here we are. Thirteen years later, the spirit of Jesus did not allow. We love that ministry. We still support that ministry.
We still do that. We want to see the gospel go forward in all of the places where cross over communications international is, and they wanted to go into Bithynia. They were trying to go into Bithynia. There are folks that need Jesus in Bithynia, and the spirit of Jesus did not allow them. Why?
We don't know. It doesn't say why, but they were blocked to the south on this journey from Mysia into Asia and they were blocked on the north of this journey, Bithynia and Pontus up here, and so they hit a barrier again. What are we gonna do? Well, by Mysia, meaning they didn't stop, they just passed through or passed by, didn't stop at the synagogue, didn't go on, they're just passing on through. They went down to Troas.
Troas is right there on the Aegean Sea, It's about 25 miles from Troy. If you're a fan of classical Greek stuff, Troos is 25 miles from Troy and on the Aegean, right there. What are they going to do? It's a beautiful place. It says, and a vision appeared to Paul in the night.
Now, he's been stopped from going here and stopped from going there. We're sitting in there's I'm sure there's ministry to be done in Troas, but a vision appeared to Paul that night it says, and a man of Macedonia was standing and was pleading with him and saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. Come on over and help. We need you. Now, recognize something because the rest of the sermon is going to be about salvation.
A lot of it is going to be salvation, salvation, salvation. But this guy just says, come help. We need you. And when he had seen the vision, we Luke has been telling a story for 16 chapters. He said he was going to give an orderly account.
He said he was interviewing eyewitnesses and he has been following forward they, they, they, they, they, they, they, fact, look, it says we right here. Luke, the author, the Gentile physician is now with them. He got picked up somewhere along the way and he can speak firsthand to this instead of just relying on his really good historical research. We, after Paul had seen the vision, we, now if you look, you see they's all over. They, they, they, they, they, But we immediately sought to leave for Macedonia.
We were hindered here, and we were hindered here, and we were all praying and wondering what was gonna happen next, and we immediately when we had he had seen the vision, let's go. Concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. See the concluding in there? I've said a couple of times in Acts, it says, and it seemed right to them that blah. And it seemed right to them to do this that or the other thing.
It seemed right to us in James's letter to communicate to you through this letter. You don't always have absolute certainty. It takes faith. It takes sensitivity to his spirit. It takes humility before God that he could and would use you in the in the extension of the gospel to other people and peoples.
So immediately, we sought to leave for death Macedonia because we concluded that that's what God was saying. We trusted the vision that Paul had and we went to preach the gospel to them. That's the help that Luke believes that they needed. Send the light. You all know the song?
When we sang a couple of things that were sort of repetitive this morning, send the light is one of these old hymns. It says, there's
a call comes ringing or the restless wave. Send the light. Send the light. There are souls to rescue. There are souls to save.
Send the light. Send the light. Send the light. The blessed gospel light. Let it shine.
From shore to shore. Send the light, the blessed gospel light, let it shine forevermore. The second verse of that song says, we have heard the Macedonian call today.
That Macedonian call is from that guy, from Paul's vision in Troas. So here's Macedonia. You'll see the main cities of Macedonia over here, Neapolis, Philippi, Amthipolis, Apollonia, Thessalonica, and Berea. That's that's what's waiting for them across. So after setting sail from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace.
How many art historians do we have in the room? Anybody been to the Louvre? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's me.
Straight course to Samothrace, they got there. They apparently spent the night. It looks like that from the text. This is the winged victory of Samothrace, Probably the most famous object of art from that place, the Nike of Samothrace or the Winged Victory of Samothrace. It is in on a stairway in the Louvre.
It's hard to miss it. It's in an exalted place, and it was in an exalted place at a temple on Samothrace when they stopped. They probably would have seen this. It had been there for about a hundred and two hundred and ten years, a hundred and ninety five years, somewhere in there at that time. So the Nike of Samothrace is right there.
I just love details that bring him into this is in the real world, right? This is something. And on the following day, they made it to Minneapolis. So that's a pretty good pretty good favorable winds, I should say, to get to Samothrace in a day and to get to Neapolis in another day. On their on a return trip basically from there, it takes them five days to get home one time.
The winds were favorable to get them there. Neapolis, from there, they went to Philippi, it's about 10 miles. Neapolis was the port for Philippi, which is a leading city. It's not the capital. It's not the place where the government would have been set up for this province of Macedonia or this but it was a Roman colony, Philippi was.
It was a Roman colony and the weather is amazing, Like Jackson in the summertime. It was a place where retired Roman soldiers moved. There were a lot of soldiers that lived in Philippi. It's historically bound out. This is not just scripture which it says that coming up, but this is a place where people wanted to be.
It's a leading city of District Macedonia, Roman colony, and so that's where they are, Philippi, where Paul would later write the book of Philippians to this place. So Philippi, great place. Actually, wealthy too, I should say that. When I keep on comparison comparing there and here, it's a pretty wealthy place too. And that's evidenced by the fact that the folks of Philippi sent a great amount to the people of Jerusalem who were starving.
Right? Humanitarian aid mission coming out of Philippi later later. Cause this is the first day there. A Roman colony and we, Luke says, were spending some days in this city. So Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke and perhaps others in Philippi.
So these are the three vignettes. This is what they run-in run into, and these three vignettes together I think show that Almighty God is in the business of saving and changing lives. He sets people free. He did then, he does now, that's to give us great confidence. He is in the business of saving and changing lives, and that he accomplishes his business in the real world by using people who are sensitive, humble, and obedient.
Why? Because we know God resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble. To be sensitive to the spirit, honestly, if you're humble and you're a believer who wakes up in the morning, Lord, I long to do your will. Show me your way and I'll walk in it. That's the kind of sensitivity God is looking for with wherever you are.
So on the Sabbath day, we went outside the gate to Riverside, where we were thinking that there was a place of prayer. That was word on the street. It told them that there was a place of prayer. It does not say synagogue. So every new boundary that we cross, the Aegean Sea being one of those, you know, we've had some success, Sergius Paulus on Cyprus and various people in Iconium, in Antioch, in Lystra, in Derby, and all over the place on the first missionary journey, but when they cross over into Greece, modern day Europe, modern day Greece, They cross over into Greece and there are not enough men in town to form a synagogue.
There's not a synagogue. They always start in the synagogue. Right? So we assume there's not 10 men. 10 men can form a synagogue.
If you have less than that, there's a place of prayer. They were thinking there's a place of prayer, we sat down, and we began speaking to the women who had assembled. So in missionary circles, I can't tell you how often it is that a work begins with women and children. It happens more often than not. In Mexico, while we were there, we ended up kinda accident.
We were building a school for the deaf, we ended up accidentally kinda planning a church for the deaf. It started with mothers mainly and children. We sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled, and a woman named Lydia was listening. And she was a seller of purple goods or purple fabrics from the city of Thyatira, and Lydia was there and she was a worshiper of God. She was a Jewess or she was Jewish background worshiper of God.
The Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. He presented Christ, the new covenant. He presented it in terms of the old testament everywhere that he went and she was ready to hear it. God opened her heart to respond to the things spoken. Now, when she and her whole household had been baptized, she urged us, Luke says, saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, y'all come into my house and stay, please.
Wealthy lady inviting them in. So she prevailed upon us. I like that line. And she prevailed upon us. She won.
We said yes. So Lydia Thyatira, upon hearing the gospel proclaimed, God opened her heart and saved her. She believed the gospel. She was baptized, and immediately she displayed generosity. I think that's a beautiful vignette.
It's quick, it's only a few verses, but boom boom boom. It's like, yes, I believe. And I follow it up with an action, baptism, and she immediately displayed generosity. Now, it happened that as we were going to a place of prayer, a slave woman who had a spirit of divination, a python spirit, if you're looking at the Greek, a slave woman who had a spirit of divination met us. Now, we have a wealthy woman, actually the Macedonian call.
It was a man in Macedonia calling. Right? And turned out to be two women first. It happened as we were going to the place of prayer. A slave woman who had a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing great profit to her masters by fortune telling.
So she was a slave that had the gift, the gift, a demonic spirit that allowed her to foretell the future. We hear that and that just sounds so weird to us. But you know what? There's still a lot of people that claim to be able to do this. There are some of them that probably can buy demonic power.
It's a real thing and this is what it says. Spirit of divination, she was a soothsayer or a fortune teller and she was being exploited by her masters, taking the money that she was receiving for doing this thing. Now, she followed Paul and us, Luke says, and cried out at us repeatedly. She kept on saying, these men are bond servants or slaves, Duloy, of the most high God who are proclaiming to you a way of salvation. It does say a way of salvation instead of the way of salvation if you're wondering.
They are talking about salvation. This is what these guys are here for, and she's following them around repeatedly calling out to him. These guys are slaves of the most high God. Thank you, Connor. They're proclaiming to you a way of salvation.
That's why they're here. Now, she continued doing this for many days, many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed, doesn't that sound just like Paul? And he turned to, he turned and he said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. I'm tired of this.
Now, why didn't he do that the first day? Why didn't he do it the first day? I mean, Jesus when he met up with them, they called out, the spirits called out to Jesus, some of them called out to him and said, you're the son of God. Before anybody else was listening, the spirits knew what was going on and they were trembling over it. And why didn't Paul just do it the first day?
You know, had been beaten with rods already. He'd been lowered down over a wall already. He had been recognized for being a God, which he knew he wasn't, and then beaten. He'd been let out of town. He had already had a lot of trouble.
I think he was just kind of saying, I wish you'd go away, but I don't really wanna do anything about it because I don't wanna cause a stir. She continued doing it for many days, he's greatly annoyed, he turns and says, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ come out over, and it came out at that very moment. At the name of Jesus, the spirit fled. But when her master saw that their hope of profit was suddenly gone, Boy, this hits the real world, doesn't it? Yeah.
Yeah. They seized Paul. They seized Silas, and they dragged them into the marketplace, the marketplace before the authorities. The Bema judgment seat would have been set up in the Agora in the plaza, like town square kinda, and that's where the place of the authority sat. And when they had brought them to the chief magistrates, they said, these men, Jews as they are, and you can almost hear the ugliness.
They're in a place where there are not 10 Jewish men in town, they don't have a synagogue, but they have a reputation, and you can hear it in the owners of this slave girl. The slave owners that are exploiting this girl's demonic spirit, and when that demonic spirit is gone and the girl's life has been changed and she's been set free from this python spirit, They are so upset that they wanna throw Paul and Silas into trouble. These men, Jews as they are, are causing our city trouble. They showed up. There's nothing wrong till these agitators came in, these uppity agitators came in.
Outsiders they are. We know what's supposed to be like. Roman colony, Philippi had a very, very high patriotism rate, I guess. To me, it sounds like Boston, so much stuff that went on in the in the revolutionary war that they're they're holding on to that. It's part of the part of the Bostonian kind of character that that's their patriotic city.
And that's sort of the way that Philippi was to the Roman Empire. And so, they're proclaiming customs that are not lawful for us to accept order practice since we are Romans. Can you hear the prejudice, racism maybe? Prejudice for sure. Now, what had they done?
They set a girl free, but it was causing economic trouble. And there was actually a Roman law against casting a spell on someone to do them harm. And so they took that girl being set free as harm to them. And that's what the report was. That's the way they framed it.
But they framed it in obviously, they're other and we are the right one. So this unnamed slave girl, after the interaction, she was released from the demon. It's implied. It's not explicitly stated here that she was saved. I do think that she was, but she definitely was set free from the demonic spirit and her life was forever changed.
She's unnamed. It's just a vignette. We don't get all of the details. Well, the crowd joined in an attack against them. What do mobs do?
Oh, they don't act appropriately. My experience going to Italy as a studies abroad program thirty three years ago, Tanya and I eloped and moved to Italy the next day. And when we got there, the lady who was leading the thing was Aurelia Getsi. She was an Italian lady and she said, listen, you are in Rome, the eternal city. If you see a mob begin to form, run-in the other direction.
You have no idea what you're doing here. You have no idea what's going on and people in large groups do not act like people. They act like mobs. If you see a mob forming, go away from it as quickly as you can get away from it. And this says the crowd, the mob joined in an attack against them and the chief magistrates tore their robes off, tore not their own robes, tore the robes off of Paul and Silas.
They tore them off and pursued it to order that they be beaten with rods. Paul lists this later in second Corinthians 11. And when they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely. And he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and even fastened their feet in the stocks, wooden stocks that would have kept the legs spread like this. Does that sound comfortable?
So they're stuck in the stocks in the inner prison, multiple doors to get through on the way out. Now about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns like this in the stocks. They're singing hymns of praise to God and the prisoners were listening to them going, what is wrong with these dudes? What's going on with these guys? And suddenly, there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken.
And immediately, all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened. When the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and he was about to kill himself. He knows and we know actually, if you've been studying acts so far, we saw that Peter was put into jail and 16 guards were put on him. Four groups of four guys each, and Herod had all of those guys killed because Peter escaped by way of the angel, divine escape. So we know that that's the we know that that happens.
When the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors open, he immediately drew his sword and was about to kill himself thinking that the prisoners had escaped, but Paul called out with a loud voice saying, don't harm yourself, we're all here. The doors are open and they chose to remain. They were praising God and I think that the hullabaloo of an earthquake and the fact that they're praising God and that the other prisoners stayed, they were intrigued with what was going on. Paul called out with a loud voice, don't harm yourself, we're all here. And the jailer asked for lights and rushed in and trembling with fear, he actually fell down before Paul and Silas.
You think this guy had had considered, what are these guys in jail for? What are they even here for? Now I know his job is to guard them, but what had they done? Honestly, a little social justice. What have they done?
He'd been listening to him. I mean, if he's you're in a room with Paul, you're gonna hear the gospel. Right? The jailer asked for lights, rushed in, trembling with fear. Fell down before Paul and Silas, and he after he brought them out, he said, sirs, what must I do to be saved?
Now, is a is a verb form, but the gal, the slave gal that was crying out, they're here about salvation, they're here about salvation. This is the verb form of what she was calling the noun form. And he brought out and says, I gotta know, what is it that I need to do to be saved? Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.
He was saying, it's not just for you, it's for everybody who will believe. It's a universal call to everyone who will believe. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Not just for you, it's not only for you, it's for you and for your whole household. And your whole household doesn't get saved just because you got saved.
Okay? That's not that's not to be implied. It's not a coattail situation. The the objective fact that Jesus died for our sins has to be accessed. That grace has to be accessed by faith.
It's individual, but believe in the Lord Jesus and you'll be saved, you and your household, and they spoke the word of God to him together with all who were in his house. And he took them that very hour of the night and and he washed their wounds. And immediately, he was baptized, he and all his household. They accepted it. Here it is.
Now, the hindering to get into Asia and the hindering to get into Bithynia makes sense in Philippi. God's message is going forward. Everybody needs it, but this is where God wanted them at that moment. And he brought them into his house, and he set food before them, and he was overjoyed since he had become a believer in God together with his whole household. Amen.
So the three vignettes of Philippian jailer, we've got, they shared the good news that believing in Jesus results in salvation and he believed. So will we see him in heaven? Yep. He was baptized. That's an immediate thing in scripture when someone receives Christ oftentimes, it's the next thing.
Remember the the story of the Ethiopian eunuch? It was a boom spontaneous sort of thing. When he believed. He was baptized and he immediately showed generosity just like Lydia had. He cared for them, he shared a meal with them, he bound up their wounds from the beatings that he himself may have inflicted.
Right? And the whole household had also believed. Now, when day came, the chief magistrate sent their offers officers saying, I'll release those men. Let them go. And the jailer reported these words to Paul saying, the chief magistrates have sent word that you should be released.
So come on out now and go in peace. But Paul said to them, after beating us in public, without due process, men who are Romans, can you see the escalation of this? We're Roman citizens. Paul and Silas are both Roman citizens. You beat us in public without any trial and then threw us into prison, and now you're gonna release us secretly?
No indeed. Not having that. Now, Paul didn't confront the demon immediately because he didn't wanna make trouble, I think. And now, when he could just kinda sneak out of town, well, he snuck out of town after having been beaten publicly and thrown in jail. He said, no, we're not leaving secretly.
We've got at least three well, we've got two named believers, know, Philippian jailer, we've got Lydia, we've got the unnamed slave girl, and the households of the two other. We've got a little church that's forming now. And I want to know that before Roman law, we are not guilty. I want for you to say it in public. And so, no indeed.
On the contrary, let those chief magistrates come in person and let them lead us out of town. And the officers reported these words to the chief magistrates and they became fearful. They should have because they're breaking the law. They should have because they were not going by due process of the law. And that's what made Rome different.
Right? Lex, Rex, Rex, Lex, the law is king. They became fearful when they heard that they were Romans and they came and they pleaded with them. And when they had led them out, they repeatedly asked them, please leave the city. Please get home down the road.
And they left the prison and they entered the house of Lydia. And when they saw the brothers and the sisters, they encouraged them and they departed. That says Paul and Silas encouraged the believers. It wasn't the other way around. It's probably both.
But this says that Paul and Silas encouraged the believers that were there, that were just getting started. And I think that the fact that they said, we're not guilty before the law. This is not something that has anything to do with that. Was a lot like Jesus saying, listen, my kingdom's of a different world. It's not this.
It's not the same thing. They left the prison, they entered the house of Lydia. When they saw the brothers and sisters, they encouraged them. Would you all stand with us? I'm invite the band to come back up.
I think that's the last slide. Send the light. Let us not grow weary in the work of love. Send the light. Send the light.
Let us pray that grace may everywhere abound, send the light, send the light, and a Christ like spirit everywhere be found, send the light, send the light. Lord God Almighty, would you move upon us individually that we may act in a way collectively that is winsome, that draws people into a relationship with you. May we be sensitive to your spirit and humble and obedient to the direction that you give. In Jesus name, amen.
God will tell of your one days, sing of your grace. God of creation knows me by name. He's I'm where you are. You are. You've always will be gone.
Amen. And as a benediction, the Lord's not slow about his promise as some count slowness or slackness but he is patient towards us and he's not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. Lord God almighty, may we be looking for those, looking for those who have not yet trusted in you. May we be sensitive, humble, and obedient to share in the word of the Lord with them. In Jesus name, we ask that your kingdom would go forward.
