Paul and Silas face both success and hardship after being led to Philippi by the Holy Spirit.

Transcript:

Think about God's way for your life. Think about God's way for your life. What do you think it looks like? How you answer that question will mostly depend on whether or not you have completely given your life to Jesus. I think if we're honest, we often have unstated terms and conditions when we say we will follow Christ-- certain stipulations on what God's way will look like in our life. Foolishly, sometimes our terms and conditions are simply this: my way will be God's way. My way will be God's way. In other words, God better take notes on what I want to do. Now, others of us may say, I'm interested in God's way, but God's way couldn't possibly include hardship, pain, and sacrifice. That mindset too, though, reveals that we're still committed to our way. We are not truly prepared to give ourselves completely to his way and throw out our terms and conditions.

Even as we begin to truly seek God's will and not our own, pitfalls remain. As God guides us and our vision narrows and the target is in sight, we can suddenly fall into a trap of thinking, thanks, God. I, I see where we're going, and I'll take it from here. We forget Proverbs three five and begin to lean on our own understanding when we've only just begun.

What often happens to us does not happen to Paul and Silas and their company here in Act 16. Things take an unexpected turn, but Paul doesn't miss a beat, and it's because he is not leaning on his own understanding, he is trusting in God's way, not his own. Departing from Derbe, now with. Timothy in his company, we pick up in verses six through 10 of Acts 16.

And it says, Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phyrgia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the Border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia,, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night, Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, come over to Macedonia and help us. After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

The course that Paul and his company are, are taking takes them from Derbe, here in South Galatia, across Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, and as they're going along, they're guided by the Holy Spirit. Apparently Paul had some thought of going towards the east into this direction in Asia Minor, but God had different plans for Paul and his fellow missionaries. They couldn't go into Asia in verse seven, it says they tried to enter Bithynia and it says The Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to enter into this, into Bithynia.

Now as you see that in the text, you look at verses six and seven, you might wonder, are we talking about two different things here? It says that they were kept from preaching the word in the province of Asia by the Holy Spirit, and then in verse seven it says that it was the Spirit of Jesus that would not allow them to enter into Bithynia. It can be a little bit confusing, but in fact, if we look in elsewhere in scripture, it becomes clear that we're talking about one and the same person. We're still talking about the Holy Spirit in both cases. Paul in Romans eight verses nine through 11 says, you, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your moral bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

You may have said yourself or have often heard it said Jesus lives within me. Christ dwells within me. If you really think about that hard, you might wonder, well, how does that exactly work? Because we know that Christ has a body. He was, he was raised from the dead, and he bodily ascended, he's going to bodily return. So how it is that, how is it that Christ can be within you? Well, the presence of Christ is communicated to us by the Spirit of Christ. We don't have a fourth person of the Godhead here. This is just another way of referring to the Holy Spirit. And so, and something else that we, we notice here, just even of, of this phrasing of the Spirit of, of Jesus, it almost brings to mind a phrase that is very common throughout the Old Testament, talking about the Spirit of the Lord. This is just another signpost pointing us to the divinity of Jesus Christ, that he is truly, in fact, God.

And when we're talking about the Holy Spirit, we're not talking about an it. We're not talking about a force. As we read, probably a year ago now, earlier in Acts, in Acts five, nine, when Ananias and Sapphira seek to deceive the church and making it look as though they're generous, Peter tells Sapphira, how could you conspire to test the spirit of the Lord? Now, you can't test a, a force in that kind of way. It's indicating that we're talking about a person here.

Now these events that transpire here is where Paul is initially thinking I'm going to certain parts, but then God's redirecting them is a great reminder to us that even while something might be a good thing, it may not yet be part of God's plan for us. Maybe it is not part of God's plan for us at, at all, even though it's a good thing. And that's something that can be really difficult for us to comprehend at times, because we see this thing as like, it's not a bad thing, it's not a sinful thing. Paul wants to share the gospel with people, that's an awesome thing. But it is not part of God's plan, or at least his immediate plan. We know the Gospel's going to spread elsewhere in Asia Minor, they will be reached. But not at this moment. And rather than getting frustrated, Paul follows the direction that God gives him by the Holy Spirit. Now, we might wonder, how is it that the Holy Spirit prevented Paul from going to these places? Was it simply by some spiritual intuition? Perhaps, and some of us may have experienced that at times, where we can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, just giving a, a sense of, I, I probably shouldn't do that or I should do this. It could have been that. It could have been that they received a revelation, a prophecy, though Luke doesn't tell us about that. It could be that they, they received again, just a revelation or it could have been an obstacle that like appeared to them. And sometimes we have events that transpire where clearly it seems as though God is closing a door. Even while we initially thought that would be the route that we should take.

So we have some negative guidance here. God saying, no, no, no, you shouldn't go that direction. But now we have a positive direction offered by God through a vision that's given to Paul. And during the night it appears Paul has a dream of a Macedonian man saying to him, come over to Macedonia and help. We wonder how is it that he knew it was a Macedonian man, maybe it was by his dress, maybe it was by the way that he spoke. One way or another, he knew it was a Macedonian man and he knew that God was telling him to go there. And Paul's response is, let's go now.

This is kind of a big move here because they're going from really kinda the region of Asia into Europe. If you're thinking kind of just of the historical picture here, Paul's almost working the conquest of Alexander in reverse, because this would've been the course that Alexander the Great would've taken, going from Macedonia down into conquering most of the known world. Now, now, Paul's traveling that same path, with the intent of bringing the gospel to the land of Alexander.

So continuing in verse 11, Paul and his company make their way to Macedonia. It says, from Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony in the leading city of the district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there.

And something I want you to notice here is how, starting in verse 11, it says, we, little details here, it says we. And we know that Luke is the author of Acts, so it seems apparent here that Luke joins the company. And it's funny, he doesn't make much of himself. He, he doesn't say, and at this time, I decide to join Paul. He doesn't wanna make it about him. But now we know from this point on, he's working with some first hand information here 'cause he was there, he was with them.

They make their way towards Macedonia going through Samothrace. That was an island along the way there. And going through Neapolis, ultimately their journey takes them to Philippi. And we note here that Philippi is said to be a Roman colony. Now there was other cities that were Roman colonies, and Luke doesn't always mention the fact that they're a Roman colony, but the fact that he does mention it here indicates it's a, it's probably...