Acts 16:6-15

⁶ And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. ⁷ And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. ⁸ So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. ⁹ And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” ¹⁰ And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. ¹¹ So, setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace, and the following day to Neapolis, ¹² and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city some days. ¹³ And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. ¹⁴ One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. ¹⁵ And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.

Acts is a book filled with memorable characters.  Of course there are the towering personalities of the Church:  restored and emboldened Peter, the courageous martyr Stephen, the inspiring missionary Philip, the radically converted and radically missional Paul, peacemaking Barnabas, tempestuous John Mark, and young Timothy.  Then there are the bad guys:  the persecuting Sanhedrin, the greedy Simon Magus, the blasphemous (and wormy!) Herod Agrippa.  And these are just a few of the colorful characters of this fascinating book.

But there is one character that stands above them all.  In fact, He is such a dominant character that some, like John Chrysostom, actually referred to the book of Acts by His name.  I am talking about the Holy Spirit.  He is on every page of this book.  John Chrysostom called the book of Acts, “The Gospel of the Holy Spirit.”  I love that!

The story of Acts truly is the story of the Holy Spirit.  Let me explain.  Before Jesus ascended to the Father in Heaven He promised us that He would send the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, to take up residence in His people.  And, of course, in Acts 2 we see that happen.  Jesus ascends to the right hand of the Father and the Holy Spirit descends upon the Church.  That means that the chronicle of Acts is a chronicle of the Holy Spirit’s leading of the Church in and throughout the world to further the reach of the Kingdom of God.  Thus, this book really is “The Gospel of the Holy Spirit.”

But even that is not enough to say.  It must also be said and noted that what happened to the early Church way back then was intended to be normative for all Christians throughout the ages and all over the world.  In other words, the Holy Spirit was likewise promised to you.

When you accept Christ, He gives you His Spirit to take up residence within you.  The Holy Spirit then guides and leads and directs and informs and illuminates and convicts and reveals and teaches you as you too move throughout life.  That is critically important to understand because that means that your life individually and our life as a Church corporately is a continuation of the story of Acts!  The story of the Church and the Spirit’s leading of the Church therefore continues in and through us.

This is what makes the current neglect of the Holy Spirit in many of our churches so very, very tragic!  When we fail to teach and understand and, most of all, experience and walk with the Holy Spirit, we fail to appreciate the One who was given to lead us throughout life itself.  Yet, many of us do neglect the Holy Spirit and do not think often of Him.

In his wonderful book on the Holy Spirit, tellingly entitled Forgotten God, Francis Chan said this:

The benchmark of success in church services has become more about attendance than the movement of the Holy Spirit. The “entertainment” model of church was largely adopted in the 1980s and ’90s, and while it alleviated some of our boredom for a couple of hours a week, it filled our churches with self-focused consumers rather than self-sacrificing servants attuned to the Holy Spirit.  Perhaps we’re too familiar and comfortable with the current state of the church to feel the weight of the problem. But what if you grew up on a desert island with nothing but the Bible to read? Imagine being rescued after twenty years and then attending a typical evangelical church. Chances are you’d be shocked (for a whole lot of reasons, but that is another story). Having read the Scriptures outside the context of contemporary church culture, you would be convinced that the Holy Spirit is as essential to a believer’s existence as air is to staying alive. You would know that the Spirit led the first Christians to do unexplainable things, to live lives that didn’t make sense to the culture around them, and ultimately to spread the story of God’s grace around the world.

There is a big gap between what we read in Scripture about the Holy Spirit and how most believers and churches operate today.  In many modern churches, you would be stunned by the apparent absence of the Spirit in any manifest way. And this, I believe, is the crux of the problem.

If I were Satan and my ultimate goal was to thwart God’s kingdom and purposes, one of my main strategies would be to get churchgoers to ignore the Holy Spirit. The degree to which this has happened (and I would argue that it is a prolific disease in the body of Christ) is directly connected to the dissatisfaction most of us feel with and in the church. We understand something very important is missing. The feeling is so strong that some have run away from the church and God’s Word completely.

I believe that this missing something is actually a missing Someone-namely, the Holy Spirit. Without Him, people operate in their own strength and only accomplish human-size results. The world is not moved by love or actions that are of human creation.  And the church is not empowered to live differently from any other gathering of people without the Holy Spirit. But when believers live in the power of the Spirit, the evidence in their lives is supernatural.  The church cannot help but be different, and the world cannot help but notice…

The church becomes irrelevant when it becomes purely a human creation. We are not all we were made to be when everything in our lives and churches can be explained apart from the work and presence of the Spirit of God…

Given our talent set, experience, and education, many of us are fairly capable of living rather successfully (according to the world’s standards) without any strength from the Holy Spirit.

Even our church growth can happen without Him. Let’s be honest: If you combine a charismatic speaker, a talented worship band, and some hip, creative events, people will attend your church.  Yet this does not mean that the Holy Spirit of God is actively working and moving in the lives of the people who are coming. It simply means that you have created a space that is appealing enough to draw  people in for an hour or two on Sunday.[1]

What challenging and, frankly, terrifying words these are!  But how very, very true.  We dare not operate without the Spirit of God!  We cannot operate in the will of God without the Spirit of God!  But, foolishly, we attempt to do this very thing.

Let me ask you:  when you look back over the last twelve months, would you say that they were marked by a radical dependence upon the Spirit of God?  Would you say that you sought the Spirit’s leading, the Spirit’s guidance, and what the Spirit was saying to you?  Or did you attempt to live your life on your own terms?  If so, how did that work out for you?

To remedy this, and to prepare us for the coming year, let us consider how the Spirit led Paul and his team in Acts 16.  Here we read of the second missionary journey of Paul.  The way that Luke describes the Spirit’s activity is most helpful and teaches us a great deal about how we should learn to think of and understand the Spirit.  We will consider our text under the banner of four lessons we must learn about the Spirit’s guidance.

Learn to see the Holy Spirit’s “No’s” as “Yes’s” that are about to be revealed. (v.6-8)

Let us first notice something interesting about Luke’s record of Paul’s initial travel efforts at the beginning of the second missionary journey.

⁶ And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. ⁷ And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. ⁸ So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.

What appears to have happened is this:  Paul and his team set out for the region called “Asia” which lay due west of the city of Lystra where he had picked up Timothy.  He likely was intending to go the city of Ephesus which was in Asia.  But, Luke tells us, the Holy Spirit forbade it.  Thus, Paul sets his eyes north to the region of Bithynia and starts that way.  Luke tells us that “they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.”

Some have noted that Luke refers to “the Holy Spirit” in verse 6 and “the Spirit of Jesus” in verse 7.  There is, of course, no question that both of these are referring to the same Holy Spirit, but some have wondered that the subtle shift in designation may reference the way in which the Spirit communicated to them.  Who knows?  Rather, it is important for us to note that, in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is indeed the Spirit of Jesus and the Spirit from the Father.  There are significant implications here for our doctrine of the Trinity:  God is Father, Son, and Spirit.  We see that reality played out throughout the New Testament.

For our purposes, however, let us note the fascinating fact that the Holy Spirit says “No!” to Paul and his team twice here at the beginning of their second missionary journey.  He says “No!” to what they want to do.

But here is the crux of the matter:  His “No!” is simply a “Yes!” that is about to be revealed.

John Stott mentions a fascinating idea from A.T. Pierson concerning how the Spirit leads us in life.

A. T. Pierson in his The Acts of the Holy Spirit drew attention to what he called ‘the double guidance of the apostle and his companions’, namely, ‘on the one hand prohibition and restraint, on the other permission and constraint. They are forbidden in one direction, invited in another; one way the Spirit says “go not”; the other he calls “Come”.’ Pierson went on to give some later examples from the history of missions of this same ‘double guidance’: Livingstone tried to go to China, but God sent him to Africa instead. Before him, Carey planned to go to Polynesia in the South Seas, but God guided him to India. Judson went to India first, but was driven on to Burma. We too in our day, Pierson concludes, ‘need to trust him for guidance and rejoice equally in his restraints and constraints’.[2]

That is so well said!  “The double guidance” from the Holy Spirit:  prohibition and permission.

But here is the problem:  we, as modern spoiled Americans, have such a sense of selfish entitlement that we are too busy pouting about the prohibitions of the Spirit to see the permissions that are within them.  We are so busy sitting in the corner stewing over His “no’s” that we cannot see His “yes’s.”  And this is a great tragedy, for a willingness to see the Spirit working in the “no’s” as well as the “yes’s” is profoundly liberating.  It frees us to see God-ordained Kingdom opportunities in the otherwise unpleasant happenings in life:  demotions and cars breaking down and missed flights and hospital visits.  It frees us to see that all of these are but divine “yes’s” hidden in what we see as inconveniences and setbacks and even tragedies.

Learn to see God’s “yes’s” hidden in God’s “no’s.”

Learn to see the Holy Spirit’s guidance in both the normal decisions and the miraculous revelations. (v.9)

We must also learn to see the Spirit’s guidance in both the mundane and the spectacular.  Having just led Paul and his team through largely unspecified but apparently fairly ordinary means, the Spirit now speaks to him in a surprising way.

⁹ And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

The Spirit now speaks through a vision.  Paul sees a man saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”  This is anything but ordinary.  However, it immediately follows the Spirit’s ordinary leading.

If you step back and look at verses 6-10, you will see the two general ways that the Spirit speaks:  through normal decisions and through miraculous revelations.  The danger for us as Christians comes in forgetting that He uses both, and He seems to use the former primarily.  If a believer believes that the Spirit must speak only through dreams and visions and miraculous signs, he will attempt to manipulate the Spirit or others by unduly reading the miraculous into the ordinary or, even worse, by claiming to see the miraculous when he or she really does not.  This turns us into manipulators and consumers of the spectacular, demanding all along that the Spirit speak in shocking ways.  If, however, a person limits the Spirit to the ordinary (which, we should remember, is never merely the ordinary anyway), then he or she refuses to believe that the Spirit may yet speak through signs and wonders and visions.  This, obviously, is unfortunate for the Spirit may indeed choose to speak in such a way.

This is why it is so very refreshing to see the Holy Spirit speaking in both ways to Paul and his team.  Learn to see the Holy Spirit’s guidance in both the normal decisions and the miraculous revelations.

Learn to obey the Holy Spirit promptly and with complete commitment. (v.10-12)

And what of our response to the Spirit’s leading?  May this early missionary team’s response serve as a model to us.

¹⁰ And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. ¹¹ So, setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace, and the following day to Neapolis, ¹² and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city some days.

“Immediately we sought to go into Macedonia.”

Immediately.

Church family, have you, like Paul, resolved to go wherever the Spirit leads you?  Have you made a prior commitment, like Paul, to do as He asks without question or delay?  Amazing adventures lay before us if we will dare to put our hands to the plow with resolute courage and refuse to look back.  If He calls you, will you go?

Let us remember that our preset plans may hinder us if we elevate them above the Spirit’s leading.  There is something sad about saying, “I will live right here all my life.  I will live on this street and no other.  I will live in this town and no other.  I will not leave my parents.  My children will not leave me.  Here I stand and here I’ll die!”

But what of the Spirit’s leading?  What if He calls you to leave and to go?  What if His adventure for your life is greater than your plans and assumptions?  I ask you:  if He calls you will you go?  Will you go anywhere?

My mother and father are here this morning.  I love my parents.  They are wonderful parents.  They live in South Carolina and I live in Arkansas.  It is not easy to leave one’s parents.  I love my mom.  My mom loves me.  But I’ll tell you the greatest gift my mom ever gave me.  She told me that when I was a baby she looked at me and prayed to God and said, “He’s yours.  Do with him whatever you need to do with him.”

I grew up hearing and knowing that.  My parents set me free to follow the Lord.  I thank them for that today.

Have you done the same?  I am not saying that being a Christian means you will leave your hometown or even your street.  Not necessarily.  The Lord in His wisdom may choose for you to stay right where you are.  And, if you want to stay right where you are too, then how wonderful is that?  But what if He does not?  What if He desires you to go to Macedonia?  What if the Spirit calls and says, “Come over here!”  Will you go?

Learn to obey immediately.

Learn to see the great adventure hidden in the Holy Spirit’s “ordinary” callings. (v.13-15)

And finally, learn to see the great adventure hidden in the Holy Spirit’s “ordinary” callings.  So the Spirit shuts the door on Asia and on Bithynia.  Why?  What does the Lord have in store that is so important?  A city greater than Ephesus?  A region more strategic than Bythinia?  Let us see.

¹³ And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. ¹⁴ One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. ¹⁵ And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.

Paul and his team come upon a group of ladies sitting by the river.  The fact that they come here on the Sabbath is significant, as F.F. Bruce explains:

At Philippi…there does not appear to have been a regular synagogue. That can only mean that there were very few resident Jews; had there been ten Jewish men, they would have sufficed to constitute a synagogue. No number of women could compensate for the absence of even one man necessary to make up the quorum of ten. There was, however, a place outside the city where a number of women—either of Jewish birth or Gentiles who worshiped the God of Israel—met to go through the appointed Jewish service of prayer for the sabbath day, even if they could not constitute a valid synagogue congregation. Paul and his companions found this place, by the bank of the  river Gangites, and sat down with the women and told them the story of Jesus.[3]

The picture gets clearer.  Philippi was apparently a place with such a small Jewish population that they do not even have a synagogue.  But Paul’s custom, of course, was to go first to the synagogues.  So in the absence of a synagogue they looked for a place of prayer.  They found it.  Some ladies were there, including a lady named Lydia.  John Stott has offered some interesting insights into her name:

One of the women, named Lydia, came from Thyatira which was situated by the Hermus Valley on the other side of the Aegean, within provincial Asia. Because that area was previously the ancient kingdom of Lydia, it is possible that ‘Lydia’ was not so much her personal name as her trade name; she may have been known as ‘the Lydian lady’. Thyatira had been famed for centuries for its dyes, and an early inscription refers to a guild of dyers in the town. Lydia herself specialized in cloth treated with an expensive purple dye, and was presumably the Macedonian agent of a Thyatiran manufacturer.[4]

So the Lord opens the heart of Lydia (this “Lydian lady”) so that she can hear and receive the gospel.  She does so, is saved, and she and her family are baptized.  This is, of course, a wonderful occurrence, but I cannot help but marvel at how God’s plans deviate from the supposed sense of our own.  Meaning, if one of our missionaries were to bypass populous areas in order to go to lead one woman to the Lord, would not part of our coldly analytical minds question the wisdom of this?  Why bypass Ephesus to see this lady?  Why bypass Bithynia to see this lady?  Why bypass the big crowds to come to a place that did not even have a synagogue?

Why?  Because God gets to write the story and God gets to determine the adventure whether or not it makes sense to us.  I’ll tell you who it did make sense to:  Lydia.  She and her family believed and passed from death to life.  The Spirit sent Paul to her.  There is something so gloriously crazy about this whole story!  That God would lead Paul here…to her!  Why?  We know not, other than that God wanted it so and Lydia had her part to play in the story as well.

Do you see how the Holy Spirit leads us in surprising ways to surprising places for surprising reasons?  Do you see how Paul’s willingness to trust God led to this amazing scene of salvation?  Do you see now the folly of operating on a purely rationalistic basis and not leaving room for the Spirit’s surprise callings?

John MacArthur, Jr. summarized our text by concluding “God uses people with the right passion and the right priority, with the right personnel taking the right precautions, to make the right presentation in the right place.”[5]

Indeed!  Indeed He does!

Do not begrudge the Holy Spirit’s leading in your life.  He has amazing things He wants to do through you!