Acts 16:11-15

The presence of God is so heavy in this place. And I know that there are others who are feeling the same thing. It was really hard for me to sit down during the last song, because I had to preach right after this. But so thankful for the wonderful joy that comes into our hearts as we experience the presence of God in the simple truth of the scriptures and God’s great foundation that we have being sung by people of God.

A warm welcome to all of you. So good to see all of you, especially some who have been away with us for travel or other physical matters. We’re so glad you’re back with us worshiping the Lord this morning. We especially welcome the guests who are here for the first time. So grateful that you chose to worship the Lord with us. And we’re so grateful for another week in which God was with us, especially in the life of the church with VBS and Family Day yesterday. What a fun time of really studying God’s word and enjoying time with each other the Lord gave. So grateful for everyone who worked so hard behind the scenes.

As we continue with our series, Church on the Move, we’ll be focusing today on Acts 16:11-15. Acts 16:11-15. Before I go into the passage for today, it is important for me to take you back to Acts 16:10, which is what we ended with last week. And the verse read like this, and if you’re not careful, you will miss an important change that you see in the way Luke is writing the book of Acts in Acts 16:10: After Paul has seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia. This is the first time in the entire account of the missionary journey, the term “we” is used. Up until now, there was a third-point narrative that has been given by Luke in writing the exploits of Paul and Barnabas and all the first missionary journey, and up until now. But even in the initial missionary journey of Paul and Silas through the cities that we saw in the previous scriptures, the terminology was of they were traveling. Here, we is used, which means that Luke, the physician who wrote the book of Acts, now joins the second missionary journey while they were waiting for the next phase where God will lead them.

Remember, they’re in Troas because God had opened and closed every door to the left and the right, and the only thing that was in front of them was the Aegean Sea that they were looking at. They were waiting for it, and the call comes from this man from Macedonia. By this time, Luke had now joined the missionary journey. So what you will see now, starting in Acts 16:11 all the way to several chapters, is this first-person account of what is going on. Luke is with him in Philippi. We’ll see Luke again in Athens as well. After he leaves Corinth, Luke is left behind, and again, the narrative will script to where Luke is now telling us the story of the missionary journey from a distance. But here, very importantly, Luke the physician joins the missionary journey of the apostles.

And Acts 16:11, the Bible tells us, From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. We look at the map. You can see that the journey from Troas to this Philippi, Neapolis, and you have to kind of almost take a detour to go to the island of Samothrace, which took a day’s journey. It’s almost about 30–40 miles of journey on the seas. And the Bible uses the phrase, “sailed straight.” What does it mean by “sailed straight”? What it literally means is what it says: they sailed straight. What it boils down to is that when the wind is in your favor, the ship that sailed at that time can sail straight. Otherwise, what the ships had to do, they had to go in almost like a zigzag pattern to avoid directly going up against the wind that is coming in their direction. So if you’re traveling in a straight line, you’re able to reach the distance much faster. When you’re taking the zigzag tour, the same journey will take you much longer to take because you’re trying to avoid the wind.

The point here is this: God, who had called them on this journey, was even making the wind to flow in the right direction for their journey. They had waited upon the counsel of the Lord. They had waited upon the voice of the Lord. They had waited upon the next step that God wanted them to take. When they waited upon the Lord, when they’re obedient to the call of God, and they took the journey according to the direction of the Lord, even the natural elements of the world, God made it to flow in the direction of the apostles. This journey that we would take from Troas to Neapolis would take two days. The same journey in Acts 20:6 would take five days. Look at God’s word: We sailed from Philippi after the festival of Unleavened Bread, and five days later joined the others at Troas, where we stayed seven days. So in Acts 16, the journey took two days. In Acts 20:6, in the opposite direction, the journey took five days. Why? God’s favor. The One who created the wind, the One whose voice is able to command the storms and the sea and the wind and everything coming into being—and He controls every motion of the wind of the universe—is able to make the wind flow in the direction of the apostles as well.

Don’t you realize even this morning that you serve a God who controls even the direction of the wind? The temperature of today is controlled by our Lord. The weather patterns of the world are controlled by our Lord. He is the Creator of the ends of the earth, and the Bible says everything is held together and ordained by His power as well. All this to say that things that matter in your life, that happen in your life, is also of great concern to Him. If He is in control of the universe, of the weather patterns, or the wind patterns, He is in control of your life as well, you being a child of God.

Acts 16:12 tells us: From there, we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia, and we stayed there several days. From Samothrace—one day’s journey—another day, Samothrace to Neapolis, which is the port city. Today, it is known by a different name in modern-day Turkey. They would get there to this port, and they would land for the first time in the continent of Europe. This is the first time the gospel is now reaching the banks of Europe, and this is not an insignificant event. See, Rome is now controlling over the majority of the affairs of the world. The Caesar that is ruling over Rome—and that’s the majority of the known world at that time—does not have any idea about a man of small stature, along with his three companions, who had just landed upon the continent of Europe. What he does not recognize is that more than anything that he is doing in Rome, more than any rule or any conquest that he is doing, what has happened on that day will change history forever, and change the course of human expeditions, human knowledge, human understanding, human efforts—all will be changed based on that one verse of these four men landing on the shores of Neapolis.

Europe would eventually send missionaries for the first time to Africa. Europe eventually would send missionaries for the first time to India. Europe for the first time would send missionaries to South America. Europe for the first time would send missionaries to North America. Basically, all this to say, the entire evangelization of the world will happen because of these four men who would land on the shores of Europe. The majority of the literature that we have in God’s word, related to it, came from Europe. The majority of the understanding of scriptures that we have today came from Europe. That is why you and I sitting here today should earnestly pray for Europe in your lives as well. Because today, Europe is the most distant from the gospel that it came to that day. If you watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics, you got a glimpse of how far Europe has fallen away from the gospel that reached its shores thousands of years ago. Today, Europe does not want to do anything with the gospel. Churches are being closed left and right. Pastors are out of jobs. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ is made big fun of and mocked in the shores of Europe.

Europe will one day become the birthing place, I believe, of the Antichrist himself. I believe the 10 nations that would come rising up against the kingdom of God on that day is known to be coming out of Europe. All this why we are living in the last days when so much filth, so much immorality, so much defiance against God Himself is happening all around the world. The church is supposed to do one thing and one thing alone: lift up your eyes, for your redemption is drawing near. The Europe that once stood for the gospel is now turning its back towards the gospel. Why? So the other people in the world can once again cry out to the Lord, “Oh Lord, come back. Come, Jesus, come back soon.”

You know what is happening today in Great Britain? Rather than sending out missionaries, they’re exporting missionaries to its shores. It is estimated that more than 40,000 missionaries from India alone have arrived in the UK in the last few years. God is changing the direction of the spreading of the gospel. Europe, that sent missionaries to Asia, is now welcoming missionaries from Asia to Europe. All this to say, when Europe has turned its back towards God, Asia has turned, Africa has undergone severe revival towards God. God always has His people and always has His work that He does in His own way. So do not get dejected in your heart because the Western world has turned its back towards the Lord. We as people in America should be very mindful of the fact that if we are not careful, we’re already heading in the direction of Europe as well. That is why it is important to guard the gospel. It is important to preach the gospel. It is important to build up a generation that will stand for the gospel, because as I’ve often said, sometimes the gospel is just one generation away from dying in the hands of people who are not faithful to preach it.

And they stayed there several days. Luke doesn’t tell us exactly how many days. Acts 16:13: On the Sabbath, they were looking for a synagogue. Remember what they would do every city: they would have to find a synagogue. And the problem here is that there’s no synagogue, which tells us that there are not even 10 Jewish men living in the city of Philippi. If you have 10 Jewish men, you can start a synagogue; not a single one to be found. In fact, according to Jewish law, you can have thousands of Jewish women, but if you don’t have 10 Jewish men, you cannot start a synagogue. Even nine men cannot start a synagogue. It has to be 10. So what did they do? They were looking for a place. They went down to the river where we expected to find a place of prayer, very much led there by the providence of God, by the Holy Spirit Himself, who will lead them to the riverside, kind of very curious they would choose this place. Maybe they heard there were a bunch of women meeting there for prayer, and Paul and the companions wanted to find out more about this prayer meeting. We sat down among them and began to speak to the women who had gathered there.

This is not insignificant at all, and we—if you don’t understand Jewish culture and tradition, you will miss the importance of this verse: “We sat down to speak to the women.” You know what a rabbi was always taught? It is better to burn the books of the Law than to teach it to women. And guess who had been raised in that tradition? Paul. Paul, all of his life before he became a believer, was told, “Don’t waste your time with women. Don’t teach the Law to the women. It is better to burn the book of the Law than to teach it to women.” But look what the gospel did. The gospel has taken away all prejudice from his mind and made him aware of the fact that there is no gender inequality in the eyes of God in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Both men and women are held in high regard by the Lord. By the way, when I say something like, “Do not teach it to women, rather burn it,” that is not in the Bible. That is a rabbinic tradition that came out of a prejudiced mind of some male chauvinist. It has nothing to do with God’s word. So understand that. But they followed it as if it was from the Lord, and they taught it to the next generation, and they followed it as well. But here we see a man who has been transformed by the gospel, who is so willing to sit and speak to a woman that were gathered there.

But do not forget Acts 16:9. Who had appeared to him in a vision? A man from Macedonia. What did he find at the banks of the river? A bunch of women. He did not go there and say, “Do you have any Macedonian men around here that I can talk to?” He did not draw a picture and walk around the city looking for the likeness of a man like the Macedonian man he had seen in a vision. No, these men knew that every opportunity that God was preparing for them was ordained by a God who had sent them to the shores of Europe. And they sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. I am sure—I wish I could listen to what they said.

And then Acts 16:14 tells us: One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. We’ll get to that in a second. Let’s first talk about Lydia. What is her hometown? Thyatira. Now, how do you know Thyatira? You know Thyatira from the book of Revelation. It is one of the seven churches that we find in the book of Revelation. It is from the region known as the region of Asia Minor, where Paul had been told not to go to preach. So what did God do here? He gives him the vision of a European man and brings him to an Asian woman. You know, God has a sense of humor about these things. He said, here’s a European man saying, “Come and help us,” and he’s looking for a European man, and guess who he finds? An Asian woman from the same place God told him not to go to preach, to bring the gospel to the Europeans. Only God would think of such things. His ways are truly higher than our ways. God would bring an Asian man based upon the request of a European man to Europe. There, He would make sure that an Asian woman is the first convert in all of Europe—from a place where God told him not to go to preach.

Not only that, Luke would tell us she was a worshiper of God, and not only that, she was a dealer in purple cloth. Both of these details are very, very important. A dealer in purple cloth: Thyatira was known for its rich purple dyes. In fact, the book of Revelation, the Holy Spirit references that when speaking to the church in Thyatira. It was a rich church, and it would remind them of the richness that they had in their value and monetary value, the bankruptcy they had when it came to spiritual matters. This dye, the purple dye, was an expensive item at that time. What made it so expensive was the fact that all the Roman generals and all the Roman leaders loved to be adorned in purple clothing—kind of like gold of today. Purple at that time was the clothing choice of royalty. And guess what? Thyatira was a place where this beautiful, majestic, expensive dye was found. They even had a trade group which was made of dye manufacturers. And this woman had come all the way to Europe to deal in purple clothing, which means that, and she had a house of her own, she was a wealthy woman.

I want you to picture today a woman who is a CEO of a company, who has a home in London, has a home in New York, a home in LA, maybe a home in Dallas. What is the purpose of all these homes? Well, for people that are just buying homes, that might be the reason, but for her, there is a strategic reason why you have a home in London, you have a home in New York, you have a home in LA, and a home in the South. All four of these represent four markets that she’s trying to reach. In London, she’ll be able to reach all of Europe. New York, she’ll be able to reach the East Coast. LA, she’ll be able to reach the West Coast. And once you have a home in the South, be able to reach all of the United States as well. So this woman—there’s no way in misunderstanding this—was a very wealthy woman who lived in Philippi at that time. But in spite of her wealth, in spite of her influence, in spite of the fact that there were a lot of women who were coming to study God’s word with her by the banks of the river that day, the Bible tells us she was a worshiper of God, which means that she worshiped the Jehovah God of the Old Testament. Even though she was a Gentile woman, like Cornelius, she was a worshiper of the true God who was a seeker of the truth. And that is important. Why? Look at John 6:37: All those the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never drive away. See, if you have a heart that is seeking out the truth, God’s grace to you is this, and the message to you is that you will find Me if you look after Me. And I believe that even today, even in the jungles of Africa, in the remote parts of India, if there’s a seeking heart, a heart that truly wants to know the God of the universe, God will make sure that He will reveal Himself to that person—whether in creation, whether through a missionary, whether through the word of God—God will make sure that person will come to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

A lot of times, people ask the question, “Pastor, what about people who have never heard the gospel?” The answer is this: if they are a seeker of the truth of God’s word, they will find Him. That is the promise of God. Lydia was a person just like that, who was a worshiper of God, who was seeking out the true God, and guess what? God would move mountains to make sure that the greatest apostle to walk on the face of the earth was sitting and teaching her God’s word.

Those who reject Him are people that are unwilling to listen to Him. Look at John 8:43-45. Verses like this give a lot of comfort to us as preachers, because this is coming from the lips of the Lord Himself. He says to them, “Why is not My language clear to you?” So if we are standing before you Sunday after Sunday, and you are sitting in the pews going, “I don’t understand a word he’s saying,” ah, the fault may not be with me—because they did not even understand the Lord. At least that’s what I’m going to say, right? “Why is My language not clear to you?” This is the Lord speaking, the wisest Person ever to walk on the face of the earth, the God of all wisdom, “because you are unable to hear what I say. The problem is not with the messenger, the problem is with your heart. Way too often, we blame the preacher. We blame the pastor. We blame the message. But examine your heart first and make sure that it’s ready to hear what the preacher or the pastor has to say. And here’s the bigger reason why you are not hearing: You belong to your father.” Who’s your father? Oh, thank God this is God’s word—“the devil. Ha, ha, ha, you belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. In your heart, you don’t want to do the will of the Heavenly Father; you want to do the will of the devil. So even though you’re sitting in church, you’re not hearing, because in your heart, you don’t want to hear to begin with. Even before you walked into this building, you had already thought in your heart, ‘Just let me get through those three hours and go back to my life. I could care less what he says to me on Sunday morning.’ ‘Is not My language clear to you?’ Examine your heart, who you belong to. If you belong to the devil, you will not hear the word of God. You will not understand the word of God. The spiritual man understands spiritual things; the carnal man does not recognize the things of God. Remember that in the life of God’s people.” Continuing on, Jesus would continue: “He was a murderer from the beginning”—talk about your father—“not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language.” I love this: “When he lies, he’s actually speaking his native language. So if you ask, what is the mother tongue of the devil, what is the answer? ‘Lie.’ When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar, and not only that, he’s the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. It’s because the truth is not in you, is why you don’t believe.”

But she had a heart that really wanted to hear the truth of God’s word. We don’t know how long she’s been seeking. We don’t know how long she’s been longing. But God would work on her behalf. Look at the next sentence: The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. Beautiful. He’s a seeker—that’s her. The work of God—The Lord opened her heart. The word that is used over there is a beautiful word in scripture. It’s a word you should probably memorize. It’s a Greek word, dienogl. It really means to open and remove that which is obstructing someone’s view or understanding of things. And this is something that is only done by the supernatural work of God. This opening cannot be done by human beings. This opening cannot be done by a pastor. This opening cannot be done by the revival preacher. This opening cannot be done by any human methods or human means. This can only be done by the Lord of heaven. And I’m here to remind you, every single one of you sitting here today who calls yourself a child of God is a work of the miraculous work of God by which He opened your heart to respond to the message of God. How do we know that?

This word is used by Mark in Mark 7:34. There was a man who could not speak, nor could he hear. Look what the Lord did. He looked up to heaven, and with a deep sigh, He said to him, “Ephatha,” which means “be opened.” What is ephatha? Ephatha is Aramaic. When translated to Greek, it is the same word in which the Lord opened the ear of the man and touched the tongue of the man and was able to speak again. Look at the next words, Mark 7:35: At this, the man’s ears were opened—dienogl—his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak plainly. One day, you were dumb. You were deaf. The Bible says you were blind. But in your blindness, in your deafness, when you heard the voice of the Master, it was a supernatural power of resurrection, the work of the Holy Spirit, that opened your heart to respond to the truth of God’s word, which means that you did a part by listening to the truth, but it was the work of God that made you to be a child of God.

Yes, open heart. Look at Luke 24:31. The disciples are traveling with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and they are breaking bread with Him. Same word is used by Luke in Luke 24:31: Then their eyes were dienogl, and they recognized Him, and He disappeared from their sight. These disciples who were searching for the truth of everything that happened that day—on that evening when He broke bread with them, the Holy Spirit came and opened their hearts to recognize that the One sitting before them is Jesus. Again, the work of God. Look at Luke 24:45. The disciples are confused. Jesus is appearing before them. They don’t fully know what is going on. Then God does His miraculous work again: He opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures. You have an understanding of God’s word today not because you’re smart, but because God, in His mercy and grace, opened your heart to understand the scriptures. You are the work of the divine providence of God. You are the work of the great grace of God.

In Acts 7:56, we see the miraculous work of God. Stephen is being stoned to death, and he looks up: I see heaven opened—dienogl—and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Again, the same word used. The same God that is opening the heavens and giving Stephen, at his last minute, a vision of the Son of God standing at the right hand of the Father is the same One that opens your heart also. A lot of times, there’s a lot of debate within Christianity on the responsibility of man and the sovereignty of God in regards to our salvation. I have one verse that clearly gives us the fact that both of these things coexist in our salvation. There’s responsibility of man; there’s also the sovereignty of God. Look at 1 Thessalonians 2:13: Oh, we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is—the word of God, which is indeed at work in you—God’s part—who believe—our part. Belief is yours. The work that caused you to believe is His. You are the one who received it, but the One who opened your heart—oh, the divine surgeon—is the Lord Himself. Today also, He’s asking you to recognize Him and to come into His heart.

This painting, in the early 20th century, entitled The Light of the World, was probably more famous than any other work of the great masters of the Renaissance. You might be looking at it going, what is it all about? As difficult as it is to imagine today, millions of the people of the world at that time flocked to see what was known as “a sermon in a frame.” The allegorical painting that captured the imagination of so many was created by an English artist by the name of William Hunt, who began the work of making this painting at the age of 21, but did not finish it until he was 29 years old. It took him eight years to finish this painting. The painting illustrates the beautiful biblical passage of Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him and he with Me.” Obviously, that passage is talking about believers, not salvation. God wants to have a communion with them. But what is really interesting is that if you look at the door closely, you will see that the door is overgrown with weeds, and the nails and hinges are rusted, implying what? The door has never been opened. Oh, when is the last time you opened the door of your heart and said, “God, I need You”? “Well, I need more of You. I know that we had a relationship, we had a fellowship, but I have closed my heart to You for so long. I need to let those weeds out. I need to make sure the rusty hinges are not hindering. I need to open that door, let You in. I want You to come and have fellowship with me and dine with me. I want to once again experience the joy of salvation. I want my heart to be open.” If you pray that prayer, the same God who opened your heart to respond to the gospel the first time will open your heart to receive Him again, and the joy of salvation will truly come in your life. But He is standing, and He is knocking, and is perpetually wanting His people to receive Him. The question today is this: how is the door of our heart looking? Is it grown by weeds? Is it rusty? Does it look like it’s been opened lately? The Spirit of God is telling you: God wants to come and dwell within you all the time.

After the Lord opened her heart, look what she did. Acts 16:15: When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. What does that mean? Lydia’s heart was open. She became—immediately she became—an evangelist. All of her household also believed. What did they do? Obedience to the commandment of the Lord: they were baptized by Paul and his companions. But she was not done. After she was baptized, she said, “If you consider me to be a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house,” and she persuaded us. Which means that the first answer was what? “No, it’s okay, we got this.” She knew that these men didn’t have anything. At that time, living in an inn was a dangerous proposition. There were so many robberies and so many filthy things going on at the inns of that time. That’s why in the New Testament, it often tells you to give hospitality to strangers, because that was a wonderful thing a Christian could do, to invite strangers into the home. This woman was willing to share her house with four men that she did not know maybe until a few days ago. And then the Bible says she persuaded us. The same word is used. Remember the road to Emmaus—that Jesus was about to leave? The disciples said, “No, no, no, no, You come and stay with us, we love what You’re saying.” The same word is used over here. Lydia kept on persuading them to come and stay with them.

Why did she do that? I’ll end with this: Ephesians 2:10, because we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. It is not baptism that saved her. Baptism came after salvation. It is not good works that saved her. Good works came after salvation. And this should be in our lives as well: obedience to the command of the Lord and following Him in water baptism, but not only that, Christian life doesn’t end there. We are to be people who are hospitable, willing to help the needy, the poor, the downtrodden, willing to open up our homes to strangers, practicing hospitality, giving to people who cannot repay us. All these things are good works that Christians should be doing in their life.

I will end with quoting you one quote from John Stott. In his book, Authentic Christianity, he writes this: “The repeated promises in the Quran is of the forgiveness of a compassionate and merciful Allah, but they’re all made to the meritorious whose merits have been weighed in Allah’s scale,” so if you do enough good works, hey, he says thumbs up, otherwise thumbs down, “whereas the gospel is good news of mercy to the undeserving. The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales.” Remember that. The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, whereas a symbol of the religion of Islam is a scale that says, “Do enough good works and Allah will be pleased with you.” Aren’t you glad that, undeserved as we were, the grace of God did not put us on a scale, but the One that was put on a scale was the righteousness of the One who came and died for us because He weighed heavier than any sin I had to pay? All my sins were paid on the cross, and my heart was opened to respond to the message of the gospel, and because of that, like Lydia, we are children of God, rejoicing in the presence of God.

Let’s look to the Lord in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank You that Your word came to us, but most importantly, You by Your power opened our hearts to respond to that word. We thank You that You made us to be children of God. Help us now, oh God, like Lydia, to obey Your word and to do good works for the glory of God. For to that end, You have prepared us to be Your handiwork. Thank You, Lord, as we now enter into a time of celebrating Your death, Your suffering for our sake. We remember Your grace and rejoice in Your presence. In the name of the Lord Jesus, let me pray, amen.